The Men of Pride County: The Pretender (24 page)

No.

No one was going to do that to her child in the erroneous name of love.

“Didn’t you ever question if he was right?”

Deacon revolved slowly to stare at her as if she’d suggested something totally foreign. “What?”

“Didn’t you ever wonder if he was wrong?”

He hesitated, reluctant to speak so traitorous an admission. “Only twice.”

She waited for him to go on.

Having gone so far in his confessions, it was more difficult to stop than it was to continue. So he continued.

“She was more than just a servant.” He was speaking of Jassy, of course. Garnet stiffened slightly, unable to repress her jealousy of this long-ago lover who still had the power to soften his steely gaze. “She was smart and sweet and spirited, and she wanted so much more than circumstances would allow her. I wanted to give her those things because she deserved them. She was a friend to Patrice and to me. We taught her and her brother Jericho to read and write, and they both were so eager to learn. Maybe it was wrong of us to give them that knowledge. The law forbade it and so did my father, but it seemed so unfair to ‘Trice and me. What did we know? We were children. And I was a fool.

“Jassy was beautiful. She made you feel special
when she smiled at you. I was fifteen, sixteen, her master’s son. I made promises to her to win those smiles, and she boasted of them to others. Word got back to my father, and he called me into his study to tell me how things had to be. I could have Jassy for a mistress, but I couldn’t care for her. I could take her body, but I couldn’t give anything in return. That’s what my position demanded. It would have meant stripping her of her pride, her value, in front of those she cared about and respected. It would have been an unforgivable insult after all the kindnesses she’d offered. But that’s all my father would allow me to give. And he left me with the choice.”

His expression was absent of any clue, so Garnet prompted, “What did you do?”

“I sold her, away from her family, away from her friends, away from me. Because I loved her too much to let her mean so little to me.” His mouth twisted up on one side into a cynical half smile. “So you can see why I’m not in such a hurry to claim love for another.”

“You said twice. When was the other time?”

“When I went back for you.”

Chapter 17

S
tunned by his unexpected admission, Garnet was slow to respond with the sudden barrage of questions sweeping over her. She couldn’t have spoken past the huge knot of emotion wedged up into her throat had she had the chance.

“You’re shivering.”

His comment fell short of describing the devastating tremors that had taken control of her system.

“You should get those damp things away from your skin before you catch a chill.”

If his intention was to distract her from his earlier statement, the lowering of his voice to a smoky register more than succeeded. The intensity of his stare mesmerized her. As he reached out to unfasten the first button of her shirt, her heart began to beat like a long-caged wild thing at the prospect of being freed.

Slowly, he worked his way down the front placket, the movement of his fingers a purposeful
enticement. With a shrug of her shoulders, the heavy coat he’d draped about her at the store became a circling of dark wool about her ankles. His gaze keeping hers a willing hostage, he gripped the hem of the shirt and lifted it over her head. Beneath it, she wore only a chemise. While her arms were yet raised, his hands stroked down them with a soul-shaking leisure, warm palms over chilled flesh, from wrists to shoulder caps. At the same time, he bent, inviting her arms to encircle his neck, her hands to clutch at his head as his mouth touched hot and moist to the jut of her collarbone.

The breath left her lungs in a forceful exhalation.

Shocks of excitation followed the gradual trail his lips made along the edge of delicate lace, over one ample hill to the deep valley created by the snug pull of batiste. As the tip of his tongue dipped down to taste that shadowed crevice, her nipples beaded, tightening into achy pulses of need. She couldn’t breathe as his hands eased down and around the curve of her ribs to claim the full underside of each breast. The first rub of his thumbs across those tender peaks drew a shaky moan, so wanton, so raw, she couldn’t believe the sound had come from her.

There was no point in her pretending that this wasn’t what she wanted, or that he wasn’t who she wanted it from. The scorch of his breaths against uncovered skin woke her entire body to remembered pleasures, making her yearn for
them all over again as she tipped her torso toward him in blatant offering. The fact that she was in partial undress out on an open balcony being made love to by a man who wasn’t her husband fled to a far corner of her brain as he suckled through the thin barrier of her chemise.

Just as her legs threatened to fold, Deacon sank down onto his knees, lowering hers to rest atop his thighs. His mouth continued to provoke riotous responses while one hand raised similar havoc at her other breast. His free hand caressed along the indentation of her waist, over the swell of her hip to finally fit to the widespread inner seam of her man’s trousers. His palm cupped the soft mound of her femininity, pressing, revolving slowly until her sweetly curved bottom picked up the rhythm, a tempo echoed by her suddenly altered breathing as it gusted in rapid snatches.

Her hands fisted in his hair as her head fell back, her eyes closing, back arching so that her breast flattened against his face. He sucked harder, pulling hot licks of urgency toward a desperate end.

With the heel of his hand riding her in an ever-increasing hurry, Garnet surrendered the passion roaring through her blood. Shattering waves of sensation broke at last, sweeping her out beyond the limits of self and sensibility, to a point where heart and soul were controlled by a hot, pulsing paradise. She drifted back in a dreamy languor, vaguely aware that Deacon’s kisses moved from her throbbing breast to the
taut bow of her throat, from there, in a gliding sweep along her left arm, to where he held her hand in his. Pausing at the heavy gold band she wore. Then he shocked her back from her sated lethargy with one soft-spoken truth.

“I came back for you, Garnet, but you had already moved on to another.”

She slid from his lap as he gained his feet to look down upon her through eyes absent of any identifiable emotion. Slowly, he bent to pull the coat around her bared shoulders, closing it over the dampened bodice and the loose spraddle of her thighs. Without another word, he went inside, leaving her in a confusion of bliss and bereavement.

Unaware that they had been observed.

Drained by her ordeal, yet dozing upon a balm of satisfaction as she listened to the sounds of her new baby snuffling at her side, Patrice Garrett was too weary to open her eyes when she heard someone moving at her bedside. A light touch brushed wayward strands of hair from her brow for the placement of an equally gentle kiss. Reeve? As she struggled for the strength to smile, she heard words spoken in low reverence.

“I love you, Patrice.”

Not Reeve. Impossibly, it sounded like …

“Deacon?” She whispered his name as her eyes fluttered open with a frail awareness.

But he’d already gone, letting her slip back to
sleep with his cherished claim held close to her heart.

By early evening, the doctor pronounced Patrice and her as yet unnamed son fit enough to travel home. Bundled up snugly, they were driven to the Glade by a proudly beaming Reeve. Hannah followed in a gallant Montgomery Prior’s escort. And Garnet took advantage of the silence in her home to have a hot bath drawn.

But even the steaming water couldn’t soothe away the feel of Deacon’s touch, nor the betraying way her body had responded. Nor could an intemperately large glass of wine soothe her troubled mind as she huddled beneath the covers of his big bed.

He’d come back for her
.

What exactly did that mean? Without a declaration of love to preface it, perhaps it meant nothing at all, beyond a way to manipulate her emotions. And those feelings were being snapped about like a bedsheet on a clothesline in a battering March wind. Having displayed her vulnerability, what was the next step in her rapidly disintegrating plan? The very lie she’d concocted to keep Deacon at bay was also keeping him from admitting the one thing that she longed for—that he loved her. She had to think calmly, logically, of what to do now—not all that easy when her body still hummed from his expert handling.

In her naïveté, she’d underestimated how
complex Deacon Sinclair was. He wasn’t a man who showed his emotions. She understood that, now that she knew a little of his past. But could that heart be touched by a deceitful woman who’d done her best to strip a proud man of his dignity in the name of retribution? A woman who quickly gave way to the very sentiments she pretended to abhor?

Now, how to resurrect her dreams? Did she admit to the true parentage of her son? Could she ever hope to gain Deacon’s love and trust, as long as she played his past betrayal against her current lies? As long as she lived under the roof that bore the traditions of all the Sinclairs before him, denying him his rightful place among them, how could she expect him to admit to any love for her?

With her world gone up in flames, reeling with the knowledge of her father’s false imprisonment, she headed north in a panic, to the one safe harbor she knew. Her mother’s brother, Monty, had sent her a letter upon hearing of his sister’s death years before. In it, he said anything she needed, any time, he’d see was hers. He’d been surprised to see her on his doorstep, but he’d made good on his promise.

When she’d discovered her pregnancy, her uncle wanted to take her back to England with him, a home he hadn’t seen for nearly twenty years. He’d begged her to give up her quest for justice, citing her mother’s own end. Julia Prior had fallen deeply, and, according to her family, unwisely in love with William Davis. Against
their wishes, in spite of their threats, she’d married the poor farmer and without a moment of regret, she’d left behind her comfortable life. Garnet thought the story wildly romantic, the Prior family less so. They’d tried to control their daughter by cutting off her funds. To their dismay, the money made no difference to a young woman lost to love. Both sides had been too proud to make the first step toward reconciliation, and now the only family Garnet had after her father’s untimely and unfair demise was a foreign-accented stranger with a grandfatherly manner and an unbreakable vow to see her happy.

But happiness eluded her.

Like her mother, the money didn’t matter to Garnet. It wasn’t this big house, the closet full of fine clothes, it was family. She had wanted a home for William. But this wasn’t their home. The cool elegance of its halls and the cold embrace of this big, lonely bed held no welcome, and each day spent within them only reminded her of that exclusion. Tradition wasn’t something she could buy. Just as love wasn’t something she could pull from a heart that had hardened itself to the surrounding world.

There would be no happiness for her within this house unless she bore the name Sinclair. And that wouldn’t happen as long as she was Mrs. Prior.

And that left one question. The only question.

Could she risk everything on the hope that Deacon Sinclair loved her?

Or that he could ever forgive her?

The best atmosphere for conducting business was over the green felt of a card table and a full glass of bourbon.

Montgomery Prior enjoyed both, but not as much as he liked working a deal.

After leaving Hannah at her daughter’s grand horse farm, he traveled into town, where a not-so-chance meeting with Judge Banning became a lucrative opportunity with some of the county’s most influential and unscrupled gentlemen. For the first few hours, Monty played the good sport, losing more than he won and listening more than he talked. As the liquor loosened tongues, opinions overcame popular sentiment, and he was able to get a true reading on his neighbors and the one thing they worried over most.

“Roads,” Alf Dermont growled. He might not have been the most prestigious of their number, but he spoke for all of them. “Choke you with dust all summer and drown you in mud in the winter. Why, hell, they ain’t nearly wide enough for two wagons to pass in most places, and whilst we’re out there buried to the axles, some fancy official is making promises from the town’s porches—promises he ain’t never gonna keep.”

“Internal improvements,” Judge Banning agreed. “Now, there’s a topic no local politician can brace without sinking in the mire himself.”

“And why is that, Judge?”

Banning gave the Englishman a condescending
smile.” ‘Cause neighborhoods build their own roads, then the landowners have to get permission from the county board to fence their fields and put up their gates to keep livestock from wandering. Governments are particularly keen on ignoring problems that they don’t have to trip over every day.”

Monty casually studied his cards, then declared himself out of play, allowing a grinning Tyler Fairfax to scoop up the pot. “So the man or men who managed to achieve these improvements would be deemed heroes by the local populace.”

Tyler regarded him shrewdly from across the table. “What are you gettin’ at, Prior?”

“You said this particular circle has an interest in politics. If a man wanted to be county supervisor, that would be a position of considerable power. If he hand-picked the county board members to share in his good fortune, then approved lucrative requests for, shall we say, favors, I’d think a man could profit quite nicely.”

“And your interest in this would be—?”

Monty smiled in the face of Tyler’s suspicions. “Why, as a citizen of Pride, I want only the best for her … and for me. In fact, I would be willing to organize a local bond issue through my contacts in the North to get improvements on the roads, and I’ll start by contributing generously, and by negotiating an extremely high rate of return for those farsighted enough to invest in the future of their community.” He laid his cards facedown on the table with a sigh. “This is not
my night for gambling. If you gentlemen will excuse me, I’m going to take a moment of air.”