Wanted: One Scoundrel Page 8

  “We’ll be back Saturday,” Esme said to Francis. It sounded like a vow.

  Jed made his own vow as he brought his horse up to hers and they set off across country. Bambury would not live to marry Esme.

  Chapter Eleven

  “I’m glad you’re with me,” Esme said to Jed as they slowed their horses to a walk. The canter had taken the edge off the horses’ fidgetiness and her own nervous impatience. “Thank you.”

  “Anything I can do,” he said, quiet and sincere. “Esme, when I think of that bastard— If he has your father, we’ll get him back. You don’t have to marry him.”

  “I’m hoping it’s all a cruel bluff. Father’s outwitted better men than Bambury.”

  The night sounds of the bush drifted around them: the wind stirring the restless gum trees, the scampering of nocturnal animals disturbed by their passing. A mopoke called mournfully. Yesterday’s rain had dampened the earth and the scents came strongly, menthol and winter grass.

  Esme had an oiled cape strapped to her saddle, but she hoped she wouldn’t need it. Rain would add another layer of misery, although at least on horseback they wouldn’t risk the miring that carts faced in this weather.

  “I need to know Father’s safe,” she said from the heart.

  “I know.”

  The steady reassurance in Jed’s voice comforted her, just as his silence asked nothing, only offered the support of his presence. It was exactly what she needed.

  Around midnight, clouds obscured the moon and forced them to stop.

  “We need to sleep, anyway.”

  She pressed her lips together, knowing he was right, but still wanting to carry on. She made herself dismount and turn to unsaddling. Her fingers were clumsy from the cold. She flattened them a moment against the heat of Thunderclap before tugging again at a stubborn buckle.

  Jed glanced at her once, assessing, but the darkness hid her and he concentrated on his own horse before taking both down to the river to drink.

  She unrolled the two swags beneath a river gum where the ground was almost dry and slid into her own. Her tension made the ground feel doubly hard.

  “I miss Kelly,” she said, hearing Jed return. “He always goes bush with me.”

  She’d left her dog behind to aid the pretense of her own presence.

  “I’m sorry.” Jed loomed beneath the river gum’s spreading branches, before getting into his own swag. “I’m here if you need anything.”

  Someone to hold me in the darkness? She pulled the scratchy wool blanket higher, finding no comfort in it.

  “Good night, sweetheart,” he said. “Try to sleep.”

  She didn’t expect to, but physical weariness and nervous exhaustion dropped her into sleep and into nightmares of obscene marriage ceremonies presided over by crows in white surplices. She woke at daybreak, lying still for a moment beneath the river gum.

  If Bambury did hold her father hostage, the only way he’d be safe from revenge would be to kill him. Aaron Smith’s temper was legendary. It followed that if Bambury had her father, he would have to kill him.

  “Should we go back?” she asked. A stupid question. There was nothing she could do back in town, but fear and doubt churned nauseously. She trusted her father could look after himself, and yet… She shivered, the morning chill seeping through the wool blanket. “Maybe I should have tackled Bambury.”

  Jed was awake. He turned and raised up on one elbow. “For your peace of mind, we need proof Bambury is bluffing. He hasn’t left town long enough to kidnap your father himself and he’d have to be even stupider than he seems to risk putting hired men on the job. They would have him over a barrel and he’d be paying blackmail all his life.”

  “Would anyone take their word over Bambury’s?” She sat up and wrapped her arms around her knees. “Who would credit a man with his social status behaving worse than a bushranger?”

  “From Bambury’s perspective, there’s another problem with hiring men to kidnap your father. They’re outlaws. Anyone can buy them—and your father has more money than Bambury.”

  “Oh.” The relief of that thought brought her sagging shoulders straight. In a worst case scenario, Father could buy his freedom. Bambury had to be bluffing.

  Jed climbed out of his swag and began searching in his satchel. Like Esme, he’d slept in his coat for warmth. “Either way, we need to know where your father is, that he’s safe. Then I’ll deal with Bambury.” He produced a spirit kettle. “Do you have any tea?”

  “Yes.” She sprang up. “Maud packed everything. We have bread and cheese—I forgot your coffee.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I’m getting used to tea.”

  He walked down to the river for water and she watched his lithe stride. When he said he’d deal with Bambury, she believed him. But for that matter, she’d have little compunction shooting the villain herself. She picked up the pistol she’d kept by the swag last night and tucked it into its holster, hidden by the cut of her coat.

  She rolled up the swags while Jed brewed the tea. They ate yesterday’s bread and cheese before saddling the horses. She insisted on seeing to her own mount, concentrating determinedly on practicalities. There were oats in the saddlebag. When they stopped tonight, she’d give it to the horses. They would need the added feed since they were being ridden hard.

  Ironically, it was a perfect winter’s day. The clear blue sky made the green of the bush seem deeper. The light sand of the coastal plain gave way to the gravel of the hills in the morning. By evening they’d be descending to the arable, inland dirt.

  “A kangaroo!”

  Esme’s hands tightened on the reins at the urgency in Jed’s voice. Her horse danced sideways.

  A red boomer, startled by his shout, woke from its midday doze and bounded off.

  “Jehosphat,” Jed swore, awestruck.

  The kangaroo, taller than a man, covered the ground with effortless speed. Cornered, they could fight. A dog who got too close would be hugged by the roo’s front legs while its powerful hind legs disemboweled it. To Esme, roos weren’t a novelty, they were a fact of life—and poor eating. One of the pleasures of her father’s wealth was that she’d never again have to eat rootail stew.

  “I had managed to see a couple of grey kangaroos,” Jed said, apologizing for his outburst. “The governor showed me his pet. But I hadn’t expected the reds to be so impressive. Can’t they move?”

  He urged his horse on, most of his attention still for the vanishing kangaroo. It swerved nimbly around a grasstree as tall as itself and twice as wide, without slackening speed.

  “Marvelous.” He sighed. “They are what I came to Australia to observe.”

  “Really?” Even in the midst of her worry, that snagged her attention. “I thought you came for the gold.” And that sounded truly ungracious. “I mean, most men do.”

  “I have enough money,” he said absently. “I’m an inventor. I studied the automobiles being designed in England and Germany, even in France. It seems to me they’re going to waste a lot of their energy. Kangaroos, now. Did you see how that one bounced? That big tail and powerful hindquarters? How much energy would they store and release? Conserving energy will get you a heck of a lot further than having to carry the weight of extra fuel.”

  “Yes, but…” She considered the jumping nature of kangaroos. “Wouldn’t traveling by kangaroo—or a vehicle based on one—be awfully jouncy?”

  “Not if the seat was hung within the framework and stabilizers built into the springs of the legs. The energy in the springs could feed back into a clockwork mechanism and be enhanced by pedal power.”

  She blinked at his enthusiasm and the vision of a weird, hybrid vehicle his words conjured.

  “I’m working on a prototype. I drew plans on the skimmer-boat and I rented one of Mrs. Hall’s sheds as a workshop. If you’re interested, I can show you a model?”

  “I’m interested.”

  She was rewarded with a flashing smile.

  With hi
s unshaven beard, Jed resembled a pirate, but a pleased one.

  They traveled east-south-east, only veering from the direct line to avoid farmhouses whose residents might see and mention them. By the time they dismounted at sunset, Esme ached in every muscle.

  Out of practice. As useless as a society lady. She tried to walk without wincing.

  “I’ll see to the horses,” Jed said.

  “Thanks.” But she still unsaddled her own mount. “There are oats in the saddlebag.”

  They had stopped near a stream, one of the creeks that ran in winter and dried to a line of puddles in summer.

  If she sat down, she’d stiffen up and moving would be agony. So she kept herself trundling, finding dry tinder and branches for a fire. Dinner would be corned beef, stale bread and some of Maud’s biscuits, but a fire would improve their spirits.

  She struck a match and coaxed the flames to catch hold. The slope of the land sheltered them from the wind.

  The stamp of the horses as they munched oats was reassuring, familiar.

  Jed walked back from the stream, having washed his hands.

  “This is where we always camped, Mother, Father and I,” she told him. “Even when there’s no water in the creek, you can dig down and find some. And you can catch gilgies, freshwater crayfish. Mother used to—” She wiped her eyes. “I’m not crying.” And illogically. “I’m just crying-tired.”

  “We’ll get your father back safely.” Jed circled the fire, feeding it sticks, and pulled her up from where she knelt.

  It felt like heaven to rest against him. He held her strongly, his cheek resting against her hair. She put her arms around his waist, relishing his warmth and concern.

  Suddenly, he tensed and raised his head. He pushed her away from him and the fire, back into the shadows.

  Belatedly, she heard the increased restlessness of their horses and the steady sound of another horse approaching, its rider undoubtedly lured by the fire and the prospect of company. She tugged her hat over her face and stayed in the shadows. Jed’s accent would mark him as American, but a lot of Americans had been lured to Swan River by the goldrush. It was she who couldn’t afford to be recognized.

  “Hello, the house.” The stranger pulled up his horse, but two dogs that had been trotting at its heels raced on to fawn at Esme’s feet.

  “Father?” She stumbled over one dog and Jed righted her. “Father!”

  She ran forward, throwing herself at her father as he swung out of the saddle.

  His arms closed protectively around her. “Esme, what are you doing here? And who’s this with you?”

  “I was coming to find you, Father. And this is Jed. Jed Reeve. He’s helping me because—oh, Father, I thought you’d been kidnapped.”

  Meeting Aaron Smith, Jed understood why Esme had found it difficult to believe Bambury could have kidnapped him. Not only was Smith well over six feet, the heavy work of gold prospecting had given him formidable muscles. Plus he carried a shotgun and the two dogs who ran with him were large, rangy crossbreeds.

  “Roo dogs,” Smith called them, when he’d heard Esme’s story, finished cursing and settled back to smoke an after-dinner pipe. “Somewhat similar to what the English call poacher’s dogs.”

  “They look fast and fierce.”

  “I’d like to set them on Bambury.”

  “We will have to do something about him. But nothing that he can haul you in front of a magistrate for.” Esme cradled her mug of tea and stared into the fire. “I wonder who he hired to steal the watch from you.”

  “Francis will find out.” It was unnecessary for Smith to add that he’d deal with the fellow. After all, he’d ridden in from his claim for just that reason: to chase down the thieving no-good who’d stolen the precious memento of his late wife. He’d discovered the watch gone two days ago and wasted a day searching in case he’d dropped it. “First, though, I’m getting it back from Bambury if I have to rip his head off.”

  “Or publicly skewer him,” Jed suggested.

  The Smiths, father and daughter, looked at him.

  “Father is not engaging in a duel!”

  “No. I was thinking more along the lines of public humiliation.” Jed cracked a stick and tossed it into the fire. “If we’d found you missing, sir, presumably kidnapped, we’d have had to deal with a worst case scenario. I’ve been turning over plans in my mind. How to neutralize Bambury’s threat to kill you if Esme told anyone of your kidnapping and how to find you. Really, they were the same problem, one of extracting you safely. You see, I didn’t see how we could set about finding you without Bambury knowing we were looking—with all respect to Francis, finding a kidnapped and hidden man is a more challenging quest than a stolen watch.”

  Smith grunted.

  “The solution, as I saw it, was to confront Bambury in such a way that your death would cause him more problems than money or revenge could compensate for.”

  “A public denunciation?” Esme put her mug down and hugged her knees. “It would have been risky.”

  “It would have relied on you—and me—convincing the audience. And it had to be the right audience, not people in the street, but the high flyers and influential men Bambury considers his class. I thought we’d tackle him on his Friday luncheon at the men’s club.”

  She stared at him, awed. “Taking the battle into his territory.”

  “And making it ours.” Jed nodded. “His pride in his social reputation is Bambury’s weakest point, so that’s what we’d have hit. We still can.”

  “Nicholas Bambury the Third, ruined for life.” She smiled. “It’s brilliant. His scheme demonstrates the evil that comes from denying married women rights over their own property and bodies.”

  Smith’s loud laughter startled the horses. “Well, you’re back to normal.”

  “Not quite,” Esme said. “But I will be when we’ve ruined Bambury.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “The problem was the smallest gear…”

  Esme tuned out the intent discussion going on between her father and her…well, what was Jed to her? He’d held her last night, comforted her, accompanied her unprotestingly, all the time planning Bambury’s ruin, but did he do so as a friend or something more? He’d never said anything, although his manner had at times implied a heated man-woman attraction.

  “That’s what I thought,” her father exclaimed and slapped his thigh.

  The horses continued their steady pace. The long ride had taken the fidgets out of them. Esme drew rein a fraction, dropping back enough that she could study Jed.

  He rode well. The day had warmed enough that he’d shed his coat and tied it to the saddle. Broad shoulders tapered to leanly muscled hips and thighs. His free hand gestured, emphasizing some point in his explanation.

  Yesterday, he’d said he was an inventor. She believed him. It was there in the absorbed way he’d watched the kangaroo bound, and today, in the passion he brought to the discussion with her father.

  An inventor. Not a confidence man. He’d even said he had sufficient money for his needs.

  But he’d agreed to be her spokesman for the Women’s Advancement League and he’d done an excellent job.

  She’d pegged him as a charming, honorable scoundrel—and she’d gotten it wrong. So, who was he?

  “Esme, remember that wind-up rabbit I made you? Do you still have it?”

  “Hardly. You made it for me when I was ten. A year later you took it apart because you needed a gear for your latest project—I think you were making an automated teapot?”

  “Oh yes.” Her father looked momentarily abashed. The tea-maker had been a disaster. Meant to sit on a tripod over a fire, it kept tipping over when the boiling water poured over the tea leaves. “Not one of my better ideas. I was going to show Jed the jumping mechanism in the rabbit. His idea for a kangaroo car sounds beaut.”

  Her father had no doubts about Jed. He assumed Jed was her suitor, one she favored. He’d been suspicious last night and this
morning, but the suspicions had faded when they discovered a shared enthusiasm for all things inventive.

  She smiled ruefully. Next, he’d be urging her to accept Jed’s hand in marriage when it hadn’t even been offered. Aaron Smith wanted his daughter married and happy, as he’d been with her mother. The troubles with Bambury would only increase his determination to marry her off to a decent fellow.

  Jed saw her smile. “Are we boring you? I tend to become overly absorbed in a problem.”

  “I’m not bored.” Uncertain, hopeful, confused. “I’m glad to be nearly home.”

  The settlements—farms, police outposts and small general stores—were becoming more frequent. Approaching from the southeast, they avoided Perth, but they’d be in Fremantle by evening.

  “I’ll have a hot bath and a hot meal and my own bed,” she continued.

  “She’s not as pampered as she sounds,” Aaron excused her to Jed. “I taught her to shoot and throw a knife. Her mother and her spent a lot of time in the goldfields with me before I struck it lucky. Esme can handle anything.”

  “I believe you.” Jed smiled at her. “And I have to confess, I’d quite like a hot dinner, myself.”

  “You’ll have to eat with us,” she said. “Maud will love the challenge of producing a three-course meal in minutes.”

  Esme was right.

  After the exclamations of joy and relief at Aaron’s appearance, Maud stirred her kitchen into a frenzy while the three travelers bathed. The gardener’s lad ran for clean clothes from Mrs. Hall’s boarding house for Jed. Francis was ordered to sit with them through their late meal and update them on Bambury’s activities.

  “He hired Sid Archer,” Francis said, drinking tea while the others ate their way through steak and potatoes. The soup had been mixed vegetable. “Sneak thief. He was transported, same as me, but he never cleaned up his act. Still a thief and a criminal-for-hire.”