“Thank God. Now, I’d made up my mind that I wasn’t going to kiss you until you’d broken your engagement to David, but I can see this is an emergency situation.”
Before she could think, he took her in his arms, and when his lips touched hers, all thoughts of protest vanished from her mind. All thoughts of everything else vanished, too, and her traitorous arms slipped around his neck and she lost herself completely. She even heard bells.
When they were both breathless, he broke the kiss, but he only pulled away far enough to say, “Tell me.”
“I love you, Gideon. I truly do.”
She thought she might really cry this time, but he started kissing her again, and she forgot everything else until someone rudely said, “What’s this?”
They broke apart guiltily to find the Old Man glaring down at them. Apparently, the bells she’d heard were doorbells. “What do you think you’re doing with my girl, Bates?”
“Your girl?” Gideon echoed in dismay, jumping to his feet.
Elizabeth rose, too, a little flustered, but very glad to see him. “I’m sorry. I completely forgot to telephone you.”
He clasped her shoulders in his big hands, and his gaze found the blood on her shirtwaist. “The cackle bladder worked?”
“Perfectly.”
“Oh, Lizzie, when you didn’t call . . .” His hands slipped around her back, and he pulled her into a bone-crushing embrace. Two hugs now. The Old Man was getting sentimental in his old age.
“And who’s this?” Mrs. Bates demanded.
The Old Man released Elizabeth, and they turned to see Mrs. Bates and Anna in the parlor doorway.
“This is General Sterling,” Anna informed Mrs. Bates slyly. “Although I suppose he really isn’t a general. And, General, this is Gideon’s mother, Mrs. Bates. She’s really his mother, at least as far as I know.”
The Old Man strode over to them and sketched a little bow. “I’m so pleased to meet you, Mrs. Bates. I have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know your son. You did a remarkable job raising him.”
“Why, thank you,” Mrs. Bates said, obviously charmed and not sure she should show it.
“And how delightful to see you again, Miss Vanderslice,” he added, taking the hand she offered. “I hope you’ll give my regards to your beautiful mother.”
“That probably isn’t a good idea,” Anna said, grinning ear to ear.
“Anna is the one who shot me,” Elizabeth said.
“Ah, so she is brave as well as beautiful, a dangerous combination.”
“I hope so,” Anna said, making him grin in return.
“Mr. Sterling, or whatever your real name is,” Gideon said, not charmed at all, “you should know that Elizabeth is no longer your girl, and that she has agreed to become my wife.”
“Really?” Mrs. Bates said, and Elizabeth thought she actually looked pleased, although it was probably just wishful thinking on her part.
“Is that right?” the Old Man said. “Well, Mr. Bates, you should know that Lizzie will always be my girl, and if you hope to marry her, you will have to begin by asking my permission.”
Gideon could only gape at him, as if he hadn’t quite understood. He turned to Elizabeth for clarification.
“That’s right. He’s my father.”
For some reason, this made Gideon very happy. “Well, sir, in that case—”
“You’re a bit premature, Bates,” the Old Man said with a smirk, “since I believe she’s currently engaged to someone else.”
“And when she does become engaged to you, Gideon,” his mother said, “I’ll have to rescind my invitation for her to stay here, at least until after the wedding. For propriety, you understand.”
Gideon muttered something that might have been a curse.
“And from what I saw a moment ago,” the Old Man said, “I think I should take Lizzie home tonight to ensure that her virtue stays intact until the wedding.”
“Really, sir,” Gideon tried, but both Anna and his mother were laughing. He made a visible effort to regain his dignity. “Does Elizabeth live with you?”
“With my sister, Cybil, so it’s all quite proper. When you come to ask my permission, Bates, we can also discuss the matter of Lizzie’s dowry.”
“She doesn’t need a dowry,” Gideon said, his dignity firmly back in place.
“Well, she has one just the same. She’s rather a wealthy woman, in fact. I’ve . . . uh . . . been putting money aside for her since she was born.”
He had, of course, because he’d never wanted her in the game. The nest egg was meant to provide for her so she never had to work, but she’d desperately wanted the Old Man’s attention, the kind of attention he gave Jake when teaching him the game. So she had refused to resist the lure of the grift, which had brought her to this place. Elizabeth had added to her fortune considerably from the first Thornton touch, and she’d get a lot more from the second one. How much she could only guess at this point, but the Old Man would make sure she got her fair share. Gideon didn’t need to know where the money came from, though. He might want her to give it back, and since it would most certainly be the last of her ill-gotten gains, she saw no reason not to keep it.
“Which reminds me,” Elizabeth said. “What are you going to do with the Ross rifles?”
The Old Man smiled at that. “I sold them to the Canadian army.”
“What?” Gideon almost shouted. “Didn’t Elizabeth tell you how dangerous they are?”
“She did, but when I looked into it, I found out that the Canadian army still uses them for training, and they were happy to get them. They are, in fact, on their way to the border at this very moment.”
“Even though they explode?” Elizabeth asked.
“Apparently, they only ‘explode,’ as you call it, under combat conditions, when they get dirty or overused. They’re fine for training.”
“But how could you sell them? You didn’t even have the bill of sale until today,” Gideon said.
The Old Man merely shrugged sheepishly. “Not all attorneys are as honest as you are, Gideon.”
To his credit, Gideon hardly blinked at this. “And what about the rest of the rifles? The extra ones you convinced Thornton to buy?” he asked. “Did you sell them all to Canada, too?”
The Old Man frowned. “Didn’t you explain it to him?” he asked her.
“He didn’t want to know,” Elizabeth said.
The Old Man nodded. “The rest of the rifles don’t exist,” he told Gideon.
This time Gideon frowned. “But Thornton bought thousands of rifles in the past week.”
“Yes, I know. Rifles that don’t exist. He bought them from, uh, some friends of mine. Oh, we rounded up a few hundred to show him, but the rest of them were just boxes in warehouses.” He turned to Mrs. Bates. “I’m sure this is distressing to you, but we had to make sure Thornton was completely penniless so he wouldn’t have the resources to come after Lizzie again if he ever figured out what really happened.”
“I’m not a bit distressed to hear that Oscar Thornton has been justly punished,” Mrs. Bates said.
“I’m very glad to hear it,” the Old Man said, and he really looked like he was. How nice that he was concerned with the good opinion of her future mother-in-law.