“Worse than you can imagine,” Lee said seriously, then took her hand and kissed it. “So, what are you dallying for? Let’s get out of here and go to work. By the way, I called your sister and she’s hiring a maid and a housekeeper for us.”
“Two?” Blair asked. “Can we afford two?”
He gave her a very puzzled look. “If you don’t eat all of Miss Emily’s merchandise.” He looked aghast when she immediately put down the sandwich she’d picked up.
“What’s brought this on? Blair, I’m not as rich as Taggert, but I can certainly afford a couple of maids.”
She stood. “Let’s go, shall we? I have a plumber coming later.”
Still wearing a look of puzzlement, Lee followed her out of the teashop.
Chapter 27
Françoise slammed the glass down on the table and saw, with disgust, that the glass was too heavy, too crude, to break. “It’s all her fault,” she muttered.
Behind her, a man spoke, causing her to jump. She turned to look up at LeGault, tall, thin, dark—slimy. He had a habit of entering and leaving rooms without a sound. He toyed with his little mustache. “Blaming her again?”
Françoise didn’t bother to answer him as she stood and walked toward the window. The shades were drawn and the heavy plush curtains closed. No one must see her, for she was in hiding. She’d been inside this room for over a week now. The men in her band were either in prison or in a hospital. The bears that woman had enticed into the canyon had caused men and animals to panic to the point where one man was trampled by sharp horses’ hoofs. Two men had been shot, and another’s leg had been mauled by an angry bear. By the time the sheriffs men got the canyon mouth open, the outlaws were crying to be taken into custody.
And all because of one woman.
“I am still blaming her,” Françoise said with anger. Mostly what she hated was being played for a fool. That idiot band of men who followed her hadn’t had sense enough to find her, yet she’d been holed up practically under their noses.
In the last week, she’d had time to go over every detail of what had happened, and she now saw how that woman had used her. She saw the way Blair had pretended to be angry with her handsome husband, had pretended to drug him, then had “forgotten” the knife so Françoise could get away.
“I don’t guess you’ve considered the doc’s involvement in this,” LeGault said with a smirk. “Only the woman is guilty, right?”
“She was the instigator.” Françoise shrugged. “She is the one I would like to see repaid.”
“And I’d like to see Westfield repaid,” LeGault said.
“And what has he done to you?”
LeGault rubbed his wrists. He was careful to keep the scars covered—scars made by the iron manacles he’d worn in the prison where Westfield had put him. “Let’s just say that I have reason enough to want to see him get some of what he’s given me.” He paused. “Tonight, the messenger arrives with news. I hope he’ll know the day of the shipment.”
“No more than I do,” Françoise said with feeling. “After this job is done, I’m heading east, to Texas.”
“And leave your dear, devoted gang behind?” LeGault said tauntingly.
“Idiots! It will do them good to rot in jail for a few years. About tonight: do you think I could go with you? I’ll do anything to get out of here for a while.”
“Anything?”
“Anything that will not ruin our partnership,” she said with a smile, thinking she’d rather walk into a pit of rattlesnakes than sleep with LeGault. “It will be night and no one will see me. I need air and this waiting is making me miserable.”
“Sure. Why not? I have to meet the man in the middle of nowhere, up behind the Little Pamela mine. But if someone recognizes you, don’t expect me to stay by you. No one’s after me, and I plan to keep it that way.”
“Don’t worry about me tonight. You have to worry about how to get the boxes we steal out of Chandler, while I hide and you stay in plain sight.”
“Don’t worry about that. I’ll come up with something,” he said at the door. “I’ll come back for you at midnight.”
Hours later, they rode out of town, avoiding the lights on the houses, even the lights on the carriages. Françoise kept her hat down over her face and, in her thick coat and big pants, she didn’t look at all like a female.
They met their messenger, and the news was pleasing to them. Smiling, they started down the mountainside to where their horses were hidden.
“Quiet! I hear something,” LeGault said, as he jumped for cover behind a boulder.
Françoise hid, too, just as they saw two men emerge from the trees, the moonlight clearly outlining them. One, a short, stocky man, seemed nervous, while the other, tall, slim, the moonlight glinting off a revolver at his side, was calm and watchful. He paused while the short man climbed into a carriage that was well concealed behind a clump of piñon. Still watching, he struck a match and lit a cigar.