Nobody's Darling

Esmerelda frowned, plainly dismayed to have disappointed him. “I should have known you wouldn’t care for Mozart.”

“I’m sure that Mo’s a nice enough f-feller,” Enos said, “but I did have a hankering to hear a few b-b-bars of ‘Two Dead Varmints in the Cotton Patch’.”

Esmerelda glanced at Billy. Despite his savage scowl, her own expression softened to a winsome smile. “Here’s one you boys might know.”

The very first notes sent a shiver of recognition down Billy’s spine. It was “Dixie” as it was meant to be played— simple and sweet, not as a march or a dirge, but as a gentle tribute to innocence lost. One by one, his brothers drew off their hats and stiffened to attention, the ghosts of the boys they had been and the men they might have become transposed over their haggard faces.

As Billy met Esmerelda’s gaze over the graceful dance of the bow, he realized the song wasn’t for them, but for him. She was offering him an apology for any offense he might have taken when they’d discussed the war yesterday.

An apology he couldn’t accept and didn’t deserve. Not when she’d betrayed him by lying about her identity. And not when he had every intention of betraying her as soon as he came face-to-face with the man she had hired him to find.

He reached over and gently laid his fingers across the strings, silencing the song in midnote.

Sam slapped his hat on his knee in disgust. “Now what’d you have to go and do that for?”

Virgil shook his head sadly. “You’d best watch your step, little brother. We’ve killed men for less.”

Deliberately avoiding Esmerelda’s wounded gaze, Billy swung around to face his brothers. “However sweetly the lady plays, we don’t have time to stand around in the sunshine all day listening to a concert. In case you’ve forgotten, we’ve got unfinished business to tend to in Eulalie.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“Are your brothers going to help us find Bartholomew?” Esmerelda shouted, tightening her grip on Billy’s waist as he guided his mare through the bustling crowds clogging Eulalie’s main thoroughfare.

“You could say that,” he replied, forced to yell over the shrill jingle of harnesses, the deafening clamor of the crowd, and the constant hammering of new construction. “But it wouldn’t make it true,” he added beneath his breath.

Billy didn’t know what disturbed him the most—the hopeful note in Esmerelda’s voice, the sight of her white-gloved hands folded over his rigid belly, or the torturous softness of her breasts pressed against his back. When Enos had insisted on driving the wagon so she wouldn’t blister her delicate palms tugging on the reins, Billy had had no choice but to invite her to ride with him. He sure as hell didn’t want her bumping thighs with Enos or twining her arms around Jasper’s waist. His brothers had taken care to ride behind them for most of the journey, reluctant to kick dust in Esmerelda’s luminous eyes.

Billy shook his head in disgust. If Sherman had marched on Atlanta with Esmerelda playing “Dixie” on her violin, he could have conquered the city without striking a single match. He’d seen his brothers drink themselves silly on everything from moonshine to furniture varnish, but he never thought he’d see them drunk with adoration. For a fiddle-playing Yankee, no less. Even the jaded Jasper had drawn him aside and offered him a gold pocket watch and a pair of boots freshly pilfered from a dead man, hoping to convince Billy to sell Esmerelda to him instead of to the Comancheros.

As they trotted past the sheriff’s office, Billy gave the bandanna knotted around his throat a nervous tug. It was beginning to feel more and more like a noose.

He’d already cursed Winstead to hell and back for spreading the rumor about the treasury gold spending the night in Eulalie, knowing all the while that he’d do just as well to curse himself. He never could resist a mystery or a pretty face, and it was precisely that failing that had sent him careening down the road from Calamity to disaster.

He swung the horse around a crippled wagon, narrowly missing a burly mule driver who swore and shook his fist at him.

Since his last visit over seven months ago, Eulalie had become a bustling metropolis. A recent silver strike in a nearby mine had brought miners and gamblers stampeding into the sleepy little town hoping to make their fortunes, followed by a stream of prostitutes hoping to earn theirs on their backs.

As they passed a saloon with whoops of drunken laughter and rollicking piano music pouring out of its swinging doors, a colorful flock of half-dressed women hung over the scrolled rail of the second-story balcony.

“Hey, cowboy, you new in town?” crooned a brassy blonde to the top of Billy’s hat. “Why don’t you come on up and let us show you the sights?”

“Why don’t I come up instead?” Virgil bellowed. “They don’t call me his big brother for nothin‘.”

The women trilled an aria of giggles and blew him and Jasper several inviting kisses. Virgil motioned to Enos and Sam, then winked at Billy. “At least this way you’ll know where to find us tonight.”

Billy nodded grimly. The whores stood a better chance of keeping his brothers out of jail for a few hours than he did. He’d managed to convince Virgil and Jasper that it would be best to dynamite the bank’s safe after dark. He hoped to stall them until he’d had a chance to take Bart Fine into custody and clear out of town.

Billy scowled at a vision of Esmerelda wrapped in the scoundrel’s arms. Arranging an untimely accident suddenly didn’t seem like such a bad idea.

As Billy drew Esmerelda off the mare and deposited her on the bench of the buckboard next to Sadie, he discovered that she’d been mercifully deaf to the entire exchange between his brothers and the whores. She was too busy craning her slender neck this way and that, as if she expected the elusive Mr. Fine to come strolling right out of the crowd and into her adoring arms.

As Billy tethered his mare to the back of the wagon, she snapped out of her trance. “Where did your brothers go?”

“To start the search,” he replied, climbing into the buckboard.

She nodded her approval. “We probably ought to check the missions and churches in the area first. If Bartholomew’s been robbed or wounded, he might have sought refuge there.”

Billy snapped the reins on the mule’s back, turning his face away to hide the bitter twist of his lips. She knew as well as he did that his brothers stood a better chance of finding Bart Fine in a whorehouse than a church.

He drew the buckboard to a standstill in front of a handsome structure that still smelled of sawdust and fresh-cut pine. Its gleaming brass lanterns and diamond-paned windows clearly branded the Silver Lining Hotel the finest establishment in town. And why not? Billy thought grimly. The Duchess deserved the best. Especially when it was being paid for with Winstead’s blood money. As cheery and imposing as the building was, Billy knew that it would be as lonely and forsaken as the rest of the town a few months from now when the silver strike played out.

As he untied the mare and unloaded Esmerelda’s belongings, Sadie lumbered down from the wagon, her slack white belly brushing the plank sidewalk.

Esmerelda quickly joined the basset hound, giving the building a skeptical look. “This doesn’t look like a church.”

“That’s because it’s a hotel.” Billy drew several bills from his pocket and pressed them into her hand. "Get us a room. Order yourself a hot meal and a bath. I have some business to tend to.”

Without further explanation, he tipped his hat forward and ducked across the teeming street, leading the mare behind him. He glanced back only once to find Esmerelda and Sadie still standing on the sidewalk, staring forlornly after him.

Esmerelda paced the hotel room, utterly oblivious to its elegant brass appointments and cherrywood four-poster. She had eyes only for the gold-plated watch pinned to her bodice. According to the leisurely crawl of its gilded hands, a scant three minutes had passed since the last time she’d glanced at it. Billy had already been gone over two hours.