The Duchess and Desperado by Laurie Grant

world, he thought, much less that she had received several assassination threats. Dressed in a gown of midnight blue, with a low, square-cut neckline edged in lace that was echoed at her wrists, with a matching blue band threaded through her golden curls and pearls around her neck, she was blindingly beautiful, like a goddess come to earth.
    Did her American bodyguard think so, too? he wondered. From what he had seen of Calhoun’s face, it did not look as if he betrayed his feelings easily.
    Just then the watcher saw Sarah Challoner give her bodyguard a dazzling smile and murmur some pleasantry, and he saw the bodyguard’s lips curve slightly in response.
    The duchess’s smile sent a dagger of jealousy straight through the secret witness’s vitals.
    I knew I could not trust you not to betray me. You will die for that smile—painfully, tonight. Calhoun is but one of many, I am certain, but I will take my revenge on him separately.
    â€œOh, there you are, Pierre,” said a voice. She pronounced it “Pee-air,” as if it were two separate words, which irritated him even though it was but an assumed name. “What’re ya doin’ up here in your room spyin’ on the guests when I need ya in the kitchen? You promised t’make me that special sauce to go over the venison.”
    He smoothed his features before turning around, and when he spoke his voice was bland and deferential. “I am coming now,” he said. “I just had to glimpse the beautiful duchess, before I am busy cooking for her, yes? Like a fairy-tale princess, is she not?”
    The rotund black woman eyed him stolidly. “I dunno about that, but you better hustle yo’ French behind on down to the kitchen, Pi-erre, or ya won’t get the chance to cook for no duchess. I bin the mayor’s only cook fer a long time and he didn’t need no special Frenchie cook before this duchess-woman come, and I don’t have time to go lookin’ fo’ ya every time I need ya.”
    Muttering a curse in French under his breath at the cook, he followed the servant down the narrow attic steps that led from the servants’ quarters. What he would achieve tonight before he suddenly disappeared from the mayor’s house would make these minor irritations more than worth tolerating.
    Â 
    Â 
    Sarah was more than ready to leave. Her head was throbbing unmercifully and she longed to get out of the tight stays that made eating more than a minimum of the excellent meal an impossibility. There had been numerous and interminable toasts to Anglo-American relations, to future statehood for Colorado Territory, to Lord Halston’s investing in the Chaffee Mining Company. Good Lord, there was still the dessert course to endure, and probably after that she would have to go into the drawing room with the mayor’s wife and make polite conversation with the other ladies while the gentlemen lingered over port and cigars.
    â€œDelicious, wasn’t it, your grace? I was so fortunate to find this Frenchman to cook for us just in time for your visit,” John Harper was saying into her right ear. “Of course, my regular cook’s nose is thoroughly out of joint because I hired him, but Maisie sure can’t make sauces like whatever that was on the venison.”
    â€œIt was excellent. Sauce au poivre, I believe. The entire meal was the best I’ve had in America, without a doubt,” she praised. “Please pass along my compliments.” Harper had bored her to death boasting of his French chef.
    â€œAh, but you haven’t tasted dessert yet. Pierre has promised something special, ‘fit for a duchess,’ as he says.”
    Sarah forced herself to smile and murmur something polite.
    â€œBut I’m sure your grace has sampled the finest French cuisine before,” opined the man on her left, a barrel-chested old real estate speculator named Ellis Edwards, who at least offered an