Free An Unlikely Lady by Rachelle Morgan Page A

could remember: while she acted as a decoy and distracted the audience, he worked the crowds—picking pockets, playing with stacked decks, selling deeds to mines that didn’t exist . . . mostly penny-ante stunts that did little harm, but that often led to quick escapes deep in the night.
    On a particularly dismal evening after one of her performances, Honesty found him slumped over a table, sotted out of his senses. They’d taken rooms only a few doors down, but Deuce was a brawny man, and there was no way she’d have gotten him home if not for the assistance of Robert Treat.
    In retrospect, Honesty should have guessed Robert’s true character right off, but at the time she’d been too smitten to notice. Any girl wouldhave been, she supposed, for he cut a slick and dashing figure in his fine frock coat and silk bowler, and his courtly manners could make a pauper feel like a princess.
    It took Honesty only a week to realize that the man she thought her Prince Charming was nothing more than a blackguard in disguise.
    She fought off the memory as she wandered through the deserted streets and alleyways, but it did little to ease the constriction in her chest or the knot of anxiety in her middle. As she stepped off the boardwalk and onto the packed dirt road by the crumbling foundation of the former bank, a gust of moist air hit her full in the face. Honesty wrapped her arms around herself. The weather had been the last thing on her mind when she’d left the saloon; now she wished she’d thought to bring a wrap. There was a sharp bite to the wind, even for June, and the scent of coming rain lay heavy in the air.
    But the weather didn’t have as much to do with the chill settling in her bones as the memories haunting her. The evening of Deuce’s murder had begun like any other evening. She wore a low-cut, high-hemmed gown designed to keep the audience’s attention on her. Thick smoke hovered above the heads of two dozen rowdy spectators; the crowd, made up mostly of miners and merchants, with a few cowboys from the outlying ranches thrown in, voicedtheir approval of her performance with shouts and whistles that Honesty accepted with practiced grace. The attention always made her uncomfortable, but she’d learned to deal with it.
    During the second stanza of “Johnny Sands,” Honesty spotted Robert approaching her father’s table. The two spoke for a moment, and though the conversation appeared amiable, her father’s stiff-jawed expression told a different story.
    â€œWhat did he want?” she asked, going to Deuce’s side after the song was over.
    He brightened immediately at the sight of her. “Ach, nothing to worry your bonny head aboot. Now, get back onstage, me sweet Honesty, and sing for our supper.”
    Honesty barely remembered getting through the rest of her show. The room seemed to have shrunk tighter than wool in hot water, and each step on the stage felt like a path to the gallows. Something was terribly, terribly wrong; her father’s brogue was hardly noticeable unless he was bothered by something. But Robert and Deuce had become quite the pals, and a dispute—especially in so public a place—just didn’t make she charged the uneasiness to the unusually wild crowd.
    She wished now that she’d listened to her instincts.
    During the last number, all hell broke loose.The front window exploded into tiny shards, then the chandeliers within. People screamed, ducked, and dived beneath tables, while others returned the gunfire. Dodging the barrage of bullets, Deuce pushed his way through the frenzied crowd, flying glass, and choking smoke to reach her. He all but shoved her off the stage and out a back door she hadn’t known existed.
    They ran until Honesty thought her lungs would burst, and Deuce finally dragged them into an alley.
    â€œNo matter what happens, lass, remember that I love ye with all me