Rebel Waltz (2 page)

Rising from a leather wing chair by the fireplace, Jake Clairmont set aside the book he'd apparently been reading and immediately came forward with hand outstretched to greet Rory. He was a benign old man in appearance, tall and slender, with a full head of silver hair and the slightly leathery skin of a man who'd spent most of his life outdoors. His lean body was hard and still powerful though he was in his sixties, and he moved with certainty and grace. The mild serenity of his expression was belied by the acuteness of his vivid green eyes.

Quite suddenly, Rory remembered overhearing from the lips of one of Clairmont's closest friends that Jake was half hawk and half shark, and that the only living soul capable of making him bow to another's wishes was the granddaughter he adored.

“Rory. Glad you could make it, my boy. Welcome.”

The “my boy,” Rory reflected musingly, would have been patronizing from anyone else's lips; from Clairmont it sounded entirely natural and amiable. Suspicious, Rory wondered what the old shark was up to. “Thank you, Jake,” he responded mildly. “It's good to see you again.”

“You've met Banner, I see.” Half statement, half question.

Glancing toward the fireplace, where Banner stood with a disquieting look of amusement on her lovely face, Rory nodded. “I've had that pleasure,” he confirmed, and wondered why he always felt somewhat like a Regency gent whenever he was around Jake; they had met several times in Charleston, and on each occasion he'd felt an alarming attack of careful manners sweeping over him. Perhaps it was the Old World quality in Jake's own behavior.

The damned old rogue could rob you blind and leave you with a smile, he thought with an inner laugh.

“Good, good.” Jake seemed inordinately pleased. “She can give you a quick tour of the
house while I have someone bring in your bags. I'm sure you'll want to wander around by yourself tomorrow, but Banner can tell you quite a bit about our history.”

Before Rory could respond, Banner did.

“Jake, have you forgotten the party? I do have a few things to take care of before our guests arrive.”

Her grandfather waved the remark away. “Plenty of time for that. Besides, you look so beautiful nobody's going to notice anything else.”

While Rory watched in silence, two pairs of green eyes locked in a silent struggle that was almost palpable. Both combatants smiled easily and gazed steadily, and Rory didn't dare wager to himself who would win. He just waited.

Finally, Banner sighed and turned away to head for the door. “This way, Mr. Stewart,” she said wryly.

Rory only just stopped himself from bowing to the smiling Jake before following the girl from the room.

Once out in the foyer, she began speaking in a cool, faintly insolent tone that grated and was, Rory thought, quite deliberate. And she sounded for all the world like a bored tour guide.

“The main house was restored ten years ago; until that time it had been kept up structurally but the interior had been neglected. Now, each room has been painstakingly restored; all furnishings are period pieces and all materials authentic. There are thirty rooms, including library, study, a formal dining room, ballroom, several sitting rooms and dens, and bedrooms. Only the bathrooms are not authentic, and those have been designed to blend in as much as possible. Where d'you want to start, Mr. Stewart?”

He gazed down at her bland, inquiring face, and said pleasantly, “If you'll just direct me to my room, I'll leave you to get ready for your party. We can skip the tour for now.”

“My grandfather requested it,” she reminded him coolly.

“Sounded more like an order to me.”

She shrugged slightly, whether in agreement
or disagreement or mere acknowledgment of his comment he couldn't tell.

Ignoring his suggestion that the tour could wait, Banner said briskly, “We'll start with the ballroom.” And she led the way.

For the first time in his memory, Rory paid scant attention to the tour and quite a bit to the guide. She seemed intent on alienating him— or at the very least angering him. Every word seemed calculated in tone to rouse defensiveness and aggression. She was cold, rude, patronizing, and impatient.

Rory was not a man to stand for that kind of thing, but he stood it from Banner Clairmont. He met coldness with amiability, rudeness with impeccable manners, condescension with bland-ness. He ignored her impatience, asked few questions, and came to the conclusion that his first impression had been the correct one.

Banner was not innately rude, cold, patronizing, or even unfriendly. She was deliberately
trying to provoke him. He hadn't a shadow of an idea why she wanted to, unless it was because he was interested in buying Jasmine Hall and she didn't want it sold. He let that thought rest in the back of his mind for later study, while the tour continued.

There was quite a bit of activity throughout the house in preparation for the party. Servants in antebellum dress scurried about carrying flowers and linens and food, getting in one another's way and being stridently polite about it.

And Rory was more than a little curious. “Jake didn't mention a party,” he said carefully as Banner was conducting him through the bedroom wing of the huge house. “I would certainly have waited until tomorrow to come if I'd known.”

Banner sent him an inscrutable look. “You'll find a costume on your bed,” she said calmly.

“What? But—”

“Jake's always prepared,” she added cryptically.

“I don't want to intrude,” Rory ventured.

She ignored that. “There'll be a couple of hundred guests at the party,” she said, “and about fifty staying the night. Tomorrow morning we'll have a hunt; you'll find a riding costume in your closet. You do ride?” she added on a questioning note.

“As it happens, I do,” he said, stung for the first time.

She smiled an odd little smile. “I'll be sure to pick out a good hunter for you.”

Rory looked at her suspiciously.

Halting before an open door, Banner gestured inside. “This is your room. Your bags have been unpacked. If you need anything, just pull the bell rope. The party is scheduled to start in two hours; we're serving a light supper downstairs in the little dining room in thirty minutes. If you decide to skip that, there'll be food served during the party.”

Half- expecting her to add, “Any questions?” Rory took a deep breath and struggled to hang on to his manners. And lost. “You don't like me very much, do you?” he said abruptly.

“I just met you,” she answered coolly.

“If you treat everyone this way on first meeting them,” he noted, “you must make a lot of enemies.”

“Only my share,” she said sweetly.

Rory strove with himself. “I don't enjoy being treated like a pariah, Miss Clairmont,” he said in the most even tone he could manage.

Her smile was limpid. “Why, Mr. Stewart— we never invite pariahs to our parties.”

“I wasn't invited,” he snapped.

“Do tell.” She was still smiling.

Rory glanced around, wondering with that unfamiliar savagery if there would be witnesses to imminent homicide. He restrained his impulses when he saw several couples at the end of the hallway descending the stairs from the third floor and apparently on their way to the ballroom. He noted absently that the men seemed to be wearing Civil War uniforms—Rebel Gray, of course.

“There go some of your guests down the
stairs. You'd better see to them,” he muttered. “They seem to be early.”

Banner followed his gaze, and Rory felt more than saw her start slightly, as if in surprise. When she looked back up at him, there was an arrested, almost panicky expression in her green eyes. “Yes,” she said softly. “Yes, I'd better do that.”

That look in her eyes bothered him. “Banner—” he began, hardly aware of using her first name.

She interrupted him, her voice still soft. “If you have any trouble with your costume, Jake's valet will help you. Just pull the bell rope. I'll see you downstairs.” She hurried down the hall, silk gown rustling quietly.

Rory gazed after her for a long moment, then shrugged almost irritably and went into his bedroom, wondering vaguely why the very masculine bedroom smelled of jasmine.

B
ANNER CLOSED THE
library doors by leaning back against them, looking across the room at her grandfather, who was now in costume and looked every inch the Southern plantation owner.

He smiled at her with just a trace of wicked mischief. “How'd the tour go?” he inquired.

“Oh, just dandy.” Banner's cheerful voice was a far cry from the cold tone of the tour. “I was horribly rude to your Mr. Stewart and he took it
like a gent.” She laughed suddenly. “Until a couple of minutes ago, that is.”

“Did he flay you?” Jake Clairmont asked interestedly.

“He wanted to murder me! However, since he's a guest in your house… At least, that's the impression I got.” Banner hesitated, then said in a determinedly toneless voice, “He… saw the soldiers and their brides, Grandfather.”

Jake's gaze sharpened, the same arrested expression Rory had seen in Banner's eyes in his now. “Did he?” the old man murmured thoughtfully. “Did he, now? That's interesting.”

“He thought they were our guests.”

“You didn't tell him…?”

“No, of course not.” In a voice suddenly passionate with feeling, Banner exclaimed, “Jake, you can't sell to him! This place is in your blood—in mine. It'd kill us both to leave.”

Jake looked at her for a moment, then shrugged. “He came out here in good faith, you know that. I offered to sell, he wants to buy. If his price is right—”

“He'll be master of Jasmine Hall,” she finished bitterly.

Flatly, Jake said, “Restoring the place took a huge chunk out of our capital, Banner, and it'll take more than we've got left to turn the Hall into a paying plantation.” Deliberately, brutally, he added, “D'you want to see it decay like the others in this area?”

“No,” she whispered.

“Then we have two choices. We can turn the place over to a historical society or we can sell to someone like Rory Stewart, who's interested in keeping it relatively intact.”

Banner squared her shoulders, the reason of his words sinking in against her will. She smiled at him, hiding heartbreak and showing her Clairmont blood and her love for the old man in her affectionate words. “You old bastard.”

Jake grinned at her. “I promised I wouldn't sell the place without your approval, lass, and I meant it. We'll take a long, hard look at Stewart before we decide. We'll make sure we leave the Hall in good hands. Agreed?”

“Agreed, Grandfather.”

“All right, then.” He lifted a quizzical brow at her. “And none of your tricks, Banner.”

“I don't play tricks,” she said indignantly.

Jake Clairmont smiled faintly. “When you were ten,” he reminded her, “you very innocently proclaimed that the Hall was haunted, because you wanted to discourage potential buyers.”

“That was seventeen years ago,” she pointed out virtuously. “I didn't know that you weren't serious about selling and I was not playing tricks.”

“Well, be nice to Stewart. No more rudeness, all right?”

Banner tossed her head and turned to open the door. “Of course I'll be nice,” she said loftily over her shoulder. “I've already short- sheeted his bed, disconnected the hot water in his bathroom, and put thorns in the seat of his riding breeches—how much nicer could I be?”

She closed the door behind her, hearing her grandfather laugh. She listened to the growing
clamor of the party preparations and, after a moment of indecision and a guilty glance at the clock near the stairs, hurried out of the house through the French doors in the front parlor. She crossed the veranda and went down the steps and through the rose garden, holding up her skirts and following a path that led into the woods.

She wound up at a little cottage built in a clearing less than a hundred yards from the main house. According to the Hall books, the cottage had been built before the Civil War, but Banner had never been able to find out just why it existed. As a child, she'd woven stories of lovers’ trysts and family disapproval, and saw no reason now to reconsider the stories. They suited both her romantic nature and the cosy architecture of the cottage.

In good repair, the little house was nestled among the trees, peeping like a shy maiden from behind her fan. It had been Banner's “pretend” house as a child, and as she'd grown she had made it her sanctuary. It contained a single
bedroom—the bed kept ready in case she chose to sleep there—and one large open area that Banner had made into a workroom. The bathroom had been built a few years ago and was the only modern part of the structure.

Banner stood on tiptoe to find the key resting above the doorjamb, then unlocked the door, replaced the key, and went inside. She left the door open out of habit, secure in the knowledge that no one ever disturbed her here.

In the main room of the cottage, she quickly removed the ringlet-dressed wig she wore and hung it rather comically over a bust of her grandfather, which had been one of her few early attempts to sculpt. She ran her fingers through her own short raven curls, massaging her scalp absently as she stared at the half- finished painting on the easel in the center of the room. She longed to sit down and frown at her work in earnest, but lacked the time and was reluctant to crush the silk gown.

So she just stood, rubbing a scalp that was itching from its confinement by the wig, and
glared at her portrait. Why, she wondered, did it look so awfully damned much like Rory Stewart? That was what had brought her out here to stare even though she'd little time for it. She'd started on the thing days ago, and had intended merely to portray a Southern gentleman, to paint him entirely from her own mind.

Dammit, it looked like Rory Stewart!

Thick, sun- lightened blond hair—and she didn't even like blond men. Level gray eyes. A lean, strong face with compelling bone structure. Crooked smile. Proud tilt to his head. Only the attire was different; this man was dressed in the well-cut, long-tailed coat and ruffled shirt of the Southern beau out to break hearts—

“That wig's a crime.”