Navarre just smiled. “Do not sell yourself short, nephew. It takes a special knack to successfully work the fields, strength and resiliency, the sort of resiliency required to run an empire this large.” He took a deep and steadying breath as he got to his feet, looking around at the small office in which they were closeted. “It’s something we will need to discuss, and soon—the role you will play in the business.”
“It’s Papa’s empire, Uncle,” Jackson reminded him, “not mine.”
“Yes, well,” Navarre said with a wry smile, “if that’s all you require of me, I must be going. I’ve a rousing game of whist I must be off to, but first I must stop by Belle Riviere and pay my respects to your father. He does so look forward to my daily visits. Will you ride back with me, perchance? I have bought a new chaise, and I think it may well be the fastest conveyance in all of Missouri.”
Jackson glanced at the tall case clock. It was half-past three. He’d missed luncheon, missed Reagan’s fittings, missed seeing her small, piquant face, the only bright spot left in his dark and dreary existence, and there was still a great deal to do. “No, thank you, Uncle. I need to finish here first.”
Navarre reached for the door handle, then turned back, a look of concern on his still-handsome features. “You’re not going to make mention of my ineptitude to your father, are you? I should not wish to worry him unduly.”
“Of course not,” Jackson reassured him. “But I will be looking to hire someone more capable of handling the accounts.”
Navarre nodded his understanding and, taking his walking stick in one hand and his beaver hat in the other, he went quietly from the office and down the stairs, too intent upon his interview with Jackson to spare more than a distracted glance at the brown stain that marked the spot where his nephew Clayton had fallen.
Things were not unfolding to his satisfaction. He should have anticipated this turn of events, should have planned for it... yet who could have guessed that Jackson would return prematurely, and with a half-grown mountain wench in tow?
And now this.
The thought of Jackson delving into the books—and company business in general—made him nervous, yet there was nothing he could do to prevent it without arousing suspicion.
The boy was no fool; that much was certain. Yet he would need to dig deep in order to uncover his dear uncle’s perfidy. He’d taken great pains to conceal his activities, had gone to great lengths and considerable trouble to falsify the list of expenditures noted in the ledger.
It had taken a surprising amount of skill to mask his embezzlement beneath a shroud of ineptitude, and the wreck of the River Witch had been a stroke of sheer genius. At first he wasn’t sure he’d be able to succeed, yet her captain’s culpability had proven equal to his own, and for a remarkably modest sum the boat’s cargo had been off-loaded in New Orleans and the goods stored in a secret location. The captain and crew then gave her a bit of refurbishing, a fresh coat of paint, and the new name Mirabelle, with no one the wiser. A little coin and a few carefully chosen “witnesses” and the River Witch and her cargo were no more. The cost of the “wreck” had been then entered into the ledgers with the rest of the figures to make it appear that Broussard Furs was operating at a devastating loss.
Climbing into his carriage, Navarre donned his leather driving gloves and gathered up the reins, flicking them lightly over the horses’ backs.
Neglecting to deposit funds in his brother’s personal account had been an error in judgment. Emil had always insisted upon the use of his own funds to run his chosen place of residence, and despite the house’s ownership, he’d always resided at Belle Riviere. He should have known that the abrupt change would have made Jackson suspicious. Yet he had so enjoyed Emil’s quiet sufferings that he’d been unable to resist twisting the blade just a little.
Emil, after all, had done his best to rob his life of light and joy. Yet soon it would end, and everything would be his... Belle Riviere, the vast Broussard empire... and Jackson....
The thought made Navarre’s blood quicken in his veins, and he pushed the team of matched bays all the harder, simply to feel the wind in his face. They had nearly come full circle. Emil’s reign as crown prince of the house of Broussard was at an end, and he, Navarre, would be prepared to step up to take his place.
It was only right, and the shift of power was one for which Navarre had waited a lifetime, a lifetime of hardship, toil, and disappointment at the hands of his elder brother.
Emil had been the firstborn, and as such he had inherited everything. Navarre, the second son, had received the first Belle Riviere, a crumbling estate in Saint John the Baptist Parish, too heavily encumbered ever to turn a profit. For several years he’d struggled, planting indigo and then sugar, but he hadn’t been cut out for farming, and after a four-year struggle, he was forced to sell the estate to pay his creditors, and go hat in hand to Emil in Saint Louis.
The reception he’d received upon his arrival had been typically brusque. That same summer, Emil had lost his first wife to a fever in the lungs. Burdened with a young son, Emil was trying to juggle the field operations in his burgeoning fur business and at the same time manage the warehouses in Saint Louis. He needed help, and Navarre knew it, yet Emil had been reluctant to place his faith in a younger brother who had already suffered financial ruin, even though that younger brother possessed the skills that he himself was sorely lacking: a glib tongue, a ready wit, and charm enough to talk his way out of any situation.
He’d been forced to beg, damn Emil’s eyes, as always, forced once again to settle for the scraps from his brother’s heavily laden table.
For two long years Navarre had labored in the mountains, bending his back to tasks his brother would no longer consider, plying the rivers to the northwest and trading with the tribes. It was hard and harrowing work, but he’d succeeded, and in that second year, after wintering with the Shoshone in the Wind River Range, he’d returned to Saint Louis. On his first day back, he’d met Miralee.
It was late spring, the grass was new green, and the apple orchards were rife with blossoms. He had only to close his eyes to see it all again. The town itself was much smaller then, little more than a frontier settlement, but the air of excitement and enthusiasm so inherent to Saint Louis had been evident even back then. Just seeing the wood and brick buildings rising between the muddy thoroughfares, with the flatboats plying the river beyond, had sent a thrill of excitement through Navarre... that and the sight of the lovely, dark-haired young lady strolling along the waterfront in the company of Anthony Perdue and his wife, Aimee.
Perdue was an acquaintance of Emil’s, and by making shameless use of his familial connections, Navarre managed to wring an introduction from Perdue. It had been a pivotal point in his life, yet Navarre could not recall a word of what passed between himself and Anthony Perdue except for the name of his wife’s young cousin.
Miralee Parrish, daughter of a Mississippi planter and his Choctaw slave.
What an exotic creature she was... so fragile, yet so full of fire. He’d been taken with her immediately—no, he’d fallen in love, forever and completely, and one glance from those vivid green eyes had conveyed more clearly than words that she’d felt the same way—the way she’d looked at him, then nervously looked away, her lush black lashes sweeping down to brush against her cheeks.
Plagued by thoughts of Miralee, he could not sleep that night, and lay awake, conjuring up images of the future in his mind— their future, his and Miralee’s.
Navarre sighed, lost in the past and his musings. He’d been so determined to marry her, and she had given him every encouragement; Perdue had given every indication that his suit would be welcomed. Then Emil entered the picture, and everything changed.
Powerful, wealthy, heartless Emil had traveled downriver to Natchez to meet with her father and ask for her hand. Three weeks later a settlement was reached, and within the year Miralee returned to Saint Louis as Navarre’s brother’s bride.
Coming back to the present with a furious jolt, Navarre cracked the whip over the horses’ backs. Emil had destroyed so many lives, but no more. It was almost over, he thought as he turned the corner and sped toward the mansion in the near distance. His day of reckoning, which had begun to dawn on the night of Clayton’s untimely demise, was almost here, and nothing and no one could prevent him from exacting his long-awaited revenge.
Things had changed in the past twenty-four hours; of that there could be no doubt. Jackson’s return would complicate matters. The boy might be profligate, but he was keen-witted... as sharp and as cunning as his sire.
Navarre smiled at that, the hard lines of his face softening the slightest bit. Too bad that he alone could appreciate that little irony, but that, too, would change, for Jackson or no Jackson, he had no intention of abandoning his plan.
He’d come too far for that.
Emil would continue the decline precipitated by the death of one son, and aided by his estrangement with the other.
Emil’s downfall had begun, Navarre thought with a secretive smile. Cut off from his loved ones, helpless and weak, with only four loyal servants to defend him, he had nowhere to go but to the grave.
Reagan sat alone at the dining room table that evening. Outside, the shadows were lengthening, and with the coming of dusk the cicadas, crickets, and tree frogs took up their strident song. The windows were open against the heat of the afternoon, and she could hear them clearly. The sound reminded her poignantly of home.
It was mid-September, and in Bloodroot the harvest would be full upon them. The corn she had planted in the new field near the creek bottom would soon be ready to mill for flour, or for sour mash for whiskey. The tobacco and the vegetables in her small truck garden were doubtless forage for the furbearing marauders that emerged from the deep shade of the forest each night, tempted by the bounty of her vegetable garden.
Reagan picked at the food on her plate, heaving yet another sigh without even realizing she did so.
It had been a constant battle of wits, keeping the raccoons, possum, and skunks at bay and away from her precious garden, and she hadn’t realized until now just how much she’d enjoyed the contest.
Life in Bloodroot had never been easy, she thought, laying her silverware neatly across her china plate, but neither had it been empty.
She’d been here but a day, and she already missed making her own decisions, missed the satisfaction derived from a hard day’s work.
Even more than that, she missed Jackson.
She gave Josephine a tidbit from her plate, then scratched the feline’s ears. “You s’pose he’s gone off to some bawdy house somewhere?” she softly questioned, shifting uncomfortably beneath a searing stab of jealousy. “He’s prob’ly got himself some painted lady by now, and forgot all about us.” Josephine slitted her eyes in a show of feline ecstasy and set up a sputtering purr that didn’t slow, even when Bessie came into the room.
“You’re gonna spoil that cat,” Bessie proclaimed, taking Reagan’s silverware and her plate. “You want a cordial, Miss Reagan? Maybe some nice cherry brandy to warm your insides, or a toddy to help you sleep?”
“No’m,” Reagan said politely. “I don’t take strong spirits, but I thank you all the same.”
“Some folks ’round here ought to do likewise,” Bessie said, inclining her head toward Jackson’s chair, which remained conspicuously empty. “Liquor’s brought dat boy a peck o’ trouble in the past. Thought maybe he learned his lesson when he come traipsin’ home with a young lady. Seems I thought wrong. Here it is, nigh on to nine o’clock, and he still ain’t showed his handsome face.”
“I’m sure he has a good reason for his absence,” Reagan lied. But she wasn’t sure about anything, least of all Jackson.
Bessie harrumphed, but made no further comment. “You want Annette to come sit with you awhile?”
Reagan tried for a smile, but didn’t quite manage it. “Not this evenin’. I think I’ll just go on up to bed.”
Bessie took the remains of Reagan’s supper and went from the room; Reagan rose and headed for the foyer and the long winding staircase, Josephine treading close upon her heels, yet she didn’t quite make it.
Later she would wonder whether curiosity had drawn her through the open doors of the study, or something else entirely... some unseen force more sensed than realized. Whatever it was, she could not seem to resist peering in.
The room was beautifully appointed, with pale blue brocade covering the dainty wing chairs and hanging at the windows. A touch of heavy gold fringe here and there added depth and richness to the otherwise feminine room... but it was the portrait that graced the fireplace mantel that drew and held Reagan’s attention.
The subject of the painting was a young woman just barely out of her teens. It must have been painted some time ago, for the Empire-style dress she wore was decidedly old-fashioned. Hair as black as a crow’s wing was caught up at her crown with a circle of pearls, leaving a cascade of ringlets loose to tumble over one bare shoulder.
She was beautiful and puzzling at once, this woman whom she knew from their striking resemblance to one another must have been Jackson’s mother. Although her lips were smiling, the expression in her grass green eyes was inexplicably sad.
She must have been a young wife at the time, perhaps with child. What could make her look that way? Had she suffered beneath the same unsettling undercurrent that made Reagan so uneasy in this house and kept her awake at night, listening for the weeping of the wind?
Unless she missed her guess, there were secrets here, dark secrets that could not bear to be brought forth into the cleansing light of day. And Reagan couldn’t help thinking that Jackson was as much a victim of the past as was the sad young woman in the portrait.
For a little while Reagan just stood, staring up at the portrait, wishing she could read the thoughts behind those lovely eyes; then she soundlessly turned, went out of the room, and ascended the stairs.
Chapter Nine
The promise of Jackson’s coin, or perhaps the fear that he would take his business elsewhere, prompted Miriam Bridgewater to enlist her nieces’ nimble fingers in the construction of Reagan’s wardrobe. That very afternoon Reagan had tried on half a dozen gowns, all in various stages of construction, and she was now the secretly proud owner of a trio of new camisoles and matching petticoats, pantalets, a whalebone corset, and a sumptuous satin wrapper of deep bottle green.
She had spent the last hour arranging and rearranging the items in the big cherry wardrobe, touching them and marveling over their quality, and all the while her frugality warred with her feminine pride. It was a lengthy struggle, fraught with various arguments on both sides. She could not—should not—accept a gift of feminine apparel from a man. It wasn’t right, it wasn’t proper, it simply wasn’t done... most especially a man for whom she had feelings. But it was no ordinary man who’d lavished her with the gifts of apparel; it was Jackson, and the intimate items of clothing Mrs. Bridgewater had left for her were so soft, so tempting, so private that no one would ever know if she succumbed.
Her feminine heart won out in the end, forcing her pride into temporary submission. Reagan picked up the wrapper, slipping it on over the sheer white nightgown as she wandered to the French windows that opened onto the second-floor gallery.
It was one of those rare autumn evenings when the earth refused to relinquish the heat of the day, leaving the air soft and sultry, with a heavy promise of rain. Unlatching the windows, Reagan swung them wide, stepping out onto the gallery, and at the same instant the first flash of lightning crackled through the midnight sky.
Reagan welcomed the storm. Perhaps, she thought, it would help relieve some of the tension that gripped the house and its occupants. More than likely it would not, for the true source of the tension she sensed lay within the limestone walls, and she could not help but wonder if the disquieting rumors that blackened his reputation and caused decent folk to shun him had the same f
ace as the demon that drove Jackson out into night.
She did not have long to wonder, for at that moment something stirred in the shadows a little farther along the gallery, and the tip of Jackson’s cigar glowed red in the darkness. “It’s late,” he said. “You should be in bed.”
She wet her lips, wildly glad to see that he’d returned, terribly aware that she was wearing nothing beneath the sheer gown and satin wrapper. She should have turned back to the safety of her bedchamber; to stay would be risky. Yet something held her there on the gallery... her need to be near him, the concern she felt for him, the relentless nagging of all her unanswered questions. “I couldn’t sleep,” she finally admitted.
He took another drag from the cigar, its fire briefly illuminating his tousled black hair, the faint stubble that shadowed his cheeks, chin, and jaw. Then the fire faded, and there was only the white shirt he wore, open at the throat, ghostly pale in the dimness.
“Not taking ill, are you?” he asked, pushing away from the wrought-iron railing against which he’d been leaning, crossing slowly to where she stood. “There have been rumblings of yellow fever downriver.” Reaching out, he laid the knuckles of one hand against her cheek. “Your flesh is cool.”
“You don’t need to worry,” Reagan answered. “I’m not feelin’ poorly, just a little restless is all.”
He nodded his understanding. “It is this place. I confess, it has always had the same effect upon me. I think about it when I’m gone, the cool, high-ceilinged rooms, its stately grace, and when I am here I cannot wait to be away—anywhere but here.” He paused to draw on the cigar, then flicked it over the rail and into the darkness below.
“Is that why you go out at night?”
Jackson had been staring over the railing at one of the stately old oaks that stood sentinel at the corner of the gallery, shading the house and the place where they stood with its gnarled branches. Now he turned toward her. At first he said nothing, just let his gaze roam slowly over her, from the top of her head to the bare little toes peeking out beneath the trailing hem of nightgown and wrapper.
Bride of the Shining Mountains (The St. Claire Men) Page 14
