them.”
Hiram dropped into the chair across from him. “It appears so.”
Considering Daniel didn’t know Jeb Sanders except by name, therelief he felt seemed misplaced. But knowing one of his men didn’t cause the death of a deputy did matter.
“It’s the eighteen eighties, for crying out loud. Things ought to be civilized by now,” Hiram commented.
“I suppose,” Daniel said. “Maybe the committee is onto something with their campaign to rid the city of its more unsavory element.”
Now that the trains between Denver and Leadville shortened the trip significantly, he’d like nothing better than to have Charlotte with him when he made his visits to the mine. Even with Elias and the new governess for supervision, Daniel had his doubts as to how much longer Charlotte could be trusted with the friends she’d made in Denver without his presence.
But until the day Leadville proved safe enough, Daniel would have to rely on the new Miss McTaggart to take Charlotte in hand and teach her what it meant to be a proper young lady.
As Hiram slipped out of the office, Daniel’s thoughts drifted to the letter that had ruined his last day in Denver. The one from his father, which he’d finally read.
The earl had put Daniel on notice of his impending visit to the States, and had specifically demanded that Charlotte be brought for an audience.
He would expect the child to be a lady. To bring an overall-clad imp would risk his rejecting Charlotte. And while the old man’s opinions weren’t worth spit to Daniel, the ten-year-old had lived through too many losses to add her grandfather to the list.
He’d have to figure out a way around it. Perhaps a letter begging the girl’s age as a reason for not traveling east with her. It might work, except that her mother had brought her all the way from England with no permanent harm done.
Then it came to him. “Of course,” he said softly as he reached for pen and paper. She was his child, and he didn’t have to respond to the demands of a bitter old man.
Try as he might, however, Daniel could not write the words his thoughts demanded. Instead, he penned a perfunctory note of acceptance, allowing for the fact the old man might change his mind.
Praying for it.
While she waited, Mae gave some thought to what life in the big city of Deadwood would be like. Hot meals and soft beds, warm fires and cool evening breezes. Likely she’d find no further need to run or be her own protector. No, she thought as she checked the number of bullets in each of her three weapons, she’d be safe as a bug in a rug.
It sounded just awful.
She sighted down her pistol. Sometimes what a person wishes for is neither what they really want nor what they need.
Sometimes, it’s the wishing that’s the best part.
And right now, with her target coming into range, Mae wished for Henry.
Gennie perched on the edge of the buggy’s seat as much to get a better look at the scene unfolding before her as to be ready to jump and run if need be. Several seemingly upstanding citizens and two officers of the law had vouched for the identity of the man who called himself Elias Howe and the urchin known as Charlie Beck.
As to her identity, Gennie was not proud to admit she’d allowed them to believe she was the newest McTaggart in the household. There would be time enough to tell the truth, but Daniel Beck must be informed first. He could tell the child and his staff members. This, after all, was his purview, not hers.
Glancing to her left, Gennie noted the child’s pout and decided that whoever was in charge of the imp would have to form an immunity to the expression, lest she be taken in. Wide eyes and a tiny, upturned nose completed the profile of what could have been an angel had Gennie not known the truth.
She moved her attention to the straight back of the older man in odd clothing. A dress coat that appeared to be a neatly pressed yet greatly patched Confederate uniform offered an interesting
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