The Rustler's Bride (3 page)

Sinclair shot another sour glare at him. “You stole fifty head of my cattle.”

The girl cut in. “It’s done, father, and it’s legal.”

Sinclair turned to his daughter. “Just tell me one thing, Ria?” The pleading tone was back in his voice. “All those years, when you took such an interest in my work on the town council, is this what you had in mind? That one day this young devil might have a noose around his neck and you’d want to spare him? Was it all about the being able to use the marriage ordinance?”

“No.” She squared her shoulders, offended by the accusation. “Transcribing your notes was something I could do for you, to work with you. I’m not calculating enough to use my love for you as a tool for scheming.” She darted another glance at her father from beneath her lashes. “I hope the same applies to you,” she added curtly. “I’m not a pawn. I hope you were not counting on me to marry a rich man to help you in your empire building.”

Sinclair gave a muttered denial, but Declan could see a guilty expression flicker across his dark, saturnine features. “All right, Ria,” he said finally. “If paying back your debt to his young man is so important to you, this is what I’ll allow. You can let the marriage stand. In name only. One year. Then we’ll arrange an annulment. You must write to the senator and the earl and the railroad magnate and tell them we’ve suffered a death in the family. You’re in mourning, unable to think about committing to a betrothal. In a year from now, they’ll be able to renew their offers, and then you’ll make your choice.”

She gave a small, tight nod and said, “Thank you, father.”

Irritation rippled over Declan at Sinclair’s casual declaration of how it all would end.
Idiot
, he told himself.
What do you think she expected when she married you? True love and happiness? She wanted to save your sorry hide, and that’s all it was.

“
Is that blue roan stolen or does it belong to you?” Sinclair asked him.

“It’s mine,” Declan replied. “He’s called Vali.” He’d found the name in a book that had belonged to his Norwegian grandmother. It was the Norse god of revenge.

“And the saddle?” Sinclair asked.

“Mine.”

“Take the horse to the stables. I want my blacksmith, Abe Leatherhorn, to look over the animal before letting it mix with the others. Find yourself a bed in the bunkhouse. Married to my daughter or not, I expect you to work for your keep.”

Victoria made a sound of protest. “Not the bunkhouse, father. He’s supposed to be my husband. We’ll have to keep up some level of appearances. Otherwise Sheriff Weston and his deputies might have second thoughts about letting him live.”

Sinclair considered. “All right, Ria,” he said finally. “This is what we’ll do. He can sleep in the empty maid’s room downstairs, behind the kitchen. He’ll take his breakfast and noon meal in the cookhouse with the hands. At dinnertime, he can come into the house. I’ll see how his table manners are before I decide if he has to eat from a tray in his room or if he gets to sit at the table.”

“Thank you, father.”

“That suit you, Beaulieu?”

“That’s fine, sir.” The respectful reply came of its own accord. Declan gritted his teeth. He’d better not forget that Andrew Sinclair was responsible for the suffering his parents, Barbara and Louis Beaulieu, and that his only goal in life was to avenge their untimely deaths.

Chapter Two

Declan sprawled the narrow brass bed, stripped to the waist, the top button on his denim pants undone, his feet dangling over the end of the mattress. His new lodgings had turned out to be a feminine sanctuary, with sweet smelling sachets in the oak chest, lace trimmed pillows on the bed, and a chair so dainty it groaned under his weight when he sat down to remove his boots.

The remains his dinner—beef stew and apple pie—sat on a tray beside him, largely uneaten because his appetite had deserted him.

He’d spent the afternoon meeting the ranch hands. Not counting the blacksmith and the small, garrulous Cookie, there were seven men—two blacks, two Mexican, and three Anglos. The number was even lower than he’d expected. It might cost him a gold piece every time he spoke to Howard Peterson at the United Savings Bank, but the information he’d received had been worth every penny because it had proved accurate. It was clear that Andrew Sinclair could no longer afford to hire men or maids.

Declan got up, his bare feet soundless on the timber floor, and opened the shutters to watch the stars glitter in the evening sky as he mulled over the final stages of his revenge plan. A heavy sigh rumbled out of his chest—a torn, indecisive sound. Without Victoria Sinclair, his attempts to ruin her father would now be buried in a crude pine box alongside with him.

He owed his life to her.

Surely, he should forget the past.

Forgive and forget.

No.

The denial sprang up in his mind, swift and vehement. He suppressed the feelings of guilt over his lack of gratitude. He was so close to achieving his goal. He couldn’t afford to become distracted now. And yet, he could not silence the doubts that whispered through his mind.
Victoria, Victoria, why did you do it? Why did you save me? Why didn’t you let them string me up at the end of a rope? For that would have saved your father from losing everything he’s worked his whole life to build up.

A knock on the door jolted him out of his morose thoughts. Declan eyed his shirt on the bedpost. Leaving it there, he strode to the door and flung it open. It was the housekeeper, Mrs. Flynn. An Irishwoman in her fifties, she was so generously proportioned at the bust and at the hips that every inch of her seemed to wobble as she walked.

“Mr. Beaulieu?” she breathed. “Oh, my…” She fell silent, her green eyes staring at his naked chest.

Declan glanced down. Only a dim light burned in the room, but a glow from the lantern in the corridor fell on the ridged expanse of rib and muscle. Beneath the scattering of light brown hair on his chest, dark bruises fought for space with angry red welts and healing scars.

“Sorry.” Declan scooted back, snagged his shirt from the bedpost and tugged it over his head, wincing at the pain in his ribs. “I didn’t expect—”

A coy, feminine voice cut him off. “No need to apologize. I’m not too old to look.” The green eyes twinkled. “I came to tell you that Mr. Sinclair wants to see you in the library.” The housekeeper peered past him, over to the bedside. The light in her eyes faded. “No good, then, my stew?” she said and shuffled forward to collect the dinner tray.

Declan had learned that Mrs. Flynn kept the house clean and cooked for the family. The men got their meals in the cookhouse. The housekeeper was engaged in a friendly rivalry with Cookie—real name Grizzly Norris—who was a small man with a rounded belly that proved at least one person enjoyed the meals he prepared, even though the men claimed the name Grizzly came from the texture of the meat he served.

“No, it was good.” Declan hesitated. “It’s just that I’m…not hungry.”

The woman pursed her lips, her good humor returning. “A hanging might do that to a man.” She glanced at his chest again. “Or a beating.” She gathered the tray and retreated toward the door. “Mr. Sinclair,” she reminded him as she brushed by him. “In the library.” When Declan failed to react, she added an emphatic, “Now.”

Declan waited until the housekeeper was out of sight. Then he pulled on his boots, tucked in his shirt, and made his way through the quiet house. On two floors, the place was built of adobe bricks that kept the interior cool even in the August heat. Dusty velvet drapes bordered the windows, some of which had cobwebs around the shutters—an indication that they hadn’t been opened in weeks. The place already had an abandoned feel, as if it could sense the calamity that awaited its owner.

Declan paused in the galleried hall where a timber staircase led up to the bedrooms. Searching for the library, he surveyed the doors that gave into cool, shadowed rooms filled with heavy furniture in dark wood. Only one door was closed. Declan knocked on it.

“Come in,” a masculine voice called out.

He found Sinclair seated by an unlit stone fireplace, lounging in a huge leather armchair. His booted feet were propped on a low cowhide stool. A bottle of whiskey and a pair of shot glasses stood on the small circular table by his elbow. In the far end of the room, Victoria sat behind an oak desk that had seen better days. She was hunched over a document, writing with a careful hand. She glanced up as Declan entered, nodded to acknowledge his presence, and resumed her task.

“Sit down.” Sinclair swung his feet down, sat up in the seat, and gestured at another chair across the blackened mouth of the stone chimney.

Declan did as he was told.

“So, Beaulieu, you said you’re from Kansas?”

Declan nodded.

“My wife was from Kansas. A farmer’s daughter.”

Declan showed no reaction. He hadn’t known.

Sinclair nodded toward the unshuttered window where a glimmer of moonlight cast a pale glow over the desert landscape. “She’s buried up on the hillside.”

Declan gave another nod. That, he had known.

“She died a few years after we came out to the Arizona Territory. Influenza.” Sinclair shook his head, a faraway look in his pewter eyes. “She’d survived snakebite in Texas and lived through bringing this hellion into the world.” He jerked his head toward Victoria. “I knew she could never give me another child, so even when she lived I put all my hopes in this one. And after my wife died, my daughter is all I’ve got.”

He’d been talking in the soft voice of reminiscing. Now his voice grew razor sharp. “You get my meaning, son?” His eyes bore into Declan’s. “If you touch my daughter, I’ll cut off your balls and feed them to you. And that’s no empty threat.” He waited in silence. When Declan didn’t reply, he raised his voice. “You hear me, son?”

Over at the desk, Victoria was pretending to be engrossed in dipping the pen in the ink well and carefully copying words from a tattered document into a some kind of a leather-bound journal, but Declan could tell she was listening to every word.

“I hear you,” he said.

“Good,” Sinclair replied. “Don’t tell me I didn’t warn you.”

Declan got to his feet. “I could leave,” he said. His manner was easy, his tone indifferent. “Ride out in the morning. There’s nothing to keep me here.”

An oath in a feminine voice rippled across the room. Both men looked up.

“A blot.” Victoria glanced up from her papers, scowling. “I put a blot on the page.”

Her father stared back at her and spoke with a blunt emphasis and a thickened Scottish burr. “Better than putting a blot on ye reputation, me lass.” He turned back to Declan. “There’s nothing to keep you here but my daughter’s word to the sheriff who let you live. If you ride out—which would not bother me in the least—best to make sure you leave the county—nae, leave the territory—for Garth Weston will be on your trail before sunset, and this time he’ll not hesitate to put a rope around your neck.”

Sinclair reached over to the table by his elbow, poured whiskey into another shot glass and held it out to Declan, who remained on his feet. “Drink up, me lad,” he said grimly. “It’s one year to the day, and not a moment longer. After that, I’ll want you off my land.”

Declan took the glass, raised it to his lips and tipped his head back. The liquor burned a trail of fire down his chest.
Not a year
, he thought.
I’ll be done with you within a month.
He leaned down to prop the empty glass on the table. As he turned on his heels and walked out of the library without another word, he could feel Victoria’s eyes on his back.

****

Victoria suffered a restless night, troubled by the battle of masculine wills that seemed to have settled like a dark cloud over the household. Didn’t Declan know how to be grateful? Didn’t her father know how to declare a truce and make the best of the situation?

A shudder of irritation rippled over her as she recalled the threats her father had made in the library. Why did men have to posture so? And why did they think it was up to them to argue over her, as if she were a piece of rawhide two dogs had clamped their jaws on and were tugging into different directions.

She would choose her own direction.

And right now, that direction was to get to know the man she had married. Every time she laid eyes on him, strange sensations twisted at the base of her spine. At school, some girls had boasted about clandestine trysts with men, and now Victoria found herself recalling their stories and wondering what it would feel like, to do with Declan Beaulieu those brazen things the wanton girls had talked about.

When the first rays of light finally peeked through the shutters, heralding the dawn, Victoria scrambled out of bed and tiptoed to the washstand. She hurried through her morning ablutions and pulled on a cotton shirt and a pair of canvas overalls.

Good riddance to corsets and gowns. Boarding school had been all pink and frilly, with dainty bow-legged furniture. Her bedroom was the opposite, furnished with heavy, ornately carved pieces in dark wood, bought from the
ranchos
south of the border, or commissioned from the Mexican artisans in Tucson.

Ready to tackle the day, she clattered into the dining room and steeled herself for a showdown when her father saw her clothing.

Mrs. Flynn was bustling by the table. The housekeeper always dressed in black, in honor of a husband who had died two decades ago, only days after she stepped off the stagecoach as a mail order bride. Victoria had offered to pay for more cheerful dresses, but Mrs. Flynn said she’d been wearing black so long the idea of colors made her dizzy.

“Where’s my father?” Victoria asked as she sat down.

“Mr. Sinclair ate already. He’s gone into town.”

Gone into town.
Victoria broke into a grin of irrepressible glee. Thank God for small mercies. Not only did she escape an argument over her outfit, but she could seek out Declan without having to worry about her father erupting into another fit of rage.

The housekeeper set a cup in front of her and poured. “I made fresh coffee.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Flynn. You’re a marvel.”

“One needs to be, to prepare something that is fit to eat out of the scrawny carcasses Mr. Norris brings me.”

Victoria turned her burst of amusement into a hiccup. The housekeeper never wasted an opportunity to complain about Cookie, whose job it was to slaughter and prepare the meat they ate. But—Victoria thought with a suppressed smile—it was a known fact that women had a tendency to grumble about men for whom they secretly carried a torch.

Mrs. Flynn’s ample bosom bounced up and down as she rocked on her feet, her face puckered in a frown, as if she wanted to say something but didn’t quite know how to put it.

“What is it, Mrs. Flynn?” Victoria prompted.

“I met that husband of yours last night.” The housekeeper’s expression grew wistful. “My, my. You don’t see one like that every day. An outlaw, I’m hearing. And staying just the year to keep his neck out of the noose.”

“That’s right, Mrs. Flynn. As always, the bush telegraph has been quite accurate.”

“Didn’t have much of an appetite last night. Said it was the hanging, but I’m thinking it was the stew.” The broad face puckered once more. “The piece of meat Mr. Norris sent me was tougher than a strip of rawhide.”

“I’m sure you stew was excellent, Mrs. Flynn.”

The housekeeper gave a little grunt, appearing mollified. She rocked a moment in silence. “Would you like a piece of advice, Miss Victoria?” she finally asked.

Mrs. Flynn had arrived at Red Rock when Victoria was sixteen, two years before she went off to boarding school. They weren’t particularly close, but as the only older female on the ranch—the only other female of any age now that the maids were gone—the housekeeper felt entitled to take a maternal interest.