Bride of the Shining Mountains (The St. Claire Men) (34 page)

But he hadn’t found the ring. Now, because of it, his world was
disintegrating beneath his feet.

“How can it all have gone so terribly wrong?” he wondered aloud.

He hadn’t set out to murder Clayton.

He hadn’t set out to take the life of Malcolm Heath.

Both had been but obstacles to his ends—to his ambitions. Somehow
it had all become so unbearably complicated.

Utterly defeated, he sank into a chair and covered his face with
his hands, seeing Clayton, the way he had looked that rainy April night.

Clay had bloodied his knuckles on Jackson’s jaw, and was busy
winding his kerchief around the slight wound when Navarre walked in, yet he
appeared cool and unruffled... totally unaffected by the dire events he had
just set into motion... uncaring that he would destroy not one life come the
dawn, but two... so very like Emil.

“Uncle,” he said. “What on earth are you doing here so late? I
thought you had gone home hours ago.”

Navarre had smiled, but the expression had been tinged with
bitterness and hatred. “I had indeed. But upon my arrival I discovered that I
had forgotten my driving gloves. And since I promised Madame Leachfield an
early morning ride in the country, I quite naturally came to retrieve them.” He
made a slight gesture with one hand. “I came around by the rear. The waterfront
is a dangerous place after dark, you know, and one cannot be too careful. I
would not wish to risk some miscreant making off with my new calash.”

He picked the gloves up off the bale where he had left them,
tucking them into the pocket of his coat. He took a step, then turned back,
fixing Clay with a brittle stare. “As I approached the building, I felt sure
that I heard voices—yours and Jackson’s—voices raised in anger.”

Clay stiffened at the mention of Jackson’s name. “Do not try to
talk me out of it, Uncle. His conduct is a blight upon the name Broussard, and
can be tolerated no longer! He has overstepped the bounds of human decency for
the last time. Brother or no, he needs to be taken to task for what he has
done!”

Trying to reason with Clayton was like trying to reason with Emil,
and Navarre knew the sting of the thwarted younger son all too well.

Always scorned, never quite good enough.

He glanced slowly around the warehouse. Except for an accident in
the order of birth, this empire would have been his.

Miralee would have been his.

Unfailingly obstinate, Clay would not be swayed from the path he’d
chosen, and Jackson was just reckless enough to give Clayton the chance to put
a ball into his brainpan.

It was that final thought that prompted him to reach into the
pocket of his waistcoat, and by the time he brought the pistol forth, the
outcome of the episode had already been decided.

Clayton had the temerity to look surprised. “Is this some sort of
jest, Uncle? Surely you can’t mean to use that thing.”

“But I’m afraid that I do. You see, nephew, by calling Jackson
out,
you
have overstepped the bounds of human decency. Far be it from me
to try to dissuade you from your plans. I am well aware that your stubbornness
will not allow you to retract the challenge, and that Jackson’s pride will goad
him into facing your fire. And, though he is the surer shot, I have little
doubt that you will succeed in killing him.

Regrettably for you, he is all that I have left, and I cannot let
anyone harm him. Not even you.”

“You can’t go on shielding him, Uncle. Now give me the pistol.”
Stepping forward, Clay reached for the weapon, and as his hand stretched
outward, Navarre slowly squeezed the trigger.

The pistol barked, a small but unmistakable sound, spewing fire
and acrid smoke from its ornate muzzle. The ball took Clay in the center of his
chest, jerking him backward, as if he were a puppet and some unseen hand had
violently pulled on his strings.

Strangely, he did not fall. Instead he took a shambling step
forward, catching at Navarre’s free hand, clutching it in a death grip as he
slowly sank to his knees.

From outside came the sound of shouts and running feet. In that
instant, Navarre panicked. Desperate to be gone from the scene, he pulled his
hand from Clayton’s, wincing at the sound of metal striking wood. When he
looked down, his signet ring was gone.

There had been no time to search. Navarre made his escape through
the back alley at the same instant that Malcolm Heath came in the front door.

In that moment, when they both hesitated, locking gazes, Navarre’s
world had begun to crumble. Malcolm Heath had been greedy, but his tastes ran to
dockside whores and watered-down whiskey, nothing that Navarre could not
afford.

“If Jackson had just heeded my advice, and stayed away awhile
longer, I might have convinced Heath that he had no future in Saint Louis.”

But Jackson had returned, with a half-grown girl in tow, and once
again the situation had spiraled out of control.

Massaging his temples with fingers that trembled, Navarre shook
off his musings, concentrating again on the ring. “Someone must have found it.
It is the only answer to this troublesome question. Someone who had access to
the warehouse. But who?

Who had access to the warehouse besides Jackson, Emil, and me?” At
first he could think of no one. Then, unbidden, the weathered brown visage of
the old Peoria Indian who sometimes took shelter among the bales of fur leaped
to mind.

A spark of hope igniting in his dark eyes, Navarre threw his caped
coat around his shoulders, fetched his gloves, hat, and cane, and went out into
the gathering dusk.

As he approached the stable, Abe McFarland stepped off the back
portico into Navarre’s path, yet another complication to be dealt with by and
by. “Goin’ somewhere, partner?” Abe rumbled low.

Navarre’s stomach clenched. “I believe I asked you not to come to
my home.”

“I come to talk terms,” Abe said flatly.

“If it’s money you want—”

“Not money,” Abe said slowly, patiently. “It’s L’il Sister I want.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“The woman that nephew of yourn bought at auction. She should’ve
been my woman, but he stole her from me. And you’re gonna help me get her
back.”

The sun was going down on the vast grasslands to the west of the
city as Reagan slipped out of the charcoal gray silk and into her homespun
shirt and breeches, but the transition from the well-kept ward of a rich and
powerful gentleman to lowborn country wench was far more painful than she could
ever have imagined it would be.

How foreign it felt now to wear her brother’s cast-off clothing.
Foreign, yes, but necessary. She was making a clean break and taking nothing
with her. She would exit Jackson’s life the same way she had entered it, as the
ragged country wretch in the battered felt hat and clothing two sizes too
large.

Buttoning the flap of the breeches, she donned her worn woolen
coat and reached for the hat, catching sight of herself in the mirror,
hesitating. The eyes of the woman in the mirror were huge and damp, and the
image wavered and swam. “Don’t look like that,” she said to her reflection.
“You don’t belong here! You never did. It was all just make-believe, a pretty
dream—and now it’s over.”

Ever stubborn, her heart was wont to argue. If she didn’t belong
in this place, then why couldn’t she just walk away? Why did she feel such a
deep and spreading sadness at the thought of never seeing Annette, or Bessie,
or even the proud old gentleman down the hall again?

As ludicrous as it seemed, this huge and elegant house, which once
had terrified her, now seemed like a home. Bessie and Kevin and Annette were
more like family than strangers. Their kindness had meant a great deal to her.
And then there was Jackson, and Josephine, whose paw shot out from under the
bed and playfully batted at Reagan’s boot.

Reagan sniffed back threatening tears, turning away from the
mirror, and hurried from the room.

Using what little stealth she could muster in her haste, she
hurried down the hall, past Jackson’s room. The door stood ajar, the chamber empty.
As she passed the door to Emil’s apartments, she heard the rustle of movement,
a low, ground-out curse, and
step,
scrape… step, scrape… step, scrape.

It was a strange sound, a sound that brought her up short. Turning
quizzical eyes to the solid-oak panel, she thought of the old man who dwelt
behind it, alienated from his son, cut off from the world, and she experienced
a keen sense of regret. Without someone to nudge them in the right direction,
they would never bridge the painful gulf that separated them.

Almost of its own volition her hand reached out, tapping lightly
on the panel, then grasping and twisting the knob. Slowly, carefully, she edged
the door open, expecting to see the stem-faced Antoine Garrett, or one of the
new servants.

Surprisingly there was only Emil, looking very regal in his throne
like chair, his silver hair a trifle mussed, a ruddy spot of color high upon
his cheeks.

Suspicious now, Reagan frowned at him. At the same time, Emil’s
sharp gaze flicked over her male attire, and he frowned back.

“Are you all right?” Reagan asked. “Just now I thought I heard—”
She stopped, trying to reconcile the sight of the invalid with the sound she
had heard. “What I mean to say is that from the hallway it sounded as if—” She
broke off again, suddenly aware that she had no right to question him. “I was
just wonderin’ if there was anything you needed?”

His frown easing a bit, he shifted in his chair, folding his hands
over an ornately carved ebony cane. “Liar.” It was softly said, yet Reagan was
amazed that a single word could weigh so heavily with accusation. “You came say
g-g-goo-b-b—”

Unable to force the last syllable, he groaned, closing his eyes
momentarily, battling down the anger, fighting for control of a body that would
obey his iron will no longer.

Reagan fought for control, too, over her roiling emotions. It was
totally irrational that she should care about him, yet she did. She felt
empathy for his sufferings, and a strange sort of kinship, too.

His pride was great, so great that it ruled him, keeping him apart
from the son he loved, the only son he had left.

Strangely, she understood.

Her pride was forcing her to run away, and she was leaving her
heart behind. When she answered, her voice was small, quiet, meek almost, so
unlike her. “Yes, I fear that’s so.”

He stared hard at her, and it took a herculean effort for Reagan
not to flinch beneath that penetrating gaze. “Wwwhhhyyy?”

“Because I cannot stay!” Reagan shot back.

“You weel not.”

Reagan shook her head. “You don’t know, and therefore you can’t
understand!”

The old tyrant fixed her with a look.
“I
know,” he insisted. “He needs
you.”

“You don’t know anything! You keep to this room, away from
Jackson, closed off from the world, skulking behind the curtains when you think
that no one sees!”

She swept off her hat, and her dark hair tumbled down around her
shoulders. She was aching inside, angry that he had goaded her, that he sat
there in his chair, all judgment and disapproval. “What difference does it
make, anyway? You don’t care about Jackson! If you did you would tell him that
you’re regaining your strength. Instead you keep it from him! Since we’re
askin’ questions, maybe you could tell me why that is? Are you tryin’ to punish
him? Don’t you think he’s suffered enough? He didn’t kill Clayton; don’t you
know that by now? It wasn’t his fault.”

“Know,” he said emphatically, his hands tightening on the head of
the cane. “Know. Mist—mist—mistaaa—” He ground his teeth and tried again. “S-sorrrry.
Jackson can-nnn for—g—fffffmmmm,” he said, breaking off, shaking his head. For
a moment she thought his face would crumble beneath the weight of his struggle.
His dark eyes burned with an intense light, fueled by his inner conflict; his
jaw worked, but no sound issued forth except for a frustrated hissing through
his teeth.

It took him several moments to recover his shattered aplomb, to
drag his chilly dignity around his ruined self again. “He needs
you,”
he said, painstakingly,
doggedly. A nod of his head, then softly, almost imperceptibly, “I know, Raggga-nn
Dawes. I ooonce neeed sss-m-ooone... ‘n los her. Wwwd you haaaf m-m s-son
b-becccome a-s me? O-O-Old. Bit-ter. Alonne?”