To Love a Scoundrel (37 page)

Glancing at the balcony above them, she approached him, whispering, "Let's go inside. I don't want any of this to be overheard."

Still staring out to the fields, he shrugged. "It's not necessary. No one can hear us out here. The room above us is mine, and the windows of the other bedrooms are down at the corner of the building."

Her sense of privacy satisfied, she pressed against his ribs and looped her arm through his. "What do you want to know?'' she said quietly, without cunning or forethought.

Inclining his head, Brent kissed the top of her hair and sighed. "I think you have some idea what concerns me. Why didn't you tell me Harry really was your father?"

Giving him a tiny smile, she shrugged. "I did once."

Brent furrowed his brow, trying to remember.

"In your room," she reminded him as wings of a shyness that was not part of her personality fluttered in her breast. "You know, after the first time we, ah, settled a score."

"Oh," he said with a short laugh. "Yes, of course, a day I shall never forget." Sliding his arm around her waist, he squeezed, loving the feel of her against him. "Now that I think about it, I do recall you telling me to lay off Harry because he was your daddy, but did you really expect me to believe it then? You get a new father as often as a southern belle recovers her virtue. How was I to know you'd finally told the truth?"

Jewel cocked her head, toying with him. "Are you so certain I'm telling the truth now? What makes you think Harry really is my true and natural father? Surely not because we both have a few silly freckles."

Brent spun around and faced her. "The freckles helped," he said, grinning as his gaze followed a trail of them across the bridge of her nose, "but you've got a lot more than that in common with old Harry. I don't know why I didn't see it sooner." He reached up and stroked her cheek as he studied her features. "Those beautiful eyes are a dead giveaway—not the exact shade so much as the look—there's something cool and crafty in those Benton eyes."

Lowering his fingers, Brent's voice followed suit as he murmured, "There's also the shape of your jawline and chin—it's stubborn and ornery, a match to that of one of the country's more accomplished jewel thieves. Speaking of which—I wonder if Harry's put that together yet."

Before he could expound on that thought, Jewel finished it for him. "I don't know if
he
has, but I certainly haven't missed the irony in a jewel thief siring a daughter named Jewel." Then, and not for the first time, she had to pause and wonder if perhaps her mother hadn't concealed a healthy sense of humor beneath that stern and very proper exterior. Had she actually named her daughter Jewel to spite crusty old Lemuel Flannery?

With a short laugh, Jewel snapped out of her musings and blinked up at Brent. "Your observations about my parentage are merely interesting at best. I don't see how you've discovered conclusive proof that Harry and I are related in any way."

"I wasn't quite finished with my appraisal." He let his hands slide down her neck, following the contours of her shoulders before they came to rest at her elbows. "The most incriminating—please forgive the use of such a descriptive word—link you have with old Harry," he said, pausing dramatically as he reached for her hands and held them up between them, "is the fact that you both have these odd, but completely adorable, half-grown pinky fingers."

"Damn." She pulled her hands from his and lowered them to her sides. "Betrayed by the Benton binkies."

"The what?"

"Binkies," she said, frowning as her good humor sank into the dark sea of her troubled thoughts and injured feelings. "It's what Harry called them the day I stuck my hands in his face and informed him that I was his daughter."

Hearing the change in her voice, the brittle edge to her tone, Brent slid his index finger back under her chin and forced her to look up at him. "I saw you that day, you know. I watched as you went into what I thought was just another role. At the time I thought you were the best actress I'd ever seen." He paused, observing her expression, noting the pain in her eyes. "None of it was an act, was it? It hurt. It still does."

Jewel twisted her head away from him and raised her fists to his chest. "I don't want to talk about this. Not now. Not ever. Let me go, Brent. I'm getting cold. I want to go to my room now."

Understanding that his next words would either pound some sense into her or drive her away, Brent hesitated only a moment before he took the chance and said, "If you've taken a chill, it's not coming from this warm night air. It's coming from here." He pressed his palm against the exposed part of her breast. "Sometimes you can be very cold inside, Jewel. That's a mighty difficult kind of chill to ward off."

Her back went rigid as his words, far too close to the truth for her to acknowledge, scalded her ears. Jewel's eyes blazed as she snapped, "I'm not cold inside. I don't know how you can say such a thing. You always seem to be well heated in my presence."

"That's not what I meant and you know it." He couldn't ignore the sudden anger her denial sparked in him. After taking a deep breath, he softened his tone and tried once again to explain. "I only want you to take a look at your feelings, Jewel, your heart. Every time I think I'm on solid ground with you, something happens. Whenever I begin to get close, you freeze up and I seem to fall through the ice."

She opened her mouth to object, but closed it when she saw his pain and the sincerity in his eyes. She swallowed the sudden ache in her throat instead, then uncurled her fists. Lowering her head to the comfort of his broad chest, she murmured against his cotton shirt. "I don't mean to do that to you, Brent, really I don't. It's just that now is such a difficult time for me. I really can't deal with you and Harry, too. If you'll just not push me till after I settle the score with him, maybe things between us can be a little different."

"What do you mean by 'settle the score'? Help me to understand, sweetheart," he whispered against her hair. "Now that we know my family was not victimized by him, I can't see anything but a happy future for us all. What's left for you and Harry but to get to know each other a little better?"

She raised her head and leaned back. "Have you forgotten who I am, Brent and what I am? Harry Benton is a thief, remember? My job is to find evidence of his crimes, then bring him in. I can't let this go until I've done just that."

Brent released her and moved far enough away to get a clear view of her expression. His voice incredulous, he said, "You can't possibly expect me to believe the Pinkerton Agency requires its operatives to arrest members of their own families."

"Please," she whispered, scanning the veranda and its surroundings. "I know you said we couldn't be heard here, but I'd appreciate it if you'd keep your voice down and not mention the name of my employer again."

"All right," he agreed softly, glancing around for a more private spot. "Why don't we take a stroll down the path to the oak grove. There's a nice little summerhouse right smack in the middle of the trees."

Jewel glanced up at the windows and looked for telltale shadows, but the curtains were all drawn. Assured their walk would be unobserved, she agreed. "I think that would be wiser than standing out here waiting to be discovered."

"Come on, then."

Reaching for her hand, Brent gave it a little squeeze before he guided her down the few short steps leading to the brick pathway. As they passed through the ruins of Miriam's rose garden, the scent of jasmine and honeysuckle grew stronger, beckoning to Jewel through the gnarled branches of purple-shadowed live oaks. A chorus of bullfrogs joined in with the crickets, and suddenly the peaceful countryside didn't seem so quiet anymore. Just as they reached the wooden steps leading to a small circular gazebo, a sparkling shower flashed before Jewel's eyes, startling her, then just as quickly darted out of her vision.

"Brent?" she said, searching the semidarkness for the images, doubting her usually excellent eyesight. "I thought I saw some tiny lights or something."

"Lightning bugs," he said as he guided her up the steps and onto the wooden platform. "Can't usually see them in the moonlight."

"Fireflies?"

"Yes, my dear. Fireflies looking for the perfect mate." Pausing, he made sure he had her full attention before he finished with "They're not so very unlike people."

At his final words, the heavy innuendo behind them, Jewel pulled her hand away and began to walk around the circumference of the summerhouse. She casually studied the lattice roofing and its covering of heavy vines, noting the small white blossoms and the heavy scent of honeysuckle. Taking a few more steps, she reached a small table with several cast-iron chairs ringing it. Jewel slowly ran her fingers over the scrollwork, then continued her silent, distracted inspection.

Growing impatient, assuming her careful perusal of the gazebo was only a way of avoiding his attempts at a personal conversation, Brent reverted to the previous discussion. "Why don't you have a seat and explain this nonsense about trapping your own father?"

Stopping at one of the chairs, she looped her fingers around the back and gripped the iron as she stared across the table at bim. "It isn't nonsense, Brent. I intend to bring Harry in if I have to follow him for the rest of my life."

His extravagant eyebrows drew together in disgust. Leaning over the table's glass top, he asked, "How can you even
think
of doing such a thing?''

Jewel set her jaw and leveled a defiant gaze at him. "I won't have any problem at all. It should be as easy as it was for him to abandon me twenty-six years ago."

"You mean he left when you were just a baby?"

Her fingers tightened around the scrollwork as she explained, "He left before I was born. He says he didn't know about me, that meeting me on the
Dawn
was the first he knew he even had a child. Hah," she added with a bitter laugh.

"It might be true, you know," Brent offered hopefully.

Jewel shrugged. "It doesn't matter one way or another to me. Let's just drop the subject. All right?"

Brent circled the table and reached out for her, but she eluded him and backed away. Holding his hands up, as much to ward off the sudden chill in her demeanor as to keep her standing before him, he said, "Take it easy. I'm just trying to understand—remember? I can't fathom your anger. What Harry did or didn't do in the past shouldn't matter too much now. He seems to enjoy being around you. I think he really likes being your father. Why not give him a chance?"

Turning her back on Brent, Jewel marched over to the waist-high wall and drew in a long breath before she answered him over her shoulder. "I appreciate what you're trying to do, but it's impossible for you to understand how I feel about Harry or what I have to do now." Her voice taut with the strain of holding her emotions in check, she spun around and said caustically, "You'll never understand because you can't know what it's like for a girl to be raised without a father."

"I can't?" he said, cocking his brow. "What about my niece, Missy? She doesn't have a father, but I believe she'll grow up to be a happy, well-adjusted young woman in spite of it."

"That's different," she grumbled. "Her mother was widowed, not deserted. I'm talking about growing up a bastard."

"I can't say I'm any too fond of your choice of words, but so far I don't see the difference between you and Melissa."

Jewel narrowed her eyes, waiting for him to laugh and tell her it was all a joke, but his expression remained dead serious. "Do you know what you just said?'' she breathed.

Brent leaned back against the railing and thoughtfully popped a toothpick into the corner of his mouth. Looking across the distance between them, he said, "I most certainly do, little lady. Mary Mildred was widowed, all right, but her husband was killed some twelve years ago during the War between the States."

Unable to comprehend the circumstances of the child's birth, Jewel sputtered, "But she said, I mean Mary led me to believe that her husband was the girl's father and that she'd been married only the one time. I don't understand."

"Regular miracle, isn't it?" He grinned at the family's private word for Melissa's conception, then explained. "After Mildred wed and moved to Vicksburg, Mary took to visiting her every six months or so. She come home from one of those trips in a family way. First thing she did was sit me and Beau down to explain that she wouldn't be marrying the baby's father and that there was no point in trying to find him or in doing something stupid like demanding a chance to defend her honor."

"You mean she refused to marry him?"

Brent shrugged. "We don't know if he ever even knew about Missy. From that day on, Mary insisted we never mention it again."

Her balance suddenly shaky, feeling as if she were negotiating the promenade deck of the
Dawn,
Jewel made her way to back to the table and steadied herself against a chair. "But your family is so affectionate toward Missy. They treat her like... like—"

"One of their own?" he supplied. "'Course they do. She is, you know. We all love her very deeply. Why would we feel otherwise? Missy never did anything wrong. For that matter, I'm not sure you could say that Mary did, either. Having that child has been a blessing for my sister. Missy has brought joy and laughter back to a woman who lost her spirit when her husband died."