Teresa Medeiros (8 page)

While she refastened her collar, he opened the envelope without ceremony, turning it upside down over the table. Out slid a gold pocket watch, a mourning brooch woven of silky hair the same honey-and-cinnamon shade as Esmeralda’s, a silver fountain pen, a folded piece of paper, and a recent daguerreotype of a grinning young man wearing that very same pocket watch on a handsome fob. Billy could well imagine the photographer’s consternation when the cocksure young fellow couldn’t resist smiling for his invisible audience.

He reached for the watch, but Esmerelda’s hand got there first. It was almost as if she couldn’t bear the thought of his touch sullying the precious objects. Her pale fingers played over them with wrenching tenderness, sending a strange shiver through his soul. It seemed like a lifetime since anyone had touched him with such care.

“The watch and pen were our father’s,” she said softly. “The hair our mother’s.” She boldly met his gaze. “My brother’s things, Mr. Darling. All he owned in the world before he died.”

Billy squinted at the daguerreotype. No matter which angle he came at it, he couldn’t find any resemblance
between the black-haired man with the plump cheeks and the mischievous twinkle in his dark eyes and his prim, stiffnecked sister.

“How old was your brother?”

“Nineteen.” Esmerelda traced a finger across the image, as if to caress her brothers dimpled cheek. “Just a boy.…”

She missed the incredulous look Billy slanted her. At thirteen he was already riding with Quantrill’s successor, Bloody Bill Anderson. At fourteen, he’d killed his first man and tasted his first woman—both on the same night, when his elated brothers had taken him to a whorehouse to celebrate the kill. Billy couldn’t remember what the whore looked like, but he could still remember the haunted look in the Yankee’s eyes as he’d stretched out a bloodstained hand to him in the heartbeat before he died.

Billy swept the daguerreotype out from under her hand and studied it through narrowed eyes before tossing it back down. “I’ve never seen this man before.”

“Oh, no? Then explain this.” Esmerelda whipped the paper from the table and presented it to him with a regal flourish.

Billy cocked one eyebrow at her before cautiously unfolding it. He hadn’t even reached the third paragraph before his lips began to twitch. The handwritten report related a tale more melodramatic than anything he’d ever found between the pages of a dime novel. A tragic account of a botched stage robbery, a virginal girl journeying to a Mexican convent to take her vows, a noble and naive young man who took a bullet in the heart rather than allow his traveling companion to be ravished by a gang of bloodthirsty outlaws. As he read the final paragraph, written in a prose so purple as to be nearly black, he turned away so Esmerelda wouldn’t see the tears that had began to fill his eyes.

To his keen shock, he felt the slight weight of her hand descend on his quivering shoulder. “There now, Mr. Darling. Perhaps your soul isn’t quite as jaded as you feared.” Her voice deepened to a smoky murmur, making him wonder what she would sound like at night with the lamps extinguished and nothing between them but skin and darkness. “Even for a villain such as yourself, God always offers a chance for repentance and redemption.”

Billy could no longer contain himself. A strangled whoop of laughter escaped him. As Esmerelda circled around to peer into his face, he swiped his streaming eyes, unable to hide the guffaws shaking his body. He had to wait until they subsided to chuckles before he could muster the strength to rattle the paper at her.

“Whoever wrote this piece of”—he cleared his throat before continuing—
“tripe
failed to do their research. I don’t rob stages for a living, ma’am. I apprehend stage robbers. Perhaps the subtlety eludes you, being from Boston and all, but there is a distinct difference.”

Esmerelda snatched the paper from his hand, a frown betraying her first trace of doubt. “I don’t understand. Mr. Snorton swore that—”

“Mr. Snorton?” Billy repeated. “You wouldn’t be referring to a Mr. Flavil Snorton, would you?” When she only pressed her lips together in mute defiance, he held a hand up to his breastbone. “Little man, about yea high with ears bigger than he is and a voice like a gelded grasshopper.”

Esmerelda’s lips slowly parted until her jaw hung slack. Billy gently nudged it back up with one finger, enabling her to whisper, “He told me he was the very best detective the Pinkertons could provide.”

Billy drew his hand back from the silky skin beneath her jaw, thinking he’d do well to keep it to himself. “He’s
not a Pinkerton. Never was. He’s a card sharp, a confidence artist. Hell, Flavil Snorton is wanted in more states and territories than I am. I ran him in myself in Kansas City only last summer, which might explain why my name sprang so smoothly to his lips when he was looking for someone to blame for killing your brother.”

Esmerelda began to back away from him, her eyes growing wilder than an unbroken filly’s. “Why should I believe you? You claim Mr. Snorton is a confidence artist, but you’re nothing more than a man who’ll sell his gun to the highest bidder.”

“Did you go to the Pinkertons, or did Snorton come to you?”

Her brow furrowed. “I went to the Pinkertons when Bartholomew first disappeared. But they turned me away because I didn’t have enough money to hire them. Two months later Mr. Snorton showed up on my doorstep. He informed me that the Pinkertons had been secretly working on the case all along and if I could just raise enough cash to finance his journey west …” She blinked up at him as if emerging from a blinding fog. “I closed my school and collected all my accounts. I sold my mother’s pianoforte. I gave him everything except the pittance I believed I would need to fetch Bartholomew home when he was finally found.”

“And in return he mailed you your brother’s belongings in a nice tidy package all tied up with brown paper and string. Case closed.”

As Esmerelda sank down on the bed, clutching her stomach, Billy almost regretted his ruthlessness. He could remember only too well how it felt to be sickened by your own naïveté.

Her chin began to quiver, giving him a brief moment
of panic. But instead of bursting into tears, she clenched her teeth against a spasm of rage. “Why that wretched little man. That miserable, pathetic …”

Billy’s ears perked up. Was there a chance the saintly Miss Fine might actually resort to swearing?

“… jug-eared dwarf!” she finished, leaving him vaguely disappointed. “Oh, dear God,” she whispered, gazing up at him with dawning horror. “I almost shot and killed an innocent man.”

Billy propped one boot on the bedstead, practicing his most lascivious grin. “I may be many things, Miss Fine, but innocent isn’t one of them.” Gratified by the return of color to her cheeks, he shrugged. “If you’d have killed me, you could have just marched into the U.S. marshal’s office in Santa Fe, collected your reward, and been back on your merry way to Boston, believing your brother’s death avenged.”

“My brother’s death …?” she echoed hoarsely.

She bounded to her feet, forcing him to stumble backward or be trampled beneath her dainty kid boots. As she paced the length of the room, he winced in anticipation. But she whipped around a scant inch before her head could slam into the sloping ceiling. Her eyes sparkled with elation. “Don’t you see? My brother may not be dead after all!”

Billy hated himself for dousing her hopes, but knew it would be crueler to kindle them. “You shouldn’t set your heart on that, ma’am. You do still have his belongings.”

Esmerelda carelessly swept the trinkets back into the envelope. “But what do they really prove? That he was robbed by one of Snorton’s accomplices? That he might have run out of money and sold his valuables to buy food or supplies? What if he’s out there somewhere? Lost and alone?” Her expansive gesture seemed to imply that every
inch of territory west of St. Louis was nothing but a vast wasteland. She cocked her head to the side, giving him a speculative look that made the hair on his nape tingle with apprehension, just as it did before an Indian attack or a particularly ill turn in the weather. “Sheriff McGuire said you were the best tracker in the Territory. If anyone can help me find him, you can.”

Billy couldn’t have been any more flabbergasted had she proposed marriage. He splayed an open hand on his chest. “Me? You want to
hire
me? Just a couple of hours ago you wanted to kill me.”

Her cheek dimpled in a coaxing smile. “Ah, but that was nothing more than a regrettable misunderstanding, Mr. Darling.”

For the first time, his name sounded like an endearment falling from her lips instead of an epithet. He didn’t much care for its effect on him.

He shoved the plate of beefsteak across the table at her. “I think you’d best eat something, ma’am. Hunger must be making you loco.”

She shoved it right back at him. “I’ve lost my appetite. And my brother. You have brothers, Mr. Darling. How would you feel if one of them disappeared without a trace?”

“Lucky,” he replied shortly. Whenever one of
his
brothers went missing, he never had to look any farther than the nearest jail, whorehouse, or saloon.

A door slammed in the next room. Esmerelda shot the wall a nervous glance, but Billy ignored it. Dorothea must have an early customer, probably one of those strapping Zimmerman boys from the lumber mill. They’d been known to indulge more than just their appetite for bratwurst and strudel during their afternoon break.

“Didn’t you just tell me you were destitute?” he asked. “How do you intend to pay me for my services?”

“How much do you cost?”

“More than you’ve got.”

A deep-throated groan interrupted them, followed by a feminine squeal of delight and the rhythmic squeak of a rusty iron bedframe.

Esmerelda slowly turned to gape at the faded cabbage roses on the wallpaper, as if she couldn’t quite believe what she was hearing. A haze of pink crept up the delicate curve of her jaw.

She suddenly seemed to be having great difficulty meeting his eyes. And breathing. Her hand fluttered at the air. “Would it be possible for us to go somewhere else to negotiate our transaction? This hardly seems to be the appropriate place.”

Billy grinned, afraid he was going to bust out laughing all over again if she started fanning herself. “On the contrary, Miss Fine. Transactions are negotiated nearly every hour of the day and night in this establishment. But if it’ll make you more comfortable …” He marched over to the wall and banged on it with his fist. “Hey! Keep it down over there! I’ve got a lady in here.”

His request was greeted by muffled laughter, both male and female, and a resumption of the moans and squeaking at a more leisurely pace. As he sauntered back over to the table, Esmerelda gave him a look of withering disdain.

He knew she was done trying to charm him. He just didn’t know if the hollow feeling in his belly was regret or relief.

The woman was clearly a hazard, both to herself and to his peace of mind. He could just imagine her marching into seedy saloons all over the Territory, seeking a tracker to find her greenhorn of a brother. The image sent an invisible shudder through him. He’d seen too many innocent young girls come west to seek their fortunes only to
end up flat on their backs like Dorothea in the next room, servicing immigrant mill hands and grateful cowboys for silver dollars. He doubted the genteel Miss Fine would survive such a fate. His only hope was to send her scurrying to catch the next stagecoach out of Calamity.

“I may not have cash on hand, Mr. Darling,” she said, “but I can assure you that I have other resources.”

He looked her up and down, deliberately insinuating the worst. “Oh, I never doubted that.”

Their gazes locked as the sounds next door escalated to a wild crescendo. Billy’s room suddenly seemed too small and close for them to stand without touching, even though neither of them had moved.

A guttural roar nearly drowned out a woman’s sobbing moan. After a brief silence, the clink of coins was followed by the thud of a door gently closing. Zimmerman probably hadn’t even bothered to unhook his suspenders, Billy thought wryly.

Esmerelda tore her gaze away from his with visible difficulty and took a shuddering gulp of air. “I’ll have you know, sir, that my grandfather is a peer of the realm.”

He rocked back on his heels, feigning ignorance. “Is that a treatable condition?”

“He’s a duke,” she bit off. “An extremely wealthy man.” When he failed to drop to one knee or doff his hat, she hastily added, “And he dotes on my brother. He always has. Once my letter informing him that Bartholomew is missing reaches London, I’m sure he’ll be more than eager to offer a handsome reward for his nephew’s return.”

Billy squinted at her. “Dead or alive?”

If looks could kill, she’d have no further need of her derringer. Her jaw was still clenched when she lowered her lethal gaze and began to pace around the table. “Bartholomew is Grandfather’s sole heir, you see, and
there’s always been a deep and abiding affection between the two of them. I mailed my letter over four months ago when I first began to prepare for my journey west. Why, Grandpapa may have already received it! And if so, he probably caught the first steamer departing for America. He could arrive at any moment! That’s why it’s even more imperative that you agree to help me, Mr. Darling. You’ll get every penny I owe you. You have my word on it.”

She stopped near enough to touch him, those maple candy eyes of hers melting to an imploring amber.

Billy tipped back his hat, pretending to ponder her offer. He had played his first hand of poker at four years old. He could recognize a bluff when he saw one. The virtuous Miss Fine was lying through her pretty white teeth. Her deceit intrigued him, but not enough to dissuade him from trying to chase her back to Boston where she belonged.

It seemed that task was going to require more drastic measures than he’d anticipated. Which was precisely why he decided to call her bluff for the second time in that day.

“I’ll accept your offer, Duchess, but only on my terms. If your grandfather hasn’t arrived with gold in hand by the time I locate this brother of yours, then I’ll require payment in full.” He cupped her cheek in his hand and captured her gaze with his own, determined to leave no doubt whatsoever about the nature of his demand. “From you.”