My Darling Gunslinger (18 page)

Take my arm, Charlotte dear, and allow me to see you safely down the stairs.

Frederick Grenville

Whatever plans Charlotte thought to make were put on hold when Magnus went out to join the men patrolling the ranch, taking Tyler Morgan with him.

Charlotte spent the remainder of the day tending to Sebastian, soothing his fears, cajoling him to eat a plate of leftover chicken tandoori, bathing him in the porcelain tub she’d had shipped across the ocean, holding him close in the rocking chair while she answered his questions about her encounter with three men who’d wanted him dead so that they might collect a fat purse.

“I don’t want to leave the Zeppelin,” he murmured, his breath warm on her neck as he snuggled against her.

“Neither do I,” she agreed, blinking back tears.

“Where will we go?”

Charlotte hesitated, wanting neither to lie to him nor to frighten him with the truth.

“Timbuktu?” he asked around a yawn.

“I haven’t worked it all out yet.” Not quite a lie, more a prevarication.

“We can’t leave until Ken returns.”

“We’ll send word and meet up with him somewhere safe.” As if such a place existed.

“Will he bring Mr. Windsong with him?” Sebastian queried, his voice soft and drowsy. “Ken says the Indian is almost as good with a blade as he is.”

“With luck Ken will bring a fearless gunslinger with him to protect you, as well,” Charlotte replied.

“We’ve already got one,” her son whispered, curling into her body, one thin arm wrapping around her neck. “Ty will protect me.”

Charlotte hadn’t the heart to tell him Tyler Morgan would not be leaving with them. Pressing her lips to his curls, she listened to his soft breaths as sleep claimed him, her heart breaking with the knowledge he’d fallen asleep to talk of knife-wielding natives and gun-toting bounty hunters when he ought to have been given fairytales and fables.

He was only a child, an innocent boy who did not deserve to spend his life on the run, forever looking over his shoulder, hoping to stay in one place long enough to make friends and attend school.

Akeem’s soft tread in the hall barely penetrated her thoughts before he was standing before her, his bald head shining in the lantern light and a soft, infinitely sad smile barely lifting his lips. “If it please you, I will carry Sebastian up to his bed.”

Charlotte hesitated, loath to give him up, even into her friend’s strong arms.

“I will watch over Sebastian,” Akeem said.

“I know you will,” she agreed, releasing her tight hold to allow him to lift her sleeping son.

“I have drawn you a bath.” He watched her struggle to her feet, her legs stiff from the punishing race to town and back.

“I don’t know what I would do without you,” she replied with a tired smile.

“You shall never have occasion to find out, my lady,” he answered, his dark eyes somber. “Where you go, where your son goes, I go.”

Charlotte swallowed against the threatening tears and reached out to lay her hand on his arm wrapped around Sebastian. “Thank you.”

Akeem dipped his head in acknowledgment before turning to lead the way upstairs, Charlotte following slowly behind him.

***

Ty studied the creased and tattered paper spread out on the table before him. It might have been a wanted poster but for the quality of the paper and the elegant slant of the script. A post card of some sort proclaiming the marriage of a lady related to archdukes and counts and even a Prussian princess to an English earl with bloodlines nearly as blue. The photograph, a grainy copy of a daguerreotype taken on the couple’s wedding day, showed a pretty girl with plump cheeks smiling shyly from her perch on a chair hidden beneath the wealth of her skirts. Beside her and just behind stood a fresh-faced young man with fair hair and pale eyes, one gloved hand resting on his bride’s shoulder, the other placed over his heart.

“Frederick Grenville pushed the Countess down a flight of stairs the day after Westlockhart’s funeral.” Magnus’s voice was a low rumble, his words yanking Ty’s gaze from the image of the happy couple.

“He tried to kill Charlotte?” Ty demanded, the rage he’d only barely managed to keep banked throughout the day leaping to life again.

“He was after killing the babe she’d only just learned she was carrying.” Magnus sprawled in his chair, his legs stretched out before him, a whiskey decanter at his elbow though he’d yet to pour the amber liquor into the crystal tumbler he held in his great paws. “He wasn’t averse to killing the mother to see it done. Charlotte traveled to The Meadows looking for help, but the new earl who’d inherited her father’s lands and titles was just a boy and his mum didn’t believe Charlotte’s tale. With no one else to help her, she snuck into the stables and found me.”

“Why didn’t Charlotte’s family help her?” Daisy scrubbed away at the sink she’d already scrubbed twice, glancing toward the window every few seconds as if she expected a bullet to come whizzing in through the narrow slits fashioned to fit the barrel of a gun. “Seems to me she’s related to half of Europe.”

“That she is,” Magnus agreed. “But there’s not been an abundance of boys born on either side of her family. The titles and the power what comes with them have fallen into abeyance or into the hands of distant relations no better than strangers. Only a handful of elderly folks are left, dowagers and the like in Prussia. Some of the old ladies offered assistance until Grenville started spreading his vile rumors, and then even those doors were mostly closed to Charlotte.”

“What sort of rumors?” Ty asked, tossing the postcard to the table.

“Talk of the babe being a cuckoo and worse,” Magnus grumbled, his eyes flaring.

“Worse?” Daisy squeaked.

“A figment of her imagination, a pillow tucked up beneath her gown and a farmer’s babe purchased to wrest the title from the rightful heir.” Magnus balanced the empty crystal tumbler on his big belly and stared down into the glass as if he might find all of life’s answers at the bottom. “We were holed up in Dresdenstein with the Dowager Archduchess when word reached us that Grenville had half the English court believing Charlotte weren’t in her right mind, that she had…er, a hand in Westlockhart’s death. We knew then there weren’t anywhere safe on the continent. We been on the run ever since.”

“Jesus,” Ty murmured, shocked and disgusted, though he’d seen first-hand the evil men were capable of in pursuit of money and power.

“We were in Athens when Jasper Heimlich sent word through a trusted friend that the countess and the young lord were welcome on his ranch in the wilds of America.” Ethel sat beside the old man, her posture straight, her hands resting on the table and her glacial gaze fixed on Ty. She did not fidget or tap her fingers or even blink. “But Jasper is nearing his ninetieth year and his heart is failing. He knew he could not protect Sebastian should Grenville learn of our location.”

“So he went in search of someone who could,” Ty finished for her.

“And found you,” Ethel replied, her voice as cold as a winter wind, and Ty realized she knew he’d lit out during the night.

The shame and regret he’d buried beneath the simmering rage reared up and he pulled his hat low, hiding within the shadow of the brim.

“What say you, lad?” Magnus barked. “Will you lend your gun to the cause?”

Before Ty could answer, the kitchen door swung open and a pair of bare feet, toes pink and somehow vulnerable, appeared in his line of vision.

From under the brim of his hat, Ty dragged his gaze up past a ruffled hem, yards of white cotton framed by palest blue velvet. Charlotte’s nightgown was buttoned up to her chin, her robe frayed at the cuffs, the belt untied and trailing on the floor. A river of damp tresses flowed over her shoulders, the ends curling lovingly around her arms

She’d just come from a bath and Ty wondered how she’d managed to wait so long to wash off the stench, imaginary or not, that clung to a person after death had been meted out.

But she’d had Sebastian to care for, first and foremost. Always.

Charlotte halted just inside the room, one hand holding the door open, the other buried in a deep pocket at her hip.

Christ, she was beautiful, soft and achingly fragile, delicate in the way only a true lady could be.

Ty could not reconcile this dainty lady with the woman who had felled two men faster than he could get off a single shot, only to bend over one of them and threaten him with the promise of a slow, painful death.

Charlotte looked about the room, her gaze landing on Ty only long enough for him to see the dark circles beneath her eyes and the frown pulling at her lips before she looked away and stepped fully into the kitchen.

“Daisy, would you be a dear and take a cup of tea up to Akeem?” Charlotte couched the order in a request, tacking on the barest hint of a smile.

Daisy hurried to comply while the other inhabitants of the room silently waited.

Ty looked to Magnus as the old man lumbered to his feet, his eyes cloudy and filled with sorrow.

Ethel moved not an inch but for her eyes that found her friend’s and clung, another of those silent messages passing between them, and Ty realized he’d witnessed a dozen or more such looks in the weeks he’d been on the ranch.

He’d known these people, this odd hodge-podge of a family, guarded secrets. He’d sensed it from the beginning only he’d been too distracted, by the lady and the ranch, by the promise of dreams fulfilled, to question those secrets.

“I think I’ll sit with Akeem and Sebastian for a while,” Daisy offered up into the heavy silence. “And then I’ll find my bed.”

“That’s a good lass,” Magnus murmured.

“You won’t be gone when I wake in the morning, will you?” Daisy directed the question to Charlotte.

“We’ll be here when you wake,” Charlotte promised, reaching out to brush one hand down Daisy’s arm. “Go on now. We’ll see you in the morning.”

“Sit down while I fix you a cup, Countess.” Ethel rose to stand, one hand pressed to her belly.

Charlotte huffed out a weary laugh. “I am perfectly capable of fixing myself a cup of tea. In fact, I’ll pour one for you, as well. Magnus, will you have tea with your whiskey?”

“Ach, I ain’t touched so much as a drop, lassie,” the Scotsman answered.

“Well, now might be a fine time to alter that lamentable state of affairs.” Charlotte mimicked the old man’s burr, surprising Ty with her teasing.

Ty watched Charlotte pour tea into fine china cups, adding sugar and cream before turning to dispense one to each of her friends. She spun back to the counter only to turn around once more, a cup in her own hands. Leaning one hip against the counter, her gown settling around her ankles, hiding all but two toes, she brought the cup up and took a sip, her eyes finding Ty, watching him over the rim. There was a question in the turquoise depths, a silent query, and it struck him that she expected him to grasp it, to interpret the look as her companions were able to do.

Ty had never wanted anything as badly as he wanted to decipher the unspoken message.

Charlotte lowered her cup and looked to Ethel.

“Mr. Morgan, if you might excuse us for a time,” the blonde Amazon said.

Heat crept up Ty’s neck as he finally realized what Charlotte’s message had been. He was being banished from her lofty presence, as if he were a servant in whatever castle she’d been raised in.

Fuck that.

Ty flicked his hat back and pinned Charlotte with a glare that had frightened dozens, hell, hundreds of fugitives, and caused a few to piss their pants. She only looked back calmly as she placed her cup on the counter at her hip.

“Morgan ought to stay seeing as he’s part of this now.” Magnus planted one huge fist on the table and the postcard lifted off the smooth wood, skittering across the surface two inches.

Charlotte’s gaze dropped to the yellowed and frayed paper. She drew in a breath that lifted the ruffles on her bodice before looking up once more. “Mr. Morgan has no part in this.”

It took a moment for Ty to hear her words past the fury roaring in his ears. When he did he lunged to his feet, advancing until he loomed over Charlotte. “Like hell.”

“I asked for your help,” she hissed, her eyes bright. “I knelt before you in abject supplication.”

In an odd moment of clarity, akin to the last fraction of a second before he pulled the trigger, when past and present, life and death, merge for a suspended moment in time, Ty recognized all that he’d been offered in the cramped little study beneath the stairs.

“Shit,” he whispered, stepping back from both the knowledge and the woman. “I didn’t understand.”

“You understood,” she countered, following his retreat. “You understood precisely what I was asking even before I understood it myself.”

“Countess?” Magnus’s voice was gruff as he came up on Ty’s right.

“It will never end.” For all that her voice vibrated with rage, her eyes were soft, almost pleading as she met the old man’s gaze. “Sebastian will spend the remainder of his childhood and his entire adult life running and hiding. Frederick will not stop so long as there is breath left in his body.”