The moment Elaina awakened the following morning she reached across the bed, expecting to find Jesse’s naked, hard-muscled body stretched out beside her. When all she encountered was a cold sheet, she opened her eyes and saw that he was gone.
Disappointed, she sat up and looked around. It was still early, perhaps seven o’clock, but the sunshine was already making the lace curtains flare whitely and stretch shadows across the carpet.
‘Jesse?’ she called.
No answer.
‘Jesse?’
Again no answer. At once she grew uneasy. He’d been in a grim mood after Holmes and Watson had left the previous evening, reluctant to entrust his search for the Liggett brothers to anyone but himself.
‘Who’s to say Holmes won’t go straight to the police and tell them that Jesse James is in town, lookin’ to kill two men?’ he said, pacing angrily before the fireplace. ‘You heard him. He ain’t about to stand by and let me put a bullet in Liggett.’
Her face clouded. She’d known he wouldn’t take kindly to captivity – even if it was for his own good and a very comfortable captivity at that. Neither did trust come easy to him. But if she didn’t do something to calm him soon, she sensed that he might grab his belongings and walk out of her life, determined to kill the Liggetts and be done with it.
And that was the last thing she wanted to happen.
‘You don’t know Holmes or you wouldn’t say that,’ she chided. ‘He’s not perfect by a long way, but he is definitely honourable.’
‘So you keep tellin’ me,’ Jesse snapped.
‘Only because you won’t listen to reason. Look,’ she added gently, ‘I know you’re frustrated. And I don’t blame you. I probably would be too. But the fact is Holmes apparently knew who you were from the start and yet he hasn’t turned you over to police.’
‘Yet,’ Jesse muttered grimly.
Elaina sighed. ‘All right,’ she said wearily, ‘for the moment, let’s say you can’t trust Holmes. At least trust me.’
‘I do trust you,’ he said. ‘And don’t think I ain’t grateful for all your help, Ellie, but …’ Too frustrated to finish, he continued pacing.
She went to him, determined to continue the kiss they’d started earlier that day in the armoury. ‘It’s been a long day,’ she soothed, ‘and you’re a fish out of water. You need an early night. It’ll help you relax and sleep.’
Sensing her meaning, he took her in his arms and pulled her close. ‘An “early night” sounds like just what I need.’
Distracted as he was, he had been an ardent and attentive lover, and the sex had been pleasurable for both of them. But she knew that despite their lovemaking the restlessness in him had persisted; and now, this morning, he was missing and she was afraid that he might do something foolish.
Rising, she saw to her toilet and then dressed hurriedly in a white shirtwaist blouse, red twill skirt and high-top lace-up boots. Then she hurried through the house, asking the staff if they had seen Mr Howard. No one had, until she found Hallett, her groom, outside. He answered her question with a nod and pointed toward the stables, a row of box stalls beside the paddock. ‘Last I saw him, m’lady, he was admirin’ the horses.’
Elaina hurried to the stalls and stopped quickly when she spotted Jesse sitting in the first one, back to the wall, aimlessly toying with a bridle.
She sighed, relieved. About to warn him not to go off on his own again, she noticed the slump-shouldered, glum way he sat there and felt a sudden wave of compassion for him.
‘Homesick?’ she asked, kneeling beside him.
He grunted as if disgusted by his emotions. ‘That obvious, huh?’
Her heart went out to him. Sitting beside him, she reached over and gently pulled him toward her, whispering: ‘Nothing to be ashamed of. I get it all the time.’
‘Sure you do. Who wouldn’t want to swap all this for a few dried-up acres in Kansas?’
‘Believe what you want, Jesse. But right now a little farm overlooking a cornfield sounds pretty good – so long as you’re there with me.’
He set the bridle aside, turned to her and gently stroked her cheek. ‘Shouldn’t be talkin’ that way.’
‘’Cause there’s no future hookin’ up with a maverick like me. Hell, sometimes I think there’s no future, period.’
‘Nonsense! It’s up to us to make a future. Together.’
‘The Countess and the Train Robber, Jesse James. An interestin’ pair we’d make. Hell, we’d be the talk of every town we lived in.’
‘There are other things you could be besides a train robber.’
‘Like farmer – sodbuster? No, thanks. Farming’s what chased my daddy off to the California goldfields.’
‘Your father was a prospector?’
‘Farmer first, preacher second, prospector third.’
‘That’s an odd mix. Did he ever strike it rich?’
‘No. Never even found enough dust to fill a single poke.’
‘That’s too bad. But he must have done well as a preacher. From what I’ve heard about the miners in the gold camps, they needed all the preaching they could get.’
‘Maybe so. But they didn’t get it from Pa. He only lasted a few months and then the fever took him.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be. I was just a baby when he ran off, so his passin’ didn’t rip a hole in my heart. But it did learn me not to end up behind a plough.’
Elaina thought a moment, mulling over what Jesse had said. Then as if making a decision, she stood up and reached for his hand. ‘Come on, Mr Howard. There’s someone I want you to meet.’
‘Not another Sherlock Holmes, I hope.’
‘Far from it. You and Duke will get along just fine.’
She led him out into the early-morning sunshine. At the far end of the stables Hallett was mucking out another set of box stalls and replacing the bedding. She called to him and when he turned to her, she asked him to bring Duke out. ‘I’d like him to meet Mr Howard.’
Hallett tipped his cap respectfully and entered the end stall. Moments later he led a pure white stallion out into the sunlight. Jesse whistled softly. By any stretch of the imagination the horse was magnificent. It stood seventeen hands at the shoulder and had a keen, knowing intelligence in its eyes.
The groom led the stallion up to Jesse, who eyed it admiringly.
‘Now this is what I call a horse,’ he said.
‘Know a bit about horseflesh, do you, sir?’ Hallett asked politely.
‘I get by,’ Jesse replied. He waved his hand before the horse’s face, checking its vision, then examined its deep chest, withers, legs and hoofs.
‘Come now, Mr Howard,’ Elaina said mischievously, ‘in your business, I would’ve thought that being able to choose a good horse was a matter of life or death.’
Jesse smiled, but said nothing. He focused his attention on the stallion, which now lowered its head and playfully prodded him in the chest.
Amused, Jesse fondled its velvety soft nose. ‘Feelin’ pretty feisty this morning, are you? That’s the trouble with stallions,’ he said to Elaina. ‘They look good, but they got a wild streak in ’em – unpredictable.’
‘Like someone else I know,’ she teased.
Jesse stood back, admiring the stallion’s lines. ‘OK,’ he said at last. ‘You got the looks. Let’s see if you got any substance.’ Taking the reins from Hallett, he grabbed the horse’s long, flowing mane, swung up on to its bare back and kicked it into a gallop. The horse raced out of the courtyard, its drumming hoofs spraying gravel everywhere, and across the meadow beyond.
It was immediately clear that man and horse were in perfect harmony. Duke raced across the meadow with Jesse sitting straight-backed behind his big, pumping head. At the far end of the meadow he whirled the stallion around and brought him thundering back toward Elaina. At the last moment he swerved around her and continued on into a stand of ash trees. Seconds later he reappeared, the horse powering along under him, eyes wide, nostrils flared, mane flying. They raced back to the stables. Again gravel crunched underfoot as Jesse rode Duke back into the yard and performed a Pony Express dismount while the horse was still moving.
‘I take it all back,’ he said, handing the reins to Hallett. ‘He’s steady as a rock.’
Elaina looked at him through eyes that sparkled with hidden meaning. ‘That’s exactly what I wanted to hear,’ she said.