“Shoulders?”
“That’s what I call him. Not to his face, you understand. Only in my mind. Mr. Shoulders.”
He nodded. “Go on. You said they argued.”
“Mm. Shoulders wanted one of the others to stay behind. I suppose to watch over me, or at least serve as guard, but I had the sense that neither of the pair wanted to part ways with Shoulders. A matter of trust, I think.”
“Did you learn where they were going or what they intended to do?”
“No.”
“What about the things they stole?”
She shook her head. “I can’t say. What they took from the passengers was always in possession of the men wearing the blue kerchiefs. I rode beside Mr. Shoulders. He kept my horse tethered to his or held the reins himself. The others rode ahead of us and got farther ahead each time I told Shoulders I needed to stop. We never caught up to them until we reached this cabin.”
“Ah,” he said softly. He tied off her left wrist, but before he began working on the right, he reached into a pocket and withdrew the silver-plated comb. “I think this belongs to you.”
Delighted, she smiled fulsomely as she plucked it from his fingertips. “I did not expect to see it again, but it seemed better to sacrifice it than not.” Phoebe patted her head and felt the disarray her hair had become. Her fingers deftly brought a semblance of order before she swept back a heavy lock and inserted the comb. Satisfied, she thanked him.
“What about this?” He dangled a blue kerchief from the pincer he made with his forefinger and thumb.
Phoebe wrinkled her nose and waved it away. “That belonged to Shoulders.”
He stuffed it back in a pocket. “Was Shoulders sick?”
She frowned. “How did you...” Her voice trailed off because she supposed it didn’t matter. “No, I was the one who was ill. It was not a delaying strategy on that occasion. The motion of the horse, I think, upset me. It was the same on the train.”
He lifted her right wrist to attend to it. “Seems that might account for why you spent so much time staring out the window.”
“It doesn’t account for why you spent so much time staring at me.”
One of his eyebrows slanted upward. “Did I?”
“My seatmate said you did.”
“Of course she did. Mrs. Jacob C. Tyler.”
“You know her?”
“We are only recently acquainted. She proved helpful. Set me straight and set me on the right path. It was a good start, but it wouldn’t have meant much if you hadn’t been dropping hints like bread crumbs.” He tied off the bandage and made sure it was not too tight before he released her hand. “I’m still trying to decide if Shoulders didn’t know what you were doing or if he was so confident no one would follow that he didn’t care.”
The latter explanation had never occurred to Phoebe. “I prefer to think he didn’t know.”
“All right. You probably are that cunning.”
“Oh, but I didn’t mean that I—” She stopped herself. “Hmm. I suppose I did mean exactly that. It’s a matter of pride.” He smiled then, just as if he understood, and that almost infinitesimal lift of one corner of his mouth fixed Phoebe’s attention. He was amused by her, she thought, and in other circumstances she might have taken umbrage, but at the moment she was simply too tired to make much of it. And to give that smile its due, it was an excellent one: a bit sly, certainly a little ornery, and, oh, so thoroughly masculine that she actually had to think about breathing.
A crease appeared between his eyebrows. “Is something wrong?”
“Hmm? No. Oh, no.” She could tell he wasn’t sure if he should believe her, but she could hardly offer the explanation for her lapse. She did not understand it anyway. The theater was full of handsome men, and the ones who were less so could be made up to be more so. She was acquainted with several, perhaps as many as a half dozen, whose features were more symmetrically placed, and therefore were more beautiful than this man. At the moment, though, she was hard pressed to name one who was more compelling.
Shifting her gaze to a point past his shoulder, she asked, “Did you come alone?”
“I did. Is that a problem?”
“There are three of them.”
“And two of us. It hardly seems fair.”
