“Your ward is high-spirited,” she said, just to stir the pot.
“My ward needs to learn submission.” He poured a glass of sherry for her and, with an apology, excused himself.
She heard him taking the stairs two a time. The sound excited her. It reminded her of the glorious arguments she and Francis used to have, arguments they sometimes fought with deliciously angry sex. If only she could see what was about to happen in the room upstairs . . .
She sipped at her sherry, more than prepared to wait them out.
Cain knew he was behaving badly, but he didn’t care. For weeks he’d been keeping himself away from her. As far as he could tell, he was the only single man in the community who wasn’t jumping to her tune. Now it was time they had a reckoning. He was just sorry Veronica had to be subjected to Kit’s rudeness.
And to his own.
But he wouldn’t dwell on that. “Open this door.”
Even as he rapped the panels with his knuckles, he knew he was making a mistake by coming up here after her. But if he let her defy him now, he’d lose any chance he had of keeping her under control.
He told himself this was for her own good. She was willful and stubborn, a danger to herself. Whether he liked it or not, he was her guardian, which meant he had a responsibility to guide her.
But he didn’t feel like a guardian. He felt like a man who was losing a struggle with himself.
“Go away!”
He twisted the knob and let himself in.
She stood by the window, the last of the sunlight casting her exquisite face into shadow. She was a wild, beautiful creature, and she tempted him beyond bearing.
As she turned, he froze in place. She’d been unbuttoning her dress, and the sleeves had fallen down on her shoulders so he could see the soft rounds of her breasts visible above her chemise. His mouth went dry.
She didn’t try to clutch the bodice together as a modest young woman should. Instead, she gave him glare for glare. “Get out of my room. You have no right to come charging in here.”
He remembered Hamilton Woodward’s letter accusing her of seducing his business partner. When Cain had received it, he had no reason not to believe it, but now he knew better. Kit’s claim that she’d punched the bastard was undoubtedly true. If only he were as certain that she was turning aside Parsell’s advances.
He tore his eyes away. “I’m not going to be disobeyed.”
“Then you’d better bark out your orders to someone else.”
“Watch it, Kit. I tanned that rump of yours once before, and it won’t bother me to do it again.”
Instead of backing away, she had the gall to take a step toward him. His hand itched, and he found himself imagining exactly how that backside would feel, bare beneath his palm. Then he imagined sliding his hand around that sweet curve—not to hurt, but to please.
“If you want to see what a knife feels like in your belly, just go ahead and try it, Yankee.”
He almost laughed. He outweighed her by nearly a hundred pounds, but the little wildcat still thought she could challenge him.
“You’ve forgotten something,” he said. “You’re my ward. I make the decisions and you do as I say. Is that understood?”
“Oh, it’s understood, all right, Yankee. It’s understood that you’re an arrogant ass! Now get out of my room.”
As she jabbed her finger toward the door, the strap of her chemise fell over her opposite shoulder. The thin fabric caught at the crest of her breast, clung to that sweet peak for a moment, and then dropped, exposing the dark coral tip.
Kit saw him lower his gaze a moment before she felt the currents of cool air tickling her flesh. She looked down and drew in her breath. She snatched the front of her chemise and pulled it back up.
Cain’s eyes turned from slate to pale smoke, and his voice was husky. “I liked it better the other way.”
As quickly as that, the battle between them shifted to new ground.
Her fingers grew clumsy on the fabric of her chemise as he came closer. All her survival instincts urged her to run from the room, but the most she could manage was to turn away.
He came up behind her and traced the curve of her neck with his thumb. “You’re so damned beautiful,” he whispered. He gathered her curls into his hands and gently untangled them from the strap of her chemise.
Her skin prickled. “You shouldn’t . . .”
“I know.”
He leaned down and pushed her hair away. His breath feathered the skin at her collarbone.
“I don’t—I don’t want you to . . .”
He gently bit the soft flesh at the side of her neck. “Liar,” he whispered.
She closed her eyes and let her back rest against his chest. She felt the cool, wet spot on her neck where his tongue had touched her flesh.
His hands moved up over her ribs and then, incredibly, over her breasts. Her skin turned hot and cold at once. She shuddered as he caressed her through her chemise, shuddered at how good it felt and at her insanity in submitting to such an intimacy.
“I’ve wanted to do this ever since you got back,” he whispered.
She made a soft, helpless sound when he slipped his hands inside her dress, inside her chemise . . . and touched her.
Nothing had ever felt as good as those callused palms on her breasts. She arched against him. He brushed the tips and she moaned.
A knock sounded at the door.
She sucked in her breath and jerked away, scrambling to pull up her bodice.
“Who is it?” Cain barked out impatiently.
The door flew back on its hinges.
Sophronia stood on the other side, two pale smudges of alarm over her cheekbones. “What are you doing in her room?”
Cain’s eyebrow slashed upward. “That’s between Kit and me.”
Sophronia’s amber eyes took in Kit’s disheveled state, and her hands knotted into fists in the skirt of her dress. She bit into her bottom lip as if she were trying to hold back all the words she didn’t dare say in front of him. “Mr. Parsell is downstairs,” she finally managed. The fabric of her skirt crumpled in her fists. “He has a book to lend you. I put him in the sitting room with Mrs. Gamble.”
Kit’s own fingers were stiff from the tight grip she had on her bodice. Slowly she relaxed them and nodded to Sophronia. Then she addressed Cain with as much composure as she could muster. “Would you invite Mr. Parsell to join us for dinner? Sophronia can help me finish dressing. I’ll be downstairs in a few minutes.”
Their eyes locked, stormy violet clashing with the gray of winter sleet. Who was the winner and who the loser in the battle that had just been fought between them? Neither of them knew. There was no resolution, no healing catharsis. Instead, their antagonism crackled even more powerfully than it had before.
Cain left without a word, but his expression clearly indicated it wasn’t over between them.
“Don’t say a word!” Kit began peeling off her dress, tearing a seam in her clumsiness. How could she have let him touch her like that? Why hadn’t she pushed him away? “I need the gown in the back of my wardrobe. It’s covered in muslin.”
Sophronia didn’t move, so Kit pulled it from the wardrobe herself and tossed it on the bed.
“What’s happened to you?” Sophronia hissed. “The Kit Weston I used to know wouldn’t lock herself in a bedroom with a man who’s not her husband.”
Kit turned on her. “I didn’t invite him!”
“I’ll bet you didn’t tell him to leave, either.”
“You’re wrong. He was angry with me because he wanted me to have dinner downstairs with Mrs. Gamble, and I refused.”
Sophronia jabbed her finger toward the gown on the bed. “Then why do you want that?”
“Brandon’s here, so I’ve changed my mind.”
“Is that why you’re getting dressed up? For Mr. Parsell?”
Sophronia’s question took her aback. Whom was she getting dressed up for? “Of course it’s for B
randon. And for Mrs. Gamble. I don’t want to look like a country bumpkin in front of her.”
Sophronia stiff features softened almost imperceptibly. “You can lie to me, Kit Weston, but just don’t lie to yourself. You’d better make certain you’re not doing this for the major.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Leave him to Mrs. Gamble, honey.” Sophronia walked over to the bed and pulled the muslin off the gown. At the same time, she repeated the words Magnus had said to her only a few weeks earlier. “He’s a hard man with women. There’s something as cold as ice inside him. Any woman who tries to get past that ice will only end up with a bad case of frostbite.” She settled the gown over Kit’s head.
“You don’t need to tell me all this.”
“When the major looks at a beautiful woman, all he sees is a body to bring him pleasure. If a woman understands that about him, like I expect Mrs. Gamble does, she can enjoy herself and there won’t be any hard feelings afterward. But any woman who’s fool enough to fall in love with him is only going to end up with a broken heart.”
“This has nothing to do with me.”
“Doesn’t it?” Sophronia did up the fastenings. “The reason the two of you fight so much is because you’re just alike.”
“I’m not anything like him! You know better than anyone how much I hate him. He’s standing in the way of everything I want from life. Risen Glory’s mine. It’s where I belong. I’ll die before I let him keep it. I’m going to marry Brandon Parsell, Sophronia. And as soon as I can, I’m buying this plantation back.”
Sophronia took a brush to her tangles. “And what makes you think the major will sell it to you?”
“Oh, he’ll sell, all right. It’s just a matter of time.”
Sophronia began to draw her hair into a neat knot, but Kit shook her head. She’d wear it free tonight, with only the silver combs. Everything about her must be as different from Veronica Gamble as possible.
“You got no way of knowing he’ll sell,” Sophronia said.
Kit wasn’t about to confess her late-night forages through the plantation’s calf-bound ledgers, adding and subtracting her way through pages of boldly entered figures. It hadn’t taken her long to discover that Cain had overextended himself. He was hanging onto Risen Glory and his spinning mill by the most fragile of threads. The smallest disaster could send him under.
Kit didn’t know much about spinning mills, but she did know about cotton. She knew about unexpected hailstorms, about hurricanes and droughts, about insects that fed off the tender bolls until nothing was left. Where cotton was concerned, disaster was bound to strike sooner or later, and when it did, she’d be ready. She’d buy the plantation right out from under him. And she’d buy it at her own price.
Sophronia was staring at her and shaking her head.
“What’s wrong?”
“Are you really wearing that dress downstairs for dinner?”
“Isn’t it wonderful?”
“It’s made for a ball, not for dinner at home.”
Kit smiled. “I know.”
The gown had been so outrageously expensive that Elsbeth had protested. She’d argued that Kit could put her clothing allowance to better use buying several more modest gowns. Besides, it was too conspicuous, she’d said, so extravagantly beautiful that, even on the most demure female—which Kit certainly was not—it would draw more attention than, perhaps, a well-brought-up young lady should wish to attract.
Such subtleties were lost on Kit. She only knew that it was glorious and she had to have it.
The overskirt of the dress was a billowing cloud of silver organdy caught up over gleaming white satin shot with silver thread. Crystal bugle beads covered the tight-fitting bodice, sparkling like night snow under a starry winter sky. More beads spangled the skirt all the way to the hem.
The neckline was low, falling well off her shoulders. She glanced down and saw that the tops of her exposed breasts were still faintly rosy from Cain’s hands. She quickly looked away and put on the necklace that went with the gown, a choker of crystal bugle beads drizzling onto her skin like melting ice chips.
The very air around her seemed to crackle as she moved. She slipped on satin slippers with spool-shaped heels, the ones she’d worn at the Templeton ball. They were eggshell instead of the stark white of the gown, but she didn’t care.
“Don’t worry, Sophronia. Everything’s going to be fine.” She gave Sophronia a quick peck on the cheek and made her way downstairs, the gown shimmering around her in a crystalline cloud of ice and snow.
Veronica Gamble’s smooth forehead betrayed nothing of her thoughts as Kit swept into the sitting room. So the little kitten had decided to fight. She wasn’t surprised.
The gown was outrageously inappropriate for the occasion and quite wonderful. Its remote ice-maiden perfection served as a perfect foil for the girl’s vivid beauty. Mr. Parsell, who’d so blatantly wrangled a dinner invitation, seemed stunned by her appearance. Baron looked like a thundercloud.
The poor man. He would have done better to have left her in that dirty dress.
Veronica wondered what had happened between the two of them in the room upstairs. Kit’s face was flushed, and Veronica’s observant eyes caught a small red mark on her neck. They hadn’t made love, that was certain. Cain was still as tightly coiled as a jungle beast about to spring.
Veronica sat on Cain’s right during dinner, with Kit at the foot of the table and Brandon next to her. The meal was delicious: fragrant jambalaya accompanied by oyster patties smothered in a cucumber-curry sauce, green peas flavored with mint, beaten biscuits, and, for dessert, rich slabs of cherry pie. Veronica was certain she was the only one who noticed the food.
She was excessively attentive to Baron throughout the meal. She leaned close to him and told him her most amusing stories. She laid her fingers lightly on his sleeve and occasionally squeezed his hard-muscled arm with deliberate intimacy.
He gave her his total attention. If she hadn’t known better, she would have believed he didn’t notice the subdued laughter coming from the other end of the table.
After dinner, Cain suggested the men take their brandy in the sitting room with the women instead of remaining at the dinner table. Brandon agreed with more eagerness than was polite. Throughout the meal, Cain had barely been able to conceal his boredom with Brandon’s stuffiness, while Brandon couldn’t quite hide his contempt for Cain.
In the sitting room, Veronica deliberately took a place on the settee next to Kit, even though she knew the girl had taken a dislike to her. Yet Kit was courteous and thoroughly entertaining once they began to talk. She was exceptionally well read for a young woman, and when Veronica suggested that Kit borrow her copy of a scandalous new book by Gustave Flaubert that she’d just finished reading, Brandon sent her a thunderous look of disapproval.
“You don’t approve of Kit reading Madame Bovary, Mr. Parsell? Then perhaps we’d better leave it on my shelf for the time being.”
Cain regarded Brandon with amusement. “I’m sure Mr. Parsell isn’t so stodgy as to object to an intelligent young woman improving her mind. Or are you, Parsell?”
“Of course he’s not,” Kit said too quickly. “Mr. Parsell is one of the most progressive men I know.”
Veronica smiled. A most entertaining evening, indeed.
Cain crossed the hall and let himself into the library. Without bothering to light the lamp on his desk, he pulled off his coat and opened the window. The guests had left some time ago, and Kit had excused herself immediately afterward. Cain had to get up at dawn tomorrow, and he knew he should go to bed, but too many old memories had come back to nag at him tonight.
He gazed out into the darkness with unseeing eyes. Gradually the nighttime rasp of crickets and the soft, wheezy cry of a distant barn owl became less real than the bitter voices of the past.
His father, Nathaniel Cain, was the only son of a wealthy Philadelphia merchant. He lived in the same brownstone mansi
on in which he’d been born and was a competent, if unexceptional, businessman. He was nearly thirty-five when he married sixteen-year-old Rosemary Simpson. She was too young, but her parents had been anxious to rid themselves of their troublesome daughter, especially to such a well-heeled bachelor.
From the beginning, it was a marriage made in hell. She hated her pregnancy, had no interest in the son who was born exactly nine months after her wedding night, and grew to regard her adoring husband with contempt. Over the years she embarrassed him in public and cuckolded him in private, but he never stopped loving her.
He blamed himself for her restlessness. If only he hadn’t forced a child on her so soon, she might have been more content. As time passed, however, he ceased blaming himself for her misdeeds and blamed only the child.
It took her nearly ten years to run through his fortune. She left him for a man who had been one of his employees.
Baron had observed it all, a bewildered, lonely child. In the months after his mother’s departure, he stood by helplessly, watching his father being consumed by his unhealthy obsession for his faithless wife. Filthy, unshaven, drowning in alcohol, Nathaniel Cain sealed himself inside the lonely, decaying mansion and constructed elaborate fantasies of everything his wife had not been.
Only once had the boy rebelled. In a fit of anger, he’d spewed out all his resentment against the mother who’d abandoned them both. Nathaniel Cain had beaten him until his nose streamed with blood and his eyes had swollen shut. Afterward, he didn’t seem to remember what had happened.
The lesson Cain had learned from his parents had been a hard one, and he’d never forgotten it. He’d learned that love was a weakness that twists and perverts.
Hard-earned lessons were the best-remembered. He gave away books when he finished them, traded horses before he could grow too fond of them, and stood by the window of the library at Risen Glory staring out at the hot, still night thinking about his father, his mother . . . and Kit Weston.
He found little comfort in the fact that so many of the emotions she aroused in him were angry ones. It bothered him that she made him feel anything at all. But since the afternoon she’d invaded his house, veiled, mysterious, and wildly beautiful, he hadn’t been able to get her off his mind. And today, when he’d touched her breasts, he’d known there’d never been a woman he’d wanted more.