Kitabı oku: «The Rancher's Inconvenient Bride»

Chapter One

Tanners Ridge, Wyoming, July 1883

“The Devil Wind is blowing and it’s going to make all those circus folks go mad.”

William English pressed his hat to his head. The wind was blowing devilishly, but he doubted it was going to push anyone over the brink of sanity. Unless, maybe it was the elderly woman leaning on her cane and frowning intently up at him.

“I’m sure they’re no more likely to go mad than anyone else, Mrs. Peabody.”

“If you’d seen the things I have, Mayor English, you would be running for the hills.” She pounded her cane on the boardwalk in front of Tanners Ridge Community Bank. Twice. No doubt the extra thump was to make sure he was paying attention.

A third thump might have been in order, given that he really was paying more attention to keeping his dearly priced bowler hat on his head than to her unrealistic fears.

“I’m sure you’ve seen some interesting things—”

“The skeleton of a three-headed dog,” the woman declared, cutting off his attempt to ease her fear. “And a man swallowing a sword—a flaming sword—and a fellow putting his head in the mouth of a lion! And that happened without the wind blowing. Who knows what might happen tonight.”

“Everyone will have a fine time. Just you wait and see.”

“What I’m waiting for, is for you to hire Tanners Ridge a sheriff.”

William smiled, his lips pressed tight. As mayor—and hopefully future governor—of Wyoming, it would not do to let his emotions show.

The fact that Tanners Ridge had no sheriff was no one’s fault but the good folks living here. He had presented no less than four candidates and they had all been voted down or refused the job because of low pay.

“Will you be at the meeting this afternoon? I’ve another candidate to introduce for the job.”

“Of course—unless I’m murdered by a fat woman with a beard who has gone raving.”

“Would you feel better if I went down to take a look at things?”

“Why, that would be a good idea.” Mrs. Peabody’s smile brought out the charming wrinkles in her cheeks. Her look of relief made the trip down the hill to where the circus was camped seem worth the effort.

He tipped his hat to her, nodded. “I’ll see you this afternoon at the meeting, then.”

“Be careful,” she warbled after him.

Chances were, the only danger in going down had to do with walking the steep, rocky path, not circus folks gone wind-mad.

A quarter of a mile down the path the ground leveled out, giving the traveling circus plenty of room to set up their big tent.

Even buffeted by wind, the huge structure barely moved. Still, it couldn’t hurt to have a look around and make sure folks would be safe inside tonight.

A fair distance from the tent there was a circle of colorfully painted wagons. He supposed this was where the performers and other employees lived.

The scent of baking pastries and simmering stew came from one of them. Had to be the chuck wagon, or the circus version of it.

On the way to the big tent, he passed by a circle of large, wheeled cages. A dozing leopard lifted one eye when William passed. In another of them, dogs of all shapes and sizes barked at him. Other dogs roamed freely about, so he imagined the ones who were confined were not pets but performers.

Within the circle of cages, a pair of elephants were tethered to a pole.

This was something he’d never seen! True-to-life elephants. All he could do was stare in amazement while dust swirled around their big feet and their swaying trunks.

Because he wasn’t paying attention, his bowler blew off. It rolled over the ground toward the big tent.

On a run, he snatched it up. He secured it to his head with a thump, straightened his bow tie, then brushed off his lapels before stepping inside the canvas tent.

It was an impressive space. For all its size, it didn’t sway overmuch in the wind. Perhaps if the roustabouts who raised the tent had used a few more ropes it wouldn’t sway at all. If William had been in charge of things, he would have—

Done nothing different. Even though his mother lived twenty-five miles away and he hadn’t seen her in months, her narrowed eyes and firmed lips appeared in his mind. Her voice whispered as clearly as if she had been standing beside him.

“William Byron English, you do not need to be in charge of everything.”

Maybe not, but still he wondered if heavier wood should have been used on the risers where folks would sit.

Letting go of control was a lesson he’d been trying to learn since the time he was a boy and had decided that the fire in the hearth would be better with six logs rather than the two the butler had put in.

It had taken a week before his mother would smile at him and a week after that before the stench of smoke cleared out of the house.

Gazing at the two brightly painted rings used for performing, William couldn’t think of a way to improve them. That was a relief, and good enough to send his mother’s voice home to Cheyenne where it belonged.

He’d heard that P.T. Barnum had three performing rings, but Tanners Ridge was not a big enough town to attract that man’s attention.

Hell, it wasn’t even big enough to attract a reliable sheriff.

“Halloo!” came a voice from the far side of the tent.

He turned toward the voice to see a short man, his belly round as a ball, step from behind a curtain. The fellow waved his arm, indicating that William should cross to where he was.

The crossing took some time because the tent was large.

While this circus production was not as grand as some, it was the most exciting thing to come to Tanners Ridge in a long time, so he’d been told. Having only been mayor here for six months, there was much he was still learning about his new home.

“Halloo to you, sir.” The man extended his pudgy hand. “I’m Frenchie Brown, owner of this fine production.”

“William English.” He shook Frenchie Brown’s hand, surprised to find so much strength in that soft-looking fist.

“Ah, the mayor!” The man nodded vigorously. He had no hair and the smooth skin of his head glistened in a ray of sunshine that cut through a gap in the tent. “I ought to have known who you were by the fine cut of your clothes. Welcome, Mr. Mayor.”

Back home in Cheyenne no one ever remarked on his wardrobe. Gentleman ranchers of the area dressed the same way.

“I just came down to see how you folks were faring in the wind. It’s blowing like the devil outside.”

“We’ve held up fine in worse than this.” His grin was wide, exposing a gold front tooth. The stench of strong cologne trying to mask the scent of cigars and clothes that hadn’t been washed in some time made William back up a step. “Come, I’ve something special to show you. Tonight, folks will have to pay to see her but being that you are the mayor—well I’ll give you a peek at her for free.”

A free peek at a woman was not something that William figured he really wanted. But in case the lady was in need of help, he followed Frenchie around the curtain.

“Meet Gloria.” Frenchie stroked the curve of a huge gray hip. William backed up several paces. “The only taxidermized pachyderm known to the civilized world.”

The creature’s trunk was lifted high as though she were trumpeting, her tail was also lifted, forever proud.

“During her lifetime this good old girl earned me plenty of money.” With what appeared to be a loving embrace, Frenchie stroked her ivory tusk. “Couldn’t see any reason that should change.”

“No...” William glanced about, wondering if the skeleton of a three-headed dog would come bounding by chased by a sword-swallower, his foil aflame. “I imagine not.”

* * *

Agatha noticed the spider in its web a second before it saw her.

The startled bug scrambled across the delicate threads it had spun between the spindles of the porch of the trailer that she shared with Laura Lee. The small arachnid disappeared nearly as fast as she spotted it.

How she envied that quick little creature. Spiders were not required to face the world beyond the shadows.

Agatha closed her eyes, took a deep breath, feeling the wind buffet her hair, tug at her hat.

As much as it frightened her, she did have to face the world. She had spent most of her life shut away. Not by choice—far from it. She hadn’t even known that she had a choice.

“Good day to you, Miss Agatha,” greeted Hugo Fin as he passed by carrying a ladder.

Hugo was the boss canvas man in charge of raising the big top and keeping order among those who worked for him. As rowdy a bunch as the roustabouts were, no one dared step out of line with Mr. Fin’s leveled stare upon him.

A frizzle of apprehension shot up her neck but she forced a smile and returned his greeting.

After he rounded the corner of the next trailer, she wrapped an imaginary cloak of confidence about her shoulders and walked down the stairs. In her mind she tugged it tight.

Without thinking she turned toward the path leading to the chuck wagon. It would be less traveled. She stopped so suddenly that a cloud of dust puffed about the toes of her shoes.

She was behaving like the spider when she needed to act like Leroy. The circus lion was always assured of his status as king of the beasts.

Spinning about, she strode purposefully along the more populated path.

Several yards ahead of her three women, two of them brave aerialists, had stopped to talk. Their skirts blew madly and they held their hats to their heads.

Instead of walking wide around them like her feet itched to do, she approached them.

“Good afternoon,” she greeted, noticing that her hand had broken into a sweat. What must they think of her just marching up and boldly beginning a conversation.

“You’re our new kitchen girl!” the youngest of the three declared.

“Agatha, isn’t that right?” asked the one who was known as the Fat Lady. “I hope you are more talented than the last girl we had. Her cooking was so bad that I began to waste away. You’d think butter and sugar were short of supply. Lands of glory, I was close to losing my job.”

“I hope I am more talented, too, ma’am.” She surely did. She did know for a fact that there was plenty of butter and sugar in the larder.

Too bad it was Laura Lee who was the cook. Her friend had worked in the kitchen back home on the Lucky Clover under Mrs. Morgan’s skillful guidance. Laura Lee was the one who had been given the job. Agatha only helped as best she could.

Agatha’s talent for food was to consume it. For most of her twenty-three years, she hadn’t known what a pleasure eating could be. Her ever-watchful nurse, Hilda Brunne, had insisted that anything with the smallest amount of spice would ruin her charge’s health.

After all the years of deprivation, she was still too thin, but she was slowly gaining.

Agatha nodded goodbye to the three ladies then continued on her way, leaning into the wind.

That hadn’t been so bad. In fact she felt proud, buoyant of step, even. Only a week ago she would never have approached them.

The choice to leave the only home she had ever known had been a good one. Very hard and frightening, to be sure, but it was what she had to do.

If she was ever going to be an independent woman who could stand on her own, she needed to face a fear that had been planted bone-deep in her.

It hadn’t been an easy thing to do, leaving her twin sister, Ivy, and her husband, Travis, and kissing their baby daughter goodbye. Truly, all she’d wanted was to sit in the shadow of her balcony and be safe.

What she had to remind herself, each and every hour it seemed, was that by hiding in her suite back at the Lucky Clover, she was not living life.

Life with all its tension and thrill, was what she needed—wanted—desperately.

With renewed purpose in her step, Agatha continued along the way to the cook trailer. It circled around outside of the circus settlement, the backyard, as Hugo Fin called it.

There had been a time, and not long ago, when Agatha could not even walk. For her own twisted reasons, her nurse had made sure to keep her helpless.

Now, if she had to march twenty miles a day to build her strength that was what she would do.

“Lady,” came a voice from between two trailers. “Can you help me?”

Agatha stepped into the shadow between the trailers to see a woman sitting on the ground, her back propped up by the wheel behind her.

A young coochie girl, by the looks of her. Agatha had heard enough gossip to know that the dancing girls who worked for Frenchie Brown did far more scandalous things than dance without their clothes.

What had happened to her in her young life to make her a slave to prostitution and addiction?

Poor thing. Agatha understood more than most people did, that life could take a person in a direction she would not have chosen.

She scanned the ground near the sallow-skinned woman, looking for a bottle. Yes, there it was, just under her hand.

“I’ve run out of laudanum.” The woman gazed up at her with unfocused eyes, her mouth slack. “Go into my trailer and fetch me another bottle, won’t you?”

Something dark, fearful, raised its head inside of Agatha, snarled its claws about her. As clearly as she heard the wind rustle the brush, she heard its seductive voice.

She backed away without answering the prostrate woman.

Even though her hands grew damp and her stomach nauseous, she was not going to pick up the laudanum. If she did, she feared she would find a dim corner and drink it down.

It was time for a visit to the elephant. She cut across the yard, rushing past the bull hand who guarded the huge pachyderms against curious townsfolk.

It was not those elephants she sought. It was the one inside the big top that drew her.

Pausing beside the entrance, she glanced behind her. In the distance she spotted a man making his way up the stony path toward town. Something about him, the way he moved, seemed familiar—reassuring.

That was odd since she could see nothing of him but the back of his coat as he huddled against the wind. Odder still, that a stranger could give her a sense of comfort.

Agatha hurried across the floor of the Big Top. Glancing about, she ducked behind the canvas where Gloria stood still and majestic even in death.

She wouldn’t visit for long. Mr. Brown did not like people near his elephant unless it was by a personal invitation or purchased ticket.

This was a rule that Agatha had ignored from the first moment she saw the beast.

“I’m not you,” she whispered to the hulking gray corpse.

But she had been. Under the influence of the laudanum that Hilda Brunne had kept her subdued with, she had been as lifeless as this elephant.

Dead inside, gray and still outside, appearing to have life but with no spark of animation.

Some people might think it strange that she likened her past to this petrified creature—she even thought so sometimes. But other times, when she was afraid, when simply giving a stranger the time of day made her want to hide away—she needed to be reminded that she was alive—to vow that she would never again be a slave to laudanum.

She feared this great hulking creature that seemed to represent life in death.

She feared herself, what she might have become without the help of William English.

Yes, Ivy had been the one to help her overcome her addiction, but it had been William who kept her from going back to it when, fearing her sister had died, she wanted to find oblivion again.

On that wicked stormy night, he’d placed a book in her hands and made her read it out loud to him. It hadn’t been easy to do, given that she was mightily distracted by the masculine scent of him, by the warmth of his arm and the lean muscle of his thigh touching hers while they sat on the couch waiting.

Of course, she’d had a crush on him for years. But whenever her young heart would begin to flutter, Nurse Brunne would point out that she was not fit for any man, especially not one like William English.

She’d been right about that. William was a prince and she had been—dead—like this poor elephant.

But she would not be again.

Today she was breathing, alive and getting stronger. No one, or nothing in a beguiling little bottle would take that new freedom from her.

* * *

The stew was not thickening as it should. No matter how long it cooked, it remained broth and not gravy.

The Fat Lady would hate it.

“I don’t know what’s wrong, Laura Lee.” The Fat Lady was not the only one who was going to be displeased. “Frenchie Brown will be angry.”

“I’m homesick,” Laura Lee stated as though Agatha had not spoken.

“He’s going to bellow at us if his food isn’t correct.”

“It’s been two months and I miss the Lucky Clover to my bones. I’m going home, tomorrow.” Laura Lee turned to look at Agatha, moisture glittering in her eyes. “Did you add flour?”

“Going home!”

She couldn’t go home! The two of them had come on this adventure together. Why, Ivy and Travis would never have allowed her to come if Laura Lee hadn’t accompanied her.

Especially had they ever dreamed the adventure would lead to this cook trailer.

As far as anyone back home knew, she and Laura Lee were working in the kitchen of a fancy hotel in Cheyenne.

Before Agatha had even become skilled at peeling potatoes, the hotel closed for good. Within a couple of days, Laura Lee had secured them this job.

Maybe she ought to have gone home then, let her friend go on alone, but she had set out to find independence. What could be more daring than living among circus folks?

“I’ve got to go. You know how I was sweet on Johnny Ruiz?”

How could she not know? At only five miles from home Laura Lee had begun to sigh over him and hadn’t quit.

“We’ve been writing to each other every day. He’s coming for me and we’re going back home to be married.”

“But you haven’t finished teaching me to cook.”

What a cowardly thing to say! Agatha regretted it the instant the words left her mouth.

“You came here—joined a circus for mercy’s sake—in order to learn to stand on your own.”

Yes—it was true that she had. Still, she hadn’t learned nearly enough about cooking to do it on her own and she’d discovered that circus people did enjoy their meals.

“You should go, Laura Lee!” She really should. “Go home and have lots of sweet little babies with Johnny.”

Dropping the wooden spoon into the large pot of watery stew, Agatha wrapped her arms around her friend. With luck she would believe the tears on her cheeks were tears of joy, and they were for the most part.

But it couldn’t be denied that she was indulging in a big dose of self-pity. She hadn’t a doubt in the world that once Ivy knew where she was, she would send someone to fetch her home.

Ivy would not come herself. She had a newborn to care for, and a ranch to run. But someone would come and she was not nearly ready.

“Don’t look so worried, Agatha.” Laura Lee let go of her and scooped up a cup of flour, mixed it with water. “I know you’re concerned about being forced to go home. But I’ll assure your sister and Travis that you are thriving and the circus people are watching over you like they would their own kin.”

Someone was. Mr. Frenchie Brown. She felt his eyes on her back whenever she ventured from the cook trailer.

In her opinion, his attention was not so protective. He frowned at her often, shook his head. Given the chance he would dismiss her.

Agatha watched Laura Lee stir flour mixed with water into the pot. “Look at that! It’s stew. Nice thick stew.”

“Here’s the secret to cooking, although Mrs. Morgan would paddle me for saying so.”

Laura Lee winked. Mischief made her eyes sparkle.

One day Agatha hoped her own eyes would sparkle. They didn’t now, but one day they would. As much as her friends’ did, as much as Ivy’s did. And Ivy’s eyes always sparkled.

“If a dish isn’t right add butter, lots and lots of butter. If it needs to be thicker, flour, and if it’s dessert lots of sugar, and butter, butter, butter—a good dose of cream doesn’t hurt, either.”