The squire looked up in surprise as Reeve strode into his study, walking straight up to plant his palms firm on the big desk.
“I musta been crazy to even consider what you
had in mind. Nobody buys me off like breeding stock.”
“Reeve,” Byron said reasonably, “that’s not what I intended.”
“No? Then why does it feel like you’ve just made me your new whore?”
He watched the color ebb from his father’s face, that dead white replaced by a slow-rising red. Behind thick spectacles, his eyes slitted in fury. Remarkably, he held to his temper as he spoke slowly, forcefully.
“If you feel that way, don’t place the blame on me. I made an honorable offer to you. If you want to make it into something ugly, I can’t stop you. But you consider this, Reeve. How else can a man like you even think to hold what I’m prepared to give you? You think chances like this come along like the crocuses every spring? This is it. This is your only way out of that cabin and into a decent life. You’ve made it impossible for me to give it to you any other way. There it is. Take it, if you’re man enough to hold it, or leave it if you’re the coward the people of this county are going to say you are.”
“They won’t accept me.”
“Make them.”
“I’m not one of them.”
“Don’t underestimate the power of my name. You’re my son, and no one refuses me.”
“They’ll say I had Jonah killed, so I could have his inheritance.”
Glendower went very still. “Did you?”
“No.”
“Then prove it to them.”
“How?”
“One at a time. One at a time. You told me you
were staying because of obligation to Jonah. What better way to honor Jonah’s memory than by taking care of the woman he loved? You can give her the things he meant to give her, things she has no chance of getting now, the way things stand.”
He could hear his own words, spoken thickly in earnest.
I
don’t want to take your place at the Glade. I never wanted that.
Breathing hard, mind spinning frantically, Reeve made tight circles like an animal with its leg caught in jaws of steel. The pressure ground down on him, cutting, tearing painfully. Part of him screamed for him to chew it off and gain his freedom while he could. Another whispered that the pain would ease if he’d relax and accept. He stopped his pacing and faced his father.
“I have a condition, too.”
“Thought you might. Let’s hear it.”
“Patrice can’t know anything about this. She’s got to want me for myself, not because I’ve got the Glade and the money to save her family. I won’t have her making that sacrifice. I won’t go through the rest of my life … not knowing.”
Byron didn’t say anything. Frown lines gathered between his brows.
“That’s it. Take it or leave it. If she can’t forgive me, there’s no point in me having all this, ‘cause you won’t get your grandchild.”
Panic stirred in the squire’s expression. “There are other women …”
“No. Just Patrice. It’s her or the deal’s off. You get to buy me, not her. She has to want this for herself. That’s my condition.”
A long minute passed, then another. Then Byron Glendower extended his hand.
“Done.”
Reeve looked at that outstretched hand, seeing his future there within that uncallused palm. And once those fingers closed about his hand, he would be imprisoned there forever, never able to free himself from the grasp of this greedy, ambitious man.
Everything he ever wanted.
All he had to do was take it.
His father’s grip was surprisingly strong. One press of flesh to flesh, then the contact ended.
And Reeve had the awful suspicion that he’d just shaken hands with the devil in exchange for his soul.
“I want you to move up to the house.”
Reeve recoiled from that suggestion. “Why?”
“It would look better. How do you expect to mingle with the cream of the county while living down in the woods like spoiled milk?”
He bristled in offense at the words while realizing their truth. “All right.” And with that, he was committing himself to change, to a loss of self. And to the pursuit of Patrice Sinclair.
The magnitude of what he’d done didn’t settle in until he was closing up the cabin. It had happened so fast. Once the momentum got ahold of him he’d been sucked under quicker than a sand bog. The crafty old man knew just what strings to pull to make him dance. And he’d been stepping to a lively jig.
“Mama, what have I done? Did I do the wrong thing? Did I do it for the wrong reasons?”
He sank into his mother’s chair, closing his eyes as his head rested against the high, carved, wood back. The movement of the chair continued to and fro, a soothing repetition that worked its calming
magic upon the frantic beats of his heart, quieting his fretfulness just as it had when he was a child.
Wasn’t he doing what Abigail Garrett had always wanted? Hadn’t her most ardent wish been for him to be one of the Glendower family? She’d urged him since the time he was old enough to understand what the word illegitimate meant to talk to his father to get a piece of his future guaranteed. His flat refusal broke her heart.
How could he accept a name that was too good for his own mother to claim? By moving up to the big house and becoming Byron Glendower’s child, he was distancing himself from the woman who bore him. And though Byron’s legal wife was never rude to him, he always saw a terrible fear lingering in her manner, a fear that he would usurp her son’s place in his father’s heart and will. He couldn’t blame the woman for her resentment. The entire situation created strife … with Byron manipulating them all from its center.
But his mother was gone, and his actions couldn’t hurt her. There was no Mrs. Glendower to shame with his presence, no Jonah to compromise with the competition for their father’s love. There was just the Glade and an old man looking to go on forever by continuing his line. And if he could benefit from that, why shouldn’t he?
And then as he was carrying his meager belongings up the central staircase toward the room the squire had assigned him, he happened to glance up and see Patrice standing there on the second-floor landing.
It was as if that picture had been waiting there in his heart for the right time for him to step into it. Patrice Sinclair Garrett Glendower, hostess of his
home, love of his life, mother of his children. And the notion that soon she could be waiting there for him, escorting him to a room they shared, to a bed they christened with love and the seeds of eternity sent a chilling dizziness through him. He paused there on the steps, breathing deeply to control his careening expectations.
Slowly, as she took in the significance of his presence and his belongings, the expression on Patrice’s lovely face altered from surprise to one of contemptuous loathing. And she turned from him without a word.
From somewhere down the lengthy hall, he heard a door slam upon all his hopes.
Deacon Sinclair stopped in his tracks at the sight of Reeve Garrett, reins in hand, planted on the wagon’s seat. Scowling fiercely, he stalked to the horse’s head to grip the leads.
“The squire told me I could have the wagon to head over to the Manor this morning.”
“That’s where I’m headed. Ain’t got all day. Climb aboard.”
“What?”
“How many times you actually lift an axe, Deacon? A hammer? Pounded a nail for yourself?” Reeve smirked. “That’s what I thought. Squire asked me to go along to see you didn’t hurt yourself.”
“I don’t need you.” Though still calm, Deacon’s voice was edged with an icy sharpness.
“Yes, you do,” Reeve drawled out, unconcerned with the other’s objections. “If you want to move
your family home anytime soon, you need me. Sooner it gets fixed up, sooner you’re out of here. You’re a smart man, Deke. That should make sense to you.”
Deacon’s frown deepened because it did make perfect sense. And better Garrett stay where he could keep an eye on him instead of remaining here where unchaperoned meetings with his sister were more than likely.
“Move over,” he growled. Without a word, Reeve complied, snapping down the reins on Zeus’s back before Deacon got settled, nearly tossing him over the seat back onto the stack of lumber in the bed.
Their partnership was off to a good start.
Reeve kept his opinions on the future of Sinclair Manor to himself. There was no way Deacon, with his lack of practical skills, could ever make it livable again. Not with the equipment at hand and the lack of pure grunt labor. Deacon was a soft aristocrat used to wielding his authority, not his muscle. He didn’t know the first thing about building or actual physical endeavor. Reeve shook his head to himself as he pulled on his heavy gloves. Patrice was going to need a place for her and her delicate mother to live. It wouldn’t be here at the Manor, it would be with him at the Glade.
Deacon could fend for himself.
He watched the stiff and proper owner of all the disrepair circle around from the back, scanning the eaves as if he had a notion of what he was looking for. Reeve waited for him to pronounce his findings, ready to pounce upon them as statements of ignorance.
Deacon stopped just short of standing next to him and cut right to it.
“Looks like the soffits are gone. There’s dry rot all over the west wing and the brick is in bad shape there by the south corner. Both will need to be replaced. Roof probably leaks, but I haven’t gone up under the eaves yet. That burned entryway needs to come down. And that’s just the outside. If I can get it buttoned up tight, I can worry about the interior rooms another time.”
Reeve gawked at him.
Deacon spared him a wry glance. “Did you think I spent all that time at school learning to taste wine? Man’s got to know what he’s dealing with, and right now, I’m dealing with a house that going to fall down around our ears unless some quick work is done.”
“I’d say you’re right.”
Without asking for suggestions, Deacon walked to the wagon to grab out several long coils of rope.
Hearing a soft tread come up behind him, Reeve turned to Jericho. He jerked his head toward Deacon. “He know what he’s doing?”
Jericho nodded. “My guess would be he does. Mista Deacon, he don’ start nothin’ lessen he looks at every angle first. Either jump in, Mista Reeve, or gets outta the way.”
Deacon strode by them on his way to the front of the house. He carried a three-pronged hook and was threading the heavy rope through a large eye in its handle. “Jericho, I’m going to need some pry bars. Have we got anything like that left around here?”
“Yessir, I believes we do.”
Taking a firm stance, he played out a length of
hemp, then balanced the hook in his right hand. With a powerful sidearm throw, he let it fly. Reeve watched in amazement as the hook swung around one of the ruined pillars to affix itself to its own tail. Deacon gave a sharp tug to make sure it was secured before looking to Reeve.
“Will that horse of yours pull on command?”
Catching his direction, Reeve nodded, and soon Zeus was tethered to the rope with Reeve at its lead while Deacon and Jericho worked levers under the base of the scorched column. At a signal from Deacon, Reeve guided the horse forward until the rope yanked taut and the animal began to strain.
“C’mon, Zeus. Dig in.”
Slowly, the timbers creaked, and plastering fell in huge chunks. With a great groan, half the front porch came down in a dusty heap. Ruefully admitting to the logical genius, Reeve backed Zeus to slacken the rope so Deacon could lasso the other support pillar. The second portion didn’t come down cleanly, the column breaking apart in the center with the heavy triangular entablature still attached to the upper story upon dangerously damaged supports.
Muttering an impatient oath, Deacon waved Reeve to the far side of the tottering structure, then arced the rope over the top to him. And they both began to pull. Nails screeched loose from brick. Weakened boards snapped. The whole thing groaned, hanging precariously, as if by some denying force of gravity.
“Jericho, get that bar between the brick and those timbers,” Reeve called out. “We go on three.”
Deacon set his feet, spat in his palms, then grabbed hold of the rope, nodding.
“One … two …”
Another voice cut in sharply. A woman’s voice. “Deacon, move on back from there. You’re too close.”
“… three.”
And as Patrice watched in horror from the back of her brother’s scruffy mount, she saw the entablature collapse almost in slow motion, parts of it dropping straight, other pieces breaking off before plummeting downward—right at Deacon. As she screamed his name, he threw up his arms to protect his head just an instant before the debris knocked him to the ground.
Reeve and Jericho were already pitching boards off him when Patrice knelt at her brother’s side.
“Deacon? Deacon? Is he all right?”
A moan answered her, then a curt, “Get off me. I’m fine. We’re wasting time here.”
“He’s all right,” Reeve said with a touch of dry amusement as he levered off the last of the wood. Then he wasn’t smiling. “Deke, don’t move.”
“I’m fine. Let me up so we can get back to—”
The heel of Reeve’s hand struck his shoulder with a stay-put force, pinning him to the ground.
“What do you think you’re—”
Deacon’s angry sputter died off at the sound of Patrice’s gasp.
“Oh, Lord … Deacon, do what he says!”
Deacon followed her wild-eyed stare and paled dramatically.
A long, jagged splinter pierced the meat of his forearm just below the wrist, exiting near his elbow, where the rest of it was buried deep in the dirt, holding his left arm erect like a flagpole. If not for his instinctive cover-up, the lethal spear would have
gone straight into his chest. Fatally. Deacon stared at it, shock numbing him from the full brunt of pain … for the moment.
“Jericho, hold him down.”
Deacon turned toward Reeve. “What are you—?” The rest was lost as Reeve cuffed his wrist, braced his upper arm with his other hand and pulled up firmly. Surprise and a sudden flame of agony tore a raw cry from him.
Reeve had his big knife out to cut away coat and shirtsleeves. Patrice gave a low moan and looked away.