Lydia

“An actress! Damnation, I should have seen through you! I should have guessed!” He spun back to face her, eyes blazing. “And this is your latest role, I suppose. Sanctified Sarah, the Angel of Miner’s Gulch!”

His words slashed her, but Sarah masked her pain with ice. “What you suppose is of no importance. I’m doing what I can to make peace with myself, and for that I will not apologize—not to you or to anyone in this town!”

His chest quivered in a visible effort to contain his anger. “Does my sister have any idea who—what—you were?”

“No. But even if she did, I think Varina would be fair. Unlike you, she tends to look for the good in people.”

“In your kind of woman, she’d have to look damned deep to find any! We’re beholden to you for last night, but even that won’t make up for what you did. It won’t buy back Virgil’s life.”

Sarah withered inside as his words struck her. Donovan had suffered a deep loss, she reminded herself. She could not blame him for being bitter. Even so, anger was her only defense against him.

“That’s enough!” she snapped. “I told you I wouldn’t stand for your bullying! Ask your questions and be done with it!” She glanced at the battered pendulum clock that hung on the far wall of the room. “You have five minutes before I start screaming for help.”

“Screaming?” He glared at her skeptically. “You’d really do that?”

“I’ve got friends in this town, and as you already know, I’m an accomplished actress.” Sarah punctuated her declaration with a defiant thrust of her chin. “Now, I’d say you’ve used up about twenty-five seconds. What else do you want to ask me?”

Donovan rumbled his exasperation. Turning away again, as if he could not even bear to look at her, he stared emptily through the window. The next question seemed to explode out of the darkest pit of his soul.

“Why? How could you have done it?”

“You fought for what you believed in. So did I.” Sarah spoke softly, addressing the rigid silhouette of his back. “I had seen the evils of slavery in the South, and I welcomed the chance to strike a blow against it.”

“And that was your only reason?” Donovan’s voice reflected bitter incredulity. “So now it’s Saint Sarah of the Slaves! Life for you is just one noble cause after the other, isn’t it?”

“Stop that!” Sarah would have slapped him again if he’d been standing close enough. “I’m trying my best to tell you the truth, Donovan, but you’re not making it easy.”

She paused, hoping, perhaps, for a word of apology from him. But it was not to be. Donovan’s resentful silence lay cold as winter in the room, broken only by the slow, rhythmic tick of the clock. Taking a sharp breath, Sarah plunged ahead.

“No, it wasn’t my only reason. My husband was dead. My family had disowned me. I had no money, no work, no home. The chance to live in Richmond as an agent for the Union was the only—”

Donovan had turned around. Sarah’s voice dried up in her throat as she saw his face.

“So it was a blasted convenience!” he rasped. “The chance to lie and betray under comfortable circumstances. The house, the servants, the parties—you lived as well as any so-called lady in Richmond! Compared to you, those women down there at the saloon are rank amateurs!”

“No!” Sarah reeled as her defenses crumbled. She had tried to be honest with Donovan, but what was the use when he wouldn’t even listen? How could she tell him what it had really been like for her? How could she tell him about the guilt-racked nights, the terrible dreams?

Seizing the advantage, he waded into the fray with renewed fury. “Virgil died in my arms, did you know that? He made me promise I’d return to Richmond and give you the ring he was saving for your wedding. The last word he spoke was your so-called name—Lydia.”

Donovan took a step toward Sarah. She fought the instinct to back away as he loomed above her, a tower of smoldering rage. “Did you love my brother, Sarah Parker?” he asked in a low, hoarse voice. “In your lying, mercenary heart, did you care for him even a little?”

Sarah forced herself to meet the raw hatred in his eyes. She was trembling inside, but she would not lie, she resolved. She was through with lying forever.

“Virgil was as fine and gentle a young man as I’ve ever known,” she answered softly. “I was fond of him. But I couldn’t allow myself to love him. I was not in a position to love anyone.”

Donovan wheeled away from her with a snort of disgust. “That’s all I want to know.” He glanced up at the clock. “I see my time is up, so I’ll be taking my leave.”

He strode to the door. Sarah stood like a pillar, her impassive face masking the shambles he’d made of her emotions. Never, in all her life, had anyone spoken to her with such contempt. And to have it be Donovan-”One thing more.” He had paused in the open doorway, one hand gripping the frame. “I want you out of this town, away from my sister and her family. Be gone within one week, and I’ll keep quiet about your past. Otherwise, the whole gulch is going to know what you did. And I’ll wager there are people here who won’t take kindly to it.”

Sarah drew herself up with an air that would have done credit to Queen Victoria. “Do your worst, then, Mr. Cole,” she said crisply. “But your allowing me the week won’t make any difference. Miner’s Gulch is my home. No matter what you might say or do, I have no intention of leaving.”

Surprise flickered across Donovan’s face, but he was quick to recover. “Then heaven help you, Sarah Parker Buckley!” he snapped. “At least you can’t say I didn’t give you fair warning. Remember that after it’s too late to change your mind!”

Sarah did not reply. She stood like stone as Donovan turned his back on her and stalked outside, slamming the door brusquely behind him.

Only when the echo of his boots on the wooden stairs had died away did Sarah allow herself to react. Her throat constricted as if squeezed by an invisible fist. Her knees went liquid. She sank onto a bench, her heart pounding a tattoo of fear against her ribs.

It was not too late, she reminded herself. Donovan had given her a week to be gone. She could take her time—invent some pretty story about a new position or an unexpected inheritance back East. She could pack at her leisure and hire a wagon to drive her to Central City, where she could catch the stage for Denver.

And then what? Another masquerade someplace else, with more lies and the inevitable discovery? A retreat to the safety of New England, where nothing could follow her except those black, tormenting dreams?

No, Sarah concluded, gulping back her fear. Running was not the answer. She had worked too hard at building a life here, with the Southern children she taught and the Southern women who had come to depend on her. In recent months, she’d even experienced some nights of restful sleep, when the nightmares did not come.

Her only hope of peace lay here, helping the people she had betrayed—and had come to love.

Resolutely she rose, brushed the chalk dust from her skirt and began tidying up the classroom for tomorrow’s lessons. She would go on as if nothing had happened—as if Donovan Cole had never come to her with his threats. She would show him what Sarah Parker was made of. She would show them all.

Squaring her shoulders, she chalked the new sums across the board in an order that began with the simplest problems and progressed to the most complex. Maybe nothing would happen, she speculated, trying to be cheerful. Maybe Donovan’s threat to expose her had been an empty bluff.

But no, she knew better. Donovan was no bluffer. He was as blunt and honest as nature itself. Whatever intent he stated, he would carry out as surely as winter followed autumn.

The chalk slipped from her fingers and dropped to the floor, shattering as it struck. Sarah let the pieces lie where they had fallen. She clutched at her arms, trembling as if an icy wind had blown into the room.

Walking to the window, she gazed down at the passersby in the muddy street. The people of Miner’s Gulch were her friends now, but the war had touched almost all of them. Many had lost friends and relatives. More than a few had lost property. They had forgiven her for being a Yankee, but how could they forgive her for being a spy?

If she’d been caught back in Richmond, she would have been tried and summarily hanged. What would happen to her here, in an angry little town with no law?

Closing her eyes, Sarah pressed her forehead against the rough-sawed frame of the window. Only moments ago she had convinced herself she was strong enough to face the past. But now she felt her courage slipping away, leaving her weak, frightened, and more alone than she had ever been in her life.

Donovan’s long-legged strides ate up the ground. Mud spattered beneath his boots as he drove his energy into putting as much distance as possible between himself and Sarah Parker Buckley.

She had not even denied it, he fumed as he stalked past the boarded-up assayer’s office. She had played Juliet, she said, and Ophelia, and Lady Macbeth—and oh, yes, Lydia Taggart, the belle of Richmond! Lord, she’d almost seemed proud of it! She’d admitted to everything, even the part about not loving Virgil.

Donovan fed the fire of his anger as he mounted the trail. Sarah Parker was a woman without a conscience. She deserved to be ridden out of town on a timber. She deserved to be tarred and feathered, even hanged. Back in Richmond, in fact, she would have been hanged. The gallows had been standard punishment for spies during the war.

Donovan’s breath eased out in a ragged sigh. In truth, he had no stomach for that sort of violence, especially where females were concerned. That was why he’d allowed Sarah time to make a clean getaway. Some people might not view it as right, letting her go like that. But surely it was what Virgil, in his gentle, forgiving way, would have wanted.

As for Sarah, she might be stubborn, but she was no fool. Given a few days to think things over, she was bound to take the sensible way out. There’d be no need to go through the ugliness of exposing her past.

But if she refused to leave on her own—Donovan’s jaw clenched with the force of his resolve. He would do whatever it took to get Sarah out of Miner’s Gulch. And if that meant laying her treachery bare to the whole town-His breath stopped for an instant as he remembered the sight of her face, tilting toward him like a proud flower. His mind retraced the quietly defiant eyes, the determined thrust of her dimpled chin, the silkily parted lips that seemed to be made for a man’s kiss…

Damn her! Lydia Taggart was still working her cursed magic, and he had already learned that he was not immune. If he wavered, even for an instant, he would be vulnerable. He could not afford to let that happen.

He walked faster, charging up the trail as if the devil were pursuing him with the most enticing bundle of torments ever devised. He would stay away from Sarah, he resolved. Varina’s cabin needed plenty of work, more than enough work to keep him busy for the rest of the week. He would return to town only when the time limit was up. By then, if she had any sense, the woman would be gone.

But if she chose to remain—yes, he would be strong enough to make her pay. Sarah Parker Buckley would get no second chance.

Ahead, through the screen of aspens, Donovan could see the bright, bobbing patches of his nieces’ coats. Anxious for the distraction of their company, he lengthened his stride to catch up. A smile tugged his lips as he remembered the coins he’d given them to buy peppermint sticks at the store. Varina, he knew, didn’t have the money for such indulgences, but all youngsters deserved a treat now and then. He could only hope that, in the days ahead, Varina’s staunch independence would allow him to provide more than candy.