Soon…soon he could get on with his life. Nothing was going to go wrong this time. It couldn’t. He was due some luck of his own.
He moved into his own position, which allowed a clear view of the trail below. He could see the lead riders now, and Sir Parker Grahame, captain of the guard, out in front as usual. He knew all of her people by name, and some of their histories too. He had spoken with them, bought them drinks, almost managed to seduce that silly French maid, Babette, while they were in Egypt. That they had no idea who he was or what he looked like made it easy. As long as he never approached one of them unless they were alone, and never approached the same one again in another town or country, they never suspected a thing.
“Best get ready, gentlemen,” Elliot said quietly to the men behind him.
He lay stretched out to the left of the boulder. He would not relinquish his place, wanting to see the devastation firsthand. The huge rock sat on the very edge of the bluff. They had had to do no more than loosen it from the mountain’s grip beforehand, so all it needed now was a push.
The four men ready to do the pushing set their hands to the boulder and waited. Elliot waited for the lead guards to pass and the first of the coach horses to be directly below before sending the Mexican the signal to begin his part. Dewane joined him, a gun in each hand, though he laid one down for later use. The last man took out the mirror that would flash the signal to the Mexican.
“I want the driver of the coach eliminated before he applies the brake.” Elliot repeated this particular order. “He’ll stop the coach as soon as the guards up front start to turn around to investigate the shots from the rear, but whether the guards have passed behind the coach yet or not, the driver must be prevented from applying the brake. Without the driver, the coach horses will then move forward on their own.”
“No problem.” Dewane grinned, able to see the big man now who was driving the lead coach. “He’s no easy target ta miss.”
Elliot saw it was one of the grooms driving the duchess today. Too bad it wasn’t the Spaniard. That man was a devil with knives, and had killed one of Elliot’s men in New York who had been caught tampering with the duchess’s coach.
The guards were passing now. In another moment, another…
“Send the signal,” Elliot ordered over his shoulder.
He waited tensely, holding his breath. The first pair of matched grays had passed, the second pair was nearly past. Bloody, bloody hell, if that Mexican…
They heard the shot. So did the guards below. They were all turning about, but Grahame sent only two back to investigate. The vehicles were all stopping. There were shouts filling the air, demanding to know what was happening. The driver of the lead coach was standing up to look back.
The third matched pair of grays was below the boulder now.
Another two shots were fired successively. The remaining four guards began to maneuver past the coach on the side of the slope, the only place there was room for them to go. Grahame stopped, however, undoubtedly to reassure the duchess. Watching him, Elliott didn’t see the driver reach for the brake handle, but Dewane did. The shot fired right next to him gave him a start, but not enough to miss seeing the driver drop the reins as he began falling, right off the coach. He hit the ground behind Grahame’s mount, making the horse rear up out of control. The driver hit the ground close enough to the third set of grays; they likewise tried to rear, couldn’t, and set their harness mates into fright.
From a dead stop to a frightened surge forward, it was too fast. “Now!” Elliot shouted, then swore a blue streak as he watched the boulder crash to the ledge below, break apart on contact, and do no more than scatter dust on the rapidly fleeing coach.
He got to his feet with a snarl, and narrowly missed being shot. The guards were already returning the fire his men were raining down on them.
The two men who were supposed to have climbed down to the ledge below to get to the coach if it was missed, were standing there awaiting new orders.
“Get your horses and come around to where these trails end,” Elliot instructed. “With her bloody luck, that coach will miraculously make it to the bottom of the mountain without going over the side. Follow it with all speed, stop it if you have to, but make sure no one is left alive inside it. No one.”
Chapter Five
“Vanessa? Vanessa, are you all right?”
“You may ask me that later. Right now I honestly couldn’t say.”
Jocelyn was lying on the floor, or to be more exact, on the door. After that horrifying ride that had seemed as though it would never end, the coach had somehow tipped over on its side. Jocelyn had fallen against the door when the coach began to tilt, and presently had her back flat against it, with her long legs stretched out on the actual floor, which was now straight up in the air. Vanessa had not fared much better, though she had remained in her seat, which was now against the side of the coach above Jocelyn’s head.
They both sat up at just about the same time, Vanessa with a moan, Jocelyn with a grunt. “I imagine we’ll have a few bruises to show for this experience.”
“Is that all?” Vanessa replied, sounding not at all herself. “It feels—”
“You are hurt,” Jocelyn said accusingly, seeing how the countess was pressing her hand to the side of her head.
“Just a bump, I think. I was trying to brace myself, but my arm slipped.”
“Turn around and rest your back against the seat. It’s more cushiony than the wall.”
Jocelyn helped her until she was settled, then got to her knees. They were both a mess, clothes askew, coiffures falling down. Jocelyn removed the few remaining hairpins that hadn’t rattled loose, then tossed her hair back out of the way. She would have grinned at that point for having escaped this experience intact, if Vanessa weren’t grimacing in pain from the bump on her head.
“What do you think happened, Vana?”
“I think John Longnose was up to his old tricks again, that’s what.”
“Do you really?” Jocelyn’s teeth worried at her lower lip a moment as she considered that possibility. “But how could he have gotten in front of us? How could he know which way we would come, for that matter?”
Vanessa didn’t open her eyes to answer. “We weren’t exactly hurrying through Mexico, my dear. There was time aplenty for him to get ahead of us. And as to his knowing where we were going, well, I wondered about that guide’s sudden disappearance, I really did. Rather convenient, wasn’t it, leading us right to the start of that mountain trail?”
“Why, that little traitor!”
“More likely he was in Longnose’s pay first, my dear. He came to us, if you recall; we didn’t find him. Besides, I know an Englishman’s voice when I hear it, and that shouted ‘Now,’ just before that crash we heard, was decidedly British. What was that crash, anyway?”
“I have no idea. A better question would be, what’s become of our driver?”
Here Vanessa sighed. “I really don’t think he was with us on that insane ride, or we would have heard him shouting at the horses, even if he couldn’t stop them. That shot that was so close—”
“Don’t even think it!” Jocelyn cut in sharply. “If we lost him, he no doubt only lost his seat—as we both did innumerable times.”
“No doubt,” Vanessa agreed, to keep the peace. They would learn soon enough what had really happened. “But I think we’ve lost our horses too.”
Jocelyn had also felt the difference in the pull of the coach just before they tilted over, so she didn’t argue that comment. “They’ll be found,” she said with confidence. “And so will we be shortly. In the meantime…”
Vanessa opened one eye to see the duchess getting to her feet. “Whatever are you doing?”
Standing on one door, Jocelyn realized that her head didn’t quite reach the other. “I was going to see how we might get out of here, but even if I could throw that door open—”
“Don’t even bother, Jocelyn. It won’t be that lon
g until our people reach—” She didn’t finish, because they could hear someone approaching at a gallop. “You see? That didn’t take long at all.”
Ears attuned, they heard the first horse skid to a sudden stop very near, probably one of the guards ahead of the others, probably Sir Parker Grahame himself. He was ever diligent, and besides, he was sweet on Jocelyn, and so was prone to get more upset than the others each time Longnose made one of his attempts.
After another moment the coach groaned as their rescuer climbed on top of it, and then the door was lifted and dropped back with a bang. The overhead sun had been pouring in through the window, but nothing like what was now coming in through the open door. Jocelyn was momentarily blinded when she looked up, but as soon as a man’s silhouette appeared to block some of the glare, it was easier for her to see, though not to recognize who he was at first.
“Parker?”
“No, ma’am,” came a deep, lazy drawl.
If he had said more in that moment, Jocelyn wouldn’t have begun glancing about for her reticule, where she kept the little derringer she had purchased in New Orleans. Not that she couldn’t have been shot in the time it took her to locate it, hidden as it was under the hats and jackets that had been removed earlier that morning.
When he did speak again, it was with some impatience. “Do you want out of there or not?”
“I’m not so sure,” Jocelyn said honestly, looking up again, and wishing she could see more than a black silhouette framed in the opening.
How did you ask a man if he was there to kill you? But would he have offered to get them out if he meant to shoot them? He could just do it. Then again, he might be under orders from John Longnose to bring them to him. It was too much to hope that he was just a stranger passing by.
“It might help, sir,” Vanessa intervened in the prolonged silence, “if you would tell us who you are—and what you’re doing here.”
“I saw your team of horses racing toward the river and figured they’d left a stagecoach behind, though I’ve never seen horses like that hitched to a stage before.”
“And you just thought to investigate? You aren’t associated with—the Englishman?”
“I’m not associated, as you put it, with anyone, lady. Christ, what is this with all the questions? Either you want out of there or you don’t. Now, I can understand if you feel you’d be dirtying your hand putting it to mine for a lift up”—the impatience turned distinctly bitter here—“but I don’t see much alternative just now—unless you want to wait for the next fellow who comes passing by.”
“Not at all,” Jocelyn said with relief, certain now he meant them no harm. “A little dirt can be easily washed off,” she added with a smile, having misunderstood his meaning.
She surprised him good with that answer, enough that he didn’t immediately grasp the hands she raised to him. And then it dawned on him that she couldn’t really see him. She’d change her tune when she did, quicker than spit. He’d be lucky if he even got a thank you for his help.
Jocelyn gave a little gasp, she was grasped and lifted so fast. She ended up sitting on the coach with her legs still dangling through the door opening. She laughed then at how easily that was accomplished, and glanced back inside to Vanessa, who hadn’t moved yet.
“Are you coming, Vana? It was really quite easy.”
“I’ll stay here, if you don’t mind, my dear. I’d rather wait until the coach can be righted—if it can be done gently, that is. Perhaps this headache will have lessened somewhat by then.”
“Very well,” Jocelyn agreed. “It shouldn’t be that long before Sir Parker finds us.” She looked around, but her rescuer stood directly behind her. She started to rise, turning and saying to him, “She won’t need a lift up. She hit her head, you see, and isn’t feeling…quite…”
The words simply trailed away, forgotten. Jocelyn hadn’t been struck so with awe since her first sight of the pyramids in Egypt. But this was totally different, for more senses than sight were affected. Her whole system seemed to go wild for a moment, sending off signals she wasn’t quite familiar with—breathlessness, accelerated heartbeat, a rush of adrenaline, signs of fear when she wasn’t in the least bit frightened.
He stepped back from her, she wasn’t sure why, but it gave her a better look at him, since he was so tall. Too handsome by half, had been her first impression, followed now by strength, which she had felt firsthand, darkness, and strangeness, in that order. Hair as black as pitch, perfectly straight, and falling well past incredibly wide shoulders. Skin darkly bronze with lean, hawkish features, a nose straight and chiseled, deep-set eyes under low, slashing brows, lips well drawn, and a firm, square jaw.
A long, sinewy body finished the picture, encased in a strange animal-skin jacket with long fringes attached, and knee-high boots without heels, of the same soft tan skin and also with fringes. Jocelyn was getting used to seeing the gun worn on the hip after her sojourn through Mexico, so his was no surprise, and the wide-brimmed hat that shaded his eyes so she couldn’t determine their color, except that they weren’t dark like the rest of him.
His trousers were dark blue and fairly tight around nicely shaped legs. Nothing unusual in that. But he wore no shirt. The jacket hung nearly closed, but still, there was no shirt beneath it, just the same smooth bronzed skin as on his face—smooth, hairless skin. He actually had not a single hair on the several inches of chest and stomach that she could see, definitely unusual as far as she knew, though of course, how much did she really know about Americans, and how much about a man’s chest, for that matter?
Truthfully, she had never seen anything quite like him. His strangeness unnerved her, but not nearly as much as his swarthy handsomeness.
“Do you always go about—half dressed?”
“Is that all you have to say to me, ma’am?”
She could feel the heat seeping into her cheeks. “Oh, dear, please don’t take offense. I can’t imagine where that question…I’m not usually so impertinent.” A loud “Ha!” came from inside the coach, and Jocelyn grinned. “I believe the countess disagrees with me, and rightly so. I suppose my outspokenness does border on rudeness more times than not.”
“Ask a stupid question…” the man mumbled as he turned away and jumped to the ground.
Jocelyn frowned, watching him move toward his horse, a beautiful, big-boned animal the like of which she had never seen before, with black-and-white spotted markings on its rump and loins. She would love to look the horse over, to ride it even, but at the moment, her only concern was the man’s intentions.
“You’re not leaving, are you?”
He didn’t bother to look back. “You mentioned someone would be along shortly. No point in my—”
“But you can’t go!” she cried in alarm, not certain why it was alarm she felt, but it was. “You haven’t let me thank you yet, and—and how am I supposed to get down from here if you don’t assist me?”
“Shit,” she heard, and felt her cheeks heating again. But he was coming back. “All right, jump.”
She looked at his hands reaching up to her and didn’t hesitate. He had already proved his strength. Not for a moment did she consider how likely he was to miss her if she just threw herself down at him. He didn’t miss her. But she did slam into him. Only that wasn’t so startling as being set on her feet and away from him almost in the same breath. And again he turned away.
“No, wait.” She put out a hand, but he didn’t stop to see it, so she lifted her skirts to follow him. “Are you really in such a hurry that you must rush off?”
She plowed into his back when he stopped this time, and heard him swear again before he whipped around to glare at her. “Look, lady, as it happens, I left my gear, and my shirt, back at the river, where I was fixing to wash up before heading into town. You can’t just leave things lying around in this country and expect them to be there when you get back.”
“I’ll replace anything you might lose, but please don’t leave us yet.
Since my people haven’t come along by now, they must have been trapped in the mountains behind us. We honestly need your—”
“You’ve left a trail anyone can follow, ma’am.”
“Yes, but we were separated when some men set upon us, men who mean to do me harm. They are as likely to come along as my people.”
“Your ‘people’?”
“My entourage.” When that failed to erase his frown, she added, “My guards and servants, those I travel with.”
His eyes moved over her at that, taking in her velvet skirt and ruffled silk blouse, the kind of clothes he had only seen worn back East. And then he spared another look at the shining teal-blue coach that one glance inside had made him think he was doubting his eyes. Them fancy private railroad cars didn’t come as luxurious as this.
When he’d seen it downed, he hadn’t expected to find women inside, especially women like this, one a countess of some kind. Wasn’t that royalty or something? Whatever it was, it wasn’t from this country. And this one with her flaming hair and, Christ, eyes brighter than new spring leaves. His first sight of her had brought back all the old bitterness. But it didn’t stop the surge of sexual awareness he’d been hit with. That scared the shit out of him, because he hadn’t been attracted to her kind in years.
“Just who are you, lady?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I should have introduced myself right off. I’m Jocelyn Fleming,” she said, determining there wasn’t much point in using a false name this time with Longnose so close behind them.
He stared at the hand she held out to him, just stared, until she was forced to lower it.
“Maybe I should have asked, what are you?”