The Men of Pride County: The Pretender (32 page)

Reeve carried him murmuring insensibly into the front parlor, draping his muddied, bloodied form across a newly upholstered sofa.

“Any idea what this is about?” Patrice asked, as she tucked a pillow behind his lolling head.

“With Tyler, it could be anything. A falling out with his cutthroat friends, his bastard of a father, who knows? I know I don’t like leaving you here with him like this, not knowing what kind of trouble he’s bringing behind him.”

“Reeve, we have to help him.”

He met her solemn stare for a long moment, then nodded. “Of course we do.”

Theirs had been a lengthy friendship marred by the changing times. But fond memories
couldn’t be dismissed as unimportant, so they would do what they could, regardless of the danger that might be even now following on his heels.

Reeve gestured to the pistol she’d placed on the table at the end of the sofa. “Keep that within reach. I’ll be back as quick as I can. Hopefully your brother can shed some light on this, though I can’t see him and Tyler involved in anything together.”

“Be careful.”

He nodded, kissed her hard and was gone.

“ ‘Trice?”

“I’m here, Tyler.” She took up his hand, pressing it comfortingly between her own.

“Don’t let me die.”

“I won’t. I promise. After all, you saved me once. Now I can return the favor.”

A faint rueful smile etched his taut features. “Then we’ll be even and owing each other nothing. Then you can finally get rid of me.”

“Don’t be silly. You know Reeve and I will always love you, just as we do Starla. You just make it hard for us sometimes.”

“I know, darlin’, I know.” But his eyes closed and his smile sweetened with relief. “Maybe I can make some of it up to you tonight.”

Reeve was leading his stallion Zeus from the barn, tacked and ready for a fast trip to Sinclair Manor, when he heard a single rider approach in a hurry. He eased his rifle from its scabbard in
case their predawn visitor had more than a courtesy call on his mind. Then he stuffed the barrel back in its sheath when he recognized the lean, upright posture of his wife’s brother.

“Tyler?” Deacon called as he swung down, not questioning where Reeve was headed before daylight.

“Inside.”

“Alive?”

“When I left.”

“Anyone else know he’s here?”

“Nope. He was sending me over to get you. You mind telling me what’s going on?”

“I’m hoping Tyler can answer that.”

He greeted Deacon with a faint smile.

Deacon cut right to it. “Was it Skinner?”

“That son of a bitch,” Tyler mumbled in agreement. Haltingly, he filled them in on Roscoe’s treachery, ending with, “I should have known not to turn my back on him.”

“And he should have kept a better eye on you, as well. You nearly carved out his spleen.”

Again, the faint smile. “Meant to. Prior?”

“Hanging on.”

Tyler’s eyes slid shut, his energy lapsing. His breaths came shallow and fast. “Patrice says I’m not dying. What do you say, Rev? Figure you’d put it plain.”

“I’m not a doctor,” he replied, not meeting his sister’s plaintive gaze. “But it looks pretty bad.”

“Guess I’d better talk fast, then.” He drew a
slow, bracing breath and began. “Skinner’s my fault. I brought him here. Prior wanted someone to oversee the properties and keep an eye on you, and I remembered Roscoe from the war years. Figured I could plant him at the Manor and keep tabs on what was going on.”

“How did you know him?”

Tyler smiled. “We boys with bad reputations tend to find one another. He was tradin’ secrets for the highest price. He did a few things for me now and again and I told him a thing or two. That’s all I’ll say about that. But I remembered him having a particular dislike for you, Rev.”

“Why? I don’t know him.”

“You were in the same brotherhood.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Your code name was ‘the Reverend,’ his was ‘Hermes.’”

Things fell into place for Deacon. Hermes. He’d never met the man, but he knew the name of the infamous counterspy he’d helped expose. Before the court martial could convene, Hermes had escaped and disappeared. And now he had resurfaced to take his revenge upon the man who’d turned him in as a traitor.

“There’s more,” Tyler whispered, his voice failing, his breath growing weaker. “Roscoe, he was responsible for Jonah.”

Deacon, Patrice, and Reeve exchanged quick looks. It was Reeve who answered.

“We know who was responsible for Jonah dying. The two of us are right here.”

Tyler shook his head. “No. Roscoe set a trap for Deacon and Jonah sprang it. He meant for it to be you, Rev. Then, before they executed you, he was going to slip in and offer to get the information you were carrying through to Richmond. He would have been a hero and you would have been dead. That was his plan.”

“But he hadn’t counted on a real hero stepping in,” Reeve interjected softly, choking up at the thought of his half-brother’s sacrifice.

Deacon stayed focused on the current problem. “So you brought him here to finish what he started.” There was no time to delve into the complexities of emotion ricocheting between heart and mind. He’d said it was duty where Jonah was concerned, but Roscoe’s suspicions were closer to the truth than Deacon had been willing to accept. He had wanted to be the hero. He had wanted the glory for himself. And he’d never stopped suffering for the results, not ever. Jonah had died bravely, his sister’s fiancé. And he’d let it happen. Knowing it was part of a plot conceived by Roscoe Skinner lessened some of that blame—some, but not all. Never all. In some ways, it made him even more culpable. Skinner had sought his death, not that of an innocent martyr to the Cause. It was no longer an impersonal matter of war. It was a very personal attack.

Now he knew who. He just needed to know why.

“If I’d wanted you dead,” Tyler was saying,
“you’d a been buried long ago. I just wanted him to make some mischief so nobody would see what I was up to.”

“Getting the judge appointed county supervisor so you could pretty much run Pride as you saw fit.”

Tyler grinned at Deacon. “Always was too damned smart. Knew you’d pick up on it ‘less you was distracted. Figured Roscoe would keep you busy. Should a figured he’d come to see me as a liability sooner or later.”

“He’s saying you tried to kill Prior and stole the money.”

Tyler’s gaze sharpened in alarm. “He’s lying.” He looked to Patrice. “You don’t believe that, do you?”

“Then you’d better plan on staying alive to prove it.” Deacon looked to Reeve. “Keep him here and keep things quiet.”

Reeve nodded. “Where are you going?”

“I’m going to set a trap for a traitor.”

Chapter 23

A
fter a quick stop in town at the break of day to speak to Dodge and Noble Banning—Dodge because of his Yankee background and his contacts with those still maintaining a loose martial law and Noble to obtain his legal counsel—Deacon returned to the Manor, numbed with weariness but alive with anticipation. It took him several determined minutes to finalize his case against Roscoe. The law was already after him, and now he would see the man hanged. His threats lost their power. That accomplished, Deacon had only one remaining purpose.

Prior was still unconscious but breathing stronger and resting easier. His mother was sitting at the Englishman’s bedside, and again he experienced a twinge of concern. She seemed awfully committed to a married man. An irony, considering he was planning to steal the man’s wife.

After exchanging brief words and learning that Garnet had retired to get some much needed rest, Deacon headed wearily for his own
small room in back. His mind spun with the question of what to do about Garnet.

It didn’t appear that Prior would die, despite the seriousness of his wound. If that was the case, would Garnet be willing to risk the scandal of divorce to begin a life with him? Would Prior let her and the boy go without a fight? He dismissed the thought of using blackmail as leverage. That would force him into the same mold as Skinner. That’s not who he was anymore.

Would Garnet believe him if he told her his motive was love?

That was the big question. He had nothing to give her except a history of lies. Would she always wonder if he’d only wanted her as a means to get back his properties? Or to claim his son? He’d have to work long and hard to convince her otherwise. But first, some sleep; then he’d seek her out for a little long-overdue truth-telling.

He pushed open the door, sliding out of his coat as he stepped inside. Then froze.

For there asleep on his bed was Garnet Prior, her hair spread across his pillow, encasing it in ebony silk.

The gentleman he’d always prided himself on being would have discreetly backed out and left her to her rest. He closed the door quietly behind him, not caring what that made him. She woke at the sound, regarding him through quiet eyes that showed no alarm or displeasure.

“You said we needed to talk,” she murmured in
a sleep-roughened voice that tightened every fiber of his being. “I thought I’d wait for you here.”

“It’s rather hard to concentrate on what I wanted to say with you lying over there like that.”

Her smile was gently coaxing as she patted the mattress beside her. “Then come over here and do your talking.”

A temptation man wasn’t meant to resist.

Draping his coat over the back of a chair, he crossed to the bed, pausing at the side of it while Garnet unwound like a supple cat from the covers to sit up, the movement all unplanned sensuality. Before his resolve totally crumbled, he told her, “What I have to discuss is serious, Garnet.”

“Then you’d better kiss me first.”

A logical request. He wouldn’t be able to concentrate until the roar of his blood was cooled. But how to quiet a fire by pouring on kerosene?

His hand slipped under her chin so long fingers cradled her upturned face. The gaze that met hers was intense and steady. She waited, dreading the distancing veil sure to drop over that quiet gray stare, covering the lambent passion, the naked need displayed there for her to see. She waited, knowing he would draw back into himself, becoming the cool, unapproachable stranger who might share the heat of his mouth but never the warmth in his heart. She waited for those impersonal changes to barricade the man she’d touched so briefly behind a wall of rigid defensiveness where he would remain just out of reach. She waited, emotions pooling around a deeper regret.

But as he bent toward her, there was no shuttering of his expression. His eyes remained open as windows to a troubled soul right up until the magical instant when their lips swept against each other’s, sealing that intent gaze behind the lowering of his lids.

Their mouths moved together, seeking the most satisfying fit where tongues could meet in an intimate dance that imitated other pleasures they’d shared. To Garnet, it was a generous and expressive offering, not a bold claim of what she couldn’t help but give. Along with the slow, hungering pursuit of her response was a richer heartfelt yearning, one that couldn’t be and never had been pretended. She knew with a certainty that her quest for the real Deacon Sinclair was answered in his searingly honest kiss, in the revering caress of his fingertips along her cheek and jaw. It was an honesty that made her tremble, for now that he’d revealed his heart, she must similarly bare her conscience.

And that prospect terrified her.

Even as her arms encircled his waist and her body molded itself along the hard length of his, she slipped from the safe, consuming passion of his kiss to the neutrality of her head upon his shoulder. Chiding herself for being a coward, she asked him to take the first healing step.

“What did you mean when you said you came back for me?”

“I was on an assignment, Garnet,” he began with a flat-toned candor that made her fear what
he would say as much as she desired to know the full truth. “I was sent to find a way to break your code, and I was prepared to do anything it took to succeed. Not just because the Confederacy needed it, but because my personal vanity wouldn’t allow me to fail. Skinner pegged that right about me.”

“Skinner? What does he have to do with any of this?”

“Nothing directly, but he and I were both involved in espionage on the deepest, most dangerous levels. I can’t count the number of times I put on a Union uniform or pretended to be captured so the enemy could coax information from me through bribery or force—
false
information, of course. I worked alone and I trusted no one. And I was damned good at what I did.”

She shuddered slightly, imagining it. With his detachment, with his ability to focus completely upon a single goal, she could well conceive what a deadly weapon he became for the Confederacy.

“So what was your mission?”

“We had some vague intelligence that your father was the code master and I was sent to infiltrate your farm and family. I didn’t know Davis had a daughter. You were a surprise.”

“I’m sorry.” She meant it to be a wry comment, but somehow her heart got tangled up in the words and they came out in a broken whisper.

“I’m not.” She closed her eyes as his lips brushed against her hair. “You did what family, conscience, and the whole Union army failed to do. You distracted me from my duty. You made
me question what I was doing and why. In the face of your courage and conviction, I felt like the lowest cowardly criminal. I fell in love with you, Garnet. That wasn’t supposed to happen.”

She heard an entirely new tone in his voice, one of humility and regret. She’d thought that was all she wanted from him—that acceptance of responsibility, that quiet apology. But it wasn’t enough.

“Then why did you betray me?” All the pain in her heart spilled out in that one question.

“I wasn’t going to. When I rode out, I’d decided not to say a word.”

She leaned away from him, needing to read that truth in his soul-baring gaze. “Then why?”

“My father’s dead, Garnet. But I didn’t know about it when I met you. It was just part of the lie to earn your sympathy, to prey upon your own devotion to your father.”