Cowboys 08 - Luke Read Online Free Page A

stiff-necked and proud, especially you."
    "Who told you?"
    "Jefferson Randolph. He's a very successful banker."
    "I know Mr. Randolph." Luke would have a few things to say to Jeff when they met again. Not that Jeff would care. He could be extremely foul-tempered when he wanted to. Luke rose. "My honor can't be bought, either. I'll escort the princess to the duke's ranch, but she must ask me herself."
    "She's much too proud," Hans said, perspiration the size of raindrops popping out on his forehead. "So am I," Luke replied.
    As he watched Hans walk away, Luke wondered why he'd agreed to reconsider. He'd never done that before. He didn't understand why the princess intrigued him. He despised royalty in principle and in practice. The aristocrats he'd encountered deserved to be dethroned, cast out, and forced to earn their living. They were little more than glorified leeches living off the labors of others.
    So what made him believe Valeria might be different? Had her dusky beauty hypnotized him? She had hair black as a raven's wing, thick and glistening, ebony brows, ruby lips. He'd never seen more perfect skin, not the pure white favored by most but almost an almond color. Could it be that the princess had a few drops of gypsy blood? The thought made him smile.
    Maybe she had cast a spell over him.
    He got to this feet, disgusted with his foolish thoughts. She was a beautiful woman with a tall, slim body endowed with almost enough curves to be voluptuous. He reacted like other men when it came to beautiful women. But he differed from most men in that he never let his physical response influence his actions.
    Valeria couldn't sleep. The heat was nearly unbearable, but it was the noise outside that kept her awake. It seemed people in this town didn't go to sleep. For the last two hours they'd gone up and down the street, shouting to each other, shouting at each other, fighting, even singing drunken songs. She'd sent Otto to complain, but the miners were a rough lot who didn't appreciate restrictions. In her country, the army would have taken care of them immediately. She wondered why the American army didn't do something.
    Then she realized she hadn't seen any army. What kind of country was this that didn't have soldiers everywhere? How were people controlled, revolutions prevented?
    The army hadn't prevented a revolution in her country. Nor in Rudolf's. That was why she was in America trying to find her way across its trackless wastes. She wondered what Rudolf was doing on a ranch. He didn't know anything about working for a living.
    The noise level on the street below had been dropping over the last few minutes until near-silence reigned. She could still hear footsteps, so she knew not everyone had gone home. Why had the men stopped making so much noise? Curious, she got out of bed and went over to the window. The number of men about didn't seem to have decreased, but they weren't loud and raucous as they had been for the last few hours. They walked quickly, talking softly among themselves, glancing into the shadows as though wary of something they couldn't see.
    Valeria didn't see him at first. Then she gradually made out the shape of a man in the shadow of a building, leaning against the wall, his outline barely visible. Who was he? What was he doing on the street at this hour, and why was he hiding in the shadows? A tiny shiver raced down and back up her spine. Could this be the assassin Hans and Otto seemed convinced had been sent to kill her? She told herself not to be foolish. She was thousands of miles away from Belgravia. No one knew where to find her.
    Yet she couldn't drive out the fear that this was a killer who had followed her to America. What other kind of man could cause drunken miners to fall silent?
    A movement in the shadows caused her focus to become intent. She saw a faint red glow brighten, then fade. He was smoking a cigarette. Nearly every man she knew smoked. She considered it a disgusting habit, but no