She nodded with enthusiasm, much to the displeasure of the weasel.
“You don’t look all that married to me,” he said accusingly.
“Well, I haven’t had much practice, actually. At marriage, I mean. It’s only been…” Her gaze flitted up to Marcus. “How long, dearest?”
Marcus fished out his watch, snapped it open and pondered the hands. “Three hours and twenty-seven minutes, give or take a few seconds.” He smiled down at her, using the sappiest expression he could manage and trying to sound like a lovestruck groom. “The best three hours and twenty-seven minutes of my life.”
“Aw, hell,” the weasel snarled. “I mistook you for that runaway Grenville girl. I was just reading about her in the Denver paper, then I saw you sitting here and I thought, seeing your blond hair and fine clothes and all, that I had myself that five thousand for sure.”
Amanda laughed. “Oh, you silly man. My goodness, I wish I were that Grenville girl. Then I’d have a servant or two to look after my luggage properly for me. My new husband doesn’t seem to be doing such a good job.”
She batted her eyes up at Marcus now and smiled with all the sweet indulgence of a woman who’d married an incompetent fool, which seemed to thoroughly convince the weasel that they were indeed husband and wife.
“Damn.” The man stood, then slapped his newspaper down on the bench and walked away without it, shaking his head and muttering to himself.
The second he was out of earshot, Amanda started laughing. “That’s the second time you’ve married me in the past few hours, Quicksilver. I honestly believe you’re fond of me.” She batted her eyelashes up at him again. “Either that or you have an incredible lack of imagination when it comes to charades.”
“It worked, didn’t it?” Marcus growled.
“Beautifully,” she conceded. Then she gestured toward the station master’s cage. “Now, do retrieve my valise for me, will you?”
“That was no lie, Duchess.” Marcus lowered himself beside her on the bench and snapped open the newspaper the weasel had left behind. “You won’t be seeing that suitcase again. At least not until Denver. Sorry.”
“Sorry! But I thought you wired ahead to direct them to take my suitcase off the train.” Her voice rose a notch, as well as several degrees. “All my money’s in there. What am I supposed to do now?”
Marcus shrugged. He was only half listening as he read the article on the front page of the Denver paper, the majority of which was an interview with Honoria Grenville, who had returned to that city following her granddaughter’s escape in Omaha. The old woman had apparently taken over the top floor of the Excelsior Hotel, whence she was now commanding a battalion of private detectives and newspapermen. That didn’t surprise Marcus a bit—not the fact that Granny Grenville was willing to spend a small fortune to have her own way or the fact that there were scores of eager and greedy characters more than willing to assist her.
What surprised him, though, was the reason for Amanda’s exit in the first place. She’d eloped from New York to Denver with Angus McCray. Eloped! Marcus wasn’t sure what he’d been thinking, or whether he’d given it any thought at all. Women rarely ran away for the pure pleasure of it, and Amanda Grenville certainly hadn’t run away to join any circus. But elopement? With Angus McCray?
It was hardly a secret in Denver that the dapper, slick-haired Scot made his living off women. He’d been down the aisle at least once already, with the widow of a gold miner, but unfortunately for him, it had turned out that the gold miner was really a silver miner on a relatively meager scale, and— worse—for McCray, anyway—the fella wasn’t even dead.
“Angus McCray,” Marcus muttered behind the newspaper. “Angus damn McCray!”
“Oh, is there something about Angus in there?” Amanda grabbed for the paper, but Marcus held it out of reach.
He was boiling, and he wasn’t sure just why, except he hated to see people making stupid mistakes. And of all the mistakes a rich girl could make, this one was probably the stupidest and the worst. “You’re figuring to marry that no-account, lilylivered, freeloading snake?”
“Yes,” she said with a little toss of her head. “Not that it’s any of your business, Quicksilver.” Then her gaze played over the assorted passengers in the waiting room. “And I shouldn’t have to remind someone in your line of work to be a little more circumspect when discussing certain subjects. Not to mention quieter. If you know what I mean.”
She was right, of course. Marcus looked over at the weasel, to find the man’s beady little eyes trained on them once more, and an expression of renewed curiosity puckering his narrow face. Several other men were regarding them now, including the stationmaster, who stood within easy reach of his telegraph key, the one that could put him in touch with Granny Grenville and her minions in about ten seconds, leaving Marcus to kiss that five thousand dollars goodbye. That, he vowed, was not going to happen. By God, he already felt as if he’d earned at least half of that five thousand just in irritation and aggravation.
“Come on.” He folded the paper, stuck it under his arm, and tugged Amanda to her feet. “Let’s go.”
“Where are we going?”
“Someplace,” he growled.
“A restaurant?” she asked hopefully.
Amanda tried to ignore the rumblings in her stomach as she sat perched on a wooden crate in an alley across from the train depot, watching Marcus Quicksilver pace back and forth and listening to the soft jingling sound his spurs made. Or was that the sound of his teeth grinding? she wondered. The bounty hunter appeared to be mad at the world in general, and at her in particular.
If anyone should be throwing a fit, she thought, it was she. Her hair was filthy. Her clothes were wrinkled, and she still smelled vaguely like cake. Day-old-cake, at that. Her luggage had vanished, and if she had ten dollars left in her handbag she’d consider herself quite lucky. She loosened the braided silk drawstring now and dumped the contents out onto her lap.
For lack of a streetlamp in the alleyway, there was only moonlight with which to inspect the coins that had clattered out. And then even the pale moonlight was blocked by a pair of wide shoulders as Marcus halted in front of her.
“What do you think you’re doing?” he demanded, looming above her.
“Just what it looks like, Quicksilver. I’m counting my money.” She plucked an errant silver dollar from a fold in her skirt. “Which I wouldn’t have to do at all if someone had sent a proper wire concerning my suitcase.”
“Forget about the suitcase. It’s gone. Anyway, you’re better off not having anything with those initials on it.” He swiped off his hat and ran his fingers through his hair. “And while I’m giving advice, Miss Grenville, I want to request that you stop taking up with every man who gives you a sidelong glance. Do you think you can do that?”
“Hush. You’re making me lose count. Fourteen. Fifteen.” Amanda added two silver dollars to the stack of coins in her hand, then sighed forlornly. “Well, I’m afraid that’s the sum of it. Oh, no. Wait.” She practically dived headfirst into her handbag then and unbuttoned a small compartment in the silk lining. “I’d completely forgotten about these,” she said, coming up with two bright twenty-dollar gold pieces.
But no sooner had she discovered them than Marcus snatched them out of her hand.
“Give those back!” she cried.
“You can have whatever’s left in Denver. If you want me to help you, then you’re just going to have to do this my way. Understand?”
His words were comparable to a bucket of cold water tossed on a fire, and Amanda’s anger sputtered out immediately. He’d just said he was going to help her, hadn’t