“Tynan,” was all Chris could sob. She heard Asher’s sharp intake of breath and she realized it was the first time she’d admitted that there was actually anything between her and the guide. But right now, secrecy didn’t matter to her. All she thought about was Tynan.
Asher kept holding her hand. “If you went to visit Diana Eskridge’s cousin, what about her husband? Surely Owen Hamilton would be expecting the two of them? You can’t exactly say that you lost him on the way out west.”
“I hadn’t thought about him,” Chris said, wiping her eyes with her hand. “Maybe I could appear as a widow. Smallpox got him or a rabid dog or maybe Indians on the plains or—”
“What if you appeared with him?” Asher interrupted. “What if you came with your husband?”
“You mean get Tynan to pretend to be my husband? After the things he said to me about marriage? He’d probably take after Owen with a gun the first day. He’d no doubt—”
“Could you get that man out of your mind for a moment?” Asher asked angrily. “I was thinking about myself.”
“You as my husband?” Chris asked, her mouth open in disbelief.
Asher gave her a look of disgust for a moment. “Do you really want to help Lionel or not?”
“I do but…besides, Mr. Prescott, you can’t do this. I’m sure you have somewhere else you have to be and the last place you want to be is risking your life to save someone you don’t even know. No, I’ll just have to do this by myself. I’ll say that my husband was killed under a stampede of horses when the train stopped for water. Or maybe the water pipe fell on him, knocked him unconscious and he drowned in the middle of the desert. I’d like something awful to have happened to Mr. Whitman Eskridge. He deserves it for the way he treated Diana.”
“Chris, if I don’t go along on this to take care of you, I’ll tell your father where you are and what you’re up
to this time.”
“You wouldn’t,” Chris gasped.
“Try me,” he answered, narrowing his eyes at her.
Chris leaned away from him and suddenly felt his intensity. He’d made several attempts at showing how much he liked her, but now she felt that he sincerely wanted to help her.
Asher smiled at her. “Of course I’ll have to read the diary before we go to see just what kind of a son of a—oh, excuse me.” He grinned. “Think you can play the dutiful little wife who agrees with her husband no matter what he does?”
Chris’s lips tightened into a line. “I can play whatever role is needed. How would Owen Hamilton know what I was like?”
“I’m sure that if he’s a man like you think he is, to take away a child’s inheritance, to have his relatives killed, then he’s the type who would investigate a person. Surely he knows about Diana’s father’s suicide and he must have heard about the funds I”—he winked at her—“was embezzling.”
“You’re willing to risk your life for something that’s none of your business?” She still couldn’t believe he wanted to do this. Did he like her that much? Or was it her father’s money?
“If you hadn’t risked your life so many times as Nola Dallas, there would be fewer reforms in our laws. Chris, I’d be honored to be your husband whether for a night or forever.”
“Oh,” Chris said, blinking.
“Now, shall we start making plans?” Asher asked. “I think we should stay here today and maybe tomorrow, and read that diary aloud and find out everything we can about Diana Eskridge and her husband. You’ll walk into this as prepared as you can be. Agreed?”
Chris looked up from under her lashes at Asher who was smiling as if he were extremely pleased about something. This time tomorrow this man would be her husband—sort of.
When he turned and looked at her, she noticed for the first time how thick his lashes were and now he was looking at her in a way that was decidedly making her uncomfortable. She shifted in her chair while listening to him make plans.
Chapter Twelve
Owen Hamilton’s house was a three-story mansion not far from the sea on Washington’s west coast. It had taken them three days of preparing for the trip, before Chris and Asher had climbed into a buggy that had to be fifteen years old and ridden west.
Asher and she hadn’t spoken a great deal on the way to the Hamilton house, both of them going over what they needed to know to carry off this escapade. They spent the night at an inn, taking separate rooms, and started in the early morning.
They were within a few miles of the house when Asher turned to her. “This is your last chance, Chris,” he said. “If you want to back out, now’s the time.”
“Not unless you do.”
Ash chuckled. “This is a man’s dream. I get to spend nights and days with a beautiful young lady, I get to do something constructive with my time besides beg banks for loans they won’t give and I might get some of the satisfaction you get from helping people. What more can I ask?” He looked at her out of the corner of his eye. “By the way, Chris, I mean to use this time to win you over. By the time we leave here, I plan to have you in love with me.”
“Me or my money?” she asked, one eyebrow cocked.