Bride of the Shining Mountains (The St. Claire Men) (41 page)

“It is beautiful, isn’t it?’ ’ Reagan agreed, fanning the voluminous
skirts with her hands as she assessed her reflection in the long cheval glass.
The woman who stared back at her was sophisticated and poised, her dark hair
piled high at the crown, with one long, fat sausage curl resting provocatively
on her left shoulder.

The gown itself was striking, fashioned of midnight blue taffeta,
with an elongated, tight-fitting bodice that molded to her breasts while
accentuating her trim waist, and turning her skin to purest ivory. The results
were dramatic, and she could only think that Catherine’s choice was a good one.

"Non,
mam’selle,”
Annette said, beaming with pride.
"You
are beautiful. There is not a man alive who could look at you
without falling head over heels in love.”

“I would settle for just one,” Reagan said softly. Biting her
bottom lip, she turned from the glass. “I fear it’s too much to hope for. Since
it seems I cannot have his heart, I will be happy with a small measure of
cooperation. Wish me luck. If all goes well, this will indeed be a night to
remember.”

She swept from the room, pausing in the hallway to rap lightly on
Emil’s door. Hurried footsteps sounded, and the door swung open. Antoine
Garrett made a most unlikely ally, yet curiously he had been most cooperative,
and looked vastly relieved at the sight of her. “He is ready. But I fear that
nothing I have said thus far has convinced him.”

Reagan entered the room, narrowing her gaze at Emil, who sat in
the wing chair, looking every bit the patriarch of a powerful family in his
black frock coat and trousers, silver waistcoat, and pristine white cravat
knotted high at his throat. “You are looking quite handsome this evening,”
Reagan said. “Ready to take your rightful place at the head of your family.”

“N-not r-r-readdy. Jackson’s household, n-not m-my plaace.”

Reagan let go a sigh of impatience. It had taken her several hours
of argument to get him this far, and she was not above using bla
ckmail
to
accomplish this first step toward fulfilling her mission. She was going to
resolve the difficulties between Jackson and Emil whether they liked it or not.
“You said last night that Jackson needed me. That was just partially true. The
fact is, he needs both of us, you and me.”

And still Emil sat, stoic, silent, seemingly unmoved. Reagan took
a deep breath, playing her trump card. “Look, I don’t know exactly what ill
will lies between you and Navarre, but I know that he’s up to no good, and his
scheme somehow revolves around Jackson. He is downstairs now, laughing,
drinking, weaving his web around the only son you have left. Will you come to
Jackson’s aid, or sit here and do nothing? You need say nothing, but let us
show him a united front. I greatly fear it is the only way.”

The knotted hand that gripped the cane tightened perceptibly, the
knuckles showing white as he fought his inward battle. His wariness to face the
world in his present condition was evident, yet in the end his feelings for his
son won out. Gravely he nodded, struggling to rise, drawing himself up, and,
finally, offering Reagan his good arm.

For what seemed like the hundredth time since entering the
grande salle
a quarter
hour before, Jackson took out his timepiece, checking its accuracy against
that of the gleaming walnut mantel clock. Dinner would begin promptly at seven.
It was now six fifty-three, and Reagan had yet to put in an appearance, a fact
that served only to heighten his restlessness.

Their argument in the garden had cast a black pall over his
morning, which had lingered well into the afternoon. Up to his ears in prime
peltry, inventories, and pay vouchers, he had felt as if his day had slowly
bled away on the main floor of the warehouse. There had been no time to return
to the house, to seek her out, to try to make amends for the latest in what
seemed a long string of disagreements, a circumstance he silently vowed that he
would remedy the moment she put in an appearance. And this time he would allow
nothing to get in his way.

He was still staring broodingly down into his glass of whiskey
when G. D. struck a stance beside him. “Nice soiree, Seek-Um. You sure know how
to arrange an impromptu bash, I’ll give you that.”

Jackson’s gaze narrowed slightly as it slid to G. D. “This was not
my doing, I assure you. We’ve Catherine to thank for that. She seemed to
think
that she
could bully the lower echelon of Saint Louis society into receiving me by sheer
dint of will alone.”

“I’d say she thought right,” G. D. said, inclining his tawny head
toward a group of matrons gathered on the opposite side of the room.

Smiling disdainfully, Jackson raised his glass and sipped his
whiskey. “They are here, but any fool could see that they would rather sup with
Satan in Hades than sip champagne at my table.” His gaze swept the tight knot
of matrons garbed in sedate shades of gray and brown. “A flock of plump wrens
is what they are, nervously perched together on a limb, ready to squawk and
flap their wings at the slightest start.” To prove his point, he deliberately
caught and held Madame Chouteau’s gaze, and, smiling slightly, raised a hand to
chafe the scar that scored his cheek. Madame blanched beneath her carefully
applied Spanish paper and plied her fan vigorously, but seemingly did not
possess the strength or self-control to tear her gaze away.

Catching the episode from across the room, Catherine frowned at
Jackson, who quirked a sardonic brow at her, inclined his raven head, then
pointedly looked away.

“Quite a parlor trick you’ve got there, boss,” G. D. said, hiding
his smile behind his upraised glass. “What do you have planned for later? You
gonna levitate the chairs or somethin’?”

“Would that I were half the demon they believe me to be,” Jackson
muttered. “I would make this assemblage disappear to the last man, not to
mention those dried-up old prunes!” Draining the dregs of his whiskey, Jackson
set his tumbler on the mantel and turned, stilling as his gaze lit upon the
unlikely pair who paused in the doorway.

Reagan was dressed in midnight blue taffeta and swirls of ebony
lace, a gown that he had chosen for her. The rich, deep color set off her
flawless ivory skin to perfection, accentuating her winged brows and sooty
lashes, turning her gray eyes a smoky charcoal hue. Her head held at a stubborn
angle, her gaze swept the room, seeking him out, and she seemed to issue an
unspoken challenge.

Jackson did not hesitate, but crossed the room in three quick strides.
For a moment he just stood staring down at her, a look that would have stricken
the spine from a lesser woman. Kaintuck failed to flinch, but stood her ground
as stalwartly, as courageously as had her forbearers, her small feet planted
firmly, a stubborn tilt to her chin.

Jackson felt a strange and liquid warmth blossom in his chest as
he took her hand in his, bowing low, bringing it to his lips. A courtly
gesture, proper and beyond reproach, and if his lips lingered a fraction too
long, let the dour old wrens and their bewhiskered consorts think what they
would. Then, relinquishing his hold on her, he turned to face his greatest
detractor, the one man with the power to destroy all that he was striving for.

Steeling himself for the look of censure he anticipated in his
father’s eyes, Jackson closed his feelings off from the icy disapproval that,
from experience, he felt certain would come.

Yet oddly enough it did not.

Emil’s face, once so hard, so stern it seemed carved from granite,
had been softened by illness. One comer of the hard mouth drew slightly down,
as did Jackson’s own. The thought came and lodged somewhere behind Jackson’s
eyes, accompanied by the flash of the sword arcing toward him, the pain as
swift and sharp as it had been the instant it had happened.

A red haze of remembrance wove its way around him, the hurt, the
resentment and blame, the incessant bitterness... so strong he felt sure he’d
strangle on them.

Through that blinding haze, Reagan’s voice threaded, soft and sweet,
strangely full of caring. “Jackson, please, you must. It’s time to let it go.”

Jackson’s inward battle was as fierce as it was short-lived. He
acknowledged the turmoil, the anger, the hurt, and then, for her sake, for his,
he released his iron grip on it, allowing it to slip away.

A hush had fallen over the room. Jackson could feel their eyes
upon him, and knew that they were waiting, weighing, judging. Refusing to give
them what they wanted, what they expected from the blackguard of the Broussard
family, he deliberately reached out, laying a hand on his father’s shoulder,
gripping it firmly. “Papa,” he said quietly, “I am glad that you feel well
enough to join us at table. This is a true celebration.”

His dark eyes glittering, his expression fierce, Emil patted the
hand that gripped his shoulder, struggling to speak. His mouth worked
furiously, his breath coming hard and labored. “Sss-on
...”

Dinner was a prolonged and stilted affair through which Reagan
suffered, nodding her head, smiling, making the appropriate noises as Madame
Rhea Chouteau and her followers, Millicent Girard and Eloise Stimple, who dominated
the conversation at the south end of the massive table. “A woman of wealth and
position has a certain social responsibility, an obligation, if you will, to
administer to those less fortunate,” Madame Chouteau declared. “M’sieur Emil’s
late wife, Miralee, was heavily involved in various good works. A lovely woman,
Miralee, and so very tragic! With your strong link to the Broussards, you will
of course wish to carry on that tradition, won’t you, my dear?”

“I’m not linked to anyone,” Reagan said quietly. “Not really.”

Madame Girard’s brows, artfully darkened with a touch of burnt
cloves, shot upward. “But M’sieur Broussard
is
your benefactor, is he
not?”

Protector, friend, lover, the one man on whom she’d foolishly
pinned all her hopes and dreams . . .

Reagan shifted uncomfortably on her chair, keenly aware that all
three matrons watched her closely, waited with baited breath for some touch of
scandal, some misstep upon which they could later elaborate. “Yes, I suppose
you might call him that.”

“Then you are indeed linked to the first family of Saint Louis,”
Madame Stimple said with a sharp nod, “and therefore must decide which
charitable cause you intend to support.”

“Oh, I don’t know if that’s appropriate—” Reagan began. Charitable
causes were something she and Annette had not touched upon, and she sensed that
she was treading on very shaky ground.

Madame Chouteau rolled right over her uncertain reply. “I should
suggest the Little Sisters of the Poor. Surely you have heard of them?”

“I know a lot of poor people,” Reagan murmured. “Some had sisters,
some didn’t, but I don’t know if they’re kin to the ones you mentioned.”

Madame’s jaw went slack. Down the board Eloise Stimple tittered
behind her hand. Reagan glanced at Jackson, but he was too far down the long
board to come to her rescue. He was seated on his father’s right, and his dark,
handsome face was unreadable as he toyed with the stem of his wineglass. How
fragile it seemed in his lean brown fingers, as tenuous as the gossamer thread
that bound them together, capable of breaking at any
moment...
too thin,
too frail to last.

As she watched, his raven head came up and his green gaze met and
clashed with hers. His expression never wavered, but she could see the longing
in his eyes, bringing home anew the fact that nothing was resolved between
them. Then, in the next instant, his uncle said something to him, drawing his
attention elsewhere, effectively breaking the spell.

Even surrounded by a dozen others, Reagan still felt wary in
Navarre’s presence. She watched as he turned slightly, whispering something in
Madame Girard’s ear. Madame Girard laughed delightedly, tapping his coated arm
with her ivory and lace fan. Navarre laughed, too, yet as his gaze lifted,
encountering Reagan’s over her wineglass, his smile faded.

He knew, Reagan thought, chilled by the realization. He knew that
she’d witnessed his perfidy, that she’d glimpsed the ugly, venal skunk hiding beneath
his elegant hide, and the fact that she could sense his brain churning behind
those cold, dark eyes served only to heighten her wariness... to compound her
distraction....