Bride of the Shining Mountains (The St. Claire Men)

by S. K. McClafferty

  As his eyes met hers a second time, he smiled, his teeth startlingly pale in his shadowed face. “Have I told you how uncommonly lovely you look standing there en deshabille? Soft and sweetly feminine... every inch the lady; yet, if I look hard enough, I can still see something of the gamine lurking there, about those soft gray eyes.”

  “Desha—” Reagan whispered, her heart thumping against her ribs. “You make it sound wicked somehow.”

  He reached out again, this time toying with the trailing ties that closed her wrapper, rubbing the soft fabric between his fingers as he moved a little closer. “Deshabille,” he said softly. “Say it for me, sweetheart.”

  “Deshabille."

  “Exquisite. Again. This time more easily.”

  Reagan watched his mouth, so strongly molded, no less beautiful for the saber’s cruel slash. Mesmerized, she could not refuse him. “Deshabille. What does it mean?”

  “It means that without your ragged shirt and threadbare breeches you are more irresistible than ever.” He leaned closer, close enough that she caught the faint scent of whiskey on his breath.

  It was a dangerous game she was playing, and they both knew it. She was alone with him here on the night-shrouded gallery in a state of scandalous dress, as aware of her vulnerability as she was of her desire for him.

  He wanted her, too.

  She saw it there, barely masked by his sooty lashes, the unmistakable heat of a raging desire too long repressed.

  Strangely, she felt reckless and unafraid, a feeling she could attribute only to the threatening storm and Jackson’s nearness. She wet her lips, turning slightly toward him, and braced a hand against the wrought-iron rail to steady herself. “Is that why you go out at night? To avoid this place, and all of its unpleasant memories?”

  She was thinking of the motherless lad who had lain in the darkness, certain he could hear his mother’s unearthly cries, of the stricken old man in the bedchamber down the hall, and all of the difficulty and pain his impetuous actions had wrought.

  Jackson, however, chose to interpret her query differently. “Perhaps it is not the place I avoid, but a certain dark-haired beauty who now sleeps beneath this old roof. Perhaps I have quickly come to realize that removing myself from her beguiling presence is the only way to keep her safe.”

  “A gated entrance, a handful of servants, a formidable guardian... surely I’m safer here than I was out there on the open prairie.”

  He wrapped the ends of the sash around one lean brown finger, his gaze never wavering from hers as he slipped the bow. “Are you?”

  Bringing the ends of the sash to his lips, he dropped a kiss upon the cool satin, then abruptly abandoned his play, turning once again to search the night with his intense, burning gaze. “Go,” he said softly, achingly. “It isn’t safe for you here.”

  Reagan’s mind heeded the warning and screamed for her to listen. Her heart was hesitant. This was a side of Jackson that she had never seen, and she was intrigued. ‘‘What is it? What’s happened?”

  He sighed, and she could feel his impatience, like a great, dark wall surrounding him. “Nothing has happened.”

  “Fie, Seek-Um,” Reagan said, hoping to tease him from his mood by the use of his sobriquet. “I can tell there’s something—”

  “Don’t call me that, damn it. It is not a compliment, and I do not wish to hear it pass your lips again.” The words seemed to leap from Jackson’s tongue of their own accord, brimming with bitterness and anger. He saw her recoil, and wished to God he hadn’t spoken at all.

  After another night of fruitless searching, of haunting the grogshops and taverns that lined the waterfront near the warehouse, he’d come dragging himself home and up the outdoor staircase to the gallery. Filled with frustration, unable to bear even the idea of sleep, he’d paused in the sultry darkness to smoke and to stare at her bedchamber windows. When the windows had opened and she had appeared, he’d thought that he was dreaming....

  But she was no dream, no apparition. She was real and soft, and he had no right to rail at her in order to vent his own frustration. Hoping to make amends, he reached out.

  She stepped back, just out of reach, and started to turn away. “Reagan, please—don’t go.”

  She hesitated, turning back, and Jackson could see the wariness in her soft gray eyes, mingling with her unbridled curiosity. Given the chance she would ply him with questions, questions he had no wish to answer, and he knew that it would have been infinitely better just to let her go, better to have lain sleepless in his bed, knowing that he had hurt her, than to face the inevitable, feeling as he did. Another night, he could have faced the worst from her and prevailed with a jest and a grin. Yet tonight he was world-weary; his defenses were so low that they barely existed at all, and he could summon no will to resist her.

  “I am sorry,” he found himself saying. “You touched upon a nerve; nonetheless, I had no right to snap at you.”

  “I knew a man once,” she replied quietly, “back home in Bloodroot. His name was Silas Grundy, and he earned his bread as a peddler. Silas lost his mule to the colic one winter, and could not afford to buy another. Without his mule he was forced to carry all of his wares, all of his worldly possessions around in a sack. A body could spy Silas from a half-mile distance, just by the crook in his back. I often wondered why he just didn’t put down his sack and stretch his hurts awhile. I suppose that, like you, he was stubborn, and too afraid to trust anybody with his possessions.”

  Jackson watched her, torn between exasperation and her irrepressible charm. “Silas Grundy, eh?” He snorted. “You are a rare jewel, Reagan Dawes; do you know that?”

  She wrinkled her nose at that. “No, and I expect it’s a good thing, too. I wouldn’t want to go gettin’ all swell-headed.” A moment of silence followed, a little less uneasy than what had gone before. “The other night at the gate, I trusted you. I allowed you to bring me into your home, allowed you to buy me pretty things, even though I knew it wasn’t right. Maybe now it’s your turn. I know it goes against your grain, Jackson, but it’s all right to lay your burdens down. You might even say that sometimes it’s necessary.”

  “Are you always so full of wisdom?” It had been intended as sarcasm, but somewhere along the way the soft-voiced query lost its cynical edge.

  “It’s better to be wise than stupid. Where I come from, stupid people don’t live long.”

  She dimpled at him, and he caught his breath. “You made your point. You don’t like the name, but you never did say why.”

  He sighed, succumbing to her beauty, her charm, perhaps bowing to her earthy wisdom. “I suppose it brings back that which I would rather forget.” Unbidden, Clay’s voice rang in his mind, the clear, derisive tones of an adolescent older brother thrown in an angry taunt. Jack Seek-Um, ha! It fits you fine, that’s for certain! Better than Jackson Parrish ever did! Jackson Parrish is the name of a gentleman, and you’re more at home with gutter trash than quality folk!

  Jackson winced at the memory. “My brother, Clay, used to call me that, and it was rarely spoken in kindness.”

  “What was he like, your brother? Was he a great deal like you?”

  It was a simple question, a question Jackson could not seem to ignore. “He was nothing at all like me, and that was the problem. Clay was like Father, always the good and dutiful son, honorable, upright.”

  “If he was anything like your pa, then I expect he wasn’t an easy man to know. Did you get on well with him?”

  “We disagreed at every turn, but I loved him anyway. He was my brother.”

  “I know about brothers,” she said softly, and the smile that curved her lips spoke volumes. In that moment something went slack inside of Jackson. The center of his being hummed with anger no longer, and his frustration, though still evident, suddenly seemed to stem from a different source. “Jackson?” she said, turning those huge gray eyes upon him.

  The effect was devastating, his desire immediate, all-consuming. He str
ained toward her without ever moving, and in that instant he knew that there was nothing within his power to give that he could deny her. “Hmm?”

  “Do you trust me?”

  “With my life,” he said, the passion threading its way, thick and lusty, through his veins.

  “Tell me then,” she said, her voice nearly a whisper, “how did your brother die?”

  A stab to the heart would have wounded him no more, yet his desire dulled the pain. Raising his hand, he touched her hair, teasing the dark tendrils that curled rebelliously at her cheek, and silently commanded himself to breathe. Her nearness had a profound effect upon him. In Reagan’s presence he lacked the rigid control required to keep his feelings—long buried—in check. Instead of burrowing deep, they simmered just below the surface. Just now they hovered precariously near the boiling point: anger, frustration, lust, and the strange need to lavish her with riches, information, anything her heart desired. At the same time, in the back of his mind, a warning bell loudly clanged, and he could not help but wonder if, once she knew, she would ever look at him the same way again.

  “Reagan, cher,” he said softly, his knuckles brushing the petal-soft skin of her cheek, “it is a subject I do not wish to discuss, and if you care a whit about me, you will not ask again.”

  She tilted her head, leaning into his touch. “They say you bear the mark of Cain.”

  Jackson froze. “Who told you that?”

  “There was a woman. She came into the dressmaker’s shop and argued with Mrs. Bridgewater. I could not help but overhear.”

  Jackson scanned her face for the look of accusation he expected to find there. Strangely, he found only concern, mingling with something softer, a look of quiet yearning he was not sure he wished to understand.

  “Tell me, please,” she said.

  Jackson struck his colors, the only sound of his surrender a softly uttered sigh. “On the twenty-third day of April last, my brother’s body was found in my father’s warehouse on Front Street. He had been shot through the heart at close range. Though the sheriff investigated Clay’s death as thoroughly as his limited resources would allow, he could find but one suspect, one man with the motive, means, and opportunity to kill him.”

  “What motive, what means? What would make anyone think that you could—why, anyone who knows you—”

  “Your loyalty helps to restore my faith in human nature; however, I must remind you that you do not know me as well as you may think.”

  “Are you telling me that the sheriff was right?”

  “I am but stating the facts as others view them. You see, over the years, I worked hard to cultivate a reputation as a faithless cad, lacking in morals and possessing a temper that has proven lethal in the past. The premature deaths of a trio of men are on my conscience, and though the duels were fought fairly, it does not change public opinion a single iota, or lessen their loved ones’ scorn.”

  “I don’t hold much with duelin’ myself, but as long as the fights were fairly fought, I don’t see how it would stand to reason that you would raise a violent hand against your kin.”

  You are no son of mine! Do you hear me, Jackson? The flesh of my flesh and blood of my blood shall forever lie in yonder churchyard!

  Jackson turned his face up to the sky, watching as the lightning flashed and the skies opened up to the force of the deluge, surrendering to the throb in his cheek. “Tell that to Papa.” He took a deep breath. There was no stopping now. He had given her a portion, but he knew that a portion would never suffice. And it was too late to hold anything back, too late to do anything but plunge recklessly onward and let fate decree what came after. “We argued that night, Clay and I, over a woman with whom we were both involved. He had sent a workman to hunt me down, and the man found me in a tavern. When I arrived, sodden with whiskey, Clay was livid.”

  He gave her the tale, piece by lurid piece, leaving little to her imagination. His past dealings with Allegra, the assignation, Clay’s naiveté, the challenge, the fact that Clay had been very much alive when he left him, and seething for his younger brother’s blood... it all came trickling out, relentlessly dragged from the stygian depths of a tortured soul.

  “What did you do after you left him?” she wondered.

  “I walked the streets awhile, trying to clear my head, and eventually I made my way to Kate Flannigan’s bordello, where I whiled away what remained of the night. By the time I awakened it was well past five the next afternoon, and Clay had missed his chance to draw a bead on me. It was then that I heard the news—”

  In his mind, he rode Euripides through the streets like a madman, and, pulling the animal to a heart-pounding stop before the front gate, he flung into the house, past a grave-faced Antoine Garrett and a crying Bessie. “Papa met me on the stairs, and from the look on his face, I knew. Stunned, sick with grief, I pleaded with him to let me pass. I had to see Clay. I had to—”

  “But he would not let you.”

  “No. It seems the man Clay had sent to find me lingered outside just long enough to hear the argument, yet not long enough to see me depart and he seemed to feel duty-bound to carry his conclusions back to my father. As I pushed past him, he grabbed Grandfather’s sword—” He broke off, and it was a full minute before he could go on. “The blade was well honed, despite its age, and laid my face open to the bone. Papa looked shocked by what he had done, but he never reached a hand to help me as I stumbled from the house and into the street. Just beyond the gate I fell, and it was there that Uncle Navarre found me a short time later. I owe Navarre my life. If not for him we would not be standing here now.” He took a deep, cleansing breath and looked down into her upturned face, steeling himself for the worst. “So now you know.”

  She nodded, her eyes suspiciously moist, and as he watched, a single tear bridged her lashes and trickled slowly down her cheek.

  “Reagan, love, do not.” He plied his thumb, smoothing the moisture away, and another tear took the first one’s place. This one he kissed away, taking her face in his hands, nuzzling her lowered lids, her cheek, her temple. To enfold her in his embrace, to murmur endearments meant to soothe in her ear, seemed the most natural thing in the world. More than mere words, they slipped easily from him, seeming all the stranger for the fact that he meant every word. “You are sweetness itself, all woman. Pure temptation.”

  Jackson lowered his dark head, touching his mouth to hers, tasting the salt of her tears, wanting more than he had any right to ask.

  He was her guardian, her sworn protector, and the irony of the fact that he happened to be the one she most needed protection from was not lost upon him. It did not, however, prevent him from taking what she so sweetly offered.

  From the moment he touched her, Reagan was lost. She had begged for the truth, and he had given his all. But the experience had forged a bond between them that Reagan suspected could not be easily broken.

  She felt it now, warm and pliable, yet steely strong, winding its way around them, drawing them closer, closer, until they met and melded, straining, one toward the other.

  He kissed her thoroughly, deeply, bending her back over his forearm, ravishing her lips with his, driving her to the edge of madness, and perhaps a single step beyond.

  She wove her arms around his neck, tangled her hands in the thick, cool silk of his hair. Love me... oh, Jackson, love me. The words were a silent litany, an unspoken prayer repeated again and again, and she could only wonder when she had come to care for him so deeply.

  It wasn’t wise.

  It wasn’t something she could admit.

  But it was there. Was she falling in love with him? The thought terrified her, making her pull back in alarm.

  Undaunted, Jackson bent to kiss her throat, nibbling his way unerringly down. With a well-placed hand beneath his chin, she forced his head up, shivering when he raked her with his burning gaze. “Is it customary for a guardian to kiss his ward in so scandalous a fashion?” she asked a trifle breathlessly. “In Kentuc
ky it’s considered highly improper for a woman to have intimate knowledge of a man who is not her husband, prior to the vows being said.”

  “Alas, my love, we are not in Kentucky. We’re in Saint Louis, a city second in sin only to New Orleans. A number of improper things occur here at any given moment, and since it seems that the scandalous, as well as the improper, are my forte, I should be more than glad to instruct you.”

  Reagan moaned as Jackson crushed her to him, raining a trail of scorching kisses along the curve of her jaw and down her throat to the ridge of her collarbone.

  She should stop him now, she thought; then Jackson found her nipple through the thin lawn of her night rail, and all she could manage was a startled gasp.

  Heat assailed her, sweeping through her, threatening to overwhelm her. She reached out to push him back, and her fingers threaded into his hair instead, curled lovingly at his nape, holding him there as the petals of a burgeoning passion unfurled in the pit of her belly. Foreign, yet familiar, it glowed white-hot, then grew molten, bubbling up to sear her vitals and stream along her veins.

  Through a haze of desire, Reagan felt him urge the robe from her shoulders, and she lowered her arms to accommodate him, suddenly wanting it gone. With a sibilant hiss it fell to the floor at their feet, and was instantly forgotten as Jackson left one breast in favor of the other.

  He worshiped each fully, teasing the nipple to aching hardness, abrading its sensitive nib with his teeth and the tip of his tongue, then drawing it into his mouth and tugging gently.

  Reagan’s breath came quick and shallow. The torment went on and on until she could stand no more. Then she took his face in her hands as he’d done to her a moment ago, tipped it up, and kissed him.

  It was a deep kiss, filled with all the longing, the pent-up passion she’d endured in stoic silence on the wilderness trail, the loneliness she’d felt here in Saint Louis. He was everything to her, and silently she told him so, slowly working the buttons that closed the front of his shirt from their moorings, slipping the garment down over his broad shoulders, and whisking it away. In a thrice it joined the wrapper on the floor of the gallery, a splash of ghostly white against the bottle green. “This is madness,” Reagan said softly.