Marrying the Major. Victoria Bylin

to another assignment. Tristan had felt otherwise. In his own way, he knew how it felt to be judged inferior. He’d led his men with pride and they’d fought with courage. When Tristan made the decision to settle in Wyoming, he’d invited Noah to work for him.

      “Good morning, sir.” Noah spoke with the singsong tones of the Caribbean. “Any word on the stagecoach?”

      “The bridge is out. Jon and I are going to look for the passengers.” He didn’t mention the quinine. Needing medicine stung his pride, and Noah already knew the importance of it.

      The former sergeant gave him the same look he’d gotten from Jon. “If you’ll excuse me, sir. Is that wise? You’re not well, and—”

      “I’m well enough.” Tristan hated being questioned, a fact Noah knew better than most men. That he’d dared to bring up Tristan’s health showed both respect and caring.

      Tristan took the command out of his voice. “I need you to get word to The Barracks. The children will be worried.”

      “I’ll see to it.”

      “Thank you, Noah.” Tristan turned back to the door.

      “Sir?”

      “Yes?”

      “Mrs. Harvey just delivered a letter.” She was the postmistress and very conscientious. “It arrived with last week’s stage. She apologized for misplacing it. I put it in the study.”

      “Who is it from?”

      “Pennwright, sir.”

      Pennwright was his father’s long-time secretary, a man who joked that his name had doomed him to his occupation. When Tristan had been sent to boarding school, Pennwright had written regularly. The correspondence had started at the duke’s direction, but it had continued for years out of affection.

      “I’ll look forward to it when I return,” he said to Noah.

      “Yes, sir.”

      Satisfied, Tristan walked to the livery where he found Jon waiting with their mounts and two packhorses. If they found the women, the females would have to ride to Wheeler Springs. As for their possessions, they’d take what the horses could carry. When the bridge was repaired, he’d send a wagon for the rest. He welcomed the thought of having such a problem. The alternative—that they’d find the coach destroyed and the driver and women dead—couldn’t be tolerated.

      Looking grave, Jon handed him the reins to his favorite horse. Tristan preferred a spirited mount and the stallion he’d named Cairo had speed and intelligence. A sleek Arabian, Cairo was black with a matching mane and tail. The stallion obeyed Tristan, but he did it with an air of superiority.

      Jon rode up next to him on the gray mare he favored. She wasn’t old, but Tristan had named her Grandma because she rode like a rocking chair.

      As he turned Cairo down the street, the sun hit him in the face. He swiped at beads of perspiration with his sleeve, then nudged Cairo into an easy canter. With the fever lurking in his body and the Bradley sisters in places unknown, there was no time to waste. Jon rode next to him, letting Tristan set the pace.

      Three hours passed with no sign of the stage. The sun peaked and was halfway to the horizon when they arrived at the downed bridge. Tristan slid wearily off Cairo, shielded his eyes from the sun and scanned the gorge for the downed stagecoach. He saw only boards from the bridge wedged between rocks and the sparkling water racing past them.

      Relief washed over him. “They didn’t get this far.”

      “So it seems.”

      “We need to push on.” Tristan inspected the sides of the gorge. A trail led to the river and stopped at a sandy bank. The men climbed back on their horses and headed for the crossing with Tristan in the lead. The storm had turned the path into slick mud, but they arrived at the river’s edge without mishap. Cairo didn’t hesitate to wade into the current, but Grandma needed coaxing. When Tristan reached the far bank, he turned and saw his friend urging the skittish horse to take one step at a time. He hoped the river would recede before they had to cross it again, hopefully with the stage driver and the two women. When Grandma found firm footing, she bolted out of the water.

      Jon grinned at Tristan. “The old girl did it.”

      “Barely,” Tristan acknowledged. “For a minute, I thought you’d have to carry her.”

      Jon smiled at the joke, then looked down the road. Tristan followed his gaze with the same questions in mind. Had the stage come this far and turned back? Had it gone off the road before reaching the bridge? He also had to consider the Carver gang. Fighting fever, Tristan acknowledged the cold facts. Anything could have happened. The quinine could already be lost, and the women could be hurt or trapped or worse.

      With no time to waste, he barked an order at Jon. “We still have daylight. Let’s go.”

      He nudged Cairo into a comfortable trot. Jon stayed with him, but at dusk Tristan admitted defeat. They hadn’t seen a single sign of the coach. With the fever nipping at him, he gave in to Jon’s suggestion that they strike camp for the night. They’d start looking again in the morning.

      Caroline Bradley awoke on the hard ground with a jolt. Dawn had broken with startling splendor, but it wasn’t the golden light that roused her from a troubled sleep. It was the snap of a twig, then the frustrated muttering of a male voice. She clutched the shotgun she’d found in the boot of the stagecoach. She’d slept with it for two nights, and she knew how to pull the trigger. If the Carver gang had come back, she’d use it.

      Three days ago she and Bessie had left Cheyenne for Wheeler Springs. They’d had the coach to themselves, so they’d passed the hours speculating about Tristan Willoughby Smith, his children and what life would be like on a cattle ranch. Not once had they imagined the stagecoach being robbed by the Carver gang. Thanks to the sacrifice of the driver, they’d escaped while he’d challenged the outlaws with his pistol. She and Bessie had run for their lives and hidden in a ravine, listening as the Carvers killed the driver and ransacked their trunks and other shipments. When the outlaws finished, they’d stolen the horses and pushed the yellow coach into the ravine.

      Cracked and lying on its side, the old Concord had offered adequate shelter from the sun, very little from the rain and none from the frightful howling of wolves.

      In the scramble down the hill, Bessie had sprained her ankle. By herself, Caroline had piled rocks on the dead driver, then she’d salvaged what she could of their possessions. In the course of her efforts, she’d found a crate addressed to Major Smith from the Farr, Powers and Weightman Chemical Laboratory in Philadelphia. It had been opened and the contents had been dumped without care. In the pile of broken bottles, she’d seen a label marked “Sulphate of Quinine.” Knowing the value of the medicine, she’d salvaged seven of the twelve bottles. They were wrapped in an old nightgown and hidden in the stagecoach for safekeeping.

      She knew the major was ill, and she’d assumed he had a chronic illness or a war injury. Now she wondered if he was suffering from malaria. It had been a scourge during the war that had destroyed the South. Bessie had served as a nurse during the conflict, and she’d complained often that illness killed more men than mini balls. Major Smith, it seemed, was a very ill man. Seeing the medicine, Caroline had thought of his motherless children. Who would love them if they lost their father? Malaria was a fickle disease. It could take a man’s life in a day or linger in his blood for years.

      Outlaws had the same penchant for randomness. Aware of the slow, measured steps coming toward her, Caroline weighed her options. Bessie’s ankle meant they couldn’t run. Neither could they hide. Huddling against the undercarriage of the coach, she whispered into her sister’s ear. “Bessie, wake up but don’t move.”

      Her sister’s eyelids fluttered open.

      The footsteps were closer now. A bird took flight from a cottonwood. Caroline wanted to fly away, too. Instead she clutched the shotgun. The steps came closer. She heard the slide of dirt and rock as