The Duchess and Desperado by Laurie Grant Page B

name is Rio,” he said. “And he thinks he’s handsome, too—don’t ya, boy?” he asked, scratching the horse’s ear. The stallion tossed his head as if to agree. “Here in the west, though, we call horses like that pintos , or paints.”
    â€œI see.” It was a moment of perfect harmony. “I-I’d best look m on my mare.”
    â€œI’ll come with you. I’m done here.” He let himself out of the stall. “What’re you planning for today, Duchess?” he asked as they strolled down the aisle to where Trafalgar was stalled.
    â€œI’ve been invited to a luncheon at the home of Mr. and Mrs. John Byers----he owns the newspaper, and apparently he’s quite a prominent developer here in Denver, as well. And I’m invited to the mayor’s for dinner. Ah, there you are, my beauty,” she said when her bay mare poked her well-shaped head over the stall door at the sound of her mistress’s voice. “Are they treating you well? But you’re bored, aren’t you? Yes, I managed to obtain an apple for you,” she said, laughing, when Trafalgar butted her hand with her soft black muzzle. She pulled it from her pocket and watched while the thoroughbred lipped it delicately from her hand.
    â€œBeautiful animal,” commented Calhoun.
    â€œThank you. Morgan, do you think we could take our horses out for a ride? Trafalgar badly needs some exercise, don’t you, girl? You’re getting fat, with nothing to do but eat your head off.”
    Calhoun looked dubious. “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea, Duchess. It’d be awful hard to protect you out in the open. I could take the mare out for you, if you like. She’s a big one, so she wouldn’t have any trouble with a man’s weight.”
    Sarah quashed the impulse to argue. She didn’t want to destroy the progress they’d made. “Oh, please... We could leave before dawn, before any self-respecting evildoer is awake.”
    Her attempt at humor won a smile from him. “We’ll have to see how things go, Duchess, all right? Let me think about it.
    Â 
    â€œI thought Mr. Calhoun asked you not to look out the window,” Celia commented from her seat in the landau as it rolled through the streets of Denver toward her luncheon engagement at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Byers. The servant was accompanying Sarah to the event, since her uncle and her secretary had gone to check on the seating order for the dinner party at the home of the mayor, to make sure it followed protocol.
    Sarah, wearing her spectacles, since only Celia was inside with her, shot a guilty smile at her dresser. “I know, but it’s such a gorgeous summer day and Denver’s such a pretty new city. Surely it won’t hurt if I just take a peek now and then, especially if Mor—if Mr. Calhoun is up on the seat with Ben and doesn’t know? It’s not fair that I must go from place to place in a dark cage as if I were a vicious lioness.”
    Celia looked prim and unconvinced. “Perhaps not, but you’ve been threatened twice in less than twenty-four hours, and shot at once,” she observed, speaking freely with the ease of a valued servant.
    â€œJust once more...” Sarah promised with a sigh, and lifted the curtain again just as the carriage was passing a particularly attractive row of businesses.
    A man was standing in front of one of the buildings, staring at the carriage from the doorway of a building. He was blond and tall, with a dashing mustache. Goodness, he reminded her of Thierry, she thought fondly, though of course Thierry would never have been here, dressed as an American civilian. In the next letter she had Celia post secretly, she’d have to tell him he had a double in America!
    Just as the carriage was rolling past, the man stroked his mustache, just as Thierry so often did. Was it Thierry? Might he have decided to