“Sir,” she began in a voice scarcely above a whisper, “there is something I have wished to tell you. Something I ought to have said… before… and it can wait no longer.”
This recalled him to his senses, and he patted down his breast pocket until he found that letter and tossed it on the desk. “Yes, I expect there is.”
She tilted her head and blinked at the address, then carefully picked it up. “How did you?—oh, I see. Richard’s belongings.” She pinched her lips together as she fingered the broken edge of the envelope. “Have you read it, then?”
“Forgive me, but yes.”
Her head bobbed slowly. “Then you know some of what I was about to say, but not all—not the worst.”
He leaned forward, lacing his fingers over the desk. “Tell me everything, Elizabeth.”
Chapter 25
Wyoming
May 1900
Thebackoftheiruncle’s building was designed for loading and unloading wagons directly from the platform. It was a deck, raised about four feet from the ground, and two large doors could slide open into the storeroom. Beside them, however, was a man-sized door, and it led to stairs down the far side of the building.
“Be quiet, Lizzy,” urged Kitty from behind as Elizabeth started for the steps. “I want to see her face when we catch her red-handed!”
Elizabeth snorted faintly but obliged her sister’s request and went up silently on her toes. Once up the steps, she hurried to the door and began searching her pocket for the key. Jane held back, or at least Elizabeth did not hear her coming behind right away. In another moment, it would not have mattered.
A shape moved on the deck, from among the empty barrels near the building. Elizabeth did not see it until it was too late, and the form was upon her. A long arm snaked about her chest from behind, close enough to choke her if desired. A hot voice shivered into her ear as one hand slid up and down her waist.
“There you are, Miss Lydia. Thought you’d never come after all, but you promised you would, and I knew you were the sort of girl who wouldn’t break a promise.”
Elizabeth cocked her elbow and threw it backwards at the scoundrel’s face, for she had no trouble recognising his voice. “Jake Bryson, you devil’s spawn! Let me go!”
The arm holding her flinched, then tightened. He pushed her against the door she had just tried to unlock, grinding her cheek against the weathered wood. “Why, Miss Lizzy,” he drawled, “even better! I knew you’d come around one of these days. Wanted to beat your sister to me, eh?”
His hands wandered, and Elizabeth tried to squirm away, but he was too strong. He leaned his full weight against her, pinning her whole body to the door and locking his arm where it was. “Jane!” she cried out. “Kitty, where are you?”
Boots clambered up the steps while others shattered the gravel below, punctuated by a squeak from Kitty. Elizabeth heard her running up the street a moment later, shouting for help, but hardly anyone would be around to hear her.
Jane had gone somewhere to her left, and found a broom handle to swat at Jake’s head. Elizabeth took her chance when he was distracted and dropped her weight against the restraint of his arm, then tried to spin away. She surprised him, but not enough.
With a curse, he grabbed Jane’s broom—she had been striking him with the soft-bristled end of it—and swung the handle with full strength at her face. Elizabeth could not see what happened next, but she heard a cry of alarm from Jane, then a sickening crack as the broom handle struck her… and finally the crunching sound of dirt and rocks as Jane fell from the loading deck to the road.
Jake slammed his body against her again, banging her nose and forehead against the building as he nuzzled her ear. Panic rose in Elizabeth’s breast. He had been just distracted enough for her to begin searching her skirts for the heavy object she always kept secured to her garters, but she had not yet freed it.
“I know you really love me, Lizzy,” he purred. “Why do you gotta carry on so? I’ll show you… you just wait, it won’t hurt a bit.”
“Take your hands off me this instant!” she roared, fighting all the while against his grip. She kicked his shin with her heel, but his leg was protected by his thick boots, and he only laughed.
“Come on, Lizzy, why do you gotta be like that? Don’t worry, I like a girl with some spunk. Gives a man a good ride. You just wait a minute—”
Elizabeth recoiled as his tongue, smelling sour and stale, began to stroke her ear. She jerked to the side, freeing one hand for a moment, but not the other. Jake muttered an oath, and while one hand painfully gripped her wrist, wrenching her shoulder as he pressed her against the wall, his other unbuckled his belt.
A hundred images pierced through Elizabeth’s mind. Mary King, bruised and battered, weeping inconsolably. The painted women at the saloon, and the stories some of them had told her about how they came to work in that business. An unwilling wife, large with child, forced to wed the father….
Her right hand swept free from the folds of her skirts, and it was not empty. Jake had his trousers unbuttoned now, and his hand was free to grope her figure, her clothing.
She could not turn around, but from the corner of her eye, she could see the edge of his form, leaning low over her shoulder. She tipped her elbow high, her hand back, and pointed towards his torso.
The crack of the pistol was deafening. Elizabeth dropped the small bit of iron and clapped her hands to her ears.
She was free.
