Pale Moon Stalker (The Nymph Trilogy) (29 page)

He started to leave, but when he looked at Fawn and she said good-bye shyly, he impulsively bent down and kissed her hand before leaving the room.

The girl blinked and looked down at her hand while her tall warrior walked away. She would not have been half as delighted if he'd given her a ten-carat diamond ring. "Grandfather, he kissed my hand!" she exclaimed when her voice returned.

The old man grunted. "White men are strange. Especially English. To kiss a woman's hand..." He shook his head.

* * * *

"Sky, this is Bronc Bodie," Max said as she sat sipping coffee in the hotel dining room. She turned, startled, not expecting her husband to approach her so soon after the ugly scene late last night.

"How do, missus," the white-haired old man said, doffing his hat respectfully as he stood beside her table. "You might remember me from the Burning Pillars saloon." His face reddened as he recalled the drunken crowd's reaction before the Limey had identified the woman carrying the rifle as his wife.

"Mr. Bodie, Sky Stanhope," Max continued smoothly, hoping she would be willing to hear out his plans before walking out in an icy huff.

"Yes, I do remember you, Mr. Bodie. You were most chivalrous." She looked up at Max, puzzled by this unexpected development. She had just returned with clothing for Fawn, who was sleeping. True Dreamer had insisted that Sky should eat breakfast downstairs. Now, she realized that he had arranged this meeting with Max before sending her here.

"If we might join you for coffee?" Max inquired politely—too politely. He knew Bodie was wondering what was wrong between the two of them. "I have a plan to help our Cheyenne friends and their people in the Nations."

Sky nodded to two of the empty chairs around the small table. "Please, Mr. Bodie, Maxwell."

Regal as old Victoria. Butter wouldn't melt in her mouth either
, Max thought as they sat down. "Mr. Bodie is a drover, a man who—"

"I know what drovers do, Maxwell," she cut in sharply, tapping her spoon nervously against the saucer beneath her cup.

"I've used Deuce's money to buy a wagon and mules so we'll have a safe way for Fawn to travel, but also, with this gentleman's help, I've purchased a couple of dozen cattle to drive back to the Nations. That will provide their people with meat through the winter."

She looked at Bodie. "Do you believe you, along with a woman, an Englishman and an old Cheyenne can drive over twenty head of cattle across the Red and into the Nations?"

"Reckon we might lose one or two, ma'am. But, I done drove bigger herds with less help all the way up to Montana Territory," he averred.

As she digested this, Max breathed a sigh of relief. In spite of her denigrating remark about "an Englishman," she had not refused outright. She understood how much good this would do for True Dreamer and Fawn's people. And it would buy him time...

"Very well. I imagine we can make it without too much difficulty, barring interference from our old enemies," she said, looking pointedly at Max.

"If Cletus hires more thugs, we'll have to watch our backs and hope the mysterious Lady R is doing the same," Max said.

Sky turned to Bodie and asked, "Would you please excuse us, Mr. Bodie? My husband and I have a personal matter we need to discuss. We could meet for dinner here this evening, say about six, to iron out the details about the drive, if that's all right with you?"

Bodie rose and gave her a polite bow. "Be my pleasure, ma'am."

When he walked out of the nearly deserted room, Sky returned her attention to Max. "Taking the cattle to the reservation is a fine way to use Deuce's money. I commend you for it."

Noting the level, precise tone of her voice, he waited for the other shoe to drop. "Thank you. However, I hear a 'but' in there someplace." He scarcely dared to breathe, waiting for her to say he should not go along with them. "You know we're in danger from bushwhackers. Not only Cletus' inept thugs, but possibly McKerrish, too, and he's a lot more dangerous. I have Steve watching him. We'll know before we cross into Colorado whether he plans any trouble. I doubt he'd try killing us in Fort Smith's jurisdiction. Even his money can't buy a federal judge such as the fabled Isaac Parker."

"It isn't just Cletus and McKerrish that worry me," she said calmly. Far more calmly than she felt, sitting with his intense green eyes watching her like a puma ready to pounce on a crippled deer. "Has it ever occurred to you that the person behind the attempts on our lives might not be a Stanhope?"

"Surely you're not still suspicious of Jerome Bartlett?" he asked.

"Surely I am. Think, Max," she said intently, forgetting to use his full name. "Ever since we were married in Dakota Territory, every step along the way from New York to London, then back to St. Louis and into Colorado—and even from here, whom have you wired our every move to? Who else knew our itinerary so well as to be able to hire assassins to wait for us?"

"But for what reason?" he asked as doubt began to niggle. "Not Jerome. He's been Uncle Harry's solicitor for forty years. I trust him implicitly."

"Just as I trusted you?" she snapped back before biting her lip. This was not the time to discuss his betrayal.

"Touché, love. I should have told you in London, but—"

"Don't, Max, please. I can't deal with that now. Our first priority has to be Fawn and her safe return home." She remembered when she and her sister had been raped by the bluecoats and rescued by Clint. Without the love of her family, she would never have survived the shame and anguish. Clearing her throat, she went on. "All of the Stanhope fortune is handled by Bartlett, is it not?"

"If he'd ever stolen a penny, do you think a businessman as shrewd as my uncle would not have found out?" he retorted, seeing the gulf between them widening.

"Perhaps he waited until he had an absentee client. Note, there were no attempts to kill either of us in London. But who back there would question our deaths on this wild frontier? Bartlett could rob that little sot blind if he inherited. No one would be the wiser. He may already have chanced skimming money from the accounts since your uncle's death. As far as I've observed, you're not a great deal more attentive than your cousin when it comes to financial matters."

When she sat back, Max smiled at the unflattering comparison. "Ah, a double touché." Sky's cool expression did not change. He looked out the bay window of the hotel at the busy street, mulling over her reasoning. Jerome certainly had moved up in the world. Could his elegant new office and fine tailored clothes be because he was handling business affairs for that wealthy widow he mentioned—or could there be a more sinister reason? "I suppose I could have someone in London investigate discreetly," he said reluctantly.

"Perhaps your friend Steve Loring can help. He appears to have business dealings practically everywhere," she suggested.

"Is this what we're reduced to, Sky? Stilted, polite conversations having nothing to do with our marriage?"

"At least I'm being polite, m'lord. You've seen me when I'm not."

He knew she did not refer to smashing McKerrish in the mouth. No, she was thinking of the diatribe that had sent his cousin stumbling from the Ruxton city house. "I was very proud of you that evening, m'lady," he replied, his eyes turning dark now. "But make no mistake. I am not Cletus."

Chapter Fifteen

By the time they rode out of Fort Worth, Fawn was recovering both physically and mentally. Dr. Torres had given his approval for her to undertake the arduous journey provided she ride in the wagon for at least the first few days. He remarked on how well her skin healed. For all the ghastly beatings she had endured, with his skillful stitching and the herbal salves, she would have no visible scars.

If her keen fascination with "Stalker" was any indication, her mind had not been damaged either. She feared no one and faced each day with renewed joy. "Will I be able to help with the cattle?" she asked Sky that first morning as the men herded the wild-eyed steers from the stockyard and up the busy street. She was standing up, holding on to the covered frame of the small wagon as Sky drove it behind the cattle. Before she could reply to the girl's question, they were interrupted by a loud, braying voice.

"Never seed a red-skinned wrangler afore," one drunken cowboy called out as he hung on to a lamp pole at the edge of the sidewalk, watching True Dreamer skillfully cut off a straying steer.

Sky calmly pulled the wagon to a stop, cocked the Yellow Boy and sighted it directly between the eyes of the commentator. "Funny, I've never seen a white-skinned polecat either. Where I come from, we shoot pole cats."

He backed away from the pole, his bloodshot eyes nearly popping from their sockets. "I-I never meant nothin', honest, m-ma'am," he stuttered as he scuttled clumsily around the corner into an alley, tripping over his own spurs.

"Would you have shot him?" Fawn asked from inside the wagon.

"Unfortunately, no. The white man's law would hang me if I killed a man just for being stupid," she replied.

Fawn giggled. "He looked very frightened, like a rabbit chased by a bobcat."

After caring for Fawn the past week, Sky realized how much she wanted children. If she and Will had been able to have them, a girl nearly Fawn's age could be her own. What had been a dream so long denied with Will now made Max's betrayal all the crueler. He wanted to give her a child, but only to keep Cletus from inheriting the Stanhope wealth.

But he says he loves you
, a self-torturing inner voice reminded her. Did he? Sky honestly had no idea. If only he'd explained the codicil to her before she fell in love with him. But when would that have been? As she looked back now, she was forced to admit she had probably fallen under Maxwell Stanhope's spell the first time he removed his hat and she saw that incredible face and the silver-gilt hair framing it.
The Pale Moon Stalker.
True Dreamer had certainly named him right.

She once again slapped the reins and the recalcitrant mules began moving. Just then, Fawn interrupted her self-pitying reverie. "I do not think Stalker is used to herding cattle," she said with a giggle.

A smirk tilted Sky's lips as she watched Max unsuccessfully attempt to prevent a steer from climbing nimbly onto the boardwalk in front of a saloon. "No, it would appear he is not," she replied while Bronc twirled his lariat and caught the would-be imbiber around the neck, dragging it from the swinging doors back to the street.

"Move along, doggie. You ain't got the two bits for a drink anyways," the old drover said with a chuckle.

The steer rejoined the herd as if nothing had happened while Max yanked hard on the brim of his hat, a nervous gesture Sky knew meant he was agitated. "Herding animals is quite a different matter than hunting them," she said to Fawn.

"But Stalker is a great hunter of evil men. Grandfather says his deeds are sung across the land in the white man's newspapers. I wish we'd had some of those newspapers at the trading post while Mr. Campbell was teaching me to read," she said dreamily.

Sky sighed. Eleven years old and already another of Max's conquests.
How does he do it?
But one glance at his lean, muscular body and chiseled features explained it all. She forced her eyes to stare straight ahead as they followed the small herd out onto the open plain stretching in front of them. This was going to be a very long ride indeed.

* * * *

By the end of the day, it had become painfully obvious to Max that he was an utter failure as a drover. Although a superb horseman and tracker, he had never had occasion to acquire the cutting and roping skills required to hold a herd together. He watched Bronc and True Dreamer calmly kneeing their horses in intricate maneuvers to outflank frisky steers. Their lariats flew with artless precision, always landing around the necks of the ornery critters.

"Flaming hell, for all the good I'm doing, I might as well be herding cats! Two bloody old men! They're riding circles around me, literally," he muttered to himself when yet another wily steer slipped past him. Bronc headed it off and used his coiled rope to shoo it back, calling to it in whatever damnable mooing language cattle spoke. "I don't suppose French or Zulu would work," he groused, hating to look incompetent in front of Sky.

At least she was laughing. But not with him—at him. He was not, however, losing face with Fawn, who had made a point of sitting with him when they stopped for their midday meal, peppering him with questions about his life in England.

"Do they select English lords the way we choose our chiefs, from the bravest and wisest warriors?"

Max smiled. "Nothing so sensible. Titles are passed on from father to eldest son."

"Even if someone else is braver or smarter?" she asked, incredulously.

"I'm afraid so," he said with a shrug.

"Perhaps that's why Maxwell became a lord," Sky could not resist saying. Her already foul humor had not sweetened after six grueling hours trying to control a pair of incredibly strong mules. Her shoulders ached as if her arms had been ripped from their sockets.

"I became a lord by pure chance. I'm the last Stanhope male still alive, save for one cousin," he said aloud to Fawn. Then he stood up and moved across the campfire to his wife. "A situation you might wish to alter for both of us, eh, love?" he added lightly, kneeling behind her to massage her tense muscles. "You're going to be too sore to drive by morning."