A Lady of the West by Linda Howard

was here.”
    â€œHe arrived just before dark, señora. He and his daughter. They are spending the night.”
    Victoria and Emma looked at each other. A tinker, being new to Celia, might attract her like a cat to catnip. “Where is the tinker’s wagon?” Emma asked.
    â€œNext to the bunkhouse, señorita.”
    The bunkhouse, where the men slept. Victoria hurried out the door. It was unthinkable that any ofthem would attack Celia, yet at the same time she thought Garnet capable of anything. Unbidden the thought intruded of asking Roper for help, and she flinched from the idea as if it had stung her.
    Emma kept pace beside her and they both slowed as they neared the bunkhouse, with the hulking shadow of the tinker’s wagon beside it. Through the small window they could see the men sitting around a couple of small tables, or lying on their narrow cots. Nothing unusual seemed to be going on. Victoria was even more reassured to see Garnet playing cards at one of the tables. There was no one at all around the tinker’s wagon.
    â€œLet’s separate,” she said, keeping her voice low so the men wouldn’t hear. “I’ll look in the stables and barn.”
    â€œWe didn’t look in the courtyard; I’ll go there, and check the blacksmith shed on the way.” Briskly Emma set on her way, and Victoria turned in the other direction.
    Now that she was alone, the darkness seemed oppressive. Her heart began to beat faster as she quietly approached the long stables and entered. Most of the stalls’ occupants were dozing, though a couple of horses put their heads over the top rails and whickered at her. She patted their velvet noses as she passed by, reassuring them. It was too dark inside for her to see much more than their large dark shapes, but all of the stalls were occupied and there was nowhere else in the long, low building for Celia to find a nook. No, the barn was far more likely. The barn was also where Rubio was stabled, away from most of the other horses because of his tendency to fight.
    She opened the barn door just enough to slip through, and this time her way was lighted by a single oil lamp hanging on a post at the far end, close to Rubio’s stall. The stallion, though, was quiet. Victoria could hear him making small rustling sounds as he shifted his feet.
    She also heard another sound, the words indistinguishable but the timbre soft and definitely female.
    If Celia were in the stall with Rubio .. .
    On no account must she startle the horse. She lifted her skirts to keep them from dragging on the straw and quietly slipped nearer to the small pool of light.
    She heard a groan and more rustles. Then a man’s voice, unmistakably deep. The woman again, this time sounding as if she were in pain.
    A chill coursed through her entire body. Celia?
    She went closer, and the rustling noises were louder. She was still in the black shadows when she realized they weren’t coming from Rubio’s stall, but from the opposite side of the barn, where there was a small, unused box stall. The edges of lamplight were just spilling through the open rails, and she edged still closer, her heart in her throat because she was afraid it was Celia. Yet she didn’t rush forward, and when she was close enough to see into the box, she was glad she hadn’t.
    The first glance told her that the woman in the straw wasn’t Celia; she had a mass of dark hair. Nor was it Angelina. She didn’t know the woman. She felt relief, then shock as she realized exactly what she was seeing. Such were her own experiences with sex that she almost screamed, thinking the woman was being raped. Then another firestorm of recognition went through her, and she had to jam her fist against her mouth to keep from making an outcry anyway. She saw two things simultaneously. First, the woman, far from being raped, was clinging to the man and encouraging him with whimpering, pleading words in