He assessed her where she stood in part shadow, part lit up the
front – the door was swung open, the low sun shining into the room: fair
complexion, brown hair mounded up onto her head, a perfectly worthless little
straw hat perched on top. Her clothes were plain but … stylish somehow. Simple.
No jewelry. She put herself together in a way that made her prettier, he
thought, than nature intended. She was decent looking. For a thin-boned woman.
Of the serving class, he'd guess, since she was traveling cheaply and alone. A
lady's maid. No, something about her was fancier than that. A governess. Or
shopkeeper maybe. A frugal milliner. Oh, hell, he didn't know what she was
other than she didn't appear to be a society tulip. No, nothing like Gwyn,
nothing at all.
Outside he heard horses. The coach. It must have arrived. The
woman sauntered into the open doorway, watching presumably the final loading
and readying of their vehicle.
Sam put his head, his temples, back into his hands, sitting there
lightheaded and queasy, waiting for the courage to stand up. He'd have to any
minute.
"You shouldn't drink so awfully much," said the
soft-sweet voice by the doorway in its high-horse accent.
"I hurt."
"And now you hurt worse because of the drinking."
"Thank you for your kind advice," he said, lifting his
head enough to look at her again. Stupid creature. "I'm all right,"
he told her.
"No, you're—"
He cut her off. "How much I drink is none of your
business."
"Well," she said, "I didn't mean it as a slight
against your manhood."
"My what?" He straightened slightly.
"Your manhood. Your masculine pride."
He nodded. Of course. Right. He knew that.
Looking out into the coach yard, she asked, "So, how long is
it?"
"Excuse me?"
"How long is it, do you think?"
"How long is what?" Sam felt a tingle of panic. What the
hell kind of conversation was this?
The woman swayed her pretty neck toward him and fixed him with
narrow look. "The ride," she said.
It took him a moment. Then with a sense of relief, he said,
"Ah, the coach ride."
"What else?"
"Nothing." He repeated the word, delighted to say it:
"Nothing." He shook his head at himself. It was an accident that she
had used Gwyn's silly name for a fine part of his body. Entertaining, in fact.
He smiled till the movement of his mouth pulled at the corner where his lip was
split. He caught the side of his mouth with his fingers, holding it still, only
able to smile with half of it. "I don't know how far it is. Twenty or
thirty miles across the moor. Depends on which town you want, I guess."
He picked up his Stetson from the floor, laying it into his lap.
Her eyes followed it. "Not that long then," she said.
She stared at his hat. Sam blinked, frowned, looked down.
Quite
long. Manly and long.
Then he let out a short laugh of release. Lordy. He
leaned back till his shoulder blades found the wall and relaxed against it.
What a cross-eyed conversation.
"Is something wrong?" she asked.
He shook his head, letting the half of his mouth that didn't hurt
too much crack a smile again. He was feeling better. Not wonderful by any
means, but not sick at his stomach and finally, fully awake. "Nothing's wrong."
He laughed outright then and eased himself up, standing cautiously
as he dusted his hat against his leg.
A short, bushy-bearded man stuck his head in. "E'ery-one
rea'y?" Even his thick regional accent didn't hide the man's slurred words.
Well, here's hoping the horses know the way, Sam thought, because their driver
was drunker than he was.
Setting his hat far back on his crown, he followed the young woman
out into the afternoon sun. The driver was actually carrying a bottle of gin. He
had trouble holding on to it as he tried to climb into the driver's box. Sam
thought about confiscating the liquor, but that was way too hypocritical in the
end, so he just shoved the man up the foot treads and into the box instead.
Then Sam offered his hand to the woman to help her up into the coach.
After a curious moment of hesitation, she accepted his assistance.
She lay her thin fingers in his. They were surprisingly soft, delicate, the
ball of her thumb warm and plump like the breast of a little bird. He pressed
his thumb over the backs of her knuckles and balanced her up the two wood
steps, letting go as she took hold of the door frame. Before she bent fully
under it, though, she stepped awkwardly on the threshold, as if her ankle
twisted.
"Oof,"
she said and fell backward.
Instinctively, Sam put his hands up, and her buttocks landed into
them.
If he'd been more sober, he might have found a more gentlemanly
way to help. Right or wrong, though, he cupped her backside in his hands. Her
bottom, another surprise, was round and firm, even generous; it fit just right
into his palms. He pushed her back up into balance by her bottom and liked
doing it, a pretty rewarding piece of misbehavior. It made him laugh to do it.
She grabbed hold of the door frame, stabilizing herself in the
coach doorway, then turned before she made her way in. He was right behind her,
and there they were, nose to nose. For a minute she looked for all the world
like she was going to whack him, if only she could have found a place on his
face that didn't look like it had already been whacked enough.
Sam doffed his hat by way of apology. Her expression changed. She
looked confused, though her cheeks remained two clear blotches of indignation.
"Sorry," he said, half-meaning it, then annoyed. Why was he
apologizing for keeping her from falling? She should be thanking him for it.
She frowned, opened her mouth, then closed it – too noble to
express appreciation she didn't feel.
"It was entirely my pleasure," he said.
She blinked, and that did it. To his surprise, she shoved him in
the chest with both her hands, moving him with unsuspected strength for such a
delicate-looking woman. Of course his balance wasn't all that good, given the
whiskey in his system. He had to catch himself with a backward step onto the
ground.
She told him, "You, sir, are not only drunk, you are
unspeakably rude. Rude, crude, uncouth, barbaric—"
"For something unspeakable, you sure have a lot to say about
it—"
"—uncivilized, reprehensible—"
"I have the gist: A polite man would have let you fall down
the steps."
"An English gentleman would have caught me by my
elbows."
This took him aback for a split second. Right. She was probably
right. He should apologize earnestly. But what came out his mouth was,
"Your bottom was a lot easier to find than your elbows."
She glared at him. Then articulated in her soft, round British
syllables, "Do you know, sir, you have a wide streak of immaturity?"
For some reason, this made him grin – with only half his mouth,
but he was getting good at lopsided smiling. "I sure do," he agreed.
He winked just to get her goat further. "It's one of my charming
qualities." He tipped the brim of his hat again, then gestured toward the
interior of the coach. "After you, ma'am," he said. When she
hesitated, he added, "We're late enough. Can we get started?"
She swirled herself and all her skirts around, then ducked through
the coach doorway, successfully this time, without saying another word.
He said to her back, "You're welcome," then vaulted in
after her, into the shaded, musty enclosure of a big, old coach that rocked.
Its antiquated, creaky springs declared noisily that he and she were going to
feel every bump the road had to offer. He dropped himself into a threadbare
seat, him facing backward, Miss Prissy Brit facing forward.
Belatedly, with her staring pointedly out the window, she
muttered, "Thank you."
"No problem," he said. "I live to save ungrateful
women." He folded his arms over his chest, slid down into his seat,
stretching his long legs out till they were comfortable, then tipped his hat
brim low over his eyes. He figured he'd sleep, since he'd done enough – argued
with his only companion, called her Gwyn, handled her backside, then enjoyed
tormenting her till he'd alienated her beyond conversation. Nope, he was pretty
much finished here.
The driver
hee-yahed
the horses. The coach wheels slid in
the gravel for an instant, and with a lurch the vehicle sprang forward. Off
they went, heading east on a route that would stop at every podunk on the stony
prairie the English called the
Dartmoor
. With Sam
playing possum just to keep things civil.
It was going to be a long thirty miles.
3
A
cowboy is inured from boyhood to the excitements and hardships of his life.
From
the program of Buffalo Bill Cody's
Wild
West Exhibition,
London
, 1896
L
ydia
watched out
the window as they rolled and bumped along. Happily, the perverse man across
from her had fallen asleep, so the ride settled into a peaceable rhythm. If one
could call going for all a rickety old coach was worth peaceable.
Once they left the station, they departed civilization itself, all
but for the ribbon of poorly paved road on which they traveled. Not a town or
farm or person in sight. Just gray terrain broken by patches of grass and the
occasional shrub. Coarse-grained rock climbed and descended along their route;
it rolled along under them. She had never entered a place that was so barren,
open, and wild. It lay in strong contrast to the gentle country scenery she was
used to in the summer, the patchwork lowlands of
Yorkshire
. The familiar
farmlands and moors of her home shire were divided up, partitioned by winding
roads and hedgerow boundaries peopled with villages and farmhouses, even
castles.
Today, the bare horizon was broken only once by anything that
looked related to a human being, a tall silhouette, as if a man walked the moor
on foot. A priest, perhaps, in a cassock, his arms folded into his sleeves. As
they drew closer, though, he turned out to be a stack of flat-looking rocks,
its precarious balance defying the millennia of its existence. A tor. The moor
was covered with them. Most just looked like haphazard piles of rocks on a
hilltop, rubble. But some formed a kind of natural statuary, like the fantastical
display on the horizon they jostled past. People used to think druids had built
them, that they were altars. Science, though, said otherwise, that they were
only the remains of the moor's ancient mountain range, weathered and worn to
hillocks crested with heaps and towers.
Whatever the origins,
Lydia
enjoyed the
sights out her open window, even as her view pitched and shook. If the driver
careened them too fast for the vehicle's age and suspension, still God knew
they were making good time. At least his recklessness, she told herself, didn't
have to share the road with other traffic of any sort – they passed nary a
soul. Half an hour ago Lydia had slipped her wrist into the hand strap, where
she could get a good grip, and now held on for dear life while looking forward
to a shorter trip, if a more topsy-turvy one.
Out the corner of her eye, she occasionally glimpsed the American.
Long angles of sunlight and deep shadows cut across him, an irritatingly
dramatic result of the sun lowering for the most part behind them. Less
remarkable, his arms lay folded across his chest, his boots braced across the
floor to the far seat base, his head down, his body rocking to the rhythm of
the coach. Apparently, he could prop himself into stability, then fall asleep
anywhere.
She stared at his black hat tipped down over most of his face. If
ever he should play in a Wild West show, he'd be a stagecoach robber, she
decided. Or a gunfighter with a "quick temper and a quicker trigger
finger," which was a line out of one of her brother Clive's Buffalo Bill
novels. She entertained this fantasy for a few minutes, smiling over it. Yes,
something about him, a leanness, "a build as hard and dependable as a good
rifle" (she, in fact, had pilfered one of Clive's contraband American novels
just to see what they were about), not to mention something in his brooding
attitude, spoke of a possibly harsh, very physical existence.
Her imagination put him in a big, tooled-leather saddle on a horse
caparisoned in silver stars down its breast. Along with his black hat with
silver beads, she added silver guns in holsters at his hips and American spurs
that jingled as he walked. She remember what such spurs looked like and, more
memorable, what they sounded like: a lot of metal to them, a silver band low on
each heel, silver chains underneath, with jagged, spinning wheels at the back.
Nothing like an English riding spur with its single, neat point affixed to a
gentleman's boot.
As with the Wild West show,
Lydia
found the
jangling, clomping difference shamefully thrilling. It brought to mind Indian
battles, buffalo hunts, coach robberies, life and death. Lurid, provocative,
yet safe of course, like all fantasies, since here she sat. She should be in
Bleycott by late evening. He wasn't wearing spurs or guns or anything
dangerous. She laughed. He was probably a traveling salesman.
Something about his posture, his attentiveness, made her call over
the road noise, "Are you awake?"
After a second, with a finger he pushed his hat brim up enough
that his eyes were visible, if shadowed. "Yes, ma'am."
He had a nice voice when polite, like a bow groaning slowly over
the deepest strings of a bass. He took his time saying things, slow-talking his
way over sliding consonants and drawn-out vowels. His speech was full of
ma'ams
and
you're welcomes.
A politeness that turned itself inside out when he
used it to say surly things.
"Who's Gwyn?" she asked.
He tipped his hat back further, till his face – its frown – was in
full light. "You have a good memory."
"Who is she?"
Sam sat there slouched, hearing a lady he'd been sure wouldn't
utter another word to him ask about his love life. He chewed the inside of his
cheek, then thought, Why not tell her?
"The woman I was supposed to marry this morning." He sighed,
feeling blue again for simply saying it. Hell, what sort of fellow left the
woman he'd courted for almost two years at the altar in front of all their
friends and family? He expected a huffy admonishment from Miss Prissy Brit now—
"I'm so sorry," she said.
The coach turned sharply, and they both leaned to counter the
force of the motion, with him stretching his leg out to brace himself with the
toe of his boot and her swinging from the hand grip.
Over the noise of their travel, she asked, "What happened?"
Sam frowned. Now where had this little lady been five hours ago?
Because that was the one question he had been dying for someone to ask all day,
though not a soul till now had thought to. Her concern, and his needy longing
for it from someone, anyone, shot a sense of gratitude through him so strong he
could have reached out and kissed her.
He said, "I was on the way to the church, when, out the
window of my hackney, I saw the robbery I told you about. The fellow stopped
the woman on a
Plymouth
street and
grabbed her purse. She fought him. He was puny but wiry and willing to wrestle
her for it. It made me crazy when he dumped her over. I figured, with me being
a foot taller and sixty or so pounds heavier, I could hop out, pin the hoodlum
to the ground, then be on my way with very little trouble. I wasn't prepared
for his four friends." Sam sighed. "I spent the morning at the
doctor's when I was supposed to be standing at the altar."
"But your bride—"
"My bride won't talk to me long enough to hear my explanation."
Their eyes met and held. Hers were sympathetic. And light brown. A
kind of gold. Pretty. Warm. He watched her shoulders jostle, to and fro, as she
said, "Well, when she saw you like this, she must have—"
"She didn't see me. She only called me names through her
front door. No one would let me in."
"How unreasonable."
"Exactly." What a relief to hear the word.
"You could send her a note to explain—"
"She returned it, unopened."
"You could talk to someone, get a friend to tell her—"
"No one will speak to me. I had to bribe the stable boy to
get me to the coach station."
Her pretty eyes widened. "But people have to
understand—"
Exactly what he wanted to hear, the very words he'd been telling
himself all day. And now that he heard them, he realized how stupid they were.
"Apparently not. 'Cause not a person I know does."
Bless her, her mouth tightened into a sweet, put-out line.
"Well, how unreasonable," she said again. Oh, God bless her.
"Yes." But no. He looked down. "It is unreasonable.
Until you realize that I left Gwyn at the altar once before, eight months
ago."
She straightened herself slightly in her seat, readjusting her
wrist in the hand strap. Aha! her look said. Then she came back loyally to his
side. "You were beaten this time." She paused, frowning. "What
happened eight months ago?"
"Nothing." He sighed. "I slept in."
"Didn't you have a best man to help you? Grooms get nervous.
Grooms need help."
"I wasn't where anyone knew how to get to me." He was
with the caterer's sister, the cook, who also missed the wedding. But, shoot,
he wasn't married yet. It hadn't seemed that wrong. Though, no excuses, missing
the wedding was completely wrong. Twice he'd been wrong now. He admitted it.
Someone should let him admit it, then forgive him.
He watched the dignified young Englishwoman sit back, as if she
could physically remove herself from riffraff who spoke to strangers about his
embarrassing life.
Might as well get it all out. "And once before, with another
woman, I missed that wedding, too."
Sam sat up, taking his hat off a minute to examine it, then
scratched his head as he looked out the window. A damn sorry case he was.
Today was his typical sort of mess – and the reason most of his friends
and family considered him a hero on one hand and a cad on the other. When he
wasn't standing women up at the altar, he was forgetting to come get them for
picnics or dinners or leaving them hanging while he tried a new horse or simply
slept past his rendezvous with them. For one reason or another, he went through
women the way ranch hands went through eggs in the morning. It was purely
disheartening, and he figured he'd die alone because of it.
He fully expected the woman rocking across from him to end their
conversation now that he'd told her. He'd been playing on her sympathy.
Sympathy he didn't deserve. Now she'd hate him not just for what he'd done to
Gwyn but for playing up to her as well. He sure could be an idiot without half
trying.
"Well," she said from her side of the coach, "you
have made some terrible mistakes, haven't you?"
He nodded. "I sure have."
"And you are paying through the nose for them."
He looked at her. "I am." His nose literally ached from
his heroics today.
"I hate it when that happens."
"Me, too," he muttered. He wondered what it was she
wanted for being so nice to him.
She seemed to ponder his sad tale, as if turning it over in her
mind. Then she said, "Well. Any bride who won't listen to that story
perhaps isn't worth marrying."
"Oh, no," he contradicted. "Gwyn is worth marrying.
As soon as she cools down, I'll send her something nice to get her attention.
I'll court her again." Gwyn was worth it. He'd beat out four or five
fellows to have her. She was prime company, the best. "And you?" he
asked.
She looked at him, startled. "Me?"
"Yeah. Why are
you
on this coach?" He smiled,
vaguely curious, as he stretched his arm out along the seat. "It's the
saddest vehicle I can conjure up. Me, I'm trying to keep out of the way of all
the family and friends who'd like to finish off the job the bandits started.
They'll all be on trains. But you? What have you done?"
"Nothing," she said quickly, sitting back.
He'd been kidding her, making fun of himself. But, interestingly
here, Miss Prissy Brit looked alarmed, then blushed. Even in the late afternoon
shadows where she sat, he could see the faint, pretty, rosy-porcelain pink. Her
eyes shifted to his hand on the seat back, to where his thumb found a wear in
the fabric. "All right," he asked, "so why are you on it?"
She blinked then shrugged. "I just like it."
He laughed, watching her. "So what do you like best? The
dust? The bad springs? The wild joyride of the pace? Or is it the
company?"
Her eyes met his again, while her expression ran a gamut:
confusion at being confronted, anger, which turned into, surprisingly, a small,
rueful smile. She tried to hold it back, couldn't, then shook her head, looking
down. She would admit nothing. But her posture – the way she bent to hide the
smile as she hung there rocking in the hand strap – suggested that the proper
little governess here, or whoever she was, was exploring the edge of what was
and wasn't very proper.
It was an endearing silence. Sam leaned forward, extending his
hand. "Samuel J. Cody," he said. "Pleased to meet you."
She stared at his hand, licked her lips. It took him a second to
realize: She was inventing a name to tell him. He wanted to laugh outright.