She knew what he was asking. Would she break the unwritten rule between them? The rule that said this bedroom was the one place where they didn’t argue, the one place that was set aside for something else, something as important to both of them as the air they breathed.
She couldn’t break that rule. Only here did her restlessness fade. Only here did she feel . . . not happy . . . but somehow right.
“Come here,” he said.
She moved toward him, but her resentment about Temptation wasn’t forgotten. Her fear that he would still put a road to the mill across her land was not forgotten. His high-handedness and stubbornness were not forgotten. She stuffed it all inside to boil while she gave in to lovemaking that was growing less satisfying and more necessary every day.
The next morning, even the happiness of Sophronia and Magnus couldn’t keep Cain and Kit from snarling at each other. It had become their pattern. The more passionate the night, the worse they treated each other the next day.
Do not expect daylight to bring a change in me . . . I will give you my body, but do not, dare not, expect more.
As Kit watched Magnus and Sophronia move in a blissful daze through the next week while they got ready for their wedding, she found herself wishing she and Cain could have such a happy ending. But the only happy ending she could imagine for them would have Cain riding away, leaving her alone at Risen Glory. And that didn’t seem right at all.
On Sunday afternoon, Sophronia and Magnus took their vows in the old slave church with Kit and Cain beside them. After hugs, tears, and slices of Miss Dolly’s wedding cake, they were finally alone in Magnus’s house by the orchard.
“I won’t press you,” he said as the December night fell deep and peaceful outside the windows. “We can take our time.”
Sophronia smiled into his eyes and feasted on the sight of his beautiful brown skin. “We’ve had too much time already.” Her fingers trailed to the top buttons of the beautiful silk dress Kit had given her. “Love me, Magnus. Just love me.”
He did. Tenderly and completely. Driving away all the ugliness of the past. Sophronia had never felt so safe or so loved. She would never forget what had happened to her, but the nightmares of her past would no longer control her. Finally she understood what it meant to be free.
As December gave way to January, the lovemaking between Cain and Kit developed a primitive, ferocious edge that frightened them both. Kit left a bruise on Cain’s shoulder. Cain left a mark on her breast, then cursed himself afterward.
Only once did they speak the truth.
“We can’t go on like this,” he said
“I know.” She turned her head into the pillow and pretended to fall asleep.
The treacherous, most female part of her longed to give up the struggle and open her heart before it burst with feelings she couldn’t name. But this was a man who gave up his books and his horses before he could grow too attached to them. And the devils of her past were powerful.
Risen Glory was all she had—all she’d ever had—the only part of her life that was secure. People disappeared, but Risen Glory was everlasting, and she’d never let her tumultuous unnamed feelings for Baron Cain threaten that. Cain with his cold gray eyes and his spinning mill, Cain with his unchecked ambitions that would eat up her fields and spit them out like so many discarded cotton seeds until nothing was left but a worthless husk.
“I told you, I don’t want to go.” Kit slammed down her hairbrush and stared at Cain in the mirror.
He threw aside his shirt. “I do.”
All arguments stop at the bedroom door. But this one wasn’t. And what difference did it make? Their lovemaking had already turned this bedroom into another war zone.
“You hate parties,” she reminded him.
“Not this one. I want to get away from the mill for a few days.”
The mill, she noted, not Risen Glory.
“And I miss seeing Veronica,” he added.
Kit’s stomach knotted with jealousy and hurt. The truth was, she also missed Veronica, but she didn’t want Cain to.
Veronica had left Rutherford six weeks earlier, shortly before Thanksgiving. She’d settled in a three-story mansion in Charleston that Kit had learned was already turning into a center of fashion and culture. Artists and politicians showed up at her front door. There was an unknown sculptor from Ohio, a famous actor from New York. Now Veronica intended to celebrate her new home with a winter ball.
In her letter to Kit, she’d said she was inviting everyone in Charleston who amused her, as well as several old acquaintances from Rutherford. In typically perverse Veronica fashion, that included Brandon Parsell and his new fiancée, Eleanora Baird, whose father had taken over the presidency of the Planters and Citizens Bank after the war.
Normally Kit would have loved attending such a party, but right now she didn’t have the heart for it. Sophronia’s new happiness had made her conscious of her own misery, and as much as Veronica fascinated her, she also made Kit feel awkward and foolish.
“Go by yourself,” she said, even though she hated the idea.
“We’re going together.” Cain’s voice sounded weary. “You have no choice in the matter.”
As if she ever did. Her resentment grew, and that night, they didn’t make love. Nor the next. Nor the one after that. It was just as well, she told herself. She’d been feeling ill for several weeks now. Sooner or later, she needed to stop fighting it and see the doctor.
Even so, she waited until the morning before they left for Veronica’s party to make the trip.
By the time they reached Charleston, Kit was pale and exhausted. Cain left to attend to some business while Kit was shown to the room they’d share for the next few nights. It was light and airy, with a narrow balcony that looked down upon a brick courtyard, appealing even in winter with its green border of Sea Island grass and the scent of sweet olives.
Veronica sent up a maid to help her unpack and prepare a bath. Afterward, Kit lay down on the bed and closed her eyes, too drained of emotion even to cry. She awakened several hours later and numbly put on her cotton wrapper. As she knotted the sash, she walked over to the windows and pushed back the drapery.
It was already dark outside. She’d have to get dressed soon. How would she get through the evening? She lay her cheek against the chilly window glass.
She was going to have a baby. It didn’t seem possible, yet even now a small speck of life grew inside her. Baron Cain’s baby. A child who would bind her to him for the rest of her life. A child she desperately wanted, even though everything would become so much more difficult.
She forced herself to sit down in front of the dressing table. As she fumbled for her hairbrush, she noticed the blue ceramic jar resting next to her other toiletries. Lucy had packed it as well. How ironic.
The jar contained the grayish-white powders Kit had gotten from the Conjure Woman to keep her from conceiving. She’d taken it once and then never again. At first there’d been the long weeks when she and Cain had slept apart, and then, after their nighttime reconciliation, she’d found herself reluctant to use the powders. The contents of that blue jar had seemed almost malevolent, like finely ground bones. When she’d heard several women talking about how difficult it had been for them to conceive, she’d justified her carelessness by deciding the risk of pregnancy wasn’t as great as she had feared. Then Sophronia had discovered the jar and told Kit the powders were worthless. The Conjure Woman didn’t like white women and had been selling them useless prevention powders for years. Kit ran her finger across the lid of the jar, wondering if that was true.
The door flew open so abruptly, she jumped and knocked over the jar. She leaped up from the stool. “Couldn’t you just once enter a room without tearing the door from its hinges?”
“I’m always much too eager to see my devoted wife.” Cain tossed his leather gloves down on a chair, then spotted the mess on the dressing table. “What’s that?”
“Nothing!” She gra
bbed a towel and tried to wipe it up.
He came up behind her and settled his hand over hers. With his other hand, he picked up the overturned jar and studied the powder that remained inside. “What is this?”
She tried to pull her hand from beneath his, but he held it there. He set down the jar, and his measured stare told her he wouldn’t let her go until she told him the truth. She started to say it was a headache powder, but she was too tired to dissemble, and what was the point anyway?
“It’s something I got from the Conjure Woman. Lucy packed it by mistake.” And then, because it didn’t make any difference now: “I—I didn’t want to have a baby.”
A look of bitterness flashed across his face. He released her hand and turned away. “I see. Maybe we should have talked about it.”
She couldn’t quite keep the sadness from her voice. “We don’t seem to have that kind of marriage, do we?”
“No. No, I guess we don’t.” With his back to her, he took off his pearl-gray coat and tugged at his cravat. When he finally turned, his eyes were as remote as the North Star. “I’m glad you were so sensible. Two people who detest each other wouldn’t make the best parents. I can’t imagine anything worse than bringing some unwanted brat into this sordid mess we call a marriage, can you?”
Kit felt her heart break into a million pieces. “No,” she managed. “No, I can’t.”
“I understand you own that new spinning mill out past Rutherford, Mr. Cain.”
“That’s right.” Cain stood at one end of the foyer next to John Hughes, a beefy young Northerner who’d claimed his attention just as he’d been about to go upstairs to see what was keeping Kit.
“Hear you’re doing a good business there. More power to you, I say. Risky, though, don’t you think, with the—” He broke off and whistled softly as he gazed past Cain’s shoulder to the staircase. “Whoa, now! Would you look at that? There’s a woman I’d like to take home with me.”
Cain didn’t need to turn around to know who it was. He could feel her through the pores of his skin. Still, he had to look.
She wore her silver-and-white gown with the crystal beads. But the dress had been altered since he’d last seen it, the way she’d altered so many of her clothes recently. She’d cut away the white satin bodice to just below her breasts and set in a single fine layer of silver organdy. It rose up over the soft curves to her throat, where she’d used a glimmering ribbon to gather it into a high, delicate ruffle.
The organdy was transparent, and she wore nothing beneath. Only the crystal bugle beads she’d taken from the skirt and placed in strategic clusters over the transparent fabric protected her modesty. Crystal spangles and warm, rounded flesh.
The gown was outrageously lovely, and Cain had never seen anything he hated more. One by one, the men around him turned to her, and their eyes greedily devoured flesh that should have been his alone to see. She was an ice maiden set afire.
And then he forgot his jealousy and simply lost himself in the sight of her. She was savagely beautiful, his wild rose of the deep wood, as untamed as the day he’d met her, still ready to stab a man’s flesh with her thorns at the same time she enticed him with her spirit.
He took in the high color smudging her delicate cheekbones and the queer, voltaic lights that glittered in the deep violet depths of her eyes. He felt his first prickle of uneasiness. There was something almost frenetic lurking inside her tonight. It pulsed from her body like a drumbeat, straining to break loose and run free and wild. He took one quick step toward her and then another.
Her eyes locked with his and then deliberately drew away. Without a word, she swept across the foyer to another neighbor from Rutherford who’d been invited.
“Brandon! My, don’t you look handsome tonight. And this must be your sweet fiancée, Eleanora. I do hope you’ll let me steal Brandon from you every once in a while. We’ve been friends for so long—like brother and sister, you understand. I couldn’t possibly give him up entirely, even for such a pretty young lady.”
Eleanora tried to smile, but her lips couldn’t hide either her disapproval or the knowledge that she looked dowdy next to Kit’s exotic beauty. Brandon, on the other hand, gazed at Kit in her shocking dress as if she were the only woman in the world.
Cain appeared. “Parsell. Miss Baird. If you’ll excuse us . . .”
His fingers sank into Kit’s organdy-draped arm, but before he could pull her across the foyer to the steps and force her to change her dress, Veronica glided toward them in a jet-black evening gown. There was a slight lift to her forehead as she took in the small drama being played out before her.
“Baron, Katharine, just the two I was looking for. I’m late as usual, and for my own party. Cook’s ready to serve dinner. Baron, be a darling and escort me into the dining room. And, Katharine, I want you to meet Sergio. A fascinating man and the best baritone New York City has heard in a decade. He’ll be your dinner partner.”
Cain ground his teeth in frustration. There was no way he could remove Kit now. He watched a much too handsome Italian eagerly step forward and kiss Kit’s hand. Then, with a soulful look, he turned it over and pressed his lips intimately to her palm.
Cain moved quickly, but Veronica was even quicker. “My dearest Baron,” she cooed softly as she dug her fingers into his arm, “you’re behaving like the most boring sort of husband. Escort me into the dining room before you do something that will only make you look foolish.”
Veronica was right. Nevertheless, it took all his will to turn his back on his wife and the Italian.
Dinner lasted for nearly three hours, and at least a dozen times during the meal, Kit’s laughter rang out as she divided her attention between Sergio and the other men who sat near her. They all flattered her outrageously and showered her with attention. Sergio seemed to be teaching her Italian. When she spilled a drop of wine, he dipped his index finger into the spot and then touched it to his lips. Only Veronica’s viselike grip kept Cain from leaping across the table.
Kit was waging a battle of her own. She’d perversely asked Lucy to pack the crystal-and-silver dress after Cain had told her he disliked it. But she hadn’t really intended to wear it. Yet when the time came to don the more appropriate jade-green velvet, Cain’s words had haunted her.
I can’t imagine anything worse than bringing some unwanted brat into this sordid mess we call a marriage . . .
She heard Cain’s laughter echo from the other end of the table and observed the attentive way he listened to Veronica. The ladies left the gentlemen to their cigars and brandy. Then it was time for the dancing to begin.
Brandon abandoned Eleanora to her father and asked Kit for the first dance. Kit gazed into his handsome, weak face. Brandon, who talked of honor, was willing to sell himself to the highest bidder. First to her for a plantation, then to Eleanora Baird for a bank. Cain would never sell himself for anything, not even his cotton mill. His marriage to her had been retribution and nothing less.
As she and Brandon moved out onto the dance floor, she saw Eleanora at the side of the room looking unhappy, and she regretted her earlier flirtatiousness. She’d drunk just enough champagne to decide she needed to settle a score for all unhappy women.
“I’ve missed you,” she whispered as the music began.
“I’ve missed you, too, Kit. Oh, Lord, you’re so beautiful. It’s nearly killed me to think of you with Cain.”
She pushed closer to him and whispered mischievously, “Dearest Brandon, run away with me tonight. Let’s leave it all, Risen Glory and the bank. It will only be the two of us. We won’t have money or a home, but we’ll have our love.”
She concealed her amusement as she felt him stiffen beneath the cloth of his coat.
“Really, Kit, I—I don’t think that would be—would be wise.”
“But why not? Are you worried about my husband? He’ll come after us, but I’m certain you can take care of him.”
Brandon stumbled. “Let’s not—that is to say
, I think, perhaps—too much haste—”
She hadn’t wanted to let him off the hook so easily, but a bubble of rueful laughter escaped her.
“You’re making fun of me,” he said stiffly.
“You deserve it, Brandon. You’re an engaged man, and you should have asked Eleanora for the first dance.”
He looked confused and a bit pathetic as he tried to regain his dignity. “I don’t understand you at all.”
“That’s because you don’t really like me very much, and you certainly don’t approve of me. It would be easier for you if you could just admit that all you feel for me is a most ungentlemanly lust.”
“Kit!” Such unvarnished honesty was more than he could accept. “I beg your pardon if I’ve offended you,” he said tightly. His eyes caught on the crystal-spangled bodice of Kit’s gown. With great effort, he tore his gaze away and, smarting with humiliation, went in search of his fiancée.
With Brandon’s departure, Kit was quickly claimed by Sergio. As she took his hand, she glanced toward the far end of the room, where her husband and Veronica had been standing a moment before. Now only Veronica was there.
Her husband’s indifference prodded Kit to the limits of what even she considered acceptable behavior. She whirled from one partner to the next, dancing with Rebel and Yankee alike, complimenting each one extravagantly and letting several hold her too closely. She didn’t care what any of them thought. Let them talk! She drank champagne, danced every dance, and laughed her intoxicating laugh. Only Veronica Gamble sensed the edge of desperation behind it.
A few of the women were secretly envious of Kit’s bold behavior, but most were shocked. They looked around anxiously for the dangerous Mr. Cain, but he was nowhere in sight. Someone whispered that he was playing poker in the library and losing badly.
There was open speculation about the state of the Cain marriage. The couple had not once danced together. There’d been rumors that it was a marriage of necessity, but Katharine Cain’s waistline was as slim as ever, so that couldn’t be.
The poker game folded shortly before two. Cain had lost several hundred dollars, but his black mood had little to do with money. He stood in the doorway of the ballroom, watching his wife sail across the floor in the arms of the Italian. Some of her hair had come loose from its pins and tumbled in disarray around her shoulders. Her cheekbones still held their high color, and her lips were rosy smudges, as if someone had just kissed her. The baritone couldn’t seem to look away from her.