“I want you, Mr. Calhoun,” she said, giving him the full force of her compelling gaze. Letter to Reader Title Page Dedication About the Author ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen Chapter Twenty Chapter Twenty-One Chapter Twenty-Two Chapter Twenty-Three Chapter Twenty-Four Chapter Twenty-Five Chapter Twenty-Six Chapter Twenty-Seven Chapter Twenty-Eight Chapter Twenty-Nine Chapter Thirty Chapter Thirty-One Copyright

Welcome to the world of

Harlequin Historicals as we celebrate

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THE TIGER’S BRIDE by USA Today

Western from Mary McBride

THE COURTSHIP OF IZZY McCREE—

Ruthe Langan’s 20th title for Harlequin

Historicals

FIRE SONG—a dramatic medieval novel

from Catherine Archer

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“I want you, Mr. Calhoun,” she said, giving him the full force of her compelling gaze.

His groin tightened as the words echoed in his head. I want you. Lord, what he’d give to hear a woman like her saying such words with a more intimate meaning!

“And you’ll be handsomely paid, I do assure you—with no backbreaking work.”

“No, no backbreaking work,” he agreed. “I could live real easy, bein’ your bodyguard—and get killed with an easy bullet.”

Her face paled. “Yes, there is a risk, as you saw this afternoon. But I don’t want to die, either. Perhaps all it will take to discourage this scoundrel is the presence of a strong, intelligent man prepared to defend me.”

“You don’t know me,” he told her, locking his gaze to hers. “You don’t know anythin’ about me, Duchess. Everythin’ I’ve told you could be a lie!”

Dear Reader,

Next month, Harlequin Historicals® turns ten years old! But we have such a terrific lineup this month, we thought we’d start celebrating early. To begin, award-winning author Laune Grant, who is known for her stirring Medievals and gritty Westerns, returns with a delightful new story, The Duchess and the Desperado. Here, a rancher turned fugitive inadvertently becomes a bodyguard to the very visible Duchess of Malvern when her life is threatened during a goodwill tour of the American West. Don’t miss it!

In The Shadowed Heart by Nina Beaumont, set in eighteenth-century Europe, a beautiful young woman on a quest for vengeance unwittingly falls in love with the man she thinks may have harmed her sister.... Also out for revenge is Jesse Kincaid, of MONTANA MAVERICKS: RETURN TO WHITEHORN fame, when he kidnaps his enemy’s mail-order bride in Wild West Wife by popular Silhouette® author Susan Mallery.

Rounding out the month is A Warrior’s Honor, the next Medieval in Margaret Moore’s popular WARRIOR SERIES. In this tale a knight is tricked by a fellow nobleman into abducting a beautiful lady, but, guided by honor—and love—seeks to rescue her from his former friend.

Whatever your tastes in reading, you’ll be sure to find a romantic journey back to the past between the covers of a Harlequin Historical®.

Sincerely,

Tracy Farrell

Senior Editor

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The Duchess And The Desperado

Laurie Grant

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Mary Jo Putney, for teaching me the joys of letters

patent, and, as always, to Michael.

LAURIE GRANT

combines a career as a trauma center emergency room nurse with that of historical romance author; she says living in two worlds keeps her sane. Passionately enthusiastic about the history of both England and Texas, she divides her travel time between these two spots. She is married to her own real-life hero, and has two teenage daughters, two dogs and a cat.

If you would like to write to Laurie, please use the following address: Laurie Grant, P.O. Box 307272, Gahana, OH 43230.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to thank the Denver Historical Society for

their invaluable assistance regarding the home of

Territorial Governor McCook and the hotels of the time.

Chapter One

Malvern Hall,

Herefordshire, England,

1872

“I wish you wouldn’t go,” Sarah heard her sister, Kathryn, mutter as she watched Sarah selecting dresses from her wardrobe and directing the maids in their packing.

Sarah Challoner, Duchess of Malvern, looked over her shoulder at Kathryn and was touched. She thought her younger sibling looked wistful. She smiled. “Going to miss me, are you, Kat?”

Kathryn made a moue of disgust. “Don’t call me that. Thierry says it isn’t dignified.” She turned and gazed out the window that looked over the Malvern Hills in all their glory. “And yes, I am going to miss you. It sounds as if you’ll be gone forever.”

“I cannot call you Kat anymore?” Sarah said in mock dismay, struggling to hide her amusement. “But you have been my little sister Kat since you were born ! Ah...yes, Tilly, I believe I will take the blue foulard,” she said, pointing at a gown the maid held out for consideration.

“But not any longer, if you please,” said Kat with stiff dignity. “I shall be out next year, and Thierry say a nickname is not at all comme il fuut,” she added in an admirable French accent.

Sarah allowed herself to appear impressed. “I see. Well, if Thierry has decreed it, Kathryn it is, then.” Thierry says this, Thierry says that. She suspected her sister, who at seventeen was barely out of the schoolroom, had a bad case of hero worship for the dashing French count who was secretly Sarah’s fiancé. It probably wouldn’t be going too far to say she was infatuated with Thierry de Châtellerault.

Ah, well. That’s all right. She was just glad that Kathryn liked Thierry. It would be so awkward if her sister hated the man Sarah was going to marry. And it was perfectly normal for young girls to have these infatuations, after all. Sarah could remember a couple of her own-embarrassing, painful things they had been! Once she and Thierry returned from America as man and wife, though, Kathryn—Kat, she insisted to herself—would gradually learn to let go of her feelings and concentrate on finding her own special someone.

“Sure you wouldn’t like to change your mind and come with me?” Sarah inquired of her sister, who still had her back to her. “Wouldn’t you love to see America?”

“No,” came the uncompromising reply. “I can’t think I would enjoy racketing around the States in carriages and on trains, living out of suitcases for months on end! Besides,” she said, lowering her voice so that the servants wouldn’t hear, “once Thierry joins you in Santa Fe and you get marned, I shouldn’t like to be the gooseberry.”

“Gooseberry?” Sarah repeated, mystified. Kathryn was forever picking up servants’ cant.

Kathryn whirled around, her face sullen. “You know, the odd man out. I’d be superfluous.”

Sarah suddenly understood. She let go of the gown she was examining and rushed toward her sister. “Nonsense, dear...”

“But of course I would,” Kat cried. Her face was a study in disdain, her posture rigid, saying as clearly as if she shouted it that Sarah was not to embrace her. “I can’t think of anyone more useless on a honeymoon than one’s younger sister.”

Sarah stopped short and pushed her glasses back up on her nose. Perhaps she had been spending too much time with Thierry, and Kat was feeling left out. The girl’s wounded feelings were almost palpable.

“But it isn’t as though you’d be alone with just us, darling,” she said, low-voiced. “Uncle Frederick is coming along, and Donald, and Celia.... Think of all the sights we’d see, going from New York to California to Texas Just imagine, the Wild West!” If only she could infuse Kat with some of her enthusiasm!

Kat turned her back to Sarah once again. “Yes, but once you join Thierry, I can’t imagine anything more boring than spending time with our uncle and your secretary and your dresser while you’re off billing and cooing with him,” Kat said, her voice thick, as if she were fighting tears. “I’m not going, and that’s final. I just don’t understand why you have to go, Sarah.”

“If I were a man no one would question it,” Sarah observed. “Why should I not get to take a Grand Tour just as if I were a man? I’m duchess in my own right, after all, and I want to do it.”

“But men do their Grand Tour in Europe,” her sister noted.

Now it was Sarah’s turn to make a face. “We went to Paris with Papa, did we not, and on to Italy? The Continent doesn’t interest me. No, I want to see America—especially the vast open spaces of the West, Kat—ah, Kathryn. It must be so exciting to live there—not like tidy old England, with its manicured lawns and ponds, and quaint little towns several hundred years old. I need to see that before I settle down as ‘the duchess’—and as Thierry’s wife, as wonderful as I know that will be,” Sarah said. She willed Kat to face her, but Kat remained rigidly staring out the window. “And besides, it’ll give me a little breathing room away from Her Majesty’s incessant demand that I marry the boring Duke of Trenton, who’d be my equal in rank. Come, Kathryn, you must agree it’s delicious to imagine Victoria fuming when I return home married to the Count of Chatellerault instead?”

Kathryn slowly turned to face her, her lips reluctantly curving upward. “Yes...I can just imagine the queen wringing those plump hands. All right, I suppose you will go no matter what I say. But tell me—are you going to wear your glasses when you’re touring?”

Sarah breathed a sigh of relief that her efforts to mollify Kat had finally succeeded enough that she had turned to teasing. “Hmm...I suppose it depends if it’s just us—Uncle Frederick, Donald, Celia and I. You know how vain I am about being seen in my spectacles.”

Kat smirked. “I can just imagine—you’ll come back and we’ll ask what the most impressive sight was and you’ll wave your hand and say ‘I don’t know. It was all just a blur.”’

Sarah didn’t mind the sisterly taunt, for she’d always admitted vanity to be her worst failing.

“I’ll see you at dinner, Sarah,” Kat said, moving toward the door.

“All right, but where are you going in such a hurry?” Sarah asked, picking up the gown she’d discarded only moments ago. It wasn’t her favorite, but it would be good for traveling.

“Oh, Thierry said he’d take me riding while you were busy packing,” Kat murmured over her shoulder, her hand already on the door. “Since he won’t be meeting you in New Mexico right away, he’s rather at loose ends, too, you know.”

Sarah smiled and bade her sister enjoy herself. It was good of Thierry to keep Kat occupied, but perhaps she should speak to her fiancé later this evening and warn him that her younger sister had conceived a tendre for him. She knew she could count on Thierry to let Kat down easily.

Chapter Two

Denver

Colorado Territory

July 1872

“Oh, Celia, do look,” Sarah breathed, gazing out the window as the train wheezed to a stop. She pointed at the distant Rocky Mountains, still snow tipped even though it was midsummer. The sight was enough to make Sarah forget the discomforts of the journey. “Are they not magnificent? Even the Peak District has nothing to compare with them!” She felt the headache that had plagued her all through the jolting, swaying ride slipping away.

“Yes, your grace,” her dresser muttered, though she only glanced momentarily at the magnificent mountain range that stood sentinel over Denver. “We’ve been seein’ them for the past two hours.” She was nervously watching the motley throng on the station platform from the other side of their luxurious private railway car that had brought them all the way from St. Louis.

“But we can see them so much more clearly now. Just one moment, Celia, and I’ll be ready to disembark,” Sarah said, folding her spectacles and putting them safely away in her reticule. Not for the world would she have appeared among strangers wearing them. “Carry this, would you please, dear?” she said, handing her servant the reticule. No doubt she’d need her hands free for greeting those who came to welcome her.

The crowd gaped and pointed at the Duchess of Malvern and her entourage as they disembarked from the train at the Kansas Pacific Depot, but to Sarah, minus her spectacles, they were a buzzing blur.

“They’re so rude, the way they stare. You’d think they’d never seen a duchess before.” her dresser muttered to no one in particular.

Sarah chuckled, saying, “I’m sure they haven’t, Celia. This is America, after all. They do not have duchesses here.”

“Nor manners, your grace,” her dresser retorted as one gawker came even closer and, after blowing his nose noisily on a dirty handkerchief, pointed at the Paris creation on the duchess’s head.

“Oh, do stop grumbling, Celia, and take a breath of the fresh, bracing Western air—that should clear out the cobwebs!” Indeed, her own headache was fast diminishing, and she felt almost human again.

“I believe that is Pikes Peak in the distance, your grace,” Donald Alconbury, her secretary, murmured in her ear, pointing at the high peak in the distance. “Indeed, the air is very clear here, or we should not be able to see it.”

“Ah... beautiful...” she murmured, though of course Donald had forgotten she could not distinguish it from the others without her spectacles.

“I can’t imagine where the welcoming committee must be,” fretted Lord Halston. “I telegraphed the time of your arrival, and I was promised no less than the mayor and the territorial governor on hand to welcome you to Denver. But perhaps they await us inside the depot,” he said, motioning toward the large, two-stoned brick building behind them.

“Then go and fetch them, uncle,” Sarah said serenely, turning and heading for the rear of the train. “I intend to see Trafalgar properly unloaded.”

“But, your grace, your groom will see to that,” her dresser fussed. “Come inside, do. Look, there’s another of those noisy monsters pulling in, and it’ll blow soot all over your clothing!”

The second train’s whistle shrieked, splitting the air as it wheezed to a stop a little behind and on a track parallel to the one that had just brought the duchess and her party from St. Louis Just as Celia had predicted, the locomotive’s huge smokestack belched a cloud of smoke.

Sarah paid no heed to the down-drifting particles of soot, however. The train had almost immediately begun disgorging its human contents, and as she passed the open space between one car and another, her attention was caught by a particular passenger who was just stepping down from the other train onto the ground.

With just a few yards between them, she could see him well enough. He was tall and lean and wore a wide-brimmed hat, denim trousers, boots and duster coat. A saddle was slung over one shoulder; he carried a pair of saddlebags in the other hand. His hair was a shade of brown so dark it could pass for black except in bright sunlight, and he needed both a haircut and a shave. He might be handsome once properly groomed—though very different from Thierry, of course—but at present he just looked dangerous, Sarah decided, watching as he narrowed his eyes in the direction of the station house, then started striding toward the rear of the train he had just left.

A sudden wind blew the side of his unbuttoned duster backward, exposing a pistol riding in a holster on his hip. The presence of the pistol confirmed the air of danger he carried with him. A desperado, thought Sarah, remembering the lurid covers of the cheap novels she’d seen on sale not only in America but in London, too. Perhaps he was an outlaw! But no, surely outlaws did not travel on trains like normal, lawabiding folk. He was probably just an ordinary cowboy, she told herself. Standards of grooming were not the same here as at home. But she was not convinced.

As if aware that he was being watched, however, he paused and looked between the two cars, right at her. Sarah was close enough to see a pair of green eyes studying her from the top of her modish hat to the tips of her buttoned kid boots.

He must have approved of what he saw, for a slow smile spread over his beard-shadowed, lean face and warmed the green of his eyes. He let the band of leather that connected the two saddlebags slide back on his forearm, which enabled him to touch the brim of his hat in a manner of greeting. Then he resumed walking and was lost to her sight.

Sarah felt heat rising up past the pleated edge of her cloak. She’d been looking at him—staring, in fact—and the cowboy had caught her at it and stared right back! Why, his grin had been cheekier than a Cockney beggar’s!

She’d been stared at before, especially since coming to the United States, but somehow his bold, direct gaze had affected her differently. For the life of her, though, she could not say why she found his look energizing rather than merely annoying.

In any case, Sarah reminded herself sternly, she must not waste time gaping at the locals. She needed to ensure the safety of her mare. Walking down to the front of the car that she knew held Trafalgar, she was in time to see the door slide back and her groom emerge, bending to extend the wooden ramp down onto the ground.

“Ben! How did she weather the journey?” Sarah called out.

“Well enough, your grace, though she didn’t fancy that other train pulling in next to this one,” Ben Huddleston, her wiry old groom, informed her. “Been tossin’ and plungin’ about these last few minutes, she has.”

Sarah could hear the thudding of hooves as Trafalgar protested against the boxcar’s walls. “Well, bring her out. She’ll settle down once she gets out of confinement, I’m certain.”

Ben doffed the tweed cap he was never without. “Yes, your grace.” He disappeared back into the depths of the boxcar, and Sarah could hear the groom speaking soothingly to the high-spirited thoroughbred, and the mare’s snorting, stamping retort.

Sarah smiled. Trafalgar had always been a fractious traveler, and the groom’s advice had been to leave the hunter at home in Herefordshire. “The sea voyage alone will shatter her nerves, Duchess, not to mention all the roamin’ around that barbarous country. Why not breed her, your grace? By the time you come home, the foal could be weaned and you’ll be back chasm’ the fox on your mare again.”

“Are you more worried about the mare’s nerves or yours, Ben?” she had teased him. “I wouldn’t think it fair to impose on Trafalgar the very thing I’m trying to escape myself,” she had added lightly, and laughed as the implication of her last remark had brought a blush to Ben’s cheeks. “Well, it’s true. My uncle is pressuring me to marry and so is the queen, but having just reached my majority, I can’t imagine why I should settle down meekly and marry whoever the queen thinks suitable for me! I want my favorite mare with me, and so she shall come. She’ll do fine, you’ll see.”

What the Duchess of Malvern wanted, she got, and the tall bay thoroughbred had been brought along. If anyone’s nerves had been shattered in the course of the ocean voyage and the “roamin’ around” the United States of America, it had been Ben’s, not Trafalgar’s.

As she waited for her mare, Sarah glanced down the track, but she could no longer see the dangerous-looking American. Too bad, she thought wryly. He had probably never seen such a fine horse as Trafalgar in his life, and she had imagined his eyes widening as he glimpsed her with her handsome hunter. She had been sure he would be impressed.

C’est la guerre, as Thierry would have said. Why did she feel any need to impress such a man, anyway? She was the Duchess of Malvern, and she had the world at her feet. Once she was reunited with her dashing Thierry, she would indeed have everything!

Then, plunging, whinnying and trying to rear, Trafalgar was led down the wooden ramp by Ben, who had blindfolded the horse. Even so, he had his hands full making sure the mare neither careened off the side of the ramp nor did him an injury, and Sarah rushed forward, heedless of the groom’s protestations that she’d get her traveling costume dirty.

“I don’t know why you bother blindfolding her, Ben,” she chided as she whipped the dark cloth from underneath the bay’s halter and took the lead rope from her groom. “She’s not a whit easier to handle—easy there, girl! Easy... See, you’re out of that nasty boxcar and onto solid ground, and I’ll see that you rest in a big loose stall tonight with plenty of grain to eat....” It never mattered what she said, only that she kept talking to the skittish thoroughbred.

But this time, even her soothing voice didn’t seem to be working its usual magic

Just then a shot rang out from somewhere in the milling throng on the station platform, a shot that whistled right over Sarah’s head and embedded itself in the wood of the boxcar. The mare went wild with terror, rearing and nearly yanking Sarah’s arm out of its socket. The screams and shouts of the crowd blended with the frightened whinnying of the thoroughbred as it plunged and kicked. Then, as Sarah struggled to keep hold of the lead rope, another shot rang out, kicking up the dust right in front of the toe of her right boot. The surprise of the second shot made Sarah loosen her grip on the rope—only for a second, but it was enough. Trafalgar gave a mighty toss of her head, yanking the rope out of Sarah’s hand, wheeled and went galloping down the tracks, with Ben in hot pursuit.

A weight hit Sarah from behind, knocking her flat a heartbeat before a third shot whistled by her. She heard the wood of the boxcar splinter with the impact of the third bullet. For a fleeting moment she had the ridiculous notion that one of the mountains had somehow moved and fallen on her...and then a voice drawled, “Lady, don’t you have the sense to hit the dirt or take cover when you’re bein’ shot at?” and she realized that it was the dangerous-looking American who had tackled her and knocked her into the dirt, covering her with his body.

Sarah thrashed beneath him, trying to free herself. “How dare you? Get off me, sir!” she demanded. “My mare—I have to catch my mare!” Out of the corner of her eye she could see a blur of movement. People were fleeing the station platform in panicked droves, while others had likewise flattened themselves on the ground.

“Forget your mare for the time bein’, lady!” he ordered, dragging her to her feet with one hand, holding his drawn pistol with the other. “We’re going to take cover until we’re certain the shootin’s stopped.” He pulled her along with him until they had reached the other side of the boxcar.

“Stay there,” he said, flattening her against the side of the car with his forearm while he inched around to where he could see the station platform again.

“But I have to see that—”

“Stay there,” he ordered over his shoulder. Then, after a silent minute of scanning the crowd, he said, without looking back at her, “Everyone’s runnin’ to and fro like chickens with their heads cut off. I couldn’t see where the shots came from, and now I don’t see anyone with a gun.” He turned back to her. “Why would anyone want to shoot at you, lady? Who are you?”

She heard Alconbury and Lord Halston calling her, but ignored their cries for the moment. “You think someone was shooting at me?” she asked incredulously. “My good man, I hardly think anyone would have a reason to shoot at me. I’m but newly arrived in your city, a British subject—” Standing just inches from him, she had no difficulty seeing him clearly, and she saw him raise an eyebrow.

“There’s folks that’d argue about my goodness,” he drawled, his green eyes mocking. “I thought you didn’t sound American. So who are you, and what’re you doing in Colorado Territory, and why is someone shooting at you?”

She resented his interrogation. “I’m not accustomed to introducing myself to a stranger, sir.”

The green eyes narrowed. “I just saved your life, and you want to stand on ceremony?”

She realized he might well be right. “I’m sorry. I’m afraid that being frightened makes me a trifle cross. I spoke more sharply than I intended,” Sarah apologized. “I think you did save my life, and I’m very grateful. My secretary will see that you’re suitably rewarded, Mr.—”

He hesitated for a moment, then growled, “Morgan Calhoun, and there’s no need to be talkin’ about any reward. It was just the right thing to do.” His expression softened somewhat. “I reckon you’re entitled to feel a mite cross at bein’ shot at, too. Most females would have had hysterics. Oh, and I’m sorry about dirtyin’ your fine clothes, ma’am....”

Sarah managed a tremulous smile. “No apologies are necessary on that score, certainly. I’d rather be a bit soiled and alive than an immaculate corpse.”

Morgan Calhoun grinned at that, but still seemed to be waiting for something, and after a moment she realized what it was.

“Oh! How remiss of me! My name is Sarah Challoner,” she said, and was about to add her title when Donald Alconbury, Lord Halston and Celia ran panting around the side of the boxcar.

“Your grace! Are you...all right? Were you wounded?” demanded her secretary.

“Who is this ruffian?” Lord Halston asked, pointing at Calhoun. “Unhand the Duchess of Malvern immediately, fellow!”

Morgan Calhoun stared at Sarah. “A duchess? You’re a duchess?”

She nodded. “The Duchess of Malvern, actually. Yes, Donald, don’t worry, I’m quite all right, thanks to Mr. Calhoun, here.”

Morgan looked back at Lord Halston, then down at his own hands, one of which still held his drawn pistol; the other held nothing. “I don’t reckon I need to ‘unhand’ what I’m not touchin’ at the moment, fellow,” he retorted, bolstering the pistol. “Who’s he?” he asked Sarah, indicating the indignant Lord Halston with a nod of his head.

“Lord Halston, may I present Morgan Calhoun,” Sarah said. “Mr. Calhoun, my uncle, Lord Halston. Please stop glaring at Mr. Calhoun, uncle—instead, he deserves our thanks. Had he not thrown me to the ground, that last shot might well have put a period to my existence. And who was shooting at me, anyway?”

Frederick, Lord Halston, muttered something that may have been an apology, then said, “None of these incompetent idiots seems to have a clue who fired the shots, though one woman said they seemed to be coming from one of the upper-story windows in the station, and the train officials went up to check. I think we should make arrangements to leave immediately, your grace. Obviously someone in this barbaric settlement—” he wrinkled his nose as he looked around “—means you harm.”

Sarah ignored his suggestion. She pointed down the track, where her groom led her trembling bay mare. “Oh, good, Ben’s caught her. Bravo, Ben!” she called.

“Duchess, I don’t know what in thunder you’re doin’ here, but Lord Whatsis may have a good idea about leavin’,” interjected Morgan Calhoun. “Somebody’s obviously taken exception to your arrival.”

Sarah heard Halston’s growl of indignation at the ridiculous name, then she turned back to the American. “Nonsense. We’ve only just arrived, and I have no intention of getting back on a smelly, noisy, dirty train—or any other form of conveyance. I’m here on a goodwill tour on behalf of Her Majesty the queen, you see, and people are expecting me. Departure today is out of the question.”

“But Duchess, someone hasn’t got any goodwill for you,” Morgan Calhoun noted with maddening persistence. “Surely there’s plenty of other cities you could spread that goodwill in.”

“Perhaps your rescuer is right, your grace,” Donald Alconbury murmured.

“Nonsense, we’re made of sterner stuff than that, are we not?” Sarah said. “I have no idea why someone seemed to be shooting at me, unless the person mistook me for someone else? Yes, surely that’s it.”

She saw Alconbury and Lord Halston exchange a look, as if they knew something more, and was about to challenge them about it when Calhoun spoke up again.

“I don’t reckon so, Duchess. You don’t look like anyone else in these parts,” Calhoun argued, with a meaningful glance at the more humbly dressed women on the station platform.

As she looked in the direction he had nodded, she saw several well-dressed men threading their way through the milling, pointing crowd toward them.

“I believe the welcoming committee’s finally caught up with us at last,” she murmured.

A tall, thin, worried-looking man with a mustache and a bearded chin, dressed in a frock coat and carrying a stovepipe hat, led the quartet that charged down onto the tracks and threaded their way between the boxcars to reach them.

“The Duchess of Malvern, I presume?” At Sarah’s nod, he said, “Your ladyship, I’m terribly sorry to be late, and sorrier still when I was informed of what just befell you. I’m John Harper, the mayor of Denver.” There were beads of sweat visible on his balding forehead when he bowed.

Sarah heard Lord Halston clear his throat, and swiftly darted a quelling look at him, guessing he was about to inform the mayor of Denver that a duchess was properly addressed as “your grace,” never “your ladyship.” Americans had no knowledge of how to address the peerage, and there was nothing to be gained by pompously shaming them in public.

“Mr. Harper, I’m pleased to make your acquaintance,” she said, offering her hand. He hesitated, as if he did not know what to do with it, then shook it instead of kissing it. Sarah hid a smile. “It was a rather startling welcome, but I am convinced it was a case of mistaken identity, and so we shall forget it.”

She didn’t miss Harper’s gusty sigh of relief, as if he had feared to be held responsible. “Yes, obviously no one could wish to shoot at you, ma’am. It must have been a mistake. But we shall take every precaution for your safety while in our fair city.”

Sarah bestowed a deliberately dazzling smile on the mayor, aware that Morgan Calhoun watched her curiously. “I am so pleased to include Denver on my tour of America. Your scenery is magnificent, sir.”

Harper beamed, as if the mountain range behind them was due to his own hard work. “Thank you, Duchess,” he said, then belatedly remembered to release her hand. “I’m sorry to be a few minutes late in meeting your train. The press of duties, I’m afraid. Governor McCook sends his regrets, too, but of course he will have the opportunity to apologize in person at the reception supper tonight at his residence. I’ll be there, too, of course, and you must make me aware of your slightest need. Denver doesn’t have a real British duchess visiting every day, you know,” he finished enthusiastically.

“I will look forward to it,” she said, struggling to look regal rather than amused.

“In the meantime, her grace is tired from the journey, of course,” interjected Lord Halston in his officious way. “Has transportation to her hotel been arranged?”

“Of course. Just this way to the carriage, ma’am, and you can tie your horse to the back. She’s a high-spirited thing, isn’t she? And there’s a wagon to follow behind with your luggage and that of your party—”

“Yes, but just one minute, before we leave,” she said, and turned back to Morgan Calhoun. “Mr. Calhoun, I’m in your debt. Would you be so kind as to call upon me this afternoon at five for tea? Lord Halston will have your reward ready for you then. Uncle, where is it we are lodging?”

“We have a suite of rooms at the Grand Central Hotel, your grace, but I don’t think—” began Lord Halston even as Calhoun was protesting, “There’s no need for any reward, Duchess—”

“Well, we can discuss it when you come, can we not?” Sarah interrupted, giving Calhoun her brightest smile. “Please come, Mr. Calhoun, won’t you? I’d very much like to thank you properly.”

Calhoun’s face was a study in indecision. “Well, ma’am, I don’t thi—”

“I mustn’t keep them waiting longer,” she said, nodding toward her party. “At five, then, Mr. Calhoun?” Without waiting to see if he nodded or shook his head, she turned and walked in the direction of the waiting carriage.

Chapter Three

“Why on earth would you encourage such a ruffian, niece?” Lord Halston said, once the carnage conveying Sarah, her secretary, her dresser and himself had pulled away from the station. “Why, for all we know, he could be in league with the sniper.”

“What an absurd thing to say, uncle. If that were so, he could have killed me behind the boxcar, couldn’t he?”

Sarah frowned, but it didn’t discourage Lord Halston. “You heard the man,” he said. “He didn’t think there was any need for a reward, and I quite agree. He was just doing the decent thing—and rather too enthusiastically, if you ask me. It wasn’t at all necessary to throw you to the ground, in my opinion. Your dress will never be the same again. And Sarah,” he added, forgetting the presence of her secretary and dresser as he addressed her with the familiarity of a relation, “it’s not at all the thing to have such a man calling on you, as if you owed him anything more than the thanks you already gave him....”

Once he began fuming, Uncle Frederick could go on and on like a clockwork toy that refused to wind down. Sarah held up a hand. “Uncle, do stop. I’m getting a headache all over again! And I do not agree—I think saving a life requires much more than a civil thank-you,” she told him as she gazed out the window at the mostly brick buildings of the young city She’d read of a fire several years ago that had destroyed much of the town, causing Denverites to use brick when they rebuilt. The streets, however, were still dirt.

“He said he wouldn’t take any money,” Lord Halston persisted.

“Perhaps we shall persuade him to change his mind, uncle,” Sarah said, proud that she sounded serene and unruffled. “But if we do not, we shall at least treat him to an excellent meal. It looks as if it’s been a good while since he’s had one.”

She could not have said why it was so important that she see the American with the drawling voice, mocking green eyes and that air of danger that he carried about him like an all-enveloping cloak, she only knew that it was important to her that she see him again, and this time in safe, secure surroundings. She wanted him to see her with the grime of travel bathed away, dressed in one of her prettiest tea gowns—perhaps the dusky rose one.

He might not come, of course—her impulsive invitation had caused Morgan Calhoun to look as startled as one of those wild American mustangs they’d seen running across the plains when the train whistle had startled the herd. He might be intimidated by her obvious wealth and decide he had no clothes fit to wear to take tea with a duchess. Wary, he might figure that the only way to refuse taking money from her was never to see her again. And if he chose not to come, there would be nothing she could do about it. She would never encounter him again.

It shouldn’t matter, of course Thierry would be waiting for her at the prearranged city at the end of her tour, and though her uncle and the rest of her party didn’t know it now, she would be returning home a married woman—married to the man of her choice, not the stuffy-but-eligible Duke of Trenton the queen had deemed suitable for her.

What a handsome couple they would make, she and her âThierry, the dashing Comte de Châtellerault. But even Thierry, who had a Gallic tendency to jealousy, could not be upset that she wished to reward a valiant man who had saved her life, could he?

“You don’t seem inclined to take your near-assassination very seriously, either,” Lord Halston went on in an aggrieved tone. “Good heavens, three shots were fired and yet the dreamy-eyed expression on your face would lead one to believe you were picturing a beau!”

His continued ranting, just when she wanted to plan what she would say if Morgan Calhoun did come to tea, made Sarah irritable. “What would you have me do, my lord—weep and wring my handkerchief?” she demanded. “I have said I thought the whole matter a mistake and would forget it, and so I shall. Please have the goodness not to bring up the matter again.”

“As your grace wishes,” Lord Halston said heavily. “We have arrived, Donald. Please go on in and announce her grace and her party.”

“Your grace, Mr....uh...Calhoun has arrived,” the somberly dressed woman called from the anteroom, all the while eyeing Morgan suspiciously. After returning her stare with a cool one of his own, he went back to studying the elegant wallpaper and paneling of the anteroom and its paintings of Western mountain scenes. A vase by the door held pink roses that had to have been grown in a hothouse. Compared to the Mountain View Boardinghouse, where he was staying just long enough to gather his provisions before heading up into the mountains, the Grand Central Hotel was a palace. And a duchess was practically a princess, wasn’t she? What did that make him—the dragon?

“Show him in, Celia,” came the musical, aristocratic voice.

For the hundredth time since he’d seen the duchess ride off in her carriage, Morgan wondered just why he’d obeyed the summons to tea.

He had no intention of taking any money for what he’d done this afternoon. Protecting a helpless woman when there were bullets flying in her direction had been no more or less than the right thing to do, and he would have done the same thing if she’d been homely and dressed in the simplest calico. But telling her his real name, when that name and his likeness were on Wanted posters all over the West, was probably the greatest piece of idiocy he’d committed in the past few years. He should have given his name as Jake Faulkner, or one of the many other aliases he’d used since he’d been on the run.

And coming here simply because she’d asked him to, when he had no intention of taking any reward money from her, was even more stupid. He should be out buying a pack mule and the beans, bacon, salt, flour, sugar and coffee that he’d need to go up into the mountains, not taking tea with a foreign duchess who was so perfectly beautiful she might have been a princess from a fairy tale.

His thoughts made him angry at himself, and so he was edgy and nervous as he followed the woman—what did they call them, ladies-in-waiting?—into the sitting room.

There were more flowers in vases around the room, but he paid little attention to them, for he saw the duchess arising, smiling, from a velvet-upholstered carved-back chair. “Ah, there you are, Mr. Calhoun. It was good of you to come.”

She was dressed in a gown that was the same pink as the roses. There was pleated lace in the V-shaped neckline, which matched the lace at her waist. Her golden hair was once again artfully arranged in a coil at the nape of her neck, as it had been before he had knocked her to the ground and disarranged it. But it was her eyes that held his attention, just as when he had first seen her. Then, as now, he was reminded of the vivid blue of a Texas sky on a sunlit spring day.

He caught sight of the grumpy-looking fellow she’d introduced as Lord Halston hovering unhappily behind her chair, looking even more unhappy as his eyes met Morgan’s. Morgan saw a disdainful expression creep across Lord Halston’s face as he stared at the clean denims and the white shirt Morgan had paid the widow who ran the boardinghouse an extra two bits to press for him. He stared right back until Lord Halston reddened and looked away.

“Hello, Miss—Duchess,” he said, feeling more awkward than he ever had in his life. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what to call you...and I reckon these aren’t goin’-to-tea duds, but I didn’t exactly come to Denver prepared to—”

“No apologies are necessary, Mr. Calhoun,” the duchess interrupted, extending her hand but not enlightening him as to how to address her. “The pleasure of your company is quite sufficient.”

He had the feeling he was supposed to do something with that hand besides shake it. Once he’d seen a European fellow kiss a lady’s hand, but he couldn’t imagine he was supposed to take such a liberty with a duchess. So he just took it in his, savoring its satin-smooth texture. He could just feel the slight tremor in it. So she was nervous, too, he realized. How much more nervous would she be if she knew I was a wanted man?

Lord Halston stepped forward as Morgan reluctantly let her hand go. “Her grace has asked me to prepare a reward for your—ahem!—heroic actions this afternoon,” he said, looking as if every word pained him.

Morgan saw that he was carrying a small leather pouch that looked as if it were heavily weighted with coins.

“Go ahead, take it,” Lord Halston urged, glaring at him. “You’ll find it’s a substantial amount in gold.” His expression told Morgan he hoped he would depart as soon as he’d accepted the bag.

Morgan’s eyes cut back to the duchess. “Ma’am, I told you this afternoon I wasn’t going to accept any money, and I’m not. You keep your money...though I thank you for offering it,” he added belatedly, when his words echoed back too belligerently at him.

Lord Halston appeared relieved, then he and the duchess exchanged a look.

“Are you sure, Mr. Calhoun?” Sarah Challoner inquired in her lovely, well-modulated voice. “Surely you could use it in whatever endeavor you intend to pursue in Colorado Territory?”

Actually, he could—the supplies he had to buy would take most if not all of the money that remained from his last poker winnings—and not taking it was the third stupid thing he’d done today. But he knew he just wouldn’t feel right taking money for what he’d done.

“There, you see, uncle? It’s just as you said, he won’t take it,” said the duchess, turning back to her uncle. “So you can now relax. Perhaps you have correspondence to take care of? In that case you must feel free to excuse yourself. Celia will attend me,” she said.

Morgan had to admire how neatly she’d gotten rid of the sour old windbag—and against his will, too, he saw with amusement as her uncle struggled to hide his dismay.

“Just as you say, your grace,” he said, giving a stiff little bow in her direction. “Mr. Calhoun, I’ll bid you good day,” he said. The words were civil, the tone hostile.

“Mr. Calhoun, won’t you come and sit down?” the duchess said, going over to a low table between two chairs to Morgan’s right. He had not even noticed it when he came into the room, for he had been intent on her.

In the center of the table, set on a silver tray, was a great silver teapot, several delicate china cups and a few small plates. Surrounding them lay dishes covered with more food than he’d seen since the war.

“I-I thought you asked me to tea, duchess?” he said, certain that he must have misunderstood. “This—this looks like supper to me.”

She gave a high, silvery laugh that reminded him of the music of water dancing over stones in a hill country stream. She sat down and indicated he should take the other chair. “Oh, no, Mr. Calhoun, it’s merely tea—or high tea, as we should properly call it back home in England—simply something to carry one through until dinner later on. We had some ado to get the hotel cook to make us watercress and cucumber sandwiches, and Celia was only able to get biscuits, jelly and butter rather than scones and crumpets, but I think you’ll find the little cakes are quite good. I must confess I nibbled on one while I awaited your arrival.”

Her mischievous smile as she admitted the last fact made her suddenly less an aristocrat, more approachable. For a heartbeat he caught a glimpse of what she must have looked like as a young girl. She must have been a handful even then, he decided as he lowered himself carefully into the other chair.

“Shall I pour, your grace?” the female servant inquired, approaching.

“No, Celia, I’ll do it, but come and get something to eat. You must be hungry,” the duchess said. “Celia, I do not believe you have been properly introduced to Mr. Calhoun. Celia Harris, may I present Mr. Morgan Calhoun? Celia is my dresser,” the duchess informed him. “I should be quite lost without her.”

The woman’s face lost some of its severity. “Thank you, your grace.” As the duchess poured a cup of tea, and poured in some cream, Celia came forward and carefully placed a watercress sandwich, a biscuit, a blob of jelly and one of the sugary cakes on her plate. Then, after taking the cup of tea her mistress proffered, she carried her plate and cup over to a chair against the wall and took up a position where it would be easy to keep an eye on Morgan.

Morgan forgot about the servant, hypnotized by the effortless, graceful movements of the duchess’s fingers and slender wrists as she poured the steaming tea into the cup without spilling a drop.

“Mr. Calhoun, do you take sugar? Cream?” Her hand, holding a small pair of tongs, was poised over the sugar bowl.

He hadn’t tasted tea since courting the banker’s daughter when he’d been seventeen. Coffee and whiskey were what he was used to, and the latter only when he had money, and when he was somewhere where he could afford to let his guard down.

“I...I like a lot of sugar, ma’am. No cream.” He saw her smile, then watched as she dropped three lumps of sugar into the tea she had poured for him, then handed the cup and saucer to him.

The fragrant aroma of the tea rose around his head, mingled with the scent of roses that seemed to surround her. He took a sip—and promptly burned his tongue. The spoon clattered against the cup and saucer as he hurriedly set the teacup down.

“Oh, I quite forgot to warn you how hot it was,” the duchess apologized. “Celia—perhaps a glass of water for Mr. Calhoun?”

Celia’s glare as she rose to obey her mistress’s request told him she thought him a graceless idiot. He certainly felt like one, but the duchess didn’t seem to notice.

“Won’t you have something, Mr. Calhoun?” she invited as she put a pair of the impossibly delicate sandwiches on her own plate. “Or perhaps you’re not hungry?”

At the moment he would have eaten sawdust if she suggested it. “Yes, ma’am, I am.” He picked out a biscuit and gingerly spread some jelly on it, feeling clumsy as he handled the fine china and silverware.

“Well, now—what brings you to Colorado, Mr. Calhoun?”

He stared down at the dark red jelly for what seemed like an eternity. How could he tell her he’d come here to hide out from those who hunted him? How could he make an English noblewoman understand about coming home to Texas after the South had been defeated in the War Between the States, and finding his ranch taken over by some scalawag in the favor of the Federal troops? He’d run the fellow off, of course, but then the whispers had started: He rode with Mosby’s Rangers, you know. He’s nothing better than a bandit and a hired killer. For four years he’d been blamed each time a horse was stolen, each time some cattle were rustled, and though he’d managed to prove his innocence, people began to suspect that where there was smoke, there might be fire. They began to shun him. Finally, three years ago, he’d been falsely accused of holding up the stage that brought the troops’ payroll.

Morgan had been pleasantly occupied with a woman that night. But when he’d heard about the robbery, and that he’d been accused of it, he’d known she wasn’t the sort of woman who’d disgrace herself by providing him an alibi. Morgan had seen the handwriting on the wall, and he hadn’t waited around for a trial. He knew there was no such thing as a fair trial in Federally occupied Texas for a man who’d ridden with Mosby’s Rangers.

He’d lit out for New Mexico, and changed his name, and got a job as foreman for a rancher there. That had worked for a while, until someone recognized his face from a Wanted poster in town. He’d headed to Mexico, and stayed till he thought it was safe, then drifted on up to Arizona Territory. He’d taken another name and signed up as wrangler on a ranch. He was there a year until someone recognized him, and he’d had to flee again.

There was to be no starting over for him, it seemed. He hit the trail, living by his wits, surviving on what he could win at cards and occasionally by what he could steal—but only from scoundrels or rich Yankees who could well afford to lose what he took.

He’d been on the run now for three long years, and he was tired of being hunted, his name and likeness on Wanted posters all over the West. He’d decided to go up into the mountains, grow a beard to disguise his features, and prospect He’d be relatively safe from pursuit in the isolation of the mountains—the mining camps were wild and lawless and the miners had their own shadowy pasts to worry about. Maybe he’d strike it rich and have enough money to hire the best lawyer from the East to go back and clear his name—or maybe he’d just take his money, go down to Mexico and set up a rancho where he could raise horses and live like a king.

“Are you...are you perhaps a rancher, Mr. Calhoun?” the duchess inquired, reminding him that he’d never answered her question.

He felt himself color with embarrassment. “I-I’m sorry, ma‘am! I-no, I’m not a rancher. I’m...thinkin’ of goin’ up into the mountains and minin’.”

“Oh! I know nothing about such things, of course, but I thought you had more the look of...of a cowboy,” Sarah Challoner told him.

“I was a rancher...before the war,” he admitted. “I had a nice spread.” A stabbing pain pierced his heart to have to say had. Damn the Yankees and the scalawags who sucked up to them.

“And where do you come from, Mr. Calhoun?” she continued, her probing gentle. “I’m just learning about all the different accents you have here in this country, but you sound... ah... Southern?”

“Texas, ma’am.”

“Yes, I thought so,” she said, looking pleased with herself.

He was afraid she’d ask for more detail, and then he’d have to commence lying to her. Somehow he didn’t like the idea of telling a lie to this lady whose clear blue eyes studied him so candidly. Perhaps if he distracted her by asking a few questions of his own, it wouldn’t be necessary.

“Ma’am, may I ask you a question?”

She looked amused. “Of course, Mr. Calhoun.”

“If you’re a duchess, are you...I mean, is there...is there a duke?” The question sounded foolish the minute he asked it. “I’m sorry, I guess that’s gettin’ a little too nosy,” he said quickly, after she began to chuckle.

“No, no, not at all, Mr. Calhoun,” she said, startling him by leaning forward and laying a hand on his wrist to stop his apology. “Actually, it’s quite an intelligent question, for in answering it I am allowed to boast of my own uniqueness. You see, in England a title usually does pass only to a male relative, or falls into abeyance, as it’s called, if there isn’t one.”

She took a breath, and he helped himself to some of the delicate little sandwiches. They were surprisingly delicious, though nothing he’d want to rely upon to keep his stomach from growling on the trail.

“But in the case of the Duchy of Malvern,” she went on, “I was quite fortunate in that the original Duke of Malvern, back in the days of Queen Elizabeth, was, for a short time, in the same position as was my own father—a widower with no sons, only daughters, and he didn’t like the thought of his brother succeeding to the title. He was able to have the letters patent drawn up so that he could pass the title to his eldest daughter, should there be no direct male issue. But he did remarry, late in life, and sired a son who succeeded him, but the details in the letters patent remained the same, and thus I am the first Duchess of Malvern who is duchess in her own right, and not merely because her husband is a duke. Do you understand?”

He nodded. “So what you’re sayin’ is you’re one of a kind, ma’am. I guess you could rightly be proud of that.”

She smiled becomingly. “I am, dreadfully so, though it makes for all sorts of difficulties. My peers back at home don’t know what to make of me. They think-and Queen Victoria agrees—that the best solution is to have me safely married off.”

“And you don’t want to marry?” he asked, surprised. He thought all women wanted to be wives, even wealthy ladies like this one.

A faint flush of color came and went in her cheeks. So there is someone, he thought, annoyed at himself for finding the idea disappointing.

She waved a hand airily. “Oh, someday, of course,” she said. “But I don’t want to wed the Duke of Trenton, the only eligible bachelor whose rank is equal to mine. He’s a stuffy fool, and I quite detest him, but he’s the man the queen has been pressuring me to wed. It’s either that or marry some foreign noble or princeling and have to live somewhere other than England part of the year.”

“And you don’t want to do that.”

“No, not really. I love Malvern, my estate, and my horses—and of course there’s my younger sister, Kat—Kathryn, who will come out next year. I shouldn’t want to be constantly leaving them.”

He hadn’t the faintest idea what “come out” meant, but he wasn’t sure it mattered. “This uncle of yours,” he said, nodding toward the closed door Lord Halston had disappeared behind, “he doesn’t mind that you’ve got the title? He doesn’t wish that it’d gone to him?”

She looked amused again, and clapped her hand over her mouth as if to smother a very unduchesslike giggle. “Oh, actually he does, tremendously, but what can he do?” she asked in a lowered voice. “He can’t change the way the letters patent were written. But he is a marquess, and that’s just below me in rank, so he’s not too deprived.” She laughed again. “Mr. Calhoun, I find myself telling you the most shameless things....”

He was just about to promise he wouldn’t breathe a word to anyone, thank her for inviting him and begin to take his leave, when he heard the door open from the corridor, and the balding, stoop-shouldered younger man Morgan had seen among the duchess’s party at the train station burst into the room.

He was panting and red in the face. “Your grace! Oh, I—I didn’t know you were receiving, please pardon me! Th-there was a message left for you—”

“Donald, you’re all out of breath!” Sarah Challoner observed. “What is it you’re so alarmed about?”

“This, your grace!” he said, handing the duchess a folded piece of paper with her name on the back in bold block letters. “The desk clerk said it had been left for you when he’d stepped away from the desk for a moment, so he didn’t see who left it....”

The duchess took the paper, unfolded it, and as she scanned the message, Morgan saw the blood drain from her face. Her hand shook and a moment later she dropped the piece of paper on the thick Turkey carpet.

“Ma’am?”

The duchess was staring straight ahead of her, her eyes wide and unseeing. She looked as if she might pass out in the next moment.

“Ma’am?” Morgan repeated, uncertain as to what to do. His eyes sought Celia, but the servant was already at her mistress’s side, bringing a bottle of hartshorn out of her skirt pocket.

Shuddering, the duchess turned around, waving the hartshorn and the hovering servant away.

Finally Morgan just leaned over and picked the paper up from the carpet. He read the crude block letters: “PREPEAR TO DIE IF YEW DONT LEAVE NOW DUCHISS. YERS TROOLY, A PATRIOTT.”

Chapter Four

“Do you have any idea who might have written this?” Morgan asked in the direction of the duchess’s rigid back.

Lord Halston came bustling back into the room from the adjoining one into which he’d been banished. “I demand to know what all the commotion was about! What have you done?” His eyes shot pale blue daggers at Morgan.

The duchess, ignoring her uncle, looked over her shoulder at Morgan, her face tight and set. “No, of course I don’t know,” she said to Morgan.

Morgan held out the note to Lord Halston, then watched the English lord’s face as he read it. The man’s eyes widened, then bulged. His face went a strange reddish purple and a vein bulged alarmingly in his temple. “This is an outrage!” he announced. “We must notify the authorities!”

If the man was acting, he was damned good at it, Morgan thought, turning back to the duchess.

“Are you sure, Duchess? Sure you don’t know anyone who has a bone to pick with you?”

She gave a tremulous smile at the phrase, and murmured, “No, no one...certainly no one who writes like that. Whoever it is has a deplorable inability to spell and rather a lack of penmanship, wouldn’t you say?” she asked, with an unsuccessful attempt at a laugh.

“You’re a duchess. You’re rich. You have everything a body could ever need. Are you sure there isn’t anyone who wants what you’ve got, Duchess?” Morgan persisted, glancing casually toward Lord Halston. The man had gone back to glaring at him.

Duchess Sarah blinked once, twice. “I suppose anyone who is poor might be envious, Mr. Calhoun.... Or I suppose it could be some American who’s opposed to royalty and titles and all that—I’m aware there are some of your fellow countrymen who still feel that way. Is that what you meant?”

He shook his head, wondering if the duchess was as naive about people as she sounded. She’d told him her uncle would have been duke but for her and her sister back home, after all.

“Your grace, I believe you will now accept my earlier suggestion that we leave at once. You will see it is necessary,” Lord Halston said. “You could have been killed at the train station, and now there is this note! You must get home where you can be kept safe.”

The noblewoman whirled toward her uncle, eyes flashing. “Run home to England with my tail tucked between my legs, uncle? I think not.”

“But Sarah—”

“No, my lord,” she said, her jaw set firmly, and Morgan was surprised to see that even a beautiful duchess could have a mulish streak. “I have not come thousands of miles to retreat,” she went on, “just when I’ve reached the land I’ve longed to see all my life. I will understand if you wish to return home, uncle—or you, Donald, or you, Celia,” she said, facing each of them in turn.

Everyone was silent for a moment. Then Lord Halston said stiffly, “I trust I know my duty to your grace. As your uncle, it is my duty to guard you, to ensure your comforts, to see that all is properly—”

She silenced him with an upraised hand, while her secretary and her dresser echoed their willingness to remain.

Morgan cleared his throat, no longer so certain that the uncle was the one who intended her harm, but sure of one thing. “Ma‘am, it isn’t any of my business, but I think your uncle’s right. You ought to go home—maybe with a handful of men hired on to guard you till you get there, but you’d be a damn sight easier to protect in jolly ol’ England than here—beggin’ your pardon for my language,” he apologized, after he noticed Celia’s indignant face.

“Don’t give it a thought,” Sarah said. “But Mr. Calhoun, you must think violence toward noblemen never takes place in England. I suppose he hasn’t heard of the princes in the Tower, or Henry the Eighth’s antics, has he, uncle?”

Morgan was annoyed to feel left out as the duchess and her uncle shared a grim chuckle. “No, I don’t known anythin’ much about English history,” he admitted. “But it’s just so much less civilized out here. And you’re plannin’ on goin’ farther west? Lots of places, there’s hardly any law. And there’s Indians—and outlaws,” he added, inwardly amused, since he was one of them, “and so many places for them to hide. You’d need a small army to protect you. At least a cavalry regiment, and I don’t reckon the government’d be willing to provide you with one.”

“No, they’re not. I’ve already made inquiries,” Lord Halston said, surprising Morgan and, from the duchess’s face, the duchess, too. “Please listen to him, niece. We should leave.”

Morgan watched her square her shoulders and lift her chin. “I am not leaving, and that is final,” she told Lord Halston, who looked away and clenched his fists in a frustrated fashion.

She looked at Morgan. “But I will accept your assessment that I need some extra protection here,” she said. “Would you be willing to accept a position as my bodyguard, Mr. Calhoun?”

He felt as if he had a noose around his neck and the trapdoor had just fallen out from under him. A man whose face was on Wanted posters deliberately placing himself at the side of a rich, famous woman who would be the center of all eyes, wherever she went? Morgan suppressed an ironic laugh. True, he wasn’t likely to be notorious up here in Colorado or as far west as she mentioned going, but there were apt to be newspaper reporters talking to her, and writing their articles about the duchess and her entourage. There was no telling how far those newspaper stories might go. Someone might even publish a pen-and-ink drawing of the duchess with him standing by her. No, much as the idea of being in this beautiful woman’s presence for weeks appealed to him, as it would to any red-blooded man, he was going to have to pass for his own safety.

“Ma‘am, I’m afraid I had other plans—you know, the minin’ I mentioned? So I’m gonna have to thank you for your kind offer, but I’ll have to say no.”

“But Mr. Calhoun,” she said, her voice musical and persuasive as she glided forward to lay a hand on his arm, “you can see I have a real need for a man who can keep me safe.”

He forced himself to look away from the appeal in those blue eyes. “Ma‘am, I’ve never had any experience as a bodyguard. You need a man with experience—several men, in fact. And I need to be gettin’ on up into those mountains, and finding some riches of my own.”

“But you’ve already shown me you can protect me, Mr. Calhoun. That’s worth more to me than all the credentials a man could carry. I don’t want to have to hire some stranger or strangers. I want you, Mr. Calhoun,” she said, giving him the full force of her compelling gaze.

His grom tightened as the words echoed in his head. I want you. Lord, what he’d give to hear a woman like her saying such words with a more intimate meaning! Maybe she even guessed as much, and was playing him like a bass on a fishing line.

“And you’ll be handsomely paid, I do assure you—probably more than you could earn mining, and with none of the backbreaking work.”

“No, none of the backbreaking work,” he agreed. “I could live real easy, bein’ your bodyguard—and get killed with an easy bullet.”

Her face paled. “Yes, there is a risk, as you saw this afternoon. But I don’t want to die, either, and I’m willing to pay you well to protect me as best you can. Perhaps all it will take to discourage this—this scoundrel,” she suggested, “is the presence of a strong, intelligent man who is prepared to defend me.”

“You don’t know me,” he told her, locking his gaze to hers. “You don’t know anythin’ about me, Duchess. Everythin’ I’ve told you could be a lie.”

“Well, I can agree with that, at any rate,” Lord Halston said from behind them. “He’s right, your grace, we don’t know the first thing about Mr. Calhoun. He has the look of a ruffian, if I ever saw one. That may not even be his real name. It would be ridiculous to consider placing your trust in such a man. How could you trust a man who might steal the very jewelry from your neck, not to mention the valuables of the important people we will encounter? Why, we might all be murdered in our beds.”

Even as he suppressed a mighty urge to knock the stuckup, mouthy nobleman into the middle of next week, Morgan’s gaze was involuntarily drawn to the matching, square-cut sapphires at her neck and on one elegant finger. He had to admit the man had a point, even if he didn’t suspect how accurate he was. Not that Morgan would ever murder anyone, but stealing just the gems she was wearing right now would probably keep him for a year, if he could sell them for a reasonable price. And if she had more, he might even be able to buy that rancho he was always dreaming about in Mexico.

But the thought died as quickly as it was born. He wouldn’t steal from this woman. Not if she had all the riches of England and America combined.

“My lord, that is unforgivably rude to a man who has offered me nothing but kindness,” the duchess snapped. “You will apologize.”

“I stand by my opinion,” Lord Halston retorted. “It is my duty to say it, even if ’tis not what you want to hear, niece.”

Morgan pretended to ignore the argument and suddenly took the hand she had laid on his wrist into his own. Maybe he could scare her into abandoning the idea, make her realize she was playing with fire, even though he’d love to hear her defy the pompous fool.

“Listen to your uncle, Duchess,” he said, staring down at her with a deliberate, predatory air. He rubbed his thumb over the smooth, soft surface of her palm, lowering his voice so that it seemed they were alone in the room. “He could be right. I might steal all your jewelry... and murder you in your bed.”

The last three words seemed to take on a resonance of their own. He saw the pulse beat quicken in her neck, and felt the faint tremor of the cool hand he held.

“I believe you’re trying to frighten me, Mr. Calhoun, though I cannot think why,” she said. “You already proved you’re to be trusted, even at great risk to your own personal safety. My mind is made up. You’re the man I want for the job, Mr. Calhoun. I can double the salary I was intending to offer you, if that’s all you need to accept.”

He heard Lord Halston start to sputter behind them, and then she gripped his hand as tightly as he’d been holding hers.

It would have taken a stronger man than he was to resist that kind of temptation. Maybe he could stay with her for a little while, at least until she got out of Colorado Territory, until whoever was threatening her figured out he’d have to go through a bodyguard to get to the duchess, and got discouraged. And it wasn’t too likely anyone looking for him would think he’d dare to be seen at the side of an English noblewoman, even if she was going to be in the public eye much of the time. Even if it was summer, it’d be nice to be off the outlaw trail for a while, to have good food to eat that wasn’t cooked over a campfire, to be dry and warm, and not have to sleep on the cold hard ground under the stars.

“You don’t have to double my salary, Duchess. I reckon I’ll take the job.”

Chapter Five

She blinked, and a hectic flush of pink suffused her cheeks, making her look more like an English rose than ever. “Y-you will?” she managed to say at last. “That—that’s awfully good of you. Shall we say four thousand pounds, or would you prefer a weekly amount?”

He waved the thought of money aside for a moment. “You haven’t heard my conditions yet.”

“Conditions?” A trace of hauteur crept back into her voice as she raised an eloquent eyebrow.

“Yeah, conditions, Duchess. You need to hire three other men, too. There should be at least three of us on duty during the day and evening, at least two after you’ve gone to bed.”

She wrinkled her nose in distaste, then shook her head. “That’s out of the question, Mr. Calhoun. I have no desire to be surrounded by a trio of armed strangers treading on my skirts. They would make it appear that America terrifies me. That would hardly generate goodwill, would it? I want one man—you. Are you saying you’re not up to the job?”

Damn, but the lady was foolhardy—and stubborn, he thought, seeing the challenging glint in her eyes. “No, ma’am, I’m not saying that, but it just stands to reason three or four men could guard you better than just one,” he said with all the patience he could muster. “If there were three men guarding you at all times they could cover all the angles—”

She gave a silvery laugh. “Good gracious, it sounds as if we’d be preparing for a red Indian attack,” she said lightly. “No, Mr. Calhoun, my mind is quite made up. I shall either have you to safeguard me, or no one. What will it be?”

He’d worked with mules that were less headstrong than this titled Englishwoman. The only smart thing to do was to refuse, but he didn’t want to do that. He’d taken the measure of the two men in the duchess’s party, and he wouldn’t trust Lord Halston or that skinny secretary fellow, Donald, to protect the duchess from so much as a raindrop, let alone a bad man intent on harming her. He could tell she meant what she said—if he didn’t agree to guard her, she’d try to survive without a bodyguard. Which meant she wouldn’t be alive long.

He tried another approach. Perhaps he could appeal to her pride. “Ma‘am, if it’s a matter of money that keeps you from hirin’ more than one, I’ll work cheap. I’m used to not having much money jinglin’ in my pockets.”

Now she was really amused. The laughter bubbled up from some wellspring within her, and she covered her mouth with a graceful hand as if trying to smother her mirth. “My good Mr. Calhoun, I do assure you I can afford to pay you and a dozen men, if I desired to, but I do not. You will be my sole bodyguard until such time as conditions warrant otherwise. Is that clear, Mr. Calhoun?” She was every inch the titled aristocrat now, and it made him want to look down at his boots to see if they were muddy.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, frowning at her tone. “I just thought you ought to know my opinion.”

“And now I do.”

She seemed to be waiting for something, but he didn’t know what, so he was silent, too. At last she said, with a touch of impatience, “You said you had ‘conditions,’ Mr. Calhoun? What other concerns did you have?”

He didn’t have an ounce of confidence that she’d agree to the second condition if she hadn’t to the first, but he had to try. Someone wiser than this English rose had to be in charge.

“I want to know that if I tell you to do somethin’ in the middle of a serious situation, Duchess, that you’ll do it—right then, without any questions, ’cause there might not be any time to argue about it. It won’t be because I like havin’ my own way—it’ll be because your life depends on doin’ what I say as soon as I say it.”

Their eyes dueled for an endless moment, and he saw a glimpse of the steely strength of her will. But she looked away first.

“Agreed,” Duchess Sarah murmured, “though I’m afraid I’m not very good at taking orders—I’ve not had much practice with it recently, you see. Now, we must settle upon your salary. As I asked before, how does four thousand pounds sound to you? I can give it to you at one lump sum, at the end of your employment, or in spaced increments, as you prefer.”

Morgan hesitated. “I don’t know. What is four thousand pounds in American dollars?”

She shrugged. “I’m afraid I haven’t the least idea. Donald?” She looked over her shoulder at her secretary, who by now had caught his breath and was less red faced.

Donald stared at the ceiling for a moment, then said, “I believe it’s in the vicinity of twenty thousand dollars, your grace.”

Morgan whistled through his teeth, an action that had Lord Halston glaring at him all over again. Twenty thousand dollars could take him off the outlaw trail forever. And it would sure make the trials of dealing with a mule-headed foreign woman downright pleasant.

“Okay, you’ve got a bodyguard, Duchess. When do I start?” he asked, wondering if he’d just set his foot to a road that was going to end in disaster.

It was as if the sun had suddenly come out. Duchess Sarah’s face was radiant with her smile. “Good. I’m very grateful. Can you present yourself back here tonight, say, at half after seven? I am expected at a reception in the home of Edward McCook, the territorial governor, at eight o’clock, and that should give us ample time to get there. You were carrying a saddle when I first encountered you—do you have a horse here?”

He nodded, his mind still on the reception, but she went on, “Very well, you will want to install it in the hotel’s stable. Tell the liveryman you work for me.”

“Duchess, you’re going to go to some party that half of Denver knows about?” Morgan said dubiously. “I don’t think you ought to go—not after that note.”

“Mr. Calhoun, I’m not hiring you so that I can stay meekly in my rooms here like a little mouse. I have agreed to be present at this event, and there are many important people who will be expecting to meet me. I will be there.”

He shrugged. He hadn’t really expected to win that round.

“Oh, and Donald, do give Mr. Calhoun an advance on his salary—say fifty dollars? Mr. Calhoun, you’ll need to pick up a suit of ready-made clothes for the sort of formal events you’ll be attending with me. Do you suppose Denver has such an establishment?”

“Well, yes, ma‘am, I imagine so, but it’s probably already goin’ on six, and I reckon the stores’re all closed.”

She looked disappointed, but darted a glance at Lord Halston and said, “All right, you may attend to that in the morning. Perhaps you could wear one of my uncle’s suits, just for this evening?”

Morgan was amused to see the Englishman bristle and begin to sputter, “Now, just a moment, niece—”

“No, ma‘am, I don’t reckon I could. Looks like his lordship’s trousers would end at my shins, and I’d probably rip ‘em at the shoulders the first time I flexed ’em.” He was trying to be tactful, but he felt the Englishman’s hostile stare intensify at the words. The duchess’s uncle sure spent a lot of his time looking angry. “Reckon I’d better be leavin’ if I’m gonna get back here in time for your party, ma’am. Don’t worry, I may not look fancy, but I’ll try to find somethin’ to wear that doesn’t disgrace you.”

If he left now, he’d just have time to explain to the widow that ran the Mountain View Boardinghouse why he was checking out the same day he’d checked in. And she might have a solution to his clothing problem. She’d mentioned that her late husband had been a tall man like him. With any luck, she’d still have his clothes, and with some of the money that the duchess’s secretary was holding out to him, he could induce her to part with something suitable for this evening—at least until he could get something of his own. Then he could get Rio, his pinto stallion, out of the livery down the street from the boardinghouse, ride him over to the Grand Central Hotel’s stable and present himself back to the duchess.

Sarah, now wearing her spectacles, watched in the mirror while Celia put the finishing touches to her hair with a curling iron. If only Thierry were here with me, then I should not be so nervous. She smiled at the thought of the handsome, tawny-haired Frenchman with his thin, elegant mustache, resplendent in his uniform as an officer of Louis Napoleon’s cavalry, escorting her to the reception tonight She wondered what he was doing right now, back home in England. Perhaps he was attending some ball in London, at the side of his exiled emperor, Louis Napoleon?

Thierry had told her he despised such events because of the fuss dowagers with marriageable daughters made over him, when he had much rather be with her. Soon, my love, she had promised. At the end of my journey we will be man and wife, and then you will be forever out of the reach of the matchmaking mamas, my poor darling.

“Your grace is in prime looks tonight,” her dresser said fondly from behind her, meeting her eyes in the mirror

“Thank you, Celia,” Sarah murmured, studying her reflection critically. The gown of light blue grosgrain, with its vandyked bertha, opened in front over a white lace underwaist confined by a cluster of white satin roses, and showed off slender white shoulders and a hint of cleavage beneath a necklace of pearls with a rectangular blue topaz pendant. Matching topaz stones gleamed from her ears.

“Your grace’s gems set off your eyes.”

“They do, don’t they? They’ve always been my favorite set of Mama’s. Papa said I have her eyes,” Sarah said, and then found herself wondering what Morgan Calhoun would think of her appearance. The thought of his eyes straying toward the shadowy hint of cleavage made her pulse quicken.

The thought startled her. Why was she, a woman in love, thinking that way about a man she had hired to perform a service?

And what would Thierry say if he knew she had hired a bodyguard? He should be glad, if he could not be there to protect her, right? Instinctively, though, she knew that if the Count of Châtellerault had met Morgan Calhoun, he would be jealous, not glad.

Thierry de Châtellerault’s only fault, really, was his jealousy. Sarah had never been a flirt, had never given him cause to be insecure about her affections, but she could tell Thierry wasn’t happy whenever a well-favored lord conversed with Sarah or asked her to dance at a ball. They’d talked about it, and Thierry had claimed to understand the need for such subterfuge until their surprise marriage was a fait accompli, but each time, his face looked like a thundercloud.

Morgan Calhoun was just an employee, not a social equal, but Thierry was a very perceptive man. If Thierry had been present, he would have sensed that Morgan Calhoun had a certain effect on Sarah—and he would have been on the alert.

Just then, through the door of her bedroom, she heard the muffled knock on the outer door of her suite, and the sound of footsteps as Donald went and let in the knocker.

“Oh, it’s you, Calhoun,” she heard her uncle say, and her heartbeat quickened. He had come. Morgan Calhoun was here, and now, officially, her bodyguard. “What, you’re not dressed yet? Good God, man, we must leave within moments!”

“Now, just hold your horses,” she heard Calhoun drawl. “I got a suit of clothes right here on my arm, but I didn’t want to wear it ridin’ over here, and end up smellin’ like my horse, so I brought it in my saddlebags instead. Give me a coupla minutes and a room to change in, and I’ll be ready.”

Celia’s eyes met Sarah’s again in the mirror. “Doubtless Mr. Calhoun’s clothes will need pressing,” she informed her mistress primly. “Unless there’s something else your grace would want me to do, perhaps I’d better go put the iron on the fire. I’ll summon you, ma’am, when all is finally in readiness for our departure.”

“I believe I’m ready as I am,” Sarah said. “Yes, do go see if Mr. Calhoun needs assistance.”

And so Sarah found herself waiting in her room for a good fifteen minutes, listening to Lord Halston fume that they were going to be late, and what would everyone say if the duchess were late to the reception being given in her honor?

At last Celia opened the door and said that Mr. Calhoun was dressed, and if her grace was ready, they could depart for the reception.

Her mouth was suddenly dry, her pulse pounding Sarah rose halfway out of her seat, then sank back and reached for her bottle of scent. She applied the moistened stopper to her wrists, the area behind her ears and between her breasts, and smiled slightly at herself when she smelled the rose essence. Then she arose and started for the door, only to stop stockstill halfway out of the room and step back to the mirror. She’d almost gone out there in front of Calhoun wearing her spectacles—that would never do! Sarah frowned as she removed the gold-rimmed circles of glass and everything farther than six feet from her became blurry.

She supposed she had so many material blessings as the Duchess of Malvern that wishing for perfect eyesight was a little ungrateful of her, but she wished it anyway. Taking as deep a breath as her corset would allow, she stepped into the other room

Immediately she heard a sharp intake of breath. A dark-clad figure lounging in a chair by the door sprang to attention.

“Duchess, I...I reckon you look pretty as a...well, I don’t know what to compare you to, ma’am. You look beautiful, and that’s a fact.”

Sarah felt the blush spreading down from her scalp all the way to her toes as she came close enough to be able to focus on him.

“Her grace’s appearance is of no concern to you, Mr. Calhoun,” she heard her uncle mutter.

“Don’t be tiresome, uncle,” she chided. “I could hear you fussing from inside my room. Mr. Calhoun is very nice to compliment me.”

Now close enough to be able to see Morgan Calhoun clearly, she could tell the man was transformed. From somewhere he had managed to find a black frock coat and trousers, and a dazzlingly white shirt with a stiffly starched, upstanding collar and wide, red-striped tie knotted at his neck. The coat had been made for a man with narrower shoulders, though it was not as ill-fitting as Uncle Frederick’s would have been, but it would do very well until he could have a tailor take his exact measurements and make something especially for him. He looked imposing—and the stark black and white of his clothes made him look formidable, Sarah decided. He did not look like a man to be trifled with.

“Do I pass inspection?” he asked.

She gazed up into green eyes over which the lids drooped halfway, giving him a deceptively sleepy appearance. She was reminded of a dozing leopard—sleek, black and just as deadly.

“Yes, I believe you’ll do, Mr. Calhoun,” she said, injecting a note of briskness she was far from feeling. “Now, Donald, has the carriage been sent for? Yes? Very good. Then perhaps we had better leave for the reception. Celia, Donald, we’ll try not to be too late,” she said, waving to her dresser and her secretary. “Come, uncle,” she said, and started for the door.

But Morgan was there before her, barring her way.

“Just a moment, Duchess. I reckon we should start bein’ careful right now. Just let me check the corridor first, and the stairway down to the front of the hotel, and I’ll come back and tell you it’s safe to go.”

“Yes, very well,” she managed to say. She hadn’t realized how having a bodyguard would affect her every step, but clearly Calhoun was taking his responsibilities seriously.

He was back moments later, saying it was all right to go, and Sarah, on the arm of Uncle Frederick, descended the stairs, preceded by Calhoun.

The sun was hanging low over the mountains beyond Denver as they stepped outside the hotel and toward the waiting landau.

Morgan stopped without warning, nearly causing Sarah and her uncle to careen into him.

“I gave an order for the top to be put back up, but I see your driver didn’t do it,” he said, gesturing to the folded-down roof of the landau, which was made in two sections to go over the facing seats when desired.

“Her grace’s instructions were for the top to be down,” Ben, her groom, growled back from beside the carriage. He had been doubling as coachman when required during this journey.

“The top’s got to be put up, Duchess,” Morgan said, his face implacable. “Please just step back inside the hotel until I’ve fixed it.”

Ben wouldn’t like the newcomer telling him what to do, Sarah thought, dismayed. “Oh, but is that really necessary?” she asked Morgan, then wished she could call back the words. She sounded like a child being denied a sweet at teatime. Perhaps if she explained... “It’s such a pleasant night! I’d fancy feeling the breeze in my hair on the way to the reception.”

“Would you?” His face was unreadable in the twilight, but his next words were clear enough. “As long as you leave the top down, that man who tried to shoot you this afternoon might fancy getting a clear shot at your head or your heart, Duchess.”

She couldn’t stifle a gasp at the graphic image.

“Surely it’s not necessary to speak so bluntly to a gentlewoman,” snapped Frederick.

Morgan looked down at Lord Halston. “Your lordship, I reckon I don’t know any other way to speak. You want someone to make big speeches, you hire someone else. But I’m telling the duchess it ain’t safe to ride around in an open carriage when someone tried to shoot her just hours ago.”

Sarah said crisply, “Uncle, this is the very thing I’m paying Mr. Calhoun to tell me. Ben, I’m sorry, but the top will need to be put back up. Mr. Calhoun, we’ll just wait inside as you’ve suggested until it’s done.”

Calhoun’s nod of approval should not have mattered so.

Chapter Six

The drive to the territorial governor’s residence, an imposing brick two-storied building on the northeast corner of Welton and Blake Streets, did not take long and was without incident. Morgan hopped down from his perch beside the truculent coachman, and the curtain over one of the landau’s windows was pushed back.

“Goodness, it’s going to be a crush,” Sarah Challoner said, referring to the people spilling out over the governor’s porch and thronging the upstairs balcony.

“Just wait in the carriage a moment, Duchess,” Morgan said in a low voice as he looked up and down the street, and scanned the shrubbery and rooftops of the neighboring houses. He could see nothing moving in the rapidly fading light. He didn’t like the idea of Sarah Challoner mingling with all those people without his searching them first, but he knew that wasn’t possible. “All right, let’s go ahead, but I’m sticking right by you.”

“Do you suppose you could address your employer properly as ‘your grace,’ at least in public?” hissed Lord Halston as he emerged from the depths of the carriage.

Two men, dressed in evening black, separated themselves from the milling crowd on the porch and came forward, and Morgan recognized the taller and thinner of the two as the mayor, who’d greeted the duchess at the train station.

“Your grace, we’re happy you’re here,” John Harper said. “May I present Edward McCook, governor of the Territory of Colorado?”

The other man, whose face was decorated with a heavy mustache, bowed gravely. “Your grace, my apologies for not meeting your train, especially in view of what I’m told took place there. I understand you suffered no injury, madam—is that true?”

“How nice to meet you, sir,” Sarah Challoner said, smiling, her face serene. “And yes, I’m perfectly fine. Please don’t give that incident another thought I’d like to present my uncle, Frederick, Lord Halston, the Marquess of Kennington....”

“My lord.”

She wasn’t going to mention the written threat she had received, Morgan guessed as he kept looking in all directions. He wished they’d hurry up and go into the house. She was too vulnerable out here in the open.

“And this is Mr. Morgan Calhoun, my... bodyguard,” she said, nodding over her shoulder to indicate Morgan.

McCook and Harper looked alarmed, but were evidently not about to question a duchess. They nodded to Morgan, but did not extend their hands.

“Your grace, I’d feel better if we got inside,” Morgan said in a low voice.

“By all means, your grace,” McCook said, offering his arm even as he flashed a disapproving look at Morgan. “We’ve assembled the cream of Colorado society to greet you, madam. Everyone’s quite excited at the prospect of meeting an actual duchess.”

“Then let’s not keep them waiting further, gentlemen,” Sarah said, taking McCook’s arm with regal ease.

The crowd on the lantern-lit porch parted to let them through as the governor led them into the house.

“We’ll have a receiving line in the ballroom first, your grace, if that’s agreeable to you,” Morgan heard the governor say as he led the duchess and the rest of them up a long stairway.

They came to a large room with chairs and settees lining the walls, interspersed at intervals with large potted plants. At the far end a woman was playing a huge golden harp, her soft music reminding Morgan of clear green water running over the limestone bed of a Texas river. Here and there paintings hung on the wall, portraits of Washington and Lincoln and one of the Founding Fathers signing the Declaration of Independence.

The room hummed with chatter, and held even more people than had been out on the porch and balcony. Silence fell, however, as the invitees stepped aside to allow the host and his important guests to form a line at the entrance to the room. Morgan observed from the side of the room as they assembled, with the mayor first, followed by the governor, the duchess and finally Lord Halston.

“Mr. Calhoun?” called Sarah Challoner, looking around for him and sounding a bit uncertain.

He crossed over to her and said softly, “I’ll be right over there by the door, Duchess.” He nodded his head in that direction. “I can keep an eye on who’s approaching you from there.”

She nodded, apparently reassured, and then the guests began coming through the line. Morgan saw her turn with a brilliant smile to meet the first of them.

He watched as she was introduced to mine owners, bankers, speculators in real estate. Then came half a dozen men in the dress uniform of the U.S. Army.

Morgan nearly jumped out of his skin. He hadn’t seen them as they had entered the governor’s residence, and the sight of those blue-uniformed officers in their gold-braid-trimmed uniforms made his heart thud beneath the borrowed white shirt. He didn’t take his eyes off them as they waited to meet the duchess. If just one of them looked at him a bit too long or pointed at him to one of his fellows, Morgan knew he was going to have to run for it—and though he’d hate himself for abandoning her, the duchess would just have to look out for herself.

None of them seemed to have eyes for anyone but Sarah Challoner, though. It was almost as if Morgan were invisible. If those soldiers only knew that the very man the army wanted for robbing the stage that had carried the troops’ payroll was right here in the room with them, they wouldn’t be so concerned with bowing over the duchess’s hand, he thought grimly. What a difference his shaving and wearing some fancy duds made! They didn’t recognize him as the desperado whose face was on all the Wanted posters.

The women at the sides of the men coming through the line were each more gorgeously dressed than the last, in silks and satins, feathers, flowers, ribbons and lace, in a rainbow of colors and accented by a blinding array of jewels.

He smiled at the irony of being in the same room with all those jewels. The ladies wearing them would have been jumpy as cats on ice if they had known how many lovely baubles he’d taken at gunpoint off the necks of wealthy women like themselves.

He wasn’t here to rob anyone, though, so he studied the ladies’ faces. Some of them were attractive, some merely well-dressed and groomed, but none was as lovely as the duchess. She shone like a gleaming diamond among fool’s gold.

He felt a pang of regret as he took in the entire scene. Once, as a Calhoun, descended from one of the original settlers of Texas and owner of the finest ranch for a hundred miles, Morgan had belonged in such a world. He had been dressed as well as any of them, not wearing rented clothes. He’d had a beautiful belle on his arm.

But that was a long time ago, before the war, and now he was a breed apart from those chattering, fancily dressed people. He was an outlaw, no matter what his temporary role was with the Duchess of Malvern.

“Hello,” he heard a husky voice say as the last few guests were going through the line, and then he was startled to feel a hand on his wrist.

Morgan looked down to see one of the ladies who had gone through the receiving line, a short brunette whose garnet brooch drew attention to the scandalously low neckline of the dark red gown she was wearing.

“I know it isn’t conventional for a lady to introduce herself to a gentleman,” she said, “but I kept waiting for you to leave the wall you seemed to be holding up and come through the line, and you haven’t moved. So I decided I’d have to be unconventional and introduce myself. I’m Helen Wharton. My brother William over there—” she jerked her head in the direction of a ginger-headed young man talking to a group of businessmen underneath the chandelier “—owns the Double W Mining Company. You’ve heard of it? I haven’t met you at any of these gatherings before, and I thought I knew everyone in our social circle.”

Morgan breathed in her perfume, and was aware of a quick flaring of lust as his brain appreciated the musky scent that surrounded the woman like a cloud. At another time or place he’d have enjoyed a dance of seduction with this woman, for her bold eyes told him she’d be more than willing to partner him in that particular waltz.

“Morgan Calhoun, ma’am,” he said, inclining his head politely, “and I reckon we haven’t met because I’m not exactly in your social circle. I’m just here to guard the duchess.” Deliberately he cut his eyes back to the receiving line, expecting the woman to stalk off in search of more prominent prey.

He was wrong, it seemed. She was still there when he looked back down. Excitement flashed in her brown eyes, and she removed her long-nailed hand from his wrist to stroke down his biceps.

“Ooh, you’re a bodyguard?” she breathed. “How very exciting. Why don’t we get some punch and step out on the balcony? You can tell me all about your experiences....”

He narrowed his eyes in what he hoped was a discouraging manner, and shook his head. He couldn’t afford to let her distract him. “I’m here to keep my eye on the duchess,” he said, returning his gaze to Sarah Challoner. “I’ve got to stay by her.”

Helen Wharton pouted for just a moment. “Ah, I can see you’re devoted to duty...very commendable, I’m sure. But you’re entitled to a little refreshment, aren’t you? Why don’t I go get us both some punch and bring it back here? You can keep your eye on your duchess, and I’ll keep you company.”

Morgan gave a wary okay to her offer, then went back to watching the duchess.

The dark-haired Helen was back within moments, somehow managing to bring two cups of punch and a plate full of finger sandwiches through the crowd without mishap.

“Much obliged,” Morgan said, taking a grateful sip, and blinking in surprise as he tasted liquor mingled with the fruity liquid. Rum, he guessed.

“This is rather...potent,” he said, his eyes leaving the duchess for a moment to rest on Helen Wharton and the cup she was raising to her lips. “I hope there was something a little less...strong for you, ma’am?” He’d better limit himself to one cup, and sip that sparingly, or soon he’d be too blind drunk even to see the duchess, much less protect her.

Helen laughed merrily. “There is a punch for the ladies, but I’m drinking the same thing as you are. I’m afraid I find the other stuff rather insipid. Here, have a sandwich.”

He accepted the morsel from her, then searched and found Sarah Challoner in the crowd. The receiving line finished, she had joined the same group of businessmen that Helen Wharton’s brother had been standing among. Just then William Wharton returned, bearing punch and sandwiches, which he offered to the duchess.

“Hospitality seems to run in your family,” Morgan observed.

“Yes...I ran into my brother at the refreshment table. He’s quite taken with your duchess. Says she’s the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen.”

Morgan sure couldn’t disagree with that, so he said nothing, just kept his eye on the duchess as the mining magnate went on chatting with her. His conversation was evidently very stimulating, for Sarah Challoner was animated, her color high, her blue eyes sparkling. Then he saw that something Wharton said had amused her, for she tipped back her head and laughed. The sound was lost in the noisy room, but Morgan fancied he could hear its silvery music.

Lord, he wished he were a rich man so he could stand talking with Sarah Challoner like this, and have her laughing at some clever thing he said.

Then he saw Wharton gesture toward the balcony, and Sarah’s narrow-eyed stare in its direction before she nodded.

From here he could see that the balcony was empty of other guests, and someone had blown out the torches that had illuminated it at their arrival. So the rich fellow imagined he was going to lure Sarah Challoner out into the darkness?

“You’ll have to excuse me,” he growled to the woman beside him, handing her his cup without even looking at her and striding forward to intercept the couple heading for the balcony.

“Pardon me, Du—your grace,” he amended, planting himself in front of the couple. The duchess had her hand on Wharton’s arm, a fact that fueled his ire.

The two halted, Wharton blinking at him as if Morgan had two heads. “Mr. Calhoun, is something wrong?” Sarah Challoner asked.

“No, ma’am, but I can’t have you...I don’t think...that is, you shouldn’t go out on the balcony.”

“Oh, don’t be silly. It’s dark out there. No one who’d want to harm me could even see me.”

“Harm you? What do you mean?” Wharton asked. Then, when he received no answer, he glared at Morgan, his face reddening, a pulse beating in his temples. “Now, see here, fellow, just who do you think you are to be ordering her grace around?”

Morgan ignored him. “Ma’am, there’s a full moon, and your dress is a pale color. A sniper wouldn’t need much more.”

Sarah Challoner lifted her chin—always a sign of imminent rebellion, he’d discovered—and her lips thinned. “Oh, don’t be tiresome, Mr. Calhoun. I’ll be fine. Mr. Wharton merely thought I might like some air.”

I’ll just bet he did, Morgan thought, fixing his piercing gaze on the mining magnate until the other man’s eyes fell.

“I’m afraid I’ll have to agree with Mr. Calhoun, your grace,” said Lord Halston, who had suddenly appeared at Morgan’s side in time to hear the last exchange. “It would be most unwise.”

“My dear duchess, what on earth are they talking about? Have you been threatened?” Wharton demanded.

Her face smoothed out as she looked at Wharton. “It’s nothing, Mr. Wharton. Truly. They’re just being cautious. Isn’t there some quieter room to which we can go and chat some more? I vow, all this noise is giving me a headache!”

“Certainly, your grace,” Wharton said with a genial smile—a smug smile that Morgan wanted to wipe off the man’s ginger-cat face with his knuckles. “The governor has a small library downstairs where we may be private, I’m sure. If that’s all right with your...guardians,” he said with deliberate provocation.

Morgan’s fists clenched at his side as he struggled to be polite. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Lord Halston bristling and white-faced. Good for you, Halston.

“I reckon that’s all right, if I can go with you and check out the room first, and then I’ll stand outside the door and make sure no one else comes in,” he said.

“Well, it’s not all right with me,” Sarah Challoner snapped, her eyes blazing with blue fire at Morgan and Lord Halston alike. “You two are smothering me, and I won’t have it. There is absolutely nothing amiss in my speaking to Mr. Wharton privately, and if you wish to continue in my employ, Mr. Calhoun, you’ll stay upstairs, is that clear? Come, Mr. Wharton, show me this library.”

Morgan stared at her retreating figure as she left the reception room. Life was too short to put up with a woman so obstinate she wouldn’t even accept guidance when she’d asked for it. He could be back at the boardinghouse within the hour and heading for the mountains day after tomorrow, a free man. And the duchess could go to blazes.

Then he felt Lord Halston’s hand on his shoulder. “I’d like to apologize for my niece’s behavior, Calhoun. I’ll speak with her later, get her to see reason. I—I’d take it as a personal favor if you wouldn’t quit without giving her another chance.”

Morgan couldn’t have been more surprised if Lord Halston had suddenly sprouted a halo and wings, and it was the surprise that cooled his anger. “All right,” he conceded, “if you’ll talk to her, I’ll stay. I’m not going to go through this every time she disagrees with me.”

“She’s very headstrong,” the marquess admitted. “A result of her being raised as heiress to a duchy. The late Duke of Malvern treated her as if she were the son he’d never had. Once it was apparent she would be duchess one day, he encouraged her to make decisions on her own just as if she were a man. As her oldest male relative, I’ve tried to guide her as best I could, but...” He shrugged. “Sometimes that strong will leads her into error.”

“I just hope that stubbornness doesn’t get her killed,” Morgan muttered, and stalked away to find a drink—a real one, not just that damn punch.

Crouched in the darkness outside the territorial governor’s residence, the assassin waited on the roof of the mansion next door to the governor’s. The owners of the mansion, who were present at the reception, didn’t know he was there, and since their servants had been lent to McCook for the evening, too, he’d had no difficulty stealing inside and making his way to the roof. He was dressed in black from head to foot. Even the barrel of his Winchester rifle had been rubbed with grease and then coated with soot so as not to give off a betraying gleam.

He’d taken up his position on the roof long before the duchess had arrived. He could have shot her as she strolled into the house with her uncle and that watchdog she’d hired, but he’d decided it was too risky. There were a lot of people outside, and someone might have seen the flash from the muzzle of his rifle when he fired. He’d decided to wait until the duchess took the air out on the balcony or on the porch, but that hadn’t taken place yet, either. Maybe her watchdog had warned her against it. But it wouldn’t save her. He had a contingency plan already in place.

He pulled a pocket watch out and studied its face by the light of the full moon. Any moment now the duchess would come rushing out the door with her entourage, and their faces would reflect the panic they felt inside. Panicked people were easy targets.

“Mr. Calhoun, we’ve got to leave. Immediately!”

The duchess was suddenly standing in front of him, white-faced and trembling. Wharton was standing by her side, looking as if his genial composure had permanently deserted him.

Morgan had been sipping whiskey by a potted aspidistra with Helen Wharton, who had rejoined him, apparently not minding that he had challenged her brother He had felt his knotted-up gut relax under the influence of her pleasant chatter and the mellow amber liquid.

It took him a few seconds to refocus. “What’s wrong, Duchess?”

She was trembling like an aspen in the wind. “Show him, Mr. Wharton ”

The other man reached into his waistcoat pocket and produced a folded piece of paper. “This was just delivered by a servant who claims to have been paid by a stranger to deliver it at half after ten.”

Morgan unfolded the note, feeling the knot reforming in his gut. It said “HAVIN A GOOD TIME DUCHISS? SOON YOUL BE IN YER GRAVE A PATRIOTT.”

Chapter Seven

“Yeah, we’ve got to leave, but careful-like,” Morgan said, suddenly all business. “Where’s Lord Halston?”

Suddenly it seemed as if there was little air in the room. None of the blurry figures standing around the room looked like the familiar figure of her uncle. “I don’t know! But we’ve got to find him, and I must say my farewell to the governor! It would be rude not to thank Mr. McCook—”

“There’s no time for those things. We’ll send the carnage back for your uncle. I don’t want anyone else knowin’ we’re leavin’, Duchess,” he said in a low voice. “Wharton, go out and find the duchess’s driver. He should be standing by a landau with a matched pair of grays. Talk loud—say that the duchess and her party are gonna stay the night, and she wants him to go on back to the hotel. Then whisper that he’s to wait about midway down the street behind this one. We’ll find our way to him. And don’t tell anyone else what we’re doing.”

Wharton blinked, and Sarah was reminded of an owl. “I will, but wait for me here. I’m coming with you to make sure the duchess is safe.”

“Thank you, Mr. Wharton,” Sarah breathed. “It’s very good of you—”

Morgan interrupted, saying, “Just go do what I told you, Wharton.”

As soon as Wharton had disappeared, Morgan’s hand was on her elbow, propelling her toward the staircase. “Come on, Duchess, this way,” he said

“But we were going to wait for Mr Wharton!” she protested as Calhoun pulled her down the carpeted staircase.

“No.” They reached the bottom, and he steered her down a darkened hallway that apparently led to the rear of the house. Coming to a door, he opened it and pulled her inside.

It appeared to be a parlor. Letting go of her arm, Morgan crossed the room in three rapid strides, took hold of one of the dark, heavy curtains hanging over the window and gave a yank, pulling it down.

“Here, put this around you like a cloak—over your head, too,” he said

“But...” she began as she pulled the curtain around her.

The dust rising from it made her sneeze.

“We’re goin’ out the back way. The dark curtain will make you a little harder to spot in the darkness,” he explained. “Come on.” And then he seemed to notice that she was shaking. “You gotta take hold of yourself, Duchess,” he commanded. “Panic is just what this fella is countin’ on. Just do what I tell you, and we’ll come outa this okay.”

She nodded, braced by his certainty, and determined not to appear a frightened mouse in Morgan Calhoun’s eyes.

Moments later she was running with him across the darkened back lawn, clutching her makeshift cloak at her neck and holding Calhoun’s hand with her other one to keep herself from falling. His hand felt warm and strong. He clutched a pistol in his other hand.

He found the gate into the alley, and pulled her after him into the dark passageway.

“We’ll take it slow from here, Duchess,” he whispered. “Try and walk quiet”

No matter how quietly she walked, though, Sarah was sure any pursuer could hear her panting like a winded fox. She knew how that fox would feel, hearing the dogs come closer and closer She’d never ride to hounds again.

He paused when he came to the gate to another yard down the alley. “We’ll cut through here.”

This yard was more uneven than the governor’s, and she stumbled, going down heavily on one knee. She heard the fabric rip, and a stinging pain shot through her knee.

Calhoun pulled her to her feet without comment, and they continued on around the side of a darkened house. There was a tall tree with low-hanging boughs on the front lawn, and he pulled her into the deeper darkness against its broad trunk.

“We’ll wait here for your driver,” he whispered.

“What if he doesn’t come?” she whispered back, straining to see his face in the darkness. Ben might not believe that Wharton had really come from her, and might insist on speaking to her or her uncle personally.

“Then eventually we’ll have to walk back to the hotel,” he told her. “But I reckon the wild eyes on that jackass Wharton will convince him.”

His contemptuous tone ignited her anger, burning away her traces of fear. “How dare you speak of a gentleman like that? And what about you? I saw you standing there all cozy with his bold-eyed tart of a sister when you should have been—”

“Should have been what, Duchess?” he demanded. She could barely make out his eyes glittering in the darkness. “You wanted me to leave you alone, remember?”

She was silent, trying to rein in her temper. Her heart felt as if it was pounding in her ears. “I—I just won’t have you speaking of Mr. Wharton like that. He—he was very pleasant company, that’s all.” She could feel him staring at her in the darkness.

“You’re the boss ”

“Indeed.” She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of protesting too much, but pleasant company was all Wharton had been. He’d been entertaining and complimentary and clearly awed to be speaking to a duchess. And he was one of the few men she’d met this evening who hadn’t been staring down the front of her dress, asking sly questions about her wealth, or offering to be her duke, as if that were possible. She hadn’t felt any tug of attraction to Wharton, though she’d agreed when he’d asked to escort her to the theater.

It wasn’t as if she were looking for an American man to replace Thierry, she assured herself. And it wasn’t like being with Morgan Calhoun, whose very presence seemed to demand much of her. Maybe too much.

Wharton had meant nothing improper when he’d asked her to take the air with him, she was sure of it. But she’d seen the look in Calhoun’s eyes when he’d stopped them, and guessed how it had looked to him. Good Lord, what if he’d known she was secretly engaged? Would he have an even worse opinion of her for wanting to go out on the balcony with Wharton then?

By God, she was a duchess, and not about to let a man dictate to her, especially a man whose salary she paid!

Then she heard a soft clip-clopping, which grew louder, stopping just down the street.

Calhoun peered around the broad trunk of the tree. “There’s the landau,” he said. “Come on.” He seized her hand and pulled her into a zigzagging run to the coach. Sarah would have stopped to explain to Ben, but Morgan thrust her almost roughly into the coach and followed her inside, calling out, “Get on back to the hotel! I’ll explain once we get the duchess back safe in her room.”

Sarah held herself rigidly erect on the way back to the hotel, hoping Calhoun would see that she was furious with him, but he didn’t even seem to remember she was there. He kept lifting the curtain and peering out the window. Neither of them spoke.

Back in her suite at the Grand Central, Sarah gave her dresser and her secretary a terse explanation of their early return without Lord Halston, watching out of the corner of her eye while Calhoun checked windows and looked behind curtains and under furniture.

“Well, thank God for Mr. Calhoun, I say,” Celia muttered as she knelt before Sarah to examine the dirt-stained rent in the skirt of Sarah’s gown. “Better to have ruined a dress than to be shot at again. Isn’t that right, Mr. Alconbury?”

But Sarah’s secretary, hovering at Sarah’s elbow, could only stare at her, white-faced.

“Cheer up, Donald,” Sarah said bracingly, patting him on the shoulder. She was touched that her secretary cared so much. “I’m unharmed, as you see. Do you suppose you could sit down with me and help me quickly compose a note for Ben to take to the governor when he goes back to pick up my uncle? I owe the poor man some explanation for disappearing from his reception! We shall have to tell him the truth, I suppose. Whatever will he think?”

“Why not tell him you’re leavin’ Denver tomorrow while you’re at it?” Morgan suggested.

“Because I shall not be leaving, Mr. Calhoun,” she told him. “Do me the favor of not bringing it up again.”

Calhoun sighed and looked away.

Donald managed to pull himself together, and within moments the missive was ready and the secretary was taking it down to Ben, who waited at the landau.

“Now, your grace, why not let me help you out of that ruined thing and into your dressing gown?” Celia said practically. “You can wait in your bedroom for my lord’s return. I’ll have hot milk sent up from the kitchen.”

Calhoun stopped his pacing long enough to growl, “You can go fetch it. I don’t want to wonder if it’s really a hotel employee knocking on this door.”

“Very well, Mr. Calhoun,” Sarah’s dresser fairly snarled back at him. “I will be happy to ‘fetch’ it. But I will assist her grace first. Come, my lady.”

The two women headed for Sarah’s bedroom, which lay directly off the main room, only to have Sarah stop in amazement at the cot that lay in front of its door. “What on earth—?”

“He directed it be put there,” Celia informed her archly with a nod toward Calhoun, who’d begun prowling about the room again. “He says he’s going to sleep there.”

“Is he? How very medieval,” Sarah murmured, then allowed herself to titter. She hoped Calhoun heard it.

The next morning she had Donald escort her down into the stable through an entrance in the back of the hotel. Her secretary had told her Calhoun had gone there to check on his horse.

Uncle Frederick had been beside himself when he’d returned last night and received the full report on what had happened. Once again he’d begged Sarah to leave Denver immediately, not even waiting till morning. But when Sarah had once again adamantly refused to go, he’d proceeded to give her a stern dressing-down for her display of temper at the reception.

She found Morgan Calhoun in a stall, currying a tall, skewbald horse.

“Mr. Calhoun, if I might have a word?”

Calhoun whirled as if he’d been shot. Clearly he’d been deep in thought and hadn’t heard her approach.

“I’m sorry... I didn’t mean to startle you,” she said.

“What are you doin’ here, Duchess? I thought I told you not to leave your room without me.” His eyes were like green icicles.

“It’s all right, Donald came with me,” she said, indicating her secretary standing behind her “Donald, why don’t you go and post the letters I dictated? Oh, and don’t forget to take the note I wrote my sister—I left it on the tea table.”

She waited, staring down at her feet, feeling his eyes on her, until they were alone. “I—I’ve come to apologize,” she said at last. “I realize, after talking to my uncle, and doing some thinking, that I behaved rather badly last night.” She would not tell him that she had tossed and turned last night, and had even contemplated leaving her bedroom in the middle of the night to apologize right then and there. The only thing that had stopped her was the impropriety of waking him. “My attitude at the party, when you were only trying to counsel me for my own safety...and when we returned here...did me no credit,” she went on, then darted a glance upward to see how he was receiving her words.

She saw surprise flicker across his face, but nothing more.

“I’m afraid arrogance...and a dislike of being told what to do...are failings of mine. I want you to know that while I may not always agree with you, I shall not be discourteous again. I will cooperate as fully as possible.” There. She’d said it.

A trace of a smile made his lips curve the least bit upward. “Well...maybe you’re not arrogant, but you do put me in mind of a horse’s long-eared relative sometimes,” he admitted, mischief dancing in his green eyes. “But I reckon we can start over from here, Duchess.”

She was so relieved, she didn’t even mind his comparing her to a mule. “Capital, Mr. Calhoun,” she said. Then, wanting some kind of confirmation that peace had been achieved, she extended her hand over the stall door. “Pax.”

She could tell he didn’t know the word. “It means ‘peace’ in Latin, Mr. Calhoun,” she explained as he took her hand and shook it. As before, she found his touch disturbingly powerful.

“The Indians would say we were buryin’ the hatchet, I reckon,” he said. “And while we’re bein’ so peaceable, do you think you could call me Morgan? You keep callin’ me Mr. Calhoun, and I keep lookin’ around for my pa.” His grin warmed her soul.

“I reckon I could, Morgan,” she said, smiling back at him. Of course, she couldn’t reciprocate and ask him to call her by her given name, but he didn’t seem to expect that.

She was loath to just turn around and leave. “So that’s your horse, this skewbald?” she asked, gesturing toward the brown-and-white-splotched horse, who watched her with pricked-forward ears. “He—he’s very handsome.” You sound like a giddy schoolgirl, Sarah.

But Morgan didn’t seem to find her remark stupid. “His name is Rio,” he said. “And he thinks he’s handsome, too—don’t ya, boy?” he asked, scratching the horse’s ear. The stallion tossed his head as if to agree. “Here in the west, though, we call horses like that pintos, or paints.”

“I see.” It was a moment of perfect harmony. “I-I’d best look m on my mare.”

“I’ll come with you. I’m done here.” He let himself out of the stall. “What’re you planning for today, Duchess?” he asked as they strolled down the aisle to where Trafalgar was stalled.