My Darling Gunslinger (4 page)

A lady never exhibits signs of fatigue or frustration but always presents a bright-eyed, smiling countenance.

The Archduchess of Dresdenstein

Charlotte was beyond frustrated as she stared down at the tangle of blue yarn in her lap. She’d been diligently working on it for nearly three weeks. Just when she thought she’d gotten the hang of knitting, when her fingers began to find the rhythm of the long needles, she looked down to find she’d missed stiches, knotted the soft wool and generally made a mess of what was supposed to be a sweater for Uncle Jasper.

And it would be, no matter how many times she had to pick it apart and start over.

If Uncle Jasper ever returned to the Zeppelin Ranch.

As if reading her mind, Daisy Harper’s soft voice floated across the table separating the two knitting ladies. “Shall we go to town tomorrow? Perhaps we’ve had a letter from Jasper.”

“If the weather clears,” Charlotte replied peevishly. “Honestly, it has been raining for three days, ceaselessly, endlessly, loudly raining. I enjoy a nice rainstorm as much as the next person, but, good Lord, enough is enough. It’s worse than spring in England.”

Daisy only dipped her head to hide a smile.

“Sugar!” Charlotte tossed the hopelessly snarled pile of blue yarn into the basket at her feet.

Sebastian looked up from the book he was reading to grin at her, showing the gap where he’d lost a tooth the day before.

“What?” she asked her son with a huff of laughter.

“It’s a bad word if you use it in place of a curse word.”

Charlotte recognized her own words, realized how ridiculous they sounded.

“Sugar is not a bad word,” she replied with a wave of her hand. “My goodness, sugar is sweet and comforting.”

“So is fudge,” Sebastian said with all of the authority of a seven year old who knew he was on to something. “And you sent me to my room just the other day for saying it.”

He had her there.

“Perhaps I was bit hasty in my judgment,” she agreed. “This motherhood business is confusing. I don’t remember Nanny Bettelheim ever having to discuss which words were proper and in what context.”

“You weren’t raised on a ranch amid rough cowhands,” Daisy pointed out.

“True,” Charlotte replied. “I certainly never heard a single one of Father’s footmen curse.”

“Those high-stepping servants of your father’s kept their cursing below stairs,” Magnus bellowed from the doorway. “Time for bed, Sebastian, my boy.”

“Just let me finish this chapter,” Sebastian pleaded. “The pirate captain is about to spot the deserted island.”

Magnus looked to Charlotte, smiled when she gave a quick nod.

“Twenty minutes,” the Scotsman grumbled good-naturedly as he ambled out of the room. “Just enough time for a snack.”

The room fell silent but for the rhythmic clicking of Daisy’s knitting needles, the crackling of the fire and the beating of the rain against the windows.

Charlotte watched her son. He lay on his stomach, a book propped open before him, his bare feet swinging in the air and one small finger poised at the top corner of the book in anticipation of turning the page.

Sebastian had inherited her love of reading, would in fact read anything that came to hand. But his true preference was adventure stories. Just like his mother.

For seven long years her life had been one adventure after another and she’d given up reading the stories she’d loved as a girl. It was just too much.

Now, after a year of peace and contentment on the Zeppelin Ranch, she’d begun to enjoy the tales of Arthur and Odysseus and Robinson Caruso once more.

Seeing Sebastian quiet and relaxed, listening to the homey sounds in the cozy yellow parlor, smelling the lingering aroma of Akeem’s pipe and Ethel’s roast pork, Charlotte wanted to hug herself and then jump to her feet to dance about the room.

So she did.

Sebastian looked up as she sprang to her feet and kicked off her slippers. Daisy kept right on knitting, a smile turning up her lips.

Charlotte hummed as she began to dance about the room, her fingers clutching her cotton robe and holding it up, showing off trim ankles and pink feet.

“Oh, Mother, not again,” Sebastian protested.

Charlotte wasn’t fooled. She heard the laughter in his voice.

“Dance with me, Sebastian,” she crooned as she twirled around his supine form on the carpet.

Her son only rolled onto his back and smiled up at her.

Around and around she went, her movements graceful if somewhat disjointed, while Sebastian watched her with a big, gap-toothed grin and Serendipity jumped onto the windowsill to avoid a trampling

Golden hands reached for her and she looked into Ken Chang’s laughing, black eyes.

“May I have the honor of this dance?” He bowed over her hand just as his wife began to pound out a rollicking tune on the pianoforte in the corner. What Ethel lacked in musical ability she more than made up for in enthusiasm.

Ken twirled her around the perimeter of the parlor, deftly maneuvering around furniture and two old hounds watching with tired eyes.

Charlotte threw back her head and laughed, the joyful sound echoed by her son and Daisy.

Suddenly the music came to a crashing halt and Ken stopped dancing, one hand gripping hers tight, the other pushing her hip. She spun and landed gently against the wall beside one of the windows, exactly where her dance partner wanted her.

Ethel scooped Sebastian up off the floor, bringing the boy tight against her chest.

Charlotte hadn’t a clue what had alerted her friends to danger. It did not matter. She trusted their instincts, trusted them with her life. More importantly, she trusted them with Sebastian’s life.

Turning to the window, she whipped the drapes across the glass, shutting out the night, blocking unseen eyes from viewing the scene within. She moved on to the other three windows, pulling the blue velvet curtains closed, careful to stay out of sight of whomever lurked outside.

“On the porch,” Ethel hissed as she marched from the room with Sebastian tucked against her chest.

“How many?” Ken asked his wife as he moved around the room, turning down lights as he went.

“One that I could see.”

Then Ethel Chang was gone, her long legs striding across the foyer and taking the stairs two at a time.

Akeem appeared in the doorway, his bald head nearly touching the lintel above, his bare chest filling the space.

“Go to your room, Miss Daisy,” he told the startled woman, his voice infinitely sweet.

“What’s happened?” Daisy looked confused more than alarmed.

And no wonder. Perhaps fifteen seconds previously all was laughter and music in the room, and now Sebastian had been carried out of the room, the drapes slammed shut, and the cat sat hissing and spitting between the two old hounds.

Charlotte plastered her body to the wall exactly where her friend had deposited her moments before. Mr. Chang crouched beside a spindly little table, his hand in the drawer. Akeem stood nearly naked before her uncle’s housekeeper, pulling her gently to her feet.

Above the rain and thunder, above the frantic beating of her heart, Charlotte heard heavy pounding.

Boot heels on the porch?

No, fists knocking on the front door.

“I’ll get it,” Daisy cried out, an unmistakable edge of anxiety in her voice.

“No,” Charlotte whispered, stepping away from the wall.

Mr. Chang appeared out of the gloom, one hand slapping against her ribs, pushing her back again. “Stay.”

Akeem picked Daisy up off her feet as she attempted to brush by him, turning and depositing her back in the parlor.

She stared with wide eyes at Charlotte, her employer’s niece, her closest friend.

“It’s all right, Daisy.” Charlotte doubted her whispered words went far to reassure the other lady.

The knocking came again, fainter, just as Ethel stopped in the shadows halfway down the stairs.

“Sebastian?” Charlotte asked.

“Magnus has him.” Ethel looked at her husband poised on the balls of his feet in front of Charlotte. “No one in the yard. One horse tied to the rail.”

Mr. Chang let out a soft breath and removed his hand from Charlotte’s abdomen.

“A neighbor perhaps,” Daisy said with a nervous laugh.

“Answer the door, Miss Daisy. Slowly open it all the way and step back behind it.” Ethel crouched on the stairs and brought a long rifle out from where she’d hidden it in her skirts along her leg. She steadied the gun on the polished wood handrail and sighted down the long barrel.

“I’m sure it’s only a neighbor come to borrow a cup of sugar,” Daisy said, and Charlotte laughed at the inane words. It was past nine and raining hard enough to drown a rat. There wasn’t a person alive desperate enough for sweet tea to ride for miles for a cup of sugar.

Daisy walked to the open door and hesitated at the threshold to the foyer. Even from across the room Charlotte could see her trembling.

“I’ll do it.” Charlotte pushed away from the wall, brushed against Ken, her fingers trailing down his arm to his hand. “I know what to do.”

Gently she pushed Daisy back into the parlor before squaring her shoulders and approaching the front door. “Are we ready?”

“Ready,” three voices chimed behind her as the last light was extinguished, throwing the foyer into darkness.

Charlotte swung the heavy steel door open and stepped behind it, using it as a shield against whatever lay beyond.

Wind blew into the foyer, tossing aside the little welcome mat Daisy had spent days cobbling together from discarded fleece and an old, leather work apron.

Wind and nothing else.

No men running in.

No bullets ricocheting off walls.

Charlotte gripped the small revolver Chang had slipped into her hand as she’d passed him and stepped around the door, trusting Ethel’s steady aim, trusting that Ken was crouched with two knives and a half-dozen throwing stars in the shadows behind her, trusting that Akeem was ready to tackle whoever waited on the other side.

A man waited on the other side. To be precise, a man dressed all in black stood on the edge of the porch gripping one of the wood posts that held the roof over the sheltered space.

He swayed on his feet and, for one frozen moment, Charlotte thought he might fall back and tumble down the steps into the muddy yard beyond.

He mumbled something unintelligible as he righted himself and took one unsteady step forward. It sounded like “Lady Blue.”

The man shifted and a soft beam of moonlight fell across the porch, touching dark trousers plastered to long legs and worn boots caked with mud. A black coat whipped around him in the wind and her mind seemed to stutter around an eerie sense of déjà vu. She’d seen this man before.

“Charlie Green,” the man whispered as his left hand rose from his side.

Charlotte lifted her arm and pointed the revolver at him, right between the eyes hidden beneath a drooping, water-logged black hat. Her hand did not shake. Her finger did not tremble on the trigger.

Slowly he reached into the breast pocket of his coat, the movement pushing the wet garment back. Charlotte saw the gun riding low on his hip, pearl handle glinting.

She looked for his right hand, found it held out from his lean hip, palm up and fingers spread. It struck Charlotte as vulnerable somehow, that large hand held palm open. Then she saw his fingers tremble and his arm shake.

Moisture dripped from beneath the sleeve of his coat, ran in a dark trickle across his palm.

“Jasper,” the man panted, holding a folded piece of paper out to her.

Before Charlotte could decide whether to take the three steps necessary to reach for the paper, two things happened simultaneously.

Akeem pushed past her and the stranger began to crumble.

His legs folded. Truly, she’d heard the expression but had never imagined it was possible. But the man’s legs simply gave way, bending at the knees as if a switch had been flicked and his brain had cut off all communication below the waist. He didn’t fall backward or tumble headfirst at her feet. He didn’t list to the side. He went straight down.

Before his body hit the porch, Akeem scooped him up.

Charlotte stepped back in silence as her friends all sprang into motion in the foyer.

Akeem cradled the gunman in his arms as carefully and gently as a mother with a newborn babe.

“Can you get him upstairs?” Ken asked.

Akeem smiled, his teeth flashing in his dark face.

“The back bedroom,” Ethel instructed unnecessarily. That room was the only one that locked from the outside.

“I’ll boil water and cut linen for bandages,” Daisy called over her shoulder as she headed down the hall to the kitchen.

Ethel and Ken followed Akeem’s retreating form up the stairs.