Authors: Jen Turano
Garnering his cooperation would be difficult though. He’d always been stubborn, and if he realized what she was trying to do, he’d probably turn difficult. Turning her head away from him, she practiced a few flutters of her lashes before she turned back to him, placed her hand on his arm, released what she thought was a credible sigh of distress, and—with eyes she’d forced as wide as they would go—batted her lashes at him.
“I’m hesitant to tell you this, given your troubles at the moment, but . . . someone back in New York wants me dead.”
She felt his arm stiffen under her hand. “Dead?”
Sending him another flutter of lashes, she added a small sniff for good measure. “Indeed. I’m beyond distressed about it.”
He held her gaze for what seemed like forever, and then, to her complete disgust, he began to laugh . . . uproariously.
Her eyes went from wide to mere slits in a flash. “Did you not comprehend what I just divulged?”
Swiping a hand over eyes that were watering, Zayne let out a snort. “It’s a good thing you’re a talented writer, Agatha, because you’d never find success on the stage.”
“I’m sure I have no idea what you’re suggesting.”
He grinned. “I know you, my dear, know exactly how you like to manage people. You’ve decided I need saving, but you might as well put that idea right out of your diabolical mind.”
Annoyance chugged through her veins, and not all of it directed at Zayne. She
had
forgotten how well he knew her, which meant this whole “saving him” idea had just gotten remarkably tricky.
“What gave me away?”
“The innocent look and, well, the wide eyes.” He laughed again. “Oh, and the ridiculous distressed business. I don’t think you’ve ever been distressed a day in your life. You also could have come up with something better than the whole someone-wants-me-dead nonsense.”
“I knew as soon as that distressed part came out of my mouth I’d made a mistake,” she muttered before she brightened. “But someone really does want me dead. I wasn’t making that up.”
Zayne’s lips immediately thinned into a straight line. “Who?”
“If I knew that, I wouldn’t have been forced out of the city.”
“You really were forced out of the city?”
“
Forced
might be a bit of an exaggeration, since my editor was looking for someone to write articles about the West right about the time the threats began to escalate. Theodore brought Mr. Blackheart on board to travel with me and keep me safe while he’s been continuing to investigate the threats back in New York. I’ve been traveling longer than anticipated because there’s been little progress made in tracking down the culprit who wants to see me harmed.”
“And the reason it’s been so difficult would be . . . ?”
“I’ve annoyed quite a few people,” Agatha admitted. “It’s
amazing how testy people get when I write articles that don’t show them in a favorable light.”
“Maybe it’s time you stopped writing.”
Her mouth opened, but no words came out for a few seconds. “Writing is my life.”
“It sounds to me like it might become your death.”
“Which is exactly why you should offer to assist Mr. Blackheart with keeping me alive, especially since my journey out here has become somewhat tedious and I long to return to New York.”
“I’m not going back to New York.”
“Why not?”
Ignoring her question, Zayne turned the wagon off the dirt road and onto a path so rutted it made speech next to impossible.
“Our discussion is not over,” she yelled through teeth that were clinking together with every rut, trying to be heard over Matilda’s sudden squeals of terror. She tightened her grip on the seat, and just when she felt she couldn’t hang on for another second, Zayne pulled on the reins and the mules stopped. She heard Mr. Blackheart’s wagon rumbling up behind them and turned to watch as her bodyguard and companion pulled up beside them. Mrs. Swanson was sitting stiff as a poker on the wagon seat, not a single hair out of place and looking completely composed.
“That was enjoyable,” Mrs. Swanson exclaimed, stepping lightly to the ground before she strolled over mounds of dirt, stopping beside Agatha. “You’re looking a little peaked, dear, and . . . annoyed.”
Taking Mrs. Swanson’s offered hand, Agatha stepped from the wagon on shaky legs. “I’m looking peaked because I thought I was about to come to a rapid end due to Zayne’s
abysmal driving skills. And I’m annoyed because he had the audacity to suggest I give up my writing
and
he refuses to consider helping Mr. Blackheart protect me.”
“You’re being overly dramatic,” Zayne said as he accepted Mr. Blackheart’s assistance from the wagon, although he seemed to do so rather reluctantly. He wobbled for a moment as he grabbed a cane from under his seat and steadied himself. “It was due to my
exceptional
driving skills that we were able to make it up here alive.”
Mr. Blackheart’s brow furrowed. “Forgive me, but I think you’re both being overly dramatic. We have mules pulling the wagons, not stallions, so in actuality, our lives were never in danger given the plodding nature of the beasts.”
“It didn’t feel like plodding to me,” Agatha retorted before Matilda’s whimpers caught her attention. “And it evidently didn’t feel like plodding to poor Matilda.” Hurrying to the back of the wagon, she snagged the pig’s leash and gave it a tug, but Matilda wouldn’t budge. “Come on, darling, it’s time to get you out of there.”
Matilda let out another whimper and staunchly refused to move.
“How about if I promise that we won’t ride back with nasty old Zayne, but with Mr. Blackheart? He won’t try to kill us.”
“I wouldn’t be so certain about that,” Mr. Blackheart muttered, brushing Agatha aside as he climbed into the wagon, plucked Matilda up in his arms as if she weighed nothing at all, jumped out, and placed the pig in a pile of dirt.
Matilda squealed, scurried out of the dirt as fast as her stumpy legs would carry her, and didn’t stop until she found a miniscule patch of grass. She plopped down, wiggled for a moment, and closed her eyes.
“Hmm . . . imagine that, she doesn’t care for dirt, which
certainly explains why she doesn’t like farms,” Agatha began. “But I—”
“Matilda’s preferences aside,” Mr. Blackheart interrupted, “I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist we take our immediate leave. This place, while certainly
charming
with all its loose rocks and wild animals probably lurking just out of sight, is a certain recipe for disaster, especially for someone like you, Miss Watson.”
Not giving her an opportunity to refute that incredibly insulting statement, he gestured up the mountain to where jutting timbers marked the entrance of the mine. “I hope you won’t take offense at this, Mr. Beckett, but you are, without a shadow of a doubt, an idiot.”
To Agatha’s surprise, one corner of Zayne’s mouth tugged up. “Since you’ve suddenly taken to insulting me, Mr. Blackheart, don’t you think you should call me Zayne?”
Mr. Blackheart nodded. “Fine. Zayne, then, but you’re still an idiot.”
“And?” Zayne prompted.
“And what? I believe calling you an idiot sums everything up nicely.”
“What’s your name?”
“You may call me Mr. Blackheart.”
“You’re not going to give me your first name?”
“Boys, enough,” Mrs. Swanson said, stepping in between them. “This is hardly the time to engage in such nonsense when there are more important matters to discuss. But, in the interest of retaining a small semblance of peace, we’ll continue to call Mr. Blackheart by his preferred
Mr. Blackheart
since he seems to have an aversion to his given name. I am, however, perfectly comfortable with everyone calling me Drusilla.”
She sent Zayne a smile. “Now then, since that’s settled, on to those important matters. . . . What in the world possessed you to become involved with this venture given the harsh environment that currently surrounds us? Making your way out here every day can’t be good for that leg of yours.”
“Forgive me, but I don’t really see where it’s any concern of yours what ventures I become involved with,” Zayne returned.
Drusilla drew herself up. “I’m making it my concern because, again, I’m good friends with your sister, Arabella. You and I know she’ll be peppering me with questions once she discovers I’ve seen you, and I’m the type of lady who likes to be informed before I answer anything.”
Zayne’s mouth suddenly went a little slack. “Good heavens, Drusilla, I must beg your pardon. You and I
have
been introduced before, and it was extremely ill-mannered of me not to immediately remember you. But what are you doing out here with Agatha? Shouldn’t you be with your husband, Edward?”
What seemed to be anguish flickered through Drusilla’s eyes, but then she blinked and the anguish was gone. “Edward passed away almost two years ago. Arabella thought I needed a change of scenery, and when Miss Watson began to make plans to travel west, I decided to apply for the position of her chaperone—or paid companion, if you will, since she’s too old for a chaperone.”
“That was brave of you.”
Before Agatha could smack Zayne over the head, Drusilla laughed. “Agatha has certainly kept me busy and taken my mind off my loss, so for that, I’ll be forever grateful to her.”
Zayne smiled but then sobered. “I’m sorry about Edward. He was a fine man.”
“Yes, he was,” Drusilla agreed. “But, he had a dangerous
. . . er . . . Well, no need to delve into that at the moment. You have a mining venture to explain.”
Leaning heavily on his cane, Zayne released a sigh. “Since it’s becoming clear I won’t get any work done until I give at least a brief explanation, we might as well make ourselves comfortable.”
He hobbled over to a pile of large boulders, took a seat on one, and waited for everyone to join him. Setting his cane aside, he began his story.
“I ended up in Colorado about seven months ago. Stopped here to see if one of the natural hot springs I’d heard about would help my leg. It was of no help, so I made plans to leave, but an unexpected blizzard delayed my departure, and it was during this blizzard I met a man by the name of Willie Higgins.
“He’d come out west to seek his fortune in order to support his family back in New York. We got to talking, and I discovered Willie had found next to nothing in his mine and was desperate to go home. He was a proud man and refused to accept charity from me, so in exchange for a ticket back east, he signed over this mountain.”
Agatha frowned. “You got an entire mountain for the price of a railroad ticket?”
“As I said,” Zayne said, “Willie was very clear regarding the fact he’d been completely unsuccessful finding anything of value in the mine he’d purchased.”
Agatha lifted her chin. “It’s still a lot of land, and since Colorado Springs is growing at a rapid rate, I’d say poor Willie got swindled.”
“If I told you I gave him a hundred dollars for good measure and signed the deed without ever seeing the land I was purchasing because, again, we were in the midst of a blizzard, would you feel better?”
“No, because I saw that sack of yours filled with gold nuggets. And it didn’t escape my notice that you said what was in that sack was only
some
of what you’d discovered.”
“I’m not going to apologize for uncovering gold Willie didn’t find, or for the fact that I’ve come to believe my mine is going to earn me a rather nice fortune sometime in the near future.”
“But that’s not fair to poor Willie,” Agatha argued.
“Life isn’t always fair.”
“You don’t mean that.”
Zayne’s eyes began to glint. “Don’t I? Was it fair to me that I ended up a cripple just because I tried to save Helena?”
“Well, no, but that was an accident.”
“It was an accident that I just happened to find gold, which is rightfully mine, and—”
“It might be rightfully yours,” Agatha interrupted, “but it’s hardly honorable for you to not at least consider Willie still has a legitimate stake in this mine.”
“Willie isn’t here, Agatha, nor do I know where to look for him.”
“You said he wanted to go back to New York, so it wouldn’t be that difficult to find him if you put the effort into a search.”
“It would be difficult for me to search for him since I have no desire to return to New York.”
“What I haven’t been able to figure out yet is how you’re able to search for gold,” Mr. Blackheart said before Agatha could argue her point further. “Have you hired a crew to help you blast and secure beams?”
“Willie did a lot of blasting before he gave me the mine, and he created a remarkably stable tunnel system. I’ve only recently started using dynamite to uncover more of the gold veins I found.” Zayne struggled to his feet. “Speaking of gold,
I would like to get to work. Fall is a tricky time out here, and from what I’ve been told, snow should have already arrived, since it’s late September. Once the snow hits, my mining efforts will be severely limited.”
“Which is an excellent reason to consider traveling back to New York.” Agatha rose from the boulder and brushed dirt from her trousers. “You could stay in the city for the fall and winter, and then return here in the spring.”
“I’m certainly not going to New York in the midst of the social season.”
“You love the social season, what with all the parties and balls, and . . . danci . . .” Her voice trailed off when she noticed that Zayne’s face had darkened. She forced a smile and tried again. “Besides, since I’ll probably end up in the city sooner than later, I’m sure Mr. Blackheart would be only too happy to accept any assistance you might be willing to give him by escorting me to a few of those society events. It would be fun, just like old times.”
“Mr. Blackheart would have no reason to appreciate any assistance from me, given that I’m less than a man these days and would only complicate his mission of keeping you alive.”
“I think that’s the most ridiculous thing you’ve—”
“And as for dancing, I think my leg speaks for itself.” With that, Zayne turned his back on her and began picking his way across the dirt, coming to a stop beside a large basket attached to cables.