Bride of the Shining Mountains (The St. Claire Men) (19 page)

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.

J
ackson 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 prevent 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.