Bonds of Matrimony (34 page)

Elisa frowned.
 
“He must have gotten word in town.”

“How is Chase doing?”

“Nervous, not that she’d
ever admit it.”

The two women tied up their
mounts and purchased their train tickets to Midland.
 
They planned to ride back to the ranch in Dr. Burns’s
carriage.
 
Once they had purchased
their fares, they stood on the platform in the hot sun awaiting the train.
 

Across the platform, two
well-dressed men stood staring at them.

“Do you ever get used to
being one of the few women in this ranching town?” Elisabeth asked, obviously
uncomfortable.

Elisa looked over and
watched one of the two men hurry across the street while the other blatantly
stared in their direction.
 
“You
get used to ignoring the attention.
 
Unless you’re wider than a horse, in which case you relish any attention
you can get from a man.”
 
She
offered a small smile to comfort Elisabeth, though she secretly was quite
certain that these men were with Jett Stockton.
 
Sure enough, within minutes of entering the saloon, the
second man emerged, followed by two more.
 
All four of them strode toward the women.

A tall dark man with an oily
mustache walked in front of the group and studied Elisabeth critically.
 
He glanced for a moment at Elisa and
disregarded her.
 
He then spoke
gruffly to the pretty petite woman.
 
“Are you English?” he asked abruptly.

Elisabeth eyed him with
suspicion, if not a bit of recognition.
 
“I am.”

“What is your name?”

She swallowed thickly and
offered him her hand, as though she was oblivious to his less-than-gentlemanly
behavior.
 
“Elisabeth Davies.”
 
She answered proudly with her chin up.

“Elisabeth Davies,” Stockton
repeated, as though trying to remember where he’d heard her name before.
 
His eyes focused once more on his
target.
 
“You were betrothed to
Lord Bradford, yes?
 
Before he
diddled your mum, I mean.”

The language was
deliberately unfit for a lady, indicating the disdain that he held for
her.
 
To her credit, Elisabeth’s
cheeks colored only slightly as she pushed her chin a bit higher into the air.

“I am she.
 
And I thank the Lord daily for sparing
me from marrying such a wretched and foul pig,” she responded defiantly,
thinking to herself that Chastity Fairfax was equally fortunate.

“What business do you have
with us, Mr…?” Elisa interrupted.
 
She appreciated that Elisabeth was a proud woman, but she didn’t dare
take the chance that Jett Stockton would read between the lines and recognize
that they were familiar with his own betrothed.

“Stockton.
 
I am looking for a young woman who came
from England on board the Mauretania and settled here in this god-forsaken
town.”

“That would be me,”
Elisabeth answered quickly.
 
“Why
would you be looking for me?
 
Do
you have news from my family?
 
Has something
happened to my mother?”
 
Her voice
held no concern, only a hint of curiosity.
 
Elisa concealed her amazement at the woman’s uncanny ability
to lie convincingly.

“Not you.
 
I’m looking for Chastity Fairfax.
 
She would have traveled with her
sister, Rosalie, and her grandmother, Evelyn.
 
Did you travel on the Mauretania from Liverpool during the
first week in June?”

“I did.”

“And did you encounter these
three women during your journey?”

“I did not, Mr.
Stockton.
 
I traveled with my
cousin, and he and I spent a good deal of time with the other passengers on
board.
 
Were they near my age, do
you suppose?” she asked sweetly.

His eyes traveled the length
of Elisabeth’s body and back again, lingering lewdly on her breasts.
 
“Probably.”

“Then I’m certain they were
not on the ship.
 
If they had been,
my cousin would have happily located them and introduced us.
 
He grew a bit tired of entertaining me,
you see.
 
He is used to being
independent, rather than saddled with a dainty female.”

Stockton snorted in
understanding for the poor cousin who was burdened with his boring female
cousin.
 
He then twirled one end of
his mustache thoughtfully and turned toward one of his men.
 
“Do you suppose the inspector in New
York was thinking of Ms. Davies here when he directed us to Texas?”
 
The other man only shrugged in
response.

“There aren’t many young
women here in Slaughter, Mr. Stockton.
 
If three young women had gotten off the train here, it would have made
the newspaper.
 
I assure you, if
someone told you these Fairfield women—”

“Fairfax,” Stockton
corrected.

“If someone told you these
Fairfax women came to Slaughter, Texas, they were mistaken,” Elisa explained.

“And who are you?” he
demanded rudely.

“Mrs. Elisa
Wainwright.”
 
The train whistled in
the distance, distracting Stockton enough that he didn’t notice Elisa’s sigh of
relief.
 
“That will be our
train.
 
We wish you luck in finding
your young ladies, Mr. Stockton.
 
In the mean time, perhaps we will see you around town; or are you
planning to leave soon to continue your search?”

“I’m not planning to leave
anytime soon.
 
I still have some
questions that need answered.”

“Of course,” was Elisa’s
only response.
 
As the train pulled
into the station, the two women nodded politely to the four men and boarded the
train.

“Do you think he believed
us?” Elisabeth asked as they watched Stockton and one of his men leave the
platform to return to the saloon.

“If he did, he would be
leaving town no later than tomorrow.”

***

Webb blew smoke out to hover
over his table and tossed his wager into the pot.
 
He had been playing poker for nearly two hours with Stockton
and one of his men.
 
There were
also two other Texans at the table, men he’d known for years.
 
Stockton hadn’t yet asked any of them
about Chase, but Webb knew it was only a matter of time.
 

“Rumor has it, Webb, that
you had three calves born this mornin’,” a black bearded Texan named Liam
asked.

“Mm-hmm.
 
It was a busy mornin’ on the
ranch.”
 
Webb took a swig of his
beer, dropped his cards, and collected his winnings.
 
“You a rancher, Stockton?” he asked.

“God no,” Stockton laughed
loudly.
 
He had been drinking
whiskey, on recommendation of Liam, since Webb had sat down at his table; and
he might have started sooner.
 
The
alcohol was already taking effect as he began talking with more volume and less
clarity.
 
“I’m a viscount.
 
Or I will be.”

“What does a viscount do?” Webb
asked, knowing damn well that he had a title, not a profession, unless
drinking, gambling, and being disinherited were professions.

“A viscount does whatever he
damn well pleases,” he bragged.

“My cousins with titles have
more rules than poker does.
 
How to
speak, how to eat, where to go to school, what to study, how to spend money,
where to live, where to travel, who to marry, what hobbies to take up.
 
I can’t imagine a life like that.
 
All I have to do is wake up in the
morning and keep my ranch running.”

“Which is a bloody lot of
hard work.
 
Working in the dirt
with animals that smell foul and the hot sun.
 
What man in his right mind would want to do that?”

All three Texans agreed that
they would.
 
By Stockton’s
standards, however, they were probably not in their right minds.
 

“What do you do with your
days, if not working with foul-smelling animals in the dirt and sun?” Webb
asked casually, dropping two cards.

“This,” he gestured to the
table.

“Women,” the other
Englishman laughed.

“That would fall under the
category of working with foul-smelling animals,” Stockton howled.
 
The two men laughed obnoxiously.

Liam raised his eyebrows in Webb’s
direction while guzzling the rest of his beer.
 
The Irishman kindly picked up his friend’s line of
questioning.
 
“Women?
 
I would have figured that a powerful
viscount like you has a nice lady at home.
 
You aren’t married?”

“Even if I was, that
wouldn’t stop me from enjoying myself with whomever I please.
 
But no, I’m not married…yet.”

“Yet?” Webb asked, not
daring to look up at the
son of a bitch
.
 
He was fairly certain that he was going
to want to kill him within the next ten minutes.

“I’m betrothed to a feisty
little mare.
 
Rich, too.
 
And not too hard on the eyes.”
 
He stroked his mustache arrogantly,
probably wishing he had Chase on his arm right now, parading her around like a
pretty piece of jewelry.

“Must be hard leaving her
behind while you travel the world,” Liam suggested.

Stockton only grunted.

“Not so hard if you don’t
mind using other women,” Webb threw in.

“True, my man.
 
True.
 
Give me one card.
 
The truth is, the little bitch got it in her head to take off.
 
She was spotted in Liverpool the day
before a ship left for this country.
 
An inspector in New York told me that he saw her get off the ship with
her sister and grandmother.
 
Said
that she was coming to live with her rancher brother in this hole.
 
Nowhere, Texas,” he laughed rudely.

“Rancher with an English
sister.
 
You sure he wasn’t talking
about me?”

Stockton perked up and
studied Webb for the first time all night.
 
“Thought you said your name is Webb.
 
I’m looking for Marcus Fairfax.
 
His sister is Chastity.
 
Do
you
have a sister you picked up in New York?” he asked sarcastically.

“I have a cousin I picked
up.”

“Aah.
 
Ms. Davies.
 
Yes, I met her on the train platform earlier today.
 
She is quite beautiful, though a bit
dim.”

Webb bit his tongue and only
nodded.
 
Making Stockton angry or
defensive wouldn’t get him the information he needed.
 
“Chastity?
 
That’s quite a name.
 
I’m
surprised you’d want to marry a lady by the name of Chastity.”

“Trust me, my man, the name
does not suit the little hussy.”

“’Little hussy?’
 
I thought this is the lady you’re
engaged to marry,” Liam argued.
 

“Because she’s rich and nice
to look at.
 
Not because she’s
virginal or even respectable.”

“Sounds to me like you don’t
much like this lady.
 
But you’re
going through an awful lot of trouble to find her,” Webb observed, frowning as Stockton
clucked his tongue arrogantly after dropping his cards.
 
He gathered his winnings one coin at a
time.

“Did I mention she’s rich?”

“Keep throwing hands like
that, and you won’t need her money,” the other Englishman laughed.

“Powerful viscount like you?
 
Why would you need her money?”

“My father disagrees with my
choice of investments.”

“She the last single lady
with money in England?”

Stockton glared at Webb for
a moment before his eyes softened.
 
He only sneered.
 
“She’s the
one I want.”

Chase had told him at the
pond last night that no other father in England would marry his daughter off to
Jett Stockton.
 
Her own father
consented only because he was
certain that Stockton was the only
man in England willing to marry
his oldest daughter.