This Fierce Splendor

standing there with no protection but that blasted parasol. The shadow case by the parasol made the soft, fair skin of her neck appear terribly delicate. Her neck was delicate. He could suddenly feel again its silky yet vulnerable skin beneath his palm.

“Christ,” he muttered through clenched teeth. What an idiot the woman was. It was a wonder she hadn’t collapsed already. “Goddammit, tell Li Tong to take one of the kitchen chairs and some water out to her.”

He pulled away from Rina and strode swiftly out of the parlor.

“Miss MacGregor.”

Elspeth turned as she was about to go out the door to look back inquiringly. Mr. Judkins, the proprietor of the hotel, was gazing at her with a troubled expression. “Yes?” she inquired softly.

“You shouldn’t ought to go out this time of night, ma’am.” He nibbled worriedly at his almost nonexistent lower lip. “Not alone. I’d be glad to get one of my boys to go with you.”

She smiled gratefully at the small gray-haired man. Mr. Judkins had been very kind to her in the past few days. “I don’t think that will be necessary. I have no intention of being gone long.” Her smile widened. “Besides, I’ve been treated with the greatest courtesy by everyone in Hell’s Bluff since the moment I stepped off the stage. I’m beginning to believe the stories about wild western towns have been exaggerated. I felt more frightened in Edinburgh in broad daylight than I do going out after dark here.”

“There’s more womenfolk in those big cities. I guess people get used to having them around and forget what it’s like to be without them,” Mr. Judkins said. “Ladies are precious as gold out here, and that’s how we treat them.”

“Then there’s nothing at all to be concerned about, is there, Mr. Judkins?”

He hesitated. “Ma’am, I’m not worried about anybody in his right senses bothering you. A man in these parts would know we’d string him up quick as a jackrabbit if he offered a lady like you any insult, but rotgut whiskey has a way of addling a man’s brain.”

Elspeth felt a cold chill run through her, not at the implied danger but at the casual coldness of the man’s words. Hang a man for merely offering a drunken insult? No, he must be exaggerating to make her feel more secure. “I’ll be back soon,” she assured him once more. “I’m certain that if I have any trouble, there will be someone nearby who will be as kind as you are, Mr. Judkins.” She gave him another smile and closed the mahogany door behind her.

Her footsteps sounded firm and confident on the rough wooden boards that formed the sidewalk. Her words to Mr. Judkins had rung with confidence too. How she wished she felt as confident as the sounds of her words and steps. Her palms were moist with nervousness beneath her cotton gloves, and she had a sudden urge to turn around and run back into the hotel and up the stairs to the safety of her room. She didn’t want to be out here alone.

She had become very accustomed to the tiny town of Hell’s Bluff in the past few days, yet tonight this street appeared strange and unfamiliar in the darkness. The store and the bank on her side of the street were dark and she presumed deserted. The only establishment ablaze with lights and noise was the saloon on the corner across the street. The Nugget had a sign in huge red letters above its swinging oak doors, and no one could be more familiar than she with that sign. She had stood staring at it for three days in a row until dusk had fallen on the town. It had been a very important part of her plan for Dominic Delaney to know she was there and that he couldn’t escape her presence no matter where he chose to spend his time.

But standing safely outside on the opposite side of the street and entering the rowdy brightly lit Nugget were two entirely different things. She knew Dominic might regard her appearance there as deliberate defiance of the warning he had given her. And there was no question in her mind that she must go into the Nugget tonight.

She was growing desperate. No matter how chary she was with her small hoard of funds, they wouldn’t last for very much longer. She must at least persuade Dominic to talk to her. Surely he was softening just a little in his attitude. He had sent the Chinese boy with the chair and the water this afternoon. She was aware the small courtesy was far from a capitulation; it might represent a tiny yet significiant break in the wall of his resistance, however.

But tonight she would be launching a further assault, invading another forbidden territory he regarded as his own. After tonight he would realize she would dare to go anywhere necessary to pursue him. Oh, merciful heavens, she was frightened, but it was a risk she simply had to take.

She picked her way carefully across the hard-packed dirt of the street. Several horses were tied at the hitching rail in front of the Nugget, and she caught a pungent whiff of liniment and manure as she passed. She was closer now, and the laughter and conversation pouring from beyond those swinging doors was much louder. Suddenly she heard a cascade of words that caused her eyes to widen in surprised recognition. It had to be Ben Travis. No one but the stage driver had both that volume and that raucous a vocabulary.

She paused outside the swinging doors. Panic was rising within her. If saloons were forbidden to ladies, surely there must be a good reason.

She took a deep breath and drew up to her full height. She mustn’t be such a coward. This was old thinking in a new world. She pushed open the swinging doors and stepped inside. The sights and the sounds of the room instantly struck her with such force, it momentarily banished her nervousness.

Smoke. Eddies of smoke curled around her and infiltrated her lungs. Scent. The sour odor of beer and whiskey and sweat mixed with the kerosene of the lamps in the circular chandelier hanging from a chain in the center of the room. Sound. The tinkle of a Chickering upright piano in the corner of the room and the roar of voices that had overflowed into the street. Men. So many men. The majority appeared to be unshaven miners in shirt-sleeves and coarse rough trousers crowding up to the long bar at the opposite side of the room and sitting at crudely crafted tables scattered around the room. She could see an occasional cowboy who was dressed in the same tight denim pants and boots as Patrick Delaney had worn. A very few men wore the elegant longer coats and sported silk ties and high-necked fine linen shirts she could have seen on any street in Edinburgh.

She felt a swift surge of relief as she glimpsed one or two women sitting at the tables. In that first glance she had thought she would be the only woman in the room. The women had painted faces and lowcut satin gowns that revealed a shocking expanse of flesh. Hetaeras? she wondered with sudden interest.

Perhaps she could get closer to one of them and ask them a few tactful questions regarding their profession. It was seldom that a scholar of her sex was offered such an opportunity. A golden-haired young woman at the bar who was laughing with a man who looked as though he might be a prospector appeared to be approachable. Elspeth took an impulsive step forward and then skidded to an abrupt stop. Her eyes widened and she inhaled sharply. The prospector had plunged his big hand into the woman’s gaping bodice and was fondling her breast. She didn’t appear offended. If anything, she laughed harder. Still it might be better to wait until the saloon girl was less… busy, Elspeth decided.

“Miss MacGregor, what the hell are you doing here?”

She turned to see the square, ugly face of Ben Travis. It looked beautiful to her at that moment in spite of his scowl. “Oh, Mr. Travis, I’m so glad to see you.”

“Well, I’m not glad to see you. You just sashay out of here before you get into trouble.”

“I don’t mean to make trouble. If you would just find me somewhere to sit down, I’ll be very quiet and no bother to anyone.”

He made a sound halfway between a grunt and a growl. “The hell you say. There’ll be trouble aplenty without you even lifting a finger. Now, you go back where you belong.”

“I can’t do that.” She met his gaze with determination. “I have to stay here for a short time. Will you help me?”

“Goddammit, you can’t-” Travis broke off, his eyes narrowing shrewdly on her face. “Dominic Delaney? I’ve heard you’ve been trailing around after him like a calf does its mama. Is that why you’re here?”

“He is here tonight, isn’t he?” she asked, a touch of apprehension in her voice. It would be awful if she had suffered this situation for no reason.

Travis nodded toward a table in the corner of the saloon. “Over there. He hasn’t seen you yet. He ain’t going to be happy when he does, you know. You’ve been making things pretty uncomfortable for him.”

“I know.” She moistened her lips with her tongue. “It’s not as if I’m a difficult woman, Mr. Travis. What I’m doing is necessary.”

“Why?” he asked bluntly.

“I’m afraid that’s a private matter between Mr. Delaney and myself.”