“A bit early in the day for surgery, isn’t it, Jeremiah?” Jackson asked.
“Not for the sort of operation I was doing. Jenny’s away visiting her sister in Saint Charles, so I’m left to fend for myself. It hasn’t been easy, I can tell you. I’m a better hand at lancing boils and tending gunshot wounds that I am at making dinner.” He grinned and offered his hand. “Jackson, it’s good to see you. Damn good.”
Jackson studied Nash’s open face for the space of a heartbeat, but there was none of the rancor, none of the suspicion, not a trace of the accusation he’d grown accustomed to in the days after Clay’s death. Returning Nash’s smile, he grasped the proffered hand. “I’m glad someone feels that way. I’m afraid that my return will be met with something less than total enthusiasm in some quarters.”
Jeremiah nodded. “You really should be congratulated, Jackson. You’ve been back less than twenty-four hours and you’ve already become the subject of great speculation. Half the town’s seething that you had the audacity to show your face here after what happened; the other half is placin’ bets on who you’ll kill next.”
“What do you think, Jeremiah?” Jackson quietly asked.
Nash sobered, adjusting his round spectacles and peering closely at the scar. “I’d say that your wound’s healing nicely, and I suspect you’ve come back for a purpose. As to what that purpose might be, I can’t say with absolute certainty, but knowing you as I do, I have my suspicions.” Jeremiah took his spectacles off and, folding them carefully, slid them into the inside breast pocket of his black waistcoat. “Now what can I do for you?”
“I came to ask after my father. How serious is his condition?”
Nash draped his long frame over a chair and sat stroking his chin. “I won’t lie to you, Jackson. The news isn’t good. An apoplectic seizure like the one he had is nothing to take lightly.”
“But there is a chance he will recover?”
Jeremiah shrugged. “That depends. If he summons the spirit to reenter the world of the living, he stands a fair to middling chance. But if he continues to molder away in his bedchamber, cut off from life, with the drapes drawn—”
There was no need for Jackson to reply. He just thanked Jeremiah for his time and went quietly into the street.
Despite Jackson’s warning, Reagan was nearing the end of her limited patience. It wasn’t bad enough that she’d been divested of her clothing in front of these strangers; she’d then had to endure endless measuring, poking, prodding, and pinning, being turned like a mannequin this way and that while Madame Bridgewater gathered together the bolts and patterns and various laces and trims that would comprise the new wardrobe Jackson had ordered on her behalf. Just when she thought she could bear no more, the woman turned her toothy smile upon her. “You may get dressed now, my dear. Your— ahem—clothing is—” She glanced sharply around, then gave a long-suffering sigh. “Oh, drat that Helga, the witless twit! What on earth has she done with your things? Well, don’t worry your pretty little head. I’ll just go and find them for you.”
“Much obliged,” Reagan muttered darkly, watching the woman with narrowed eyes as she left the room, jerking the curtain closed behind her. The tension started to seep from Reagan as soon as the dressmaker was out of sight. Her rigid posture relaxed, and the wary frown that creased her brow softened, then melted away completely as she turned to face the oblong looking glass.
“Jesu, Reagan,” she said softly, “is that really you?”
The sprite in the mirror wrinkled her nose at the question, and her lips curved up in a tentative smile. Reagan was mesmerized. She wasn’t quite sure when it had happened, but somewhere between that last fateful day in Bloodroot and this morning, she’d become passable to look at... one might even go so far as to say... pretty.
Garbed in a diaphanous camisole Madame Bridgewater had brought from the back, and a pair of knee-length pantalets, she could not see a trace of the half-grown urchin in the baggy clothing and too-large boots.
The creature in the glass was all woman, and she knew as she stared at her reflection just who was responsible for bringing about the change.
“Jackson,” she said softly to herself. Jackson was responsible for breaking down her protective barriers, for plying her with gifts that tempted her female fancy. Jackson had captured her imagination, and was in danger of stealing her heart. Jackson, who would be returning at any moment and she still wasn’t properly dressed.
Padding barefoot to the door of the alcove, Reagan peered around the curtain. “Mrs. Bridgewater?”
The silver-haired matron was nowhere in sight. For a moment she thought the woman had deserted her, then she heard the faint murmur of voices coming from the front room of the shop. Screwing up her courage, she slipped to the doorway, hoping to find the shop girls, Helga and Marie, one of whom had made off with her clothing. Yet as she crept nearer, she saw Madame Bridgewater deep in conversation with a small, blond-haired woman garbed in gray serge and wearing a straw bonnet with a large brim that obscured her face from view. Reagan could see Madame Bridgewater’s face quite plainly, and the seamstress looked none too happy. “Miriam Bridgewater,” the blond-haired woman was saying, “have you lost all sense of common decency? Why, the man’s a murderer, plain and simple!”
“There is no proof of that,” the seamstress insisted. “Besides, I hardly think the local constabulary would allow a murderer to walk the streets.”
“Unless his father owns half the town. Had that young blackguard not had the good fortune to have been born beneath the Broussards’ roof, he would have been properly hanged long since!”
“Edith Haskell!”
“Well, it’s truth I speak, and you should not solicit the business of a man like Jack Broussard! He bears the mark of Cain!”
Mrs. Bridgewater had apparently had enough, for she turned and retrieved a package wrapped in brown paper and tied up with string. “I can hardly afford to turn away business on your insistence, Edith; therefore I shall leave Mr. Broussard’s guilt or innocence in the matter to which you allude to the discretion of Mr. Broussard, and to his Maker. I am certain He is better able to judge than I.” She thrust the package across the counter, drawing herself up to her full height. “Here are the corset covers you ordered. That will be one dollar and seventy-five cents, please.”
Reagan did not wait to hear more, but spun and ran into Helga, who held out her things, neatly folded.
Reagan took the garments, her cheeks flaming. Gathering the homespun shirt and breeches to her breast, she hurried back to the alcove to dress, the words of Edith Haskell ringing in her ears.
Chapter Eight
Jackson left for the bank the following morning, intent upon honoring his promise to Bessie. He felt confident that he could straighten out the tangle of the household affairs and return to the house in plenty of time to enjoy a leisurely dinner with Reagan before the dressmaker came at one. It was a good plan, he thought as he entered the bank... a plan that began to fall apart the moment he stepped into Willard Gilmore’s office.
Gilmore was the son of the establishment’s founder, a narrow, pinched young man with a twitch in his left eyelid. The more agitated Gilmore became, the more frenetic the twitch.
It was obvious from the moment Jackson stepped into Gilmore’s office that the mere presence of the most hated man in all of Saint Louis upset him mightily. “Gilmore,” Jackson said coolly, “your sire has handled my father’s personal account for years. I have just been informed, however, that the elder Mr. Gilmore has retired from business, and so I must deal with you.”
Young Gilmore nodded jerkily, discreetly clearing his throat. “Indeed. Won’t you sit down?”
“That will not be necessary,” Jackson replied. “I won’t be staying that long. It’s come to my attention that the household account has fallen into disarray since my father’s illness. With no one to appropriate funds, Belle Riviere has been sorely neglected as a result. In order to repair that unhappy circumstance, and to pre
vent it from occurring again in my absence, I need to arrange for a weekly stipend to be withdrawn at the beginning of each week, and placed directly into Bessie Johnstone’s capable hands.”
Gilmore’s lid quickened its erratic movement. He picked up a pen, dipping the metal nib into the inkwell and spattering drops of India ink over the sheet of parchment he’d just meticulously positioned on his desk. Clearing his throat again nervously, he reached for a clean sheet. “And the said funds are to be withdrawn from your personal account?”
Jackson smiled, but there was no warmth in the expression. “Though I could certainly afford it, I fear my father would rather starve than to accept my largesse. The funds must come from his own account.”
Gilmore fidgeted in his chair while Jackson watched and wondered if he were about to fly into some nervous fit. “I’m afraid that won’t be possible, Mr. Broussard,” Gilmore said hurriedly.
“Come again?” Jackson said. “I don’t believe I heard you correctly.”
“I’m afraid it won’t be possible,” Gilmore said, the tic working so violently that his cheek twitched in sympathy, forcing his left eye into a pained squint. “The account is defunct.”
“Defunct?” Jackson said, stunned.
“Dried up, sir. Finished.”
“I know what it means,” he snapped. “But how the hell can that be? Sixty percent of all profits accrued by Broussard and Broussard are funneled into that account!”
Gilmore produced a handkerchief, mopping his brow with a trembling hand. “Were. There has not been a dime deposited in months. The profits, it seems, have been rerouted. We thought that due to your father’s altered state—”
Jackson’s smile reappeared as he leaned over the smaller man’s desk, this time decidedly tight. “I assure you, Mr. Gilmore, that despite my father’s limited physical capabilities, his mental faculties are still perfectly intact.”
“My m-most p-profound ap-pologies, sir,” Gilmore stammered. “I m-meant no offense. Sh-shall I look into this m- matter f-for you?”
“That won’t be necessary,” Jackson said. “I’ll do it myself. Take the first month’s stipend out of my account, and once I have set things to rights, I will contact you again.” He left the bank and poor Gilmore, who seemed on the verge of collapse, and went immediately to the warehouse and his father’s office. It was on the second floor, high above the storage facilities, where only a muted semblance of the hustle and noise of everyday business could reach. The musk of thousands of pounds of raw furs, however, permeated everything, a not unpleasant odor closely associated with Jackson’s earliest recollections.
As a boy he’d spent much of his time here, plaguing the constant flow of workers in and out of the warehouse with his endless questions, running wild as any young savage over the levee and waterfront.
Taking the leather-bound ledger from the topmost drawer of his father’s desk, Jackson sighed. His youth had been far from idyllic. All of his life he’d felt that something was missing. Oh, he’d been afforded the best of everything, just like Clay: good food, the finest clothing, a stellar education... yet the one thing he’d wanted most of all, his father’s love, had seemingly been reserved for Clay, and Clay alone.
In his youth it had made him inconsolably sad; as he grew to adolescence, and finally to manhood, it had made him angry. Now, as he pored over the account ledgers, it made him weary of it all.
He hadn’t asked for any of this. He hadn’t wanted Clay to die. He’d never had any desire to control the family fortune. He wasn’t Clay, the good and dutiful firstborn son.
Hell... He wasn’t even close.
Scanning the long columns of figures written in his father’s spidery scrawl, and then in Clay’s bolder hand, was pouring salt in a festering wound. The figures told the family history, up to a point. Profits under his father’s management had been huge, but that was in the old days, before competition in the field had become so fierce, before the beaver were trapped out of the lower elevations. As Clay had assumed the responsibility of the books, the figures began a slow decline and then abruptly plummeted.
Sitting back in the large leather chair behind the massive oaken desk, Jackson absently rubbed the knuckles of one hand up and down the length of the scar.
The profits from last year’s shipments were lower than in the past, yet still quite considerable. And the list of expenditures and losses seemed unaccountably large, due to a lost steamer in which Emil had owned a half interest, all written in a third masculine hand, a hand Jackson recognized as belonging to his uncle.
As if on cue a footfall sounded on the wooden stair, and a nattily dressed Navarre opened the door to the inner sanctum. Jackson could tell by the look on the older man’s face that he was shocked to find him there. “Uncle,” he said, “please do come in.”
Navarre came silently into the room, his movements graceful, catlike, and Jackson was reminded that his uncle’s foppish affectations were relatively new. He’d worked very hard alongside Emil to build the company. The man beneath the swallowtail coat and impeccable cravat was just as shrewd as ever. The older man raised his black brows at Jackson’s invitation. “You don’t have a pistol hidden in the drawer, do you?”
Jackson gave him an exasperated look. “I need your advice, not your sarcasm. Come in, and be so good as to close the door.”
“My advice? Now, there’s a surprising turn of events. Does this perchance mean that you have forgiven me for neglecting to tell you that your father was ill?”
“Not completely, yet as Kaintuck would say, you are kin, and as such I owe you my loyalty, as well as my understanding.”
“The intrepid Miss Dawes, is it?” Navarre said with a smile. “It seems I may have formed an opinion of her too hastily. Tell me, nephew, just how great an influence does your wood nymph have on you? You aren’t harboring thoughts of anything permanent, are you?”
Leaning forward, Jackson tapped the open ledger with one lean brown finger. “Reagan is not my wood nymph, and I need your advice on the accounts, not on my relationship with her, or the lack thereof.”
“You, examining the books? You are jesting, of course.”
“I wish to God I were.”
Navarre folded his elegant hands over the silver head of his walking stick, and sat patiently waiting for Jackson to explain.
Jackson sighed heavily, raking a hand through his hair. “I’m being drawn into it all—his business... his world—after I vowed to have nothing to do with him ever again.”
“I do seem to recall your saying something to that effect,” Navarre said slowly, carefully. “If I remember correctly, it was shortly after you came to yourself at the town house, and you consigned his black soul to the devil more than once. Has your knowledge of your father’s condition altered your feelings toward him?”
Jackson just snorted.
Navarre shrugged. “Well, I had to ask. Emil is your father, after all, and you are here, for all intents and purposes delving into a business that you swore you wanted no part of. I assume that much has not changed?”
“No, it has not changed. But someone had to come. Bessie and the other servants do not have the authority they require to run the house in my absence or care for Papa, and clearly he is not up to the task.” He paused, then shook his head. “For God’s sake, Uncle. The pantry shelves were bare when I arrived, and there were no funds allocated to replenish the supplies. Papa’s personal account at the bank is totally depleted, profits from the business have sharply declined, expenditures have risen... the servants haven’t received their wages for months. No matter how I feel about that grievous old man, I cannot stand idly by while he is forced to live on gruel and eggs. It’s inhuman.”
“It’s no more than he deserves,” Navarre said quietly, “for the way he treated you.”
Jackson frowned at Navarre, who waved the look aside.
“It is truth,” he said. “Any man who would attempt to murder his own flesh and blood deserves to eat gruel an
d eggs. Besides, such a Spartan diet might in time purge him of some of his stubbornness and pride.”
“Somehow I doubt it,” Jackson replied, turning to the books once again. “There is not a single entry here indicating that a deposit was made into Papa’s personal account since Clay’s death, yet these last columns appear to be in your handwriting.”
“Perhaps I simply forgot to make the notations,” Navarre suggested.
“Or forgot to deposit the allocated funds?”
“I’m quite certain that was taken care of,” Navarre said, his expression bland. “With whom did you speak down at the bank? Not young Gilmore? Now, there’s a rascally fellow if ever I saw one. All that twitching, fidgeting, and sly, nefarious winks! Perhaps he’s made off with the funds in question. For all we know, he could be keeping a mistress somewhere with expensive tastes.” He made a face. “Although, now that I think of it, it isn’t very likely.”
“Are you certain the deposits were made, Uncle?” Jackson pressed. “Is it possible you could have forgotten?”
A negligent shrug. “I suppose it is possible. My social schedule has been more hectic than usual of late, and with Clayton gone and your father drooling in his chair, my duties have increased. You know what a poor head I have for figures. Emil possessed the business acumen and a knack for making money. I, on the other hand, was blessed with only charm and good looks, and would far prefer to spend it.” Raising his sooty
brows, he leaned forward to peer at the ledger. “Have I done irreparable harm? Good God, we are not destitute, are we?”
“No,” Jackson said slowly, “we are not destitute. The pack trains will soon be arriving from rendezvous. The take was good. Better, in fact, than the two previous years.”
Navarre thoughtfully stroked his chin. “Better than when Clayton was in charge?”
“Yes. Though the losses incurred previously were not Clay’s doing. An increasing scarcity of fur, the constant depredations by the Blackfoot, whole companies of men being recruited and won over to the American Fur Company... it could have happened to any one of us.”
Bride of the Shining Mountains (The St. Claire Men) Page 13
