LITMIR.BIZ

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stepped over the threshold and damned if the temperature didn’t feel as if it had dropped a dozen degrees in the distance of those few feet. The vestibule in which he found himself was papered in green brocade and dappled by sunshine pouring through the fanlight and through a stained glass window on the landing just ahead.

      He took in a long breath, sweetened by eucalyptus and cloves and maybe a tad of cinnamon. Until now, the finest place he’d ever seen had been Corina White’s fancy house in Fort Smith. Compared to that, the Dancer house looked like Buckingham Palace. He glanced down at his boots, knowing they weren’t shiny, but hoping at least they weren’t clotted with dirt and that his spurs weren’t tearing up the Persian carpet.

      He heard soft conversation to his right, then looked into the dining room where the plump little schoolteacher and the thin fellow who worked at the bank—both of them boarders here at the Dancers‘—sat across from each other at a large table, sipping coffee and taking bites of toast. It was still breakfast time. The thought surprised Delaney. He felt as if he’d been up half the day already.

      “Hannah usually doesn’t come down till nine or so.” Abel Fairfax stood at the foot of the staircase, craning his neck upwards as if he could look around the landing and down the hallway on the second floor. “Hannah,” he called softly. “Hannah, are you up?”

      Delaney checked the big inlaid clock on the vestibule’s far wall. It tinkled out a quarter chime just then. Eight-fifteen. Maybe Hannah Dancer was still asleep. Maybe he’d go on back to the jailhouse, have a cup of coffee and collect himself, then return in half an hour or so. Or maybe...

      “Yes, Abel. I’m up.”

      Her voice preceded her down the staircase like a warm, luxurious breeze.

      “What in the world is going on at this hour of the morning?” A tiny trill of laughter—like the music of wind chimes—punctuated her question, then there was a flurry of bright silk and a glimpse of a delicate slipper before Hannah herself appeared on the landing.

      Delaney’s stomach clenched when he saw that she wasn’t dressed yet, but wearing a gayly flowered wrapper that clung to every natural curve of her, and her hair wasn’t done up yet in its customary auburn knot. Instead it fell in a cascade of damp curls over her shoulders and bodice. She stood dabbing at those curls, almost caressing them with a small towel while sunlight through the stained glass window decked her from lovely head to dainty toe in rubies and sapphires and emeralds.

      “Abel, what...?”

      Even as she spoke her gaze latched on Delaney at the foot of the stairs. “Sheriff?”

      Their eyes locked, and—as always—Delaney could feel his stomach tighten again when he perceived the quick jolt of desire in Hannah Dancer’s expression. Then, just as quickly, the desire was replaced by a different sort of recognition. In rapid succession came blinking bafflement and finally white, wide-eyed fear.

      She knew, Delaney thought. Not a word had been spoken, but somehow she knew!

      The towel fell from her hand as Hannah wobbled and reached out blindly for the bannister. Delaney propped his shotgun against the wall and took the flight of stairs in three long strides to keep her from tumbling down. Hannah sagged in his arms like a doll stitched in silk and stuffed with the downiest of feathers.

      By now the schoolteacher and the banker had abandoned their breakfast and were standing, wide-eyed as well, in the vestibule with Abel Fairfax.

      “Good Heavens! Mrs. Dancer’s fainted,” the young woman cried.

      “I’ll go get Doctor Soames,” the banker quickly volunteered, and he was out the door before anybody could say it probably wasn’t necessary, and the door had hardly closed behind him before the plump little schoolteacher rucked up her skirts and came charging up the stairs.

      “Thank heaven you were here, Sheriff Delaney,” she said. “My stars! Mrs. Dancer might have fallen and broken her poor neck, otherwise.”

      If it weren’t for him, Delaney thought, and whatever she had witnessed in his expression, Hannah wouldn’t have fainted in the first place. “Maybe you could show me where I might put her down, ma’am.”

      “Down the hall and to the left,” Abel Fairfax called. “You go ahead and show him to Hannah’s room, Miss Green.”

      “Yes. All right. Sheriff, if you’ll just follow me.”

      She bustled ahead of Delaney, until farther down the hallway, she opened a door. “In here,” she said. “You can put her on the bed.”

      Delaney angled Hannah Dancer’s lax body through the doorway and lowered her gently onto the huge carved walnut bed that dominated the room.

      Miss Green produced a linen hanky, moistened it in the washbowl, and began to smooth it across Hannah’s forehead, crooning a little and murmuring soft words of comfort.

      Feeling helpless at best, Delaney just stood there. Rather than stare at Hannah’s fragile form on the bed, he let his gaze wander around the room. Her room, to all appearances. Hers alone. There wasn’t a single masculine touch he could discern. Not a pipe rack or an errant boot or so much as a cuff link on the dresser.

      Instead there were silver hairbrushes, delicate tortoise combs, perfume bottles that captured the sunlight in prisms and sent it spilling across the carpet and over stray garments of cream-colored silk tossed here and there. The lamps were painted with roses to match the paper on the wall. The whole room, in fact, smelled like a rose garden. Lush and sweet and... Well, pink. No, not pink. It was richer than that. It smelled rose. A rich, deep and full-bodied rose.

      The door to the wardrobe stood slightly ajar, and Delaney could see yard upon yard of fine silks and serges. He saw an inch or two of green plaid and recognized it as the dress Hannah had worn the evening he’d met her at the lemonade social. He remembered how the deep green garment had set off her eyes and how the gloss of her red hair had rivalled the shine of the taffeta.

      And then he’d been introduced to her husband. Ezra had shaken his hand with great gusto, and Delaney had hardly looked at Hannah again. Until now.

      God almighty. He had no business here in her room, he told himself, then strode to the door, down the hall and down the stairs without looking back. If Doc Soames hadn’t been coming through the front door just then, Delaney would’ve been gone.

      “What’s this I hear about Ezra?” the elderly doctor asked. “Dead by his own hand?”

      “It looks that way,” Delaney said.

      Abel Fairfax joined them. “He took a turn for the worse yesterday, Doc. You know how sick he was. I expect Ezra wanted to go on his own terms, not wait till he was too weak to open his eyes much less pull a trigger.”

      The doctor nodded somberly. “And Hannah? Have you told her yet?”

      “She knows,” Delaney said.

      “Fainted dead away,” Abel added. “She’s upstairs, lying down.”

      “Well, in my experience it’s best to put a goodly amount of sleep between bad news and reckoning with it.” The doctor patted his black bag. “I’ll just go on up and give her enough laudanum to let her get a healing rest.”

      Delaney almost stopped him. In his opinion, facing tragedy was far better than sleeping through it. He sensed that Hannah would agree. But then it wasn’t for him to say, was it?

      “Well, I guess that’s that,” he said. “I’ll be getting back to the office now.”

      “Thanks for your help, Sheriff,” Abel said. “I’ll be sure and let Hannah know.”

      “That’s not necessary, Abel. You just give her my sympathies, will you?”

      “I’ll do that, Delaney. I’ll surely do that.”

      

      The undertaker’s buckboard

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