A Dangerous Man (12 page)

“And one of these blackguards shot you, Miss Coltrane?” Nathan Hillard’s indignant voice rose above the flurry of consternation. He placed his hand briefly on Mercy’s shoulder, a small comforting gesture, and Mercy looked up at him. Hart quelled the desire to strike Hillard’s hand from her shoulder. What matter to him if she encouraged the advances of a man nearly old enough to be her father?

“Did they?” Acton repeated Hillard’s question.

Mercy had best close her mouth, thought Hart, watching her gaze rest on Hillard’s damnably handsome face. There were flies in the room.

“No,” she said, returning her attention to her listeners. “The ‘bodyguard’ my father hired to protect our family shot me.”

“What?”

Mercy nodded complacently.

“And
why
would he have done that?” Hart asked dryly.

“Was the bastard—excuse me, Miss Coltrane—was this creature bribed into switching his allegiance?” demanded Hillard.

Hart’s fingers ceased drumming. His hands rolled into fists on the arms of the chair. “Well?”

Mercy glanced at him as if just realizing his presence. “Oh, I’m so sorry, Your Near Grace. I didn’t mean to hold you breathless.”

He held back a retort. The rest of the party were looking at him curiously. A few of the women—including the wretched Beryl—tittered.

“As for your kind concern, Mr. Hillard, having given your suggestion its due consideration I must say I do not believe a switch in loyalties can account for this person’s actions.”

“Well, why on earth would he have shot you?” asked Acton. Hillard scowled.

“I cannot say, or ever suggest I could
begin
to understand the mind of such a man.”

“I should hope not,” averred Acton. Hart narrowed his eyes on him. He might have to
reevaluate his original approval of Acton’s suit for Annabelle. Acton was apparently not nearly as discerning or intelligent as he’d thought.

“But I can tell you how it came about,” Mercy said.

“Please do,” chorused Baron Coffey and his sons. Even the Countess Marchant nodded encouragingly.

“Let me first say that I love Texas,” said Mercy. “It is, to my mind, the most singularly beautiful place on earth. Its skies are wider, its colors richer, its face infinitely more grand and majestic, than anything I have experienced or hope to experience, elsewhere. So it was with unalloyed joy that I answered my father’s summons home from my Boston school in the spring of 1872.”

“You were in America then, were you not, Hart?” Beryl asked brightly.

“Yes,” he said.

Mercy shot him a quick glance and hurried on. “My homecoming was not all happy. My father, in hopes of counteracting the despicable actions of the gang of murderous rogues, had hired what he euphemistically called a ‘cattle detective.’ ” Her dramatic pause had its desired effect. Several of the women made swooning sounds and the men looked properly aghast that such drastic measures had been instituted. Hart’s mouth flattened sardonically.

“Yes,” she said, her green eyes wide in her winsome face. “He hired a
gunslinger!”

“Whatever was he like?” It was Beryl again.
Lord, if she leaned any farther out of her chair she would fall out of it.

Mercy sat back. She shrugged. “Nothing special,” she said in a bored voice.

“Oh, come now,” prompted Beryl. “A man like that! You actually knew him! What was he like?”

“Dirty.”

“Oh, do tell us more,” another lady pleaded.

Again, Mercy shrugged. “He was tallish, flat flanked and hungry-looking, like a flea-bitten old mountain lion. He had long, lank, greasy hair and a dark skin, whether from the sun or from some questionable bloodline, I never knew.”

“What else? What was he
like?”
the Dowager Duchess asked. Really. The entire family exhibited an immoderate interest in lurid tales.

“Harsh,” Mercy said. “And cold. And merciless. And ruthless. And heartless. Without compassion or gentleness or wit or humor or—”

“Oh, for Chrissakes!” Hart muttered. Mercy stopped in midrecitation to fix him with a wounded look.

“Forgive me for going on so, but I
was
asked.”

“And we appreciate your kindness in relating what must have been a painful episode,” said Beryl, shooting him a look of dismay at his outburst. The Dowager Duchess sniffed in his direction.

“Excuse me, madam,” Hart choked out. No matter how unfortunate
her
manners, he would not lower himself to being rude. He would not.

“Please continue, Miss Coltrane,” Hillard
prompted, once more hovering near Mercy’s shoulders.

“If you insist. Well, early one day I decided to go out riding. It was just before dawn. The dark sky stretched overhead, clouds unfurling like scarlet banners on the horizon.”

“How lovely!” Beryl breathed.

Mercy looked at her approvingly. “Yes. I thought so too. I saddled my pony and rode toward a way station a few miles west of our ranch house. There I intended to view the sunrise.”

“Was that wise?” Hart asked. “I mean, considering your father’s situation and all.”

Mercy contrived to look sad and lovely in her consternation. “No, Lord Hart. It was not wise. But I was no more than a child and a girl child at that and I had been so long from home. Children and women are impulsive, sentimental creatures, you know,” she said modestly and apologetically—not that he believed she was either. Not for a minute.

What a pile of— Several of the men in the room glowered at him.

“We do not always act with the strength of purpose and single-mindedness you men do,” she said.

“Just so,” huffed Major Sotbey.

“I know now it was ill advised of me, but I went. There, while lost in a moment of divine reverie, I was set upon by a loathsome brigand!”

Reverie
. Hart’s jaw muscle started to work reflexively. The bold-faced little liar. She’d sneaked
off to smoke a cigar she’d stolen from her daddy’s office.

“The Lord alone knows what he might have done had I not been able to fight him,” she said in low tones. “Several times I nearly made it to my stalwart little pony. But each time the monster managed to take hold of my person and haul me back.

“My strength was waning, but not my will. Whether I would have prevailed, I am not sure, though I venture to say that a woman’s reverence for her chastity is a mighty impetus.”

“Hear, hear!” bellowed Sotbey. Mercy smiled at him modestly.

“Our struggle was intense, we were locked in mortal combat, time was suspended. And then”—her voice dropped even lower—“the
gunslinger
appeared!

“The outlaw pulled me in front of him, fearful of the great multinotched revolver in the gun-slinger’s hand.”

“Multinotched?”

Mercy gravely nodded her head. “One notch for every man he’d killed.”

“And this gunslinger had many notches?” the Duchess asked.

“The handle was ready to drop off, the thing was so scored with notches.”

“Jesus!” Hart muttered. She was incorrigible! To his astonishment he found himself suddenly hard pressed not to laugh. He hadn’t heard such a heap of rubbish in years, and that it was being
spoon-fed to this sophisticated company by a brat from Texas …! His lips twitched.

Mercy’s glance darted to meet his. There was an unholy amusement in her green eyes. Unholy and horrible … and horribly inviting.

“Exactly,” she said piously. “I prayed, too, Mr. Perth. I had to, because I knew the gunslinger had no conscience. Like a dog set on a scent, he was single-minded in his course. He wanted only one thing.
Blood
. And I wasn’t at all sure he cared whose blood it was.”

He closed his eyes. If he listened to much more of this he would either laugh or swear.

“I know, Perth, it is horrible,” she said, her eyes dancing. “It gets even worse.”

His eyes snapped open. She’d called him “Perth”—without mockery or sarcasm. His name on her lips was disarming.

“Oh, no!” gasped the Dowager.

“Yes.” Mercy’s attention turned back to the others. “The monster who held me started backing out of the cabin, holding me in front of him, using me as a shield. I could tell he was afraid. And well he should have been. I have never seen a more frightening sight than that gunslinger’s eyes as he looked at us.” Abruptly, her voice lost its theatrical tone, trailing off.

She
had
been frightened, thought Hart, feeling the old familiar chill creep back into his heart. And she was reliving that fright now. No amount of playacting could bleed the color from her cheeks like that.

Had she really thought he would have killed her just to ensure he would collect a bounty? The thought ate at him. He fought the impulse to stand up and deny it.

“What was it like?”

“Like he found us … interesting,” Mercy said in a soft, pensive monotone. “That’s why it was so frightening. He did not look angry or fierce. He looked like he was trying to work out the pieces of a riddle and was not overly concerned whether he found an answer.”

What a prime fool he’d been the other night, thinking she’d sought him out because of his reputed dispassion. His manner frightened her, disgusted her. And yet for her brother’s sake she’d still sought an interview.

“And then?” someone asked.

“And then?” Mercy echoed. Her lips had parted a bit. She looked pensive, as though staring into the past. “He shot me.”

“Dear God,” someone murmured.

“Was he trying to kill you?”

“No.” Her answer was prompt. The breath Hart hadn’t even been aware he was holding left his lungs in a low whoosh. “No. He was saving my life. If he hadn’t shot me, the man who held me would have dragged me from the cabin, still using me as a shield. Once to his horse, he would have got his own gun and shot the gunslinger and—and taken me away.”

He stared at his white-knuckled fists braced on the chair’s arms.

“Then the blackguard was simply saving his own life,” Hillard said, once more grazing her shoulder with his gloved fingertips. A small yearning rose in Hart.

Mercy revived herself with a little shake of her head. “Perhaps,” she allowed, and after a glance at him added, “Still, the Lord works through mysterious agents. Perhaps he was my guardian angel.” She smiled and suddenly the chill he always lived with retreated, shrinking back, leaving him free to return her smile.

“What happened next?” Beryl asked.

Mercy laughed. “Does there need to be a next?”

Beryl blushed.

“The gunslinger shot the man who held me and then he rode off. I believe he went after the rest of the gang. I do not know if he found them or arrested them or drove them off. Whatever, we were never threatened again.”

“He just left you there?” Acton asked, appalled.

“He went back to the ranch for my father, who arrived shortly thereafter with a wagon and took me away. It was a slow recovery, but luckily the shot missed any bone and vital organs. So”—she sat back—“that is my tale and how I have come to bear this scar. I pray, do not look so distressed. No permanent injury was sustained.”

“No permanent injury! But, m’dear, you have been
marred,”
the Duchess said.

“No, Lady Acton,” Hart said under his breath. “She has been wounded, but she has certainly not been marred.”

Beryl was the only one who heard him.

Chapter 10

H
art came awake with a gasp. He heaved himself halfway up, bracing himself on his forearms. For a moment he knelt, head bowed, lungs working like bellows. He sank back on his haunches, wrapping his arms tightly around himself.

He should have expected this. He’d learned the hard lesson long ago; whatever peace he counterfeited was subject to violation. For eleven years he’d struggled to obliterate the bitter trophies he’d garnered in long-dead wars.

Someday he would, he resolved grimly. In the meantime he
would not
succumb to these nameless horrors. He would purge this rank cowardliness from his soul.

He stumbled to his feet, looking blindly around the dark room, searching for something to focus on, something he could use to regain the rudiments of self-possession.

“Control yourself, you flinching coward,” he
muttered, half in self-condemnation, half in pleading. More than simple humiliation striped his soul. Someday he feared he would succumb to his panic and scream. And once he began screaming, he would never stop.

He stared at the gray patch of illumination on the far wall, forcing himself to mentally measure the window’s frame, to give a name to the frost in the corner of the glass panes. He refused to acknowledge his spasming muscles or the invisible fist clenching around his bowels or the constriction in his throat.

He could, after all, still breathe. The thought offered some small assurance and he fell on it gratefully. Control. It was the only weapon he had.

After years of practice he should, he thought with a splinter of the blackest humor, be an expert at self-domination. But it was impossible to obliterate something without an image or a sound, but which was instead a maelstrom of impressions commandeered from his history, the featureless essence of every demon he’d ever known.