Just Imagine aka Risen Glory

5

The Templeton Academy for Young Ladies sat on Fifth Avenue like a great gray stone whale. Hamilton Woodward, Cain's attorney, had recommended it. Although the school didn't normally take girls as old as Kit, Elvira Templeton had made an exception for the Hero of Missionary Ridge.

Kit stood hesitantly on the threshold of the third-floor room she'd been assigned and studied the five girls wearing identical navy blue dresses with white collars and cuffs. They were clustered around the room's only window to gaze down at the street. It didn't take her long to figure out what they were staring at.

"Oh, Elsbeth, isn't he the handsomest man you ever saw?"

The girl identified as Elsbeth sighed. She had crisp, brown curls and a pretty, fresh face. "Imagine. He was right here in the Academy, and none of us were allowed to go downstairs. It's so unfair!" And then, with a giggle: "My father says he's not really a gentleman."

More giggles.

A beautiful, blond-haired girl who reminded Kit of Dora Van Ness spoke up. "Madame Riccardi, the opera singer, went into a decline when he told her he was moving to South Carolina. Everybody's heard about it. She's his mistress, you know."

"Lilith Shelton!" The girls were deliriously horrified, and Lilith regarded them disdainfully.

"You're all such innocents. A man as sophisticated as Baron Cain has dozens of mistresses."

"Remember what we decided," another girl said. "Even if she is his ward, she's a Southerner, so we all have to hate her."

Kit had heard enough. "If that means I won't ever have to talk to you silly bitches, that's just fine with me."

The girls spun around and gasped. Kit felt their eyes taking in her ugly dress and awful hat. One more-item to add to the ledger of hatred she was keeping against Cain. "Get out of here! All of you. And if I catch any of you in here again, I'll kick your skinny asses straight to hell!"

The girls fled the room with horrified shrieks. All but one. The girl they'd called Elsbeth. She stood trembling and terrified, her eyes wide as teacups, her pretty lips trembling.

"Are you deaf or something? I told you to get out."

"I… I c-can't."

"Why the hell not?"

"I… I live here."

"Oh." For the first time, Kit noticed the room had two beds.

The girl was sweet-faced, one of those people with a naturally kind disposition, and Kit couldn't find it in her heart to bully her. At the same time, she was the enemy. "You'll have to move."

"Mrs… Mrs. Templeton won't let me. I-I already asked."

Kit cursed, yanked up her skirts, and sank down on the bed. "How come you were lucky enough to get me?"

"My-my father. He's Mr. Cain's attorney. I'm Elisabeth Woodward."

"I'd say I was pleased to make your acquaintance, but both of us know it'd be a lie."

"I'd… I'd better go."

"You do that."

Elsbeth scampered from the room. Kit lay back on the pillow and tried to figure out how she was going to survive the next three years.

The Templeton Academy used a system of demerits to maintain order. For every ten demerits a girl acquired, she was confined to her room all day Saturday. By the end of her first day, Kit had accumulated eighty-three. (Taking the Lord's name in vain was automatically ten.) By the end of her first week, she'd lost count.

Mrs. Templeton called Kit into her office and threatened her with expulsion if she didn't start following all the rules. Kit had to participate in her classes. She'd been given two uniforms, and she was to start wearing them at once. Her grammar must improve immediately. Ladies didn't say "ain't" or "I reckon." Ladies referred to objects as "unimportant," not "useless as toad spit." And most of all, ladies didn't curse.

Kit remained stoic during the interview, but inside, she was panicky. If the old biddy expelled her, Kit would have broken her agreement with Cain and lost Risen Glory forever.

She vowed to hold onto her temper, but as the days passed, it grew more and more difficult. She was three years older than her classmates, but she knew less than any of them. They snickered at her cropped hair behind her back and giggled when she caught her skirts on a chair. One day the pages of her French book were glued together. Another day her nightgown was tied in knots. She'd gone through life with her fists swinging, and now her future depended on keeping her temper. Instead of retaliating, she collected the insults and stored them away to reexamine late at night as she lay in bed. Someday she'd make Baron Cain pay for every slur.

Elsbeth continued to behave like a frightened mouse whenever she was around Kit. Although she refused to join in Kit's persecution, she was too timid to make the other girls stop, Still, her kind heart couldn't ignore the injustices, especially as she grew to realize that Kit wasn't as ferocious as she seemed.

"It's hopeless," Kit confessed to her one night after she'd tripped over the skirt of her uniform in dance class and sent a Chinese vase crashing from a pedestal. "I'll never learn to dance. I talk too loud, I hate wearing skirts, the only musical instrument I can play is a jew's harp, and I can't look at Lilith Shelton without cussing."

Elsbeth's teacup eyes rounded in worry. "You have to be nicer to her. Lilith is the most popular girl in school."

"And the nastiest."

"I'm sure she doesn't mean to be that way."

"I'm sure she does. You're so nice yourself, you don't recognize ugliness in other people. You don't even seem to be noticin' it in me, and I'm 'bout as bad as they come."

"You're not bad!"

"Yes, I am. But not as bad as all the mean-minded girls who go to this school. I reckon you're the only decent person here."

"That's not true," Elsbeth said earnestly. "Most of them are awfully nice if you just give them a chance. You're so ferocious that you scare them."

Kit's spirits lifted a little. "Thank you. Truth is, I don't know how I could scare anybody. I'm a failure at everything I've done here. I can't imagine how I'm gonna last three years."

"Father didn't tell me you had to stay so long. You'll be twenty-one. That's too old to be in school."

"I know, but I don't have any choice." Kit fidgeted with the gray woolen coverlet. Ordinarily she didn't believe in sharing confidences, but she was feeling lonelier than she could remember. "Did you ever love somethin' so much you'd do just about anything to keep it safe?"

"Oh, yes. My little sister, Agnes. She's not like other children. Even though she's almost ten, she can't read or write, but she's so sweet, and I'd never let anybody hurt her."

"Then you understand."

"Tell me, Kit. Tell me what's wrong."

And so Kit told her about Risen Glory. She described the fields and the house, talked about Sophronia and Eli, and tried to make Elsbeth see the way the trees changed color depending on the time of day.

Then she told her about Baron Cain. Not everything. Elsbeth would never understand her masquerade as a stable boy or the way she'd tried to kill him, let alone her offer to be his mistress. Still, she told her enough.

"He's evil, and I can't do anything about it. If I get expelled, he'll sell Risen Glory. And if I do manage to last three years here, I'll still have to wait till I'm twenty-three to get control of the money in my trust fund so I can buy it back. The longer I wait, the harder that's going to be."

"Isn't there any way you can use your money before then?"

"Only if I get married. Which I ain't."

Elsbeth was an attorney's daughter. "If you did marry, your husband would control your money. It's the way the law works. You couldn't spend it without his permission."

Kit shrugged, "it's ail academic. There's no man in the world I'd shackle myself to. Besides, I was raised all wrong to be a wife. Only thing I can do right is cook."

Elsbeth was sympathetic, but she was also practical. "That's why we're all here. To learn how to be proper wives. The girls from the Templeton Academy are known for making the most successful marriages in New York. That's part of what's so special about being a Templeton girl. Men come from all over the East to attend the graduation ball."

"It doesn't make any difference to me if they come from Paris, France. You'll never see me at any ball."

But Elsbeth had been struck with inspiration, and she wasn't paying attention. "All you have to do is find the right husband. Somebody who wants to make you happy. Then everything will be perfect. You won't be Mr. Cain's ward any longer, and you'll have your money."

"You're a real sweet girl, Elsbeth, but I've got to tell you that's the most ridiculous idea I ever heard. Getting married would just mean I'd be handing another man my money."

"If you picked the right man, it'd be the same as having it yourself. Before you get married, you could make him promise to buy you Risen Glory for a wedding present." She clapped her hands, caught up in her vision. "Just imagine how romantic it would be. You could go back home right after your honeymoon."

Honeymoons and husbands… Elsbeth might have been speaking another language. "That's plain foolishness. What man's goin' to marry me?"

"Stand up!" Elsbeth's voice held the same note of command as Elvira Templeton's, and Kit rose reluctantly.

Elsbeth tapped her finger on her cheek. "You're awfully thin, and your hair is horrible. Of course it'll grow," she added politely, "and it is a beautiful color, all soft and inky. Even now it'd look quite nice if it were cut a little straighter. Your eyes are too big for your face, but I think that's because you're so thin." Slowly she circled Kit. "You're going to be quite pretty someday, so I don't think we'll have to worry about that."

Kit scowled. "Just what will we have to worry about?"

But Elsbeth was no longer intimidated by her. "Everything else. You have to learn to talk and to walk, what to say and, even more important, what not to say. You'll have to learn everything the Academy teaches. You're lucky that Mr. Cain provided you with such a generous clothing allowance."

"Which I don't need. What I need is a horse."

"Horses won't help you get a husband. But the Academy will."

"I don't know how. I haven't exactly made a success of it so far."

"No, you haven't." Elsbeth's sweet smile grew impish. "But then, you haven't had me helping you, either."

The idea was silly, but Kit felt her first spark of hope.

As the weeks passed, Elsbeth was as good as her word. She trimmed Kit's hair with manicure scissors and tutored her in the subjects in which she'd fallen behind. Eventually Kit stopped knocking over vases in dancing class and discovered she had a flair for needlework-not embroidering fancy samplers, which she detested, but adding flamboyant touches to garments such as school uniforms. (Ten demerits.) She was a whiz at French, and before long, she was tutoring the girls who had once mocked her.

By Easter, Elsbeth's plan for her to find a husband no longer seemed so ridiculous, and Kit began to fall asleep dreaming that Risen Glory was hers forever.

Just imagine.

Sophronia was no longer the cook at Risen Glory, but the plantation's housekeeper. She tucked Kit's letter away in the inlaid mahogany desk where she kept the household records and pulled her shawl more tightly around her shoulders to ward off the February chill. Kit had been at the Templeton Academy for seven months now, and she finally seemed resigned to her fate.

Sophronia missed her. Kit was blind in a lot of ways, but she also understood things other people didn't. Besides, Kit was the only person in the world who loved her. Still, they somehow always managed to quarrel, even in letters, and this was the first correspondence Sophronia had received from her in a month.

Sophronia thought about sitting down to answer it right away, but she knew she'd put it off, especially after the last time. Her letters only seemed to make Kit mad. You'd think she'd be glad to hear how well Risen Glory was doing now that Cain was running the place,, but she accused Sophronia of siding with the enemy.

Sophronia gazed around the comfortable rear sitting room. She took in the new rose damask upholstery on the settee and the way the delft tiles bordering the fireplace sparkled in the sunlight. Everything shone with beeswax, fresh paint, and care.

Sometimes she hated herself for working so hard to make this house beautiful again. Working her fingers to the bone for the man, just as if there'd never been a war and she was still a slave. But now she was getting paid. Good wages, too, better than any other housekeeper in the county. Still, Sophronia wasn't satisfied.

She moved toward her reflection in the gilt pier glass that hung between the windows. She'd never looked better. Regular meals had softened the chiseled bones in her face and rounded out the sharp angles of her body. She wore her long hair smoothly coiled and piled high on the back of her head. The sophisticated style added to her already considerable height of nearly six feet, and that pleased her. With her exotically slanted golden eyes and her pale caramel skin, she looked like one of the Amazon women pictured in a book she'd found in the library.

She frowned as she studied her simple dress. She wanted dressmaker gowns. She wanted perfumes and silks, champagne and crystal. But most of all, she wanted her own place, one of those pretty pastel houses in Charleston where she'd have a maid and feel safe and protected. She knew exactly how to go about getting that place in Charleston, too. She had to do what terrified her the most. Instead of being a white man's housekeeper, she had to become his mistress.

Every night when she served Cain his dinner, she let her hips sway seductively, and she forced her breasts against his arm when she set food before him. Sometimes she forgot her fear of white men long enough to notice how handsome he was, and she'd recall that he'd been kind to her. But he was too big, too powerful, too much a man for her to feel easy with him. Regardless, she made her lips moist and her eyes inviting, practicing all the tricks she'd forced herself to learn.

An image of Magnus Owen appeared in her mind. Damn that man! She hated the way he looked at her out of those dark eyes, as if he felt sorry for her. Sweet, blessed Jesus, if that wasn't enough to make a body laugh. Magnus Owen, who wanted her so bad he couldn't stand it, had the gall to feel sorry for her.

An involuntary shudder swept through her as she though of pale white limbs wrapping themselves around her golden brown ones. She pushed the image aside and gnawed on her resentment.

Did Magnus Owen really think she'd let him touch her? Him or any other black man? Did Magnus think she'd been studying hard, grooming herself, listening to the white ladies in Rutherford until she could sound exactly like them, just so she'd end up with a black man who couldn't protect her? Not likely. Especially a black man whose eyes seemed to pierce into the farthest reaches of her soul.

She made her way to the kitchen. Soon, now, she'd have everything she wanted-a house, silk gowns, safety-and she was going to earn it in the only way she knew how, satisfying a white man's lust. A white man who was powerful enough to protect her.

That night it turned rainy. Howling February winds swept down the chimneys and rattled the shutters as Sophronia paused outside the library. In one hand she held a silver tray bearing a bottle of brandy and a single glass. With her other hand she unfastened the top buttons of her dress to reveal the swells of her breasts. It was time to make her next move. She took a deep breath and entered the room.

Cain glanced up from the ledgers on the desk. "You must have been reading my mind."

He uncoiled his rugged, long-limbed frame from the leather chair, rose, and stretched. She didn't let herself step back as he came out from behind the desk, moving like a great golden lion. He'd been working from dawn to dusk for months, and he looked tired.

"It's a cold night," she said, setting the tray on the desk. "I thought you might need something to keep you warm." She forced her hand to the open V of her dress so he couldn't mistake her meaning.

He gazed at her, and she felt the familiar stirrings of panic. Once again she reminded herself how kind he'd been, but she also knew there was something dangerous about him that frightened her.

His eyes flicked over her, then lingered on her breasts. "Sophronia…"

She thought of silk gowns and a pastel house. A house with a sturdy lock.

"Shh…" She stepped up to him and splayed her fingers over his chest. Then she let her shawl drop on her bare arm.

For the past seven months, his life had been filled with hard work and little pleasure. Now his lids dropped and he closed his long, tapered fingers around her arm. His hand, bronzed by the Carolina sun, was darker than her own flesh.

He cupped her chin. "Are you sure about this?"

She forced herself to nod.

His head dipped, but in the instant before their lips met, there was a noise behind them. They turned together and saw Magnus Owen standing in the open doorway.

His gentle features twisted as he saw her ready to submit to Cain's embrace. She heard a rumble deep in his throat. He charged into the room and threw himself at the man he considered his closest friend, the man who had once saved his life.

The suddenness of the attack took Cain by surprise. He staggered backward and barely managed to keep his balance. Then he braced himself for Magnus's assault.

Horrified, she watched as Magnus came at him. He swung, but Cain sidestepped and lifted his arm to block the blow.

Magnus swung again. This time he found Cain's jaw and sent him sprawling. Cain got back up, but he refused to retaliate.

Gradually Magnus regained some semblance of sanity. When he saw Cain wasn't going to fight, his arms sagged to his sides.

Cain looked deep into Magnus's eyes, then gazed across the room at Sophronia. He bent down to right a chair that had been upended in the struggle and spoke gruffly. "You'd better get some sleep, Magnus. We have a big day tomorrow." He turned to Sophronia. "You can go. I won't be needing you anymore." The deliberate way he emphasized his words left no doubt about his meaning.

Sophronia rushed from the room. She was furious with Magnus for upsetting her plans. At the same time, she feared for him. This was South Carolina, and he'd struck a white man, not once but twice.

She barely slept that night as she waited for the devils in white sheets to come after him, but nothing happened. The next day, she saw him working side by side with Cain, clearing brush from one of the fields. The fear she'd felt turned into seething resentment. He had no right to interfere in her life.

That evening, Cain instructed her to leave his brandy on the table outside the library door.

6

Fresh spring flowers filled the ballroom of the Templeton Academy for Young Ladies. Pyramids of white tulips screened the empty fireplaces, while cut-glass vases stuffed with lilacs lined the mantels. Even the mirrors had been draped with swags of snowy azaleas.

Along the ballroom's perimeter, clusters of fashionably dressed guests gazed toward the charming rose-bedecked gazebo at the end of the ballroom. Soon the most recent graduates of the Templeton Academy, the Class of 1868, would pass through.

In addition to the parents of the debutantes, guests included members of New York's most fashionable families: Schermerhorns and Livingstons, several Jays, and at least one Van Rensselaer. No socially prominent mother would permit a marriageable son to miss any of the events surrounding the graduation of the latest crop of Templeton girls, and certainly not the Academy's final ball, the best place in New York to find a suitable daughter-in-law.

The bachelors had gathered in groups around the room. Their ranks had been thinned by the war, but there were still enough present to please the mothers of the debutantes.

The younger men were carelessly confident in their immaculate white linen and black tailcoats, despite the fact that some of their sleeves hung empty, and more than one who hadn't yet celebrated his twenty-fifth birthday walked with a cane. The older bachelors' coffers overflowed from the profits of the booming postwar economy, and they signaled their success with diamond shirt studs and heavy gold watch chains.

Tonight was the first time the gentlemen from Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore would have the privilege of viewing the newest crop of Manhattan's most desirable debutantes. Unlike their New York counterparts, these gentlemen hadn't been able to attend the teas and sedate Sunday afternoon receptions that had led up to this evening's ball. They listened attentively as the local bachelors speculated on the winners in this year's bridal sweepstakes.

The beautiful Lilith Shelton would grace any man's table. And her father was to settle ten thousand on her.

Margaret Stockton had crooked teeth, but she'd bring eight thousand to her marriage bed, and she sang well, a pretty quality in a wife.

Elsbeth Woodward was only worth five thousand at the outside, but she was sweet-natured and most pleasant to look at, the sort of wife who wouldn't give a man a moment's trouble. Definitely a favorite.

Fanny Jennings was out of the running. The youngest Vandervelt boy had already spoken with her father. A pity, since she was worth eighteen thousand.

On and on it went, one girl after another. As the conversation began to drift to the latest boxing match, a Bostonian visitor interrupted. "Isn't there another I've heard talk about? A Southern girl? Older than the rest?" Twenty-one, he'd heard.

The men of New York avoided each other's eyes. Finally one of them cleared his throat. "Ah, yes. That would be Miss Weston."

Just then the orchestra began to play a selection from the newly popular Tales from the Vienna Woods, a signal that the members of the graduating class were about to be announced. The men fell silent as the debutantes appeared.

Dressed in white ball gowns, they came through the gazebo one by one, paused, and sank into a graceful curtsy. Following the appropriate applause, they glided down steps strewn with rose petals onto the ballroom floor and took the arm of their father or brother.

Elsbeth smiled so prettily that her brother's best friend, who until that moment had thought of her only as a nuisance, began to think again. Lilith Shelton tripped ever so slightly on the hem of her skirt and wanted to die, but she was a Templeton Girl, so she didn't let her mortification show. Margaret Stockton, even with her crooked teeth, looked fetching enough to garner the attention of a member of the less prosperous branch of the Jay family.

"Katharine Louise Weston."

There was an almost imperceptible movement among the gentlemen of New York City, a slight tilting of heads, a vague shifting of positions. The gentlemen of Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore sensed that something special was about to happen and fixed their attention more closely.

She came toward them from the shadows of the gazebo, then stopped at the top of the steps. They saw at once that she wasn't like the others. This was no tame tabby cat to curl up by a man's hearth and keep his slippers warm. This was a woman to make a man's blood surge, a wildcat with lustrous black hair caught back from her face with silver combs, then falling in a riotous tangle of thick dark curls down her neck. This was an exotic cat with widely spaced violet eyes so heavily fringed, the very weight of her lashes should have held them closed. This was a jungle cat with a mouth too bold for fashion but so ripe and moist that a man could only think of drinking from it.

Her gown was fashioned of white satin with a billowing overskirt caught up by bows the same shade of violet as her eyes. The neckline was heart-shaped, softly outlining the contours of her breasts, and the bell-shaped sleeves ended in a wide cuff of Alençon lace. The gown was beautiful and expensive, but she wore it almost carelessly. One of the lavender bows had come undone at the side, and the sleeves must have gotten in her way, because she'd pushed them a bit too high on her delicate wrists.

Hamilton Woodward's youngest son stepped forward as her escort for the promenade. The more critical guests observed that her stride was a shade too long-not long enough to reflect badly on the Academy, just long enough to be noted. Woodward's son whispered something to her. She tilted her head and laughed, showing small, white teeth. Each man who watched wanted that laugh to be his alone, even as he told himself that a more delicate young lady would perhaps not laugh quite so boldly. Only Elsbeth's father, Hamilton Woodward, refused to look at her.

Under cover of the music, the gentlemen from Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore demanded to know more about this Miss Weston.

The gentlemen from New York were vague at first.

Some talk that Elvira Templeton shouldn't have let a Southerner into the Academy so soon after the war, but she was the ward of the Hero of Missionary Ridge.

Their comments grew more personal. Quite something to look at. Hard to keep your eyes off her, in fact. But a dangerous sort of wife, don't you think? Older. A bit wild. Wager she wouldn't take the bit well at all. And how could a man hope to keep his mind on business with a woman like that waiting for him at home?

If she waited.

Gradually the gentlemen from Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore learned the rest of it. In the past six weeks Miss Weston had captured the interest of a dozen of New York's most eligible bachelors, only to reject them. These were men from the wealthiest families-men who would one day run the city, even the country-but she didn't seem to care.

As for those she did seem to favor… That was what galled the most. She picked the least likely men. Bertrand Mayhew, for example, who came from a good family but was virtually penniless and hadn't been able to make a decision on his own since his mother died. Then there was Hobart Cheney, a man with neither money nor looks, only an unfortunate stammer. The delicious Miss Weston's preferences were incomprehensible. She was passing over Van Rensselaers, Livingstons, and Jays for Bertrand Mayhew and Hobart Cheney.

The mothers were relieved. They very much enjoyed Miss Weston's company-she made them laugh and was sympathetic to their ailments. But she wasn't quite up to scratch as a daughter-in-law, was she? Forever tearing a flounce or losing a glove. Her hair was never entirely neat, always a lock tumbling about at her ears or curling at her temples. As for the bold way she looked one in the eye… refreshing, but at the same time discomposing. No, Miss Weston wouldn't make the right sort of wife for their sons at all.

Kit was aware of the opinion the society matrons had of her, and she didn't blame them for it. As a Templeton Girl, she even understood. At the same time, she didn't let it distract her from entertaining her partners with the breathless Southern conversation she'd perfected by calling up memories of the women in Rutherford. Now, however, her partner was poor Hobart Cheney, who was barely capable of maintaining a conversation under the best of circumstances, let alone when he was counting dance steps so vigorously under his breath, so she remained silent.

Mr. Cheney stumbled, but Elsbeth had coached her well for the past three years, and Kit led him back into the steps before anyone noticed. She also gave him her brightest smile so he wouldn't realize he was actually following her. Poor Mr. Cheney would never know how close he'd come to being her chosen husband. If he'd been a trifle less intelligent, she might have picked him because he was a sweet man. As it was, Bertrand Mayhew presented the better choice.

She glimpsed Mr. Mayhew standing off by himself, waiting for the first of two dances that she had promised him. She felt the familiar heaviness that settled over her whenever she looked at him, spoke with him, or even thought of him.

He wasn't much taller than she, and his belly protruded below the waistband of his trousers like a woman's. At forty, he'd lived his life in the shadow of his mother, and now that she was dead, he desperately needed a woman to take her place. Kit had decided she would be that woman.

Elsbeth was upset, pointing out that Kit could have any of a dozen eligible men who were both richer than Bertrand Mayhew and less distasteful. But Elsbeth understood. To get Risen Glory back, Kit needed power from her marriage, not riches, and a husband who expected her to behave like a properly submissive wife was of no use to her at all.

Kit knew it wouldn't be difficult to persuade Bertrand to use the money in her trust fund to buy back Risen Glory, nor would she have trouble convincing him to live there permanently. Because of that, she suppressed the part of her that wished she could have found a husband who was less repugnant. After the midnight supper, she would take him to the reception room to see the newest collection of stereoscopic views of Niagara Falls, and then she would lead him to the question. It wouldn't be difficult. Dealing with men had proved to be surprisingly easy. Within a month she would be on her way to Risen Glory. Unfortunately, she'd be married to Bertrand Mayhew.

She wasted no thought on the letter she'd received from Baron Cain the day before. She seldom heard from him, and then only to reprimand her over one of the quarterly reports he received from Mrs. Templeton. His letters were always formal and so dictatorial that she couldn't risk reading them in front of Elsbeth because they made her fall back on her old habits of profanity.

After three years, the mental ledger of her grievances against him had grown thick with entries. His latest letter ordered her without explanation to remain in New York until further notice. She intended to ignore it. Her life was about to become her own, and she'd never again let him stand in her way.

The music ended with a flourish, and instantly Bertrand Mayhew appeared at her side. "Miss-Miss Weston? I was wondering-that is to say, did you remember-"

"Why, if it isn't Mr. Mayhew." Kit tilted her head and gazed at him through her lashes, a gesture she had practiced for so long under Elsbeth's tutelage that it had become second nature. "My dear, dear Mr. Mayhew. I was afraid-terrified, in fact-that you'd forgotten me and gone off with one of the other young ladies."

"Oh, my, no! Oh, Miss Weston, how could you ever imagine I would do something so ungentlemanly? Oh, my stars, no. My dear mother would never have-"

"I'm sure she wouldn't." She excused herself prettily from Hobart Cheney, then linked her arm through Mr. Mayhew's, well aware that the gesture was overly familiar. "Now, now. No long face, you hear? I was only teasing."

"Teasing?" He looked as baffled as if she'd just announced she was going to ride naked down Fifth Avenue.

Kit repressed a sigh. The orchestra began to play a lively gallop, and she let him lead her into the dance. At the same time, she tried to shake off her depression, but a glimpse of Elsbeth's father made that difficult.

What a pompous fool! Over Easter, one of the lawyers at Hamilton Woodward's firm had drunk too much and accosted Kit in the Woodwards' music room. One touch of those slobbery lips, and she'd planted her fist in his belly. That would have been the end of it, but Mr. Woodward happened to come into the room just then. His business partner had lied and said Kit had been the aggressor. Kit had angrily denied it, but Mr. Woodward hadn't believed her. Ever since, he'd tried unsuccessfully to break up her friendship with Elsbeth, and all evening he'd been shooting her scalding glances.

She forgot about Mr. Woodward as she spotted a new couple entering the ballroom. Something familiar about the man caught her attention, and as the couple made their way to Mrs. Templeton to pay their respects, she recognized him. Oh, my…

"Mr. Mayhew, would you escort me over to Mrs. Templeton? She's speaking with someone I know. Someone I haven't seen for years."

The gentlemen from New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore noticed that Miss Weston had stopped dancing and looked to see what had caught her attention. With no small amount of envy, they studied the man who'd just entered the ballroom. What was it about the pale, thin stranger that had brought such an attractive flush to the cheeks of the elusive Miss Weston?

Brandon Parsell, former cavalry officer in South Carolina's famous "Hampton's Legion," had something of the look of an artist about him, even though he was a planter by birth and knew nothing about art beyond the fact that he liked that fellow who painted horses. His hair was brown and straight, combed from a side part over a fine, well-molded brow. He had a neatly trimmed mustache and conservative side whiskers.

It wasn't the kind of face that inspired easy camaraderie with members of his own sex. It was, instead, a face that women liked, as it brought to mind novels about chivalry and called up memories of sonnets, nightingales, and Grecian urns.

The woman at his side was Eleanora Baird, the plain, somewhat overdressed daughter of his employer. He acknowledged her introduction to Mrs. Templeton with a courtly bow and a well-chosen compliment. Listening to his easy Southern drawl, no one would have guessed the loathing he felt for all of them: the glittering guests, the imposing hostess, even the Northern spinster whom duty required he escort that evening.

And then-from nowhere, it seemed-he felt a sharp pang of homesickness, a longing for the walled gardens of Charleston on a Sunday afternoon, a yearning for the quiet night air of Holly Grove, his family's former home. There was no reason for the crush of emotion that tightened his chest, no reason beyond the faint, sweet scent of Carolina jasmine borne on a rustle of white satin.

"Ah, Katharine, my dear," Mrs. Templeton called out in that strident Northern accent that jangled Brandon's ears. "I have someone I'd like you to meet. A countryman of yours."

Slowly he turned toward the evocative jasmine perfume and, as quickly as a missed heartbeat, lost himself in the beautiful, willful face that met his gaze.

The young woman smiled. "Mr. Parsell and I are already acquainted, although I see by his expression that he doesn't remember me. Shame, Mr. Parsell. You've forgotten one of your most faithful admirers."

Although Brandon Parsell didn't recognize the face, he knew the voice. He knew those gently blurred vowels and soft consonants as well as he knew the sound of his own breathing. It was the voice of his mother, his aunts, and his sisters. The voice that, for four long years, had soothed the dying and defied the Yankees and sent the gentlemen out to fight again. It was the voice that had gladly offered up husbands, brothers, and sons to the Glorious Cause.

The voice of all the gently bred women of the South.

It was the voice that had cheered them on at Bull Run and Fredericksburg, the voice that had steadied them in those long weeks on the bluffs at Vicksburg, the voice that had cried bitter tears into lavender-scented handkerchiefs, then whispered "Never mind" when they lost Stonewall Jackson at Chancellorsville.

It was the voice that had spurred on Pickett's men in their desperate charge at Gettysburg, the voice they'd heard as they lay dying in the mud at Chickamauga, and the voice they would not let themselves hear on that Virginia Palm Sunday when they'd surrendered their dreams at Appomattox Court House.

Yet, despite the voice, there was a difference in the woman who stood before him from the women who waited at home. The white satin ball gown she wore rustled with newness. No brooch had been artfully placed to conceal a darn that was almost, but not quite, invisible. There were no signs that a skirt originally designed to accommodate a hoop had been taken apart and reassembled to give a smaller, more fashionable silhouette. There was another difference, too, in the woman who stood before him from the women who waited at home. Her violet eyes did not contain any secret, unspoken reproach.

When he finally found his own voice, it seemed to come from a place far away. "I'm afraid you have the advantage, ma'am. It's hard for me to believe I could have forgotten such a memorable face, but if you say it's so, I'm not disputing it, just begging your forgiveness for my poor memory. Perhaps you'll enlighten me?"

Elvira Templeton, accustomed to the plainer speech of Yankee businessmen, blinked twice before she remembered her manners. "Mr. Parsed, may I present Miss Katharine Louise Weston."

Brandon Parsell was too much a gentleman to let his shock show, but even so, he couldn't find the words to frame a proper response. Mrs. Templeton continued with the amenities, introducing Miss Baird and, of course, Mr. Mayhew. Miss Weston seemed amused.

The orchestra began to play the first strains of The Blue Danube waltz. Mr. Parsell came out of his stupor and turned to Mr. Mayhew. "Would you very much mind fetching a cup of punch for Miss Baird, sir? She was just remarking on her thirst. Miss Weston, can an old friend claim the honor of this waltz?" It was an uncharacteristic breach of etiquette, but Parsell couldn't bring himself to care.

Kit smiled and presented her gloved hand. They moved out onto the ballroom floor and into the steps of the dance. Brandon finally broke the silence. "You've changed, Kit Weston I don't believe your own mammy would recognize you."

"I never had a mammy, Brandon Parsell, as you very well know."

He laughed aloud at her feistiness. He hadn't realized how much he missed talking to a woman whose spirit hadn't been broken. "Wait until I tell my mother and my sisters I've seen you. We heard Cain had shipped you to a school up North, but none of us speaks to him, and Sophronia hasn't said much to anybody."

Kit didn't want to talk about Cain. "How are your mother and sisters?"

"As well as can be expected. Losing Holly Grove's been hard on them. I'm working at the bank in Rutherford." His laugh was self-deprecating. "A Parsell working in a bank. Times do change, don't they, Miss Kit Weston?"

Kit took in the clean, sensitive lines of his face and observed the way his neatly trimmed mustache brushed the upper curve of his lip. She didn't let her pity show as she breathed in the faint smells of tobacco and bay rum that clung so pleasantly to him.

Brandon and his sisters had been at the center of a carefree group of young people some five or six years older than she. When the war started, she remembered standing at the side of the road and watching him ride toward Charleston. He'd sat his horse as if he'd been born in a saddle, and he'd worn the gray uniform and plumed hat so proudly that her throat had congealed with fierce, proud tears. To her, he'd symbolized the spirit of the Confederate soldier, and she'd yearned for nothing more than to follow him into battle and fight at his side. Now Holly Grove lay in ruins and Brandon Parsell worked in a bank.

"What are you doing in New York, Mr. Parsell?" she asked, trying to steady herself against the faint giddiness attacking her knees.

"My employer sent me here to attend to some family business for him. I'm returning home tomorrow."

"Your employer must think highly of you if he's willing to trust you with family affairs."

Again the self-deprecating sound that was nearly, but not quite, a laugh. "If you listen to my mother, she'll tell you that I'm running the Planters and Citizens Bank, but the truth is, I'm little more than an errand boy."

"I'm sure that's not so."

"The South has been raised on self-delusion. It's like mother's milk to us, this belief in our invincibility. But I, for one, have given up self-delusion. The South isn't invincible, and neither am I."

"Is it so very bad?"

He moved her toward the edge of the ballroom. "You haven't been to Rutherford for years. Everything's different. Carpetbaggers and scalawags are running the state. Even though South Carolina's about to be readmitted to the Union, Yankee soldiers still patrol the streets and look the other way when respectable citizens are accosted by riffraff. The state legislature's a joke." He spat out the last word as if it were venomous. "Living here, you can't have any idea what it's like."

She felt guilty, as if she had somehow shirked her duty by deserting the South to go to school in New York. The music ended, but she wasn't ready for the dance to be over. And maybe Brandon wasn't, either, because he made no move to release her. "I imagine you already have a partner for the supper dance."

She nodded, then heard herself saying, "But since you're a neighbor and leaving New York tomorrow, I'm certain Mr. Mayhew won't object to stepping aside."

He lifted her hand and brushed the back of it with his lips. "Then he's a fool."

Elsbeth swooped down on her the moment he took his leave and dragged her to the sitting room that had been set aside for the ladies to tidy themselves.

"Who is he, Kit? All the girls are talking about him. He looks like a poet. Oh, my! Your bows are coming untied, and you already have a spot on your skirt. And your hair…" She pushed Kit down in front of the mirror and snatched out the filigreed silver combs she'd given her last year as a birthday present. "I don't know why you wouldn't let me put it up for tonight. It looks so wild like this."

"For the same reason I wouldn't let you lace me into a corset. I don't like anything that takes away my freedom."

Elsbeth gave her an impish smile. "You're a woman. You're not supposed to have any freedom."

Kit laughed. "Oh, Elsbeth, what would I have done without you these last three years?"

"Gotten expelled."

Kit reached up and squeezed her hand. "Have I ever said thank you?"

"A hundred times. And I'm the one who should thank you. If it hadn't been for you, I'd never have learned to stand up for myself. I'm sorry Father's being so beastly. I'll never forgive him for not believing you."

"I don't want to come between you and your father."

"I know you don't." Elsbeth renewed her attack on Kit's hair. "Why do I bother to scold you for being so untidy? You hardly do anything the way a young lady is supposed to, yet half the men in New York are in love with you."

Kit made a face in the mirror. "Sometimes I don't like the way they look at me. As if I'm not wearing any clothes."

"I'm sure you're imagining it." Elsbeth finished securing the combs and wound her arms around Kit's shoulders. "It's just that you're so beautiful, they can't help looking at you."

"Silly." Kit laughed and jumped up from her chair. "His name is Brandon Parsell, and he's taking me in to supper."

"Supper? I thought Mr. Mayhew…"

But it was too late. Kit had already left.

A waiter came by with a third tray of petits fours. Kit started to reach for one, then caught herself just in time. She'd already had two, and she'd eaten every bite of the food she'd piled onto her plate. If Elsbeth had noticed-as most assuredly she had-Kit would receive another lecture. Templeton Girls ate sparingly at social occasions.

Brandon took the accusingly empty plate from her and set it aside. "I confess to enjoying a pipe after dinner. Would you be agreeable to showing me the garden? That is, if you don't mind the smell of tobacco."

Kit knew she should be with Bertrand Mayhew now, showing him stereoptic views of Niagara Falls and leading him to a marriage proposal, but she couldn't summon the will to excuse herself. "I don't mind at all. When I was younger, I smoked tobacco myself."

Brandon frowned. "As I recall, your childhood was unfortunate and best forgotten." He led her toward the doors that opened into the school's garden. "It's amazing how well you've managed to overcome the adversity of your upbringing, not to mention being able to live for so long with these Yankees."

She smiles as he led her along a brick path hung with paper lanterns. She thought of Elsbeth, Fanny Jennings, Margaret Stockton, and even Mrs. Templeton. "They're not all bad."

"What about the Yankee gentlemen? How do you feel about them?"

"Some are pleasant, others not."

He hesitated. "Have you received any proposals of marriage?"

"None that I've accepted."

"I'm glad."

He smiled, and without quite knowing how it happened, they were standing still. She felt the whisper of a breeze ruffling her hair. His hands settled on her shoulders. Gently he drew her toward him.

He was going to kiss her. She knew it would happen, just as she knew she would let him.

Her first real kiss.

A frown creased his forehead. He released her abruptly. "Forgive me. I nearly forgot myself."

"You were going to kiss me."

"I'm ashamed to admit it's all I've been able to think about since I first set eyes on you. A man who presses his attentions on a lady is no gentleman."

"What if the lady's willing?"

His expression grew tender. "You're an innocent. Kisses lead to greater liberties."

She thought of Eve's Shame and the lecture on marital relations that all the senior girls had to endure before they graduated. Mrs. Templeton spoke of pain and duty, of obligation and endurance. She advised them to let their husbands have their way, no matter how shocking and horrible it might seem. She suggested they recite verses from the Bible or a bit of poetry while it was going on. But never once did she tell them exactly what Eve's Shame involved. It was left to their fertile imaginations.

Lilith Shelton reported that her mother had an aunt who'd gone insane on her wedding night. Margaret said she'd heard there was blood. And Kit had exchanged anxious glances with Fanny Jennings, whose father raised Thoroughbreds on a farm near Saratoga. Only Kit and Fanny had seen the shuddering of a reluctant mare as she was covered by a trumpeting stallion.

Brandon reached inside his pocket for a pipe and a worn leather tobacco pouch. "I don't know how you've been able to stand living in this city. It's not much like Risen Glory, is it?"

"Sometimes I thought I'd die of homesickness."

"Poor Kit. You've had a rough time of it, haven't you?"

"Not as bad as you. At least Risen Glory is still standing."

He wandered toward the garden wall. "It's a fine plantation. Always has been. Your daddy might not have had much sense where womenfolk were concerned, but he knew how to grow cotton." There was a hollow, hissing sound as he drew on his pipe. He relit it and gazed over at her. "Can I tell you something I've never confided to another livin' soul?"

A little thrill went through her. "What's that?"

"I used to have a secret hankering for Risen Glory. It's always been a better plantation than Holly Grove. It's a cruel twist of fate that the best plantation in the country is in the hands of a Yankee."

She realized her heart was racing, even as her mind spun with new possibilities. She spoke slowly. "I'm going to get it back."

"Remember what I said about self-delusion. Don't make the same mistakes as the others. "

"It's not self-delusion," she said fiercely. "I've learned about money since I've been in the North. It's the great equalizer. And I'll have it. Then I'm buying Risen Glory back from Baron Cain."

"It'll take a lot of money. Cain has some crazy idea about spinning his own cotton. He's building a mill right there at Risen Glory. The steam engine just arrived from Cincinnati."

This was news Sophronia hadn't passed on, but Kit couldn't concentrate on it now. Something too important was at stake. She thought about it for only a moment. "I'll have fifteen thousand dollars, Brandon."

"Fifteen thousand!" In a land that had been stripped of everything, this was a fortune, and for a moment he simply gaped at her. Then he shook his head. "You shouldn't have told me that."

"Why not?"

"I-I wanted to call on you after you returned to Risen Glory, but what you've told me casts a shadow over my motivations."

Kit's own motivations were so much more shadowy that she laughed. "Don't be a goose. I could never doubt your motivations. And yes, you may call on me at Risen Glory. I intend to return as soon as I can make the arrangements."

Just like that, she made her decision. She couldn't marry Bertrand Mayhew, not yet anyway, not until she'd had time to see where this exciting new possibility might lead her. She didn't care what Cain had written in his letter. She was going home.

That night as she fell asleep, she dreamed of walking through the fields of Risen Glory with Brandon Parsell at her side.

Just imagine.