a grinning bow and danced his horse off down the road. Even Evie could tell he was an expert horseman, and she wondered at that. Surely the man had been a slave not too long ago. How could he have learned to ride a horse that well? If he weren't so skinny, she could liken him to one of the genies from the Arabian Nights.
Directing his words to Daniel, Tyler announced, "You'll need to call me Tyler Monteigne from here on. 'Monteigne' is Martin in French. That's how I'm known here, and that's how I travel."
Evie raised her brows but didn't question as she continued to look straight ahead. The mansion that Ben had distracted them from was already behind them, and Tyler hadn't given it a second look. Her overactive imagination was getting ahead of her again. There was no reason to connect this gambler with the lovely home they had just passed.
She deliberately moved on to other thoughts. Had the cur answered to "Martin" yesterday when she called because some people used the Anglicized form of his name? She didn't know French. He could be lying about that, too. It gave her something else to wonder about.
Daniel asked some question, and the desultory conversation between the two men continued as they traveled into a weather-beaten town that had only the river as an asset. Evie knew the vagaries of the Mississippi River. To build along it was the work of fools. But to take advantage of its commercial opportunities was always a temptation some fool couldn't resist.
Obviously the fool behind this particular town had thought that building an inn on pilings and placing it behind a levee would keep it safe. A dock had been built out into the water to service the steamboats traveling to and from Natchez. A few houses had popped up around the dock to house the laborers and their families. At one time it might have bustled with men hauling bales of cotton to market and goods back upstream for the plantations along the way. At the moment, it looked as if the whole town might blow away in the first good wind. If there had ever been paint or whitewash on the timber sidings, there was no evidence of it now.
Tyler said nothing as he reined the rented wagon into the inn yard. A man emerging from the stable greeted him with surprise, but Tyler made no more than a courteous salute before handing Evie down from the wagon and managing to put himself in Danny's way so he could borrow his shoulder climbing out. He had the manners of a gentleman even if something in his eyes said he no longer belonged to that class.
Having led a reasonably protected life, Evie wasn't familiar with the hard light shining behind Tyler's golden-brown eyes, but instinct told her to be wary of it. She was growing accustomed to his casual manner of appropriating her hand, and she didn't flinch now as he led her toward the rickety inn. She felt oddly secure with him walking beside her, even though the building they approached was one she would certainly have avoided on her own. Tyler wasn't a tall man or a heavy one, but he stood a head taller than she and walked with a muscular fluidity that somehow reassured.
He was in immaculate brown today, his linen freshly starched and pressed, his boots polished to a brilliant gleam. He had the arrogant air of confidence only the very wealthy could afford, and Evie tingled in anticipation as they entered the building. She had never encountered a man quite so masculine and assured as this one. She wasn't particularly inclined to timidity herself. She certainly couldn't fault it in a man.
"Monteigne! Haven't seen you around in a dog's age. That is you, ain't it? Last time I recollect seeing you, you weren't no more than a scraggly rag of a boy."
The speaker was slumped in a wooden chair with his feet propped on the front desk, his chair tilted on its back legs. He didn't bother to rise as they entered. Tyler frowned and shoved his boot beneath the tilted feet of the chair, unbalancing it enough to send the man leaping for safety.
"You haven't changed any, either, O'Ryan. The lady would like a room to rest from our journey. I trust you've cleaned one since Benjamin came by?"
Of average height and skinny build except for the belly hanging over his belt, the proprietor looked