Willow: A Novel (No Series) (26 page)

Willow stopped her with an upraised hand. “If you want Gideon Marshall, you can have him,” she said. “With my blessings.”

“But I
don’t
. Willow, you must know that Gideon put me up to that—he only wanted to make you jealous.”

So Dove had been right. Willow tossed back her covers and wriggled her feet into the slippers that waited beside the bed. “How nice of you to oblige him,” she muttered coldly.

“Willow—”

“It was an underhanded thing to do, Daphne Roberts, especially after you pretended to be my friend!”

“I
am
your friend.”

“Then I shall not need to cultivate any enemies—you, no doubt, will serve in either capacity,” Willow said loftily.

Daphne lowered her head. “I thought it would help at the time, Willow, I honestly did.”

Willow was pulling on her wrapper. “Sure,” she scoffed.

Daphne came nearer and folded her arms. “Have you so many friends that you can spare me, Willow Marshall?”

“Are you going to let Gideon escort you to the supper dance tonight?” Willow countered.

Flushing, Daphne eyed the rumpled bed. “You don’t mean that—that things haven’t changed between you and Gideon?”

Willow lifted her chin. “Things haven’t changed. And if you are my friend, as you claim, Daphne Roberts, you will insist that Gideon keep his word and take you to the supper dance.”

Daphne’s mouth fell open. “Willow—what on earth . . . didn’t you and Gideon—?”

Willow could not suppress a grin. “Yes, we did. No
doubt, Gideon is certain that he has put me in my wifely place. Well, he has some surprises coming!”

“Such as what?” asked Daphne warily.

“For one thing,” replied Willow, “I am not going to trot obediently back to our house and cook and clean and warm his bed. For another, I am not going to that supper dance on his arm, smiling and wearing calico!”

Daphne looked really worried now. “Willow, I’ve known Gideon for a long time. He-he thinks for himself, but there are certain conventions he’ll expect you to observe.”

“He can expect whatever he likes,” replied Willow with a toss of her head.

Daphne shrugged and left her friend to her morning ablutions.

*   *   *

Gideon stood outside the dust-streaked window of the largest general store in Virginia City, totally at a loss. Faced with the prospect of buying Willow a gift, he realized how little he knew about her.

Recalling her fondness for wearing trousers and letting her hair hang down in a single braid, he smiled. Not for her the jewels and frilly geegaws so well received by other women of his experience.

Gideon sighed, shifted from one foot to the other, and wedged his hands into his pants pockets. Indeed, that was the only thing he could be certain of: Willow was unlike any woman he had ever known.

“The law business must be slow,” drawled a voice beside him, “if you’ve got time to window-shop.”

Gideon focused on his brother’s face, then frowned. “I’m trying to find a gift for my wife,” he said defensively, putting a slight emphasis on the last two words.

“Trouble?” beamed Zachary.

“No!” snapped Gideon, too quickly.

Zachary held up both hands, palms out. “Easy, Gideon, easy. I was just trying to make polite conversation.”

“Sure. When are you leaving, by the way?”

Zachary shrugged. “Tomorrow, next week, whenever the mood strikes me.” He was assessing the array of goods displayed beyond the store window. “Just how much Dutch are you in with Willow, anyway?”

“What do you care?”

“I want to help, that’s all. Are we talking the kind of sin that calls for diamonds and rubies, or is this transgression in the hair-ribbon range?”

Exasperated, Gideon grinned anyway and shook his head. “You never quit, do you, Zach?”

Just the slightest flicker of triumph flashed in Zachary’s eyes. “Never, little brother. Willow probably doesn’t care much about jewelry or hair ribbons, but I know she likes music. Why don’t you get her one of those?”

Gideon took note of the music boxes Zachary was pointing at, and he knew that Willow would like one, but he was stung that he hadn’t thought of the idea first. “Maybe,” he said.

Zachary laughed. “Buy the one that looks like a little piano,” he suggested affably, and then he was on his way again, his hands in his pockets, whistling a song Gideon had heard Willow play on the spinet at home.

Gideon swore under his breath, went inside the store, and bought the piano music box. While the storekeeper’s wife was wrapping that, a display of toy monkeys caught his eye. When wound, each mechanical creature chattered and clapped two tiny brass cymbals together.

Smiling to himself, Gideon bought a monkey, too. There was enough of the child in Willow that such a thing would make her laugh.

He was leaving the store, his purchases bound up in a brown paper parcel, when he saw Willow entering the small dress and millinery shop across the street, with Daphne. It was odd, those two being friends, but he was glad they were. The burden of her mother’s reputation and Steven’s notoriety had been a heavy one for Willow to bear, he knew. It was too bad that Daphne would be going back to San Francisco soon.

“Marshal?”

Gideon turned and was jarred to find Vancel Tudd standing beside him, grinning his gapped mocking grin. “Tudd,” he responded, glad that the music box and the mechanical monkey he carried had been wrapped, because they suddenly seemed so powerfully intimate.

“I’m ridin’ out to look for Gallagher again. Just thought I’d tell you, so’s you could wire the railroad and make sure the bounty money’s on hand when I bring him in.”

“You don’t lack for confidence, do you?” asked Gideon dryly.

Tudd shrugged, chewing on a soggy wooden splinter. “I figure I’ll find ’em today—Gallagher and those Forbes boys that ride with him.”

“Do you know something I don’t, Mr. Tudd?”

The bounty hunter shifted the splinter to one side of his mouth and spat out of the other. “I reckon I know lots of things you don’t, Marshal. You just round up that money, ’cause I’ll be bringin’ in all three of them wasters ’fore mornin’.”

“I want them alive,” Gideon replied.

Again Tudd shrugged. “Maybe. Posters say they can be dead or kickin’, no matter which.”

A feeling of cold dread crept up Gideon’s spine. Tudd could be bluffing, but on the other hand . . .

“Good day to you, Marshal,” drawled Vancel Tudd, tipping his hat before starting to walk away.

Gideon caught his arm and held on. “I’ll ride with you,” he said.

Tudd shook his head. “No, sir. I ain’t sharin’ that bounty with nobody.”

“I don’t give a damn about the bounty. If you know where Gallagher is . . .”

The grizzled old man looked almost innocent. “Why, Marshal. I don’t know where Steven Gallagher is, not rightly. I just got me a hunch I’m about to find him, that’s all.”

“Tudd . . .”

“He’s your brother-in-law, ain’t he? ’Pears you might be forgettin’ your duty. A man would, with a bit o’ fluff like that Willow lyin’ in his bed.”

Gideon felt cold rage, but he kept his manner calm. “I haven’t forgotten my duty, Mr. Tudd, you can be sure of that. I’m having the conditions of Steven Gallagher’s capture changed. If you gun him down, I’ll call it murder.”

“You can call it whatever you might like, I reckon. The people of this here town, though, they’ll feel different. They’ll know ol’ Vancel was just tryin’ to make Virginia City a little safer for their kids and their womenfolk.”

Gideon caught Tudd’s filthy shirt front in his free hand but let go again. Disgust unfurled inside him, like a cobra rising out of a basket. “Bring in Steven Gallagher—alive, Mr. Tudd—and I’ll double the bounty.”

Tudd grinned. “Will you sign a paper sayin’ that?”

Gideon sighed and nodded his head. As he and the bounty hunter walked toward the marshal’s office down the street, he wondered whether Willow would see his deal with Tudd as a favor or a betrayal.

12

The dressmaker’s shop was small and jammed with bolts of fabric, every surface dusty.

“You can’t wear that to a supper dance!” cried Daphne, taking in the rich, wine-colored velvet Willow was holding up. “The neckline is too low and—”

Willow smiled at her friend’s alarm. The bodice
was
rather revealing and was trimmed with a sprinkling of glistening, diamondlike crystals, as was the hem. “I think it’s a beautiful gown,” she said stubbornly.

“It is,” conceded Daphne, sounding slightly choked. “And if you were Dove Triskadden, that dress would be perfect but . . .”

Willow lifted her chin and turned back to the dress-shop mirror, assessing the lush dress again. The deep burgundy shade of the velvet gave color to her fair complexion,
accented the gold of her eyes, turned her hair to spun silk. “I like it,” she said decisively.

“Willow, everyone else will be wearing calico and cambric!”

“I don’t care what everyone else wears. And I’m tired of dressing like a mouse just so the townswomen will approve of me. So far, that strategy hasn’t worked, anyway; I’m still Steven Gallagher’s sister and my mother’s illegitimate daughter!”

Daphne gnawed at her lower lip, still uncertain. Finally, she made a last, lame effort. “You’ll be too warm,” she protested. “Velvet is for winter.”

Willow didn’t care. She’d never felt the way that dress made her feel—beautiful, exquisitely feminine, and at the same time powerful.

The dressmaker, a small, thin woman with wispy hair, was fluttering her hands. “But it is so lovely,” she put in, anxious no doubt, to make the sizable sale. “And I could manage the alterations in less than two hours.”

The little bell over the shop door jingled, and a fresh breeze stirred the dangling ends of a rainbow of ribbons gracing one wall.

“Take the dress,” interceded a smooth, masculine voice.

Willow and Daphne both turned quickly, but their reactions to Zachary Marshall were quite different. Daphne looked openly hostile, but Willow smiled.

By then, she’d decided he was harmless. He simply enjoyed flirting, that was all.

Zachary removed his immaculate black hat, fixing all
his considerable charm on his brother’s wife. “Willow,” he said cordially, looking as lithe as a sapling tree, standing there.

“Good morning, Zachary,” she replied with warmth. “Do you really like the dress?”

Zachary’s eyes widened slightly as he took in the gown. “Like it?” he echoed. “My dear, it takes my breath away.
You
take my breath away.”

“No doubt she does,” put in Daphne, in a rather tart tone.

Zachary favored her with a blinding white smile, somehow brittle and more than a little condescending. “Don’t be jealous, little one. It doesn’t become you.”

“Jealous!” sputtered Daphne, incensed, drawing nearer to Willow, as though to protect her from some dreadful fate. “That will be the day, Zachary Marshall. And since when do you frequent dress shops?”

“Since I walked by the window and caught a glimpse of my gloriously beautiful sister-in-law.”

Daphne was as bristly as a porcupine. “You’d do well to remember that that’s
exactly
what Willow is—your brother’s wife.”

Willow, who had been watching this subtle, verbal fencing match in silence, now felt compelled to join the conversation. “Zachary knows I’m married to Gideon,” she said, in hasty and lighthearted defense. “Don’t you, Zachary?”

Zachary looked poetically wounded. “Oh, yes,” he replied. “The fact of your matrimonial status allows me no rest; indeed, even in sleep it torments me.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” snapped Daphne, jamming her hands hard onto her slender but womanly hips. “Aren’t you overdoing this just a little, Zachary?”

Zachary’s attention had again turned to Willow. “Will you be at the supper dance tonight?” he asked, for all the world as though they were alone. Daphne and Miss Collins, the dressmaker, might have been part of the woodwork, for all the notice he paid them.

Willow knew a moment of trepidation; to follow through with her plan was to play with fire. But follow through she must, if she was going to awaken Gideon to the fact that he could not treat her in any fashion he chose and then expect to be welcomed into her bed. “I’ll be there.”