The Marshal and the Heiress

Prologue

1868

How do you tell a four-year-old girl that her mother is dead?

U.S. Marshal Ben Masters worried over the question as he stood on the porch of Mrs. Henrietta Culworthy’s small house. Then, squaring his shoulders, he knocked. He wished he really believed he was doing the right thing. What in God’s name did a man like him, a man who’d lived with guns and violence for the past eight years, have to offer an orphaned child?

Mary May believed in you. The thought raked through his heart. He felt partially responsible for her death. He had stirred a pot without considering the consequences. In bringing an end to an infamous outlaw hideout, he had been oblivious to those caught in the cross fire. The fact that Mary May had been involved with the outlaws didn’t assuage his feelings of guilt.

"Sarah. Promise you’ll take care of Sarah." He would never forget Mary May’s last faltering words.

Ben rapped again on the door of the house. Mrs. Culworthy should be expecting him. She had been looking after Sarah Ann for the past three years, but now she had to return east to care for a brother. She had already postponed her trip once, agreeing to wait until Ben had wiped out the last remnants of an outlaw band and fulfilled a promise to a former renegade named Diablo.

The door opened. Mrs. Culworthy’s wrinkled face appeared, sagging slightly with relief. Had she worried that he would not return? He sure as hell had thought about it. He’d thought about a lot of things, like where he might find another home for Sarah Ann. But then he would never be sure she was safe. By God, he owed Mary May.

Sarah Ann? he asked Mrs. Culworthy.

In her room. The woman eyed him hopefully. "You are going to take her."

He nodded.

What about your job?

I’m resigning. I used to be a lawyer. Thought I would hang up my shingle in Denver.

A smile spread across Mrs. Culworthy’s face. Thank heaven for you. I love that little girl. I would take her if I could, but—

I know you would, he said gently. But she’ll be safe with me. He hoped that was true. He hesitated. She doesn’t know yet, does she? About her mother?

Mrs. Culworthy shook her head.

Just then, a small head adorned with reddish curls and green eyes peered around the door. Excitement lit the gamin face. Mama’s here!

Pain thrust through Ben. Of course, Sarah Ann would think her mother had arrived. Mary May had been here with him just a few weeks ago.

Uncle Ben, the child said, where’s Mama?

He wished Mrs. Culworthy had already told her. He was sick of being the bearer of bad news, and never more so than now.

He dropped to one knee and held out a hand to the little girl. She’s gone to heaven, Ben said.

She approached slowly, her face wrinkling in puzzlement; then she looked questioningly at Mrs. Culworthy. The woman dissolved into tears. Ben didn’t know whether Sarah Ann understood what was being said, but she obviously sensed that something was very wrong. The smile disappeared and her lower lip started to quiver.

Ben’s heart quaked. He had guarded that battered part of him these past years, but there were no defenses high enough, or thick enough, to withstand a child’s tears.

He held out his arms, not sure Sarah Ann knew him well enough to accept his comfort. But she walked into his embrace, and he hugged her, stiffly at first. Unsure. Then her need overtook his uncertainty, and his grip tightened.

You asked me once if I were your papa, he said. Would you like me to be?

Sarah Ann looked up at him. Isn’t Mama coming back?

He shook his head. She can’t, but she loved you so much she asked me to take care of you. If that’s all right with you?

Sarah Ann turned to Mrs. Culworthy. I want to stay with you, Cully.

You can’t, pumpkin, Mrs. Culworthy said tenderly. I have to go east, but Mr. Masters will take good care of you. Your mother thought so, too.

Where is heaven? Can’t I go, too?

Someday, Ben said slowly. And she’ll be waiting for you, but right now I need you. I need someone to take care of me, too, and your mama thought we could take care of each other.

It was true, he suddenly realized. He did need someone to love. His life had been empty for so long.

Sarah Ann probably had much to offer him.

But what did he have to offer her?

Sarah Ann put her hand to his cheek. The tiny fingers were incredibly soft—softer than anything he’d ever felt—and gentle. She had lost everything, yet she was comforting him.

He hugged her close for a moment, and then he stood. Sarah Ann’s hand crept into his. Trustingly. And Ben knew he would die before ever letting anything bad happen to her again.

Chapter One

Aboard the Lady Mary on the Atlantic Ocean

1868

Annabelle!

Ben tried to keep the irritation from his voice as he stuck his head under the lifeboat. The shirt he had grabbed and thrown on without buttoning flapped in the wind.

Damn, but it was cold. He’d known cold before, but not like this; the icy ocean wind seeped through his bones. It didn’t help his bad leg, either, which had stiffened during the voyage.

Annabelle, come on, now. Come out of there, he cajoled in the soothing voice he’d used many times before to try to lure his prey from hiding. Unfortunately, the present outlaw wasn’t responding one bit better than those in the past.

Mr. Masters?

He pulled his head out and squinted up at Mrs. Franklin T. Faulkner. The dowager, who had sat at the captain’s table with him the night before, had her mouth pursed in disapproval.

If only his fellow marshals could see him now. They would laugh themselves silly.

I’m looking for my daughter’s cat, he explained curtly, then turned back to his mission, digging deeper under the lifeboat. Sarah Ann would be inconsolable if she lost the half-grown calico cat they’d rescued off the streets of Boston before boarding the ship. The cat, though, had been irritatingly ungrateful. Once adopted and feeling safe, she delighted in scampering out the cabin door to antagonize the ship’s rat-catching cats. Apprehending her tested every one of Ben’s hunting skills.

A cat? Mrs. Faulkner said.

A cat, Ben confirmed, his hand stretching toward the ragged bundle of fur.

Annabelle? she added in a disbelieving tone.

Ben didn’t answer. He wished the woman would scurry away as quickly as Annabelle had escaped his cabin minutes ago. The thought amused him. The hefty Mrs. Faulkner couldn’t scurry if her life depended on it.

Mr. Masters! The voice was indignant.

He cursed audibly and heard a shocked gasp in response. He clenched his teeth. He was used to being on his own or with men as rough as himself. He would have to temper his speech as well as his actions for the next few months. But for the moment, politeness be damned.

He almost snatched Annabelle, but she reached out and raked his arm with her claws. He grabbed one of her paws and started dragging her out. Gotcha, he said with as much satisfaction as if he’d bagged a killer after months of hunting.

Annabelle suddenly feigned docility, though he didn’t trust it, not one bit. She snuggled against him, purring contentedly. Ben swore vengeance silently, though he would never take it. Except on occasion, Annabelle wound him around her little claws almost as securely as Sarah Ann had twisted him around her small fingers. Something about babies did that to him, he was discovering.

Prior to meeting Sarah Ann, he’d never experienced wet baby kisses or rough kitten-tongue swipes across his cheek. There was something rather endearing about both, though he wouldn’t have admitted it out loud. So he just simply glowered at Mrs. Faulkner after he slowly, awkwardly, emerged from under the lifeboat with his trophy clutched tightly against his chest.

Mrs. Faulkner’s gaze went to his bare chest, then drifted upward to his half-shaven face. He knew soap still clung to parts of it. He hastily buttoned his shirt with one hand.

My apologies for the state of undress, he said stiffly.

Six months ago, he wouldn’t have cared how anyone saw him; after weeks, sometimes months on the trail of an outlaw, his clothes and beard would be in a sorry state, and it wouldn’t have mattered. But Sarah Ann’s future, her acceptance as a peeress, might well depend on him and his actions. He still couldn’t quite believe the events of the past month, the news that was now sending him to Scotland.

Mrs. Faulkner looked at him oddly. Your child’s a dear little soul, but she doesn’t favor you at all.

Ben loathed the woman’s curiosity, even as he felt strangely satisfied by her words. Sarah Ann was lovely with her red curls and green eyes, a tiny replica of her mother.

You don’t think so? he said, forcing disappointment into his voice. He wanted to be rid of Mrs. Franklin T. Faulkner and her thinly veiled questions. He suspected she had ulterior motives, principally her unmarried daughter. If she knew some of the things he’d done, she wouldn’t be so eager to consider him son-in-law material.

He had been circumspect about sharing with other passengers information regarding Sarah Ann or himself, saying only that he was an attorney traveling with his daughter. He was, by nature, a cautious man. A lawman had to be.

Besides, there were still too many unanswered questions for him to reveal more. If Sarah Ann found a new home in Scotland—a family who would care for her—he would return to America. It would … crack his heart, but a family of her own would be far better for her than a man who knew more about hunting outlaws than drying tears. And if all didn’t work out to his satisfaction, well, then, the two of them would come back together and he would return to his original plan.

He had taken precautions, though. He had officially adopted the child. A great deal of money apparently was part of Sarah Ann’s potential inheritance, and it was his experience that money corrupted. The greater the amount at stake, the greater the corruption.

Poor motherless child. Mrs. Faulkner obviously wasn’t going to give up. You should marry again. Her eyes were avaricious on behalf of her daughter.

Sarah Ann’s mother died just a few months ago, he said abruptly, trying to end the conversation.

Still, she needs a mother’s hands.

She needs Annabelle right now, he said. Please excuse me.

A loud humph followed him as he headed for the stairs, then, What a doting father.

Ben grinned. He decided he and Sarah Ann would take their meal in their cabin tonight rather than risk sitting at the captain’s table again with Mrs. Faulkner and her marriageable daughter.

In the cabin, he found Sarah Ann standing in the middle of the small room, her wide eyes anxious, her lower lip trembling.

You found her, she exclaimed happily, and Ben felt ten feet tall. A lot taller than when he’d brought in a man to hang.

As she took the kitten from him, she saw his bleeding hand and scolded Annabelle.

Bad cat, she said, but there was no bite to her words. The cat licked her cheek with apparent satisfaction rather than remorse. Sarah Ann put Annabelle in her basket and shut the top, then touched Ben’s bloody scratch.

Doth it hurt? she lisped with concern.

Ever since he had said he needed her, she’d taken the role of caretaker very seriously. Sometimes she even seemed like a tiny mother, very grown-up in some ways, yet very much a child in others.

He smiled. A cat scratch was nothing compared to the wounds he’d suffered. No, Sugarplum, he said. It doesn’t hurt at all, but we’ll have to be more careful to keep Annabelle inside the room.

Sarah Ann looked remorseful but pleaded to be allowed to fix his hand. She carefully washed it as he had done with her small cuts.

Tell me ’bout my new fam bly, she demanded.

He’d already told her repeatedly, but she never tired of hearing it, which was just as well because he wasn’t very good at fairy tales.

Well, he said, drawing the word out, there are two Ladies Calholm. There’s Lisbeth Hamilton and there’s Barbara Hamilton. They were married to your uncles, Hamish and Jamie.

My papa’s brothers, Sarah Ann coached him. She had never known her papa. He’d died at a poker table before her birth, leaving Mary May the pregnant widow of a known crooked gambler. Alone with a baby daughter to support, Mary May had turned saloon girl and confidante to outlaws, not the best of heritages.

But now there was another heritage, a brighter one, Ben hoped. For it seemed that her scapegrace father had been the third son of a Scottish marquess, and with all three sons dead and no other grandchildren, Sarah Ann was heiress to a title and a vast estate. The notion had seemed more fanciful than real to Ben, but Silas Martin, the U.S. attorney acting on behalf of the Hamiltons’ Scottish solicitor, had convinced him that it was all true. Despite his own personal feelings and plans—and even a temptation to ignore the summons to Scotland—he couldn’t deny Sarah Ann the knowledge of her heritage and the chance to know her real family. So, having been her guardian for only a few months, he’d closed his newly opened law practice in Denver, packed a few belongings, and here they were—on a ship bound for Scotland. That’s right, he said. They are your aunts.

Who else is there? Sarah Ann asked eagerly.

There’s your cousin Hugh, Ben continued. He tried to hide his anger. Silas Martin had said that Hugh Hamilton, who stood to inherit the title behind Sarah Ann, had tried to bribe him not to search too aggressively for Sarah Ann’s father. Ben wondered just how far the would-be heir’s ambition would drive him.

Already, an unusual number of deaths had occurred in the family, and Ben had never trusted coincidence. The Hamiltons seemed prone to tragedy, which looked like a recipe for disaster to Ben. He didn’t believe in curses, but if he did, surely one had been visited upon the Hamilton family.

It was up to him to see that the curse—or whatever it was—didn’t extend to Sarah Ann. And God help anyone who tried to interfere.

He let nothing of his concern show in his face, though, as he spun a tale of magic castles and Scottish lakes. And princesses.

Am I a princess?

No, but I think you’ll be a lady.

That always made her giggle. He had tried to explain about titles—about lords and ladies and marquesses. His own knowledge was incomplete, possibly wrong, but she loved hearing about them anyway.

And I get to curtsy?

Yes, indeed, he said, just as Cully taught you. She must have secretly known you were a real lady. He had been enchanted the first time Mary May had taken him to meet her daughter, and Sarah Ann had performed a perfect curtsy for him. She had won his heart then and there.

Will they like me? she asked with anxiety.

Of course. He hoped to God it was true. But how could anyone not adore her, with those wide eyes and wistful smile and tumbling red curls? And her eagerness to like and be liked.

And will they like Annabelle and Suzanna? Suzanna was her doll, her inseparable companion. She clung to it as she did to the scarf she presently wore around her neck—the last presents her mother had given her. She wore the scarf even in her sleep, claiming it kept away the bears, her name for nightmares. But it didn’t always work. Too often, he woke to her whimperings and knew the night demons remained with her.