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But as the space between them disappeared and he came to within a hairsbreadth of touching her, Phoebe was shocked to discover that she wasn’t resisting the possibility nearly as hard as she should. There was a part of her that wanted to be kissed, that wanted to think she could attract such a man as Gabriel Cutter. A primitive man…a handsome man…a—
A sneaky, conniving, no-good rounder!
Just in time, Phoebe realized that she was about to help Gabriel Cutter prove his argument—and without so much as a whisper of protest.
Anger rushed through her again—anger at him, but even more at herself.
In that last second before his lips touched hers, she moved, bringing up a knee in a way she’d once been told to do by Mrs. Pritchard. Her aim wasn’t entirely true, but the surprise of her attack allowed her to push past Gabriel Cutter. In doing so, she snatched at the revolver holstered at his side, then whirled and pulled back the hammer, leveling the gun at him.
“Don’t move,” she warned fiercely. Biting her lip, she tried to steady the heavy gun, but her hands were trembling so badly that the tip of the revolver wavered. Nevertheless, she closed one eye and sighted down the barrel.
Cutter watched her with patent amusement, and the fact proved galling. How dare he treat her as if she were of no consequence? She was the one with the gun!
Clenching her teeth, she aimed at the bedpost next to him and pulled the trigger.
An explosion rocked the room. The gun kicked back, nearly causing her to lose her balance. Then her eyes widened in horror as she realized that she hadn’t shot the bedpost as she had supposed, but had nicked the upper corner of his sleeve.
Her stomach churned sickeningly as she waited for the blood to flow, but as Gabriel pulled the fabric aside to examine his arm, it was clear that the bullet had miraculously left him unharmed.
She was shaking so badly now that she nearly dropped the gun altogether. But when Cutter gazed up at her, his gaze dark and speculative, she knew that he hadn’t known her aim was off.
“Next time I’ll draw blood,” she said, mustering all of the bravado she could. “We’re going West with you, Mr. Cutter,” she insisted.
“Not without a male escort.”
The man was infuriating, positively infuriating!
Phoebe was about to argue with him further when she had a sudden thought.
A male.
Any male? Any male at all?
Her eyes narrowed. “What if we can find a male escort who is willing to accompany us tomorrow?”
He snorted in a way that made it clear he thought such an event unlikely. “If you can find a man to traipse halfway across the country with a passel of giggling mail-order brides before nine tomorrow morning, then you’re welcome to join us.”
Her heart pounded in her chest—this time with excitement. “I have your word on that?”
“You have my word.”
“Do I need your promise in writing, Mr. Cutter?”
A little muscle at the side of his jaw flickered. “My word is binding, Miss Gray.”
“Good.”
Without further explanation, she tugged at the strings of her reticule and dropped the revolver inside.
“I’m sure you have other guns, Mr. Cutter. As for this one, I intend to keep it until the end of our journey, to remind you that we aren’t nearly as helpless as you think.”
And with that parting shot, she whirled and marched out of the room, not stopping until she was once again in the hot afternoon sunshine. She had the matter of an escort to arrange.
By this time tomorrow, she would be on her way West.
Hurrying away from the Golden Arms as quickly as her feet would take her, Phoebe found the other brides waiting for her at the park. Judging by their hangdog expressions, it was clear they had prepared themselves for bad news.
“Well?” Mable breathed when Phoebe was nearly upon them.
“He’ll let us go if we supply a male escort.”
The women visibly wilted in disappointment.
“Then we’re in the same pickle we were in a few minutes ago,” Betty mourned.
Phoebe couldn’t prevent the smile that tugged at her lips. “Not quite. I think I know where we can find the perfect candidate.”
The women looked doubtful.
“Where?” Edith finally asked.
“Prison.”
Twila gasped.
The others looked horrified.
“I don’t think we can break a man out of prison just to accompany us West,” Betty said, blinking in confusion.
Phoebe smiled. “We won’t have to stage an escape, you little goose. We just have to gather together a few coins to pay for the man’s passage from England.”
“Won’t Mr. Cutter object to a former prisoner serving as our escort?”
“I have his word that he will allow us to join the company as long as we have a male in tow—any male.” She patted her reticule. “I, for one, intend to see to it that he honors his word.”
Needing action to take his mind off Louisa—not, not Louisa, Phoebe Gray—Gabe returned to the makeshift office he’d made of his hotel room. Despite its tawdry reputation, the Golden Arms had large rooms, the modern amenities and enough privacy to let him get his job done.
Slamming the door behind him, he instinctively squelched his reaction to the memory of Phoebe and leaned over a table spread with maps. But he couldn’t focus.
How long had it been since he’d felt anything in the company of a woman? It had been years since the death of his beloved wife, Emily.
Not that he hadn’t tried to experience even the faintest stir of emotions. Knowing that he wasn’t the kind of man to “taint” a Sunday school teacher or a minister’s daughter, he’d found himself at the Golden Arms more times than he could count. But he’d found soon enough that he couldn’t will his body to respond. Emily’s death had been a blow to him, emotionally and spiritually. All of his tender emotions and sensual instincts had died the moment he’d found the body of his wife and small son in the orchard behind their house.
From that day to the present, Gabe had lived a life of torment. Plunged into an abyss of grief, he had not rejoined his unit for more than six months after his family’s deaths. His actions had branded him “yellow” and “untrustworthy” to his fellow officers, but he hadn’t cared. Once he’d returned to battle, he’d lived each succeeding day on the brink of disaster, purposely volunteering for one dangerous assignment after another. But the Fates had not granted his death wish.
In an effort to exorcise his memories, he’d drowned himself in his work as a Pinkerton. But never in all that time had his heart pounded with anything akin to real emotion.
Until now. In a single confrontation with a hellcat woman intent on journeying cross-country with a passel of mail-order brides, the tender scars on his heart had been torn wide open.
Growling in self-disgust, Gabe vowed that he would not betray Emily’s memory by becoming involved with another woman. He owed his late wife that much, at least.
And he couldn’t afford to drop his guard for a beautiful woman. Especially one who was now using a different name. He’d have to ask one of his men to watch the boardinghouse and follow her if she left the establishment.
Forcing himself to concentrate, Gabe traced his planned route West on the map. Unbeknownst to the passengers, the excursion was not all it appeared to be. Gabe had been hired to organize a group of men to escort a clandestine payroll shipment destined for the western offices of the Overland Express Railroad. The shipment would be made under the watchful eye of Victor Elliot, a high-ranking employee for the railroad.
The addition of Elliot to Gabe’s team still rankled. The arrival of an Overland Express representative was an open slur against Gabe’s trustworthiness, but he hadn’t bothered to argue. Gabe knew he wouldn’t have been offered the prestigious job at all if Josiah Burton hadn’t been an old friend. The assignment was a chance for Gabe to make a name for himself as something other than a deserter. Cracking the case would mean national news exposure.
But if anything happened to the shipment, Gabe also knew that he would be held personally accountable.
The door to his room opened and Gabe peered up at the portly shape outlined by the afternoon sun streaming into the corridor.
Victor Elliot.
Gabe scowled. Although he understood the concerns of Overland Express and their wish to have a member of the company on the railway journey, that didn’t mean that Gabe had to like the man.
“The shipment is safely stowed away until it can be loaded onto the train?” Elliot inquired.
Gabe nodded and returned his attention to the maps. Although he’d memorized the route, he traced the lines again and again as if he could imprint the contours of the land on his brain.
“I’ve got a concern about the men who accompanied the gold from England,” Victor continued, with open irritation at Gabe’s aloofness. “One of them is little more than a boy.”
“I’ll be sure to register your complaint at the same time I offer mine,” Gabe said tightly.
“You picked them.”
“No,” Gabe retorted, “I picked most of the local men. The Pinkerton Agency hired the two men who accompanied the funds from England.”
“Then fire them.”
Gabe looked up then, his eyes narrowing. “On what grounds?”
“They’re both green as grass, man! I doubt they could guard their own mothers, let alone a valuable shipment of gold.”
“They won’t be doing it alone.”
“They shouldn’t be doing it at all!”
Gabe weighed Victor’s concerns against his own, then shook his head. “It’s too late. Hiring two new guards would provide a security breach, and we can’t afford to go shorthanded.”
“But—”
“The matter is finished.”
Victor visibly seethed, but Gabe ignored him. Scooping his hat from the bed, he decided it was time to make the rounds and check on security matters himself. Then he would need to make his way into the city to meet with Josiah Burton in the main office.
Maybe by keeping his mind on the details of the job, he would push the mysterious Phoebe Gray from his thoughts once and for all.
Chapter Four
“You’re going to do what?” Doreen Llewelyn-Bowes blurted when the women outlined their plan to obtain a male escort. “Have you all lost your minds?”
Phoebe was beginning to grow tired of Doreen. The other women had barely returned to the boardinghouse and gathered together their emergency funds before she’d begun a litany of complaints—they’d taken too long, the weather was too hot, New York was too noisy. When Mable and Maude explained the plan to hire Bertram Potter to escort them West, Doreen had stared at them with as much horror as if they’d announced they planned to strip naked and dance in the streets.
“I really don’t know what you find confusing about the plan, Doreen,” Phoebe said. “We need a man—any man—who would be willing to travel West with us in the morning.”
“B-but you said this Potter person was in jail!”
“Merely a formality. He hasn’t committed a crime. Not really. He merely…played stowaway. I heard the captain say that he would forget the charges if Bertram could find a way to raise the necessary funds. If not, they’ll send him back to England.”
“So let them.”
“He’s our only chance, Doreen,” Twila said impatiently.
Without another word, Phoebe dumped the bonnetful of coins they had collected onto an overstuffed settee. Allowing for those expenses that would arrive during their journey, the women had contributed any money they felt they could spare. Now, gathered in the sitting room, they feverishly counted their stash.
“Do we have enough?” Edith breathed.
“If I’ve figured the correct exchange for dollars into pounds, we’re…” Phoebe quickly counted, then bit her lip. “We’re five dollars short.”
Five dollars. She found it ironic that only weeks earlier she had boarded a ship as the daughter of the Marquis of Dobbenshire. If only the title had come with tangible wealth rather than letters of credit.
En masse, the women turned to look at Doreen.
Betty proclaimed indignantly, “You haven’t contributed yet.”
Doreen sniffed. “That’s because it’s a horrible idea. It won’t work.”
“You’ll contribute or we’ll go without you,” Mable said. She clasped the handle of her walking stick in a way that warned she wasn’t so ladylike that she wouldn’t consider using it.
Doreen huffed again, folding her arms tightly beneath her breasts. But her stance had lost some of its bravado. “I don’t have five dollars to spare.”
“Give what you have,” Phoebe said softly, “and I’ll find a way to get the rest.”
It was clear that Doreen didn’t believe Phoebe’s assertion, but she finally sighed with great theatrical emphasis. Bending, she lifted her skirts to remove a small coin purse stitched to the inside of a petticoat. Removing two large dollar coins, she tossed them on the pile.
“I expect my money back when this preposterous idea fails to work,” she proclaimed. “If Gabriel Cutter frowns on women joining his group, he won’t let a felon board that train.” Then, turning on her heel, she left the room in a swish of skirts.
“We still need three dollars,” Mable said, counting the money, then counting it again.
Phoebe mentally reviewed the valuables she’d sewn into her spare corset—a few pieces of her mother’s jewelry and the signet ring her father had given her as a wedding present. The items were precious to her, worth far more in sentimental value than they could ever obtain on the market. But she was at a crossroads. She had no money to speak of, merely the smallest amount she had thought necessary for the journey. Even her friend “Louisa” could be of little help to her until she arrived in Boston and was able to exchange the letters of credit for cash.
So Phoebe would have to sell something.
Spying her dusty satchel still lying on the floor next to the door, Phoebe said, “Can someone show me to my room? I’ll just freshen up a bit, then we’ll find Mr. Potter and obtain his release.”
“But how?” Edith whispered.
Phoebe squeezed her hand in reassurance. “I’ve got a few valuables socked away for an emergency.” She grimaced good-naturedly. “I just hadn’t thought I’d be dipping into them before I managed to leave New York.”
