Deep as the Rivers (Santa Fe Trilogy) (13 page)

   
A frisson of repugnance coursed through Shelby when he felt the older man’s peculiarly fleshy but firm grip. He offered Wescott a chair and took one across from him. Liza was right. Something about Emory Wescott made him distinctly uneasy, too. “I’ve bought a modest share in Santiago’s company. After I retire from the army I plan to settle here in St. Louis.”

   
“Do you now,” Wescott said smoothly. “And how soon, may I ask, until you resign your commission?”

   
As his gaze swept casually past Wescott to the door left partially ajar by Santiago, warning signals went off in Shelby’s brain.
The bastard is playing with me. What does he want?
Could Wescott know about his mission? He had been in Washington when Samuel returned from Florida to report on British activities. That was where he first met Olivia as well. A coincidence? “I’ll not resign my commission immediately,” he replied vaguely, then shifted the conversation to the matter at hand. “About the wager, if you’d like to keep the mare for your ward, I’ll understand.”

   
Wescott waved his hand dismissively and smiled. “It is rather about Olivia that I’ve come to talk.”

   
Samuel studied the florid man’s smug expression with a prickle of alarm.
So, this
is
about your beauteous ward.
“Oh, how is Mademoiselle St. Etienne? I trust she is recovered from her unfortunate accident yesterday?”

   
“Yes, quite fully recovered. It’s come to my attention that you have...shall we say, a certain tendresse for her.” Wescott let the words drop, gauging Shelby’s reaction.

   
"I was happy to come to her rescue during the race," Samuel said cautiously. Wescott emitted a sharp bark of laughter that grated on Shelby’s nerves.

   
"Did you also come to her rescue at the Chouteaus’ ball? Come now, Colonel, I saw the two of you in the garden and you scarcely acted like strangers."

   
How much had Olivia told the canny old devil? Did Wescott know about that Virginia backroad? Hell, had he been behind the shooting and her timely rescue? Samuel smiled disarmingly and shrugged. “We’d met briefly in Washington several months ago. Your ward is a most remarkable woman, Mr. Wescott. I will confess to a certain mutual attraction, but if you plan to force me into doing the honorable thing, I’m afraid—”

   
“Oh, I know you’re already wed to Senator Soames’ daughter. I could scarcely expect you to marry Olivia.”

   
“Really. You’ll pardon my curiosity, but is there some other reason you’ve taken such an interest in my personal life, Mr. Wescott?” Now he was certain Wescott had a hidden agenda of some sort.

   
Rather too casually the older man shrugged. “No particular interest, Colonel. I know about your wife because Worthington Soames is an old friend of mine,” he said self-importantly.

   
“Are you going to call me out for my reprehensible behavior then?” Shelby asked, highly dubious such was Wescott’ s intent.

   
“That would be most dangerous for a man of my age. I’ve heard rumors about your lethal skills on the field of honor. Several years ago you dispatched a French diplomat who was accounted to be a far more deadly swordsman that I ever was. No, rather I’m proposing a simple business exchange. Each of us has something the other wants. You now own my most valuable young racer, Gypsy Lady. I, on the other hand, have possession of another
jeune fille
, Olivia. Might I suggest an exchange?”

   
Samuel felt all the blood drain from his face. Then a furious surge of anger replaced the shock. “Let me get this straight. You’re offering your ward to me as a mistress—in exchange for a horse? Damnation,
I
should call
you
out!” Why the hell was he defending the chit? She was probably in on this whole accursed charade!

   
“Please, Colonel, I really have no desire to visit the dueling fields on Bloody Island,” Wescott replied calmly. Business negotiations had always been his forte. “Admit it. You’re taken with the chit and she’s made it abundantly clear to both of us that she returns your ardor.”

   
“She’s from a good family, titled before the revolution in France, or so she told me. I can scarcely believe the spoiled Mademoiselle St. Etienne would accept being my paramour,” Samuel said cynically, still horrified with himself for actually considering the obscene proposition.
Admit it. You want her even if she’s a British agent.

   
“After yesterday’s scandal, do you think any of the good families in St. Louis will allow their sons to court her?” Wescott asked.

   
“She raced with your approval. And made a hell of a lot of money for you doing it. You’re to blame for sullying her reputation.”

   
“I allowed the girl to race to keep her from other, er, more willful diversions, if you take my meaning. Her parents were libertines, quite hot-blooded, those French, eh?”

   
It was all Samuel could do not to smash his fist in Wescott’ s jowly bulldog face. Instead he sat very still, willing himself to remain calm as his guts clenched with sick fury. Damn her, the bewitching little minx, teasing and tantalizing as a courtesan one minute, then as doe-eyed and vulnerable as a green virgin the next. He hated to believe Wescott’ s nasty insinuations, but they were far from groundless. She was used to having men make fools of themselves over her and she certainly had allowed him to make exceedingly improper advances on several occasions. She ran around the countryside unchaperoned, even dressed as a male and hung around racetracks, scarcely the sort of thing a proper society belle would do.

   
It was idiocy to get mixed up with her and her unsavory guardian. He was a fool to desire her now that Wescott had confirmed his suspicions about her morals. Samuel cursed silently, hating himself for what he was about to do.

   
“I may well live to regret this, but you’re right. I am taken with her and she does seem to return my regard. If the lady is willing...” He shrugged. “Send her to this address tonight and you may keep your horse.” He stood up and stepped over to the desk where he scribbled a street number on a slip of paper, then handed it to Wescott as the older man arose.

   
“Very good, Colonel. I’ll give Olivia your regards.”

   
Pointedly Samuel did not offer to shake hands on their unsavory bargain about which he was already having second thoughts. Ever the consummate spy, he casually leaned against the desk and folded his arms across his chest, crossing one booted foot over the other. As Wescott reached the open door, he could not resist a mocking taunt, “Oh, Emory, your intelligence regarding my personal life is sadly in arrears. My first wife is dead.” He smiled nastily at the look of surprise and greed written across Wescott’ s face. “But I do not have the slightest intention of ever making that mistake again.”

   
“Just so you take her off my hands any which way it suits you. The chit’s altogether too headstrong for me to trouble myself with any longer,” Wescott said sourly as he stormed out the door.

   
Shelby walked over and closed it firmly. Neither man saw the small figure huddled behind the bales of beaver peltries stacked against the wall next to the office door. Once the coast was clear, Olivia stood up on wobbly legs, testing to see if they would support her.

   
Nausea churned inside her like boiling acid. She blinked back the stupid girlish indulgence of tears. There was no time for that now. She had to think, to plan. To escape! Furtively she held her dainty gold muslin skirts away from the smelly furs which surrounded her. Her eyes and chest burned, although she knew it was not from their acrid aroma.

   
What a nightmare this was! Sold by her own guardian and Samuel actually bought her like a slave on the auction block—in exchange for a racehorse! Numbly she realized why Uncle Emory had not been more upset with her for losing the race and having her disguise uncovered. He had been plotting this all along.

   
She had believed the day so bright with promise only a few hours ago. After overhearing her guardian tell the housekeeper that he was going down to the mercantile district, she had impulsively decided to follow him so she could “accidentally” run into Samuel while shopping at the Quinn warehouse. Olivia knew Emory intended to settle his debt with the colonel there and she wanted desperately to look her best for the handsome young officer after the debacle yesterday. She had spent an hour fussing with her hair and selecting one of her prettiest new day gowns to impress him.

   
How could he?
The question hammered at her over and over again as she slipped from the busy establishment out into the dust and noise of Main Street. She hailed her servant Obie, who waited patiently with the small rig in the shade of a two-story building across the way. Settling into the padded seat she squeezed her eyes closed and tried to think, but all she could do was replay over and over again the ugly scene she had overheard in that office.

   
Even though she had always feared that she was a burden to him and a disappointment when she refused his attempts at arranging an advantageous marriage, the depth of her guardian’s perfidy shocked her. After the debacle yesterday her reputation in St. Louis was in shambles. No surprise that he should want to rid himself of a reminder of his own blunder in allowing a mere female to triumph on such sacrosanct male turf. Well, she could survive Emory Wescott’s treachery.

   
It was Samuel Shelby’s she could never forgive. He had lied to her from the first time they met. That splendid house in Washington he claimed not to own he shared with his wife. He had been married and never told her. He led her on to hope that he might court her once he arrived in St. Louis. Fool that she was, she had melted like molasses in the sun beneath his touch. Her cheeks burned with shame as she remembered how she had flung herself against his hard body, kissing him back with every bit as much fervor as he had shown in kissing her.

   
No wonder he thought he could buy you for his plaything! But the final insult had been his cold announcement to Wescott that he was widowed and never intended to wed again. What utter contempt he must feel for her and for all women. He would use their bodies with delicious skill, but he cared nothing for their finer feelings. He had taught her the pleasures of passion and now he had taught her the pain of betrayal.

   
“We’ll just see, Samuel Shelby, if you ever get the chance to learn the truth about me!”

* * * *

   
Samuel sat in front of the table with a brandy glass in one hand, watching the flames on a branch of candles flicker as they burned down. The hour was growing late. She would arrive soon. He sipped the fine old cognac and glanced around the room, wondering what she would think of it. He had leased the small house on Plum Street from an elderly widow who was returning to live with her family in Kaskaskia. The house was made of timber, cut in the French style, the split logs placed vertically with the flat side facing inward. Puncheon floors gleamed with beeswax polish and the walls were whitewashed. The second-story attic, set with two dormer windows, extended over the wide front porch. The rooms were spacious with large glass-paned windows, but the entire house was comprised of only a parlor, dining room and kitchen with the sleeping quarters in the finished attic upstairs. It was cozy and quiet but hardly possessed the elegance of Monsieur Chouteau’s grand mansion or even that of the Quinn’s big rambling home.

   
His thoughts centered on the bed upstairs which he had purchased after renting the place. Madam Soulard’s small narrow canopied bed would never have accommodated a man of his size. Instead he replaced it with a big feather stuffed mattress set on a specially constructed frame six feet wide by seven feet long. Samuel could see Olivia, slender and vibrant, sitting in the middle of that big soft bed with her pale golden skin gleaming by candlelight and that mass of brilliant coppery hair falling around her shoulders, over her breasts as she opened her arms to welcome him.

   
Hell, he was rock hard and aching just thinking about her. Best to slow down and think of something else or he’d tear off her clothes and ravish her the moment she walked in the door, never mind the bed upstairs! He sipped more brandy and considered the incredible twists of fate that had taken Tish from his life and brought Olivia to him.

   
Tish had been treacherous and manipulative. It was unlikely that the St. Etienne girl would be any different if her guardian was to be believed. But was he? This was the tangle that Samuel had been loathe to face all day as he waited for her to arrive. Should he have trusted the word of a knave like Wescott? A man so base and unprincipled as to sell a woman entrusted into his care was scarcely a reliable witness to her virtue—or lack thereof. Could he possibly trick an innocent girl into coming here, confidently expecting a lecherous soldier to use her, even against her will? Damn it!

   
He could still see her expression, so wide-eyed and vulnerable that day in Virginia and again after the fierce kiss they had shared in the Chouteaus’ garden. There had been an innocence to her, an utterly unpracticed shyness in her passionate responses. Was Wescott lying? Was Olivia a virgin given away by a selfish man who could no longer exploit her skills at the racetrack?