Return to Me Page 8

  Taye shook her head emphatically. “I don’t.”

  “Taye, you were never a good liar.” Cameron rose from her chair, her hands shaking. “They said the woman was here in town. If you know anything about—”

  “Cameron, listen to me.” Taye rose, clasping both her sister’s hands. “Jackson is not cheating on you. He wouldn’t. It’s only that…”

  “What?”

  Taye sighed. “I did hear some of the same gossip last week. I was at the market with the cook.”

  “And you didn’t tell me?” Cameron yanked her hands away and walked to the window draped in heavy ivory brocade. “How could you not tell me?”

  Taye walked up behind her and grabbed Cameron’s shoulder, forcing her to look at her. “I didn’t tell you because it was two housemaids speaking out of place. I didn’t tell you because the way to halt gossip is to stop repeating it. I didn’t tell you because it isn’t true.”

  “Well, it better not be.” Cameron turned and sailed out of the room. “Because if it is, I swear by all that’s holy, I’ll kill him!”

  Taye took the stairs to Jackson’s warehouse office one at a time, plucking off her calfskin gloves finger by finger.

  “Come in,” Jackson called at her knock, sounding preoccupied. “Door’s open.”

  She strolled in to find him seated at his desk, piles of paper everywhere. It was a man’s room, spare, utilitarian, with plain oak furniture battered by use. No rugs covered the bare plank floors and the single window was badly in need of washing.

  “Taye.” He rose from the desk, obviously surprised by her unannounced visit. “Cameron’s all right, isn’t she? The baby?”

  “She’s fine.” Taye closed the door behind her. “I came because I wanted to talk to you, alone. It will only take a moment. Thomas is waiting downstairs for me in the carriage.”

  “Talk to me about what? You really shouldn’t come down here, Taye. There are all sorts of seedy—”

  “Jackson, sit down and shush.” Taye was shocked by her own abruptness.

  Even more shocking was that Jackson sat down.

  She studied his handsome, roguish face, carefully watching for any unspoken response. “There’s been gossip going around town, and I want to make sure there’s no truth to it.”

  The muscles in his jaw seemed to tighten, but perhaps it was just her imagination.

  “What kind of gossip?”

  “People are saying you are having an affair with another woman.”

  He stood up abruptly, pushing the heels of his hands down on the desk. “That is preposterous. I am not—”

  “I heard it the other day, and now I learn that Cameron has also heard it,” she told him sternly.

  “Someone told my wife that I was cheating on her?” He ground out his words angrily.

  “No. She overheard it in the hat shop a couple of days ago.”

  “Days ago? Why the hell didn’t she ask me about it then?”

  “I don’t know. Probably because she didn’t believe them.”

  “She didn’t believe them,” he said, “because it isn’t true. Cameron knows I love her. I would never do anything to jeopardize our marriage.”

  “I should hope not.”

  “I’ll go home now.” He reached for his coat thrown over an old chair marked with splashes of green paint.

  “No. Then she’ll know I came here, and there will be a big fuss about me putting my nose where it doesn’t belong. I just wanted to make sure it wasn’t true, because I told her it wasn’t.”

  He dropped his coat on the chair again and ran his fingers through his long hair. “Of course it isn’t.”

  She watched him, so wanting to believe him. She did believe him. But she had learned a little of men in the last few years, and she knew they were very different than women in ways of the heart. “The word is—” she drew out her words carefully “—that this woman you are having an affair with is staying at The Grand in Washington.”

  He turned away from her almost violently and reached for a bottle of scotch on a bookshelf against the unpainted wall. “I said I wasn’t having an affair, Taye!”

  She nodded crisply. “Excellent.” She began to pull on her gloves. “I just wanted to be sure. Because if you are, if you hurt my sister that way, she won’t get the chance to kill you.”

  He brought his glass to his lips, his gaze meeting hers.

  Taye lifted her chin a notch. “She won’t have to, because I’ll do it first. See you at supper. Don’t be late. We’ve an impromptu concert prepared, which I’m certain you will enjoy.”

  Jackson watched Taye walk out the door and then slung back the glass, downing the shot of scotch in one swallow. He flinched as the smooth bite of the liquor went down his throat to burn in his stomach. “Son of a bitch,” he whispered. Then he grabbed his coat and strode out the door. “Jeremy,” he barked. “Get me my horse. I need to get on the next train to Washington.”

  Ordinarily Jackson would have been more careful, not entering The Grand Hotel from the front doors where footmen greeted him by name and senators and congressman rushed to shake his hand. Ordinarily he would not have strode through the Greek columned lobby, up the stairs directly to Marie’s room. Ordinarily he was not this angry.

  He slammed his fist against the door he knew was hers. “Open up.”

  “Who is it?” Marie called in a voice as sweet as honey.

  “You know who it is,” he retorted.

  The door opened almost immediately and Marie greeted him wearing a red silk dressing robe that left little to the imagination. Her slender feet were bare, her rich, ebony hair unbound and loose around her shoulders. “Jackson, dearest,” she purred. “Had I known you were coming—”

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” He walked in and slammed the walnut paneled door behind him.

  “What—”

  “You heard me. I said, what the hell are you doing?” He clenched his fists at his sides. “I’ll tell you what you’re doing! You’ve been spreading rumors all over town that you and I are having an affair. Rumors that have gotten to my wife, as you had hoped. You devious bitch.”

  “Jackson.” She thrust out her plump lower lip, not in the least offended by his name calling. “I’m hurt that you would even suggest—”

  “Don’t start with that, Marie.” He grabbed a handful of her gown and it fell open, revealing her large pale breasts with their dark areoles and protruding nipples.

  Marie looked down at her nakedness and then up at him, her dark eyes glazing over with passion. “Jackson,” she whispered.

  Realizing he had not yet let go of her gown, he loosened his fingers and watched the red silk fall from his hand. The alluring scent of her musky perfume filled his nostrils, his mind. “No, Marie,” he heard himself say.

  She pressed her nearly naked body to his. “Just once more?” she breathed, closing her eyes, tipping her chin upward to be kissed. “I’ve missed you so.”

  Jackson took her by the shoulders and pushed her back, not roughly, but hard enough to make her take a step to keep from falling.

  “You loved me once.” Her eyes flew open. “You told me so. Why can’t you love me again, if only for a few moments?”

  He pressed his lips together and looked away, feeling his heart pounding in his chest. What she said was true and he couldn’t deny it.

  Jackson had loved Marie once. A lifetime ago, after he’d left Cameron that summer she was a girl of seventeen, he’d returned to the life he had known before. Trying to forget that fire-haired, tawny-eyed Southern temptress, he’d worked hard for his father in their shipping business. He drank, he gambled, he enjoyed the ladies. Marie was one of them, but she had been special from the first night he’d met her.

  At the time, she’d been married to an older man, already an invalid by the time Jackson spotted her in a gambling hall in Atlanta. Their torrid affair had lasted more than four years, and for a short time he had fantasized about marrying her when
her husband died. But then another man caught Marie’s eye and she strayed. That was when Jackson realized he could never be happy with Marie; her definition of love and commitment did not match his. Shortly thereafter, he returned to Elmwood and fell in love all over again with Senator David Campbell’s daughter. And then the war began.

  Jackson forced himself to focus his gaze on Marie again, and he could see that her feelings were hurt. Damn, he didn’t want to hurt her. He only wanted to stop her before she ruined his marriage, before he hurt Cameron. Marie was a manipulative woman. That was why she made such a good spy and that was how she had lured him into her web again, if only for a very short time.

  “I have to get home to my wife. Just keep your mouth shut. You understand?”

  She rushed to the door, not bothering to cover her luscious body with the red silk. “Wait, we have business to discuss. I’ve received information. We need to go to New Orleans and speak with a man who has talked to Thompson himself.”

  “I’m not going to New Orleans, Marie.” He put his hand on the doorknob, in a hurry now to get out of the room. It wasn’t that he was tempted by her beautiful breasts or her exquisite nipples. Rather, he felt a recurring shame for what he’d done more than a year ago. What he had done to Cameron.

  “You have to go, Jackson.” She covered his hand with hers on the knob. “Seward is counting on us. I spoke with him this morning. President Johnson is counting on you, Jackson.”

  “I said I have to go.” He yanked open the door.

  “Go then,” she called after him, sweetly. “We’ll talk at your homecoming ball.”

  “Don’t you dare come, Marie,” he called over his shoulder. He couldn’t breathe. He needed air. “It’s not safe.”

  “Don’t be silly,” she laughed. “What can I tell the congressman? You know, I wouldn’t miss it for the world, dear. Wait until you see my gown.”

  Jackson rushed down the stairs and through the lobby, and only when he was on the brick sidewalk outside the hotel did he at last take a breath.

  The tantalizing scent of Marie’s perfume lingered in his nostrils.

  Cameron heard Jackson enter the bedchamber behind where she sat at her mirrored dressing table, but she didn’t turn around as she unfastened one of her earbobs. It was after midnight and their dinner guests had just departed. “You were late again tonight.”

  “I told you I was sorry. The train from Washington was running late.”

  “I thought you were at the warehouse today.” She glanced at his reflection beside hers in the gilded mirror embellished with golden cherubs.

  He leaned over to kiss the back of her neck behind the loose chignon of curls she had tied up with purple ribbons to match her gown. “Something came up.”

  Cameron rose, avoiding his touch. “Jackson, I want to ask you something.”

  He had gone to his chiffarobe to put away his dinner jacket. “Taye is a truly gifted pianist. I thought the concert tonight was excellent—”

  “I said I want to ask you something.”

  “Thomas, however, is not as nimble at the keyboard as he might think.” Jackson’s fingers found his cravat and he began to release the knot.

  “Jackson—”

  “Damn it, no,” he snapped suddenly, spinning around to face her.

  She stared at him, her hands falling to her sides. Tonight she wore a Sicilian bodiced gown of deep purple, with a lavender crinoline beneath it. The new fabric rustled beneath her nervous fingertips. “No what?” she asked stiffly. “You haven’t even heard my question yet.”

  “I already know your question and the answer is no, I am not having an affair with another woman.” He jerked off his cravat and threw it to the floor.

  “How did you know—” She stopped and then started again. “Did Taye—”

  “It doesn’t matter, Cam.” His fingers flew over the buttons of his white shirt. “What matters is that you shouldn’t listen to what old, dried-up biddies say in hat shops.” He slipped out of the shirt, letting it fall to the polished floor beside his cravat. “You shouldn’t listen to malicious gossip. What you should do is ask your husband.”

  “There you go again.” She gestured angrily.

  “There I go again what?”

  “Telling me what I should and should not do! I am not a soldier, Jackson, and I am not in your army. You will not control me!”

  “What are you talking about? You asked me if I was having an affair. I’m not. How could I possibly have time for an affair? I barely have time to wipe my—” He grunted and turned away.

  Cameron just stood there staring at him, her anger bubbling up inside her until she thought she couldn’t control it.

  Jackson stood in front of the door for a moment in silence, then turned back to her. “I think we need to talk about this tomorrow.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it tomorrow. I want to talk about it tonight. Now. I cannot live this way, Jackson. You cannot come back after four years and take over my life.”

  “I think we should talk when we’ve both had a good night’s sleep.” He walked to the bed and began to pull back the damask linens.

  “I don’t think so,” she said softly.

  “I know you don’t think so, but—”

  “I mean,” she interrupted, “that I don’t think you’ll be sleeping here tonight.”

  “What?” He spun around.

  “You heard me.” She opened the door and called for her personal maid waiting down the hall. She did not close the door when she stepped back. “You need to sleep elsewhere, Jackson. I’ll have Addy prepare a bedchamber down the hall for you.”

  “I don’t want to sleep down the hall!”

  She stared at him with those cat’s eyes of hers. “You want everything your way. You want to order me about. You want me to just ignore gossip concerning you. Concerning me. Well, that’s not the way I want things. If you don’t want to do things my way, then you can sleep elsewhere. I don’t want you in my bed now, not now. Not until…until this has been settled between us.” She folded her arms over her chest.

  “Cameron—” He started to speak then halted. “Fine,” he snapped.

  He grabbed an armful of clothes, his boots and his gun in a holster and brushed past her.

  Cameron just stood there watching him. She refused to cry, refused to surrender to the cold despair that threatened to suffocate her…to drown everything that she held dear.

  8

  “God above, Taye, can’t you tighten it just a little more?” Cameron groaned, leaning on the broad, painted window frame in her bedchamber.

  Tonight Cameron and Jackson were throwing a ball for the Union’s victorious officers and their wives, and to Cameron’s way of thinking, it couldn’t have come at a worse time. After sending Jackson packing from her bedchamber three nights ago, they had barely spoken. Jackson left early, for God knew where, and he stayed late. Cameron knew they couldn’t go on like this indefinitely, but she felt he needed to come to her, to apologize for his behavior. Then she’d be ready to talk.

  Tonight would not be the night, though. Carriages had already begun to arrive, and Cameron would be expected downstairs shortly to stand at her husband’s side, smile at his guests, murmur greetings and pretend nothing was wrong.

  “Cameron, you’re still thin as a fence rail,” Taye declared, tying her sister’s stays precisely where they were. “If I tighten it any further, your entrails will spill out, and won’t that be a fetching sight on the ballroom floor?”

  Cameron had to laugh at Taye’s illustration. “All right.” She threw up her arms, settling them over her layers of gored petticoats and her bell-shaped crinoline. “Fine. I’m already married. What difference does it make if I’m as broad as a barn?”

  Taye lifted Cameron’s ball gown from the bed and carried it to her. It was just like the days in Elmwood when their father had thrown the best parties in all of Mississippi. Cameron had loved dancing and dining and seeing and being seen at those
balls, but now she realized that half the pleasure had been in preparing for the great events, with Taye at her side.

  “Now you’re just being silly,” Taye chastised. Carefully, she raised the leaf green ball gown of satin broche with festooned lace flounce en tablier and lowered it over Cameron’s head.

  Cameron held her arms high and allowed her sister to settle the lovely new dress over her petticoats. Once the gown was on, Taye walked in a circle around her, flouncing the satin. Cameron tugged at the short, puffed sleeves.

  “You’re still as slim as you were at eighteen. You’re always the loveliest woman in any room and your husband adores you.”

  Cameron gave a very unladylike snort. “Adores me as a mantelpiece. Something to dress up and show off when his friends come to town and then send me back to my chamber when the evening is done.” She waggled her finger. “If he adored me, you think he’d stand to be sleeping down the hall? If he adored me, don’t you think he would at least sit down and discuss with me our going home to Mississippi?”

  Taye stood before her, adjusting the off-the-shoulder pointed bodice of the gown. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but maybe this one time he knows what’s best. Thomas says that the city of Jackson was badly damaged in the war. Many of the plantation homes were burned to the ground. The soil has been left untilled so long that meadows are growing where fields once were.” She lifted her dark lashes to meet her sister’s gaze. “I’m not certain there would be anything for you to go home to.”

  “So you’re taking his side?” The minute the words came out of Cameron’s mouth, she wanted to bite them back. She didn’t want to argue with Taye, not when she and Jackson weren’t getting along. “I’m sorry. I suppose I’m just still a little irritated with you for going to his office and talking to him about that gossip.”

  “I’m not taking his side at all.” Taye remained unruffled, ignoring Cameron’s comment about her little jaunt to the docks. She guessed that while Jackson may have admitted to his wife that Taye had been there, he did not divulge exactly what had been said.