Bride of the Shining Mountains (The St. Claire Men) (22 page)

“Deshabille."

“Exquisite. Again. This time more easily.”

Reagan watched his mouth, so strongly molded, no less beautiful
for the saber’s cruel slash. Mesmerized, she could not refuse him. “
Deshabille.
What does
it mean?”

“It means that without your ragged shirt and threadbare breeches
you are more irresistible than ever.” He leaned closer, close enough that she
caught the faint scent of whiskey on his breath.

It was a dangerous game she was playing, and they both knew it.
She was alone with
him
here on the night-shrouded gallery in a state of scandalous dress,
as aware of her vulnerability as she was of her desire for him.

He wanted her, too.

She saw it there, barely masked by his sooty lashes, the
unmistakable heat of a raging desire too long repressed.

Strangely, she felt reckless and unafraid, a feeling she could
attribute only to the threatening storm and Jackson’s nearness. She wet her
lips, turning slightly toward him, and braced a hand against the wrought-iron
rail to steady herself. “Is that why you go out at night? To avoid this place,
and all of its unpleasant memories?”

She was thinking of the motherless lad who had lain in the
darkness, certain he could hear his mother’s unearthly cries, of the stricken
old man in the bedchamber down the hall, and all of the difficulty and pain his
impetuous actions had wrought.

Jackson, however, chose to interpret her query differently.
“Perhaps it is not the place I avoid, but a certain dark-haired beauty who now
sleeps beneath this old roof. Perhaps I have quickly come to realize that
removing myself from her beguiling presence is the only way to keep her safe.”

“A gated entrance, a handful of servants, a formidable guardian...
surely I’m safer here than I was out there on the open prairie.”

He wrapped the ends of the sash around one lean brown finger, his
gaze never wavering from hers as he slipped the bow. “Are you?”

Bringing the ends of the sash to his lips, he dropped a kiss upon
the cool satin, then abruptly abandoned his play, turning once again to search
the night with his intense, burning gaze. “Go,” he said softly, achingly. “It
isn’t safe for you here.”

Reagan’s mind heeded the warning and screamed for her to listen.
Her heart was hesitant. This was a side of Jackson that she had never seen, and
she was intrigued. ‘‘What is it? What’s happened?”

He sighed, and she could feel his impatience, like a great, dark
wall surrounding him. “Nothing has happened.”

“Fie, Seek-Um,” Reagan said, hoping to tease him from his mood by
the use of his sobriquet. “I can tell there’s something—”

“Don’t call me that, damn it. It is not a compliment, and I do not
wish to hear it pass your lips again.” The words seemed to leap from Jackson’s
tongue of their own accord, brimming with bitterness and anger. He saw her
recoil, and wished to God he hadn’t spoken at all.

After another night of fruitless searching, of haunting the
grogshops and taverns that lined the waterfront near the warehouse, he’d come
dragging himself home and up the outdoor staircase to the gallery. Filled with
frustration, unable to bear even the idea of sleep, he’d paused in the sultry
darkness to smoke and to stare at her bedchamber windows. When the windows had
opened and she had appeared, he’d thought that he was dreaming....

But she was no dream, no apparition. She was real and soft, and he
had no right to rail at her in order to vent his own frustration. Hoping to
make amends, he reached out.

She stepped back, just out of reach, and started to turn away.
“Reagan, please—don’t go.”

She hesitated, turning back, and Jackson could see the wariness
in her soft gray eyes, mingling with her unbridled curiosity. Given the chance
she would ply him with questions, questions he had no wish to answer, and he
knew that it would have been infinitely better just to let her go, better to
have lain sleepless in his bed, knowing that he had hurt her, than to face the
inevitable, feeling as he did. Another night, he could have faced the worst
from her and prevailed with a jest and a grin. Yet tonight he was world-weary;
his defenses were so low that they barely existed at all, and he could summon
no will to resist her.

“I am sorry,” he found himself saying. “You touched upon a nerve;
nonetheless, I had no right to snap at you.”

“I knew a man once,” she replied quietly, “back home in Bloodroot.
His name was Silas Grundy, and he earned his bread as a peddler. Silas lost his
mule to the colic one winter, and could not afford to buy another. Without his
mule he was forced to carry all of his wares, all of his worldly possessions
around in a sack. A body could spy Silas from a half-mile distance, just by the
crook in his back. I often wondered why he just didn’t put down his sack and
stretch his hurts awhile. I suppose that, like you, he was stubborn, and too
afraid to trust anybody with his possessions.”

Jackson watched her, torn between exasperation and her
irrepressible charm. “Silas Grundy, eh?” He snorted. “You are a rare jewel,
Reagan Dawes; do you know that?”

She wrinkled her nose at that. “No, and I expect it’s a good
thing, too. I wouldn’t want to go gettin’ all swell-headed.” A moment of
silence followed, a little less uneasy than what had gone before. “The other
night at the gate, I trusted you. I allowed you to bring me into your home,
allowed you to buy me pretty things, even though I knew it wasn’t right. Maybe
now it’s your turn. I know it goes against your grain, Jackson, but it’s all
right to lay your burdens down. You might even say that sometimes it’s
necessary.”

“Are you always so full of wisdom?” It had been intended as
sarcasm, but somewhere along the way the soft-voiced query lost its cynical
edge.

“It’s better to be wise than stupid. Where I come from, stupid
people don’t live long.”

She dimpled at him, and he caught his breath. “You made your
point. You don’t like the name, but you never did say why.”

He sighed, succumbing to her beauty, her charm, perhaps bowing to
her earthy wisdom. “I suppose it brings back that which I would rather forget.”
Unbidden, Clay’s voice rang in his mind, the clear, derisive tones of an
adolescent older brother thrown in an angry taunt.
Jack Seek-Um, ha! It fits you fine, that
’s for
certain!
Better than Jackson Parrish ever did! Jackson Parrish is the name of a
gentleman, and you’re more at home with gutter trash than quality folk!

Jackson winced at the memory. “My brother, Clay, used to call me
that, and it was rarely spoken in kindness.”

“What was he like, your brother? Was he a great deal like you?”

It was a simple question, a question Jackson could not seem to
ignore. “He was nothing at all like me, and that was the problem. Clay was like
Father, always the good and dutiful son, honorable, upright.”

“If he was anything like your pa, then I expect he wasn’t an easy
man to know. Did you get on well with him?”

“We disagreed at every turn, but I loved him anyway. He was my
brother.”

“I know about brothers,” she said softly, and the smile that
curved her lips spoke volumes. In that moment something went slack inside of
Jackson. The center of his being hummed with anger no longer, and his
frustration, though still evident, suddenly seemed to stem from a different
source. “Jackson?” she said, turning those huge gray eyes upon him.

The effect was devastating, his desire immediate, all-consuming.
He strained toward her without ever moving, and in that instant he knew that
there was nothing within his power to give that he could deny her. “Hmm?”

“Do you trust me?”

“With my life,” he said, the passion threading its way, thick and
lusty, through his veins.

“Tell me then,” she said, her voice nearly a whisper, “how did
your brother die?”

A stab to the heart would have wounded him no more, yet
his
desire
dulled the pain. Raising his hand, he touched her hair, teasing the dark
tendrils that curled rebelliously at her cheek, and silently commanded himself
to breathe. Her nearness had a profound effect upon him. In Reagan’s presence
he lacked the rigid control required to keep his feelings—long buried—in check.
Instead of burrowing deep, they simmered just below the surface. Just now they
hovered precariously near the boiling point: anger, frustration, lust, and the
strange need to lavish her with riches, information, anything her heart
desired. At the same time, in the back of his mind, a warning bell loudly
clanged, and he could not help but wonder if, once she knew, she would ever
look at him the same way again.

“Reagan,
cher,”
he said softly, his knuckles brushing the petal-soft skin of her
cheek, “it is a subject I do not wish to discuss, and if you care a whit about
me, you will not ask again.”

She tilted her head, leaning into his touch. “They say you bear
the mark of Cain.”

Jackson froze. “Who told you that?”

“There was a woman. She came into the dressmaker’s shop and argued
with Mrs. Bridgewater. I could not help but overhear.”

Jackson scanned her face for the look of accusation he expected to
find there. Strangely, he found only concern, mingling with something softer,
a look of quiet yearning he was not sure he wished to understand.

“Tell me, please,” she said.

Jackson struck his colors, the only sound of his surrender a
softly uttered sigh. “On the twenty-third day of April last, my brother’s body
was found in my father’s warehouse on Front Street. He had been shot through
the heart at close range. Though the sheriff investigated Clay’s death as
thoroughly as his limited resources would allow, he could find but one suspect,
one man with the motive, means, and opportunity to kill him.”

“What motive, what means? What would make anyone think that you
could—why, anyone who knows you—”

“Your loyalty helps to restore my faith in human nature; however, I
must remind you that you do not know me as well as you may think.”

“Are you telling me that the sheriff was right?”

“I am but stating the facts as others view them. You see, over the
years, I worked hard to cultivate a reputation as a faithless cad, lacking in
morals and possessing a temper that has proven lethal in the past. The
premature deaths of a trio of men are on my conscience, and though the duels
were fought fairly, it does not change public opinion a single iota, or lessen
their loved ones’ scorn.”

“I don’t hold much with duelin’ myself, but as long as the fights
were fairly fought, I don’t see how it would stand to reason that you would
raise a violent hand against your kin.”

You are no son of mine! Do you hear me, Jackson? The flesh of my
flesh and blood of my blood shall forever lie in yonder churchyard!

Jackson turned his face up to the sky, watching as the lightning
flashed and the skies opened up to the force of the deluge, surrendering to the
throb in his cheek. “Tell that to Papa.” He took a deep breath. There was no
stopping now. He had given her a portion, but he knew that a portion would
never suffice. And it was too late to hold anything back, too late to do
anything but plunge recklessly onward and let fate decree what came after. “We
argued that night, Clay and I, over a woman with whom we were both involved. He
had sent a workman to hunt me down, and the man found me in a tavern. When I
arrived, sodden with whiskey, Clay was livid.”

He gave her the tale, piece by lurid piece, leaving little to her
imagination. His past dealings with Allegra, the assignation, Clay’s naiveté,
the challenge, the fact that Clay had been very much alive when he left him,
and seething for his younger brother’s
blood...
it all came trickling out, relentlessly dragged from the stygian
depths of a tortured
soul.

“What did you do after you left him?” she wondered.

“I walked the streets awhile, trying to clear my head, and
eventually I made my way to Kate Flannigan’s bordello, where I whiled away what
remained of the night. By the time I awakened it was well past five the next
afternoon, and Clay had missed his chance to draw a bead on me. It was then
that I heard the news—”