The Dollar Prince's Wife. Paula Marshall
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his man was Apollo, by damn, and no doubt about it, and Apollo was speaking to him, his voice beautiful, with no hint of an American accent, let alone the thick Texas drawl which Jumpin’ Jake had affected.
‘Do I know you, sir?’
‘You should. Because I know you, and I owe you—and that is enough for me to know you.’
Cobie’s smile was one which no one in English society had ever seen. It was deadly—and proved to Mr Van Deusen how little he had changed.
‘I only ever knew one man who owed me anything—but that debt was cancelled long ago—which you should know.’
It was a tacit admission of who he was—or who he had been, and Cobie saw that the man opposite to him knew that.
‘I didn’t accept that cancellation,’ growled Mr Van Deusen. ‘No man saves my life and goes unthanked, unrewarded. You saved my life twice. I paid you back only once. That second debt still stands.’
Cobie’s smile at this was so charming that Mr Van Deusen could see why the women about him were watching them with such hungry eyes. He took Mr Van Deusen by the arm, led him, in silence, out of the ballroom, through the small drawing room along a corridor and into the library where he shut the door behind them.
‘Now,’ he said, ‘we may talk in peace. Where were we? Ah, you were reminding me that I saved your worthless life, and that you wanted to recompense me for doing so. Well, you are hardly likely to be able to return that last favour here. We are a long way from San Miguel—or Bratt’s Crossing.’
‘So you do know me.’
‘But do you know my name?’
‘You were Jake Coburn in San Miguel, and Cobie Grant in Bratt’s Crossing. I would bet that you are Cobie Grant here.’
‘Jacobus Grant—and you would win your bet.’
Cobie looked at Mr Van Deusen, at the beautifully cut suit which clad the thickly powerful body, at the cared-for hands and massive head and face. ‘I doubt that I could guess your name—Professor—or, in Western slang—Perfesser.’
‘Nor you could. I now use my own. I am Hendrick Van Deusen, a respectable financier, if that is not a contradiction in terms.’
Cobie threw back his head and laughed.
‘Ever the old Perfessor! Even if I would wager you are not now known as Schultz. Can you stand this effete life?’
‘The question is, can you?’
Cobie thought that he couldn’t, but he didn’t think that he wished to return to Arizona Territory and be a boy of twenty again, either.
‘Life is what you make of it,’ he said at last.
‘A truism—but looking at you, I don’t think that you have changed much…other than that you are now clean.’
Cobie’s smile was sweet. ‘Yes, I hardly think that I looked like this eight years ago.’
‘No, indeed. But the man inside is the same, I’ll be bound. Is London safe while you live in it?’
Cobie thought of the night on which he had rescued Lizzie Steele—and began to laugh.
‘Perhaps, perhaps not. But I don’t pack a pair of six-shooters on my hip whilst walking down Piccadilly, more’s the pity.’
‘What exactly are you doing to stir up the assembled nobility and gentry? I would wager that there are easier pickings here than at San Miguel.’
Cobie offered him his most winning smile.
‘Nothing.’
‘You’re doing nothing? Now that I don’t believe.’
‘Ever the sceptic. Believe what you like.’
Mr Van Deusen also smiled. Cobie knew that smile. He had seen it on the face before him in more than one tight corner. He decided to provoke in return.
‘And what exactly are you doing here, Mr Van Deusen? It’s odd, you know, but I find it hard to think of you as other than Schultz, the Perfesser who packed a mean gun.’
‘The Perfesser and Jumpin’ Jake are long gone,’ remarked Mr Van Deusen smoothly, ‘and no resurrection awaits them, I think.’
Cobie remembered the boy he had been, laughed and added, ‘You hope, rather. You remember the old saying, “Truth will arise, though all the world will hide it from men’s eyes.”’
‘By God, I hope not,’ said Mr Van Deusen fervently. ‘I am a most respectable and wealthy citizen of Chicago, thinking of running for the US Senate in the next elections.’
‘The Perfesser in the Senate would only be matched by Jumpin’ Jake marrying into the British aristocracy.’
Cobie paused, and then, as though some ghost, some premonition, had walked through his head, asked himself, Now, why did I say that?
‘I thought that Lady Kenilworth was already married,’ remarked Mr Van Deusen slyly.
‘So she is, but I have English cousins. Best to tell you, knowing you, you’ll soon find out. Sir Alan Dilhorne, the noted statesman, now retired, is by way of being a relative. He is the elder brother of my foster-father, Jack Dilhorne.’
Van Deusen whistled. ‘Dilhorne of Dilhorne and Rutherfurd’s and Dilhorne of Temple Hatton, Yorkshire?’
When Cobie, his mouth twisted derisively, nodded assent, he exclaimed, ‘By God, young sir, what were you doing wandering around the West, stealing peanuts when all you had to do—?’
Cobie cut in, his voice quite different from the one he had been using. Instead he was speaking in the harsh Western drawl which had driven the respectable and the unrespectable mad in Arizona Territory.
‘Ah, yes, when all I had to do was take foster-Daddy’s handouts, get him to destroy Greer and all my enemies for me. Say pretty please, Uncle Jack and Uncle Alan, and let them run my life for me.
‘Oh, Perfesser, I thought you knew me better than that! Besides, the peanuts I stole from Bratt’s Crossing and San Miguel became the wealth of the Indies when I lit out from the West and arrived on Wall Street and began to trade with it. What did you do with your pile, Perfesser, sir?’
‘The same as you. Made myself richer. Returned to the bosom of my remaining family, began a career in politics for the hell of it—no illusions there—Republican infighting is merely San Miguel writ large.’
‘Oh, the whole world is merely San Miguel writ large,’ remarked Cobie dismissively, ‘my father and Sir Alan notwithstanding.’
‘Then that being so, shall we pillage it separately—or together?’
Cobie’s crack of laughter was spontaneous.
‘Neither, I’m resting. I’m having a holiday which I haven’t done since I last saw you. My foster-sister wishes me to marry, hence my earlier comment. My foster-father wants me to settle down. Sir Alan, I suspect, wants me to think of a future in England—the Dilhorne branch here has become too respectable. He believes I may be a buccaneer and wants to have the pleasure of watching one of the family live up to its somewhat dubious past. My foster-father’s father was transported to New South Wales and made his pile there. You may judge how legitimately if I tell you that I am supposed to resemble him somewhat.’
Mr Van Deusen thought that the resemblance might be stronger than that.
‘Your grandfather?’ he ventured.
Cobie’s grin was nasty. It came all the way from San Miguel, and belonged to the boy gunman who had terrorised that outlaw township.
‘Oh, that would be telling. Now give me your address, both here and in the States, and after that we had better return to the reception. My brother-in-law suspects me of wanting to escape my responsibilities