This Fierce Splendor

4

She was there again.

Dominic muttered a low and sincere curse. Rina glanced at him in surprise. Her gaze followed his and she chuckled at Elspeth’s black-clad feature across the street. “Do you think I should invite her in for a glass of lemonade? She looks hot standing out in that blazing sun.”

“Very funny.” There was no amusement in Dominic’s voice. His hand clenched on the starched lace curtain of the parlor window. She did look hot. She was covered from the tips of her shiny black shoes to her chin in a black gown similar to the one she had worn when he’d first met her. There was a small-brimmed bonnet perched on her head, its ribbons tied in a neat bow beneath her chin. One gloved hand clutched the handle of a black parasol which may have afforded some relief from the direct rays of the sun but not from the afternoon heat, “How long has she been there this time?”

“Since about ten o’clock this morning. Li Tong said she was standing across the street when he went down to the general store.” Rina was observing the small black-garbed woman with critical eyes. “God, that’s a terrible gown. She looks like a scarecrow. I’m glad she gives up when the sun goes down or she’d scare off some of my customers.” She cast a speculative glance at Dominic. “Lord, though, you do have to admire her persistence, don’t you?”

“The hell I do.” Her persistence had been driving him insane for the last three days. His threat on the day Elspeth had invaded Rina’s place had not even dented her determination. The tone of her pursuit had merely changed from active aggression to passive inevitability. Everywhere he looked he saw Elspeth MacGregor. He had kept to his word not to speak to her, but it was becoming increasingly impossible to ignore her. Every day she had been standing in that very same spot across the street waiting patiently for him to appear. When he left Rina’s she trailed along behind him at a discreet distance. If he stopped at the barber shop, he could see her waiting outside. If he went to the livery stable to get his horse to go and check on one of his claims, she would smile politely as he rode out and settle herself on a bundle of hay to wait his return. When he went to the hotel for a meal, he could count on her being at the next table. She even trotted at his heels when he went to the Nugget every evening and stationed herself across the street.

As Rina had remarked, her vigil ended when the sun went down but it might as well have lasted through the nights for all it cut down on the talk. Hell, he thought angrily, he was the object of amusement for the entire population of this damned little town. She was now slyly called Delaney’s “shadow.” The snickers behind his back were no less stinging than they would have been to his face. And the most maddening aspect of Elspeth MacGregor’s dogged pursuit was its passivity. He could take no action because she took no action. She was merely there.

“She’ll give up soon and go away.” Rina slipped her arm through Dominic’s and leaned her head on his shoulder. “No woman can stand being ignored for very long.”

Dominic wasn’t so sure. Elspeth MacGregor had displayed a strength of determination that surprised him. It had been a bold and unconventional move to place him in this position and, if he read her correctly, boldness and a disregard of the conventions were foreign to her. He knew very well he had frightened her that morning in the hall. Yet she persevered and, in spite of his annoyance and exasperation, he found himself reluctantly admiring her courage.

Good God, if he continued in this vein, in another minute he would be feeling sorry for her, and that he refused to do. She was not only making him a laughingstock, but trying to force him into doing something he had no intention of doing. He’d be damned if he’d permit her to succeed in either. If she wanted a battle of wills, he would give it to her. He could hold out a hell of a lot longer than his so-called “shadow.”

He would not feel sorry for her. She deserved her plight dammit, she’d brought it on herself. “One way or the other I’ll make sure she gets out of my hair-and soon.” He gave one last glance at Elspeth’s forlorn figure through the lacy veil of the curtains. She was standing very stiff, her back straight as a rod. Too stiff. He knew what that ironlike rigidity indicated. There had been times when he had been on the dodge he’d had to ride days without rest, periods when his physical strength had been stretched to the limit. It was during those times that he had ridden with a back as straight as Elspeth MacGregor’s was now. For he had known that to relax even a little would have been to collapse entirely.

The heat was stiflingly hot here in the parlor. He could feel the sweat trickling down his spine. The rays of the burning sun must make the outside heat a hundred times worse, he reasoned. Elspeth looked infinitely fragile standing there with no protection but that blasted parasol. The shadow case by the parasol made the soft, fair skin of her neck appear terribly delicate. Her neck was delicate. He could suddenly feel again its silky yet vulnerable skin beneath his palm.

“Christ,” he muttered through clenched teeth. What an idiot the woman was. It was a wonder she hadn’t collapsed already. “Goddammit, tell Li Tong to take one of the kitchen chairs and some water out to her.”

He pulled away from Rina and strode swiftly out of the parlor.

“Miss MacGregor.”

Elspeth turned as she was about to go out the door to look back inquiringly. Mr. Judkins, the proprietor of the hotel, was gazing at her with a troubled expression. “Yes?” she inquired softly.

“You shouldn’t ought to go out this time of night, ma’am.” He nibbled worriedly at his almost nonexistent lower lip. “Not alone. I’d be glad to get one of my boys to go with you.”

She smiled gratefully at the small gray-haired man. Mr. Judkins had been very kind to her in the past few days. “I don’t think that will be necessary. I have no intention of being gone long.” Her smile widened. “Besides, I’ve been treated with the greatest courtesy by everyone in Hell’s Bluff since the moment I stepped off the stage. I’m beginning to believe the stories about wild western towns have been exaggerated. I felt more frightened in Edinburgh in broad daylight than I do going out after dark here.”

“There’s more womenfolk in those big cities. I guess people get used to having them around and forget what it’s like to be without them,” Mr. Judkins said. “Ladies are precious as gold out here, and that’s how we treat them.”

“Then there’s nothing at all to be concerned about, is there, Mr. Judkins?”

He hesitated. “Ma’am, I’m not worried about anybody in his right senses bothering you. A man in these parts would know we’d string him up quick as a jackrabbit if he offered a lady like you any insult, but rotgut whiskey has a way of addling a man’s brain.”

Elspeth felt a cold chill run through her, not at the implied danger but at the casual coldness of the man’s words. Hang a man for merely offering a drunken insult? No, he must be exaggerating to make her feel more secure. “I’ll be back soon,” she assured him once more. “I’m certain that if I have any trouble, there will be someone nearby who will be as kind as you are, Mr. Judkins.” She gave him another smile and closed the mahogany door behind her.

Her footsteps sounded firm and confident on the rough wooden boards that formed the sidewalk. Her words to Mr. Judkins had rung with confidence too. How she wished she felt as confident as the sounds of her words and steps. Her palms were moist with nervousness beneath her cotton gloves, and she had a sudden urge to turn around and run back into the hotel and up the stairs to the safety of her room. She didn’t want to be out here alone.

She had become very accustomed to the tiny town of Hell’s Bluff in the past few days, yet tonight this street appeared strange and unfamiliar in the darkness. The store and the bank on her side of the street were dark and she presumed deserted. The only establishment ablaze with lights and noise was the saloon on the corner across the street. The Nugget had a sign in huge red letters above its swinging oak doors, and no one could be more familiar than she with that sign. She had stood staring at it for three days in a row until dusk had fallen on the town. It had been a very important part of her plan for Dominic Delaney to know she was there and that he couldn’t escape her presence no matter where he chose to spend his time.

But standing safely outside on the opposite side of the street and entering the rowdy brightly lit Nugget were two entirely different things. She knew Dominic might regard her appearance there as deliberate defiance of the warning he had given her. And there was no question in her mind that she must go into the Nugget tonight.

She was growing desperate. No matter how chary she was with her small hoard of funds, they wouldn’t last for very much longer. She must at least persuade Dominic to talk to her. Surely he was softening just a little in his attitude. He had sent the Chinese boy with the chair and the water this afternoon. She was aware the small courtesy was far from a capitulation; it might represent a tiny yet significiant break in the wall of his resistance, however.

But tonight she would be launching a further assault, invading another forbidden territory he regarded as his own. After tonight he would realize she would dare to go anywhere necessary to pursue him. Oh, merciful heavens, she was frightened, but it was a risk she simply had to take.

She picked her way carefully across the hard-packed dirt of the street. Several horses were tied at the hitching rail in front of the Nugget, and she caught a pungent whiff of liniment and manure as she passed. She was closer now, and the laughter and conversation pouring from beyond those swinging doors was much louder. Suddenly she heard a cascade of words that caused her eyes to widen in surprised recognition. It had to be Ben Travis. No one but the stage driver had both that volume and that raucous a vocabulary.

She paused outside the swinging doors. Panic was rising within her. If saloons were forbidden to ladies, surely there must be a good reason.

She took a deep breath and drew up to her full height. She mustn’t be such a coward. This was old thinking in a new world. She pushed open the swinging doors and stepped inside. The sights and the sounds of the room instantly struck her with such force, it momentarily banished her nervousness.

Smoke. Eddies of smoke curled around her and infiltrated her lungs. Scent. The sour odor of beer and whiskey and sweat mixed with the kerosene of the lamps in the circular chandelier hanging from a chain in the center of the room. Sound. The tinkle of a Chickering upright piano in the corner of the room and the roar of voices that had overflowed into the street. Men. So many men. The majority appeared to be unshaven miners in shirt-sleeves and coarse rough trousers crowding up to the long bar at the opposite side of the room and sitting at crudely crafted tables scattered around the room. She could see an occasional cowboy who was dressed in the same tight denim pants and boots as Patrick Delaney had worn. A very few men wore the elegant longer coats and sported silk ties and high-necked fine linen shirts she could have seen on any street in Edinburgh.

She felt a swift surge of relief as she glimpsed one or two women sitting at the tables. In that first glance she had thought she would be the only woman in the room. The women had painted faces and lowcut satin gowns that revealed a shocking expanse of flesh. Hetaeras? she wondered with sudden interest.

Perhaps she could get closer to one of them and ask them a few tactful questions regarding their profession. It was seldom that a scholar of her sex was offered such an opportunity. A golden-haired young woman at the bar who was laughing with a man who looked as though he might be a prospector appeared to be approachable. Elspeth took an impulsive step forward and then skidded to an abrupt stop. Her eyes widened and she inhaled sharply. The prospector had plunged his big hand into the woman’s gaping bodice and was fondling her breast. She didn’t appear offended. If anything, she laughed harder. Still it might be better to wait until the saloon girl was less… busy, Elspeth decided.

“Miss MacGregor, what the hell are you doing here?”

She turned to see the square, ugly face of Ben Travis. It looked beautiful to her at that moment in spite of his scowl. “Oh, Mr. Travis, I’m so glad to see you.”

“Well, I’m not glad to see you. You just sashay out of here before you get into trouble.”

“I don’t mean to make trouble. If you would just find me somewhere to sit down, I’ll be very quiet and no bother to anyone.”

He made a sound halfway between a grunt and a growl. “The hell you say. There’ll be trouble aplenty without you even lifting a finger. Now, you go back where you belong.”

“I can’t do that.” She met his gaze with determination. “I have to stay here for a short time. Will you help me?”

“Goddammit, you can’t-” Travis broke off, his eyes narrowing shrewdly on her face. “Dominic Delaney? I’ve heard you’ve been trailing around after him like a calf does its mama. Is that why you’re here?”

“He is here tonight, isn’t he?” she asked, a touch of apprehension in her voice. It would be awful if she had suffered this situation for no reason.

Travis nodded toward a table in the corner of the saloon. “Over there. He hasn’t seen you yet. He ain’t going to be happy when he does, you know. You’ve been making things pretty uncomfortable for him.”

“I know.” She moistened her lips with her tongue. “It’s not as if I’m a difficult woman, Mr. Travis. What I’m doing is necessary.”

“Why?” he asked bluntly.

“I’m afraid that’s a private matter between Mr. Delaney and myself.”

He was silent a moment, glaring at her. “That uproar you caused at Rina’s place wasn’t so damn private. Come to your senses and get out of here.”

She slowly shook her head.

He turned on his heel and strode to a table a few feet away occupied by two men. “Sam, you and Hiram belly up to the bar and let the lady sit down.”

“Let her sit on my lap,” the man named Sam said with a grin. “I’m not selfish about-” He broke off as his gaze traveled past Travis’s brawny shoulder to Elspeth standing by the door. “Christ, it’s the shadow!” He shot a look to the corner of the room and his grin became slyly malicious. “Sure, Ben, we’ll be glad to let the lady have our table. Come on, Hiram.” The two men rose, grabbed their foam-crested glasses, and strolled toward the crowded bar.

Ben held out a chair, motioning for Elspeth to sit down. “Well, if you want Dominic to know you’re here, you won’t have long to wait. Sam and Hiram will be sharing the joke with everyone at the bar.”

“Thank you, Mr. Travis.” Elspeth sat down and clasped her gloved hands together on the scarred surface of the table. She smiled tremulously. “I told Mr. Judkins, at the hotel, he had no reason to worry about me. I knew I’d find someone as kind as you to help me.”

Travis glanced again at the smoke-wreathed table in the corner and his lips tightened grimly. “You may need more than kindness if you keep on pestering Dominic. He’s not a man who’ll stand for being made a fool of.”

“I have no intention of making a fool of him.”

“Then what do you…” He trailed off. “Never mind, I can see you’re not about to tell me.” He pulled out the chair opposite her. “I’ll just sit here and make sure none of the boys bother you.”

She shook her head. “No, I want him to see me alone. I have to let him know I’m not relying on anyone else.” She paused. “If you want to hurry events along, you might call his attention to the fact that I’m here.”

“From the sound of those snickers coming from the bar, I may not be able to get across the room in time to break the news first,” he said dryly. “Can I get you a glass of water or a sarsaparilla before I mosey on over there?”

“No, thank you.” She looked down at her clasped hands. “I’m quite comfortable.”

Dominic played the ten of hearts and leaned back in his chair, his eyes studying the face of the Russian. It required little effort to read Marzonoff. The man was as transparent as the empty whiskey glass in front of him, altogether a terrible poker player. It was a puzzle why he insisted on entering the game each night when he lost steadily and in no small amounts. Hell, why should he worry about the man, Dominic thought impatiently. If Marzonoff’s boasts were true, he could afford to lose much higher stakes without hurting.

“Dominic.”

Dominic glanced up and then smiled lazily. “You want to sit in on the game, Ben?”

Travis shook his iron-gray mane. “There’s someone here you should know about.”

Dominic tensed. One of Durbin’s hired guns? Durbin himself? He kept his features expressionless. “Who?”

Travis nodded to a table near the door. “Her.”

For a moment Dominic couldn’t believe it. Elspeth MacGregor, prim and proper, black-clad as usual, sitting with meekly folded hands. Then, as if sensing his regard, she looked up and met his gaze across the room. There was nothing meek about that composed stare. It was direct and challenging behind those wire-rimmed spectacles.

Oh, he believed it then all right, and rage tingled through his veins. He looked around the room. The grin on each face disappeared as Dominic leveled his gaze at each man in turn. He knew the smiles and snickers would return as soon as his attention was engaged by a man down the line, and the knowledge chafed at him like barbed wire on unprotected flesh.

“She shouldn’t be here,” Ben said gruffly.

“You’re right. She shouldn’t be here.” Dominic’s murmur was velvet soft, as his gaze fastened on Elspeth. “It was a mistake for her to come to the Nugget.” He threw his cards facedown on the table. “I fold.” He pushed his chair back and stood up. “I believe I’ll call it a night, gentlemen.”

He didn’t look to the right or the left as he crossed the room toward Elspeth MacGregor’s table. He knew he would see only smiles of frank enjoyment at his discomfort on the faces of those he passed. They would think she had routed him. It didn’t matter. Not any longer. The only thing that mattered was the gauntlet that black-gowned witch had tossed down before him. His anger was so hot it was close to pain, and yet he was experiencing, too, a fierce satisfaction. She had once more stepped across the line and he could now retaliate. He would give her a last chance, but he knew he would be disappointed if she backed down.

He stopped before her table. Conversation had halted in the room and the only sound was the hollow tinkle of the piano. He lowered his voice to a level that was inaudible to everyone but her. “Leave Hell’s Bluff. I won’t tell you again.”

He had spoken to her! Elspeth experienced a wild throb of hope that immediately turned to apprehension. His blue-gray eyes were so strange. Blazing fiercely, yet ice cold. Her throat tightened and her breath seemed to stop. It was a moment before she could force herself to speak. “No,” she whispered.

Then, incredibly, he smiled. It was a smile filled with joyous savagery, lighting his dark face with a wild, wicked beauty. “Good.”

He turned and in another moment had disappeared through the swinging doors of the saloon.