Morning Song (39 page)

340

"Yes, he's been with me ever since," Jessie answered clearly, her eyes moving to Clive again. Was it her imagination, or did he look just the tiniest bit relieved by her answer? She waited, but he didn't contradict her.

"I see. Thank you very much, Miss Lindsay. Of course, Mr. Edwards told us the same thing, but we have to corroborate everything, don't we?"

As Judge Thompson got to his feet, seeming relieved, Jessie looked at Clive again. He met her eyes, his expression as unreadable as it had been when she'd entered the room. Those sky-blue eyes were as unfathomable as the sea.

There'd been much she could have told Judge Thompson, above and beyond the fact that Celia's husband had no alibi for the time of her murder. But she had held her tongue, and even lied. The question was, why?

Jessie was all too afraid she knew the answer. And so, she feared, did Clive.

It lay in the vagaries of her foolish heart.

XLV

Celia
was buried the next day, in the small cemetery where Jessie's parents and grandparents had been laid to rest. It was raining, not the pouring sheets of the day before, but a steady drizzle. Like everyone else present, Jessie was both cold and thoroughly damp. Beside her, Clive, soberly clad in black as befitted a newly bereaved widower, held his hat in front of him and bowed his head at the Reverend Cooper's solemn words. He 341

seemed completely oblivious to the rain. Droplets of water beaded on his black hair and rolled like tears down his face. He looked so much the perfect picture of the grieving husband that Jessie's lip curled. Fraud! she wanted to scream at him, even as he was throwing the first clod of dirt on the coffin. He had not loved Celia, had hated her, in fact. He'd made no bones about having married her strictly for Mimosa. Now, since he was Celia's nearest survivor, Mimosa was his.

The question was, had he killed Celia to get it?

Miss Flora and Miss Laurel stood behind him, their faces puckered with concern for the man who, if they did but know it, was not their nephew at all. Neighbors crowded the small family plot. Beyond the iron fence stood Tudi, Sissie, Rosa, Progress, Pharaoh,

and all the rest of Mimosa's people in a large, silent mass. Jessie thought that she would by far rather have stood with them than where she was. They were her family now, the people who truly loved her and whom she loved.

Except they weren't her people now, but Stuart's. No, curse him, Clive's.

The fortune hunter had played his hand perfectly, and had got up from the table with the prize.

"Come, Jess, it's over."

Jessie's thoughts had taken her far away from the soggy graveside. Clive's hand on her arm and his whispered words brought her back to reality with a start. The service was over, his hat was firmly in place on his head, and the neighbors were parting to let the grief-stricken family pass. Jessie kept her eyes lowered as Clive pulled her hand through his arm, turned her about, and escorted her through the sympathetically murmuring 342

crowd down the hillside to the buggy that waited on the road below. It was only a short distance to the house, an easy walk in fine weather and one that Jessie frequently made, but in times of tragedy the family invariably chose to ride. Today, the rain had made it doubly necessary.

Now, according to custom, the mourners would retire to Mimosa to offer sympathy to the bereaved and partake of refreshments. In this instance, there would be the added attraction of speculating about who the killer might be. The most obvious candidate, the new husband who inherited all, was taken out of the running by the stepdaughter's alibi. That left the field open for the most farfetched of theories. Jessie did not doubt that the crowd in Mimosa's formal rooms today would enjoy itself very much by exploring them all.

'Are you all right?" Clive asked Jessie in a low voice as he handed her up into the front seat, where she would sit beside him.

Miss Laurel and Miss Flora, as the widower's supposed aunts, rode in the buggy with them. Their presence kept Jessie's reply brief.

"I'm fine," she said. Ignoring his frowning look, she lapsed into silence as he helped the old ladies to their seats.

The remainder of the day was a nightmare. Forced jy common courtesy to circulate amongst the neighbors who crowded into her house, Jessie developed a blinding headache. It was hard enough to pretend a grief she didn't feel. Except for the shock of it, and her niggling suspicion that maybe, just maybe, Clive's infamy might stretch to the extent of clobbering his wife over the head, she could not really ?e sorry that Celia was gone. But to see Clive pretending to be Stuart, accepting compliments on how 343

well he was holding up and looking suitably grave, made her want to shriek the truth to the skies. More than at any other time, during the course of that endless afternoon Jessie had a chance to observe firsthand what a consummate actor the man really was. Of course, always before when he had played at being Stuart Edwards, gentleman, Jessie had not known about Clive. It was later, near suppertime, and the crowd had begun to thin out, when Jessie saw Clive pull aside Mr. Samuels, Celia's lawyer, for a low-voiced discussion. Jessie's lip curled. Clive no doubt wanted to discuss the will.

"Lamb, why don't you go upstairs now? You've done what was needful, and won't no one say a word against you if you go to lie down."

"Oh, Tudi." Jessie put the untouched cup of coffee she was clutching on a table at her elbow and turned to lay her head on Tudi's comfortable shoulder. She was tired, bone tired, not only in body but also in spirit. At the moment all she wanted in the world was to be a small child again and let Tudi chase the bad things away.

"There, child, there." Tudi patted her back, and for just a second Jessie was comforted. Then Miss Flora came up behind her.

"Jessie, Stuart asked me to ask you to please join him and Mr. Samuels in the library."

Jessie straightened and turned to look at Miss Flora. Tudi bowed her head and faded away. "Did he?" She was sorely tempted not to go. Clive McClintock might be master of Mimosa now, but he didn't give her orders, and never would. But in the end she went. Miss Flora ushered her there so kindly that Jessie had not the heart to demur. Besides, what difference 344

could it make? She would go, and play her part a little longer. Then the next day, or even the next, this stunned feeling might leave her and she would be able to decide what she should do. Miss Flora knocked, then opened the door. "Here's Jessie," she said, and gave Jessie an encouraging little nudge when she was slow to go inside.

So Jessie found herself in the library again, with Clive seated behind his big desk for once and Mr. Samuels ensconced in a chair he'd pulled up to its other side. Miss Flora gently closed the door behind Jessie, leaving her alone with the two men, who rose politely to their feet as she entered.

"Pray accept my condolences on the death of Mrs. Edwards, Miss Lindsay," said Mr. Samuels. Jessie had heard the same sentiments so many times since yesterday that they scarcely registered, but still she manage a a polite "Thank you."

"Did you want me?" she asked then, looking at Clive. His expression was still suitably grave, but there was a glint in his eyes that told Jessie he would recover from his wife's death with indecent speed. In fact, though no one who didn't know him as well as she did would ever detect it, Jessie thought he looked almost relieved.

"Sit down, Jessie."

The gentlemen could not sit until she did. Although that wouldn't stop Clive, no gentleman he, if they were alone. Jessie took the same chair as before, when she lied to Judge Thompson. Clive frowned a little as she sat so far away, but said nothing as he and Mr. Samuels settled into their seats.

"Of course, you know that I am—was—Mrs. Edwards' lawyer." Mr. Samuels turned slightly in his chair to address Jessie. She inclined her head. "At his request, I've been going over her will 345

with Mr. Edwards. It contains no surprises. Upon Mrs. Edwards'

remarriage, of course, ownership of Mimosa and all its chattels passed to Mr. Edwards, and her death doesn't change that. Nor does it change the provision in your father's will that left you with the right to live at Mimosa for the rest of your life. Since that might be problematical now that Mr. Edwards, who is no real kin of yours, will be living in the same house without a wife, I've suggested to him that he buy out your interest. Did he follow that suggestion, you would be able to live anywhere you liked, in comfort, for the rest of your life."

"Buy—me—out!" Jessie was almost speechless. Was she to lose Mimosa on top of everything else? She turned huge, shadowy eyes on Clive. Surely he wouldn't do that to her.

"Hear him out, Jess," Clive advised quietly. With a quick look at him, Mr. Samuels continued.

"But Mr. Edwards, for reasons of his own—which I am sure are sound ones, although they are strictly contrary to his own interests and, in fact, my advice—has refused to follow that course. The course he has chosen instead is not, in my opinion, in his best
interests—but, of course, I am here only to give advice."

Mr. Samuels and his flowing sentences were losing her. Jessie grasped that Clive had declined to buy her out, and thought that was good. Or did he mean to kick her out without any compensation at all? Surely he wouldn't do that! But this was not the man she had thought she knew. This man was a stranger, and might be capable of anything at all.

"What Mr. Samuels is trying so nobly to say is that I've signed it all over to you, Jessie. Lock, stock, and barrel, no strings attached." Clive watched her with the air of a cat at a mouse 346

hole. Jessie frowned. She heard the words, but they made no sense. When she said nothing, he went on with a slight touch of impatience. "Mimosa's yours, as it should have been in the first place."

Jessie looked at Mr. Samuels. "Do you understand what you just heard, Miss Lindsay?" he asked gently, no doubt believing that her incomprehension could be laid at the door of her new and numbing grief. "Mr. Edwards has renounced all rights to Mimosa. The property is yours."

Jessie's eyes widened. Slowly they moved back to fasten on Clive. He didn't grin at her—but he might as well have. There was amused satisfaction in those sky-blue eyes.

"It's quite a magnificent gesture, I must say," Mr. Samuels continued, shaking his head. "And he had no need to do such a thing, of course. Everything came to him. Perfectly legal. But he thought, in light of the fact that he has only come lately to Mimosa, the property should be yours."

Admiration and respect for the man who would renounce such a rich prize as Mimosa were clear in Mr. Samuels' tone. Jessie had no doubt that this evidence of Stuart Edwards' true nobility of character would be all over the Yazoo Valley by nightfall the following day. "What a gentleman he is!" everyone would say.

"It's all yours, Jessie." Clive spoke very gently, as if he thought that shock at his magnanimous gesture was the reason for her silence.

Still Jessie said nothing. Her eyes were wide and almost unfocused as they stared at him. In his well-tailored black suit, he looked every inch the elegant gentleman and as devastatingly handsome as always. His expression was sober, but there was a 347

gleam in his eyes that told Jessie he was feeling pleased with himself.

It hit her then that the riverboat gambler was taking the biggest chance of his life: he was risking everything on a single turn of the cards. And it was clear from the look in his eyes that he expected to win.

Jessie started to laugh.

XLVI

Hysterics, everyone said as Clive, followed by an anxious Tudi, carried the still giggling Jessie up to bed. Held high against Clive's chest, gasping as she fought to breathe in between the gusts of laughter that claimed her, Jessie wondered if they might not be correct. But she didn't think so.

It was all just so funny. So hysterically funny.

So Clive had thought that he would sign her home over to her as proof positive that he was no longer the fortune-hunting gambler who had lied his way into ownership or Mimosa, eh?

What masterful strategy on his part! She would really have to congratulate him when she could find the breath! But, of course, a leopard didn't change its spots, and a gambler didn't lose his eye for the main chance. He must know that his deception, if revealed—and Jessie could certainly reveal it at any time—

would make his inheritance of Mimosa something less than a sure thing. In fact, he probably wouldn't inherit at all. Which tended to clear him as far as Celia's murder went. But then, if he'd committed the deed, she had no doubt that he had done so in 348

a fit of temper, with no premeditation, so perhaps he hadn't had time to consider that he was killing his meal ticket. In any case, with Celia dead, and Jessie already knowing him for the opportunistic cad that he was, he stood a very real chance of losing all that he had gone to so much trouble to acquire. How, then, to keep it? Why, give it to sweet, naive little Jessie, of course, who would be so touched by the gesture with all its ramifications that she would melt with love for him and hasten to accept the proposal of marriage that he would no doubt immediately tender! Then Clive McClintock, river rat, would have it all again: Mimosa and respectability. And this time, Jessie was sure that he would take whatever steps were necessary to make certain that, whatever happened, his marriage was perfectly legal.

Once a fortune hunter, always a fortune hunter. Only this time he'd outsmarted himself. Jessie couldn't wait to tell him so.

"Get Dr. Crowell up here," Clive said over his shoulder to somebody as he bore Jessie through the door of her room. His face was taut and anxious as he laid her carefully on the bed and remained for a moment, bending over her.

"Everything's going to be just fine, Jess," he murmured, his hand stroking briefly over her cheek. Then, before she could even think about knocking that hand aside or throwing his base intentions in his teeth or doing anything at all but laugh and wheeze, Dr. Crowell entered the room. Tudi, scandalized at the idea of having any man but a doctor in her lamb's bedchamber, shooed Clive out.