Surprisingly, the implications of that reasoning didn't cause fear so much as anger. Blast the man! She had only been worrying that he might locate the ship in California before they got there. Now it was conceivable that he might know where they were at this very moment, or at least where they were head-ing. The only thing in their favor was that he didn't have a ship at his command to make following them easy.
"Well, that just settled the matter of where we're going," Jocelyn said in a tight voice. "It won't be to California."
Vanessa raised a brow. "I was only speculating, my dear."
"I know. But if it's true, it would certainly explain why he's constantly been able to find us, even when we've left the ship to travel overland, and that just to throw him off the scent. I swear, Vanessa, I've really just about reached my limit. It was bad enough when Longnose was just trying to kidnap me, to return me to England. But since IVe turned twenty-one, he has twice tried to kill me. Perhaps it's time I accepted the challenge."
"I hesitate to ask what you mean by that."
"I don't know what I mean, but I'll think of something," Jocelyn assured her.
Chapter Four
“I don' like the idear of killin' no woman, Dewane."
"Wha'd'ya care? It ain't as if'n ya'd ever get a chance at 'er yerself, Ciydell. An' she's a fur'ner, jes like hisself thar. Look at 'im, calm an' patient as ya please. He don' dress like us, don' act like us, don' talk like us. An' he claims she's English too. So wha'd'ya care?"
Ciydell did spare a glance for the foreigner. Tall, slim, dressed in those fancy Eastern duds — or were they fancy English duds? — and a good ten years older than any one of them. The man was so out of place he stood out like a nose wart. And clean, even after sleeping out with the rest of them on the bluff last night. How did he stay so clean?
"Still…" Ciydell started again, only to glance back and catch his brother's narrowed gaze.
"Look, he got us outta Mexico, did'n he, when we thought fer sure we'd never scrape up enuf ta get back over the border? I don' mind tellin' ya I'm right glad ta be back whar a man can spit an' piss without givin' offense. We owe him, Ciydell, ain't no two ways 'round it. An' ya don' see none o' these other boys gripin', do ya? It's jes' a job, fer Gawd's sake!"
When Dewane took that tone, his younger brother knew it was time to shut up. Dewane could be pressed only so far to explain why they were doing something. Robbing stages hadn't been so bad; neither had rus-tling a little cattle. And of course raising hell and picking a fight or two was normal whenever they hit a town. Clydell might have complained some about that bank job, but he'd done it anyway. That job had brought a posse after them that wouldn't let up.
They'd been chased into Mexico, where they were safe at last, or thought so, until a lousy band of hill bandits had left them with barely their lives and not a cent to their names. The Englishman had been a godsend, coming along when they were at the bottom of the barrel, so to speak, working just for bread and board in a dirty little cantina where they didn't even understand the lingo. The months had passed by, and Clydell had come to think he'd be dying down there.
He really shouldn't complain or think twice about it. Dewane was right as usual. Those four boys they picked up in Bisbee, two of them ex-rustling partners they'd known in New Mexico, hadn't even blinked when told what needed doing. Clydell was the only one who felt it just wasn't right, killing a woman. And the way it had been decided she'd be killed, that kind of made him sick to his stomach. Of course, it might not work out that way, and thank God he wasn't one of the two assigned to go after her if the boulder didn't manage to smash her to bits. A piece of lead was a much cleaner way to go if someone had to go. But he was one of the four who would be shoving that boulder over the bluff, which was why he groaned inwardly when the Mexican, who had been stationed farther back in the hills to watch for the victim's arrival, showed up to say it wouldn't be long now.
Elliot Steele opened his pocket watch to check the time. It was nearly noon. The duchess was late — as usual. But then she always managed to do something to disturb his well-laid plans. Why he should think this time would be any different, he didn't know. But the hour, fortunately, was of no importance. There was only one trail and she was on it* There was no place else she could go except forward, directly into his trap.
How many times had he said that before, and yet she was still going about her merry way. The girl had the luck of the Gods. How else could she have es-caped his traps time and again?
Elliot was good at his line of work, or had thought he was, until the Duke of Eaton had hired him. He had made a small fortune over the years working for the gentry in whatever capacity was necessary, no matter how unsavory, so he had been good at what he did. And what Maurice Fleming wanted done had been so simple. Just find the girl and return her to England, where he would then have complete control over her and her money, which was all Fleming had wanted.
Elliot had contacts in other countries, men in the same line of work. And he knew how to go about hiring the kind of men who came cheap and didn't ask questions about what they were told to do. The job should have taken no more than a few months, just long enough to find out where the Jocelyn came to port. And yet for nearly two years, the length of time the duke continued to pay all of Elliot's expenses, his men had only once gotten their hands on her.
It was preposterous, because she, was so easy to locate wherever she went — if not her ship, then her large entourage of coaches and wagons and mounted guards. It was not a caravan that could pass unno-ticed, and she never tried to conceal it or change it or leave it behind. Her coach alone was the finest made, large, bright teal blue, and pulled by six high-stepping mares all a matched gray in color. She might as well have the ducal crest emblazoned on the doors, the vehicle was so memorable.
Yet no matter how many times he was able to lo-cate her, it was never an easy matter to actually get to her. In point of fact, her small army of servants and guards made it frustratingly difficult, and she was never, ever, very far from them. The one time his men had been able to steal her away, she had been found and rescued the very same day, with his four men dying and not one of hers even wounded.
But those days were over. Now that the girl had come of age, Fleming would no longer have an easy time of manipulating the courts to give him control of her. He no longer wanted her, was no longer pay-ing Elliot's expenses to find her, and Elliot had earned nothing for all his time, trouble, and frustration before he was dismissed. Two years he had wasted with nothing to show for it. He was not a man to accept that with a shrug of nonchalance. Not by any means.
His purpose now was twofold. He was going to kill that red-haired bitch for the pleasure of it, but also for all the feelings of incompetence she had made him feel, and for the ruin of the reputation he had built up, of being a man who could be counted on to see a job done quickly and without mistakes. And when he informed the duke that it was done, and that he had seen to it that she left no will, that Fleming could now claim her wealth simply by being her only rela-tive, Elliot would finally be compensated.
He didn't care how long it took or how much of his own money it cost, he would see it done. And killing her was much easier than trying to abduct her. It could be done from afar. It could be done in any number of ways. That he had twice attempted it and twice failed only proved she had not lost her luck yet.
Even the bloody countries she chose to cross were more often than not to her advantage. Mexico had been ideal for his purposes, or so he thought; huge, sparsely populated outside its cities, miles and miles of nothing but wildnerness where a massacre could go unreported for days, weeks. And the duchess conveniently set up camp in the middle of nowhere time and again. It was the perfect opportunity to attack in force, to hire an army to match hers. And hiring the army would have been easy and cheap — if it were for any other purpose. But getting a Mexican to agree to kill a woman was nearly impossible. He had tried and tried, and was turned down every time. She had beaten him again without doing a thing, simply through the character of the Mexican people.