Jade Star (Star Quartet 4)

“At the northeast edge of the valley near MacGiver’s place. I saw him heading south with her, and west, toward the ocean. He knew, Dr. Saint, oh yes, he knew that Miz Hammond was going to have the baby. He timed it that way.”

Saint gently patted Thackery’s shoulder to calm him.

There was another piercing scream from upstairs, and both men froze.

30

Brent felt fear crawl through him.

“You’ve got to go, love,” Byrony whispered. “You’ve got to bring her back safely. I have a saint to look after me. A real-live saint. Go, love.”

Then she was lost to him and to reason, her eyes glazing with pain.

A man shouldn’t have to make such a choice, Saint thought, even as he gently rubbed Byrony’s back to ease the contraction. He met Brent’s eyes.

“Take care of my wife, Saint,” Brent said. “I’ll get Jules, I swear it. And I’ll kill the bastard, you can count on that.”

But I want to kill him, Saint thought, exhilarated by the rage that filled him.

He nodded then, unable to find words.

He watched Brent lean down and kiss his wife’s pale lips.

Then he was gone. Saint listened to his purposeful stride down the front stairs.

Saint walked to the window that faced the front of the house. He saw Brent tie a rifle to his saddle, saw him thrust two guns into his belt. A half-dozen men, all of them black, waited for him to mount.

The horses whinnied and reared. Then they were gone, leaving only the thick welter of dust kicked up from the horses’ hooves.

It’s just as well I didn’t tell him, Saint thought, walking back to the bed. He sat down beside Byrony and gently took her limp hand into his. “Listen to me, Byrony,” he said, his voice low and insistent, pitched to cut through her pain. “The baby’s turned wrong and I’ve got to straighten him. Byrony, do you understand me?”

He realized that she didn’t. He called to Mammy Bath. “Come here and hold her. You heard what I told her?”

“Yes, Docta Saint, I heard.”

It wasn’t the first time Saint had wished his hands were smaller. There was no help for it, of course. He had to try to turn the baby. If he failed, he knew Byrony Hammond would die. And what of Jules? What of his beautiful, sweet wife? What was Wilkes saying to her, doing to her?

Saint shook himself and forced his mind to the matter at hand.

“It is quite odd, I’ll admit that,” Jameson Wilkes said, and unconsciously tightened his arm around Jules’s waist. But he’d wanted her too long, so long in fact that he could no longer remember when she wasn’t in his thoughts. And in his opium dreams.

He sounds so reasonable, so reasoning, Jules thought, a stirring of hope going through her. “I can be nothing to you,” she continued, her voice as persuasive as she could make it. “You’ve only imagined that you want me. But

I am a married woman. I am not a virgin any longer. Didn’t you tell me that my virginity was my only value?”

“Yes,” Wilkes said. “That’s what I told you.”

“Then why?”

He felt the agony in his belly growing more insistent, more unrestrained, and was unable for the moment to answer her. The pain was the reality.

Her voice thin and high, Jules said, “You’re old enough to be my father! Do you want a daughter? Are you so twisted that—?”

He tightened his arm about her waist, cutting off her breath. “Shut up,” he said. He laughed humorlessly and said to himself, “Hell, what I need is your damned husband.” His laughter trickled away. No one could help him, cure him. He was tired now, and worried. And he felt so old, so damnably used up, so finished. No! He shook his head and forced his mind into clear channels. He would handle Hawkins and Grabbler. The scum wanted the money he’d promised them more than a woman.

He watched the sun disappear in a ball of vivid red. He’d always been in awe of sunsets over the ocean. They were like a short burst of the most awesome Chinese fireworks. Never to see them again . . . He felt Juliana sag against him and breathed a sigh of relief.

“It’s almost as if he wants us to track him,” said Josh, a black man Brent had grown up with at his father’s plantation, Wakehurst. He straightened, his eyes on Brent. “We saw Miz Saint’s mare—”