The Confidential Life of Eugenia Cooper Part 23

Giving in to his temper would serve no purpose. As a businessman, he knew this. As a man falsely accused and royally aggrieved, he strongly wished otherwise. He resisted the urge to pound his fists on the desk and demand an apology.

For now.

"I can see you're a man of few words this morning, Daniel, so I'll be brief as well."

Daniel lifted a brow but kept his hands hidden.

"This morning we called an emergency meeting of the committee," Ira said, "and a vote was taken on the meaning of the rules we all agreed to, you included."

"Funny," Daniel said with what he hoped would be deadly calm. "I don't recall an invitation to that meeting." He paused to let the words settle hard on the man he'd sat beside in church and worked beside in the mines before he bankrolled the man's hotel venture. "Any reason why all the members weren't called in? Or was it to be sure I'd be hung out to dry without opposition?"

Ira exhaled a long breath and his features relaxed. "Look, Daniel," he said, "if it were up to me, I'd turn my back on the whole thing and pretend it never happened. Likely every man standing in the hallway last night feels the same way, and let me tell you, we had a long list of important men staying with us last night."

Daniel nodded. He'd recognized more than a few faces among the crowd-not that any of them had looked him in the eye.

"And here's the thing," Ira continued. "I took a poll-an informal one, mind you-before the meeting started, and not a man there was willing to say a word against you."

For the first time since last night, Daniel felt his temper subside a notch. "I'm glad to hear it, Ira."

The other man shifted positions. "Well, don't be too glad. That's the good news. The bad news is our wives don't share our opinion."

"I see." Daniel stifled a smile though he should have felt outrage. "So the womenfolk would have me hanged?"

"No," Ira said slowly, "I believe talk of hanging was reserved for the pretty governess of yours. You they preferred to see tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail."

"Comforting." Daniel regarded Stegman a moment. "I'm a businessman, Ira. I've enough concern just keeping my daughter and her governess safe until we can return to Denver. I don't have the time nor the inclination to worry about what a gaggle of housewives think." He paused. "Though I am sure your wife's opinion would be of the greatest value to me."

Ira chuckled. "Don't be so certain, though I do believe I have a solution for the issue of the womenfolk's safety."

"Oh?" Daniel leaned forward. "What's that?"

"My brother's taken a liking to the two of them. Said Miss Cooper's a real lady, and your daughter, she's quite the charmer."

Daniel smiled in spite of himself. "Indeed."

"He's willing to act as bodyguard as long as you'll have him." Ira paused to shift positions. "I told him to hold off talking to you about it until I had a chance to give you my spiel. Chances are you might not want anything to do with me and my family after you hear the rest of what I've got to say."

"Go on."

"A few of us have been pondering this." He studied the ceiling a minute before returning his attention to Daniel. "I think there's a way out of this mess that will make everyone happy. Well, maybe 'happy's' not the right word, but at least you won't be forced to sell off the Beck mines and leave town."

"Sell off the mines!" Daniel scrambled to his feet. "You and that idiotic committee for the beautification of whatever it is are absolutely certifiable."

"The Greater Leadville Beautification and Improvement Society," Ira said with a calmness that did not befit the situation. "And if you'll just hear me out, I think you'll agree the mayor and I have come up with a whopper of a fix for this."

"The mayor?"

Ira nodded. "Well, and the marshal. Pastor Kent's in on it too, but he didn't actually come up with the plan. Come to think of it, he never did officially approve of it, but I think that's just a formality."

"Ira," Daniel said carefully, "if you don't tell me what you're talking about pretty soon, I'm going to lose my temper." He paused. "You don't want that, trust me."

Gennie held tight to the buggy seat with one hand and held her handkerchief over her nose with the other. Between the dust and the alt.i.tude, she'd decided this part of the Wild West was nothing at all like the place portrayed in Mae's stories.

"Where are we going?" she asked when the worst of the dust cloud, along with the crowd of buildings downtown, was behind them.

Daniel gestured toward the foothills where, he claimed, a decent view of Leadville awaited. "I thought to have a picnic, though I don't know if it will compare to the one we shared with the Finch ladies."

The reminder caused Gennie to wince. While she'd hoped the event might be an opportunity to draw Daniel and Anna closer together, quite the opposite seemed to have happened. Anna's mother went on and on about every conceivable topic under the sun while Anna nibbled on the contents of the food basket and looked longingly at Daniel Beck.

It was all highly frustrating. Perhaps she'd find a way to make the situation right today.

But first, she should mention the other situation, the one that caused them to be banished from the Mountain Palace Hotel. Daniel hadn't said a word about the incident, though Gennie could do nothing but think of the humiliation it must have brought him.

She'd certainly been horrified at the entire mess. What would her mother think if she knew?

But then, Mama would have been good and truly appalled long before last night. The incident at the Mountain Palace would have been just one more reason for the socially adept Mrs. Cooper to swoon.

Still, Gennie realized, as she held tight and watched the city slip behind her, she'd be leaving Colorado soon enough, while Mr. Beck would not. Long after last night was a distant memory for her, Daniel Beck would still have to see these people at church and do business with them. The poor man.

Then there was poor Charlotte. That she'd practically changed her entire opinion of Gennie since that horrible miner terrorized her was tempered by the fact that Charlotte would be left without her when Gennie returned to New York City.

It was a problem with no good solution.

"You're awful pensive," Mr. Beck said.

Gennie offered her employer a smile, though the b.u.t.terflies in her stomach threatened to take flight at the distance they'd come up the mountain. "I suppose I am."

Their gazes collided. "Is Charlotte misbehaving?"

"The opposite, actually." She gave him a sideways glance and found he'd gone back to concentrating on the road ahead. "Though she was not pleased to be left with Sam today."

As she had a man waiting back in Manhattan, Gennie knew she shouldn't think such thoughts, but Daniel Beck was quite a handsome man. Not handsome in the conventional sense, for there was nothing pretty about him. Rather, he had a pleasant combination of features that made him easy on the eye, yet altogether interesting.

Were there enough days left in her stay, Gennie might have asked him how a man of British descent came about having a touch of southern accent and a houseman given to wearing Confederate regalia. Then there was the issue of his late wife. How did a man come to be presented with a five-year-old he didn't know he had by a woman he'd made his wife, then left behind in England? It was all so confusing, and yet so interesting.

There was that word again. Gennie sighed. If there was one term she could use to describe Daniel Beck, it would be interesting. interesting.

He cracked the reins, and the buggy jolted forward as they began their ascent into the green hills. Soon the remains of the dust filtered away, and the air became clear and crisp.

"I'd hoped to make good on my offer of a Wild West adventure," he said after a while, "but unfortunately, it appears safety has become an issue. For that, I apologize."

"There's no need," she said. "I'm sure you wouldn't have brought us here if you'd suspected there might be a problem."

"Indeed." His attention never veered from the road ahead, yet Gennie felt as if he were somehow observing her.

The buggy wheels came close to the edge of the road, and the incline became steeper. With each turn, the clouds came nearer, and Gennie's fears rose.

While she'd never been particularly afraid of heights, she'd never had to traverse a mountain road in an open buggy. Add in the lack of conversation, and she felt the urge to jump off the contraption and race back to town just to find level ground.

To her surprise, Daniel's hand covered hers. "I should have asked if you minded that we'd be going up into the mountains." He lifted his hand to grasp the reins and halt the horse's ascent. "I can take you back if you're uncomfortable."

"I am," she said with a nervous laugh, "but I think it's good for me, so get this buggy moving before I change my mind." She braved another look at Mr. Beck and found him smiling. "What?"

He shrugged and set the buggy in motion. "Miss Cooper, I can honestly say you are the most interesting woman I've ever met."

Her laughter came from pure amus.e.m.e.nt. "Mr. Beck, I can't decide whether or not that's the nicest thing a man's ever said to me."

"You let me know when you've decided," he said. "In the meantime, I want you to know I've got Hiram working on tickets back to Denver for tomorrow or the day after. I wish it were sooner, but there's just so few spots on that narrow-gauge line and too many folks wanting them."

"I understand." She paused to inhale more of the crisp air. "I know I should be after last night, but I'm honestly in no hurry to leave Leadville. It's just so"-Gennie caught her breath as they turned a corner and the whole of Leadville lay before her-"beautiful."

"Beautiful? I suppose one who doesn't spend much time here would think so." He shrugged and urged the horses on. "Me? I see the smelters and the mines, and I know what it looked like before."

Gennie heard the wistfulness in his voice. "What did it look like?"

He laughed. "It was green. Not much else here, except the mining shacks and a few places in town where a man could get..."

She glanced over and saw his ears had turned red. "Mr. Beck," she said, "are you blushing?"

"No," he said as he returned her stare, "but if I finish that sentence, I guarantee I'd make you blush."

Surely he heard her gasp, but as the color faded from his face, the intensity did not diminish from his stare. Neither did the heat she felt building where moments ago b.u.t.terflies had taken flight.

Gennie cleared her throat and looked away, trying to find another subject upon which to converse. When nothing came to mind save those topics fraught with danger, she elected to say nothing.

"Sam told us the marshal thought that awful man's claims were a bunch of hooey," she said when she could stand the silence no longer. "A few men wanting to make out like there was something when there's nothing." She shrugged. "I don't know what all of that means, but Sam says it's good."

Though he continued to concentrate on guiding the horses up the ever-narrowing road, Daniel Beck looked relieved. The buggy pitched and leaned, but the horses stayed surefooted and evenly paced.

Then the road became a path that leaned into the mountain. In order to keep from sliding against Mr. Beck, Gennie had to hold on to the buggy seat with both hands. At first, she accomplished this without difficulty. Then the heat of the afternoon, which had already warmed her shoulders and back, took its toll on her palms.

"Let go." Mr. Beck's voice was nearly a growl, so low and soft did he speak. "I'll catch you."

And he did, grasping her around the waist with one hand while expertly guiding the horses with the other. By the time they reached a gra.s.sy spot within view of the summit, Gennie decided she rather liked the mountains after all.

In fact, she could have remained right there, gazing over the distant landscape indefinitely, such was the beauty of the view. Her companion had not yet moved, either.

Her shoulder brushing his, Gennie sighed. "It's all so lovely."

"Lovely, yes," he said softly. "It is indeed."

Abruptly, Mr. Beck climbed down from the buggy, then helped her do the same. He handed her the basket and pointed to a rock outcropping a few yards away. "I'll tend to the horses if you want to go have a better look at the valley."

She wandered that direction but found more interest in looking back at Daniel Beck than she did in looking down at Leadville. "Where's your mine, Mr. Beck?" she asked when he joined her.

"There." He gestured toward a ma.s.sive collection of buildings, some with smoke billowing from tall stacks and others looking much like the storefronts downtown. He pointed out the smelter and the mine shafts, then grew silent.

"What?" she asked when she caught him looking pensive.

He shook his head. "I was just thinking how one stupid mistake almost cost me all this."

Gennie turned away from the forests of aspen and blue spruce to lean her back on the rocks and look up at a sky so blue it hurt to stare at it. She closed her eyes and let the sun bathe her face, not caring if she developed freckles. Each one, she decided, would carry a memory of her Wild West adventure. Of today, high in the foothills above Leadville.

The warmth of the rough granite seeped through the thin cotton of her frock to heat her back. When she lifted her eyelids a tiny bit, she could observe Daniel Beck without being noticed.

He seemed deep in thought, the corners of his eyes crinkled against the glare of the noonday sun. When he glanced down at her, she remained very still, hoping he would not know she'd been peering up at him from beneath her lashes. Slowly, his gaze washed over her, and it was all she could do not to open her eyes. Was it the sun or her close proximity to Daniel Beck that bathed her in such warmth?

He leaned onto his elbows, looking away. Disappointment set in, but then his attention returned to her.

"Miss Cooper," he whispered. "Open your eyes."

She did, and the sight of him took her breath away. She'd seen longing on the faces of too many fresh-faced schoolboys and attentive sons of family friends not to recognize the emotion. On Daniel Beck, however, the look was no safe wishing-for-a-kiss expression. The look was more than a promise and slightly less than a demand. She felt fear and antic.i.p.ation in equal measure as she waited for the moment he would fit his lips to hers.

He ran a callused finger over her lower lip, reached for her hands and grasped them in his, then pulled her toward him. The abrupt change in position combined with the thin air to make her head spin.

She crumpled at his feet. For a moment, the world went black.

She blinked and all was right again, though she now lay in what felt to be soft gra.s.s. "I feel like such a ninny," Gennie said. She attempted to rise up on one elbow, only to have the mountain move and knock her back to the ground.

"Alt.i.tude sickness," someone said as her eyes closed and strong arms wrapped around her. "Miss Cooper," she heard through a wave of something that felt like exhaustion. "Open your eyes, Miss Cooper."

She tried, but couldn't accomplish the feat. She preferred to snuggle against this warmth she'd found.

"Eugenia." Pause. "Gennie."

A palm cradled her jaw. She leaned into it.

Then came the kiss. Soft, tender, and just as warm as the sunshine she'd enjoyed only a moment ago. Or was it longer? She had no idea.

With regret, she opened her eyes.

"Welcome back, Sleeping Beauty," Daniel Beck said. "It appears you've got a case of alt.i.tude sickness."

"Is that what it was?" She looked deep into his eyes. "Did you kiss me?"

"Don't you remember?"

She blinked and nearly allowed herself to give in to sleep once more. "I thought I was dreaming."

"So," he said softly, "did I."

Ed shot at her through the door's small gla.s.s window, but such were her finely honed instincts that Mae ducked as the bullet whizzed by. She rolled to the floor and found she'd missed a spot while mopping. "The better to catch it with my lace handkerchief," she said, handling the stain while keeping a watch for Ed.