“You bargained for the chit and a new life, which is precisely what you shall have. What you make of the opportunity I have provided once you arrive in New South Wales, I shall leave to your discretion. Take it or leave it.” Navarre fingered his walking stick as if he would have liked to strike the big man with it, while the moment drew out, and the tension mounted.
In the interim, a throaty bellow blew off the water, along with the labored chug, chug, chug of a steam-driven engine. Over Abe’s shoulder, Reagan saw the bright golden glow of the ship as it rounded a bend in the river, heard the protesting hammer of the pistons as it reversed its great stern wheel and headed for shore.
Abe lifted and flexed his huge hands, his anger evident. “I told you not to try and cheat me, little man. Either give me my due or I’ll take it outta your hide.”
Navarre’s silver-headed walking stick came up so swiftly that Reagan thought she dreamed it, striking Abe under the chin, forcing his jaws together with an audible snap. Abe spat blood, reaching for the weapon, but stilled when he saw the pistol in Navarre’s left hand.
“Ignorant lout,” Navarre said with a sneer. “Did you honestly think you could succeed in blackmailing me? You saw what happened to Heath. A man with a brain would have taken his fate as a lesson, and left it at that.”
Reagan saw Abe’s face flush dark, and recognized an opportunity. “He’s made you look the fool. You gonna let him get away with that?”
Navarre frowned at her. “Not another word out of you,” he warned, “or instead of beginning life anew someplace far from here, you’ll be feeding the fishes.”
He turned back to Abe. “Now, what say you? Will you take what I offer? Or does the lovely Miss Dawes travel alone?”
Abe hesitated while Reagan held her breath, praying he would think the better of it and walk away. In a moment her hopes were dashed. “I’ll take the offer, but I won’t forget this, Navarre.” Reaching inside the barouche, he seized Reagan by the arm. “C’mon, L’il Sister. It’s time to go.”
Reagan resisted, dragging her heels, twisting this way and that in an effort to break his hold, but his fingers only dug deeper into her tender flesh. “Abe, please, let me go!”
Abe grunted in reply, propelling her across Front Street and onto the sloping mound of grassy earth that comprised the levee. A score of the monstrous ships that plied the river were moored at the water’s edge, their lightless windows and tall smokestacks ghostly in the fog.
She still had the necklace Jackson had given her, and it was worth a small fortune. If she could just break free, if she could manage to scramble aboard one of the ships, she might be able to bribe one of the crew members into helping her.
“Jackson won’t let this go,” she said, more to bolster her courage than to unsettle Abe. “He’ll follow you to the ends of the earth, if need be. And when he finds you, he’ll kill you.”
They reached the breast of the levee and started down the slope that led to the water’s edge. Twenty feet away, the crew of the Mirabelle was putting down the gangplank.
Reagan’s heart bumped painfully against her ribs. They were almost to the water’s edge, so close that she could see the curiosity on the boatmen’s faces. Oh, how she longed for a weapon! A stick, a stone, anything that would give her the few precious seconds she needed! Frantic now, she scoured the ground near her feet, her gaze coming to rest on her dainty high-heeled slippers.
They weren’t as reassuring as a frying pan, but they were all she possessed, and she seized the opportunity, gasping aloud, bending at the waist, as if in pain. “A moment, please, I beg of you! I’ve twisted my ankle!”
As she’d hoped, Abe halted in midstride, turning slightly toward her. At the same time, Reagan lifted her foot and forcefully ground the heel of her slipper into the big man’s instep.
Abe howled, jerking back onto the gangplank. At the same time, Reagan lunged, planting her hands on his chest, shoving with all her might.
Thrown off balance, the big man toppled, landing in the shallows with a gargantuan splash.
Reagan picked up her skirts and flew along the levee. Behind her, Abe’s splashing mingled with Navarre’s furious shouts. “Stop her, damn you! Don’t let her get away!”
Abe’s noisy pursuit spurred Reagan on, but the ground was uneven, her skirts weighty and awkward. She stepped on a small piece of driftwood, stumbled, and nearly fell. Her breath a desperate sob in her throat, she made for a boat just drawing up its gangplank. Lights ablaze, it teemed with passengers. “Wait!” Reagan cried. “Oh, please, God, wait!”
The boatman manning the walkway paused to stare at her. Reagan felt a surge of hope. And then a beringed hand snaked out, grabbing her arm, jerking her roughly back.
Navarre glowered down at her, a very real threat. “Did you think I would let you escape me, knowing you would fly back to Belle Riviere and my son?”
“You murderous skunk!” Reagan cried, uncaring if she provoked him to violence. Far better to die fighting than to meekly accept a life with Abe McFarland and risk the slow death of her spirit. “I won’t go with him! You can’t make me!”
“You can either walk, little bitch, or I swear I shall drag you every inch of the way!” Reagan struck at him, but he only caught her hand, twisting it cruelly, forcing it up behind her back.
At the same instant a familiar figure emerged from the fog, blocking their path.
Chapter Nineteen
Jackson’s long raven hair streamed water onto the lapels of his black broadcloth coat. With the fog swirling in thready fingers all around him, and the butt of his pistols protruding from his belt, he looked hard and unforgiving, and Reagan’s heart swelled painfully in her breast at the sight of him. “Navarre,” he said quietly. “Let her go.”
Navarre’s features showed his regret, yet whether it was feigned for Jackson’s benefit or genuine was debatable. “I wish that I could honor your request, Jackson. Truly I do. Unfortunately, this whole thing has gone too far, and I fear there is no turning back, not for me, nor, regrettably, for you. I must send her away, and you must allow it, for the good of the family.”
“Is that why you killed Clay?” Jackson said, taking a step closer. “For the good of the family?” Another step. “Was it?”
“Yes!” Navarre all but shouted. “For family! Mine and Miralee’s!”
Jackson’s grim facade cracked, revealing his hurt, his hatred, his bitterness, his fury, and Reagan could have wept for him in that moment.
Navarre must have seen it, too, for he loosened his hold on Reagan and reached a hand toward the son he’d known but never claimed. There was supplication in the gesture, a bid for forgiveness. “Boy, please. You must try to understand.”
Another step. Jackson stalked Navarre purposefully. “I understand,” Jackson said harshly. “I understand that you cuckolded your own brother and got a bastard child on his impressionable young wife! A son you never saw fit to claim! I understand that you murdered Clay, and while Emil was stricken, you fed him laudanum so that you could embezzle millions from the company! And, as if that is not enough, you would scheme to destroy my life by taking away the one scrap of goodness that I have found!”
“I loved your mother!” Navarre said. “Do you understand? I loved her, and Emil took her from me, just as he has taken everything!”
“He did not take your bastard son,” Jackson said, his mouth twisting at the irony of it all. “You gave me to him.”
Navarre seemed frantic now, frantic to explain, frantic for Jackson to understand. “When I learned that Miralee had conceived, I begged her to leave him! But she was fearful of what the resulting scandal would do to you. And so she stayed and earned a heart full of sorrow—and an early grave.” He gave a humorless laugh. “Can you imagine my agony? Being forced to watch as my son grew to manhood in my brother’s household, where he was treated as if he were inferior to that pious wretch he called his firstborn?”
“And so you harbored your hatred all of those
years, and when the opportunity presented itself, you murdered him.”
“I was protecting you!” Navarre shouted. Then, passing a hand over his face, he calmed. “I did not go there intending to take his life. I but overheard your argument, and as you went out the front entrance, I came in the back. I tried to talk him out of the challenge, but he would hear nothing of it. He was bent upon teaching you a lesson—a lesson I could not allow. I stopped him from hurting you.”
“You have a very strange way of protecting your offspring, Father,” Jackson said with a sneer. “In striving to protect me, you smeared me with his blood, you let me take the blow born from Emil’s wrath, you listened as the gossips maligned my character. Just how far would you have gone, I wonder, in your zeal to keep me safe? Would you have looked silently on through a lengthy trial had they decided to charge me with Clay’s death? Would you have held your lying tongue while they hanged me?”
The sound of Jackson’s angry shout carried out over the water, reverberating off the low bluffs before it slowly died away. His fury was spent, and all he wanted was to leave this place, this man, and the ruin of his past behind him. “You have been a constant in my life,” he said in a voice that was deadly quiet, full of dark intent. “My good and kindly uncle. I would hate to become the instrument of your departure from this world.” He held out his left hand, his right coming to rest on the butt of his pistol. “Yet if you do not give her into my keeping now, I will kill you.”
Navarre seemed to consider; then, with a shrug, he let her go.
Reagan started toward Jackson just as a huge fist came arcing out of the mist. Jackson caught the blow—strong enough to fell an ox—on the point of his chin. The mist turned dark and seemed to swirl around him. He had the crazy notion that if he but closed his eyes it would swallow him up, and only the sight of Abe McFarland advancing upon him kept him on his feet.
“You ain’t takin’ L’il Sister,” Abe warned low. “Ain’t nobody takin’ what’s rightfully mine!”
With the last syllable, Abe lowered his head and charged. Jackson held his breath, waiting until Abe was almost upon him; then he stepped aside and with a well-placed kick sent Abe headfirst onto the sandy soil. “She was never yours in the first place.”
The big man lay near the water’s edge, seemingly stunned. Yet as Jackson started to turn away he jumped to his feet, and, with a loud whoop, he lunged, locking his massive arms around Jackson’s waist, carrying them both down into the murky depths of the river.
Jackson swallowed water as he grappled to break the bigger man’s bone-crushing hold, but Abe was too large, too strong, and the water prevented him from landing an effective blow. He somehow managed to get his feet firmly under him, pushing to the surface, sucking a lungful of air. But just as quickly, Abe dragged him down again.
On shore, Reagan saw Abe lunge for Jackson, saw them disappear under the water. Abe surfaced long enough to grab Jackson’s hair and force him under again. Mindless of Navarre, she screamed Jackson’s name, dashing into the water. “Let him go,” she cried. “I’ll go with you! Oh, God, I’ll do anything! Only, please, Abe, don’t kill him!”
Abe looked up, and his lips curled back in a semblance of a smile. “You don’t understand, L’il Sister. I owe Seek-Um, here, an’ I always pay my—”
Boom!
The bark of Navarre’s pistol seemingly caught the big man unawares, for a look of surprise came over his bearded face. He looked down at the bright stain spreading over the breast of his greasy buckskin shirt, wavering slightly. Then he staggered and fell back into the river.
“Jackson!” Reagan cried frantically. She fought her way toward the spot where he’d gone under, while the current tugged at her cumbersome skirts. “Jackson!”
Just when she thought her heart would burst, he surfaced and, half-drowned but alive, shook his streaming hair out of his eyes. She staggered toward him, her knees weak with relief. “Oh, thank God. I thought that I’d lost you.”
Cold and wet and covered in mud, Jackson opened his arms, and she ran to him, uttering a small, soft sob as he enfolded her in his embrace. “I’m here,” he whispered, “and it’s over now. There is no one to keep us apart. Here, let me look at you.”
He held her at arm’s length, frowning as he examined the wreckage their disastrous evening had wrought. The gown had cost him a king’s ransom, and now it was ruined beyond all repair. Somehow it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except that he’d found her, that she was alive and well, and they were together.
“I’m afraid I’ve made a mess of things: the party, this beautiful dress,” she said. “Are you terribly angry?”
“I could never be angry with you,” he replied. “I’ll buy you a hundred just like it, plan a thousand balls in your honor, if only you’ll promise to stay by my side.”
“I love you, ” she replied through her gathering tears.
For a moment Jackson simply held her, savoring the warmth and the love emanating from her bright presence. Then slowly, resignedly, he turned her toward the shore where Navarre waited.
He faced Jackson squarely, proudly. “I suppose there is no sense in asking your forgiveness for all that I’ve done, yet as your father, I will beg you to remember one thing: there is nothing I would not do to keep you safe, Jackson, to see you happy... and that includes making a timely exit from your life. No, do not speak. I know as well as you that you will not attempt to detain me.” He smiled his old raffish smile, as if at some secret joke. “A life for a life, eh? You have what you wanted most. Leave me to my memories. You owe me that much, I think.”
Stepping forward, Navarre grasped Jackson’s shoulder, sighing wistfully. “Once again, Emil has won. If he has an ounce of sense he will be glad of the son he has left. His second son is far the better man, in any case.”
With that he turned and walked away. In less than a moment, the fog had swallowed him up.
Down the way, the Mirabelle sounded her horn, her engines quickened, and the stem wheel that drove her churned the brown water. Before she pulled into the channel, Jackson turned once more to Reagan.
“Abe didn’t hurt you? Or Navarre?”
Reagan shook her head. She wouldn’t tell him what Navarre had planned for her. He’d absorbed too much already, and that particular knowledge could only bring more pain. “I’m cold and wet, but I’ll be just fine now that you’re here.”
Jackson pulled her close, burying his face in her tumbledown tresses.
A crowd had gathered on the breast of the levee: Bessie, G. D., Emil, Kevin, even Antoine Garrett, and Madame and Monsieur Chouteau, who had noticed the commotion from their gallery and came to investigate.
Emil was the first to reach them, stumping along in the forefront, looking windswept but strong. “Navarre?” he said.
“Gone,” Jackson said simply. “He saved my life, Papa—” Jackson broke off, feeling suddenly awkward.
“Glad,” Emil said, with a jerk of his arrogant chin. “Glad to... have you . . . son. Papa, please. Yes,” he said, smiling. “Papa.” He grasped Jackson’s hand, then Reagan’s, and his eyes were suspiciously moist when he turned away.
Madame Chouteau fixed Jackson with a stem look. “Is there any truth to this latest scandal swirling ’round your handsome head, young sir?” she demanded brusquely. “Did you really purchase this poor young woman on the auction block?”
Jackson and Reagan exchanged warm glances. “Aye,” he admitted. “It’s true, I swear it. I bought my bride, and given the same set of circumstances, I’d do it again without hesitation, without a moment’s thought, and the devil take what the gossips think. I love her, Madame Chouteau... and I intend to make her my wife the first thing tomorrow morning.”
“Oh, Jackson,” Reagan said. “Do you mean it?” Laughing, he swept her up and into his arms, kissing her soundly while G. D. whooped and shouted and the gathering cheered. “Just try to stop me.”
Epilogue
Belle Riviere Saint Louis, Misso
uri September 29, 1830
On her flight from Saint Louis, the Mirabelle struck a sawyer and sank somewhere south of Natchez. All hands, captain, crew, and its sole passenger were lost to the swift current caused by recent storms. By all accounts, Navarre Broussard had drowned that fateful September evening. The river seldom gave up its dead, yet Jackson erected a headstone to his father in any case, beside that of his mother, gone these many years. Then, with a determination that was new to him, and which astounded even his harshest critics, he went on with his life.
As was customary, rumors persisted.
Some claimed to have seen a man matching Navarre’s description south of New Orleans. Jackson, when approached on the matter, could neither confirm nor deny it, but stated quite flatly that he had other concerns that took precedence, such as the twelve pounds of squalling infant he was, at the moment, trying to quiet.
“Ssshhh, ma petite. You will wake your maman, and Papa promised that she could sleep late this morning.”
Little Miranda Rose was not in the least impressed. Born in late July, the child had Reagan’s sable hair and, God help them all, her father’s temperament. “At moments like this one, I almost wish your uncle Gabriel were home from the Shining Mountains. He always had a way with women. Then again, you really should stay away from him. He’s a habitual bachelor, you know; he would only break your heart, and Papa does not wish to have to shoot him.”
At that Miranda yawned, and Emil, who sat reading the newspaper with Josephine at his feet, harrumphed. “She could do worse. You cannot contract... marriage .. . too young, Jackson.”
Jackson was properly horrified. “Papa! She’s just five weeks old!”
The old man just smiled. “Give her... to me. I will quiet.”
Jackson sent a frown in Emil’s direction. “I can manage, Papa.”
Emil was completely incorrigible where his granddaughter was concerned, and completely enamored. But he looked dubious as Miranda squalled even louder, all but drowning out the sound of the brass door knocker.
Bride of the Shining Mountains (The St. Claire Men) Page 31
