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The feeling persisted when I walked out of the hotel. One of the Texans lounging outside straightened up when he saw me, his hooded, insolent eyes flickering over me in a lightning glance.
“Want me to have the buggy brought around for you, ma’am?”
Forcing a smile, I shook my head, telling him that I intended to walk only a short distance, that Mr. Shannon would be meeting me.
“The boss is across the way, in the Silver Dollar saloon.” Was he telling me that he disbelieved me? After a short, but deliberate, pause the man added, “I could tell him you’re waiting. He wouldn’t want to keep you waiting, I’m sure, ma’am.”
“I’m to meet Mr. Mark Shannon,” I said frostily. “After I finish my shopping.” I walked past him, not looking back, my lace-trimmed parasol held over my head.
He was one of the men I’d noticed Flo flirting with which, no doubt, accounted for his insolent manners. I wondered if he thought I was Todd’s mistress, and that accounted for his measuring glance. Perhaps Flo had told him so.
“A woman has to be very careful of her reputation here,” she had said mendaciously. It was the day she had ridden over to “warn” me about allowing too many gentleman callers. “Men respect nice women, but if they think she’s—well, easygoing, you’ll see how fast their attitude changes!”
I had had to bite my lips in order not to make some comment about her rather unsavory past. But heavens, she was an aggravating baggage at times!
Deliberately, knowing that the gun-hung Texan was still watching me, I forced myself to walk slowly down the wooden sidewalk. It had already began to get quite hot, but the sidewalk seemed crowded, all the same. Miners in filthy clothes, some of them wearing only their red undershirts tucked into their pants, moved politely aside to let a woman pass. Cowboys strutted arrogantly, their enormous spurs jingling. I could see some young girls, giggling together, eye them covertly. Grim-looking homesteaders, trailed by their drab, work-worn wives and round-eyed children pretended to ignore the cowboys. I saw several serape-draped Mexicans, most of them sporting drooping moustaches, even one or two Chinese, who scurried along, trying to look unobtrusive. Even this remote frontier town was a good example of a statement I had heard, that America had become a melting pot of all the races.
I studied the faces I saw in the crowd, trying to take my mind off the uneasy feeling that persisted like a knot in the pit of my stomach. It was nothing, I chided myself. Only the mystery that Mark had created with his urgency, his secrecy. After I had talked with him, I would probably laugh at myself!
Nevertheless, I quickened my steps slightly.
A handsome, light-skinned Spaniard rode down the street within a few feet of me, just as I had reached the small shop with the lettering on the glass which read “Madame Fleur, Ladies’ Milliner.” I might not have noticed him at all if it had not been for his horse, a really magnificent specimen of a Morgan stallion. I knew enough about horses to recognize good bloodlines, and this one was a beauty. His rider, who must have noticed my admiring glance, controlled the dancing animal easily with one hand, and raised his flat-crowned hat with a gallant, sweepingly Latin gesture.
“You like my Conde, no? It is unusual to see a pretty señorita who can recognize good horseflesh!” His teeth gleamed whitely under a thin moustache.
He was a magnificent horseman, but far too bold! I inclined my head coldly and walked into the shop without glancing backward.
Madame Fleur, who was a true Frenchwoman, left another customer to come bustling forward to greet me, her face wreathed in smiles.
“Ah, the anglais milady! I have your order ready, of course.”
“Please see to your other customer first. I shall enjoy looking around,” I said politely, and she bowed, finally leaving me alone after making clucking noises with her tongue to indicate how exasperating it was that she had someone else to serve when I had deigned to visit her little establishment.
I walked between crowded counters, pretending to study ribbons, feathers, and other pretty trims. I examined bolts of material on the shelves that lined the walls. From the low-voiced conversation I heard going on behind me I could guess that I was being discussed, so I moved to the far end of the tiny room, and began to leaf through the small collection of old pattern books that madame had brought with her from France some years ago, to judge from the rather outdated styles.
“The lovely señorita’s smile lights up this dingy place like sunshine in a dark cavern!” a low voice said beside me. Was there no limit to Latin gallantry? The bold Spaniard who rode a Morgan stallion had actually followed me in here.
I gave him a freezing look and turned back to the patterns.
Suddenly he said quietly, “Forgive me if I appear to force an acquaintance with you, Lady Rowena, but it was a meeting your own father planned before his death.” I could no more prevent my sharp intake of breath than I could help turning my head to meet his brown eyes.
“I am so sorry!” he said quickly. “But I saw you and I had to follow you in here. Please do not be angry at my abruptness. I am Ramon Kordes.”
He gave his last name its correct Spanish pronunciation, but at the time I was too stunned to notice. Kordes! What was he doing here? Why had he followed me? And if he was here, then his brother…
Shamefully my first impulse was to turn away from him and run to safety. But the concerned expression in his light brown eyes made me hesitate.
Ramon? This then was the youngest son of Elena and Alejandro. The one who had been left with the Jesuits in Mexico City. “He’s the gentleman of the family, I guess!” Mr. Bragg had told me once.
“Lady Rowena! Please tell me you are not angry?”
I said, through stiff lips, “But why go to all these lengths to meet me? Why?”
He looked swiftly over his shoulder and lowered his voice, speaking quietly but fluently in Castilian Spanish.
“It is as well that the two old women do not know what we are saying, and I know that you speak Spanish.” His voice became slightly bitter, reminding me suddenly of his brother. “You ask why I chose this way? I think you know already. It does not matter to Mr. Todd Shannon that I am completely innocent of all he accuses my brother of—or that I have spent most of my life in Mexico. No, to him I am merely ‘one of the Kordes bunch’ and he would have me shot down like a dog if he knew I were here!”
“But you took a risk, then!”
