“Easy for you to say,” Reagan retorted. “You’re all soft and feminine, at home in petticoats and skirts. I’m nothing at all like you, Annette.”
“But you are, ma cher,” Annette countered. “We are all sisters under the skin. Tell me,” she said, placing a hand over her heart, “what do you feel here when m’sieur walks into the room?”
“Strange and fluttery,” Reagan said. “Not at all myself. It’s like I’m all out of control. My knees get weak, like I’m a boneless thing, and my heart... my heart pounds like it wants to leap right out of my chest. Given half a chance, I feel sure it would land at his feet... and my greatest fear is that he’ll stomp the life right from it. It takes all the will that I possess just to act like I don’t care.”
Annette just smiled her secret smile. “The object of the game is to intrigue, not to discourage; men love nothing more than a good hunt. Smile at his comments, no matter how inane. Touch your fan to his arm, or your finger to his cheek, and let that touch linger. Then, when he tries to steal a kiss, turn away.”
Turn away from Jackson’s kiss?
Reagan could not imagine, but she was willing to try Annette’s method. She listened to everything, drinking in the smallest scrap of insight into the perplexing mystery that was the male species in the hope that it would aid her in her cause.
Long after Annette returned to her duties, she practiced walking in the garden until her feet grew sore; then she sank onto a bench to watch the sunset, while Josephine sprawled atop the garden wall.
In a little while Jackson appeared, looking irresistibly handsome in a pair of nankeen trousers, a white shirt, and a deep green waistcoat shot through with golden threads. The trousers fit him like a second skin, leaving nothing to the imagination. Remembering all that Annette had told her, Reagan let her gaze linger a moment longer than she should have, then slowly looked away.
Strangely, he did not speak, just stood beside the stone bench on which she sat, watching her with that unnerving intensity that was uniquely his own, while he indulged in a leisurely smoke.
She tried to remember everything Annette had taught her; truly she did. Yet the moment he had appeared, looking so heartrendingly handsome, everything she’d practiced the past few days went right out of her head. “My, don’t you look handsome this evening. You headed down to that whorehouse on Third Street, the one we passed comin’ into town?” Reagan asked pointedly. Though she refrained from commenting on it, it was hard to put the image of the scantily clad beauties shouting and waving at him from the second-floor gallery out of her mind.
He smiled down at her, one corner of his mouth curling upward in a wicked grin. “Would it trouble you greatly if I said that I was?’ ’
Reagan resisted the urge to snort, elevating her nose instead. “Certainly not. If you want to spend your time and money on those loose-moraled chippies, I reckon it’s no concern of mine.”
“Umm,” he said, dragging hard on the cigar, then flicking it into the grass. “For a moment there I could have sworn that you were jealous, but I suppose, after all, I was mistaken.” He sank onto the bench, draping an arm over its high back, a hairbreadth from Reagan’s silk-clad shoulders. Her skin prickled alarmingly at the mere thought of his nearness, a fact of which he seemed blissfully unaware. “It’s a pleasant evening, eh? The air is deliciously ripe with the sweet tang of autumn—or is that your perfume?” He bent near, nuzzling the turn of her jaw just below her ear, breathing deeply as he did so. “Lemon verbena and lavender... no, ’tis definitely the night, though I must admit, your fragrance is almost as delightful.” He nipped the lobe of her ear; forgetting her ladylike decorum, Reagan swatted him soundly.
Jackson just laughed. The sound was every bit as rich as it was welcome, and all too fleeting. In an instant he had sobered. “We won’t have many more nights like this,” he said softly, beguilingly, and Reagan knew that it was not the beauty of the approaching twilight to which he referred. “We would be fools to let this time pass us by.”
“How right you are,” Reagan replied a trifle shakily. His very presence was potent, and possessed the power to unnerve her, to render her shaky and weak, uncertain as to which course was wisest to follow, and which would lead to a lifetime of regret. “I shall endeavor to make the most of the little time that is remaining. I have always loved the autumn, but this year I have not had the leisure to enjoy it. The nights already grow chill; almost before we realize it the snow will be lying deep upon the ground.”
“Well said, my sweet.” Reaching down, Jackson took her hand, settling it securely in his palm, folding his fingers around it. “But that was not what I meant, and you know it. The preparations are well under way, and the date of the ball will soon draw near. Your earthy beauty, your charms, are unequaled anywhere, and once you’ve been properly introduced into society, your days in my care will be numbered. Indeed,” he said with a sigh, “they already are.”
“I wish I was as sure of myself as you seem to be,” Reagan admitted. “What if nobody wants me? Have you thought about that? I’m no great prize, after all. I have no fortune, no family, no fortuitous connections. Shoot, I can’t even dance.”
“There is not a man this side of the grave who could look at you and fail to feel the blood pounding in his veins. And if that is not enough, I have settled five thousand dollars upon you as a dowry.”
Reagan gasped. “Five thousand! That’s a bloody fortune. You must be desperate to see me gone.”
He was silent for a moment, thoughtful, as he rubbed the pad of his thumb lightly across her knuckles. “I am desperate,” he admitted at last, “but not to see you gone. I have been many things in my life—an incorrigible, ungovernable youth, a rake, a devoted drinker, and a duelist—and it took my brother’s death to make me realize how little honor I had left. Buying a wild young hoyden at auction was not an unselfish act on my part.”
“Why did you do it, then?” Reagan prompted. She had asked him once before, but she knew that he had not answered honestly. Tonight he seemed candid and forthright, offering her a glimpse into the uncharted recesses of his heart, his soul— and, selfishly, she wanted to keep him talking.
“Because I wanted you even then.” His expression was grave, his gaze filled with a longing so keen it hurt to see it. The pain was sharp and sweet, a dagger to Reagan’s heart. Then, slowly, he smiled, and, getting to his feet, he brought her up to stand before him. “As for your not being able to dance, that is one thing that is easily remedied. Come, I will show you how it’s done.”
“Here? Now? Oh, Jackson, I don’t know—”
“Where better than here in the garden, with the crickets to serenade us, and the emerging galaxy to smile benevolently down upon errant, star-crossed lovers? And should I succumb to the enchantment of the moment and steal a kiss from my partner, I’ll wager that the moon would but wink conspiratorially at my folly.”
Reagan giggled as he slid an arm around her waist and drew her up against him. One hand remained captive in his; the other found a resting place on his broad shoulder. Before she had time to be nervous, before she had the opportunity to gauge his intentions, he swept her into the dance, guiding her slowly, effortlessly, gracefully, around and around and around, while the stars grew brilliant and the golden leaves drifted down all around them.
They reached a bend in the crushed shell path; Reagan laughed as he spun her off her feet. She was breathless and begging for surcease by the time the slim crescent moon appeared above the eastern horizon. “Surely it must be improper for a gentleman to hold a lady so close,” Reagan said, though she made no attempt to move away.
“It is, indeed,” he readily agreed, “yet happily I have never been fettered by gentlemanly constraints. ’Twould seem that being a rogue of the first water has its distinct advantages. Now, as to that kiss I mentioned.”
Reagan strove to recall the things Annette had taught her, yet as Jackson’s mouth grazed hers it all seemed somehow insignificant.
&
nbsp; He kissed her long and deeply, slanting his mouth across hers, crushing her body against his in a desperate embrace. When at last he broke the contact, Reagan made to step back, away; Jackson would not let her go. “Therein lies my folly, Kaintuck,” he said softly. “It seems I do not possess the will to stop at one.”
“If you do not stop, your carefully laid plans will be destroyed,” Reagan told him, winding her arms around his lean middle, pressing her heated cheek against his shirtfront. “I must go to my marriage bed unsullied. ’It would not be fair to my husband—”
“A pox upon your husband,” Jackson ground out. “I have yet to clap eyes upon the fortunate bastard, and already I despise him.” He raked an impatient hand through his raven hair and frowned down at her. “Damn it, Reagan, I know that you want me.”
“We can’t have everything we want. Don’t you know that by now?”
Jackson knew it only too well. His mind had been chanting those very words over and over in his head, almost since the moment he’d laid eyes upon her. He wanted only what was best for her, and thus he’d striven to keep his distance, yet what was best was not always easily attained, and at the moment, with Reagan filling his arms and the timeless moon staring coolly down from the indigo sky, his desire for this earthy slip of innate femininity completely overrode his good sense, his better judgment... and every instinct at self-preservation that he possessed, and which had kept him from her, deserted him completely.
As he whirled her deeper into the garden, all of the cares of his world fell away—his father’s enmity, his brother’s murder, her chances of making an advantageous match—leaving nothing but the enchantment and the simple wonder that was Reagan.
In the shadow of a spreading maple tree, Jackson halted, bringing Reagan up against him, capturing her mouth with his once more. Hers was a nominal resistance, a flutter of her hands as they rose to push against his shoulders, then relaxed and slipped up and around his neck, her fingers threading through his unfashionably long hair.
She succumbed so sweetly, gave herself up, a willing sacrifice to his carnal appetite.
He was weary beyond belief of being cautious. Circumspection was not in his nature. Seduction was, and Jackson plied his powers of persuasion, his ability to bring pleasure, with alacrity, kissing her long and well, teasing the soft inner recesses of her mouth with his tongue, making her giggle, then gasp as she strained on her toes to get closer.
There was no artifice in Reagan. Her passion, once aroused, burned as hot and as high as his own. Teasingly, she toyed with his waistcoat, slipping the tiny pearl buttons from their moorings, undoing his cravat and the first few buttons of his full-sleeved white shirt. Then she touched him, and the feel of her hand on his skin was Jackson’s undoing.
In less than an instant, he bent, sweeping Reagan off her feet and into his arms. “Jackson!” she said, “what do you think you are doing?’ ’
“Putting an end to this madness,” he replied, his swift, determined strides taking them across the shadowed lawn and up the stairs to the gallery.
Chapter Twelve
Before Reagan could form a defensible argument in her mind, or put voice to feigned indignation, he had borne her through the French windows of his bedchamber and dumped her unceremoniously onto the huge four poster bed. It was made of mahogany with sheaves of rice carved on the massive posts.
She landed hard, bounced, and rolled with a flurry of petticoats, her goal the far side of the bed, but before she could escape he caught the drawstring of her pantalets in his deft fingers and slipped the neatly tied bow that held them at the waist. A flick of his wrist, and he whisked them away.
“Damn you, Jackson,” Reagan said, forgetting her ladylike decorum. “Give them back!”
Jackson seemed unimpressed. He sat on the edge of the bed, pulling off his boots. One by one they thudded to the floor. His waistcoat came next, and then his pristine shirt. Naked to the waist, and looking demonic in the half-light, he stretched himself full-length on the mattress and grinned, twirling her pantalets on one finger. When she did not rise to the bait, he folded the garment neatly and placed it beneath his pillow. “To assure that my dreams are sweet ones.” Reagan held out her hand; he shook his dark head. “If you want them back, you’ll have to be a great deal more persuasive.”
“Only the worst sort of scoundrel would steal a lady’s drawers and put them beneath his pillow.”
“A scoundrel with a mission,” he said with maddening coolness. “What say you we strike a bargain? The liberation of your pantalets in exchange for a night in my arms. That way we both get what we want, at least in part.”
“You are outrageous, conceited, and rude!”
“Outrageous, without a doubt, but conceited?” He laughed softly as he chafed his knuckles along the length of the livid scar. “I fear that you are mistaken on that score, cherie. A face like mine leaves precious little room for vanity.”
“Callous and unfeeling! What sort of man would bargain with a woman’s virtue?”
“I was not about to wager your precious virginity,” he informed her. “I’m but bargaining for a night in your arms. The outcome is completely up to you.”
“What scheme is this, Jackson. Tell me true.”
He sighed, propping his elbow on the feather mattress and his head on his hand. “It’s simple, really. I want the night with you. I want to sleep with you cradled against me and wake with you in my arms. Stay with me, Reagan, just this once. I give you my word that I will not try to seduce you—unless, of course, you wish me to—and then it will be your decision, and yours alone to make.”
“You swear that you will not kiss me again, or—or—”
“Or make love to you?” he readily supplied. “Why, only if you beg me to.”
“And I can lie down fully clothed?”
A lazy Gallic shrug of his bare, broad shoulders. “I sleep unclothed, yet you may do as you please, although considering the sheer volume of your feminine trappings, it seems to me that it might be passing uncomfortable.”
“Pantalets and camisole, then,” Reagan amended, recognizing the truth in his observation.
He crooked one eyebrow. “A wise choice, indeed. Have we struck a bargain, then?”
Reagan nodded. She could not seem to form the words. The thought of lying with him in a proper bed, like a legally wedded couple, made her itch to abandon her pantalets to his tender mercies and flee. Yet she had given her word, and a Dawes never reneged on a bargain.
“My pantalets,” Reagan said as sternly as she could manage with her heart beating out an erratic tattoo against her ribs.
“My lady,” the unprincipled rogue replied, retrieving the garment from safekeeping, placing it in her outstretched hand. Quietly he waited, watching her with heavy-lidded eyes.
“The least you could do is turn your back.”
“And let you escape me?” He snorted. “Besides, your modesty is misplaced. This is not exactly the first time that I have seen you naked. Now come, and I will help you with your gown.” He patted the mattress on which he sat, smiling when she hesitated. “Surely you are not concerned that I will bite you, Reagan, after all this time? Of course, I might,” he added, thoughtfully rubbing the indentation beneath his full lower lip, “but only if you ask me very nicely.”
“When Hades grows icicles.”
He laughed at her reply, and a shiver of gooseflesh ran up Reagan’s spine. Her bodice was easily undone, yet the corset cover, corset, and camisole remained, along with her voluminous skirts, petticoats, and wire hoop, an uncomfortable contraption that caused skirts to bell at the hem, and which had just recently come into fashion.
Disdaining his offer, Reagan turned her back, struggling with the strings of the corset cover, her fingers trembling so violently that she managed only to pull them into knots.
“Feeling flustered?” Jackson said, rising to her rescue. He’d come noiselessly to his feet and now stood behind her, so close that Reagan imagined sh
e could feel the warmth radiating from his bare skin. “Here, let me help you.”
He put his arms around her. Reagan braced herself for a full rear assault. Yet, to her surprise, he gently brushed her hands aside and efficiently untied the knots. “Reagan, cher, your hands are trembling. Does the prospect of sharing my bed frighten you?”
“I am not afraid of you, nor any man,” she said defensively, then softened as his warm, whiskey-scented breath caressed the hollow below one ear. “I’m just a little nervous, is all. I’ve never done this sort of thing before.”
“It is as nature intended, for a woman to share a bed with a man... and just as natural for you to be nervous. If it helps, you may consider this practice for all of the nights to come.”
“The nights to come?” Reagan looked up at him, and for an instant she was filled with so much hope that she was barely able to breathe.
“With your husband, cherie. Now raise your arms.” Disappointment threading through her, Reagan obeyed his command, breathing a sigh of relief as he slipped the corset and cover over her head, the laces loosened but miraculously still intact. Next he turned his attention to her skirt, petticoats, and hoop, all of which quickly became a soft puddle of fabric at Reagan’s feet. Task completed, he braced his hands on his hips and looked her up and down, smiling when his gaze reached her feet. “That leaves only your stockings. They were not part of our original bargain. What say you, milady? Shall your lovely limbs be disputed ground?’ ’
His hands on her shoulders, he gently turned her, pushing her down onto the edge of the bed. Then, taking a seat beside her, he drew her legs onto his lap. “Such small and fragile bones you have. You were not made for the hard work of raising a family. It is something that must be taken into consideration.”
“You would manage my entire future, instead of looking to your own. What about you? Don’t you want a wife and children of your own someday, someone to look after you when you are old and decrepit? You must be all of thirty now. You haven’t a great deal of time left to you.”
Bride of the Shining Mountains (The St. Claire Men) Page 19