Just Imagine aka Risen Glory

15

was alone in the great rumpled bed when the noise in the hallway awakened her. She blinked against the sunlight, then bolted upright as she realized where she was. The sudden movement made her wince.

Sophronia rushed in without bothering to knock. "Kit! Honey, are you all right? Magnus wouldn't let me leave, or I'd have been here earlier."

Kit couldn't meet Sophronia's eyes. "I'm fine." She pushed back the covers. Her robe lay across the bottom of the bed. Cain must have put it there.

As she slipped into it, Sophronia stiffened. Kit saw her staring at the pale stain on the sheet. "You stayed with Magnus last night?" she said quickly, trying to divert her.

Sophronia pulled her gaze away from the bed and said unsteadily, "The major didn't give me much choice. Magnus slept on the porch."

"I see." Kit headed into her own room, just as if everything were normal. "A nice night for sleeping outdoors."

Sophronia followed her. Kit began to wash in the water Lucy had left for her. The silence hung heavy between them.

It was Sophronia who broke it. "Did he hurt you? You can tell me."

"I'm fine," Kit repeated, too quickly,

Sophronia sat down on the side of the bed that hadn't been slept in. "I never told you this. I didn't want to, but now…"

Kit turned away from the washstand. "What's wrong?"

"I-I know what it's like to be… to be hurt by a man." She twisted her hands in her lap.

"Oh, Sophronia…"

"I was fourteen the first time. He-he was a white man. I wanted to die afterward, I felt so dirty. And all that summer he'd find me, no matter how hard I tried to hide. 'Gal,' he'd call out. 'You. Come over here.' "

Kit's eyes filled with tears. She rushed to her friend's side and knelt beside her. "I'm so sorry. I didn't know."

"I didn't want you to."

She drew Sophronia's hand to her cheek. "Couldn't you have gone to my father and told him what was happening?"

Sophronia's nostrils flared, and she snatched her hand away. "He knew what was happening. White men always knew what was happening to the slave women they owned."

Kit was glad she hadn't eaten, because she would have vomited. She'd heard stories, but she'd always been able to convince herself that nothing like that could ever happen at Risen Glory.

"I'm not telling you this to make you cry." Sophronia took her thumb to one of Kit's tears.

Kit thought of the arguments about states' rights she'd made over the years to anyone who said the war had been fought over slavery. Now she understood why those arguments had been so important to her. They'd kept her from confronting a truth she hadn't been able to face. "It's so evil. So wicked."

Sophronia rose and moved away. "I'm doing my best to put it in the past. Right now, it's you I'm worried about."

Kit didn't want to talk about herself. She returned to the washstand, acting as if the world were just the same as it had been the day before. "You don't have to worry about me."

"I saw the expression on his face when he carried you into this house. It doesn't take much imagination to know you had a hard time of it. But listen to me, Kit. You can't keep all that ugliness stopped up inside you. You have to let it out before it changes you."

Kit tried to think of what she could say, especially after what Sophronia had revealed about herself. But how could she speak of something she didn't understand?

"No matter how terrible it was," Sophronia said, "you can talk to me about it, I understand, honey. You can tell me."

"No, you don't understand."

"I do. I know what it's like. I know how-"

"You don't." Kit turned. "This wasn't ugly like what happened to you," she said softly. "It wasn't ugly or awful or anything like that."

"You mean that he didn't…"

Kit swallowed and nodded. "He did."

Sophronia's face turned ashen. "I-I guess I shouldn't have…" She ran out of words. "I need to get back to the kitchen. Patsy wasn't feelin' good yesterday." Her skirts made a soft whooshing sound as she left the room.

Kit stared after her, feeling sick and guilty. Finally she forced herself to finish dressing. She reached into her wardrobe and pulled out the first thing her fingers touched, a candy-striped dimity. She'd lost her silver comb, so she tied her curls back with a pumpkin-colored ribbon she found in her drawer. It clashed with her dress, but she didn't notice.

just as she reached the foyer, the front door opened and Cain walked in with Miss Dolly. Kit was immediately swept into a peppermint-scented embrace.

"Oh, my sweet, sweet precious! This is the happiest day of my life, 'deed it is. To think that you and the major cherish tender feelin's for each other, and I didn't suspect a thing."

This was the first time she'd heard Miss Dolly voluntarily refer to Baron as "the major." She studied her more closely, which gave her an excuse to avoid looking at Cain.

"I've already chastised the major for keeping me in the dark, and I should chastise you, too, but I'm too consumed by happiness." The older woman clasped her hands to her ruffled bodice. "Just look at her, Major, in her pretty frock with a ribbon in her hair. Although you might want to find another color, Katharine Louise. That little pink satin you have, if it's not too badly crushed. Now I must go talk to Patsy about a cake." With a quick peck at Kit's cheek, she headed for the kitchen. When the clatter of her tiny heels on the wooden floor had receded, Kit was finally forced to look at her husband.

She might have been staring at a stranger. His face was empty of expression, his eyes distant. The passion they'd shared last night might have been something she'd imagined.

She searched for some trace of tenderness, some acknowledgment of the importance of what had passed between them. When she didn't find it, a chill went through her. She should have known this was how it would be with him. She'd been foolish to expect anything else. Still, she felt betrayed.

"Why is Miss Dolly calling you 'Major'?" She asked this question instead of the others she couldn't give voice to. "What did you say to her?"

He tossed his hat onto the hallway table. "I told her we were married. Then I pointed out that if she went on believing I was General Lee, she'd have to reconcile herself to the fact that you were living with a bigamist, since the general has been married for years."

"How did she react?"

"She accepted it, especially after I reminded her that my own military record was nothing to be ashamed of."

"Your military record? How could you frighten her like that?" Finally she had a target on which to pin at least a small portion of her pain. "If you bullied her-"

"She wasn't frightened. She was quite pleased to hear how valiantly I was serving under General Beauregard."

"Beauregard fought for the Confederacy."

"Compromise, Kit. Maybe someday you'll learn the value of it." He headed for the stairs and then stopped. "I'm leaving for Charleston in an hour. Magnus will be here if you need anything."

"Charleston? You're leaving today?"

His eyes mocked her. "Were you expecting a honeymoon?"

"No, of course not. But don't you think it's going to look a little strange if you leave so soon after our-our wedding?"

"Since when have you cared what people think?"

"I don't. I was just thinking about Miss Dolly and her cake." Her anger ignited. "Go to Charleston. Go to hell for all I care."

She pushed past him and stalked out the front door. She half expected him to come after her, half hoped he would. She wanted a fight, a raging argument on which to blame her unhappiness. But the door remained shut.

She went to the live oak behind the house and leaned against one of the great drooping branches. How was she to survive being his wife?

For the next few days, she stayed away from the house as much as she could. At first light, she donned her britches and rode Temptation from one corner of the plantation to the next, everywhere but the spinning mill. She talked to the women about their gardens, the men about the cotton crop, and walked between the long rows of plants until the afternoon sun drove her into the refuge of the woods or to the banks of the pond.

But the pond was no longer a sanctuary. He'd spoiled that, too. As she sat beneath the willows, she thought about how he'd managed to take everything from her: home, money, and finally her body. Except she'd given that freely.

Sometimes the memory filled her with rage. Other times she'd feel edgy and restless. When that happened, she'd jump on Temptation and ride him until she was exhausted.

One day slid into another. Kit had never been a coward, but she couldn't find the courage to face her callers, so she left them to Miss Dolly. Although she didn't think the Cogdells would ever reveal the details of that awful wedding, the rest was bad enough. She'd married the enemy in a hurry-up affair that would leave them all counting on their fingers for months to come. Just as embarrassing was the fact that her husband had abandoned her the morning after their marriage, and she had no idea when he'd return.

Only once did she agree to receive company, and that was early Saturday afternoon, when Lucy announced that Mr. Parsell had come to call. Brandon knew how she felt about Cain, so he must realize that she'd been forced into the marriage. Maybe he'd thought of a way to help her.

She quickly changed from her britches into the dress she'd worn the day before and hurried downstairs. He rose from the settee to greet her.

"Mrs. Cain." He bowed formally. "I came to extend my felicitations as well as the best wishes of my mother and my sisters. I'm certain that you and Major Cain will be very happy."

Kit felt a hysterical bubble of laughter rising inside her. How like him it was to behave as if there'd never been anything between them but the most distant of friendships.

"Thank you, Mr. Parsell," she replied, somehow managing to match his tone. Propelled by her pride, she flawlessly played the role for which the Templeton Academy had trained her. For the next twenty minutes, she spoke of the condition of the roses that grew near the front of the house, the health of the president of the Planters and Citizens Bank, and the possibility of purchasing a new carpet for the church.

He responded to each topic and never once attempted to refer to any of the events that had transpired between them less than a week before. As he took his leave of her, precisely twenty minutes after his arrival, she wondered why it had taken her so long to admit to herself what an idiot he was.

She spent the evening curled in a chair in the rear sitting room, her old, battered copy of Emerson's Essays on her lap. Across from her was the mahogany desk where Sophronia worked on the housekeeper's records. Cain would expect her to take over now, but Sophronia wouldn't appreciate her interference, and Kit had no interest in counting linens. She didn't want to be mistress of the house. She wanted to be mistress of the land.

As night settled in, Kit sank deeper into despair. He could do anything he wanted to her plantation, and she couldn't stop him. He cared much more about the mill than the fields. Maybe he'd decide to slice up the fields to make way for a road. And he was a gambler. What if he squandered the money from her trust? What if he decided to sell off the land for ready cash?

The clock in the hallway chimed midnight and her thoughts grew darker. Cain had always been a wanderer. He'd already lived here for three years. How long would it be before he decided to sell Risen Glory and set off for someplace new?

She tried to tell herself Risen Glory was safe for now. Cain was preoccupied with the spinning mill, so he wasn't likely to do anything drastic right away. Even though it went against her nature, she had to bide her time.

Yes, Risen Glory was safe, but what about her? What about that hot pounding in her blood when he touched her? Or the heightened awareness that shot through her every time she saw him? Was history repeating itself? Was Weston blood calling out to Cain blood as it had done once before in the union that had nearly destroyed Risen Glory?

"Katharine Louise, why aren't you in bed?" Miss Dolly stood in the doorway, her frilly nightcap askew, her face puckered with worry.

"Just restless. I'm sorry I woke you."

"Let me give you some laudanum, dear, so you can sleep."

"I don't need any."

"You need your rest, Katharine. Now, don't be stubborn."

"I'll be fine." She led Miss Dolly upstairs, but the older woman refused to leave her alone until Kit forced down several teaspoons of the laudanum.

She fell asleep, only to have her rest disturbed by opium-induced shadow-images. Toward dawn, a great tawny lion came to her. She smelled his male, jungle scent, but instead of feeling fear, she wove her fingers through his mane and pulled him closer.

Gradually, he changed into her husband. He whispered love words and began to caress her. Through the fabric of her dream, she felt his skin. It was warm and as moist as her own.

"I'll fill you now," her dream-husband whispered.

"Yes," she murmured. "Oh, yes."

He entered her then, and her body caught fire. She moved with him, and climbed with him, and just before the flames exploded, she called out his name.

The laudanum dream was still with her when she awakened the next morning. She gazed up at the pink-and-green silk bed hangings, trying to shake off the groggy aftereffects of the medicine. How real it had seemed… the lion who'd changed beneath her hands into-

She shot up in bed.

Cain stood at her washstand shaving before the mirror that hung above it. He wore only a white towel draped around his hips. "Good morning."

She glared at him. "Go into your own room to shave."

He turned and stared pointedly at her chest. "The scenery is better in here."

She realized the sheet had fallen to her waist, and she yanked it to her chin. Then she saw her nightgown lying crumpled on the floor. He chuckled at her sudden intake of breath. She lifted the sheet and stuck her head under it.

Sure enough. She wasn't imagining the dampness between her thighs.

"You were a wildcat last night," he drawled, clearly amused.

And he'd been a lion.

"I was drugged," she retorted. "Miss Dolly made me take laudanum. I don't remember anything."

"Then I guess you'll have to take my word for it. You were sweet and submissive, and you did everything I wanted."

"Now who's dreaming?"

"I took what was mine last night," he said with deliberate relish. "It's a good thing that your freedom is a thing of the past. You obviously need a strong hand."

"And you obviously need a bullet in your heart."

"Get out of bed and get dressed, wife. You've been hiding out long enough."

"I haven't been hiding."

"That's not what I hear." He rinsed off his face, then reached for a towel to dry it. "I ran into one of our neighbors in Charleston yesterday. She took a great deal of pleasure in telling me you weren't receiving visitors."

"Forgive me if I wasn't anxious to listen to everyone clucking their tongues over the fact that I married a Yankee who abandoned me the morning after our wedding."

"That really rankles, doesn't it?" He tossed down the towel. "I didn't have any choice. The spinning mill has to be rebuilt in time for this year's crop, and I needed to make arrangements for the lumber and building supplies." He walked to the door. "I want you dressed and downstairs in half an hour. The carriage will be waiting."

She eyed him suspiciously. "What for?"

"It's Sunday. Mr. and Mrs. Cain are going to church."

"Church!"

"That's right, Kit. This morning you're going to stop acting like a coward and face them all down."

Kit jumped up, taking the sheet with her. "I've never acted like a coward in my life!"

"That's what I'm counting on." He disappeared through the doorway.

She'd never admit it to him, but he was right. She couldn't keep hiding like this. Cursing under her breath, she threw aside the sheet and washed.

She decided to wear the blue-and-white muslin forget-me-not dress she'd worn on her first night back at Risen Glory. After she put it on, she pulled up her hair into a loose chignon, then perched a tiny confection of chip straw and blue satin on her head. For jewelry, she wore her detested wedding ring and eardrops set with moonstones.

It was a warm morning, and the worshipers hadn't gone inside yet. As the carriage from Risen Glory drew up, Kit watched their heads turn. Only the young children darting about in a final burst of energy were indifferent to the arrival of Baron Cain and his bride.

Cain helped Miss Dolly out, then reached inside the carriage to assist Kit. She stepped down gracefully, but as he began to release her arm, she moved closer to him. With what she hoped was an intimate smile, she slid first one hand and then the other up the length of his sleeve and clung to it in a pose of helpless and adoring femininity.

"Pushing it a bit, aren't you?" he muttered.

She gave him a blazing smile and whispered under her breath, "I'm just getting started. And you can go to hell."

Mrs. Rebecca Whitmarsh Brown reached her first. "Why, Katharine Louise, we didn't expect to see you this morning. It goes without saying that your very sudden marriage to Major Cain has surprised us all, hasn't it, Gladys?"

"It certainly has," her daughter answered tightly.

The young woman's expression clearly told Kit that Gladys's own eyes had been fixed on Cain, Yankee or not, and she didn't appreciate being passed over for a hoyden like Kit Weston.

Kit went so far as to press her cheek to his sleeve. "Why, Mrs. Brown, Gladys, I believe you're teasin' me, 'deed I do. Surely everyone in the entire county who possesses a pair of eyes guessed from the very beginnin' how Major Cain and I feel about each other. Although he, bein' a man, was much better able to hide his true emotions than I, a mere women, ever could."

Cain made an odd choking sound, and even Miss Dolly blinked.

Kit sighed and clicked her tongue. "I fought and fought our attraction-the major being a Yankee interloper and one of our most evil enemies. But as Shakespeare wrote, 'Love conquers all things.' Isn't that so, darlin'?"

"I believe Virgil wrote that, my dear," he replied dryly. "Not Shakespeare."

Kit beamed at the women. "Now, isn't he just the smartest man? You wouldn't think a Yankee would know so much, would you? Most of them being dim-headed and all."

He squeezed her arm in what looked like a gesture of affection, but was, in fact, a warning to mind her manners.

She fanned her face. "Gracious, it certainly is warm. Baron, darlin', maybe you'd better take me inside where it's cooler. I seem to be feelin' the heat this morning."

The words were barely out of her mouth before a dozen pairs of eyes traveled to her waistline.

This time there was no mistaking Cain's wicked amusement. "Of course, my dear. Let's get you inside right away." He steered her up the steps, his arm around her shoulders as if she were a delicate, fruit-bearing flower in need of his protection.

Kit felt the churchgoers' eyes piercing her back, and she could hear them mentally ticking off the months. Let them count, she told herself. Soon they'd see for themselves that they were wrong.

And then a horrible thought struck her.

The Conjure Woman had lived in a ramshackle cabin on what had once been Parsell land for as long as anyone could remember. Some said old Godfrey Parsell, Brandon's grandfather, had bought her at a slave market in New Orleans. Others said she'd been born at Holly Grove and was part Cherokee. No one knew for certain how old she was, and no one knew her by any other name.

White and black alike, every woman in the county came to see her sooner or later. She could cure warts, predict the future, make love potions, and determine the sex of unborn babies. She was the only one Kit knew who could help.

"Afternoon, Conjure Woman. It's Kit Weston-Katharine Louise Cain now-Garrett Weston's daughter. You remember me?"

The door creaked open far enough for an old, grizzled head to protrude. "You Garrett Weston's young'un all grown up." The old woman let out a dry, rasping cackle. "Your daddy, he be burnin' in hellfire for sure."

"You're prob'ly right about that. May I come in?"

The old lady stood back from the door, and Kit stepped inside a room that was tiny and well-scrubbed, despite its clutter. Bunches of onions, garlic, and herbs hung from the rafters, odd pieces of furniture filled the corners, and an old spinning wheel sat near the cabin's only window. One wall of the room held crude wooden shelves bowed in the center from the weight of assorted crocks and jars.

The Conjure Woman stirred the fragrant contents of a kettle hanging by an iron hook over the fire. Then she lowered herself into a rocker next to the hearth. Just as if she were alone, she began to rock and hum in a voice as dry as fallen leaves.

"There is a balm in Gilead…"

Kit sat in the chair closest to her, a ladder-back with a sagging rush seat, and listened. Ever since that morning's church service, she'd tried to think of what she'd do if she had a baby. She'd be bound to Cain for the rest of her life. She couldn't let that happen, not while there was still a chance for her, some miracle that would give her freedom and make everything right again.

As soon as they'd returned from church, Cain had disappeared, but Kit hadn't been able to get away until much later that afternoon, when Miss Dolly retired to her bedroom to read her Bible and nap.

The Conjure Woman finally stopped singing. "Child, you lay your troubles on Jesus, you gonna feel a whole lot better."

"I don't think Jesus can do much about my troubles."

The old lady looked up at the ceiling and cackled. "Lord? You listenin' to this child?" Laughter rattled her bony chest. "She thinks You cain't help her. She thinks ol' Conjure Woman can help her, but Your son Jesus Christ cain't." Her eyes were beginning to water from her amusement, and she dabbed at them with the corner of her apron. "Oh, Lord," she cackled, "this child-she's so young."

Kit leaned forward and touched the old woman's knee. "It's just that I need to be certain, Conjure Woman. I can't have a baby. That's why I've come to you. I'll pay you well if you'll help me."

The old woman stopped her rocking and looked Kit full in the face for the first time since she'd entered the cabin. "Chil'ren are the Lord's blessin'."

"They're a blessing I don't want." The heat in the small cabin was oppressive, and she rose. "When I was a child, I overheard the slave women talking. They said you sometimes helped them keep from having more children, even though you could have been put to death for it."

The Conjure Woman's yellowed eyes narrowed with something like contempt. "Those slave women gonna have their chil'ren sold away. You a white woman. You don't ever have to worry none about havin' your babies ripped out of your arms so you never see them again."

"I know that. But I can't have a baby. Not now."

Once again the old lady began to rock and sing. "There is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole. There is a balm in Gilead…"

Kit walked over to the window. It wasn't any use. The Conjure Woman wouldn't help her.

"That Yankee man. He got the devil in him, but he got goodness, too."

"A lot of devil and very little goodness, I think."

The old lady chuckled. "A man like that, he got strong seed. Ol' Conjure Woman needs strong med'cine to fight that seed." She struggled out of her chair and shuffled over to the wooden shelves, where she peered into first one container and then another. Finally, she poured a generous supply of grayish-white powder into an empty jelly jar and covered the top with a piece of calico she tied on with a string. "You stir a dab of this powder in a glass of water and drink all of it in the mornin', after he have his way with you."

Kit took the jar and gave her a swift, grateful hug. "Thank you." She pulled out several greenbacks she'd tucked into her pocket and pressed them into her hand.

"You just do what ol' Conjure Woman tells you, missy. Ol' Conjure Woman, she know what's best." And then she let out another wheezy cackle and turned back to the fire, chuckling at a joke known only to herself.

16

was standing on a low stepladder in the library, trying to retrieve a book, when she heard the front door open. The grandfather's clock in the sitting room struck ten. Only one person slammed a door like that. All evening she'd been bracing herself for his return.

That afternoon, on her way back from the Conjure Woman's, she'd caught a glimpse of him in the distance. Since it was Sunday, he'd been working alone at the mill. He was stripped to the waist, unloading lumber he'd brought back from Charleston.

"Kit!"

The light from the library window had given her away, and from the sound of his bellow, he wasn't in a good mood.

The library door flew back on its hinges. His shirt was stained with sweat and his dirty nankeen trousers were tucked into boots that had undoubtedly left muddy tracks down the hallway. Sophronia wouldn't be happy about that.

"When I call you, I want you right away," he growled.

"If only I had wings," she said sweetly, but the man had no sense of humor.

"I don't appreciate having to look all over the house for you when I come home."

He was being so outrageous that she nearly laughed. "Perhaps I should wear a bell. Would you like something?"

"You're damn right I would. A bath, for one thing, and clean clothes. Then I want dinner. In my room."

"I'll get Sophronia." Even as she said it, she had a fairly good idea he'd take issue.

"Sophronia isn't my wife. She isn't the one who made me spend the last six hours unloading lumber I wouldn't have needed if you weren't so handy with a match." He leaned against the doorframe, blatantly daring her to defy him. "You'll take care of me."

She did her best to prod his ill humor by smiling. "My pleasure. I'll see about your bath."

"And dinner."

"But of course." As she swept past him and headed for the kitchen, she played with a fantasy of jumping on Temptation and riding away forever, but it would take more than an evil-tempered husband to make her leave Risen Glory.

Sophronia was nowhere in sight, so she had Lucy get Cain's bath ready, then looked for something to feed him. She considered rat poison, but finally settled on the plate of food Patsy had kept warm on the back of the stove. She removed the towel so everything would be as cold as possible when he ate it.

Lucy appeared somewhat breathlessly at the door. "Mr. Cain says he wants you upstairs right now."

"Thank you, Lucy." As she carried the plate upstairs, she blew on the warm roast and potatoes, hoping to cool them off even more. She thought of dumping extra salt on top, but she didn't have the heart for it. He might be the devil incarnate, but he'd worked hard today. Lukewarm food was as far as she was prepared to go.

When she entered the room, she saw Cain sprawled in a chair, still fully dressed. He looked as grouchy as a lion with a thorn in its paw. "Where the hell have you been?"

"Seeing to your dinner, dearest."

He narrowed his eyes. "Help me off with my damned boots."

Even though his boots were mud-encrusted, he could have easily taken them off by himself, but he was spoiling for a fight. Normally she'd have been happy to oblige him, but since a fight was what he wanted, she chose to be perverse. "Of course, my lamb." She crossed over to him, turned her back, and straddled his leg. "If you brace yourself, it'll come off easier."

The only way he could brace himself would be to put his other muddy boot on her bottom. As she suspected, that was too much, even for him.

"Never mind, I'll take the damned things off myself."

"Are you sure? I live to be helpful."

He shot her a dark look, muttered something under his breath, and jerked off the boots. When he rose to take off his clothes, she busied herself by straightening the items on the top of the bureau.

She heard the sound of clothing dropping to the floor, then a splash as he lowered himself into the tub. "Come over here and scrub my back."

He knew he'd gotten the short end of their previous exchange, and now he intended to make up for it. She turned and saw him slouched low in the tub, his arm propped on the side, one wet calf dangling over the edge. "Take off your dress first so you don't get it wet."

This time he was certain she'd defy him, which would give him an excuse to be even more unpleasant. But he wasn't going to win that easily, especially when she wore a modestly cut chemise beneath, along with several petticoats. She avoided looking into the tub water as she unfastened her dress. "How considerate you are."

The water must have soothed him, because his eyes lost their hard look and developed an evil gleam. "Thank you for noticing. Now scrub my back."

She's scrub it, all right. She's scrub the skin off.

"Ouch!"

"Sorry," she said innocently from her position behind him. "I thought you were tougher."

"Don't forget my chest," he said by way of retaliation.

This would be awkward, and he knew it. She'd deliberately kept herself behind him, but it would be hard to wash his chest like that. She gingerly reached around him.

"You can't do a good job like that." He caught her wrist and pulled her to the side of the tub, soaking the front of her chemise in the process.

Avoiding looking down, she put the sponge to his chest and began soaping the mat of hair that stretched across it. She did her best not to linger over the white, lathery circles she made, but the swirling patterns icing those solid muscles enticed her. She wanted to paint in them.

One of her hairpins came out, and a lock of hair dipped into the water. Cain reached up to tuck it behind her ear. She sat back on her heels. His eyes drifted from her face to her breasts. She knew without looking that the water had made her chemise transparent.

"I'll-I'll set your plate on the table so you can eat after you've dried off."

"You do that," he said huskily.

She turned her back to him and took her time clearing off a small table by the fireplace. She could hear him drying off. When the sound stopped, she glanced cautiously at him.

He was dressed only in a pair of trousers, his hair damp and combed free of curl. She licked her lips nervously. The game had subtly shifted. "I'm afraid the food might be a little cold, but I'm sure it's delicious." She moved toward the door.

"Sit down, Kit. I don't like to eat alone."

She reluctantly took a seat across from him. He began to eat, and as she watched him, the four-poster bed in the corner of the room seemed to grow bigger in her imagination until it filled the room. She had to distract herself.

"I'm sure you're expecting me to take over Sophronia's responsibilities now, but-"

"Why would you want to do that?"

"I didn't say I wanted to. I can cook, but I'm terrible at the rest."

"Then let Sophronia do it."

She'd been prepared to rail at him for being unreasonable, but just like that, he'd knocked the wind out of her sails.

"There's only one household matter I want you to attend to, in addition to tending to me, of course."

She stiffened. Here it came. Something he knew she'd hate.

"A fox got one of the chickens last night. See if you can track it down. I'm sure you're a better shot than most of the men around here."

She simply stared at him.

"And if we want any game on the table, you'll have to put it there. I can't spare time from the mill right now to do it myself."

She couldn't believe what she was hearing, and she hated him for understanding her so well. She'd never have had this kind of freedom as Brandon's wife. But then, Brandon would never have looked at her as Cain was now doing.

The bed loomed larger. Her shoulders knotted with tension. She studied the sparkling prisms hanging from the lamp globe on the table, then ran her eyes over the books he kept near the bed.

The bed.

Her eyes settled on his hands. Broad-palmed, with lean, blunt-tipped fingers. Hands that had stroked her body and cupped every curve. Fingers that had explored her…

"Bread?"

She jumped. He held out a piece of bread he hadn't eaten.

"No. No, thank you." She struggled to hold onto her composure. "Miss Dolly was upset today. Now that I don't need a chaperone, she's afraid you'll send her away." She regarded him stubbornly. "I told her you'd do no such thing. I said she could stay here as long as she likes."

She waited for him to protest, but he merely shrugged. "I guess Miss Dolly's ours now, whether we want her or not. Probably for the best. Since neither of us gives a damn about convention, she'll keep us respectable."

Kit shot up from the table. "Stop being so reasonable!"

"All right. Take off your clothes."

"No. I-"

"You didn't think a bath and food were all I'd want from you, did you?"

"If you expect more, you'll have to force me."

"Will I?" He leaned lazily back in the chair and scrutinized her. "Untie those laces. I want to watch you undress."

She was shocked to feel a flush of excitement, and she struggled against it. "I'm going to bed. Alone."

Even as Cain watched her march to the door, he could see the fight she was waging with herself. Now that she'd tasted passion, she wanted him as badly as he wanted her, but she'd fight him before she'd admit it.

She was so damned beautiful it made him hurt just looking at her. Was this weakness what his father had felt with his mother?

The thought chilled him. He'd meant to push Kit tonight until he sparked the temper that was always her undoing. He should have known she was too worthy an opponent to play so easily into his hands.

But it had been more than a desire to make her lose her temper that had prompted his churlish behavior. He'd wanted to inflict the small, humiliating wounds that would tell her how little he cared about her. Once she understood that, it would have been safe for him to take her in his arms and love her the way he wanted to.

He still intended to make love to her. But not the way he wanted it to be, not with tenderness and care. He wasn't that foolish.

He rose and made his way through the sitting room to her bedroom. She'd locked the door against him, of course. He hadn't expected anything else. With a little patience on his part, he could melt her resistance, but he didn't feel patient, and the lock gave with a single kick.

She still wore her underclothes, although she'd loosened the ribbon on her chemise, and her hair hung loose, black silk trailing over ivory shoulders. Her nostrils flared. "Go away! I'm not feeling well."

"You'll feel better soon." He swept her into his arms and carried her back to his bed, where she belonged.

"I won't do this!"

He dumped her on the bed. She landed in a pile of petticoats and fury. "You'll do whatever I tell you."

"I'll clean your boots, damn you, and I'll bring your dinner. But that's all."

He spoke calmly against the raging of his blood. "Who are you angriest at? Me for forcing the issue? Or you for wanting me to force it?"

"I'm not-I don't-"

"You do."

He rid them both of their clothes, and her resistance melted with his first caresses. "Why does it have to be like this?" she whispered.

He buried his face in her hair. "Because we can't help it."

It was a meeting of bodies, not of souls. They each found satisfaction, but that was all. Exactly the way he wanted it.

Except afterward, he'd never felt emptier.

He rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. Scenes from his violent, unhappy childhood flashed before him. His father had lost more than his money to his wife. He'd lost his pride, his honor, and ultimately his manhood. And Cain was growing as obsessed with Kit as Nathaniel Cain had been with Rosemary.

The realization stunned him. His lust for this woman had blindsided him.

He drew a deep, agitated breath. Kit might desire him, but that desire wasn't as strong as her passion for Risen Glory. And beneath her desire, she hated him as much as ever.

Right then he knew what he had to do, and the knowledge was a knife in his gut. Desperately, he searched his mind for another way, but there wasn't any. He wouldn't let a woman steal his humanity, and that meant he couldn't touch her. Not tomorrow. Not next week. Not next month. Not until he'd broken the hold she had on him.

And that might take forever.

One week gave way to another, and they fell into a pattern of polite but distant coexistence, like two neighbors who nodded formally to each other over the fence but seldom stopped to chat. Cain hired extra men to work at the mill, and in little more than a month, the damage from the fire had been repaired. It was time to install the machinery.

As the days of summer ticked away, Kit's anger toward him yielded to confusion. He hadn't touched her since the Sunday night after he'd returned from Charleston. As long as she served him his meals when he came back from the mill, saw that his bath was ready, and superficially, at least, played the role of a dutiful wife, he treated her courteously. But he didn't take her into his bed.

She tramped through the woods in muddy boots and britches, the stock of his Spencer carbine tucked under one arm, a burlap bag holding quail or rabbits under the other. Although he wanted her waiting for him when he arrived home, he didn't care about proper female behavior the rest of the time. But even in the woods, she couldn't find contentment. She was too restless, too confused.

A letter arrived from Elsbeth:

My dearest, dearest Kit,

When I received your letter telling me of your marriage to Major Cain, I let out such a whoop, I quite terrified poor Mama, who feared I had injured myself.

You minx! To think how you used to complain about him! It is positively the most romantic histoire d'amour I have ever heard. And so perfect a solution to all of your troubles. Now you have both Risen Glory and a loving husband.

You must tell me if his proposal was as romantic as I have imagined it. In my mind I see you in your beautiful gown (the one you wore to our graduation ball) with Major Cain on his knee in front of you, his hands clasped imploringly to his breast just as we used to practice it. Oh, my dear Kit (my dear Mrs. Cain!), do tell me if my imagination has done justice to the event.

I hope you will be delighted with my own news, which I suspect will not come as a complete surprise. In October I shall be a bride just like you! I've told you in my letters that I've been spending much time with my brother's longtime friend, Edward Matthews. He is a little older than I and, until recently, thought of me as a child. I assure you, he no longer does!

Dearest Kit, I detest the distance between us. How I wish rue could talk together as we used to and exchange confidences about the two men we love, your Baron and my darling Edward. Now that you are a married woman, I could ask you the questions I cannot bring myself to ask my own dear mama.

Can Eve's Shame really be as horrible as Mrs. Templeton suggested? I am beginning to suspect that she must be wrong, for I cannot imagine anything between my darling Edward and myself that would be repulsive. Oh, dear, I shouldn't be writing of this, even to you, but it has been so much on my mind lately. I will close now before I am any more indiscreet. How I miss you!

Ta chère, chère amie,

Elsbeth

For a week, Elsbeth's letter stared accusingly at Kit from the top of her bureau. She sat down to answer it a dozen times, only to put away her pen. Finally she could postpone it no longer. The result was glaringly unsatisfactory, but it was the best she could do.

Dear Elsbeth,

How your letter made me smile. I'm so happy for you. Your Edward sounds perfect, just the husband for you. I know you will be the most beautiful bride in New York. If only I could see you.

I am amazed at how close your imagination hit upon the truth of Baron's marriage proposal. It was just as you imagined, down to the graduation gown.

Forgive me for such a short note, but I have a hundred things still to do this afternoon.

All my love,

Kit

P.S. Don't worry about Eire's Shame. Mrs. Temple ton lied.

It was the end of August before Kit could bring herself to visit the spinning mill, and then only because she knew Cain wouldn't be there. It was harvest time, and he was in the fields with Magnus from dawn until long after dark, leaving Jim Childs in charge at the mill.

Even though Kit hadn't been near the mill since the awful night she'd tried to burn it down, it was never far from her thoughts. The mill threatened her. She couldn't imagine Cain being content to keep it small, but any expansion would be at the expense of the plantation. At the same time, she was fascinated by it. She was a Southerner born to cotton. Could the spinning mill perform the same miracle as the cotton gin? Or had it been a curse instead?

Like every other child of the South, she knew the story as well as she knew the lines in her own palms. The story had no boundaries of creed or color. It had been told by rich and poor alike, by free men and slaves. How the South was saved in ten short days. As she rode toward the mill, she remembered…

It was the end of the eighteenth century, and the devil seeds were killing the South. Oh, you could talk all you wanted about Sea Island cotton with its long, silky fibers and smooth seeds that slipped out as easily as the pit of a ripe cherry. But if you didn't own sandy soil along the coast, you might as well forget that Sea Island cotton, because it wouldn't grow anyplace else.

There was tobacco, but it sucked the life out of the soil after a few years, leaving you with land that wouldn't grow anything.

Rice? Indigo? Corn? Good crops, but they wouldn't make a man rich. They wouldn't make a country rich. And that was what the South needed. A money crop. A crop that would make the whole world come banging on her door.

It was those devil seeds. The South could grow green seed cotton anywhere. It wasn't temperamental. It didn't need sandy soil or sea air. Green seed cotton grew like a weed. And it was worth about as much because those devil seeds clung to the short, tough fibers like burrs, they clung like glue, they clung like they'd been nailed in, they clung like the devil had put them there just so he could laugh at any man foolish enough to try to get them out.

A man had to work ten hours to separate one pound of cotton lint from three pounds of those devil seeds. Three pounds of seeds for one small pound of cotton lint. Ten hours' work. The devil was having a fine time in hell laughing at them all.

Where was the money crop going to come from? Where was the money crop that would save the South?

They stopped buying slaves and promised manumission to the slaves they owned. Too many mouths to feed. No money crop. The devil seeds.

And then a schoolteacher came to Savannah. A Massachusetts boy with a mind that worked differently from other men's. He dreamed machines. They told him about the devil seeds and those short, tough fibers. He went to the cleaning shed and watched how hard they fought to pull out the seeds.

Three pounds of seed for one pound of cotton lint. Ten hours.

The schoolteacher set to work. It took him ten days. Ten days to save the South. When he was done, he'd made a wooden box with some rollers and wire hooks. There was a metal plate with slots, and a crank on the side that turned like magic. The teeth hooked the cotton and pulled it through the rollers The devil seeds fell into the box. One man. One day. Ten pounds of cotton lint.

The miracle was made. A money crop. The South was Queen, and King Cotton was on the throne. The planters bought more slaves. They were greedy for them now. Hundreds of thousands of acres of land had to be planted with green seed cotton, and they needed strong backs for that. Promises of manumission were forgotten. Eli Whitney, the schoolteacher from Massachusetts, had given them the cotton gin. The miracle was made.

The miracle and the curse.

As Kit tied Temptation to the rail and walked toward the brick building, she thought how the gin that had saved the South had also destroyed it. Without the gin, slavery would have disappeared because it wouldn't have been economical, and there wouldn't have been a war. Would the spinning mill have the same disastrous effect?

Cain wasn't the only man who understood what it meant for the South to have its own mills instead of shipping the raw cotton to the Northeast or to England. And before long, there'd be more men. Then the South would control its cotton from beginning to end-grow it, gin it, spin it,, and eventually weave it. The mills could bring back the prosperity the war had stripped away. Bui like the gin, the mills would bring changes, too, especially to plantations like Risen Glory.

Jim Childs showed her through the mill, and if he was curious about why the wife of his employer should suddenly reappear after a two-month absence, he gave no sign. As far as Kit knew, Cain hadn't told anyone that she was the person who'd tried to burn it down. Only Magnus and Sophronia seemed to have guessed the truth. When Kit left, she realized one part of her was anxious to see the huge machines at work when the mill finally opened in October.

On her way homo, she caught sight of Cain standing beside a wagon filled with cotton. He was stripped to the waist, and his chest glistened with sweat. As she watched, he grabbed a full burlap sack from the shoulders of one of the workers and emptied it into the wagon. Then he took off his hat and ran his forearm over his brow.

The taut, sinewy tendons rippled across the sheath of his skin like wind over water. He'd always been lean and hard-muscled, but the backbreaking work of plantation and mall had defined every muscle and tendon. Kit felt a sudden, piercing weakening inside her as she had a vision of that naked strength pressed over her. She shook her head to clear away the image.

After she returned to Risen Glory, she indulged in a frenzy of cooking, despite the fact that the weather during these final days of August was oppressive and the kitchen heavy with heat. By the end of the day, she'd produced a terrapin stew, corn rolls, and a jelly cake, but she still hadn't managed to shake her restlessness.

She decided to ride to the pond for a swim before dinner. As she left the stable on Temptation, she remembered that Cain was working in a field she'd have to cross to get there. He'd know exactly where she was going. Instead of upsetting her, the thought excited her. She tapped her heels into Temptation's flanks and set off.

Cain saw her coming. He even lifted his hand in a small, mocking salute. But he didn't go near the pond. She swam in the cool waters, naked and alone.

She awakened the next morning to her monthly courses. By afternoon, her relief that she wasn't pregnant had been displaced by racking pain. She was seldom sick with her monthlies, and never this badly.

At first she tried to ease the pain by walking, but before long, she gave it up, stripped off her dress and petticoats, and went to bed. Sophronia dosed her with medicine, Miss Dolly read to her from The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life, but the pain didn't ease. She finally ordered them both out of the room so she could suffer in peace.

But she wasn't left alone for long. Near dinnertime, her door banged open and Cain strode in, still dressed from the fields.

"What's the matter with you? Miss Dolly told me you were sick, but when I asked her what was wrong, she began twitching like a rabbit and ran to her room."

Kit lay on her side, her knees clutched to her chest. "Go away."

"Not until you tell me what's wrong."

"It's nothing," she groaned. "I'll be all right tomorrow. Just go away."

"Like hell I will. The house is quiet as a funeral parlor, my wife is locked away in her bedroom, and nobody will tell me anything."

"It's my monthly time," Kit muttered, too sick to be embarrassed. "It's never this bad."

Cain turned and left the room.

Unsympathetic lout!

She clutched her stomach and moaned.

Less than half an hour later, she was surprised to feel the bed sag next to her. "Drink this. It'll make you feel better." Cain lifted her shoulders and held a cup to her lips.

She swallowed, then gasped for breath. "What is it?"

"Lukewarm tea with a heavy dose of rum. It'll take the edge off."

It tasted foul, but it was easier to drink it than to put up a fuss. As he gently laid her back on the bed, her head began to swim pleasantly. She was dimly aware of the smell of soap and realized he'd bathed before he'd come back to her. The gesture touched her.

He tugged at her sheet. Beneath it she wore only a plain schoolgirl's cotton chemise from her days at the Academy and a pair of expensive, delicately ruffled pantalets. Mismatched as usual.

"Close your eyes and let the rum do its work," he whispered.

Indeed, her eyelids were suddenly too heavy for her to hold open. As they fluttered shut, he touched the small of her back and began to massage her. His hands climbed gently along her spine, then down again. She was barely aware when he pushed the camisole out of his way and touched her skin directly. While she drifted off to sleep, she knew only that his touch seemed to have dulled the knife edge of pain.

The next morning, she found a great bunch of field daisies thrust into a drinking glass at her bedside.

17

Summer glided into fall and an air of tense expectancy hung over the house and its inhabitants. The harvest was in, and soon the mill would spring alive.

Sophronia moved belligerently through the days, increasingly snappish and difficult to please. Only the fact that Kit wasn't sharing Cain's bed brought her any comfort. It wasn't that she wanted Cain for herself-she'd gratefully relinquished her hold on that idea. Instead, it was a feeling that as long as Kit stayed away from Cain, Sophronia wouldn't have to face the awful possibility that a decent woman like Kit, a decent woman like herself, could find pleasure lying with a man. Because if that were possible, all her carefully arranged ideas about what was important and what wasn't would become meaningless.

Sophronia knew she was running out of time. James Spence was pressing her to make up her mind whether or not she'd be his mistress, safe and well protected in the small doll's house he'd found in Charleston, away from Rutherford's gossiping tongues. Never one to be idle, Sophronia now found herself staring out the window for long stretches of time, looking in the direction of the overseer's house.

Magnus waited, too. He sensed that Sophronia was coming to some sort of crisis, and he steeled himself to face it. How much longer, he wondered, could he be patient? And how was he going to live with himself if she left him for James Spence with his fancy red buggy, his phosphate mine, and his skin as white as the underbelly of a fish?

Cain's problems were different, and yet the same. With the harvest in and the machinery installed in the mil!, there was no longer any reason for him to work so hard. But he'd needed the numbing exhaustion of those long workdays to keep his body from realizing the great joke he was playing on it Not since he was a kid had he been so long without a woman.

Most nights he was back at the house in time for dinner, and he couldn't decide whether she was deliberately driving him mad or it if was unintentional. Each night she appeared at the table smelling of jasmine, with her hair styled so that it reflected her mood. Sometimes she wore it impishly high on her head with wisps of curl framing her face like soft, inky feathers. Other times she'd arrange it in the severe Spanish style so few women could wear successfully, parted in the center and pulled into a heavy knot at the nape of her neck that just begged for his fingers to undo it. Either way, he had to struggle to take his eyes off her. It was ironic. He who'd never been faithful to a woman was now being faithful to a woman he couldn't make love with, not until he could put her in the proper place in his life.

Kit was as unhappy as Cain. Her body, once awakened, didn't want to go back to sleep. Strange, erotic fantasies plagued her. She found the book Cain had give her so long ago, Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass. At the time, the poems had confused her. Now they stripped her bare. Never had she read poetry like this, sprawling verse stuffed with images that left her body burning:

Love-thoughts, love-juice, love-odor, love-yielding,

love climbers, and the climbing sap,

Arms and hands of love, lips of love, phallic thumb of

love, bellies press'd and glued together with love…

She ached for his touch. She found herself rushing back to her bedroom in the afternoons for long, soaking baths and then dressing for dinner in her most attractive gowns. Before long, her clothes grew too tame. She cut off a dozen tiny silver buttons from the bodice of her cinnamon silk gown so that the neckline fell open to the middle of her breasts. Then she filled in the space with a string of glass beads the color of juniper berries. She replaced the belt on a pale yellow morning dress with a long swath of vermilion-and-indigo-striped taffeta. She wore bright pink slippers with a tangerine gown, then was unable to resist threading lime-colored ribbons through the sleeves. She was outrageous, enchanted. Sophronia said she was behaving like a peacock spreading its tail to attract a mate.

But Cain didn't seem to notice.

Veronica Gamble came to call on a rainy Monday afternoon nearly three months after Kit's wedding. Kit had volunteered to sift through the dusty clutter in the attic for a set of china no one could find, and once again she looked less than her best.

Other than exchanging a few courteous words when they saw each other at church or in town, Kit hadn't visited with Veronica since the disastrous dinner party. She'd sent her a polite thank-you note for the handsome, calf-bound copy of Madame Bovary that had been Veronica's wedding present-a most inappropriate gift, Kit had discovered as she was devouring every word. Veronica fascinated her, but she was also threatened by the older woman's self-assurance and cool beauty.

While Lucy served frosty glasses of lemonade and a plate of cucumber sandwiches, Kit dismally compared Veronica's well-cut biscuit-colored suit with her own soiled and rumpled cotton frock. Was it any wonder that her husband showed such obvious pleasure in Veronica's company? Not for the first time, Kit found herself wondering if all their meetings were taking place in public. The idea that they might be seeing each other privately made her ache.

"And how do you find married life?" Veronica asked after they'd exchanged pleasantries and Kit had consumed four cucumber sandwiches to the other woman's one.

"Compared to what?"

Veronica's laughter tinkled through the room like glass bells. "You're without doubt the most refreshing female in this decidedly tedious county."

"If it's so tedious, why do you stay here?"

Veronica fingered the cameo brooch at her throat. "I came here to heal my spirit. I'm certain that sounds melodramatic to someone as young as you, but my husband was very dear to me, and his death hasn't been easy for me to accept. In the end, though, I'm finding boredom almost as great an enemy as grief. When one has become accustomed to the company of a fascinating man, it's not easy to be alone."

Kit wasn't sure how to respond, especially since she sensed a subtle calculation behind the words, an impression that Veronica quickly reinforced.

"Enough! You cannot want to spend your afternoons listening to the maudlin reflections of a lonely widow when your own life is so new and young. Tell me how you're enjoying being married."

"I'm adjusting much like any other new bride," Kit answered carefully.

"What a conventional and proper response. I'm quite disappointed. I'd expected you to tell me with your customary bluntness to mind my own business, although I'm certain you shall do just that before I leave. I came here with the express purpose of prying into the intimacies of this most interesting marriage of yours."

"Really, Mrs. Gamble," Kit said weakly. "I'm sure I can't imagine why you'd care to do that."

"Because human mysteries make life amusing. And now I find one right in front of me." Veronica tapped her cheek with one oval fingernail. "Why, I ask myself, does the most attractive couple in South Carolina seem to be at loggerheads?"

"Mrs. Gamble, I-"

"Why do their eyes seldom meet in public? Why do they never touch each other in the casual way lovers do?"

"Really, I don't-"

"That, of course, is the most interesting question of all, because it makes me wonder if they truly are lovers."

Kit sucked in her breath, but Veronica waved her silent with a lazy flick of her hand. "Spare me any dramatics until you've heard me out. You may discover I'm doing you a favor."

A small, silent war took place inside Kit, with caution on one side and curiosity on the other. "Go on," she said as coolly as she could manage.

"There is something not quite right about this couple," Veronica continued. "The husband has a hungriness about him that is foreign to a well-satisfied man. While the wife… Ah, the wife! She is even more interesting than the husband. She watches him when he isn't looking, drinking in his body in the most immodest fashion, letting her eyes caress him. It's most puzzling. The man is virile, the wife sensuous, and yet I am convinced the two are not lovers."

Having had her say, Veronica was now content to wait. Kit felt as if she'd been stripped bare. It was humiliating. And yet… "You came here with a purpose, Mrs. Gamble. I'd like to know what it is."

Veronica looked surprised. "But isn't it obvious? You can't be so naive that you don't realize I'm attracted to your husband." She tilted her head. "I'm here to give you fair warning. If you don't intend to make use of him, I certainly do."

Kit found herself almost calm. "You came here today to warn me that you intend to have a liaison with my husband?"

"Only if you don't want him, my dear." Veronica picked up her lemonade and took a delicate sip. "Despite what you may think, I formed an exceptional fondness for you the first time I met you. You remind me so much of myself at your age, although I hid my feelings better. Still, fondness can extend only so far, and in the end it will be better for your marriage if I share your husband's bed, instead of some scheming hussy who'll try to come between the two of you permanently."

Up until that moment, she had been speaking lightly, but now her green eyes bore uncompromisingly into Kit's like small, polished emeralds. "Believe me when I tell you this, my dear. For some reason that I can't possibly fathom, you've left your husband ripe for the picking, and it's only a matter of time until someone does just that. I intend that someone to be me."

Kit knew she should sweep indignantly from the room, but there was something about Veronica Gamble's utter frankness that triggered the part of her that had so little patience with dissemblance. This woman knew the answers to secrets that Kit could only glimpse.

She managed to keep her face expressionless. "For the sake of conversation, suppose some of what you say is true. Suppose… that I have… no interest in my husband. Or suppose-again for the sake of conversation-that… my husband has no… interest in me." Color flushed her cheeks, but she plunged determinedly on. "How might you suggest I go about… getting him interested?"

"Seduce him, of course."

There was a long, painful silence.

"And how," Kit asked stonily, "might one do that?"

Veronica considered for a moment. "A woman seduces a man by following her instincts without giving the slightest thought to what she's heard is proper or improper. Seductive dress, a seductive manner, a willingness to tantalize by giving a glimpse of promises to come. You're an intelligent woman, Kit. I'm certain if you put your mind to it, you'll find a way. Just remember this. Pride has no place in the boudoir. It's a room devoted to giving, not holding back. Do I make myself clear?"

Kit nodded stiffly.

Having accomplished the purpose of her visit, Veronica gathered up her gloves and reticule and stood. "I warn you, my dear, you'd best learn your lessons quickly, for I shan't give you much time. You've had quite enough already."

She swept from the room.

A tew moments later, as she mounted the steps to her carriage, Veronica smiled to herself. How Francis would have enjoyed this afternoon. It wasn't often that she got the chance to play fairy godmother, but she had to admit that she'd performed splendidly.

As she settled back into the tufted leather seat, her brow knitted ever so slightly. Now she had to make up her mind whether or not she would actually carry out her threat.

Kit finally had the excuse to do what she'd been wanting to for so very long. Dinner was torture, made worse by the fact that Cain seemed to be in the mood to prolong it. He talked about the mill and asked her opinion on what the market for cotton would be like within the year. As always when the subject was cotton, he listened attentively to her response.

Horrible man. He was so achingly handsome that she could barely look away from him, and why did he have to be so charming to Miss Dolly?

She escaped to her room as soon as she could. For a while, she paced. Finally she slipped out of her clothes, donned a faded cotton wrapper, and sat in front of her mirror to take the pins out of her hair. She was brushing it into a soft midnight cloud when she heard Cain climbing the stairs to his bedroom.

Her reflection showed an unnaturally pale face. She pinched her cheeks, then replaced her moonstone eardrops with a small pair of pearl studs. Afterward, she dabbed a touch of jasmine scent to the hollow of her throat.

When she was satisfied, she abandoned her wrapper for the black silk peignoir set that had been a wedding present from Elsbeth. It slid like oil over her naked flesh. The garment was starkly simple, with small capped sleeves and a rounded bodice that dipped so low it barely covered the peaks of her breasts. The skirt clung to her body in long, soft folds that outlined the shape of her hips and legs when she moved. Over the gown she donned the peignoir, made entirely of sheer black lace. With trembling fingers, she fastened the single small button at the throat.

Through the lace, her skin gleamed like winter moonlight, and as she walked, the peignoir fell open, something she was fairly certain Elsbeth hadn't taken into account when she'd bought the gift. The gown beneath shaped itself like a second skin to her body, outlining her breasts, clinging to the delicate indentation of her navel and, more seductively, to the small mound below.

She walked through the sitting room, her bare feet padding noiselessly on the carpet. When she reached the door to his bedroom, she nearly lost her nerve. Quickly, before that happened, she rapped on the door.

"Come in."

He was dressed in shirtsleeves and sitting in the wing chair next to the window, a sheaf of papers on the table by his side. He looked up, and when he saw how she was dressed, his eyes darkened to a deep, smoky gray. She walked toward him slowly, head high, shoulders proud, heart hammering.

"What do you want?" The charming man at the dinner table had been left behind. He sounded weary, suspicious, and hostile. Once again she wondered why he'd lost interest in her. Because he didn't find her appealing? If that was true, she was about to suffer a terrible humiliation.

She could have invented an excuse-a cut finger that needed his attention, a request to borrow a book-but he'd have seen right through it. She lifted her chin and met his gaze. "I want to make love with you."

She watched uneasily as his mouth curved in a small, mocking twist. "My beautiful wife. So forthright." His eyes grazed her body, so clearly defined against the thin fabric. "Let me be just as straightforward. Why?"

This wasn't the way she'd imagined it. She'd expected him to hold out his arms and take over. "We're-we're married. It's not right for us to be sleeping apart."

"I see." He tilted his head toward the bed. "It's a matter of observing the amenities, is that it?"

"Not exactly that."

"Then what?"

A slight sheen of perspiration gathered between her shoulder blades. "I just want to." Too late, she realized she couldn't do this. "Forget it." She turned toward the door. "Forget I ever said anything. It was a stupid idea." She reached for the knob just as his hand settled over hers.

"Giving up so easily?"

She wished she'd never started this, and she couldn't even blame her behavior on Veronica Gamble. She'd wanted to taste him, to touch him, to experience the mystery of lovemaking again. Veronica had merely given her the excuse.

She realized he'd moved away from her, and she looked up to see him leaning against the mantel of the fireplace.

"Go ahead," he said. "I'll wait for you to start."

"Start what?"

"A man can't perform on command. I'm afraid you'll have to arouse my interest."

Had she thought to drop her eyes, she would have seen that his interest was already well aroused, but she was too busy trying to fight down the queer jumble of feelings twisting about inside her. "I don't know how to do that."

He rested his shoulders against the mantelpiece and crossed his ankles indolently. "Experiment. I'm all yours."

She couldn't bear having him making fun of her. Her throat constricted, and she moved back to the door. "I've changed my mind."

"Coward," he said softly.

She turned in time to see the mockery fade from his expression and something different take its place, something both seductive and challenging. "I dare you, Kit Weston."

A wild pounding reverberated deep inside her. Follow your instincts, Veronica had advised. But how would she know what to do?

He lifted a brow in silent acknowledgment of her dilemma, and a rush of courage that defied logic surged through her. Slowly she raised her fingers to the single button that held the peignoir together. The garment slid to the floor in a cascade of black lace.

His eyes drank in her body. "You've never been one to refuse a dare, have you?" he said huskily.

Her mouth curved into a smile. She walked toward him slowly, feeling a sudden, unreasonable surge of self-confidence. As she moved, she let her hips sway ever so slightly so that the slim skirt of the gown clung even more revealingly. She stopped in front of him and stared into the smoky depths of his eyes. Without dropping her gaze, she reached up and rested the palms of her hands lightly on his shoulders.

She sensed his tension beneath her fingers, and it gave her a feeling of power she'd never known in his presence. She lifted herself on her toes and pressed her lips to the dancing pulse at the base of his throat.

He groaned softly and buried his face in her hair, but otherwise he kept his arms at his sides. Excitement at his uncharacteristic passivity quivered through her. She parted her lips and flicked at the pulse with the tip of her tongue until its rhythm beat faster and faster.

Greedy for more of him, she tugged at the buttons on his shirt. When it was open, she pushed the fabric out of her way and slipped her hands beneath. She splayed her fingers over the mat of hair on his chest and then touched her lips to the hard, flat nipple that she'd exposed.

With a strangled sound, he caught her in his arms and pulled her body against his. But it was her game now, and she'd make him play by her rules. With the soft, wicked laugh of a vixen, she eased out of his grasp and backed across the room.

Lifting her eyes to his, she wet her lips with the tip of her tongue. Then she slid the palms of her hands over her ribs, her waist, and the curve of her hips in deliberate provocation.

His nostrils flared. She heard his quickening breath. Slowly she slid her hands back up again, this time over the front of her. Thighs… stomach… ribs… A woman seduces a man by following her instincts without giving the slightest thought to what she's heard is proper or improper. She cupped her breasts in her palms.

A muffled exclamation escaped his lips. The word was unintelligible, but he uttered it with a sense of wonder that made it seem a tribute.

Confident now of her power, she moved so that the bed was between them. She lifted her gown and climbed up onto the mattress. With a shake of her head, her hair tumbled forward over her shoulder. She smiled a smile that had been passed down from Eve and let her sleeve fall down on her arm. Beneath the veil of her hair lay one exposed breast.

It took all of Cain's self-control not to rush to the bed and devour her as she was meant to be devoured.

He'd vowed to himself he wouldn't let this happen, but now he couldn't hold back. She was his.

But she wasn't done with him yet. Resting on her heels with the skirt of her gown puddled over her knees, she played with her tousled hair so the raven locks fell open and closed in an erotic game of peekaboo.

The last thread of Cain's self-restraint snapped. He had to touch her or die. He came to the edge of the bed and reached out with his scarred hand to push the dark curtain of her hair behind her shoulder. He gazed down at the perfectly formed breast with its taut crest. "You learn fast," he said thickly.

He reached for her breast, but once again she eluded him. She glided back against the pillows so that she was resting on one elbow, the black silk skirt of her gown loose across her thighs. "You wear too many clothes," she whispered.

His bottom lip curved. With a few deft motions, he unfastened the cuffs of his sleeves and pulled the garment off. She watched him undress. Her heart pounded with a wild, savage rhythm.

Finally he stood before her fiercely naked. "Now who's wearing too many clothes?" he murmured.

He knelt on the bed and placed his hand on her knee, just under the hem of her gown. But she sensed the gown excited him, and she wasn't surprised when he didn't remove it. Instead, he slid his hand beneath it and moved along the inner flesh of her thigh until he found what he was seeking. He touched her lightly once,, then again, then once again, going deeper.

This time she was the one who moaned. As she arched her back, the black silk fell free from her other breast. He dipped his head to claim first one and then the other of her nipples. The double caress at her breasts and beneath her gown was more than she could bear. With a moan that came from her very soul, she shattered beneath his touch.

It could have been seconds or hours later before she came back to herself. He was stretched beside her, staring intently into her face. As she opened her eyes, he dipped his mouth to hers and kissed her lips.

"Fire and honey," he whispered.

She looked at him questioningly, but he only smiled and kissed her again. She returned his passion in full measure.

His mouth traveled to her breasts. Finally he pushed her gown high above her waist and moved on to her stomach.

She sensed what was to happen even before she felt the brush of his lips against the soft inner surface of her thigh. At first she thought she must be mistaken. The idea was too shocking. Surely she must be wrong. It couldn't be… He couldn't…

But he did. And she thought she would die from the pleasure he gave her.

After it was over, she felt as if she would never be the same again. He held her close and stroked her hair, idly curling the tendrils around his finger, giving her the time she needed to recover. Finally, when he could be patient no longer, he pressed himself over her.

She settled the heels of her hands on his chest and pushed him away.

Now the question was in his eyes as he lay back against the pillows, and she rose to her knees beside him. He watched her cross her arms modestly in front of her kneeling body, pick up the hem of her gown, and pull it off.

He took in her naked beauty for only a moment before she lay upon him. The curtain of her hair fell across them as she clasped his head between her small, strong hands.

She explored his mouth aggressively. She was boldly female, using her tongue to plunder and ravish, to take pleasure for herself and return it in abundance. Then she caressed the rest of him, touching her mouth to scars and muscles and hard, male flesh until there was only sensation between them. They came together, soared together… then fell apart.

Throughout the night they held each other, making love when they awakened, then dozing with their bodies still joined. Sometimes they talked, speaking of the pleasure of their bodies, but never once mentioning the things that held them apart Even in their intimacy, they established limits that couldn't be crossed.

You may touch me here… You may touch me there… Oh, yes, oh, yes, and there… But do not expect more. Do not expect daylight to bring a change in me. There will be no changes. You will only hurt me… Take from me… Destroy me… I will give you ray body, but do not, dare not, expect more.

In the morning, Cain growled at her when she crumpled the newspaper he wanted to read. Kit lashed out at him for setting a chair in her way.

The daytime barriers snapped back into place.

18

Sophronia made up her mind just before Christmas. James Spence met her beside the road that led to Rutherford and showed her a deed to a house in Charleston that had her name on it.

"It's a pretty pink stucco, Miz Sophronia, with a fig tree in the front and a trellis all covered with wisteria in the back."

She took the deed, studied it carefully, and said she'd go with him.

As she gazed out the kitchen window at the wet, dreary December day that lay over the dormant fields of Risen Glory, she reminded herself that she was twenty-four years old. Her life had been standing still long enough. James Spence could give her everything she'd wanted for so long. He treated her politely, and he was handsome for a white man. He'd take good care of her, and in return, she'd take care of him. It wouldn't be all that much different from what she was doing now… except that she'd have to lie with him.

She shivered, then asked herself what difference it made. It wasn't as if she were a virgin. The house in Charleston would be hers-that was what was important-and she'd finally be safe. Besides, it was time to get away. Between Magnus, Kit, and the major, she'd go crazy if she had to stay at Risen Glory much longer.

Magnus watched her with those soft brown eyes of his. She hated the pity she saw in them, yet sometimes she found herself daydreaming about that Sunday afternoon when he'd kissed her in the orchard. She wanted to forget that kiss, but she couldn't. He hadn't tried to touch her again, not even the night Kit and the major had gotten married and she'd slept at his house. Why wouldn't he go away and leave her in peace?

She wished they'd all go away, even Kit. Ever since she'd gone back to the major's bed, there was something frantic about her. She rushed from one thing to another, never giving herself time to think. In the morning when Sophronia went to the henhouse to gather eggs, she could see Kit in the distance, riding Temptation as if there weren't any tomorrow, taking him over jumps that were too high, pushing them both to the limit. Even if was cold or rainy, she rode. It was almost as if she was afraid the land might have disappeared during the night while she and the major were carrying on in that big bedroom upstairs.

During the daytime, the air between them shimmered with tension. Sophronia hadn't heard Kit speak a civil word to him in weeks, and when the major talked to her, his voice sounded like it was frozen inside a block of ice. Still, at least he seemed to be trying. He'd given in on the matter of putting a road to the mill through those acres of scrub to the east, when everybody but Kit could see the land was useless and the road would save miles of traveling time.

This morning Sophronia had been afraid they'd come to blows. The major had been warning Kit for weeks to stop riding Temptation so recklessly. He'd finally put his foot down and told her she couldn't ride Temptation at all. Kit had called him names and threatened a few things no woman should even know about, much less mention. He'd stood there like a statue, not saying a word, just watching her with that stone-cold expression that sent shivers down Sophronia's spine.

But no matter how bad things were between them during the day, when nightfall came, the door of that big front bedroom would slam shut and not open again until morning.

Through the window, Sophronia saw Kit, dressed in those shameful britches, coming back from a walk. Sophronia's stomach coiled in dread. She couldn't put it off any longer. Her satchel was packed, and Mr. Spence would be waiting for her at the end of the drive in less than an hour.

She'd told no one of her plans, although she wondered if Magnus suspected something. He'd looked at her strangely when he'd come to the kitchen for breakfast that morning. Sometimes she had the feeling he could read her mind.

She told herself she was glad he'd gone into Rutherford for the day so he wouldn't be here when she left. But some part of her wanted one last glimpse of that kind, handsome face.

She left her apron on the peg next to the sink where she'd been hanging aprons since she was a child. Then she walked through the house for the last time.

A chilly gust of air accompanied Kit as she came in through the front door. "That wind has some bite to it. I'm going to make chowder for dinner tonight."

Sophronia forgot that such things were no longer her responsibility. "It's nearly five o'clock," she scolded. "If you wanted chowder, you should have told me earlier. Patsy already made a nice okra pilau."

Kit jerked off her woolen jacket and shoved it irritably onto the newel-post. "I'm sure she won't mind if I add chowder to the menu." She began to stomp up the stairs.

"People in this house would appreciate it if you smiled once in a while."

Kit paused and looked down at Sophronia. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means that you've been grouchy for months now, and it's getting contagious. You've even got me snapping at Patsy."

It wasn't the first time Sophronia had reprimanded Kit for her behavior, but today Kit couldn't muster the energy to come to her own defense. She'd been feeling edgy and listless, not sick exactly, but not entirely well, either. She sighed wearily. "If Patsy doesn't want chowder on the menu tonight, I'll make it tomorrow."

"You'll have to tell her yourself."

"Why's that?"

"Because I won't be here."

"Oh? Where are you going?"

Sophronia faltered. Kit had asked the question so innocently. "Let's go into the sittin' room for a few minutes so we can talk."

Kit looked at her curiously, then followed her down the hallway. Once inside, she sat on the settee. "Is something wrong?"

Sophronia remained standing. "I-I'm going away to Charleston."

"You should have told me earlier. I have some shopping to do, too. I could have gone with you."

"No, it's not a shopping trip." Sophronia clasped her hands in front of her butternut wool skirt. "I-I'm goin' for good. I won't be coming back to Risen Glory."

Kit stared at her uncomprehendingly. "Not coming back? Of course you're coming back. You live here."

"James Spence bought me a house."

Kit's forehead knitted. "Why would he do that? Are you going to be his housekeeper? Sophronia, how could you even think of leaving here?"

Sophronia shook her head. "I'm not goin' to be his housekeeper I'm goin' to be his mistress."

Kit gripped the arm of the settee. "I don't believe you. You'd never do anything so horrible."

Sophronia's chin shot up. "Don't you dare judge me!"

"But this is wrong! What you're talking about is wicked, plain and simple. How could you even consider such a thing?"

"I'm doin' what I have to," Sophronia said stubbornly.

"You don't have to do this!"

"That's easy for you to say. But did you ever think I might want some of the same things you want-a house, pretty clothes, being able to wake up in the morning knowing nobody can hurt me?"

"But nobody can hurt you here. The war's been over for three years. Nobody's bothered you."

"That's just because everybody assumed I was sharing your husband's bed." At Kit's sharp look, she added, "I wasn't. Still, nobody except Magnus knew that." The sculptured lines of her face set into bitter planes. "Now that you're married, everything's different. It's just a matter of time before somebody decides I'm free for the picking. That's the way it is for any black woman doesn't have a white man lookin' out for her. I can't go through the rest of my life like that."

"But what about Magnus?" Kit argued. "He's a good man. Anybody with eyes can see that he loves you. And no matter how much you pretend otherwise, I know you have tender feelings for him. How can you do this to him?"

Sophronia's mouth formed a straight, stubborn line. "I have to look out for myself."

Kit jumped up from the settee. "I don't see what's so wonderful about having a white man watching out for you. When you were a slave, my father was supposed to be watching out for you, and look what happened. Maybe Mr. Spence won't be able to protect you any more than my father could. Maybe he'll look the other way the same as my father. Did you ever think about that, Sophronia? Did you?"

"Your father didn't try to protect me!" Sophronia cried. "He didn't try, do you understand what I'm telling you? It wasn't just a matter of not seeing what was happenin'. He was the one who was giving me away for the night to his friends."

Kit felt a stabbing deep in the walls of her stomach.

Now that the truth was out, Sophronia couldn't stop herself. "Sometimes he'd let them throw dice for me. Sometimes they'd race their horses. I was the prize in the games they played."

Kit ran to Sophronia and took her in her arms. "I'm sorry. Oh, I'm so very, very sorry."

Sophronia's back was rigid under her hands. Kit stroked her, blinked away tears, muttered apologies that weren't hers to make, and tried to find the argument that would convince Sophronia not to leave the only home she'd ever known. "Don't let what happened ruin the rest of your life. As awful as it was, it happened a long time ago. You're young. Lots of slave women-"

"Don't you tell me about slave women!" Sophronia jerked away, her expression ferocious. "Don't you dare tell me about slave women! You don't know nothin' about it!" She took a deep gulp of air, as if she were strangling. "He was my father, too!"

Kit froze. Slowly, she shook her head. "No. It's not true. You're lying to me. Even he wouldn't give away his own daughter. Damn you! Damn you for lying to me!"

Sophronia didn't flinch. "I'm his daughter, no different from you. He took my mama when she was only your mama's nose. Kept her there until he found out she was carryin' a baby, then he tossed her back to the slave cabins like a piece of trash. At first, when his friends came sniffin' after me, I thought maybe he might have forgotten I was his. But he hadn't forgotten. He just didn't attach any significance to it. Blood had no meaning because I wasn't human. I was property. Just another nigger gal."

Kit's face was chalk-white. She couldn't move. Couldn't speak.

Now that her secret was no longer locked inside her, Sophronia was finally calm. "I'm glad my mama died before it all started. She was a strong woman, but seeing what was happening to me would have broke her." Sophronia reached out and touched Kit's immobile cheek. "We're sisters, Kit," she said softly. "Didn't you ever feel it? Didn't you ever feel that tie between us, binding us so tight nothing could ever pull us apart? Right from the start, it was the two of us. Your mama died after you were born, and my mama was supposed to take care of you, but she didn't like to touch you because of what had happened. So I took care of you, right from the beginning. A child raising a child. I can remember holding you in my lap when I couldn't have been more than four or five myself. I used to set you next to me in the kitchen when I was working and play doll babies with you in the evening. And then Mama died, and you were all I had. That's why I never left Risen Glory, not even when you went away to New York City. I had to make sure you'd be all right. But when you came back, it was like you were a different person, part of a world I couldn't belong to. I've been jealous, and I've been scared, too. You've got to forgive me for what I'm goin' to do, Kit, but you have a place in the world, and now it's time for me to find mine." She gave Kit a swift hug and fled.

Not long after, Cain found Kit there. She was still standing in the center of the room. Her muscles were rigid, her hands knotted into fists.

"Where the hell is every-Kit? What's wrong?"

In an instant he was beside her. She felt as if she'd been pulled from a trance. She sagged against him, choking on a sob. He took her in his arms and led her to the settee. "Tell me what happened."

His arms felt so good around her. He'd never held her like this-protectively, with no trace of passion. She began to cry. "Sophronia's leaving. She's going away to Charleston to be… to be James Spence's mistress."

Cain swore softly. "Does Magnus know about this?"

"I-I don't think so." She tried to catch her breath. "She just told me… Sophronia's my sister."

"Your sister?"

"Garrett Weston's daughter, just like me."

He stroked her chin with his thumb. "You've lived in the South all your life. Sophronia's skin is light."

"You don't understand." She clenched her jaw and spat out the words through her tears. "My father used to give her away to his friends for the night. He knew she was his daughter, his own flesh and blood, but he gave her away just the same."

"Oh, God…" Cain's face grew ashen. He pulled her tighter and rested his cheek against the top of her head as she cried. Gradually she filled in the details of the story for him. When she was done, Cain spoke viciously. "I hope he's burning in hell."

Now that she'd poured out the story, Kit realized what she had to do. She leaped up from the settee. "I have to stop her. I can't let her go through with this."

"Sophronia's a free woman," he reminded her gently "If she wants to go off with Spence, there's nothing you can do about it."

"She's my sister! I love her, and I won't let her do this!"

Before Cain could stop her, she raced from the room.

Cain sighed as he uncoiled himself from the settee. Kit was hurting badly, and as he knew only too well, that could lead to trouble.

Outside, Kit hid in the trees near the front. Her teeth chattered as she huddled in the damp, wintry shadows waiting for Cain to come out. He soon appeared, as she'd known he would. She watched him descend the steps and look toward the drive. When he didn't see her, he cursed, turned on his heel, and headed for the stable.

As soon as he was out of sight, she ran back into the house and made her way to the gun rack in the library. She didn't expect too much trouble from James Spence, but since she had no intention of letting Sophronia go off with him, she needed the gun to add weight to her arguments.

Several miles away, James Spence's crimson-and-black buggy swept past the buggy Magnus was driving. Spence was in an all-fired hurry to get wherever he was going, Magnus thought as he observed the vehicle disappear around the bend. Since there wasn't much along this road except Risen Glory and the cotton mill, Spence must have business at the mill.

It was a logical conclusion, but somehow it didn't satisfy him. He gave the horses a sharp slap with the reins. As he hurried toward Risen Glory, he considered what he knew about Spence.

Local gossip reported that he'd managed an Illinois gravel quarry, bought himself out of the draft for three hundred dollars, and headed South after the war with a carpetbag stuffed full of greenbacks. Now he had a prosperous phosphate mine and a hankering for Sophronia.

Spence's buggy had already stopped at the bottom of the drive when Magnus got there. The businessman was dressed in a black frock coat and bowler, with a walking stick in his gloved hand. Magnus barely spared him a glance. All his attention was fixed on Sophronia.

She stood at the side of the road with her blue woolen shawl wrapped around her shoulders and a satchel at her feet.

"Sophronia!" He pulled up the buggy and jumped out.

Her head shot up, and for an instant he thought he saw a flicker of hope in her eyes, but then they clouded over, and she clutched the shawl tighter. "You leave me alone, Magnus Owen. This doesn't have anything to do with you."

Spence stepped around from the side of the carriage and looked at Magnus. "Something the matter, boy?"

Magnus tucked a thumb into his belt and glared at him. "The lady's changed her mind."

Spence's eyes narrowed beneath the brim of his bowler. "If you're talking to me, boy, I suggest you call me 'sir.' "

As Sophronia watched the confrontation, prickles of dread crept along her spine. Magnus turned to her, but instead of the gentle, soft-spoken man she knew, she saw a tight-lipped, hard-eyed stranger. "Get back to the house."

Spence stepped forward. "Now see here. I don't know who you think you are, but-"

"Go away, Magnus." Sophronia could hear her voice tremble. "I've made up my mind, and you can't stop me."

"I can stop you, all right," he said stonily. "And that's exactly what I'm goin' to do."

Spence sauntered over to Magnus, his walking stick with its golden knob firmly in hand. "I think it might be better for everybody if you went back to wherever you came from. Now come along, Sophronia."

But as he reached for her, she was abruptly snatched away. "You're not touching her," Magnus snarled, shoving her firmly behind him. Then he clenched his fists and stepped forward.

Black man against white. All Sophronia's nightmares had come true. Fear shot through her. "No!" She clutched Magnus's shirt. "Don't hit him! You hit a white man, you'll be hanging from a rope before morning."

"Get out of my way, Sophronia."

"The white man's got all the power, Magnus. You leave this be!"

He set her aside, but the gesture of protecting her cost him. Behind his back, Spence lifted his walking stick and, as Magnus turned, slammed it into his chest.

"Stay out of things that don't concern you, boy," Spence growled.

In one swift movement, Magnus snatched the cane and broke it across his knee.

Sophronia gave an outcry.

Magnus tossed the cane aside and landed a hard blow to Spence's jaw that sent the mine owner sprawling onto the road.

Kit had reached the line of trees just in lime to see what was happening. She rushed out, raised her rifle, and leveled the barrel. "Get out of here, Mr. Spence. Doesn't seem you're wanted."

Sophronia had never been more grateful to see anyone, but Magnus's face grew rigid. Spence slowly rose, glaring at Kit. Just then a deep, drawling voice intruded.

"Looks like things are getting a little out of hand here."

Four sets of eyes turned as Cain climbed down off Vandal. He walked toward Kit with the loose, easy swagger that was so much a part of him and extended his hand. "Give me the rifle, Kit." He spoke so calmly he might have been asking her to pass bread across the dinner table.

Giving him the rifle was exactly what Kit wanted to do. As she'd discovered once before, she had no stomach for holding a gun on anyone. Cain would see to it that Magnus came to no harm, and she gave him the rifle.

To her astonishment, he didn't turn it on Spence. Instead, he took Kit's arm and pulled her, none too gently, toward Vandal. "Accept my apologies, Mr. Spence. My wife has an excitable temperament." He shoved the rifle into the scabbard that hung from his saddle.

She saw Spence's eyes grow shrewd. The cotton mill made Cain an important man in the community, and she could see his mind working as he decided it was to his advantage to have Cain as a friend. "Don't mention it, Mr. Cain." He reached down to dust off his trousers. "I'm sure none of us can predict the ways of our little womenfolk."

"Truer words have never been spoken," Cain replied, oblivious to Kit's glare.

Spence picked up his black bowler and jerked his head toward Magnus. "Do you value this boy of yours, Major?"

"Why do you ask?"

He gave Cain a man-to-man smile. "If you was to tell me you valued him, I'd assume you wouldn't be too happy to see him dangling from the end of a rope. And seeing as how we're both businessmen. I'd be more than willing to forget what just happened here."

Relief made Kit's knees wobble. Cain's eyes locked with Magnus's.

They stayed that way for several long, hard seconds before Cain looked away and shrugged. "What Magnus does is his own business. It doesn't have anything to do with me, one way or the other."

Kit gave a hiss of outrage as he scooped her up onto Vandal, mounted himself, and spurred the horse back up the drive.

Sophronia stared after them, bile rising in her throat. The major was supposed to be Magnus's friend, but he wasn't a friend at all. White stood together against black. That was the way it always had been, the way it always would be.

Despair overwhelmed her. She darted her eyes toward Magnus, but Cain's betrayal didn't seem to bother him. He stood with his legs slightly apart, one hand lightly balanced on his hip, and a strange light shining in his eyes.

The love she'd refused to admit burst free inside her, breaking all the invisible shackles of the past and sweeping away the rubble in a great cleansing rush. How could she have denied her feelings for so long? He was everything a man should be-strong, good, kind. He was a man of compassion and pride. But now, through her actions, she'd put him in peril.

There was only one thing she could do. She turned her back on Magnus and forced herself toward James Spence.

"Mr. Spence, it's my fault what's happened here today." She couldn't make herself touch his arm. "I been flirtin' with Magnus. Makin' him believe he meant somethin' to me. You got to forget all this. I'll go with you, but you got to promise you won't let any harm come to him. He's a good man, and all this is my fault."

Magnus's voice came from behind her, as soft and mellow as an old hymn. "It's no good, Sophronia. I won't let you go with him." He moved up beside her. "Mr. Spence, Sophronia is goin' to be my wife. You try to take her with you, I'll stop you. Today, tomorrow, a year from now. Doesn't make any difference. I'll stop you."

Sophronia's fingers turned icy.

Spence licked his lips and shot a nervous glance in the direction Cain had disappeared. Magnus was the bigger man, taller and more muscular, and Spence would be the loser in a physical match. But Spence didn't need that kind of fight to win.

With a sense of dread, Sophronia watched the play of emotions on his face. No black man could get away with hitting a white man in South Carolina. If Spence didn't get the sheriff to do something about it, he'd go to the Ku Klux Klan, those monsters who'd begun terrorizing the state two years ago. Images of whippings and lynchings filled her mind as he walked confidently over to his buggy and climbed up onto the seat.

He picked up the reins and turned back to Magnus. "You've made a big mistake, boy." And then he regarded Sophronia with a hostility he didn't try to hide. "I'll be back for you tomorrow."

"Just a minute, Mr. Spence." Magnus bent over to pick up the broken halves of the walking stick. As he made his way to the buggy, he walked with a confidence he had no right to feel. "I consider myself a fair man, so I think it's only right I tell you what kind of risk you'd be taking if you got any ideas about coming after me. Or maybe you might decide to send your acquaintances in bedsheets here. But that wouldn't be a good idea, Mr. Spence. Matter of fact, it'd be a real bad idea."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Spence sneered.

"It means I've got a talent, Mr. Spence, that you should know about. And I've got three or four friends with the same talent. Now, they're only black men like me, you understand, so you might not think their talent is worth your notice. But you'd be wrong, Mr. Spence. You'd be dead wrong."

"What're you talking about?"

"I'm talking about dynamite, Mr. Spence. Nasty stuff, but real useful. I learned to use it myself when we had to blast some rock to build the mill. Most people don't know too much about dynamite, since it's so new, but you strike me as a man who keeps up with new inventions, so I'll bet you know a lot about it. I'll bet you know, for example, just how much damage dynamite could cause if somebody set it off in the wrong place in a phosphate bed."

Spence regarded Magnus incredulously. "Are you threatening me?"

"I guess you might say I'm just trying to make a point, Mr. Spence. I've got good friends. Real good friends. And if anything was to happen to me, they'd be mighty unhappy about it. They'd be so unhappy they might set off a load of dynamite in the wrong place. Now, we wouldn't want that to happen, would we, Mr. Spence?"

"Damn you!"

Magnus put his foot up on the step of the buggy and rested the broken pieces of the stick on his knee. "Every man deserves his happiness, Mr. Spence, and Sophronia's mine. I intend to live a good, long life so we can enjoy each other, and I'm willing to do whatever's necessary to make sure we have that. Now whenever I see you in town, I'm going to take off my hat and say, 'Howdy, Mr. Spence,' real polite. And as long as you hear that 'Howdy, Mr. Spence,' you'll know I'm a happy man wishing you and your phosphate mine all the best." Drilling his eyes directly into Spence's, he extended the broken halves of the walking stick.

Taut with anger, Spence snatched them away and grabbed the reins.

Sophronia could barely take it in. What she'd just witnessed ran contrary to everything she believed, and yet it had happened. She'd just seen Magnus stand up against a white man and win. He'd fought for her. He'd kept her safe… even from herself.

She threw herself across the border of dry, wintry grass that separated them and tumbled into his arms, repeating his name over and over again until its rhythm became one with the beating of her heart.

"You're a trial to me, woman," he said softly, cupping her shoulders in his hands.

She lifted her gaze and saw eyes that were steadfast and true, eyes that promised both goodness and strength. He lifted one hand and moved his index finger over her lips, almost as if he were a blind man staking out the boundaries of a territory he was about to claim. Then he lowered his head and kissed her.

She accepted his lips shyly, as if she were a young girl. He made her feel pure and innocent again.

He pulled her closer, and his kiss grew more demanding, but instead of feeling afraid, she thrilled to its power. This man, this one good man, was hers forever. He was more important than a house in Charleston, more important than silk dresses, more important than anything.

When they finally drew apart, Sophronia saw his eyes glistening. This strong, hard man who had been coolly threatening to blow up a phosphate mine had turned soft and gentle as a lamb.

"You've been giving me a lot of trouble, woman," he said gruffly. "Once we're married, I won't stand for any more nonsense."

"Are we gettin' married, Magnus?" she inquired saucily. And then she splayed her long, elegant fingers along the sides of his head and pulled him back for another deep, lingering kiss.

"Oh, yes, honey child," he replied when he finally caught his breath. "We're gettin' married for sure."

19

"I figured you for a lot of things, Baron Cain, but I never figured you for a coward!" Kit stormed out of the stables at Cain's heels. "Magnus is going to be a dead man, and it'll be on your conscience. All you had to do was nod your head, just nod your head, and Spence would have made himself forget that Magnus hit him. Now give me that rifle back right now! If you're not man enough to defend your best friend, I'll do it myself."

Cain turned, the carbine across his chest. "You even look like you're going back there, and I'll lock you up and throw away the key."

"You're hateful, do you know that?"

"So you keep telling me. Has it once occurred to you to ask me about what happened instead of throwing accusations around?"

"What happened was obvious."

"Was it?"

Suddenly Kit felt unsure of herself. Cain was no coward, and he never did anything without a reason. The edges of her temper cooled, but not her anxiety. "All right, suppose you tell me what you had in mind when you left Magnus with a man who wants to see him lynched."

"You've made me just mad enough, I'm going to let you figure it out for yourself."

He began walking toward the house, but Kit jumped in front of him. "Oh, no, you're not getting away that easily."

He shifted the carbine to his shoulder. "Magnus hated your interference, and he'd have hated mine, too. There are some things a man has to do for himself."

"You might as well have signed his death warrant."

"Let's just say I have more faith in him than you seem to have."

"This is South Carolina, not New York City."

"Don't tell me you're finally admitting your native state isn't perfect?"

"We've talked about the Klan," she said. "The last time you were in Charleston, you tried to get the federal officials to take action against them. Now you act like the Klan doesn't exist."

"Magnus is his own man. He doesn't need anybody to fight his battles. If you knew half as much as you think you know, you'd understand that."

From Magnus's viewpoint, Cain was right, but she didn't have any patience with that kind of male pride. It only led to death. As Cain walked away, she thought of the war, which had once seemed so glorious.

She fumed and stomped around for most of an hour until Samuel appeared, a grin on his face and a note from Sophronia in his hand.

Dear Kit,

Stop worrying. Spence is gone, Magnus is fine, and we're getting married.

Love,

Sophronia

Kit stared at it with a mixture of joy and bemusement. Cain had been right. But just because he was right about this didn't mean he was right about anything else.

Too much had happened, and all her feelings about Sophronia, about Risen Glory, and about Cain tumbled around inside her. She headed for the stable and Temptation, then remembered that Cain had ordered her not to ride the horse. A small voice told her she had only her own recklessness to blame, but she refused to listen. She had to settle this with him.

She stalked back to the house and found Lucy in the kitchen peeling potatoes. "Where's Mr. Cain?"

"I heard him go upstairs a few minutes ago."

Kit shot down the hallway and up the steps. She threw open the bedroom door.

Cain stood by the table picking up some papers he'd left there the night before. He turned to her, his expression quizzical. He saw that she was seething and lifted one eyebrow. "Well?"

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 love-making 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 grabbed 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.

A muscle twitched in the corner of Cain's jaw. He pushed past the couple in front of him and was about to stride onto the ballroom floor when John Hughes caught at his arm.

"Mr. Cain, Will Bonnett over there claims there wasn't a bluecoat in the whole Union army could out-shoot a Reb. What d'ya think? You ever meet a Reb you couldn't pick off if you set your mind to it?"

This was dangerous talk. Cain tore his eyes away from his wife and turned his attention to Hughes. Even though nearly four years had passed since Appomattox, social interaction between Northerners and Southerners was still tenuous, with talk of the war pointedly avoided when they were pushed together.

He looked over at the group of seven or eight men made up of former Union soldiers as well as Confederate veterans. It was obvious that they'd all had more than enough to drink, and even from where he was standing, he could hear that their discussion had progressed from polite disagreement to open antagonism.

With a last glance toward Kit and the Italian, he walked with Hughes to the men. "War's over, fellows. What do you say we all go sample some of Mrs. Gamble's fine whiskey?"

But the discussion had gone too far. Will Bonnett, a former rice planter who had served in the same regiment as Brandon Parsell, punched his index finger in the direction of one of the men who worked for the Freedmen's Bureau. "No soldier in the world ever fought like the Confederate soldier, and you know it."

The angry voices were beginning to catch the attention of the other guests, and as the argument grew louder, people stopped dancing to see what the commotion was about.

Will Bonnett spotted Brandon Parsell standing with his fiancée and her parents. "Brandon, you tell 'em. You ever see anybody could shoot like our boys in gray? Come on over here. Tell these bluebellies how it was."

Parsell moved forward reluctantly. Cain frowned when he saw that Kit had moved up, too, instead of remaining in the back with the other women. But what else had he expected?

By this time Will Bonnett's voice had reached the musicians, who gradually put down their instruments so they could enjoy the argument. "We were outnumbered," Bonnett declared, "but you Yankees never outfought us, not for a minute of the war."

One of the Northerners stepped forward. "Seems like you got a short memory, Bonnett. You sure as hell got outfought at Gettysburg."

"We didn't get outfought!" an older man standing next to Will Bonnett exclaimed. "You got lucky. Why, we had boys twelve years old could shoot better than all your officers put together."

"Hell, our women could shoot better than their officers!"

There was a great roar of laughter at this sally, and the speaker was slapped heartily on the back for his wit. Of all the Southerners present, only Brandon didn't feel like laughing.

He looked first at Kit and then at Cain. The injustice of their marriage was a splinter under his skin. At first he'd been relieved not to be married to a woman who didn't behave as a lady should, even though it meant the loss of Risen Glory. But as the weeks and months had passed, he'd watched Risen Glory's fields bursting white with bolls and seen the wagons laden with ginned cotton head for Cain's spinning mill. Even after he'd become engaged to Eleanora, who'd bring him the Planters and Citizens Bank, he couldn't erase the memory of a pair of wicked violet eyes. Tonight she'd had the audacity to poke fun at him.

Everything in his life had soured. He was a Parsell and yet he had nothing, while they had everything-a disreputable Yankee and a woman who didn't know her place.

Impulsively he came forward. "I believe you do have a point about our Southern women. Why, I once saw our own Mrs. Cain shoot a pinecone out of a tree from seventy-five yards, even though she couldn't have been more than ten or eleven at the time. There's talk to this day that she's still the best shot in the county."

Several exclamations met this piece of information, and once again Kit found herself the object of admiring masculine eyes. But Parsell hadn't finished. It wasn't easy for a gentleman to settle a score with a lady and remain a gentleman, but that was exactly what he intended to do. And he'd settle with her husband at the same time. It would be impossible for Cain to go along with what Brandon was about to propose, but the Yankee would still look like a coward when he refused.

Brandon fingered the edge of his lapel. "I've heard that Major Cain is a good shot. I guess we've all heard more than enough about the Hero of Missionary Ridge. But if I were a betting man, I'd put my money on Mrs. Cain. I'd give about anything to send Will across the street for his matching set of pistols, place a row of bottles on Mrs. Gamble's garden wall, and see just how good a Yankee officer can shoot against a Southern woman, even if she does happen to be his wife. Of course, I'm sure Major Cain wouldn't permit his wife to take part in a shootin' contest, especially when he knows he has a pretty good chance of coming out the loser."

There were hoots of laughter from the Southern men. Parsell had put that Yankee in his place! Although none of them seriously believed a woman, even a Southern one, could outshoot a man, they'd enjoy seeing the match all the same. And because she was only a woman, there'd be no honor lost to the South when the Yankee beat her.

The women who'd gathered nearby were deeply shocked by Brandon's proposal. What could he be thinking of? No lady could make such a public spectacle of herself, not in Charleston. If Mrs. Cain went along with this, she'd be a social pariah. They glared at their husbands, who were encouraging the match, and vowed to curtail their consumption of spirits for the rest of the evening.

The Northerners urged Cain to accept the challenge. "Come on, Major. Don't let us down."

"You can't back out on us now!"

Kit felt Cain's eyes on her. They burned like fire. "I can't permit my wife to engage in a public shooting contest."

He spoke so coldly, as if he didn't care at all. He might have been talking about a mare he owned instead of a wife. She was merely another piece of property.

And Cain gave away his property before he could become attached.

The wildness claimed her, and she came forward, sparking fires in the beads of her gown. "I've been challenged, Baron. This is South Carolina, not New York. Even as my husband, you can't interfere in a matter of honor. Fetch your pistols, Mr. Bonnett. Gentlemen, I'll face my husband." She shot him a challenge. "If he declines, I'll face any other Yankee who'd care to shoot against me."

The shocked gasps of the women went unheard beneath the triumphant whoops of the men. Only Brandon didn't join in the joviality. He'd meant to embarrass them both, but he hadn't meant to ruin her. After all, he was still a gentleman.

"Kit-Major Cain-I-I believe I was somewhat hasty. Surely you cannot-"

"Save it, Parsell," Cain growled, his own mood now as reckless as his wife's. He was tired of being the conciliator, tired of losing the battles she seemed determined to thrust them into. He was tired of her distrust, tired of her laughter, tired even of the expression of concern he glimpsed too often in her eyes when he came in exhausted from the mill. Most of all, he was tired of himself for caring so damned much about her.

"Set up your bottles," he said roughly. "And bring as many lamps as you can find into the garden."

With a great deal of laughter, the men moved off, Northerner and Southerner suddenly drawn together as they figured the odds on the match. The women fluttered with the excitement of being witnesses to such a scandal. At the same time, they didn't want to get too close to Kit, so they drifted farther away, leaving husband and wife standing alone.

"You've got your match," he said stonily, "just like you've gotten everything else you've wanted."

When had she gotten anything she wanted? "Are you afraid I'll beat you?" she managed to ask.

He shrugged. "I figure there's a pretty fair chance of it. I'm a good shot, but you're better. I've known that since the night you tried to kill me when you were eighteen."

"You knew how I'd react when you forbade me to shoot, didn't you?"

"Maybe. Or maybe I figured that champagne you've been drinking has tilted the odds in my favor."

"I wouldn't count too much on the champagne." It was false bravado. Although she wouldn't admit it, she had drunk too much.

Veronica descended on them, her habitual amusement cast aside. "Why are you doing this? If this were Vienna, it would be different, but this is Charleston. Kit, you know you'll be ostracized."

"I don't care."

Veronica spun on Cain. "And you… how can you be a party to this?"

Her words fell on deaf ears. Will Bonnett had reappeared with his pistol case, and Kit and Cain were swept out through the back doors into the garden.

20

Despite the moonless night, the garden shone as brightly as if it were daylight. Fresh torches had been lit in the iron brackets, and kerosene lamps had been brought outside from the house. A dozen champagne bottles perched along the brick wall. Veronica noticed that only half of them were empty and gave hurried orders to the butler to replace the others. Honor might be at stake, but she wouldn't see good champagne wasted.

The Southerners groaned when they saw the matching guns Bonnett had produced. They were the Confederate version of the Colt revolver, plain and serviceable, with walnut grips and a brass frame instead of the more expensive steel frame of the Colt. But they were heavy, designed for wartime use by a man. This was no gun for a woman.

Kit, however, was accustomed to the weight and barely noticed it as she took the gun nearest to her from the box. She inserted six of the paper cartridges Will had provided into the empty chambers of the cylinder and pulled the loading lever down each time to press them into place. Then she fitted six copper percussion caps at the other end of the cylinder. Her fingers were smaller than Cain's, and she was done first.

The distance was marked off. They would stand twenty-five paces from their target. Each would fire six shots. Ladies first.

Kit stepped up to the line mat had been scratched in the gravel. Under normal circumstances, the empty champagne bottles would have held little challenge for her, but her head swam from too many glasses of champagne.

She turned sideways to the target and lifted her arm. As she sighted through the notch and bead, she made herself forget everything except what she had to do. She pulled the trigger, and the bottle exploded.

There were surprised exclamations from the men.

She moved on to the next bottle, but her success had made her careless, and she forgot to take those extra glasses of champagne into account. She fired too quickly and just missed the second target.

Cain watched from the side as she picked off the next four bottles. His anger gave way to admiration. Five out of six, and she wasn't even sober. Damn, but she was one hell of a woman. There was something primitive and wonderful in the way she stood silhouetted against the torch flames, her arm extended, the deadly revolver forming such marked contrast to her loveliness. If only she were more manageable. If only…

She lowered the revolver and turned to him, her dark brows lifting in triumph. She looked so pleased with herself that he couldn't quite suppress a smile.

"Very nice, Mrs. Cain, although I believe you left one."

"That's true, Mr. Cain," she replied with an answering smile. "Make sure you don't leave more than one."

He inclined his head and turned to the target.

A hush had fallen over the crowd as the men became uneasily aware of what Cain had known from the start. They had a serious match on their hands.

Cain lifted the revolver. It felt familiar in his hand, just like the Colt that had seen him through the war. He picked off the first bottle and then the second. One shot followed another. When he finally lowered his arm, all six bottles were gone.

Kit couldn't help herself. She grinned. He was a wonderful shot, with a good eye and a steady arm.

Something tight and proud caught in her throat as she gazed at him in his formal black-and-white evening dress, the copper lights from the torches glinting in his crisp, tawny hair. She forgot about her pregnancy, she forgot her anger, she forgot everything in a rush of feeling for this difficult and splendid man.

He turned to her, his head tilted.

"Good shooting, my darling," she said softly.

She saw the surprise on his face, but it was too late to snatch back the words. The endearment was a bedroom expression, part of a small dictionary of love words that formed the private vocabulary of their passion, words that were never to be used in any other place, at any other time, yet that was what she'd done. Now she felt naked and defenseless. To hide her emotions, she tossed her chin high and turned to the onlookers.

"Since my husband is a gentleman, I'm certain he'll give me a second chance. Would someone fetch a deck of cards and pull out the ace of spades?"

"Kit…" Cain's voice held a brusque warning note.

She turned to confront him and wipe away her moment of defenselessness. "Will you shoot against me? Yes or no?"

They might have been standing alone instead of in the midst of dozens of people. The onlookers didn't realize it, but Cain and Kit knew the purpose of the contest had shifted. The war that had raged for so long between them had found a new battleground.

"I'll shoot against you."

There was a deadly quiet as the ace of spades was fastened to the wall. "Three shots each?" Kit asked as she reloaded her gun.

He nodded grimly.

She lifted her arm and sighted the small black spade at the exact center of the playing card. She could feel her hand trembling, and she lowered the revolver until she felt steadier. Then she lifted it again, sighted the small target, and fired.

She hit the top right corner of the card. It was an excellent shot, and there were murmurs from the men as well as from the women who'd gathered to watch. Some of them even felt a secret burst of pride at seeing one of their own sex excel at such a masculine sport.

Kit cocked the hammer and adjusted her aim. This time she was too low, and she hit the brick wall just below the bottom of the card. But it was still a respectable shot, and the crowd acknowledged it.

Her head was spinning, but she forced herself to concentrate on the small black shape at the center of the card. She'd made this shot dozens of times. All she needed was concentration. Slowly she squeezed the trigger.

It was nearly a perfect shot, and it took the point off the spade. There was a trace of disquiet in the subdued congratulations of the Southern men. None of them had ever seen a woman shoot like that. Somehow it didn't seem right. Women were to be protected. But this woman could do that for herself.

Cain lifted his own weapon. Once again the crowd fell silent, so that only the sea breeze in the sweet olives disturbed the quiet of the night garden.

The gun fired. It hit the brick wall just to the left of the card.

Cain corrected his aim and fired again. This time he hit the top edge of the card.

Kit held her breath, praying that his third shot would miss, praying that it wouldn't, wishing too late that she hadn't forced this contest upon them.

Cain fired. There was a puff of smoke, and the single spade in the center of the playing card disappeared. His final shot had drilled it out.

The onlookers went wild. Even the Southerners temporarily forgot their animosity, relieved that the natural law of male superiority had held firm. They surrounded Cain to congratulate him.

"Fine shootin', Mr. Cain."

"A privilege to watch you."

"Of course, you were only firin' against a woman."

The men's congratulations grated on his ears. As they pounded him on the back, he looked over their heads at Kit, standing off by herself, the revolver nestled in the soft folds of her skirt.

One of the Northerners shoved a cigar into his hand. "That woman of yours is pretty good, but when all's said and done, I guess shootin' is still pretty much a man's game."

"You're right there," another said. "Never much doubt about a man beating a woman."

Cain felt only contempt for their casual dismissal of Kit's skill. He thrust the cigar back and glared at them.

"You fools. If she hadn't been drinking champagne, I wouldn't have had a chance against her. And neither, by God, would any of you."

Turning on his heel, he stalked out of the garden, leaving the men gaping after him in astonishment.

Kit was stunned by his defense. She thrust the revolver at Veronica, picked up her skirts, and ran after him.

He was already in their bedroom when she reached it. Her brief happiness faded as she saw him throw his clothing into a satchel that lay open on the bed.

"What are you doing?" she asked breathlessly.

He didn't bother to look up at her. "I'm going to Risen Glory."

"But why?"

"I'll send the carriage back for you the day after tomorrow," he replied, without answering her question. "I'll be gone by then."

"What do you mean? Where are you going?"

He didn't look at her as he tossed a shirt into the satchel. He spoke slowly. "I'm leaving you."

She made a muffled sound of protest.

"I'm getting out now while I can still look myself in the eye. But don't worry. I'll see a lawyer first and make sure your name is on the deed to Risen Glory. You won't ever have to be afraid your precious plantation will be taken away from you again."

Kit's heart was pounding in her chest like the wings of a trapped bird. "I don't believe you. You can't just walk away. What about the cotton mill?"

"Childs can manage it for now. Maybe I'll sell it. I've already had an offer." He grabbed a set of brushes from the top of the bureau and shoved them inside with the rest. "I'm done fighting you, Kit. You've got a clear field now."

"But I don't want you to go!" The words sprang spontaneously from her lips. They were true, and she didn't want to take them back.

He finally looked up at her, his mouth twisted in its old mockery. "That surprises me. You've been trying your best to get rid of me one way or another since you were eighteen."

"That was different. Risen Glory-"

He slammed the open palm of his hand against the bedpost, making the heavy wooden spindle vibrate. "I don't want to hear about Risen Glory! I don't ever want to hear that name again. Damn it, Kit, it's just a cotton plantation. It isn't a shrine."

"You don't understand! You've never understood. Risen Glory is all I've ever had."

"So you've told me," he said quietly. "Maybe you should try to figure out why that is."

"What do you mean?" She grabbed the bedpost for support as she closed in on him.

"I mean that you don't give anything. You're like my mother. You take from a man until you've bled him dry. Well, I'll be damned if I end up like my father. And that's why I'm leaving."

"I'm not anything like Rosemary! You just can't accept the fact that I won't let you dominate me."

"I never wanted to dominate you," he said softly. "I never wanted to own you, either, no matter how many times I said it. If I'd wanted a wife I could grind under my bootheel, I could have gotten married years ago. I never wanted you to walk in my dust, Kit. But, by damn, I won't walk in yours, either."

He closed the satchel and began fastening the leather straps. "When we got married-after that first night-I had this idea that maybe it could somehow be all right between us. Then it went bad right away, and I decided I'd been a fool. But when you came to me in that black nightgown, and you were so scared and so determined, I forgot all about being a fool and let you creep right back under my skin."

He released the satchel and straightened up. For a moment he gazed at her, and then he closed the small distance left between them. His eyes were full of a pain that pierced through her as if it were her own. A pain that was her own.

He touched her cheek. "When we made love," he said huskily, "it was as if we stopped being two separate people. You never held back. You gave me your wildness, your softness, your sweetness. But there wasn't a foundation underneath that lovemaking-no trust or understanding-and that's why it turned sour."

He rubbed his thumb gently over her dry lips, his voice barely a whisper. "Sometimes when I was inside you, I wanted to use my body to punish you. I hated myself for that." He dropped his hand. "Lately I've been waking up in a cold sweat, afraid that someday I'd really hurt you. Tonight, when I saw you in that dress and watched you with those other men, I finally realized that I had to go. It's no good between us. We started out all wrong. We never had a chance."

Kit clutched his arm and gazed at him through the haze of her own tears. "Don't go. It's not too late. If we both tried harder-"

He shook his head. "I don't have anything left in me. I'm hurting, Kit. I'm hurting bad."

Bending down, he pressed his lips to her forehead, then picked up the satchel and walked out of the room.

True to his word, Cain was gone when she returned to Risen Glory, and for the next month Kit moved like a sleepwalker through the house. She lost track of time, forgot to eat, and locked herself away in the big front bedroom she'd once shared with him. A young lawyer appeared with a stack of documents and a pleasant, unassuming manner. She was shown papers that gave her clear title to Risen Glory as well as control over her trust fund. She had everything she'd ever wanted, and she'd never been more miserable.

He gives away his books and his horses before he can grow too attached to them…

The attorney explained that the money Cain had taken from her trust fund to rebuild the cotton mill had all been repaid. She listened to everything he said, but she didn't care about any of it.

Magnus came to her for orders, and she sent him away. Sophronia scolded her to eat, but Kit ignored it. She even managed to turn a deaf ear to Miss Dolly's fretting.

One dreary afternoon in late February, as she sat in the bedroom pretending to read, Lucy appeared to announce that Veronica Gamble was waiting for her in the sitting room.

"Tell her I'm not feeling well."

Veronica, however, wasn't so easily put off. Brushing past the maid, she climbed the stairs and entered the bedroom after knocking. She took in Kit's uncombed hair and sallow complexion. "How Lord Byron would have loved this," she said scathingly. "The maiden withers like a dying rose, growing more frail each day. She refuses to eat and hides away. What on earth do you think you're doing?"

"I want to be left alone."

Veronica shrugged off an elegant topaz velvet cloak and tossed it on the bed. "If you care nothing for yourself, you could at least consider the child you're carrying."

Kit's head shot up. "How do you know about that?"

"I met Sophronia in town last week. She told me, and I decided to come see for myself."

"Sophronia doesn't know. No one knows."

"You don't imagine something that important could get past Sophronia, do you?"

"She shouldn't have said anything."

"You didn't tell Baron about the child, did you?"

Kit mustered her composure. "If you'll go down to the sitting room, I'll ring for tea."

But Veronica wouldn't be distracted. "Of course you didn't tell him. You're much too proud for that."

All the fight left her, and Kit sagged into the chair. "It wasn't pride. I didn't think of it. Isn't that odd? I was so stunned by the fact that he was leaving me that I forgot to tell him."

Veronica wandered over to the window, pushed back the curtain, and stared outside. "Womanhood has been hard coming to you, I think. But then, I suppose it's hard coming to all of us. Growing up seems easier for men, maybe because their rites of passage are clearer. They perform acts of bravery on the battlefield or show they're men through physical labor or by making money. For women, it's more confusing. We have no rites of passage. Do we become women when a man first makes love to us? If so, why do we refer to it as a loss of virginity? Doesn't the word 'loss' imply that we were better off before? I abhor the idea that we become women only through the physical act of a man. No, I think we become women when we learn what is important in our lives, when we learn to give and to take with a loving heart."

Every word Veronica uttered settled in Kit's heart.

"My dear," Veronica said softly as she walked over to the bed and picked up her cloak, "it really is time for you to take your final step into womanhood. Some things in life are temporal and others are everlasting. You'll never be content until you decide which are which."

She was gone as quickly as she had arrived, leaving only her words to linger. Kit heard the carriage move off down the drive, then grabbed the jacket that went with her riding habit and threw it over her rumpled woolen dress. She slipped out of the house and made her way to the old slave church.

The interior was dim and chilly. She sat on one of the rough wooden benches and thought hard about what Veronica had said.

A mouse scratched in the corner. A branch tapped at the window. She remembered the pain she'd seen on Cain's face before he'd left, and at that moment the door she'd kept so tightly shut on her heart swung open.

No matter how much she'd tried to deny it, no matter how hard she'd fought it, she'd fallen in love with him. Her love had been written in the stars long before that July night when he'd pulled her down off the wall by her britches. All of her life since birth had shaped her for him, just as all his life had shaped him for her. He was the other half of herself.

She'd fallen in love with him through their battles and arguments, through her stubbornness and his arrogance, through those sudden surprising moments when they'd each known they were seeing the world in the same way. And she'd fallen in love with him through the deep, secret hours of the night when he'd stretched her and filled her and created the precious new life inside her.

How she wished she could do it over again. If only during those times when he'd softened toward her, she'd opened her arms and met his softness with her own. Now he was gone, and she'd never spoken the words of her love. But neither had he. Maybe because his feelings didn't run as deeply as hers.

She wanted to go after him, to start all over again, and this time she'd hold nothing back. But she couldn't do it. She was the one responsible for the pain she'd seen in his eyes. And he'd never pretended he wanted a wife, let alone a wife like her.

Tears ran down her cheeks. She hugged herself and accepted the truth. Cain was glad to be rid of her.

But there was another truth she needed to accept. The time had come to get on with her life. She'd been mired in self-pity long enough. She could cry in the privacy of her bedroom at night, but during the day she needed to keep her eyes dry and her head clear. There was work to be done and people who depended on her. There was a baby who needed her.

The baby was born in July, four years almost to the day since the hot afternoon Kit had arrived in New York City to kill Baron Cain. The child was a girl, with fair hair like her father's and startling violet eyes fringed with tiny, black lashes. Kit named her Elizabeth and called her Beth.

Kit's labor had been long, but the birth had gone without complications. Sophronia had stayed by her side the entire time, while Miss Dolly had fluttered about the house, getting in everyone's way and shredding three of her handkerchiefs. Afterward, Kit's first visitors had been Rawlins and Mary Cogdell, who seemed pathetically relieved to see that a baby had finally been produced from the Cain marriage, even though it had taken twelve months.

Kit spent the rest of the summer regaining her strength and falling deeply in love with her new daughter. Beth was a sweet, good-natured baby, happiest when she was in her mother's arms. At night, when she would awaken to be fed, Kit would tuck her close in bed, where the two of them would doze until dawn-Beth content with the milky-sweet breast of her mother and Kit full of love for this precious infant who'd been God's gift to her when she'd most needed it.

Veronica wrote her regular letters and occasionally visited from Charleston. A deep affection grew between the two women. Veronica still spoke outrageously about wanting to make love to Cain, but Kit now recognized her statements as none-too-subtle attempts to prod Kit's jealousy and keep her feelings for her husband alive. As if she needed anything more to remind her of her love for her husband.

With the secrets of the past swept away, Kit's relationship with Sophronia deepened. The two still bickered out of habit, but Sophronia talked freely now, and Kit took comfort from her presence. Sometimes, though, Kit's heart would ache as she watched Sophronia's face soften with a deep, abiding love when she caught sight of Magnus. His strength and goodness had laid to final rest the ghosts of Sophronia's past.

Magnus understood Kit's need to talk about Cain, and in the evenings while she sat on the piazza, he told her all that he knew about her husband's past: his childhood, the years of drifting, his bravery during the war. She took it all in.

The beginning of September found her with renewed energy and a deeper understanding of herself. Veronica had once said that she should decide which things in life were temporal and which were everlasting. As she rode through the fields of Risen Glory, she finally understood what Veronica meant. Now it was time to find her husband.

Unfortunately, that proved easier in theory than in practice. The lawyer who handled Cain's affairs knew he'd been in Natchez, but hadn't heard from him since. Kit learned that his profits from the sale of the cotton mill were lying untouched in a bank in Charleston. For some reason, he'd left himself virtually penniless.

She made inquiries throughout Mississippi. People remembered him, but no one seemed to know where he'd gone.

By the middle of October, when Veronica arrived from Charleston for a visit, Kit was in despair. "I've inquired everywhere, but no one knows where he is."

"He's in Texas, Kit. A town called San Carlos."

"You knew where he was all this time and you didn't tell me? How could you do this?"

Veronica ignored Kit's temper and took a sip of tea. "Really, my dear, you never asked me."

"I didn't think I had to!"

"The reason you're so angry is because he wrote me instead of you."

Kit wanted to slap her, but, as usual, Veronica was right. "And I'm sure you've been sending him all sorts of seductive messages."

Veronica smiled. "Unfortunately not. This was his way of keeping in touch with you. He knew if anything was really wrong, I'd tell him."

Kit felt sick. "So he knows about Beth, but he still won't come back."

Veronica sighed. "No, Kit, he doesn't know about her, and I'm not certain I did the right thing by not telling him. But I decided it wasn't my news to share. I couldn't bear to see either of you hurt any more than you have been."

Her anger forgotten, Kit pressed Veronica. "Please. Tell me everything you know."

"The first few months he traveled the riverboats and lived on what he won at the poker tables. Then he moved on to Texas and rode shotgun for one of the stagecoach lines. A beastly job, in my opinion. For a while he herded cattle. And now he's running a gambling palace in San Carlos."

Kit ached as she listened. The old patterns of Cain's life were repeating themselves.

He was drifting.

21

Kit reached Texas the second week of November. It was a long journey, made all the more arduous by the fact that she hadn't traveled alone.

The uninhabited space of Texas was a surprise to her. It was so different from South Carolina-the flat east Texas prairie and then the rougher country farther inland, where twisting trees grew from jagged rocks and tumbleweed chased across the harsh, hilly terrain. She was told that the canyons flooded when it rained, sometimes washing away entire herds of cattle, and that in the summer, the sun baked the earth until it hardened and cracked. Yet there was something about the land that appealed to her. Perhaps the challenge it posed.

Still, the closer she came to San Carlos, the more uncertain she became about what she'd done. She had precious responsibilities now, yet she'd left the familiar behind to search for a man who'd never said he loved her.

As she climbed the wooden steps that led to the Yellow Rose Gambling Palace, her stomach twisted into tight, painful knots. She'd hardly been able to eat for days, and this morning not even the mouthwatering smells that drifted up from the dining room of the nearby Ranchers Hotel had been able to tempt her. She'd dallied while she dressed, fixing her hair one way and then another, changing outfits several times, and even remembering to check for any unfastened buttons or hooks that might have escaped her notice.

She'd finally decided to wear her dove-gray dress with the soft rose piping. It was the same outfit she'd worn on her return to Risen Glory. She'd even added the matching hat and veiled her face. It comforted her somehow, the illusion that she was starting over again. But the dress fit differently now, clinging tighter to her breasts as a reminder that nothing remained the same.

Her gloved hand trembled slightly as she reached for the swinging door that led into the saloon. For a moment she hesitated, and then she pushed hard against it and stepped inside.

She'd learned that the Yellow Rose was the best and most expensive salon in San Carlos. It had red-and-gold wallpaper and a crystal chandelier. An ornately carved mahogany bar ran the length of the room, and behind it hung a portrait of a reclining nude woman with titian curls and a yellow rose caught between her teeth. She'd been painted against a map of Texas, so that the top of her head rested near Texarkana and her feet curled along the Rio Grande. The portrait gave Kit a renewed kick of courage. The woman reminded her of Veronica.

It wasn't quite noon, and only a few men sat inside. One by one, they stopped talking and turned to study her. Even though they couldn't see her features clearly.

her dress and her bearing indicated she wasn't a woman who belonged inside a saloon, even the elegant Yellow Rose.

The bartender cleared his throat nervously. "Can I help you, ma'am?"

"I'd like to see Baron Cain."

He glanced uncertainly toward a flight of curving stairs at the back and then down at the glass he was polishing. "There's no one here by that name."

Kit walked past him and made her way toward the stairs.

The man dashed around the edge of the bar. "Hey! You can't go up there!"

"Watch me." Kit didn't slacken her pace. "And if you don't want me invading the wrong room, maybe you should tell me exactly where I can find Mr. Cain."

The bartender was a giant of a man, with a barrel chest and arms like ham hocks. He was accustomed to dealing with drunken cowboys and gunslingers out to make a reputation for themselves, but he was helpless in the face of a woman who was so obviously a lady. "Last room on the left," he mumbled. "And there's gonna be hell to pay."

"Thank you." Kit climbed the stairs like a queen, shoulders back and head held high. She hoped none of the men watching could guess just how frightened she was.

The woman's name was Ernestine Agnes Jones, but to the men at the Yellow Rose, she was simply Red River Ruby. Like most people who had come West, Ruby had buried her past along with her name and never once looked back.

Despite powders, creams, and carefully rouged lips, Ruby looked older than her twenty-eight years. She'd lived hard, and it showed. Still, she was an attractive woman with rich chestnut hair and breasts like pillows. Until recently, little had come easy for her, but all that had changed with the convenient death of her last lover. Now she found herself the owner of the Yellow Rose and the most sought-after woman in San Carlos-sought after, that is, by every man except the one she wanted for herself.

She pouted as she looked across the bedroom at him. He was tucking a linen shirt into a pair of black broadcloth trousers that fit him just closely enough to renew her determination. "But you said you'd take me for a ride in my new buggy. Why not today?"

"I have things to do, Ruby," he said curtly.

She leaned slightly forward so that the neck of her red, ruffled dressing gown fell farther open, but he didn't seem to notice. "Anybody would think you was the boss around here instead of me. What do you have to do that's so important it can't wait?"

When he didn't answer her, she decided not to press him. She'd done that once before, and she wouldn't make that mistake again. Instead, as she walked around the bed toward him, she wished she could break the unwritten rule of the West and ask about his past.

She suspected there was a price on his head. That would account for the air of danger that was as much a part of him as the set of his jaw. He was as good with his fists as he was with a gun, and the hard, empty look in his eyes gave her a chill just looking at them. However, he could read, and that didn't fit with being a man on the run.

One thing for sure, he wasn't a womanizer. He didn't seem to notice that there wasn't a woman in San Carlos who wouldn't lift her petticoats for him if she got the chance. Ruby had been trying to get into his bed ever since she'd hired him to help her run the Yellow Rose. So far, she hadn't been successful, but he was about the handsomest man she'd ever seen, and she wasn't going to give up yet.

She stopped in front of him and put one hand over his belt buckle and another against his chest. She ignored the knock at the door to slip her fingers inside his shirt. "I could be real nice to you if you'd give me the chance."

She wasn't aware that the door had opened until he lifted his head and looked past her. Impatiently she turned to see who'd interrupted them.

The pain hit Kit in a wave. She saw the scene before her in separate pieces-a gaudy, red, ruffled dressing gown, large white breasts, a brightly painted mouth open in indignation. And then she saw nothing but her husband.

He looked years older than she remembered. His features were thinner and harder, with deep creases at the corners of his eyes and near his mouth. His hair was longer, hanging well over the back of his collar. He looked like an outlaw. Was this the way he'd been during the war? Watchful and wary, like a piece of wire drawn so taut it was ready to snap?

Something raw contorted his features as he saw her, and then his face closed like a locked door.

The woman rounded on her. "Who the hell do you think you are, bargin' in like this? If you come here lookin' for a job, you can just drag your tail downstairs and wait till I get to you."

Kit welcomed the anger that rushed through her. She pushed up the veil of her hat with one hand and shoved the door back on its hinges with the other. "You're the one who needs to go downstairs. I have private business with Mr. Cain."

Ruby's eyelids narrowed. "I know your type. High-class girl who comes West and thinks the world owes her a livin'. Well, this is my place, and there ain't no lade-da lady gonna tell me what to do. You can put on airs back in Virginny or Kentucky or wherever you come from, but not in the Yellow Rose."

"Get out of here," Kit said in a low voice.

Ruby tightened the sash of her dressing gown and moved forward menacingly. "I'm gonna do you a favor, sister, and teach you right off that things are different here in Texas."

Cain spoke quietly from across the room. "My best piece of advice, Ruby-don't tangle with her."

Ruby gave a contemptuous snort, took another step forward, and found herself looking down the barrel of a snub-nosed pistol.

"Get out of here," Kit said quietly. "And close the door behind you."

Ruby gaped at the pistol and then back at Cain.

He shrugged. "Go on."

With a last assessing glance toward the lady with the pistol, Ruby hurried from the room and slammed the door.

Now that they were finally alone, Kit couldn't remember a word of the speech she'd rehearsed so carefully. She realized she was still holding the pistol and that it was pointed at Cain. Swiftly she shoved it back into her reticule. "It wasn't loaded."

"Thank God for small favors."

She'd imagined their reunion a hundred times, but she'd never imagined this cold-eyed stranger fresh from another woman's arms.

"What are you doing here?" he finally asked.

"Looking for you."

"I see. Well, you've found me. What do you want?"

If only he'd move, maybe she could find the words she needed to say, but he stood stiffly in place, looking as if her simple presence was inconveniencing him.

Suddenly it was all too much-the grueling journey, the horrible uncertainty, and now this-finding him with another woman. She fumbled inside her reticule and drew out a thick envelope. "I wanted to bring you this." She put it on the table next to the door, then turned and fled.

The hallway seemed to go on forever, and so did the stairs. She tripped halfway down and barely managed to catch herself before she fell. The men at the bar craned their necks to watch her. Ruby stood at the bottom of the stairs, still wearing her red dressing gown. Kit brushed past her and made her way toward the swinging doors of the saloon.

She'd nearly reached them when she heard him behind her. Hands clasped her shoulders and spun her around. Her feet left the ground as Cain swept her up into his arms. Holding her against his chest, he carried her back through the saloon.

He took the stairs two at a time. When he reached his room, he kicked the door open with his foot and then closed it the same way.

At first he didn't seem to know what to do with her; then he dumped her on the bed. For a moment he stared at her, his expression still inscrutable. Then he crossed the room and picked up the envelope she'd left for him.

She lay quietly as he read it.

He glanced through the pages once, very quickly, and then went back to the beginning and read them through more carefully. Finally he gazed over at her, shaking his head. "I don't believe you did this. Why, Kit?"

"I had to."

He looked at her sharply. "Were you forced to?"

"Nobody could force me to do that."

"Then why?"

She sat up on the edge of the bed. "It was the only way I could think of."

"What do you mean by that? The only way to do what?"

When she didn't immediately answer him, he threw down the papers and came toward her. "Kit! Why did you sell Risen Glory?"

She stared down at her hands, too numb to speak.

He thrust his fingers through his hair, and he seemed to be talking as much to himself as to her. "I can't believe you sold that plantation. Risen Glory meant everything to you. And for ten dollars an acre. That's only a fraction of what it's worth."

"I wanted to get rid of it quickly, and I found the right buyer. I had the money deposited in your account in Charleston."

Cain was stunned. "My account?"

"It was your plantation. Your money put Risen Glory back on its feet again."

He said nothing. The silence stretched between them until she thought she would scream if it weren't filled.

"You'd like the man who bought it," she finally said.

"Why, Kit? Tell me why."

Was she imagining it, or could she detect a slight thawing in his voice? She thought of Ruby pressed up against him. How many other women had there been since he'd left her? So much for all her dreams. She'd look like a fool when she explained it to him, but her pride no longer mattered. There'd be no more lies from her, spoken or unspoken, only the truth.

She lifted her head, fighting the lump forming in her throat. He stood in the shadows of the room. She was glad she didn't have to see his face while she talked.

"When you left me," she said slowly, "I thought my life was over. I felt so much anger, first at you and then at myself. It wasn't until you were gone that I realized how much I loved you. I'd loved you for a long time, but I wouldn't admit it, so I hid it away under other feelings. I wanted to come to you right away, but that wasn't-it wasn't practical. Besides, I've acted impulsively too often, and I needed to be sure about what I was doing. And I wanted to make certain that when I did find you, when I did tell you I loved you, you'd believe me."

"So you decided to sell Risen Glory." His voice was thick.

Kit's eyes filled with tears. "It was going to be the proof of my love. I was going to wave it under your nose like a banner. Look what I did for you! But when I finally sold it, I discovered that Risen Glory was only a piece of land. It wasn't a man who could hold you and talk to you and make a life with you." Her voice broke, and she rose to her feet to try to cover her weakness. "Then I did something very foolish. When you plan things in your head, they sometimes work out better than they do in real life."

"What?"

"I gave Sophronia my trust fund."

There was a soft, startled exclamation from the shadows of the room, but she barely heard it. Her words were coming in short, choppy bursts. "I wanted to get rid of everything so you'd feel responsible for me. It was an insurance policy in case you told me you didn't want me. I could look at you and say that whether you wanted me or not, you'd have to take me because I didn't have anyplace to go. But I'm not that helpless. I'd never stay with you because you felt responsible for me. That would be worse than being apart."

"And was it so horrible being apart from me?"

She lifted her head at the unmistakable tenderness in his voice.

He stepped out of the shadows, and the years seemed to have fallen away from his face. The gray eyes that she'd always thought cold overflowed with feeling.

"Yes," she whispered.

Then he was beside her, catching her up, pulling her to him. "My sweet, sweet Kit," he groaned, burying his face in her hair. "Dear God, how I've missed you. How I've wanted you. All I've dreamed about since I left was being with you."

She was in his arms again. She tried to take a deep breath, but it turned into a sob as she drew in his familiar clean scent. Feeling his body against hers after so many months was almost more than she could bear. He was the other part of herself, the part that had been missing for so long. And she was the other part of him.

"I want to kiss you now and make love with you more than I've ever wanted anything," he said.

"Then why don't you?"

He gazed down into her upturned face, a sense of wonder in his expression. "You'd let me make love with you after you just found me with another woman?"

The pain was a sharp, keen stab, but she fought it down. "I guess I'm partly responsible for that. But it better never happen again."

"It won't." His smile was soft and tender. "You love just like you do everything else, don't you? Without condition. It took you a lot less time than it took me to figure out how to do it right." He drew back. "I'm going to let you go now. It won't be easy, but there are some things I have to say to you, and I can't think straight when I'm holding you like this."

He released her with agonizing slowness and stepped just far enough away so he was no longer touching her. "I knew long before I left that I loved you, but I wasn't as smart as you. I tied strings to it and made conditions. I didn't have the guts to go to you and tell you how I felt, to put everything on the line the way you just did. Instead, I ran. Just like I've done all my life when I felt somebody or something getting too close to me. Well, I'm tired of running, Kit. I don't have any way to prove this to you. I don't have a banner to wave under your nose. But I love you, and I was coming back to fight for you. I'd already made up my mind. As a matter of fact, I was just getting ready to tell Ruby I was leaving when you barged in that door."

Despite the unmistakable message of love she was hearing, Kit couldn't help but wince at the mention of the saloonkeeper's name.

"Get that fire out of your eyes, Kit. I have to tell you about Ruby."

But Kit didn't want to hear. She shook her head and tried to fight the notion that what he'd done while they were apart was a betrayal.

"I want you to listen," he insisted. "No more secrets, even though this part isn't easy for me." He drew a deep breath. "I-I haven't been the world's greatest lover since I left you. I haven't… I haven't been any kind of lover at all. For a long time I stayed away from women, so I didn't think much about it. Then I came to work at the Yellow Rose, and Ruby was pretty determined, but what you saw today was all one-sided on her part. I never touched her."

Kit's spirits rose.

He shoved a hand in his pocket and turned slightly away from her, some of his former tension coming back. "I guess to you. Ruby doesn't look like much, but it's a little different for a man. It had been a long time for me, and she was making it easy-coming to my room all the time dressed like she was dressed today and letting me know what she wanted. But I didn't feel anything for her!"

He stopped talking and looked at her as if he expected something. Kit was beginning to grow confused. He sounded more like a man confessing infidelity than one confessing fidelity. Was there more?

Her confusion must have shown, because Cain spoke more sharply. "Don't you understand, Kit? She offered herself to me in every way she could, and I didn't want her!"

This time Kit did understand, and happiness burst inside her like the whole world had been made anew. "You're worried about your virility? Oh, my darling!" With a great whoop of laughter, she threw herself across the room and into his arms. Pulling his head down, she pressed her mouth to his. She talked, laughed, and kissed him all at the same time. "Oh, my dear, dear darling… my great, foolish darling. How I love you!"

There was a hoarse, tight sound deep in his throat, and then he trapped her in his embrace. His mouth came alive with need. Their kiss was deep and sweet, full of love that had finally been spoken, of pain that had finally been shared.

But they'd been apart for too long, and their bodies weren't content with kisses. Cain, who only moments before had doubted his manliness, now found himself aching with desire. Kit felt it, yearned for it, and, in the last instant before she lost her reason, remembered that she hadn't told him everything.

With her last ounce of will, she pulled back and gasped out, "I didn't come alone."

His eyes were glazed with passion, and it was a moment before he heard. "No?"

"No. I-I brought Miss Dolly with me."

"Miss Dolly!" Cain laughed, a joyous rumble that started in his boots and grew louder as it rose upward. "You brought Miss Dolly to Texas?"

"I had to. She wouldn't let me go without her. And you said yourself that we were stuck with her. She's our family. Besides, I needed her."

"Oh, you sweet… My God, how I love you." He leached for her again, but she stepped back quickly.

"I want you to come to the hotel."

"Now?"

"Yes. I have something to show you."

"Do I have to see it right away?"

"Oh, yes. Definitely right away."

Cain pointed out some of the sights of San Carlos as they walked along the uneven wooden sidewalk. He kept his hand tightly clasped over hers where it rested in the crook of his elbow, but her absentminded responses soon made it evident that her thoughts were elsewhere. Content merely to have her beside him, he fell silent.

Miss Dolly was waiting in the room Kit had taken. She giggled like a schoolgirl when Cain picked her up and hugged her. Then, with a quick, worried look at Kit, she left to visit the general store across the street so she could make some purchases for the dear boys in gray.

When the door closed behind her, Kit turned to Cain. She looked pale and nervous.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"I have a-a sort of present for you."

"A present? But I don't have anything for you."

"That's not," she said hesitantly, "exactly true."

Puzzled, he watched her slip through a second door leading to an adjoining room. When she came back, she held a small white bundle in her arms.

She approached him slowly, her expression so full of entreaty it nearly broke his heart. And then the bundle moved.

"You have a daughter," she said softly. "Her name is Elizabeth, but I call her Beth. Beth Cain."

He looked down into a tiny valentine of a face. Everything about her was delicate and perfectly formed. She had a fluff of light blond hair, dark slivers of eyebrows, and a dab of a nose. He felt a tight prickling inside him. Could he have helped create something this perfect? And then the valentine yawned and fluttered open her pink shell lids, and he lost his heart to a second pair of bright, violet eyes.

Kit saw how it was between them right away and felt that nothing in her life could ever be as sweet as this one moment. She pushed away the blanket so he could see the rest of her. Then she held their child out to him.

Cain gazed at her uncertainly.

"Go on." She smiled tenderly. "Take her."

He gathered the baby to his chest, his great hands nearly encompassing the small body. Beth wriggled once and then turned her head to look up at the strange new person who was holding her.

"Hello, Valentine," he said softly.

Cain and Kit spent the rest of the afternoon playing with their daughter. Kit undressed her so her father could count her fingers and her toes. Beth performed all her tricks like a champion: smiling at the funny noises that were directed toward her, grabbing at the large fingers put within her reach, and making happy baby sounds when her father blew on her tummy.

Miss Dolly looked in on them, and when she saw that all was well, she disappeared into the other room and lay down to take her own nap. Life was peculiar she thought as she drifted toward the edge of sleep, but it was interesting, too. Now she had sweet little Elizabeth to think about. It was certainly a responsibility. After all, she could hardly count on Katharine Louise to make certain the child learned everything she needed to know to be a great lady. So much to do. It made her head spin like a top. It was a tragedy, of course, what was happening at Appomattox Court House, but it was probably all for the best. She would be far too busy now to devote herself to the war effort…

In the other room, Beth finally began to fret. When she puckered her mouth and directed a determined yowl of protest toward her mother, Cain looked alarmed. "What's wrong with her?"

"She's hungry. I forgot to feed her."

She picked Beth up from the bed, where they'd been playing, and carried her over to a chair near the window. As she sat down, Beth turned her head and began to root at the dove-gray fabric that covered her mother's breast. When nothing happened right away, she grew more frantic.

Kit gazed down at her, understanding her need, but suddenly feeling shy about performing this most intimate of acts in front of her husband.

Cain lay sprawled across the bed, watching them both. He saw his daughter's distress and sensed Kit's shyness. Slowly he rose and walked over to them. He reached down and touched Kit's cheek. Then he lowered his hand to the cascade of gray lace at her throat. Gently he loosened it with his fingers to expose a row of rose-pearl buttons beneath. He unfastened them and pushed apart the gown.

The blue ribbon on her chemise surrendered with a single tug. He saw the trickles of sentimental tears on Kit's cheek and leaned down to kiss them away. Then he opened the chemise so his daughter could be nourished.

Beth made a ferocious grab with her tiny mouth. Cain laughed and kissed the chubby folds of her neck. Then he turned his head and touched his lips to the sweet, full breast that fed her. As Kit's fingers coiled in his hair, he knew he finally had a home and nothing on earth would ever make him give it away.

There were still promises that had to be sealed between them in private. That evening, with Beth safely tucked in bed where Miss Dolly could watch over her, they rode out to a canyon north of town.

As they rode, they talked about the lost months between them, at first only the events, and then their feelings. They spoke quietly, sometimes in half sentences, frequently finishing each other's thoughts. Cain spoke of his guilt at deserting her, overwhelming now that he knew she'd been pregnant at the time. Kit spoke of the way she'd used Risen Glory as a wedge to drive them apart. Sharing their guilt should have been hard, but it wasn't. Neither was the forgiveness each of them offered the other.

Tentatively at first, and then with more enthusiasm, Cain told her about a piece of land he'd seen to the east, near Dallas. "How would you feel about building another cotton mill? Cotton's going to be a big crop in Texas, bigger than any state in the South. And Dallas seems like a good place to raise a family." He gazed over at her. "Or maybe you want to go back to South Carolina and build another mill there. That'll be all right with me, too."

Kit smiled. "I like Texas. It feels like the right place for us. A new land and a new life."

For a while they rode in silent contentment. Finally Cain spoke. "You didn't tell me about the man who bought Risen Glory. Ten dollars an acre. I still can't believe you let it go for that."

"He was a special man." She regarded him mischieviously. "You might remember him. Magnus Owen."

Cain threw back his head and laughed. "Magnus owns Risen Glory and Sophronia has your trust fund."

"It only seemed right."

"Very right."

The deep, cool shadows of evening fell over them as they entered the small, deserted canyon. Cain tied their horses to a black willow, drew a bedroll from behind his saddle, and took Kit's hand. He led her to the edge of a lazy creek that meandered through the floor of the canyon. The moon was already out, a full, shining globe that would soon bathe them in silver light.

He looked down at her. She wore a flat-brimmed hat and one of his flannel shirts over a pair of fawn britches. "You don't look much different than you did when I pulled you down off my wall. Except now, nobody could mistake you for a boy."

His eyes traveled to her breasts, visible even under his oversized shirt, and she delighted him by blushing. He smoothed out the bedroll and took off first her hat, then his own. He tossed them both onto the mossy creek bank.

He touched the small silver studs in her earlobes and then her hair, coiled in a thick knot at the nape of her neck. "I want to take your hair down."

Her lips curved in gentle permission.

He took the pins out, one at a time, and set them carefully inside his own hat. When the shining cloud of her hair finally fell free, he caught it in his hands and brought it gently to his lips. "Dear God, how I've missed you."

She put her arms around him and gazed up. "It's not going to be a fairy-tale marriage, is it, my darling?"

He smiled softly. "I don't see how. We're both hot-tempered and stubborn. We're going to argue."

"Do you mind very much?"

"I wouldn't have it any other way."

She pressed her cheek to his chest. "Fairy-tale princes always seemed dull to me."

"My wild rose of the deep wood. Things between us will never be dull."

"What did you call me?"

"Nothing." He stilled her question with his lips. "Nothing at all."

The kiss that began gently grew until it set them both on fire. Cain plowed his fingers through her hair and cupped her head between his hands. "Undress for me, will you, sweet?" he groaned softly. "I've dreamed of this for so long."

She knew at once how she would do it, in the way that would give him the most pleasure. Tossing him a teasing grin, she rid herself of her boots and stockings, then peeled off her britches. He groaned as the long flannel shirttail fell modestly below her hips. She reached beneath it, pulled off her white pantalets, and dropped them next to her.

"I don't have anything on under this shirt. I seemed to have forgotten my chemise. On purpose."

He could barely keep himself from leaping up and taking her. "You're a wicked woman, Mrs. Cain."

Her hand traveled to the top button of her shirt.

"You're about to find out just how wicked I am, Mr. Cain."

Never had buttons been opened so slowly. It was as if each unfastening could be accomplished with only the most leisurely of movements. Even when the shirt was finally unbuttoned, the heavy material kept it together in the front.

"I'm going to count to ten," he said huskily.

"Count all you want, Yankee. It won't do you a bit of good." With a devil's smile, she peeled away the shirt, slow inch by inch, until she finally stood naked before him.

"I didn't remember it right," he muttered thickly. "How beautiful you are. Come to me, love."

She sped across the chilled ground toward him. Only when she reached him did she wonder if she could still please him. What if having a baby had changed her in some way?

He caught her hand and pulled her beside him. Gently he cupped her fuller breasts. "Your body is different."

She nodded. "I'm a little scared."

"Are you, love?" He tilted up her chin and grazed her mouth with his own. "I'd die before I'd hurt you."

His lips were soft. "Not that. I'm afraid… I won't please you anymore."

"Maybe I won't be able to please you," he breathed softly.

"Silly" she murmured.

"Silly," he whispered back.

They smiled and kissed until the barrier of his clothing became too much for them. They worked at it together so that nothing was left between them, and as their kisses deepened, they fell back onto the bedroll.

A wisp of cloud skidded over the moon, casting moving shadows on the ancient walls of the canyon, but the lovers didn't notice. Clouds and moons and canyons, a baby with a valentine face, an old lady who smelled of peppermint-all of it ceased to exist. For now, their world was small, made up of only a man and a woman, joined together at last.