The Baron (28 page)

He forced himself to relax and smiled gently. “Dominic is my uncle and I’ll be very glad to introduce you, if you’re not acquainted with him. May I ask your business with him?”

He was being kind to her. Patronizing and indulgent and very kind. Elspeth could feel the tears of frustration and self-disgust sting her eyes. She had meant to be so adult and coolly businesslike, but at the first hint of intimidation she had reacted with a regrettable lack of composure. Patrick Delaney was only a boy and nothing in the least like her father. What could have triggered the memory that had caused her assurance to melt like ice in the sunshine?

She would
not
behave like the helpless nonentity her father had thought her. This was a new life, a new Elspeth MacGregor. She drew a deep, steadying breath and lifted her chin. “I would appreciate your help, Mr. Delaney. I have a business proposal to make to your uncle and he’s a stranger to me. I’m sure he’ll remember my father, however.”

“Hell’s Bluff isn’t the kind of town that can offer a lady any of the amenities. Your father would have done better to come himself.”

Elspeth lowered her eyes to the reticule on her lap. “My father died four months ago.”

So that was the reason for all that overpowering black. “My sympathy. There was no one else who could make the trip?”

She shook her head. “I’m alone now.” She lifted her eyes and met his gaze. “And even if I weren’t alone, I would have come anyway. In case you hadn’t noticed, women are becoming very capable of handling their own affairs. In fact, I understand in your territory of Wyoming they have already won the vote. I don’t need anyone to shelter and protect me, Mr. Delaney.”

No more than calf in a snowstorm,
Patrick thought while he carefully kept his expression from revealing that judgment. “I can see you’re very capable, but perhaps you’ll let me escort you to the hotel and get you settled, if that wouldn’t compromise your principles too drastically.” His lips twitched in spite of his attempt at solemnity. “I promise I won’t tell the ladies in Wyoming.”

He was laughing at her. She should have been annoyed but somehow she found that impossible. There was something in his manner that was so genuinely sunny and caring, she found herself smiling again. “I believe I’d be willing to risk their disapproval, but I’d prefer to see your uncle immediately. I may be able to conclude my business with him this afternoon. Is he staying at the hotel?”

“Well, not exactly.” Patrick had a sudden vision of the last glimpse he’d had of Dominic when he’d stuck his head in Rina’s room this morning to say good-bye. Rina had evidently decided to be generous; there had been a golden-haired beauty on one side of Dom in the big double bed, Rina herself on the other side. The thought of this little owl named Elspeth invading that scene of bacchanalian debauchery might be amusing, but he doubted Dom would think so. “It would be better if I brought Dom to you. He moves around a lot and has an interest in one or two claims out of town.”

Elspeth frowned. “If that’s the only way I can see him. Claims? You mean gold mines?” She had known Hell’s Bluff was a boom town, one of those fabulous places that had sprung into being when gold had been discovered. It was rather like Athena springing full grown from Zeus’s head, she thought. She should have guessed that Dominic Delaney was still here because of the gold being found in these parts. She experienced a swift rush of dismay. She had nothing to offer him but the potential for great wealth. What if he were already a wealthy man? “He owns gold mines?”

Patrick shook his head. “He grubstaked a couple of miners for a percentage of their claims, but they haven’t brought in more than a few sacks of dust yet.”
He shrugged. “There’s plenty of gold here in the Santa Catalinas all right. It’s probably only a question of time until Dom’s miners make a strike.”

Elspeth released the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. She still had something with which to bargain, then. “We’ve heard of your famous gold rushes at home. Hell’s Bluff must be a very interesting town. Do you have one of these claims, too, Mr. Delaney?”

He made a face. “I have all I can do on Killara. My gran-da keeps us all too busy to go prospecting.”

“Except your uncle Dominic?”

“I heard he shot two men in Carson City,” Andre Marzonoff broke in. “He faced them in the street and they both emptied their guns while he walked toward them. He didn’t fire a shot until he was within range and then gunned them both down. Is it true he’s being hunted by the Texas Rangers?”

Elspeth had almost forgotten the Russian was in the coach. Now she saw he had been drinking in Patrick Delaney’s words with an avid thirst that was faintly repulsive.

It was clearly repulsive to Patrick Delaney as well. “No, Dom’s not wanted by the law any longer. He was given a full pardon by the governor five months ago.” He lowered his voice to a dangerous softness. “And questions regarding a man’s past aren’t encouraged out here, Marzonoff. If you want to stay healthy, you’d better observe our primitive customs.”

For a moment Marzonoff actually appeared indignant. Then he smiled ingratiatingly. “I meant no offence. I admire you westerners very much. You bear a resemblance to the Cossacks of my own country. My cousin, Nicholas, is related on his mother’s side to Igor Dabol, the most powerful tribal leader in the steppes.”

“How interesting,” Delaney said politely. “I’m afraid I’ve never heard of him.” He looked down and Elspeth noted a gleam of pure mischief in his hastily averted eyes. “We Delaneys have a few well-known relatives ourselves. Have you ever heard of the James brothers? Jesse and Frank?”

Marzonoff’s eyes widened. “Jesse James?”

“Cousins,” Delaney said. “On my mother’s side, of course.” He was scrupulously keeping his gaze from Marzonoff’s rapt face. “And then there’s old Joaquin Murrietta. You might say he’s the patriarch of the California branch of the Delaney clan. Of course, I guess Uncle Bill is probably more famous.”

“Bill?” Marzonoff was almost stammering with excitement.

“Bill Hickok. However, there are those who say he’s more infamous than famous. But not to his face. Uncle Bill is very careful of his good name.”

“Wild Bill Hickok,” the Russian repeated dazedly.

“And the Daltons and the Youngers are second cousins on my …” Delaney trailed off and Elspeth saw his shoulders begin to shake, though his expression was still bland. She was forced to smother a laugh herself.

Patrick Delaney’s voice was a little choked as he continued. “I think I’ll take a little snooze. All that walking has made me plumb weary.” He put on his stetson and tipped it over his eyes, ignoring Marzonoff’s obvious disappointment. “I’m afraid I’m not as rough and tough as my kinfolk.”

Elspeth didn’t know about his toughness but she was sure the young rascal could far outpace his “relatives” in sheer deviltry.

She settled back on the seat, shifting her gaze between the two young men opposite her. They were a strange blend of contrasts and similarities. The plump Russian was the older, she judged, close to her own age of twenty-two years. His fine city clothing should have given him the advantage of inner confidence over the auburn-haired cowboy, but such was not the case. Patrick’s tight denim trousers were shabby, his brown shirt and tan suede vest dusty, and his black stetson was sun-faded in spots. Yet his wide shoulders and narrow hips, the careless grace of his strong body, gave his attire an elegance Andre Marzonoff could never hope to bring to his clothing. Patrick’s speech was puzzling. His words sounded as
educated and cultured as any of her father’s students, and yet they were flavored by a lazy and quite unusual drawl. This young Delaney was something of an enigma, she thought.

She glanced out the window. The Santa Catalina mountains were very beautiful but as stark and rugged as the rest of this wild country. How different they were from the mist-shrouded mountains of her native land. She shifted restlessly, suddenly tired of the scenery. She felt as if she had traveled years instead of weeks since she had left Edinburgh. She was growing terribly impatient now that she was so close to her objective. Her gaze returned to Patrick Delaney, and a tiny smile lifted the corners of her lips. She closed her own eyes and tried to relax.

The young cowboy was a complete scoundrel. Her father would have disapproved of both his attitude and his background, yet she was delighted to have his assistance when she arrived in Hell’s Bluff. Her smile brodened. Yes, she was perfectly delighted.

The night wind drove needle-like snow into the young man’s back as he kicked the heavy door closed behind him. There was no heat in the huge main hall of the mansion, and his footsteps echoed in the open emptiness as he stamped sticky snow-flakes from his boots and shook them from his shoulders. Country darkness had fallen outside hours ago, and only a thin slip of muted moonlight poured like liquid silver seafoam down the grand staircase from the tall windows on the first landing.

But there was no hesitancy in the man’s stride as he walked through the shadowed quiet of the hall. He had crossed this floor uncounted times since he had taken his first faltering steps here twenty-seven years ago, when his mother had released his baby fingers and watched in laughing excitement as he toddled into his father’s outstretched arms. Gone was that laughing mother
with the gentle hands and the whispered fragrance of gardenia. Gone was the father with the moustache that made his kisses tickle.

Walking in the cavernous gloom, alone except for the tiny burden under his pullover that he supported with both hands, the man felt no unease. His nature was at times a whimsical one, but even as a child he had never been fearful. And he was not completely devoid of company.

“I’m home, Chaucer,” he called softly in the darkness. Hampered by the limitations of human hearing, he missed the owl’s silent flight, though he could feel the slight draft from its wings brush his wind-stung skin, and the light weight of padded feet coming to rest expertly on his shoulder with a subtle shift in balance. There was a musical trill of greeting. The man resettled the burden under his pullover and withdrew one hand, dragging off a suede glove with his teeth. He reached up and gently scratched the owl’s silky breast with a friendly finger.

“We have company, old son,” he said, the very attractive voice husky from the heavy cold outdoors. “Orphans. Orphans of the storm. How are your parental instincts functioning?”

A wing, lifted indignantly, touched the back of his head as the owl hissed, and that drew a slight laugh from the man.

Together they passed under the high cool ceilings, going by the small dry fountain and ceramic pool. In the vast dining room, a huge chandelier dense with dusty prisms sparkled above them in the dimness, and answered the man’s footsteps with a faint chime. Beyond, he passed the summer dining room and the butler’s pantry. At last
he came gratefully into the kitchen, where the antiquated central heating had been puffing a steady, pillowy warmth. His hand hit the upper button of the old-fashioned light switch, flooding the warm wide expanse of the room with cheerful yellow light, and his eyes, night-adjusted, stung. He registered the fact briefly, instinctively, by its biology: the rapid decomposition of rhodopsin in the eye.

Crossing the parquet floor, he knelt by a low cupboard, withdrawing a cardboard shoe box. Working one-handed, he lined the box with a clean dishtowel, and then set it on the rosewood work table. With utmost care, he reached under his pullover and brought out his two tiny orphans, supporting them carefully in his cupped hands. He brought them level with his face and looked at them closely.

“Well,” he said softly. “Welcome to my nest.”

The two little owlets blinking sleepily at him from his palms were balls of gray down, all beak and brilliant lemon-yellow eyes that were beginning to focus on him with alert annoyance at having been roused from their sleeping place next to his warm, dry skin and his soothing heartbeat. They seemed suddenly to remember that they were hungry and began to chatter loudly.

The adult screech owl on the man’s shoulder shot off like a catapulted weight and swept up to perch on the high cupboard, hunching his wings and watching the noisy duo with evident disgust, clacking his beak before turning his head pointedly away.

“What’s the matter, you old bachelor?” the man asked with amusement. “Aren’t you cut out for
fatherhood? Anyone would think I haven’t told you time and again that birds of a feather flock together.” The screech owl raised his ear-tufts and turned his head back enough to give the man a sardonic half-lidded look. Smiling back, the man said, “So. Let’s get on with seeing what we can do about ensuring the survival of the species.”

He deposited the owlets gently in the box before shrugging out of his jacket. They kept him busy for the next hour, their voices rising in penetrating squeals while he chopped raw beef for them, keeping it in the oven just long enough to take off the chill, then mixing it with the downy roughage he gathered by slitting open a panel of his down jacket, leaving that panel a little leaner than it had been that afternoon.

The tiny owls ate like Roman senators at an orgy. Chaucer seemed to be so amazed that he sailed down again to watch the proceedings from the man’s shoulder, and then walked up to the top of the man’s head for a better view.

As the man fed the owlets, he clucked to them and talked to them, first apologizing for the lack of mouse meat, and then telling them all sorts of interesting facts about their eyesight and hearing, their population density in the region. He started to go into their mating cycle, but stopped, laughing, and promised them they could hear about that when they were a little older. At long last, they’d had enough—first one, then the other, began nodding sleepily and ignoring the proffered bits of feather-wrapped meat.

The man tucked the tired infant owls back under his pullover and sat down. The tingling of relief to his legs and back reminded him that he’d been on
his feet since two o’clock in the afternoon. He said to Chaucer, who’d returned to perch on his shoulder, “Why don’t you make me a sandwich, you old feather duster?”