A Touch of Camelot (31 page)

Seeming to read her mind, Sidney set her back away from him and let go of her. "Be still," he said pointedly. He reached up to swipe at his chin with the knuckles of his right hand before stepping back and folding his arms stiffly across his chest.

Gwin questioned her own eyes. In her agitated state, had she imagined it, or had he just signaled her? Barnes still watched them both, and so Gwin couldn't hope for a repetition or clarification. Did Sidney mean to help them, after all? And would he be able to act in time to save Cole's life?

*

One more second and he would have had it.

Cole reached the haft of the jeweled dagger but hadn't yet gotten a good grip on it before he was propelled face-first into the wall by a bone-jarring force from behind.

One massive hand was at his back, pushing him into the wall; the other tightened around his arm just above his elbow. Ringo yanked downward, snapping bone and causing Cole's limp fingers to slip from the haft of the dagger. The weapon was sent soaring, end over end, through the air.

*

Arthur crouched beside one of the suits of armor. Hot tears of frustration and rage stung his eyes. Cole was losing. But what could Arthur do? He had no gun, and the weapons on the wall above him were out of reach.

He gritted his teeth, tears now spilling down his cheeks. He had to do something. Even if it came down to running out there and throwing himself at that giant. Because this time he wouldn't stand by and just watch it happen. He would rather die than do that.

Arthur clenched his hands as he watched that giant beating down on Cole ... that giant as big as Goliath. And that's when he thought of it.

*

Desperate, Gwin glanced at the fireplace, ready to move when she heard Arthur. For a split second, she froze, thinking she couldn't have heard right. Her brother wasn't here. He
couldn't
be. But when she turned her head, she saw him step out boldly from behind an armor figure in the hallway. He raised his slingshot.

"You son of a bitch! You killed Silas!"

Gwin's mouth dropped open, but otherwise, she had no time to react. The sling snapped, and now, as always, Arthur didn't miss. Ringo jerked and released his hold on Cole. One hand shot up to the back of his head. Arthur's missile hadn't only surprised him, it had also taken a chunk of scalp along with it.

Cole, she saw with relief, was still on his feet—not moving much—but on his feet.
Alive
.

It was only natural for Ringo to turn his head in the direction of this new attack. Only natural, but it was a mistake. Arthur had wasted no time in reloading. He was already stretching the sling back. Arthur's timing was perfect. When he let it fly this time, Gwin knew even before he released where he was aiming.

Ringo howled as both hands flew up too late to protect his eyes. He staggered back into the banister of the staircase, which collapsed like a row of toothpicks beneath him. Blood from his ruined eye soaked his hands as he moaned amid the wreckage.

Barnes raised his revolver, aiming for Arthur's stalwart figure across the great hall.

Gwin screamed,
"NO!"

A shot rang out.

Gwin whirled, expecting to see her brother down and bleeding, but he stood on his feet, looking in their direction, his mouth open in surprise. But he was all right.

Gwin looked back at Barnes, who stood as frozen as Lot's wife, his pudgy arm still extended, the gun still cocked.
Unfired.
His eyes were wide. And it was only then she realized why. His cigar, the one he'd been clenching between his teeth, looked as if it had exploded. A thin, dying curl of smoke rose from its tattered remains.

Except for the moaning Ringo, all movement in the foyer had come to a standstill. Sidney broke the silence. "Jasper, this has gone far enough."

Gwin turned to see that her father had a long-barreled Colt revolver trained on his shocked colleague.

He raised an eyebrow at Gwin. "Don't look so surprised, my dear. Who do you think taught your mother that trick?"

Chapter Twenty-Five

Justice was swift once the wheels got turning. Alphonse Ringo's trial was over, and the prosecution was in the process of concluding its damning case against Jasper Barnes. Gwin had already testified, Arthur was in there now, and Cole was scheduled to appear next.

Gwin and Cole sat alone in the empty hallway outside the sequestered courtroom. Thanks to the judge's order limiting public seating and allowing only one reporter from each newspaper access to this section of the Hall of Justice, it was quiet and deserted out here while court was in session.

Ever since Phineas Taylor's name had hit the papers, the trials of his cohorts had turned into a public circus. Ringo and Barnes had not been the only ones to fall. Thanks to Sidney Pierce's decision to cooperate with the authorities, four members of the police department were scheduled to come to trial for their part in concocting the false charges against Ricardo Cortez.

In addition, there were rumors that a few of San Francisco's most influential citizens would be criminally implicated by Sidney's testimony. One socialite, a wealthy banker, had already disappeared mysteriously in the night. The most popular theory was that he had packed his carpetbag and stolen off to South America. Whatever the truth was, it was clear that the secret group known as the Round Table was in the process of disintegrating.

Cole shifted his position on the wooden bench and glanced at Gwin, breaking the silence that had fallen between them. "Glad it's almost over?"

Gwin let out a weary sigh. "Ohhhh, yes."

Cole stole a look at the closed double doors of the courtroom. "I hope Arthur's doing all right in there."

"If he got through Ringo's trial, he can get through anything. He's a tough kid."

"That he is." Cole winced as he changed his position again.

His right arm—splinted and bandaged—was confined by a sling. He had also suffered a cracked rib and a fractured nose from his near-fatal confrontation with Alphonse Ringo. He had spent a couple days recuperating in a hospital, and, though Gwin wished he’d not had to suffer those injuries, her time spent visiting with him had been the most precious hours they'd had together since all of this had happened.

They had talked a lot, she about her childhood, he about his. She had learned about his late father, a peace officer in a small Kansas town, and his mother—what little he knew of her—a woman who had died giving birth to him. This story had brought tears to Gwin's eyes. How tragic that his mother had not lived to see what a fine young man her son had grown to become. How tragic that, after his father's death, Cole should now be left alone in the world.

It had not escaped Gwin that most of their talk had been of the past, not of the future. This was because they had no real future, had they? Not together, anyway. This thought brought an unbearable heaviness to Gwin's heart.

Only once during his hospital stay had Cole delicately steered the conversation onto the subject of their relationship. "Uh, about what happened between us, Gwin, there could be consequences."

Gwin, who sat on a chair by his bed, raised her head cautiously. "Consequences?" she echoed, although she knew what he meant. He was worried that she might be carrying his child. The ensuing silence between them soon grew stifling.

 "Do you think you might be pregnant?" he asked, trying his best to look her in the eye even as she was doing her best to avoid him.

"I don't know," she said. And she hadn't known, not then.

"You'd tell me, wouldn't you, Gwin? Promise you'll tell me if—"

"Yes, of course," she said, wanting to end the conversation.

And she had gotten her wish. At that moment, one of the nurses, a cheerful nun, had swept into the room carrying a lunch tray.

For the last few days, Gwin had felt the familiar stirrings of her monthly cycle, and this morning she had learned for certain that Cole had not given her a child. This was for the best. If she had been pregnant, she knew that Cole would have offered to marry her.

It wasn't that she didn't want to marry him. She was in love with Cole. This was a fact she could no longer ignore or rationalize away. She didn't regret for one moment the decision she had made in that hotel room in Virginia City, and she would have given almost anything to spend the rest of her life in his arms at night.
Almost
anything.

She wouldn't sacrifice her self-respect. Neither would she expect Cole to sacrifice a chance for real happiness with a woman he could truly love. No. If he had offered to marry her, it would have been done out of a sense of honor, not out of love. And Gwin knew from bitter experience—Silas and Emmaline's—that it took more than just one person's love to make a marriage.

She tried to ignore these depressing thoughts as she cast an anxious glance at the courtroom doors. "I hope that defense lawyer isn't giving him a hard time."

"Oh, I think it's the other way around," Cole replied. "He's a tough kid. I sure wouldn't want to tangle with him, especially if he's still got Excalibur in his pocket."

"He always has Excalibur in his pocket." Gwin's gaze shifted to linger on Cole's face. The swelling of his broken nose had gone down, but there were still bruises to testify to the punishment he'd suffered. It was amazing that not even a broken nose could detract much from his wholesome good looks.

The door to the courtroom swung open, and Arthur emerged under the arm of a burly bailiff. After testifying at Ringo's trial, Arthur had come out looking pale and shaken, and perhaps that was what Gwin expected to see this time as she came to her feet.

Today, however, he stood tall and proud in his new suit of clothes. His unruly dark curls were still combed back neatly from his forehead, and there was a certain glint in his eye. Confidence. He looked older to her in that moment than he ever had before, and she caught a glimpse of what Arthur would look like as a young man. It struck her that her little brother wasn't so little anymore.

"Mr. Shepherd?" The bailiff motioned for Cole to enter the courtroom, and Cole rose to his feet. He'd removed his coat earlier and he reached now to snatch it up from the bench.

Gwin held it for him as he slipped his left arm into the sleeve. She draped the other sleeve over his right shoulder. "There," she said, forcing herself to smile.

"Thanks." He winked at her. "This shouldn't take long, but if you want to go back to the hotel awhile, I can meet you later."

"Fine," Gwin said, shifting her attention to Arthur.

"Good luck, Cole," Arthur said before the courtroom door closed again. He looked at Gwin. "Easy as pie."

Gwin patted his shoulder, relieved and proud that he was trying to take this in stride. "Why don't we take Cole's advice and head back to the hotel?" She paused when her eye caught on a piece of paper at her feet. "What's this?"

She bent to retrieve it and glimpsed the words
Western Union Telegraph Company
. "Oh," she mumbled, frowning. "It must have fallen out of Cole's pocket." Something else caught her eye. Without meaning to, she glanced at the scrawled words in the message and there, jumping out at her, was her own name.

"What is it?" Arthur tried to read the telegram.

Gwin jerked her hand up, snatching the communication away from his inquisitive eyes. "It's nothing. Just a telegram. Why don't you go downstairs and wait for me? I'll be there in a minute."

"What does it say?"

"I don't know what it says, and it's none of our business, anyhow. Now, go on and wait for me outside."

"You're going to read that telegram, aren't you?"

"No, I am
not
going to read the telegram. If you must know, I'm going to visit the convenience room."

Arthur rolled his eyes. "Yeah? How
convenient."

Gwin scowled and shooed him away. "Oh, go on."

Arthur left her, but he threw a knowing glance over his shoulder before he pulled open the heavy door to the stairwell at the end of the hall and was gone.

Gwin stood for a long moment, her eyes glued to the spot where her brother had vanished. She half-expected him to appear again, but, after a few seconds, she decided he was really gone. She fingered the crumpled telegram. It was none of her business.

But she'd seen her name.

Gwin wrestled with her conscience. A month ago, she wouldn't have thought anything of it—sneaking a peek at private correspondence. She wouldn't have felt this nagging, admonishing voice whispering in the back of her mind.
Fold it up, put it away. It's none of your business.

But she had seen her name.

Gwin unfolded the telegram and scanned the scrawled message.

Happy to grant your request for an advance in salary. The other arrangements you requested have been made. Have personally contacted the marshal in Garden City. He will await your arrival with Miss Pierce. Take great pride in a job well done. Much to discuss upon your return to the home office.  A. Pinkerton

Her hands trembled. She stared at the words, reading them over and over, her mind at first refusing to grasp their meaning.
Arrangements you requested ... marshal in Garden City ... await your arrival with Miss Pierce.

But there could be no misunderstanding. Cole had arranged for her to return to Garden City, the town where she was wanted on a horse-stealing charge. But why? Why would he betray her like this?

Cole's own words now came back to her with stinging clarity.
"What I do, Miss Pierce, is my job. I do my job, that's all."
And part of that job was turning in lawbreakers, wasn't it? It was devastating, but there it was, in black and white.

Tears welled in her eyes. What had she expected? Hadn't she been telling herself all along that she and Cole had no future together? Hadn't she learned to accept that? Why did this come as such a heart-wrenching surprise? Why did it hurt so much?