“She didn’t do a very good job of it.”
Those violet eyes narrowed. “I’ve got half a mind to comment on your upbringing, too.”
The food had mellowed him, so this time she didn’t get his dander up. “Everything was delicious.”
She rose to fetch a bottle of brandy she’d put on the sideboard earlier. “Rosemary hid this before the Yankees came. Thought you might like to have a glass to celebrate your arrival at Risen Glory.”
“Trust my mother to take better care of the liquor than she did of her stepdaughter.” He took the bottle and began prying out the cork. “How did Risen Glory get its name? It’s unusual.”
“It happened not long after my granddaddy built the house.” Kit leaned against the sideboard. “A Baptist preacher man came to the door askin’ for a meal, and even though my grandma was strict Methodist, she fed him. They got to talkin’, and when he heard the plantation didn’t have a name yet, he said they should call it Risen Glory on account of it was almost Easter Sunday. It’s been Risen Glory ever since.”
“I see.” He fished a piece of cork from his glass of brandy. “I think it’s time you tell me what you’re doing here.”
Her stomach lurched. She watched him take a sip, his eyes staying on her the whole time. He never missed anything.
She moved toward the open doors that led from the dining room to the overgrown garden. It was dark and quiet outside, and she could smell honeysuckle in the night breeze. She loved it all so much. The trees and brooks, the sights and smells. Best of all, she loved watching the fields dance white with cotton. Soon, they’d be that way again.
Slowly she turned back to him. Everything depended on the next few minutes, and she had to do it right. “I came here to make a proposal to you, Major.”
“I resigned my commission. Why don’t you just call me Baron?”
“If it’s all the same, I’ll just go on callin’ you ‘Major’.”
“I suppose it’s better than some of the other things you’ve called me.” He kicked back in the chair. Unlike a proper Southern gentleman, he’d hadn’t worn a cravat to the table, and his collar was open. For a moment she found herself staring at the strong muscles in his neck. She forced herself to look away.
“Tell me about this proposal of yours.”
“Well . . .” She tried to suck in some air. “As you might of guessed, your part of the bargain would be to hang onto Risen Glory until I can buy it back from you.”
“I figured that.”
“You wouldn’t be stuck with it forever,” she hastened to add. “Just for five years, until I can get to the money in my trust fund.”
He studied her. She caught her bottom lip between her teeth. This was going to be the hardest part. “I realize you’d expect somethin’ in return.”
“Of course.”
She hated the flicker of amusement in his eyes. “What I’m preparin’ to offer is a little unorthodox. But if you think about it, I know you’ll see that it’s fair.” She gulped.
“Go on.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, took a deep breath, and let it out. “I’m offerin’ to be your mistress.”
He choked.
She got the rest out in a rush. “Now, I know this might be taking you by surprise, but even you’ve got to admit I’m a lot better company than those sorry excuses for females in New York City. I don’t giggle and bat my eyes. I couldn’t flirt even if I wanted to, and you sure won’t ever hear me talkin’ about pugs. Best part is, you wouldn’t have to worry about goin’ to all those balls and stuffy dinner parties most women like. Instead, we could spend our time hunting and fishing and riding horses. We could have a real good time.”
Cain started to laugh.
Kit yearned to have her knife back. “You mind tellin’ me what you think is so damn humorous?”
He finally managed to control himself. He set down his glass and rose from the table. “Kit, do you know why men keep mistresses?”
“Of course I do. I read The Sybaritic Life of Louis XV.”
He regarded her quizzically.
“Madame de Pompadour,” she explained. “She was Louis XV’s mistress. I got the idea from readin’ ’bout her.”
She didn’t tell him Madame de Pompadour had also been the most powerful woman in France. She’d managed to control the king and the country just by using her wits. Kit could surely manage to control the fate of Risen Glory if she was the major’s mistress. Besides, she didn’t have anything but herself to bargain with.
Cain started to say something, stopped, shook his head, then downed what was left of his brandy. When he was done, he looked like he was starting to get mad all over again. “Being a man’s mistress involves more than hunting and fishing. Do you have any idea what I’m talking about?”
Kit felt herself flush. This was the part she hadn’t let herself dwell on, the part the book hadn’t covered at all.
Being raised on a plantation had exposed her to the rudimentary facts of animal reproduction, but it had also left her with a lot of questions that Sophronia refused to answer. Kit suspected she didn’t have all the details right, but she knew enough to understand the whole process was disgusting. Still, it would have to be part of the bargain. For some reason, mating was important to men, and women were expected to put up with it, although she couldn’t imagine Mrs. Cogdell letting the reverend climb up on her back like that.
“I know what you’re talkin’ about. And I’m prepared to let you mate with me.” She glowered. “Even though I’m gonna hate it!”
Cain laughed; then his expression clouded as if he might be thinking about that damn spanking again. He yanked a cheroot from his pocket and stalked out the garden doors to light it.
She followed him outside and found him standing by an old rusty bench, gazing out toward the orchard. She waited for him to say something. When he didn’t, she spoke. “Well, what about it?”
“It’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”
The glow from his cheroot cast a flickering shadow over his face, and panic welled inside her. This was her only chance to keep Risen Glory. She had to convince him. “Why is it so ridiculous?”
“Because it is.”
“You tell me why!”
“I’m your stepbrother.”
“Bein’ my stepbrother doesn’t mean a damn thing. It’s purely a legal relationship.”
“I’m also your guardian. I couldn’t find a single person in this county who was willing to take you off my hands, and judging by your recent behavior, I guess that’s no surprise.”
“I’ll do better! And I’m a real good shot. I can put all the meat on the table you want.”
That started him cussing again. “Men aren’t looking for somebody who can put meat on the table when they’re choosing a mistress, damn it! They want a woman who looks and acts and smells like a woman.”
“I smell real good! Go on. Smell me!” She lifted her arm so he could get a good whiff, but all he cared about was being mad.
“They want a woman who knows how to smile, and say pretty things, and make love. Now, that leaves you out!”
Kit swallowed her last morsel of pride. “I could learn.”
“Oh, for God’s sake!” He stalked to the other side of the overgrown gravel path. “I’ve made up my mind.”
“Please! Don’t—”
“I’m not selling Risen Glory.”
“Not sellin’ . . .” Kit couldn’t seem to find her breath, and then a great wave of happiness washed over her. “Oh, Major! That’s . . . that’s the most wonderful thing I ever heard!”
“Hold on. There’s one condition.”
Kit felt a sharp prickle of warning. “No conditions! We don’t need any conditions.”
He stepped into the amber pool of light spilling out from the dining room. “You have to return to New York and go to school.”
“School!” Kit was incredulous. “I’m eighteen years old. I’m too old for school. Besi
des, I’m already self-educated.”
“Not that kind of school. A finishing school. A place that teaches deportment and etiquette and all those other female accomplishments you don’t know a damn thing about.”
“Finishing school?” She was horrified. “Now, that’s the stupidest, most puerile—” She saw the storm clouds gathering in his expression and changed tack. “Let me stay here. Please. I won’t be any trouble. Swear to Jesus. I can sleep out back, and you won’t even know I’m around. I can make myself useful all kinds of ways. I know this plantation better than anyone. Please let me stay.”
“You’re going to do as I say.”
“No, I—”
“If you don’t cooperate, I’ll sell Risen Glory so fast you won’t know what happened. Then you won’t have a prayer of ever getting your hands on it.”
She felt sick. Her hatred of him coalesced into a hard, tight ball. “How . . . how long would I have to go to this school?”
“Until you can behave like a lady, so I guess that’s up to you.”
“You could keep me there forever.”
“All right. Let’s say three years.”
“That’s way too long. I’ll be twenty-one by then.”
“You’ve got a lot to learn. Take it or leave it.”
She regarded him bitterly. “And then what happens? Will I be able to buy Risen Glory back from you with the money in my trust fund?”
“We’ll discuss that when the time comes.”
He could keep her away from Risen Glory for years, exiled from everything she loved. She turned away and rushed back into the dining room. She remembered how she’d humiliated herself by offering to be his mistress, and her hatred choked her. When her exile was over and Risen Glory was safe, he was going to pay for this.
“What’ll it be, Kit?” he said from behind her.
She could barely force out the words. “You don’t give me much choice, do you, Yankee?”
“Well, well, well.” A woman’s voice, throaty and seductive, rippled in from the hallway. “Will you jes’ look at what that child brought back with her from New York City.”
“Sophronia!” Kit pitched herself across the dining room and into the arms of the woman who stood in the doorway. “Where you been?”
“Rutherford. Jackson Baker took sick.”
Cain stared at the newcomer with surprise. So this was Kit’s Sophronia. She was hardly what he’d envisioned.
He’d imagined someone much older, but she looked as if she were in her early twenties, and she was one of the most exotically beautiful women he’d ever seen. Slim and tall, she towered over Kit. She had high, chiseled cheekbones, pale caramel skin, and slanted golden eyes that slowly lifted as he studied her.
Their gazes met and held over the top of Kit’s head. Sophronia untangled herself and walked toward him, moving with a languid sensuality that made her simple blue cotton dress seem like a gown of the finest silk. When she was directly in front of him, she stopped and held out her slim hand.
“Welcome to Risen Glory, Boss Man.”
* * *
Sophronia acted hateful all the way back north on the train. Everything was “yes, sir” and “no, sir” to Cain, smiling at him and taking his side against Kit.
“That’s because he’s right,” Sophronia said when Kit confronted her about it. “It’s time you started to act like the woman you were born to be.”
“And it’s time you started remembering whose side you’re supposed to be on.”
Sophronia and Kit loved each other more than anyone else on earth, despite being black and white. Which didn’t mean they didn’t argue. And those arguments only accelerated after they reached New York.
The minute Magnus laid eyes on Sophronia, he started walking around in a daze, and Mrs. Simmons wouldn’t stop talking about Sophronia being so wonderful. After three days, Kit was sick of it. Then her already bad mood plummeted even further.
“I look like a jackass!” The dun-colored felt hat sat like a squashed gravy boat on Kit’s ragged hair. The material of her ocher jacket was of good quality, but cut too big in the shoulders, and the ugly brown serge dress dragged on the carpet. She looked like she’d dressed up in a spinster aunt’s clothes.
Sophronia splayed her long fingers on her hips. “What d’you expect? I told you those clothes Mrs. Simmons bought for you was too big, but you wouldn’t pay me no nevermind. You ask me, this is what you get for thinkin’ you know so much more than everybody else.”
“Just because you’re three years older than me and we’re in New York City doesn’t mean you can act like some kind of queen.”
Sophronia’s elegant nostrils quivered. “You think you can say anything you want to me. Well, I’m not your slave no more, Kit Weston. You understand me? I don’t belong to you. I don’t belong to anybody ’cept Jesus!”
Kit didn’t like hurting Sophronia’s feelings, but sometimes she could be pigheaded. “It’s just that you don’t ever show any gratitude. I taught you your sums. I taught you how to read and write, even though it was against the law. I hid you from Jesse Overturf that night he wanted to lie with you. And now you’re taking that Yankee’s side against mine every chance you get.”
“Don’t you talk to me ’bout gratitude. I spent years keepin’ you out of Miz Weston’s sight. And every time she caught you and locked you in that closet, it was me who let you out. I took a whippin’ for you. So I don’t want to hear anything about gratitude. You’re a noose around my neck. Suffocating me. Cutting off my life’s breath. If it wasn’t for you—”
Abruptly Sophronia broke off as she heard footsteps approaching outside the door. Mrs. Simmons appeared and announced that Cain was waiting below to take Kit to the school he’d chosen.
Just like that, the two combatants found themselves locked in each other’s arms. Finally Kit pulled away, picked up her ugly, gravy-boat hat, and walked to the door. “You be careful, hear?” she whispered.
“You mind yourself at that fancy school,” Sophronia whispered back.
“I will.”
Sophronia’s eyes clouded with tears. “We’ll be seeing each other again before you know it.”
PART TWO
* * *
A Templeton Girl
Manners are the happy way of doing things.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
“CULTURE”
5
The Templeton Academy for Young Ladies sat on Fifth Avenue like a great gray stone whale. Hamilton Woodward, Cain’s attorney, had recommended it. Although the school didn’t normally take girls as old as Kit, Elvira Templeton had made an exception for the Hero of Missionary Ridge.
Kit stood hesitantly on the threshold of the third-floor room she’d been assigned and studied the five girls wearing identical navy blue dresses with white collars and cuffs. They were clustered around the room’s only window to gaze down at the street. It didn’t take her long to figure out what they were staring at.
“Oh, Elsbeth, isn’t he the handsomest man you ever saw?”
The girl identified as Elsbeth sighed. She had crisp, brown curls and a pretty, fresh face. “Imagine. He was right here in the Academy, and none of us were allowed to go downstairs. It’s so unfair!” And then, with a giggle: “My father says he’s not really a gentleman.”
More giggles.
A beautiful, blond-haired girl who reminded Kit of Dora Van Ness spoke up. “Madame Riccardi, the opera singer, went into a decline when he told her he was moving to South Carolina. Everybody’s heard about it. She’s his mistress, you know.”
“Lilith Shelton!” The girls were deliciously horrified, and Lilith regarded them disdainfully.
“You’re all such innocents. A man as sophisticated as Baron Cain has dozens of mistresses.”
“Remember what we decided,” another girl said. “Even if she is his ward, she’s a Southerner, so we all have to hate her.”
Kit had heard enough. “If that means I won’t ever have to talk to you
silly bitches, that’s just fine with me.”
The girls spun around and gasped. Kit felt their eyes taking in her ugly dress and awful hat. One more item to add to the ledger of hatred she was keeping against Cain. “Get out of here! All of you. And if I catch any of you in here again, I’ll kick your skinny asses straight to hell!”
The girls fled the room with horrified shrieks. All but one. The girl they’d called Elsbeth. She stood trembling and terrified, her eyes wide as teacups, her pretty lips trembling.
“Are you deaf or something? I told you to get out.”
“I . . . I c-can’t.”
“Why the hell not?”
“I . . . I live here.”
“Oh.” For the first time, Kit noticed the room had two beds.
The girl was sweet-faced, one of those people with a naturally kind disposition, and Kit couldn’t find it in her heart to bully her. At the same time, she was the enemy. “You’ll have to move.”
“Mrs. . . . Mrs. Templeton won’t let me. I—I already asked.”
Kit cursed, yanked up her skirts, and sank down on the bed. “How come you were lucky enough to get me?”
“My—my father. He’s Mr. Cain’s attorney. I’m Elsbeth Woodward.”
“I’d say I was pleased to make your acquaintance, but both of us know it’d be a lie.”
“I’d . . . I’d better go.”
“You do that.”
Elsbeth scampered from the room. Kit lay back on the pillow and tried to figure out how she was going to survive the next three years.
The Templeton Academy used a system of demerits to maintain order. For every ten demerits a girl acquired, she was confined to her room all day Saturday. By the end of her first day, Kit had accumulated eighty-three. (Taking the Lord’s name in vain was automatically ten.) By the end of her first week, she’d lost count.
Mrs. Templeton called Kit into her office and threatened her with expulsion if she didn’t start following all the rules. Kit had to participate in her classes. She’d been given two uniforms, and she was to start wearing them at once. Her grammar must improve immediately. Ladies didn’t say “ain’t” or “I reckon.” Ladies referred to objects as “unimportant,” not “useless as toad spit.” And most of all, ladies didn’t curse.