Bride of the Shining Mountains (The St. Claire Men) (21 page)

Perdue was an acquaintance of Emil’s, and by making shameless use
of his familial connections, Navarre managed to wring an introduction from
Perdue. It had been a pivotal point in his life, yet Navarre could not recall a
word of what passed between himself and Anthony Perdue except for the name of
his wife’s young cousin.

Miralee Parrish, daughter of a Mississippi planter and his Choctaw
slave.

What an exotic creature she was... so fragile, yet so full of
fire. He’d been taken with her immediately—no, he’d fallen in love, forever and
completely, and one glance from those vivid green eyes had conveyed more
clearly than words that she’d felt the same way—the way she’d looked at him,
then nervously looked away, her lush black lashes sweeping down to brush
against her cheeks.

Plagued by thoughts of Miralee, he could not sleep that night, and
lay awake, conjuring up images of the future in his mind— their future, his and
Miralee’s.

Navarre sighed, lost in the past and his musings. He’d been so determined
to marry her, and she had given him every encouragement; Perdue had given every
indication that his suit would be welcomed. Then Emil entered the picture, and
everything changed.

Powerful, wealthy, heartless Emil had traveled downriver to
Natchez to meet with her father and ask for her hand. Three weeks later a
settlement was reached, and within the year Miralee returned to Saint Louis as
Navarre’s brother’s bride.

Coming back to the present with a furious jolt, Navarre cracked
the whip over the horses’ backs. Emil had destroyed so many lives, but no more.
It was almost over, he thought as he turned the corner and sped toward the
mansion in the near distance. His day of reckoning, which had begun to dawn on
the night of Clayton’s untimely demise, was almost here, and nothing and no one
could prevent him from exacting his long-awaited revenge.

Things had changed in the past twenty-four hours; of that there
could be no doubt. Jackson’s return would complicate matters. The boy might be
profligate, but he was keen-witted... as sharp and as cunning as his sire.

Navarre smiled at that, the hard lines of his face softening the
slightest bit. Too bad that he alone could appreciate that little irony, but
that, too, would change, for Jackson or no Jackson, he had no intention of
abandoning his plan.

He’d come too far for that.

Emil would continue the decline precipitated by the death of one
son, and aided by his estrangement with the other.

Emil’s downfall had begun, Navarre thought with a secretive smile.
Cut off from his loved ones, helpless and weak, with only four loyal servants
to defend him, he had nowhere to go but to the grave.

Reagan sat alone at the dining room table that evening. Outside,
the shadows were lengthening, and with the coming of dusk the cicadas,
crickets, and tree frogs took up their strident song. The windows were open
against the heat of the afternoon, and she could hear them clearly. The sound
reminded her poignantly of home.

It was mid-September, and in Bloodroot the harvest would be full
upon them. The corn she had planted in the new field near the creek bottom
would soon be ready to mill for flour, or for sour mash for whiskey. The
tobacco and the vegetables in her small truck garden were doubtless forage for
the furbearing marauders that emerged from the deep shade of the forest each
night, tempted by the bounty of her vegetable garden.

Reagan picked at the food on her plate, heaving yet another sigh
without even realizing she did so.

It had been a constant battle of wits, keeping the raccoons,
possum, and skunks at bay and away from her precious garden, and she hadn’t
realized until now just how much she’d enjoyed the contest.

Life in Bloodroot had never been easy, she thought, laying her
silverware neatly across her china plate, but neither had it been empty.

She’d been here but a day, and she already missed making her own
decisions, missed the satisfaction derived from a hard day’s work.

Even more than that, she missed Jackson.

She gave Josephine a tidbit from her plate, then scratched the
feline’s ears. “You s’pose he’s gone off to some bawdy house somewhere?” she
softly questioned, shifting uncomfortably beneath a searing stab of jealousy.
“He’s prob’ly got himself some painted lady by now, and forgot all about us.”
Josephine slitted her eyes in a show of feline ecstasy and set up a sputtering
purr that didn’t slow, even when Bessie came into the room.

“You’re gonna spoil that cat,” Bessie proclaimed, taking Reagan’s
silverware and her plate. “You want a cordial, Miss Reagan? Maybe some nice
cherry brandy to warm your insides, or a toddy to help you sleep?”

“No’m,” Reagan said politely. “I don’t take strong spirits, but I
thank you all the same.”

“Some
folks ’round here ought to
do likewise,” Bessie said, inclining her head toward Jackson’s chair, which
remained conspicuously empty. “Liquor’s brought dat boy a peck o’ trouble in
the past. Thought maybe he learned his lesson when he come traipsin’ home with
a young lady. Seems I thought wrong. Here it is, nigh on to nine o’clock, and
he still ain’t showed his handsome face.”

“I’m sure he has a good reason for his absence,” Reagan lied. But
she wasn’t sure about anything, least of all Jackson.

Bessie harrumphed, but made no further comment. “You want Annette
to come sit with you awhile?”

Reagan tried for a smile, but didn’t quite manage it. “Not this
evenin’. I think I’ll just go on up to bed.”

Bessie took the remains of Reagan’s supper and went from the room;
Reagan rose and headed for the foyer and the long winding staircase, Josephine
treading close upon her heels, yet she didn’t quite make it.

Later she would wonder whether curiosity had drawn her through the
open doors of the study, or something else entirely... some unseen force more
sensed than realized. Whatever it was, she could not seem to resist peering in.

The room was beautifully appointed, with pale blue brocade
covering the dainty wing chairs and hanging at the windows. A touch of heavy
gold fringe here and there added depth and richness to the otherwise feminine
room... but it was the portrait that graced the fireplace mantel that drew and
held Reagan’s attention.

The subject of the painting was a young woman just barely out of
her teens. It must have been painted some time ago, for the Empire-style dress
she wore was decidedly old-fashioned. Hair as black as a crow’s wing was caught
up at her crown with a circle of pearls, leaving a cascade of ringlets loose to
tumble over one bare shoulder.

She was beautiful and puzzling at once, this woman whom she knew
from their striking resemblance to one another must have been Jackson’s mother.
Although her lips were smiling, the expression in her grass green eyes was
inexplicably sad.

She must have been a young wife at the time, perhaps with child.
What could make her look that way? Had she suffered beneath the same unsettling
undercurrent that made Reagan so uneasy in this house and kept her awake at
night, listening for the weeping of the wind?

Unless she missed her guess, there were secrets here, dark secrets
that could not bear to be brought forth into the cleansing light of day. And
Reagan couldn’t help thinking that Jackson was as much a victim of the past as
was the sad young woman in the portrait.

For a little while Reagan just stood, staring up at the portrait,
wishing she could read the thoughts behind those lovely eyes; then she
soundlessly turned, went out of the room, and ascended the stairs.

The promise of Jackson’s coin, or perhaps the fear that he would
take his business elsewhere, prompted Miriam Bridgewater to enlist her nieces’
nimble fingers in the construction of Reagan’s wardrobe. That very afternoon
Reagan had tried on half a dozen gowns, all in various stages of construction,
and she was now the secretly proud owner of a trio of new camisoles and
matching petticoats, pantalets, a whalebone corset, and a sumptuous satin
wrapper of deep bottle green.

She had spent the last hour arranging and rearranging the items in
the big cherry wardrobe, touching them and marveling over their quality, and
all the while her frugality warred with her feminine pride. It was a lengthy
struggle, fraught with various arguments on both sides. She could not—should
not—accept a gift of feminine apparel from a man. It wasn’t right, it wasn’t
proper, it simply wasn’t done... most especially a man for whom she had
feelings. But it was no ordinary man who’d lavished her with the gifts of
apparel; it was Jackson, and the intimate items of clothing Mrs. Bridgewater
had left for her were so soft, so tempting, so private that no one would ever
know if she succumbed.

Her feminine heart won out in the end, forcing her pride into
temporary submission. Reagan picked up the wrapper, slipping it on over the
sheer white nightgown as she wandered to the French windows that opened onto
the second-floor gallery.

It was one of those rare autumn evenings when the earth refused to
relinquish the heat of the day, leaving the air soft and sultry, with a heavy
promise of rain. Unlatching the windows, Reagan swung them wide, stepping out
onto the gallery, and at the same instant the first flash of lightning crackled
through the midnight sky.

Reagan welcomed the storm. Perhaps, she thought, it would help
relieve some of the tension that gripped the house and its occupants. More than
likely it would not, for the true source of the tension she sensed lay within
the limestone walls, and she could not help but wonder if the disquieting
rumors that blackened his reputation and caused decent folk to shun him had the
same face as the demon that drove Jackson out into night.

She did not have long to wonder, for at that moment something
stirred in the shadows a little farther along the gallery, and the tip of
Jackson’s cigar glowed red in the darkness. “It’s late,” he said. “You should
be in bed.”

She wet her lips, wildly glad to see that he’d returned, terribly
aware that she was wearing nothing beneath the sheer gown and satin wrapper.
She should have turned back to the safety of her bedchamber; to stay would be
risky. Yet something held her there on the gallery... her need to be near him,
the concern she felt for him, the relentless nagging of all her unanswered
questions. “I couldn’t sleep,” she finally admitted.

He took another drag from the cigar, its fire briefly illuminating
his tousled black hair, the faint stubble that shadowed his cheeks, chin, and
jaw. Then the fire faded, and there was only the white shirt he wore, open at
the throat, ghostly pale in the dimness.

“Not taking ill, are you?” he asked, pushing away from the
wrought-iron railing against which he’d been leaning, crossing slowly to where
she stood. “There have been rumblings of yellow fever downriver.” Reaching out,
he laid the knuckles of one hand against her cheek. “Your flesh is cool.”

“You don’t need to worry,” Reagan answered. “I’m not feelin’
poorly, just a little restless is all.”

He nodded his understanding. “It is this place. I confess, it has
always had the same effect upon me. I think about it when I’m gone, the cool,
high-ceilinged rooms, its stately grace, and when I am here I cannot wait to be
away—anywhere but here.” He paused to draw on the cigar, then flicked it over
the rail and into the darkness below.

“Is that why you go out at night?”

Jackson had been staring over the railing at one of the stately
old oaks that stood sentinel at the corner of the gallery, shading the house
and the place where they stood with its gnarled branches. Now he turned toward
her. At first he said nothing, just let his gaze roam slowly over her, from the
top of her head to the bare little toes peeking out beneath the trailing hem of
nightgown and wrapper.

As his eyes met hers a second time, he smiled, his teeth
startlingly pale in his shadowed face. “Have I told you how uncommonly lovely
you look standing there
en
deshabille?
Soft and sweetly feminine... every
inch the lady; yet, if I look hard enough, I can still see something of the
gamine lurking there, about those soft gray eyes.”

“Desha—” Reagan whispered, her heart thumping against her ribs.
“You make it sound wicked somehow.”

He reached out again, this time toying with the trailing ties that
closed her wrapper, rubbing the soft fabric between his fingers as he moved a
little closer. “
Deshabille,”
he said softly. “Say it for me, sweetheart.”