The Men of Pride County: The Pretender (23 page)

Patrice fixed her with a penetrating stare. “You have to tell him. He has a right to know.”

“No,” Garnet argued with a fearful ferocity. “He has no rights where I’m concerned.”

Patrice struggled to lift off the sofa. “If you won’t tell him, I will.”

“No! You can’t.” Garnet had started toward her when Patrice suddenly fell back, one hand at the small of her back, the other pressed to her huge middle. A look of surprise was rapidly replaced by one of distress.

“Patrice—?”

“I thought it was just a backache,” she panted.

“How long have you been having pains?”

“Since yesterday.”

She gasped as the floor about her feet grew wet with birthing water … and blood. Staring at it, her features tightened with a new source of dismay.

“The baby …”

Alarmed, Garnet fought for calm as she called for one of the house servants, then spoke reassuringly to the pregnant woman. “Don’t worry. I’m sure everything’s fine.”

But abrupt wrenching pangs added to Patrice’s anxiety. She gripped Garnet’s hands frantically to plead, “Where’s my mama?”

One of the maids peeked in at that moment and went wide-eyed with fear.

“Where’s Mrs. Sinclair?”

She shook her head at Garnet’s terse demand. “She went into town with Mr. Deacon this morning.”

“Reeve,” Patrice groaned. “I want Reeve.”

“Bitsy, wake Mr. Prior and tell him what’s happened. Get Mrs. Harkness from the kitchen and have her take Mrs. Garrett to my room upstairs. Have a horse saddled. I’m riding for the doctor.”

“And Reeve.”

“And for Mr. Garrett.” Garnet patted Patrice’s clutching hands. “You just relax as best you can, Patrice. I’ll take care of everything.”

Time wasn’t a luxury she could afford. Garnet raced upstairs, tearing off her fancy morning gown, replacing it with britches and one of Monty’s white shirts. She hurried down the steps, coming face to pallid face with Patrice as she was being helped from the parlor by two of the servants. A blotchy trail of crimson followed behind her, adding to Garnet’s haste. She didn’t
pause. Patrice was in good hands. Their cook had birthed eight healthy children on her own and would see to the frightened young woman’s care. The only thing she could do for Patrice was ride hard and fast into Pride to bring her the help and comfort she needed.

Cold morning air cut through the thin shirt fabric as Garnet sent her mount galloping across the Manor’s fallow acres. Taking the roadways would only slow her down, and minutes counted. She couldn’t block out the sight of that blood pooling on her floorboards. The only birth she’d ever witnessed was her own son’s, which was long but blessedly uneventful, but she knew that at any birth the mother and child could be in serious peril. Dismissing her own risks, she goaded her horse to greater speed across the dangerously rutted ground.

She couldn’t let Deacon’s sister die.

Mindless of the odd looks she drew from those on the streets of Pride, she urged her lathered animal up to the front of the store. Swinging down onto wobbly legs, she scrambled inside, past properly garbed matrons who gasped in shock and shielded their daughter’s tender vision, past loitering gentlemen who unashamedly gawked.

Alerted by the sudden murmuring of his customers, Deacon turned to follow the commotion as he measured the final scoop of rice into Carolyn Breedlaw’s bag. Grains scattered across the counter and rained down to the floor as he
registered the tense purpose in the mannishly clad Garnet’s face. She wasted no words.

“Deacon, where’s Reeve Garrett?”

His voice nearly failed him. “Patrice—”

“Do you know where he is?”

He turned to a boy who stood gazing dreamily at the jars of striped candy sticks. “Herman, run down to the livery and fetch Mr. Garrett.”

“And the doctor,” Garnet added breathlessly. Chilled to the point of numbness, she struggled to draw in air. She could only nod gratefully when Deacon draped a heavy coat about her shoulders. She pulled it tight with trembling fingers. Deacon’s hands clamped onto her shoulders.

“Garnet, my sister … is she all right?”

“The baby’s coming,” she managed between chattering teeth.

He leaned in closer, his voice low, commanding, cutting through her exhaustion. “It’s more than that.”

She didn’t want to meet his stare, knowing he’d read her anxiousness and see the truth. Instead, she nodded. The bite of his fingertips drew her gaze upward. His eyes were closed, his features absolutely still.

“Patrice, where is she?” Reeve shouted, as he ducked into the store.

“At the Manor” was all Garnet had time to say before he was gone.

“Mama,” Deacon murmured faintly. “Mama’s
at Mrs. Bishop’s dress shop. We came into town together in the carriage.”

“If you want to take my horse, I’ll see your mother home.”

Torn between his worry over his sister and his obligation to his mother and the shivering woman before him, Deacon considered for a moment, then said, “I’ll drive both of you back. From the looks of you, your horse is all in anyway. Herschel, mind the store for me.”

Garnet huddled in the backseat next to a weeping Hannah Sinclair as the carriage sped toward the Manor. She knew Deacon was sparing the whip on their account, but they still made good time, arriving just after the town doctor. Impatiently, Deacon handed the two of them down before rushing up the front steps. Reeve stood in the hallway, expression stark. His grimness brought Deacon up short.

“She’s not dead,” he stated, as if claim could make fact.

“No,” Reeve told him, then gripped his arm as he started for the stairs. “The doc’s with her. She’s lost a lot of blood. Mama, he said you could go up.”

Hannah raced passed him in a swirl of rustling taffeta.

And they began to wait.

With her room occupied by doctor and patient, Garnet remained in her clinging garments while her house rapidly filled up with friends of Patrice Garrett. She was surprised to
see a distraught and sober Tyler Fairfax on the doorstep. After she conveyed what little she knew, Tyler strode into the parlor to where Reeve wore a restless path in front of the hearth. Saying nothing, he crossed to him, yanking him up in a fierce embrace, hanging on tight when Reeve’s strength briefly buckled.

And then the breathtaking Starla Dodge arrived with her Yankee banker husband. She, too, had hugs for Reeve, then fell into weeping against her brother’s shoulder. The horror of her own miscarriage was still too recent for her to find optimistic words. Dodge braced his friend with a tall tumbler of whiskey and a solid arm of support. Drawn up in the close camaraderie of their shared past, they didn’t notice Garnet as they gave and took comfort from one another. Nor did they include Deacon in their inner circle.

Deacon stood apart from them, as silent and still as a piece of statuary. And was treated with the same compassion. No one approached him with meaningful hugs or words of reassurance. As if he didn’t need them. As if he were somehow immune to the gamut of emotions from which the others suffered.

It wasn’t true.

And it wasn’t fair.

Garnet started toward him, her heart swelling with sympathy. Then Monty stepped into the room, cutting her off with his cheery announcement.

“Mr. Garrett, may I be the first to congratulate you on your son.”

Reeve accepted the kisses and back slappings, then asked in a quiet dread, “And my wife?”

“She is resting comfortably. The doctor said you could go up now.”

In the next few minutes of chaotic relief, Deacon Sinclair slipped out of the room without notice.

By anyone but Garnet.

Drained by the rip and ebb of emotions, Garnet sought out her own son, miracle that he was, to make sure he hadn’t been frightened by the upheaval in their home. She found him outside, romping with Boone, sweetly oblivious to the adult happenings around him. Bitsy gave her a wave, her fondness for the child making her a loyal watchdog in his mother’s absence.

Not wishing to encounter any of their unplanned guests, Garnet took the back stairs, pausing at the top landing when she saw movement through the door opening out onto one of the back balconies. Her breath caught when she recognized the straight-backed posture and oh-so-solitary figure of Deacon Sinclair.

She should have kept walking. She was too vulnerable to his circumstance to remain objective, and that wouldn’t serve her cause. If she weakened to him, her indifferent leverage was lost, and there was precious little else she had to cling to where he was concerned.

But she couldn’t forget how alone he’d been
in the parlor below while surrounded by his family’s friends.

He knew at once that she was near. The moment she joined him in the crisp morning air, his shoulders set with an even greater stiffness. He didn’t turn and she suffered an instant of misgiving. This wasn’t a man who needed or wanted comforting, especially from a woman still seen as an enemy. Surely his friends below knew him better than she, and knew enough to give him the space he desired. She was wrong to think him vulnerable. Until she saw how desperately his fisted hands worked at his sides.

He was far from fine.

“She’s going to be all right.” She restated the fact, just in case he hadn’t fully absorbed it yet. After a long second, he nodded. “Deacon, both your sister and the baby are all right.”

Again, the nod, this time accompanied by a jerkily drawn breath.

Garnet approached slowly. She had to touch him, to make the contact that would let him know he was not alone. When her palms fit to his lower back, he gave a violent start, of objection or surprise, she didn’t know, but she didn’t withdraw. She moved her hands in a spreading circle, trying to soothe the tension from his stance. It was like trying to soften the brick of the building behind her. Disheartened, she said, “Perhaps you should go below and be with your friends.”

“They’re not my friends. If I were lying in there close to dying, there’d be no one standing
in that parlor. They’re here for Patrice. Everyone loves Patrice.”

It wasn’t envy or bitterness coloring his voice. It was something different, something deeper. She encouraged him to go on, with her silence and her continued touch.

“I don’t know what to say to them. I don’t know how to let them know that I treat them with such coldness not because I dislike them or think myself better, but because I was raised to believe openness and weakness were the same thing. I don’t know how to change that.”

He took a fractured breath and Garnet’s arms slipped about his middle. She leaned against his back, listening to the unexpectedly fast pace of his heartbeats, not letting him discourage her with his unyielding posture.

“I’ve treated my sister badly, letting her believe I thought her silly and frivolous, pretending I held her in contempt for her passionate nature. I’ve done things I’m ashamed to admit to, things that should have made her curse me, but still she gave me forgiveness and love. I never told her how much that meant to me, how much she meant to me. And if I’d lost her before I had the chance …”

His hands fit over Garnet’s, clutching fiercely.

“I don’t know how to say the words.”

“It’s not difficult,” she told him tenderly. “Just three words. I love you.”

She hadn’t meant to put so much of her own feelings into those words. He went completely
still, breath suspended, the restless kneading of his hands stopping. She waited for him to speak. When he didn’t, she prompted, “You’ve never told anyone that you loved them?”

He answered with silence.

Fighting down a prickle of envy, she asked, “Not even your Jassy? You must have said those words to scare your family into selling her.”

“Who told you that?”

Refusing to be intimidated by the sudden frostiness of his tone, she replied, “Patrice did.”

He let go of her hands, his body language denying her as much as his words. “Patrice doesn’t know anything about that. She had no right to tell you any such thing.”

“Then you tell me, Deacon.”

He was motionless for so long, she didn’t think he would answer. But when he did, it was with an unusual degree of candor brought on by his susceptible mood.

“You don’t understand, Garnet. How could you? You don’t know what it means to have the weight of our traditions rest upon your shoulders. I was my family’s future, and it was a duty I wasn’t allowed to treat lightly. I’ve been living for my family’s past and future generations since I was five years old. My thoughts, my decisions, my ambitions, they were never my own. When I was five, my father took me to the fields where one of the hands was being disciplined for trying to run away. When the overseer started whipping him, I didn’t see a piece of
property, I saw another human being. I asked my father to put a stop to it, and when he wouldn’t, I started to cry and ran back to the house. Of course, that humiliated him and he wasn’t a man to take disgrace lightly. That night he asked me which end of that whip I’d prefer to be on, that I had to choose the direction my life would take, right then at that moment. Did I want to bear the responsibility that went with all I would inherit, or would I be on the receiving end of those decisions? I didn’t understand. I couldn’t answer him. So he beat me with his riding crop and he asked again. By then, I knew which end of the whip I wanted to be on and said so. Then my father told me that he loved me and because he loved me it was his responsibility to see those lessons were learned.”

The horror of it left Garnet momentarily speechless. She pictured him at that tender age, the image of William, subjected to such brutality. Finally, she whispered, “But you were just a baby.”

“No. I was a Sinclair. And I never forgot any of my father’s lessons. He used to say that to control the destiny of many, one had to put aside one’s own needs and wants, that the sign of a man was in how well he could divorce himself from his true emotions.”

Men don’t cry. Not ever
.

She could hear his father talking through those words he’d passed down to her son and she knew a sudden, all-consuming fear. If Patrice told him that William was his child, what
kind of man would Deacon make him into? The kind of Sinclair that tradition demanded?