Leslie LaFoy (31 page)

Jackson felt an odd twinge in the center of his chest as he watched the light in Lindsay's eyes fade and then go out. She swallowed and lifted her chin, then drew a deep breath as she blinked back a mist of tears. He knew the look of painful memories, and everything in him wanted to pull her into his arms and banish them with sweet, tender kisses.

“We'd better go in, Lindsay,” he said, desperate for a way to distract them both.

It took her a moment, but she managed to nod and say, “Through the kitchen. That way we can take the servants' stairs up and avoid being seen looking so …” She glanced down at the front of her dress and sighed. “Bedraggled.”

“Sounds like a plan,” he quipped, offering her his arm. She took it, but the pensive look in her eyes as they left the light of the carriage house told him that her mind had slipped back into the past, that she hadn't shaken the troubling memory. Something—or more likely, someone—had wounded her deeply. Who? How and why? And what had he done to make her remember?

Maybe nothing, he decided, as they neared the back door of the house. It could be that she was simply dreading the coming encounter with her brother and sister. He paused at the bottom of the steps, realizing that he couldn't go inside knowing that he hadn't done anything to ease her heart and mind. But what? God, he was usually more adept than this. She looked up at him and in the moonlight he could see the unspoken question in her eyes.

“You're beautiful when you're sad, too, Lindsay,” he said, trying to find his way, the right words. “But when you
laugh, when you smile, the whole world gets brighter. You don't do it near often enough. If you'd tell me what I need to do to make it happen, I'd be willing to try.”

“Oh, Jack,” she whispered, a soft smile curving her luscious lips. “You are the sweetest man I've ever known. And you don't have to do anything beyond being yourself.”

Something deep inside his chest swelled. “Jesus, I can't resist you,” he admitted quietly, cradling her face gently between his hands. She looked up to meet his gaze, her eyes filled with gentle invitation. “Tell me that now isn't the time or the place for this,” he whispered, tracing the fullness of her lower lip with the pad of his thumb.

“Now isn't the time or the place, Jack,” she supplied obediently, her words edged with genuine regret. She sighed and graced his thumb with a kiss. “And there are some things that I should tell you before we go any further.”

“Save them for after dinner,” he said, leaning down to feather a kiss across her lips. “I'm perfectly willing to cover old ground until then.”

“Buggering the coachman, I see.”

Even as the words registered in his brain, Lindsay strangled a cry and vaulted out of his loose embrace. Anger, instant and roiling, swept through him. Jack let her go and spun about, his hand fisted and aimed with instinctive, deadly precision. The impact of flesh and bone against flesh and bone wasn't nearly as satisfying as he'd hoped. His teeth clenched, his hands fisted in front of him, he glared at the man flopping weakly in the grass at his feet. Henry.

Jack was preparing to order him to stand and apologize when Lindsay stepped forward and, holding her skirt hem well back, smiled down at the son of a bitch. “Henry, meet Jackson Stennett,” she said with a gentle sweep of her hand. She met Jack's gaze and smiled. “Jack, you owe me ten dollars.”

“I didn't try to kill him,” he countered, glaring down at Henry's prostrate form. Reaching into his trouser pocket, he pulled out a gold coin. Handing it to her, he added, “But I think I probably will.”

She laughingly took the money from him. “Thank you.

And I'll remind you of the other wager we made. I'm going to win it, too.”

“Give me a hand up,” Henry growled, struggling to lift his upper body.

Jack bounded up the stairs, opened the kitchen door, and then held out his hand. Lindsay put hers in it and let him draw her into the warmth and light of the kitchen. She laughed when he waved to Henry just before closing the door on him.

There was heaven and there was earth and then there was Lindsay—whose happiness was the closest a man could come to finding heaven on earth. It was an incredibly precious and fragile thing. Henry had just taken the very last free shot at it that he was ever going to get.

L
INDSAY CHECKED HER HAIRPINS
one last time before she hastened to answer the knock at her bedroom door. She found Jackson standing outside, wearing a clean, crisply pressed suit and a tight smile.

“Do I look New York presentable?” he asked, grimacing as he stretched his neck beneath the starched collar of his shirt.

As was the suit he'd worn the day she first met him, this one's cut was years past truly fashionable. And while it fit him perfectly, accentuating the width of his shoulders and the narrowness of his hips, he was clearly uncomfortable in it and she wouldn't have added to his misery for all the money in Christendom. “I'd be proud to be seen on your arm anywhere in town, Jackson Stennett,” she declared with utter sincerity, stepping out of her room and pulling the door closed.

He grinned and offered her his arm, saying, “That's most kind of you, ma'am. Any words of wisdom you'd care to impart before we go down to face the lions?”

“Remember the MacPhaull Rules, Jack,” she gently ad-
monished as they started down the hall. “Unpleasant realities are to be ignored. Other than that, I can't think of anything.”

He slid a glance at her and rolled his eyes. “And how am I supposed to discuss the reason I'm here in town and what I intend to do? I'm thinking that I can sugarcoat it six ways to Sunday, but they're still going to find the taste of the news just a tad bit on the unpleasant side.”

“You don't have to tell them a thing,” Lindsay assured him. “They read the significant details in the paper this morning. There might be general conversation all around the topic, but no one will come right out and ask you what and how much you intend to give them. You can be as vague as you like in discussing your ideas and no one will back you into a corner over the matter.”

“How the hell does anything get done in this family? How do you all ever arrive at an agreement of any sort?”

“We don't. Each of us does what we want and the others make adjustments.”

“And if one of you makes a fabulously stupid blunder?”

“Then those it affects have to make fabulously brilliant recoveries.”

“Why do I have a sense of you being the one who has to make all the recoveries?” he asked as they started down the stairs.

“Because I am.”

“Please tell me that they have the grace to at least feel a bit ashamed of themselves from time to time; that they feel badly for being deadweight you have to haul around.”

“Please
try
to grasp the basic idea of MacPhaull Rules, Jack,” she laughingly countered. “Being ashamed of oneself or feeling guilty are unpleasant things and so aren't mentioned either directly or indirectly. It's assumed that one is, of course.”

“But are they?”

“I think so. Maybe. On occasion. When they pause to reflect on their lives.”

He halted them at the base of the steps to quietly ask, “What would happen if I decide not to play by MacPhaull Rules?”

“Frankly, I'd rather you not take the chance,” she admitted, her heart skittering.

He made a humming sound as he led her across the foyer, but she was unsure what it signified and there wasn't time to ask. Hoping for the best, she and Jack walked into the drawing room together.

Henry, standing at window with a glass of brandy in his hand, lifted it in salute and observed dryly, “Ah, the prodigal sister arrives at last.” His nose was not only mashed, it was shoved slightly to one side. There were dark splotches all down the front of his suit. Lindsay forced herself to nod in acknowledgment of his greeting.

Agatha threw the contents of a sherry glass down her throat with one quick motion and then leveraged herself out of the high-backed chair. For a second she swayed slightly and then found her balance—along with the smile she usually reserved for wealthy elderly men.

“My apologies for our tardiness,” Lindsay hastily offered, her stomach leaden as she watched Agatha's gaze move slowly over Jackson. “We were delayed first by the storm and then a carriage mishap in which John was injured. We had to make repairs before we could take him to Dr. Bernard's.”

“And this must be the Mr. Jackson Stennett we read about in this morning's paper,” her sister said, gliding forward, her hips swaying enough that Lindsay was surprised she didn't feel a breeze. “It said that you were from the Republic of Texas.”

“Yes, ma'am. We've met before, although we haven't been formally introduced.”

Agatha met Lindsay's gaze and arched a brow in a familiar expression of reprimand and demand.

“Lindsay tends to forget to engage in basic social niceties,” Henry offered from his vantage point on the other side of the room.

“I don't see that she's had the chance before now,” Jackson instantly, coolly countered, covering her hand with his own.

“Thank you, Jack. Agatha,” she began, “may I present
Mr. Jackson Stennett. Jack, my sister, Miss Agatha MacPhaull.”

Agatha inclined her head and looked through her lashes in what Lindsay knew she considered to be a coquettish way. Jack softly cleared his throat and told her he'd never been so charmed.

Lindsay gestured toward Henry. “And this is my brother, Mr. Henry MacPhaull. Henry, Jack Stennett.”

The two men simply nodded once in a crisp fashion and in the general direction of the other. Lindsay felt the air thicken with tension. “Where is Edith, Henry?” she asked, trying to create the distraction of conversation.

“She sends her regrets. A maid dropped a hot coal on one of the new carpets and dealing with the matter left Edith simply exhausted. She knew that you'd understand and forgive her absence.”

“Of course,” Lindsay replied, fully aware that Jack was struggling to contain a wry smile. This wasn't going to go well at all. She could feel it in her bones. “Shall we take ourselves to the dining room?” she suggested, anxious to move matters toward a “good night” just as quickly as she could. “I feel horrible about how long we've made Primrose and Emile delay the serving of our meal.”

“Servants are to serve, Lindsay,” Agatha said as she swept past. “One needn't be concerned for their feelings.”

At the edge of her vision, she saw Jack's jaw turn to granite. Henry sauntered past in Agatha's wake, saying, “It had better be worth the wait.”

“MacPhaull Rules,” Jackson whispered as they followed, “allow people to behave badly.”

There was nothing she could say in defense; Jack was right. His tolerance wasn't going to make it through dinner. She'd have be alert and quick if there was to be any hope of avoiding broken dishes and bloodshed.

“Are you having the draperies cleaned?” Agatha asked Lindsay as soon as Jack escorted her through the dining-room doorway.

“No,” Lindsay replied, noting that the plaster had already been repaired. “I had them removed. Permanently.”

“Mother selected those window coverings herself.”

Jack pulled her seat out for her and as Lindsay settled into it, she calmly countered, “Actually, Mother hired a decorator to select them for her. There's a difference.”

“All fashionable windows are draped, Lindsay.”

“I prefer light to fashion.”

“I would think,” Henry said, assisting Agatha with her chair, “that you of all people would appreciate anything that prevented people from seeing what you're doing.”

Lindsay bristled. Jack considered Henry, his eyes narrowed. “I'm not doing anything but eating in this room,” Lindsay explained, forcing herself to chuckle breezily. “The only person who might catch a glimpse of that would be Proctor. And I doubt very much that he would care enough to bother to look.”

“But judging people isn't your strong suit, Linds. We all know that,” Henry countered, his smile obsequious. He turned it on Jackson, as Emile brought in the first course and Primrose began to serve. “No offense intended, Mr. Stennett. Of course.”

“Of course,” Jack said tightly, thinking that was the second backhanded slap the son of bitch had taken at Lindsay in just as many minutes. And those had come after the foulmouthed insult delivered outside the back door. Henry didn't seem to be a quick learner. How many verbal assaults, Jack wondered, was he supposed to allow in the name of superficial civility? If it weren't for the fact that Lindsay was a bundle of knots before they'd even come down the stairs, he'd have squared up to her brother again in the drawing room. Henry would have learned the lesson once and for all or he'd have found himself bouncing down the front steps on his backside.

But the night was still young, Jackson reminded himself. They were only on the soup course. Given what he'd seen so far of Henry, the odds favored the man losing a few teeth before dessert. Why in hell's name did Lindsay put up with the way these two treated her?

He glanced back and forth between Henry and Agatha.
Two peas in a pod.
They were obviously brother and sister. Lindsay no more favored them in appearance than she did
in disposition. He couldn't help but think that she had to be eternally grateful for those blessings.

“So, if I might be so ill-mannered to ask, Stennett,” Henry said in a tone that managed to be both stuffy and nonchalant, “just what do you have in mind for the future course of the MacPhaull Company? I understand from the newspaper article that you have yourself personally invested in agricultural commodities. Will you be diversifying our holdings in that direction?”

Lindsay froze, her spoon halfway between her bowl and her mouth. The color draining from her face, she cast a disbelieving look at Henry and then quickly did her best to pretend that her only interest was in consuming her meal.

“Well,” Jack drawled, “I can't say that I've made anything but the most preliminary of decisions at this point. I'll need a little time to get the details nailed down.”

“You know what they say: A prudent man is one who travels the well-worn road.”