Chapter 37
CHAPTER 37
Cally’s ma, her soft-green dress with the full cap sleeves and ivory lace trim looking as fresh as when they’d left the house, joined the rest of them by the dance floor with a serene smile that likely hid an anger as big at Prince Hugo as Cally’s, and told Max to take Cally back to the suitors.
Max—too obliging, Cally was sure—did as Ma said, charming the suitors’ parents again. Almost like a mesmerist, he was, making them forget the scene on the dance floor, and now he was out there on the dance floor again himself, while she, along with her brother and ma and Livie, were being polite to the set of parents who seemed to dislike her the most, Mr. and Mrs. Gidding, only the dislike was hidden behind a distant politeness which made Cally think even the Sky Top wasn’t enough to tempt them to take her on as a daughter-in-law.
Which made her happy, but angry, too. Weren’t nothing wrong with her that made her any less than them.
Weren’t anything special about them and their son, neither, that put them above her and her family.
Only Max seemed to be having fun, teaching a dance to the other young people at the party in which they stood in a long line, side by side, swinging their hips, and stepping this way and that, their arms moving in the strangest of ways—Zalgravia’s national dance, according to the whispers that raced toward her through the crowd, the orchestra playing a fast four-beat reel for lack of knowing Zalgravia’s national song.
Even Miss Tilly was out there, dancing up a storm in her big bustled skirt with Max and the others, waving around her arms and smilin’ like this was the best dance she’d ever danced.
When the music turned back to a reel, Cally, squired by one suitor, then another, listened to their pleas on the dance floor that she should hitch herself, and her share of the Sky Top, to that particular young man. Being as politely noncommittal as she could be—she needed Ma’s permission to turn the young men down, nor did she want to reject them in front of the entire town, including the other suitors, and their own parents—she smiled and danced, and when the suitors’ parents had had enough of the party, and had taken their sons with them back to their lodgings, she and Ma finally returned to Max and the others over by the refreshment tables, Cally feeling as if she’d missed out on all the fun.
Holding a small punch glass filled with lemonade, she frowned at Max. “Ma made me stand up with Mr. Yardley, then Mr. Anderson, then Mr. Vann, then Mr. Gidding.”
Max’s eyes danced at her. “When you’d rather be doing the national dance of Zalgravia?”
She nodded. “That shore looked like fun.”
“It sure looked like the Macarena to me,” Livie said, and Cally reckoned that was a dance from Max’s time, and not one from Zalgravia, either.
Max laughed. “They’ll forget it by tomorrow.”
“As long as Prince Hugo doesn’t hear anyone say it’s his national dance,” Livie said.
Max bit into a snickerdoodle cookie. “He’s too busy being fawned over by the mayor.”
“Stubby is real popular tonight,” Cally said, glancing at the crowd of people drinking a toast to the genial saloonkeeper over by the empty stage, the crowd consisting mostly of the local folks who’d been working for Prince Hugo, and the neighbors he’d trespassed against.
Bart bent a questioning gaze toward Max. “I hear Stubby is paying for Prince Hugo’s employees to work for the Crown of the West’s neighbors instead for six months, including at the Fielding and Porter ranches. Paying them triple their wages.”
“Imagine that,” Max said.
“Indeed,” Livie said, “it’s almost like he’s their fairy godfather, rescuing them from the Evil Prince.”
Max grinned. “He certainly seems to be enjoying it.”
Cally nudged Max gently in the side with her elbow, memories from that morning, of her hands on that bare-naked, muscled side, and chest, and shoulders, and back, sending a new rush of longing through her. “You have something to do with that, Max?” she said in a low tone, Max bending his head close to hers, as if to hear her better.
His orange-and-clove scent wafted closer. His body heat seemed to meld with hers. “I might have acted on my family’s behalf,” he said in the quietest of whispers.
She took a slow, deep breath, trying to steady herself. Gracious. When Ma and Livie had talked to her about what a man’s physical presence could do to a woman’s peace of mind, she’d never imagined it could be like this.
Certainly, none of her six suitors who’d come to the Sky Top had made her feel this way, even Mr. Gidding when he’d kissed her.
Certainly, none of the men she’d met in Denver or Cheyenne had provoked such a reaction.
One of the Sky Top ranch hands, Arnold, dressed in fresh denim trousers and a clean black shirt, came up with a lemonade in his hand, and shook Max’s with the other. “I’m mighty grateful to you and your king, duke,” Arnold said, having been told by Bart, along with the rest of the ranch hands who’d seen Max out at the Sky Top, that the man they knew as Butler was really the Duke of Balmont—and to keep the part about him pretending to be an actual butler a secret if they wanted to keep their jobs. “Stubby done told me he’d been deputized by you to pay my cousin for the cattle that damned prince—beggin’ your pardon, ladies—stole.”
“I’m happy that meets with your satisfaction,” Max said, shaking his hand heartily.
“That it does,” Arnold said and headed for the food table next to the lemonade.
“I’m glad he’s happy,” Livie said as the music started up again, Jimmy Lang up on the stage announcing a reel. “Prince Hugo looks like he’s going to blow his top.”
“May he blow it all the way back to Zalgravia,” Max said, then bowed to Cally and held out his hand. “May I have this dance, Miss Calico?”
Late that night, when the dance was over, and everyone in the James house but Bart and Max had gone to bed, Bart set a glass of whiskey in front of his guest on the back parlor’s coffee table, next to Cally’s silver racing trophy, the very sight of the trophy bringing back not only bad memories for Max, but that damned foreboding again.
“The fact,” Bart said, “that a silver racing trophy in your time was struck by lightning an instant before a flash flood brought you here” —he picked up the whiskey he’d poured for himself— “the fact that you were holding the trophy in your hand when it was hit, the fact that a silver racing trophy was won today by Cally” —‘this damned silver racing trophy,’ his tone said, his scowling face nodding at the damned thing— “has not escaped my notice.”
Max remembered Bart’s swift comprehension that morning before the horse race, when Max had pointed out the racing cup on the mayor’s stage. “Nor mine,” Max said, sitting in his shirtsleeves in one of the green silk chairs, his voice as grave as Bart’s. The problem was, had he averted what had caused Miss Cally James’s death in 1897? Had he put it to an end? Or only pushed it out for another day?
And if the cause of her death had been a kidnapping gone wrong, or a murder at a big horse race, wouldn’t people have remembered it clearly? Not have it be part of a murky past with only a handful of reluctant witnesses?
“This is what you were trying to tell me that first day,” Bart said, sitting down on the love seat across from Max.
Max nodded.
“It’s why you’ve stayed close to Cally.”
“It’s one reason,” Max said. He held up his hand at Bart’s abrupt frown. “I say that with all respect for your sister. If I didn’t have a penalty of returning to the future, I would at this moment be asking your permission to court her, or whatever it is that is proper and correct in this time when a man wishes to marry a woman.”
Bart was silent for a long moment.
Max’s heart slowed, threatening to stop. Would the Royalty Watch blog and its pack of mostly lies be held against him? Or would the actions he’d taken in the past week hold in his favor?
“As Doc told me two years ago,” Bart said, “we can’t know what time will bring. Livia has been allowed to stay here by whatever forces it is that create these travels through time.”
“But someone went to the future in her place.” Max had gotten that information from Livia herself.
Bart nodded.
“Someone violent and dangerous, who may have harmed people in the future.”
“Yes.” Bart’s voice was solemn.
“It wasn’t something you chose, but it was the cost of Livia staying.”
“You can’t look at it like that, Max. You can’t take responsibility for fate.”
“But I can take responsibility for myself and my family. I would marry your sister in an instant, Bart, and take her with me to the future if I could—if she was willing to leave her own family. But I can’t stay here in the past. I have responsibilities. Parents and sisters I care for. My greatest fear would be that anything I do in this time could harm those in my time whom I love.”
Slowly, Bart exhaled, his gaze going to the racing trophy for a long moment. “Normally,” he said, “this time of year, we stay in town for a few more days, catching up with friends and neighbors. But Livia and Ma and I have spoken, and we have decided to head back to the Sky Top tomorrow before dawn.”
“Because of my ancestor.”
“We’d like you to come with us.”
“It’s me Hugo wants revenge on now,” Max said. “Especially once he hears I’m behind the payments to his employees. Former employees, by now. And I’m getting the feeling I said or did something this morning when we were fighting that makes him question whether or not I’m his cousin the duke.” He sipped the sharp, golden-hued whiskey. “It’s better I stay in town as long as he does, and keep him busy.” Keep him away from the James family.
Away from Max’s Miss Calico.
“You think Cally would ride away, leaving you behind and in danger?” Bart said.
“Damn it, I’m trying to protect her.”
“Then do it at her side,” Bart said. “It’s the only way. She’ll only follow you otherwise.”
Max took another sip of the fine whiskey, savoring its rich flavor as he considered Bart’s words. “All right,” he said, but that damned foreboding skittered up his spine again.
“Sam and Roy are sending deputies with us, and we’ll be traveling with my men, too.”
“Good idea. Hugo dislikes losing, especially when people know he lost while trying to cheat.”
“I hope for your sake your own parents are more honest.”
“Like gold,” Max said. “Good King Frederick, that’s what the citizens of our country call my father. And it’s well deserved. He’s a good man. The two world wars forced humility and pragmatism onto my family.”
“ World wars ?” Bart said, his face looking shocked. “ Two ?”
Max grimaced. “Just keep your kids away from Europe for the next five decades. Asia, too. Livia will know what to do.”
“That would change history.”
“Wouldn’t you do it for your own children?”
Bart topped up Max’s glass, then his own. “Doc and Sam are right. It’s better to not know the future. Second-guessing history could make the future worse.”
“Tell me about it. My sister Leonora will be having her second child in another month. I have a vested interest in ensuring Evil Prince Hugo returns to Zalgravia in one piece, not just for my own sake, but for my nieces and soon-to-be nephew.”
“Livia says in your time that folks can know before the birth if it will be a boy or a girl.”
“You don’t know which you’re having?”
Bart shook his head.
Max smiled. “It’s your first?”
“Yes. Thank God Livia knows what to do.” Bart set his glass on the coffee table with a quiet thud . “We’ll get everyone home safe and sound tomorrow, then we’ll make Evil Prince Hugo regret he ever came to Wyoming.”