Mary McBride – Quicksilver's Catch (страница 10)
She snatched up her skirts, whisked through the depot door and assumed it was she who was leading the bounty hunter until her feet suddenly went out from under her and her backside made abrupt contact with the hard wooden seat of a bench.
“Wait here,” he told her. “Keep your head down and your mouth shut. You got that?”
Amanda got it, all right. How could she not, especially when she saw that his eyes had turned that stormy color again and his right hand had come to rest on the butt of his gun? He wouldn’t use it, she reminded herself. He wouldn’t dare. The gesture was merely meant to frighten her, to reinforce the notion that it was he who was in control. For the time being, anyway.
“If you’ll just get my bag for me, perhaps we can discuss this over a nice supper,” she said, as sweetly and as calmly as she could. “My treat.”
“Right.” Marcus gritted his teeth as he strode toward the stationmaster’s window. Maybe he should have wired ahead to have the luggage taken off the train. Even with the telltale initials on the bag, at least there was cash inside. It might have been worth the risk, he thought, but it was too late now.
He glanced back to make sure the runaway heiress was still firmly planted on the bench where he’d left her, then jabbed his finger down on the brass bell on the counter. The stationmaster appeared, looking as if Marcus had just rousted him from a good night’s sleep, then took forever to wipe his spectacles and to fit them on the bridge of his nose before he managed to squint through his little wired window. “Can I help you, mister?”
“How soon’s the next train west?”
The man yawned and blinked and scratched his jaw. “Lemme go see,” he said, just before disappearing from the little cage.
Marcus turned around, angled his elbows back on the counter and surveyed the waiting room of the depot. Her Ladyship was still right where he’d left her, sitting like an aggrieved princess on her wooden throne, glaring an occasional green dagger in his direction. He found himself wishing she wasn’t quite so pretty when he noticed how she drew the gazes of the several male passengers scattered through the room. Two young cowhands bent their heads together and exchanged what appeared to be appreciative whispers. Not far from them, on another bench, a weasel-faced fella in a checkered suit seemed particularly intrigued with Amanda, and kept peeking, all beady-eyed, around the edge of his newspaper to get a better look at her.
In response, Marcus could feel the muscles in his shoulders bunch and all his nerves snap to attention, and he wasn’t sure whether his reaction was male and territorial or whether it was purely business. Business, he told himself. Professional caution. That was all it could be, after all. Amanda Grenville was his bounty. She wasn’t his woman. Thank God.
A sleepy voice came from the wire cage. “Next train’s due within an hour. It’s an immigrant train, though. Next regular one’s tomorrow morning.”
An immigrant train! Marcus could just imagine Her Ladyship’s expression when forced to travel with the teeming masses. He glanced back at her now, then swore when he saw that the weasel in the checkered suit had changed seats and was now attempting to strike up a conversation with Amanda, who didn’t appear at all resistant to his overtures. First Dobson and now this. God dammit, did she intend to talk to everything in pants between Omaha and Denver?
“Be right back,” he told the sleepy stationmaster.
His spurs bit into the soft wood floor as he stalked across the room toward the happy couple. On closer inspection, though, Amanda didn’t appear all that enthused. Her face was a few shades paler than when Marcus had last seen it, and her hands were twisting in her lap. Her eyelashes fluttered up to him, and her eyes looked wildly bright when she spoke.
“There you are, dearest. Did you manage to locate my bag?”
Dearest? For a second, Marcus wasn’t sure just who she was talking to, much less which bag she was talking about. Was she as crazy as she was rich? Then he noticed that the glad little smile on her face was composed less of teeth than of nervous twitching lips.
He glanced at the newspaper that the weasel clutched in his hand and caught a glimpse of a headline—the word
Marcus leaned down to brush a kiss across her soft cheek and to whisper, “Don’t worry,” close to her ear. “Sorry, darlin’,” he drawled, straightening up. “That bag’s nowhere around here.” He shrugged helplessly, then grinned at the weasel. “Fine thing for a husband to lose his wife’s suitcase the first night of their honeymoon, huh?”
The man’s beady eyes enlarged. “Honeymoon? The two of you are married?”
“Just.” Marcus smiled with as much husbandly pride as he could muster, then extended his hand. “Glad to meet you. I’m Al Green and this is my brand-new bride, Alice. And who might you be, mister?”
“Doesn’t matter.” The weasel glared sideways at Amanda. “You’re married to this man? Is that right?”
She nodded with enthusiasm, much to the displeasure of the weasel.
“You don’t look all that married to me,” he said accusingly.
“Well, I haven’t had much practice, actually. At marriage, I mean. It’s only been…” Her gaze flitted up to Marcus. “How long, dearest?”
Marcus fished out his watch, snapped it open and pondered the hands. “Three hours and twenty-seven minutes, give or take a few seconds.” He smiled down at her, using the sappiest expression he could manage and trying to sound like a lovestruck groom. “The best three hours and twenty-seven minutes of my life.”
“Aw, hell,” the weasel snarled. “I mistook you for that runaway Grenville girl. I was just reading about her in the Denver paper, then I saw you sitting here and I thought, seeing your blond hair and fine clothes and all, that I had myself that five thousand for sure.”
Amanda laughed. “Oh, you silly man. My goodness, I wish I were that Grenville girl. Then I’d have a servant or two to look after my luggage properly for me. My new husband doesn’t seem to be doing such a good job.”
She batted her eyes up at Marcus now and smiled with all the sweet indulgence of a woman who’d married an incompetent fool, which seemed to thoroughly convince the weasel that they were indeed husband and wife.
“Damn.” The man stood, then slapped his newspaper down on the bench and walked away without it, shaking his head and muttering to himself.
The second he was out of earshot, Amanda started laughing. “That’s the second time you’ve married me in the past few hours, Quicksilver. I honestly believe you’re fond of me.” She batted her eyelashes up at him again. “Either that or you have an incredible lack of imagination when it comes to charades.”
“It worked, didn’t it?” Marcus growled.
“Beautifully,” she conceded. Then she gestured toward the station master’s cage. “Now, do retrieve my valise for me, will you?”
“That was no lie, Duchess.” Marcus lowered himself beside her on the bench and snapped open the newspaper the weasel had left behind. “You won’t be seeing that suitcase again. At least not until Denver. Sorry.”
“Sorry! But I thought you wired ahead to direct them to take my suitcase off the train.” Her voice rose a notch, as well as several degrees. “All my money’s in there. What am I supposed to do now?”
Marcus shrugged. He was only half listening as he read the article on the front page of the Denver paper, the majority of which was an interview with Honoria Grenville, who had returned to that city following her granddaughter’s escape in Omaha. The old woman had apparently taken over the top floor of the Excelsior Hotel, whence she was now commanding a battalion of private detectives and newspapermen. That didn’t surprise Marcus a bit—not the fact that Granny Grenville was willing to spend a small fortune to have her own way or the fact that there were scores of eager and greedy characters more than willing to assist her.
What surprised him, though, was the reason for Amanda’s exit in the first place. She’d eloped from New York to Denver with Angus McCray. Eloped! Marcus wasn’t sure what he’d been thinking, or whether he’d given it any thought at all. Women rarely ran away for the pure pleasure of it, and Amanda Grenville certainly hadn’t run away to join any circus. But elopement? With Angus McCray?
It was hardly a secret in Denver that the dapper, slick-haired Scot made his living off women. He’d been down the aisle at least once already, with the widow of a gold miner, but unfortunately for him, it had turned out that the gold miner was really a silver miner on a relatively meager scale, and— worse—for McCray, anyway—the fella wasn’t even dead.
“Angus McCray,” Marcus muttered behind the newspaper. “Angus damn McCray!”