Free The Tiger Lily by Shirlee Busbee Page B

about your own heirs? Someday
you may marry, and when you have children you may feel differently about
it."
     
    Brett
looked cynical. "Father, marriage is the last thing you can expect from
me!"
     
    Staring
at the scornful young face, Hugh was reminded vividly of himself during the
painful, ugly years following Gillian's defection. Then he had been full of
hatred and contempt for women, believing there wasn't a woman alive who didn't
practice deceit as easily as she breathed.
     
    How
bitter I was then, Hugh thought with surprise, as bitter and cynical as Brett
is now. As bitter and cynical as I would be now except for Sofia. . . .
     
    With
a wrench he brought his mind back to the question of Riverview. His expression
troubled, Hugh asked heavily, "Are you positive about this?"
     
    A
slightly quizzical smile on his lips, Brett inquired wryly, "Have you ever
known me to change ray mind? I believe you once said that my stubbornness was
either my greatest vice or my greatest virtue—you hadn't at the time decided
which."
     
    An
unwilling smile tugged at the corners of Hugh's mouth. "I still
haven't," he replied dryly. The smile faded, and sending Brett a searching
look, he asked again, "You're certain? There is nothing of Riverview that
you want for yourself?"
     
    Thoughtfully
Brett admitted, "I wouldn't mind having the house I'm living in now and
some acreage to go with it." An impish grin flashing across his dark face,
he added dulcetly, "For my decrepit old age."
     
    A
week later, Brett was once again sitting in his father's study. Giving his son
an unsmiling look as Brett sat across the desk from him, Hugh said testily,
"I've done as you wished. When you sign these documents you sign away all
claim to Riverview—it will all go to Gordon."
     
    Brett
reached for the quill, but his father's hand stopped him.
     
    "I
don't like this!" Hugh burst out explosively. "Riverview should be
yours! What if you lose that blasted fortune you have now? Then where would you
be?"
     
    "I
would be precisely where I deserved to be!" Brett answered swiftly.
Conscious of his father's distress, he said seriously, "Father, have you
forgotten the plantation in Louisiana? The money and houses in New Orleans? The
lands in England? The funds in the bank in London? Good God! I have no need of
more!"
     
    Hugh
gave a sigh, lifting his hand from Brett's. "I suppose you're right."
A brief smile flitted across his face. "I deeded you that house and a
hundred acres—for your decrepit old age, of course."
     
    The
weather had begun to clear, and it appeared that the worst of the winter storms
were over. Two days after the meeting with Hugh, weighted down with messages
and gifts, Brett and Ollie rode eagerly away from Natchez, heading for the
Sabine River and Nacogdoches.
     
    It
wasn't an easy trip. They were starting out early in the year, and all the
rivers and streams were swollen and rampaging. The trail they followed—and
often there was no trail—was first through gloomy, swampy wastelands inhabited
only by alligators and other wildlife. Eventually the countryside improved in
appearance despite being trackless and virtually uninhabited. There was thick
vegetation that nourished teeming game—bear, panther, and deer—and Brett
enjoyed the hunting; Ollie did not. Huddled next to a smoking camp fire and
being bitten to death by the hordes of mosquitoes that were just hatching as
the weather warmed, he was heard to grumble, "And to think I thought this
would be exciting!"
     
    Brett
merely grinned, aware that while Ollie was ever ready for adventure, he had
never been introduced to the vast and varied wilderness that comprised the
largely unexplored American continent. He was perfectly suited to life in the
dens of iniquity to be found in the major cities of Europe, but nothing in his
young life so far had quite prepared him for living so close to nature.
     
    And
while the same could probably have been said of Brett, he discovered that he
was