Page 70 of Fairest of Heart

“Excellent.”

Narcissa straightened right as a gunshot cracked. She jumped at the boom, heart pounding. Had she been hit? Her hands wandered over her front, but she didn’t find any holes. No blood. No pain. He missed!

Spying a holster on the man at her feet, she snatched his revolver and swiveled to face the cowboy with the gimpy leg and foul mood. He lay sprawled in the dirt where she’d left him, barely clinging to consciousness. Yet a curl of smoke wafted upward from the barrel of his fallen rifle. Somehow, he’d managed to get a shot off. Interfering idiot. Now she had even less time since the missing drovers would surely hear the warning and head back to the ranch.

After nudging the grumpy fellow with her foot to make sure he was out, Narcissa tossed the pistol away and stomped back over to Penelope. Bending over the crumpled girl, she grabbed hold of both her arms and shook her. “Tell me about the jewels. Now!”

“Only one left . . . ruby . . . in the coin purse . . . bottom . . . trunk.” She slumped, her weight pulling Narcissa downward.

“Where are the others?” She released Penelope’s arms and slapped her across the face, needing to stave off the drug’s effects a little longer.

“Gone.” The girl whimpered.

Weakling. Of all the worthless girls in the world, how did her future come to be tied to this one?

“Gone where?”

“Don’t . . . know.” Penelope braced her hands on the ground in front of her, trying to forestall collapse, but the slurring of her words made it clear the effort was futile. “Titus . . .”

Whatever else she intended to say was swallowed by the dirt when her face hit the ground.

Leaving her nemesis in the dust where she belonged, Narcissa hurried up the steps into the house. This day would not end in failure. If she couldn’t reclaim all her jewels, she’d simply have to mine the Diamond D for whatever treasures it possessed.

She started with the first-floor bedroom, the one Cecil had told her belonged to Penelope. The girl had nothing of her own of any value, but the trunk at the end of the bed might. After flinging heaps of outdated clothing onto the floor, Narcissa uncovered the coin purse. She worked the clasp open and spread its jaws wide. There in the bottom was her ruby, just as Penelope had said. Narcissa took it out, held it to the light, and watched it shimmer for a heartbeat. Her chest relaxed ever so slightly as dreams resurrected and hope found new roots. She’d find her way to England yet.

But she needed more than a single gem. So after carefully tucking the ruby into the pocket in the lining of the coin purse, she dug through the rest of the trunk, tossing sentimental drivel aside in search of tangible rewards. A gold wedding band. Perfect. Into the coin purse. A lady’s watch pin. An ivory cameo. A tortoiseshell hair comb. Into the purse.

At the base of the trunk, Narcissa found a wooden keepsake box. Her breath caught. Then whooshed out in disappointment when all she found was a stack of old letters and some toiletry items. She tossed the notes away but kept the silver-backed brush and mirror set. It might fetch a decent price. Tucking the box under her arm, she rose and made her way through the rest of the house.

The downstairs rooms didn’t offer much of interest. Furniture was too large, books too heavy. She found an office with an enticing desk, but it only contained stationery and business ledgers. A doctor’s bag in the corner caught her eye. Too bad it was monogrammed. It might have fetched a good price somewhere. There was one thing of value to her that every physician carried in his bag, however—laudanum. She pried open the bag, dug around, and came up with two bottles.

“I’ll make excellent use of these, Doctor,” she said with a grin. “I promise.” She added the medication to the keepsake box, then headed upstairs.

Bachelor lodgings of itinerant cowhands had little to offer in the form of jewels, but simple men of a certain age tended to prefer their own hidey holes to banks when it came to storing funds. Overturning mattresses, digging through sock drawers, and lifting up loose floorboards netted her a handsome return. She didn’t take the time to count it, but the coins and bills she found filled the keepsake box.

The freedom to take whatever she liked exhilarated her. She ran from room to room, adding to her plunder as if she were Anne Bonny or Mary Read, the daring female pirates who sailed with Calico Jack. No need for caution or discretion since no one could identify her. The men could only testify to a hunchbacked widow using a false name. And Penelope couldn’t testify at all. Eternal sleep hampered one’s ability to point fingers.

A vibrant yellow handkerchief dangling from a dresser drawer caught her fancy as she darted toward the door of the second upstairs bedroom. She grabbed the handkerchief and stuffed it into her pocket just because she could. Laughing, Narcissa danced down the hall to the room on the corner. A room with only one bed, unlike the previous two that had housed three apiece.

The master’s room.

She set the keepsake box and coin purse on the edge of the dresser. If the Diamond D was going to boast any actual diamonds, surely they would be here. Yet the longer she mined the room, the more frustrated she became. No cash tucked under the mattress or in a drawer. Nothing of value in the desk in the corner. Just pens, paper, and old journals. A glassed-in bookcase flanked the desk. Narcissa pulled book after book from the shelves, fanned the pages, and found nothing. The infernal tomes contained nothing but words. Worthless! With a cry, she hurled the book in her hand against the wall, then swiped her arm across the desktop, scraping everything to the floor. Inkstand, framed photographs, papers, a pair of spectacles. The clatter made when the collection crashed against the wooden floorboards offered paltry satisfaction.

There had to be something.

She turned a circle, scouring the room for potential hiding places. Only the wardrobe had yet to be searched. Narcissa rushed over to the tall furnishing and flung open the doors. Just musty old-man clothes. Great. But wait. On the shelves to the left, among the shoes and grooming implements, sat a metal case. One bearing a lock. Her belly tightened.

“What are you hiding, you little pretty?” The whispered words fell from her lips as she collected the case and moved to the bed.

Once seated on the edge of the mattress, she pulled a pin from the knot of hair at her nape and wiggled it around inside the keyhole. Something clicked, and the lock sprang open. A little purr rumbled in her throat as she folded back the lid. Her gaze skimmed over the bankbook and checks to settle on two stacks of greenbacks, each tied with a piece of string.

That’s more like it.

She stuffed a stack of bills into each pocket of her ugly black skirt, then continued rummaging through the lockbox. Legal papers, family photographs, a pair of letters tied with a lady’s hair ribbon. Finally, she uncovered something of actual value—a pair of slender boxes that looked like they could have come from a jeweler. She didn’t hold her breath for diamonds this time, rendering the discovery of two gold watches moderately satisfying. The pair were identical in size though slightly different in design. Not exactly a king’s ransom, but they’d have to do.

A horse whickered outside. One of hers, she was pretty sure, but alarm bells rang in her head all the same. Narcissa slipped the watches into her pockets, then scurried for the door, grabbing the keepsake box and coin purse on her way. Time for the pirate queen to make her escape before the fleet arrived.

Urgency pounded in her chest as she raced down the stairs and into the sunlight. Scanning the horizon, she spotted movement in the distance. A dog barked. They were coming!