Just Imagine aka Risen Glory

7

The carriage tilted as it swung into the long, winding drive that led to Risen Glory. Kit tensed with anticipation. After three years, she was finally home.

The deep grooves that had rutted the drive for as long as she could remember had been leveled and the surface spread with fresh gravel. Weeds and undergrowth had been cut back, making the road wider than she recalled. Only the trees had resisted change. The familiar assortment of buckthorn, oak, black gum, and sycamore welcomed her. In a moment she'd be able to see the house.

But when the carriage rounded the final curve, Kit didn't even glance that way. Something more important had caught her attention.

Beyond the gentle slope of lawn, beyond the orchard and the new outbuildings, beyond the house itself, stretching as far as her eyes could see, were the fields of Risen Glory. Fields that looked as they had before the war, with endless rows of young cotton plants stretching like green ribbons across the rich, dark soil.

She banged the roof of the carriage, startling her companion, so that she let go of the peppermint drop she'd been about to slip into her mouth and lost it in the frilly white folds of her dress.

Dorthea Pinckney Calhoun gave a shriek of alarm.

A Templeton Girl, even a rebellious one, understood that she couldn't travel so far without a companion, let alone stay in the same house with an unmarried man. I he tact that he was her cursed stepbrother made no difference. Kit wouldn't do anything that could give Cain an excuse to send her back, and since he didn't want her here in the first place, he'd be looking for a reason.

It hadn't been hard to find a penniless Southern woman anxious to return to her homeland after years of exile with a widowed Northern sister-in-law. Miss Dolly was a distant relative of Mary Cogdell, and Kit had gotten her name through a letter she received from the minister's wife. With her tiny stature and her faded blond corkscrew curls, Miss Dolly resembled an aged china doll. Although she was well past fifty, she favored ancient gowns heavy with frills and wide skirts beneath which she never wore any fewer than eight petticoats.

Kit had already discovered she was a natural coquette, batting the lashes of her wrinkled eyelids at any man she judged to be a gentleman. And she always seemed to be in motion. Her hands in their lacy, fingerless mitts fluttered; her faded curls bobbed, her pastel sashes and antique fringes were never still. She talked of cotillions and cough remedies and a set of porcelain temple dogs that had disappeared along with her girlhood. She was sweet, harmless, and, as Kit had soon discovered, slightly mad. Unable to accept the defeat of her glorious Confederacy, Miss Dolly had permitted herself the small luxury of slipping back in time so that she could forever live in those first days of the war when hopes were high and thoughts of defeat unthinkable.

"The Yankees!" Miss Dolly exclaimed as the carriage jolted to a stop. "They're attacking us! Oh, my… Oh, my, my…"

In the beginning, her habit of referring to events that had happened seven years before as if they were occurring that very day had been unnerving, but Kit had quickly realized Miss Dolly's genteel madness was her way of coping with a life she hadn't been able to control.

"Nothing like that," Kit reassured her. "I stopped the carriage. I want to walk."

"Oh, dear, Oh, my dear, that won't do at all. Marauding troops are everywhere. And your complexion-"

"I'll be fine, Miss Dolly. I'll meet you at the house in a few minutes."

Before her companion could protest further, Kit stepped out of the carnage and waved the driver on. As the vehicle pulled away, she climbed a grassy hillock so she could get an unrestricted view of the fields beyond the house. Lifting her veil, she shaded her eyes from the late-afternoon sun.

The plants were about six weeks old. Before long, the buds would open into creamy four-petaled flowers that would give birth to the cotton bolls. Even under her father's efficient management, Risen Glory hadn't looked this prosperous. The outbuildings that had been destroyed by the Yankees had been rebuilt, and a new whitewashed fence stretched around the paddock. Everything about the plantation looked well tended and prosperous.

Her gaze came to rest on the house from which she'd been exiled when she was so young. The front still bowed in a graceful arch, and the color was the same shade of warm cream that she remembered, tinted now by the rose-colored light of the fading sun.

But there were differences. The red tile roof had been repaired near the twin chimneys, the shutters and front door held a fresh coat of shiny black paint, and, even from a distance, the window glass sparkled. Compared to the lingering devastation she'd seen from the window of the train, Risen Glory was an oasis of beauty and prosperity.

The improvements should have gratified her. Instead, she felt a mixture of anger and resentment. All this had happened without her. She settled the beaded veil back over her face and headed for the house.

Dolly Calhoun waited by the carriage steps, her Cupid's-bow mouth quivering from having been deserted just as she'd arrived at her destination. Kit gave her a reassuring smile, then stepped around the trunks to pay the driver from the last of her allowance money. As he pulled away, she took Miss Dolly's arm and helped her up the front steps, then lifted the brass knocker.

The young maid who answered the door was new, and that deepened Kit's resentment. She wanted to see Eli's dear, familiar face, but the old man had died the previous winter. Cain hadn't permitted her to return home to see him buried. Now she had new resentments to join the old, familiar ones.

The maid glanced curiously at them and then at the array of trunks and bandboxes piled on the piazza.

"I'd like to see Sophronia," Kit said.

"Miz Sophronia's not here."

"When do you expect her?"

"The Conjure Woman took sick this mornin' and Miz Sophronia went to check up on her. Don't know when she's comin' back."

"Is Major Cain here?"

"He'll be comin' in from the fields any minute now, but he ain't here yet."

Just as well, Kit thought. With any luck, they'd be settled in before he arrived. She clasped Miss Dolly gently by the arm and steered her through the doorway, past the astonished maid. "Please see that our trunks are taken upstairs. This is Miss Calhoun. I'm sure she'd appreciate a glass of lemonade in her room. I'll wait in the front sitting room for Major Cain."

Kit saw the maid's uncertainty, but the girl didn't have the courage to challenge a well-dressed visitor. "Yes, ma'am."

Kit turned to her companion, more than a little worried about how she would react to sleeping under the same roof with a former officer in the Union army. "Why don't you lie down until supper, Miss Dolly? You've had a long day."

"I think I will, you sweet darlin'." Miss Dolly patted Kit's arm. "I want to look my best this evening. I only hope the gentlemen won't talk about politics all through dinner. With General Beauregard in command at Charleston, I'm sure none of us need to worry about those murderous Yankees."

Kit gave Miss Dolly a gentle prod toward the bewildered maid. "I'll look in on you before dinner."

After they disappeared upstairs, Kit finally had time to take in her surroundings. The wooden floor shone with polish, and an arrangement of spring flowers sat on the hall table. She remembered how Rosemary's slovenliness had galled Sophronia.

She crossed the hall and entered the front sitting room. The freshly painted ivory walls and apple-green moldings were spare and cool, and new, yellow silk taffeta curtains rippled in the breeze from the open windows. The furniture, however, was the comfortable hodgepodge Kit remembered, although the chairs and settees had been reupholstered, and the room smelled of lemon oil and beeswax instead of mildew. Tarnish no longer marred the silver candlesticks, and the grandfather's clock was working for the first time in Kit's memory. The mellow, rhythmic ticking should have relaxed her, but it didn't. Sophronia had done her job too well. Kit felt like a stranger in her own home.

Cain watched Vandal, his new chestnut, being led into the stable. He was a good horse, but Magnus was mad as hell that Cain had gotten rid of Apollo to buy him. Unlike Magnus, Cain didn't let himself get attached to any of the horses. He'd learned as a child not to get attached to anything.

As he strode from the stable toward the house, he found himself thinking about all he'd accomplished in three years. Despite the problems of living in a conquered land with neighbors who shunned him, he hadn't once regretted his decision to sell his house in New York and come to Risen Glory. He'd had a little experience growing cotton in Texas before the war, and Magnus had been raised on a cotton plantation. With the help of a healthy supply of agricultural pamphlets, the two of them had managed to produce a paying crop last year.

Cain didn't pretend to feel a deep affinity for the land, just as he didn't get sentimental over the animals, but he was enjoying the challenge of restoring Risen Glory. Building the new spinning mill on the northeast corner of the plantation was more fulfilling to him.

He'd gambled everything he had on the mill. As a result, he was as close to broke as he'd been since he was a kid, but he'd always liked taking risks. For the moment, he felt content.

He was scraping his boots by the back door when Lucy, the maid Sophronia had recently hired, came flying out. "It wasn't my fault, Major. Miz Sophronia didn't tell me nobody was comin' today when she went off to see the Conjure Woman. This lady showed up askin' for you, and then she just took herself off to the sitting room, bold as brass."

"Is she still there?"

"Yes. And that's not all. She brung-"

"Damn!" He'd received a letter the week before announcing that a member of the Society to Protect Widows and Orphans of the Confederacy would be calling on him for a contribution. The respectable citizens of the neighborhood ignored him unless they needed money; then some matronly woman would show up and observe him with pursed lips and nervous eyes while she tried to get him to empty his pockets. He'd begun to suspect the charities were merely a face-saving excuse to get a glimpse inside the lair of the evil Hero of Missionary Ridge. It amused him to watch those same women try to discourage the flirtatious glances that came his way from their daughters when he was in town, but he restricted his female companionship to infrequent trips to the more experienced women of Charleston.

He stalked into the house and down the hallway toward the sitting room. He didn't care that he was dressed in the same tobacco-brown trousers and white shirt he'd worn all day in the fields. He'd be damned if he'd change his clothes to receive another one of these tiresome women. But what he saw when he entered the sitting room wasn't what he'd expected…

The woman stood at the window looking out. Even with her back to him, he saw that she was well dressed, unusual for the women of the community. Her skirt rippled ever so slightly as she turned.

He caught his breath.

She was exquisite. Her dove-gray gown was trimmed with rose piping, and a waterfall of pale gray lace fell from her throat over a pair of supple, round breasts. A small hat the same soft rose shade as the trim of her gown perched on her inky-dark hair. The tip of the short gray plume that dipped from the brim came level with her brow.

The rest of the woman's features were covered by a black veil as light as a spider's web. Tiny, sparkling dewdrops of jet clung to its honeycombed surface, with only a moist red mouth visible beneath. That and a small pair of jet earbobs.

He didn't know her. He'd have remembered such a creature. She must be one of the respectable daughters of the neighborhood who'd been so carefully tucked away from him.

She remained quietly confident under his open appraisal. What household calamity had resulted in so enticing a morsel being sent to take her mother's place in the den of the infamous Yankee?

His gaze touched that ripe mouth peeking from beneath her veil. Beautiful and intriguing. Her parents would have done better to keep this one safely locked away.

While Cain was studying her so intently, Kit was conducting her own perusal from behind the honeycombed cells of her veil. Three years had passed. She was older now, and she studied him through more mature eyes. What she saw wasn't reassuring. He was more outrageously handsome than she remembered. The sun had bronzed the planes of his face and streaked his crisp, tawny hair. The darker hair at his temples gave his face the rugged look of a man who belonged outdoors.

He was still dressed for the fields, and the sight of that muscular body unsettled her. The white shirt that stretched across his chest was rolled up at the sleeves, revealing tanned, hard-tendoned forearms. Brown trousers clung to his hips and hugged the powerful muscles of his thighs.

The spacious room in which they were standing seemed to have shrunk. Even standing still, he radiated an aura of power and danger. Somehow she'd managed to forget that. What curious, self-protective mechanism had made her reduce him in her mind to the level of other men? It was a mistake she wouldn't make again.

Cain was aware of her scrutiny. She seemed to have no intention of being the first to speak, and her composure indicated a degree of self-confidence that intrigued him. Curious to test its limits, he broke the silence with deliberate brusqueness.

"You wanted to see me?"

She felt a stab of satisfaction. He didn't know who she was. The veiled hat had given her this one small advantage. The masquerade wouldn't last for long, but while it did, she'd have time to size up her opponent with wiser eyes than those of art immature eighteen-year-old who'd known both too much and too little.

"This room is quite beautiful," she said coolly.

"I have an excellent housekeeper."

"You're fortunate."

"Yes, I am." He walked farther into the room, moving with the easy rolling gait of a man who spent much of his time on horseback. "She usually takes care of calls like yours, but she's out on some kind of errand."

Kit wondered who he thought she was and what he meant. "She's gone to see the Conjure Woman."

"The Conjure Woman?"

"She makes spells and tells futures." After three years at Risen Glory, he didn't even know this much. Nothing could have offered more proof that he didn't belong here. "She's sick, and Sophronia's gone to see her."

"You know Sophronia?"

"Yes."

"So you live nearby?"

She nodded but didn't elaborate. He indicated a chair. "You didn't give Lucy your name."

"Lucy? Do you mean your maid?"

"I see there's something you don't know."

She ignored the chair he'd indicated and walked to the fireplace, deliberately turning her back to him. He noticed that she moved with a bolder step than most women. She also didn't try to position herself in a way that showed off her fashionable gown to best advantage. It was as if her clothing were merely something to toss on in the morning and, once she'd done up the fastenings, to forget.

He decided to press her. "Your name?"

"Is it important?" Her voice was low, husky, and distinctly Southern.

"Maybe."

"I wonder why."

Cain was intrigued as much by the provocative way she avoided answering his question as by the faint fragrance of jasmine that drifted from her skirts and tugged at his senses. He wished she'd turn back around so he could get a closer look at the captivating features he could only glimpse behind the veil.

"A lady of mystery," he mocked softly, "coming into the enemy's lair without a zealous mother to serve as chaperone. Not wise at all."

"I don't always behave wisely."

Cain smiled. "Neither do I."

His gaze slipped from that silly dab of a hat to the coil of silky dark hair resting on the nape of her neck. What would it look like unfastened and tumbling over naked white shoulders? His jolt of arousal told him he'd been without a woman too long. Although even if he'd had a dozen the night before, he knew this woman would still have stirred him.

"Should I expect a jealous husband to come banging on my door looking for his wayward wife?"

"I have no husband."

"No?" He suddenly wanted to test the limits of her self-confidence. "Is that why you're here? Has the supply of eligible men in the county dipped so low that well-bred Southern ladies are forced to scout in the Yankee's lair?"

She turned. Through her veil he could just make out flashing eyes and a small nose with delicately flaring nostrils.

"I assure you, Major Cain, I'm not here to scout for a husband. You have an elevated opinion of yourself."

"Do I?" He moved closer. His legs brushed her skirt.

Kit wanted to step back, but she held her ground. He was a predator, and like all predators, he fed off the weakness of others. Even the smallest retreat would be a victory for him, and she wouldn't show him any vulnerability. At the same time, his nearness made her feel slightly dizzy. The sensation should have been unpleasant, but it wasn't.

"Tell me, mystery lady. What else would a respectable young woman be doing visiting a man by herself?" His voice was deep and teasing, and his gray eyes glimmered with a devilry that made her blood rush faster. "Or is it possible that the respectable young lady isn't as respectable as she seems to be?"

Kit drew up her chin and met his gaze. "Don't judge others by your own standards."

It she'd only known, her unspoken challenge stirred him more than anything else could have. Were those eyes behind the honeycombed veil blue or a darker, more exotic color? Everything about this woman intrigued him. She was no simpering coquette or hothouse orchid. Rather, she reminded him of a wild rose, growing tangled and unruly in the deepest part of the woods, a wild rose with prickly thorns ready to draw blood from any man who touched her.

The untamed part of him responded to the same quality he sensed in her. What would it be like to work his way past those thorns and pluck this wild rose of the deep wood?

Even before he moved, Kit understood that something was about to happen. She wanted to break away, but her legs wouldn't respond. As she gazed up into that chiseled face, she tried to remember this man was her deadly enemy. He controlled everything that was dear to her: her home, her future, her very freedom. But she'd always been a creature of instinct, and her blood had begun to roar so loudly in her head that it was blotting out her reason.

Slowly Cain lifted his scarred hand and cupped the side of her neck. His touch was surprisingly gentle and maddeningly exciting. She knew she had to pull back, but her legs, along with her will, refused to obey.

He lifted his thumb and slid it upward along the curve of her jaw and under the edge of the honeycombed veil. It dipped into the valley behind the lobe of her ear. He caressed the silky hollow, sending quivers coursing through her.

He brushed the delicate shells of her ears and the tendrils of curl that feathered around her small jet ear-bob. His quiet breathing rippled the bottom edge of her veil. She tried to move away, but she was paralyzed. Then he lowered his lips.

His kiss was gentle and persuading, nothing at all like the wet, grinding assault from Hamilton Woodward's friend. Her hands lifted of their own accord and clasped his sides. The feel of warm-muscled flesh through the thin material of his shirt became part of the kiss. She lost herself in a swelling sea of sensation.

His lips opened and began to move over her closed ones. He curved his hand along the delicate line of her spine to the small of her back. The narrow space between their bodies disappeared.

Her head swam as his chest pressed her breasts, and his hips settled against the flatness of her stomach. The moist tip of his tongue began its gentle sorcery, sliding leisurely between her lips.

The shocking intimacy inflamed her. A wild rush of hot sensation poured through every part of her body.

And through his.

They lost their identities. For Kit, Cain no longer had a name. He was the quintessential man, fierce and demanding. And for Cain, the mysterious veiled creature in his arms was everything that a woman should be… but never was.

He grew impatient. His tongue began to probe more deeply, determined to slip past the barrier of her teeth and gain full access to the sweet interior of her mouth.

The unaccustomed aggression brought a flicker of sanity to Kit's fevered mind. Something was wrong…

He brushed the side of her breast, and reality returned in a cold, condemning rush. She made a muffled sound and sprang back.

Cain was more shaken than he cared to admit. He'd found the thorns of his wild rose much too soon.

She stood before him, breasts heaving, hands balled into fists. With a pessimistic certainty that the rest of her face could never live up to the promise of her mouth, he reached out and pushed the veil up onto the brim of her hat.

Recognition didn't come instantly. Maybe it was because he took in the separate features of her face instead of the whole. He saw the smooth, intelligent forehead, the thick, dark slashes of eyebrows, the heavily lashed violet eyes, the determined chin. All of it, together with that wild-rose mouth from which he'd drunk so deeply, spoke of a vivid, unconventional beauty.

Then he felt an uneasiness, a nagging sense of familiarity, a hint of something unpleasant lurking on the other side of his memory. He watched the nostrils of her small, straight nose quiver like the wings of a hummingbird. She set her jaw and lifted her chin.

In that instant, he knew her.

Kit saw his pale gray irises rim with black, but she was too stricken by what had passed between them to step away. What had happened to her? This man was her mortal enemy. How could she have forgotten that? She felt sick, angry, and more confused than she'd ever been.

A disturbance came from the hallway-a series of rapid clicks, as if a sack of parched corn was being spilled on the wooden floor. A streak of black-and-white fur darted into the room, then skidded to a stop. Merlin.

The dog cocked his head to study her, but it didn't take him nearly as long to guess her identity as it had Cain. With three barks of recognition, he raced over to greet his old friend.

Kit fell to her knees. Oblivious to the damage his dusty paws were inflicting on her dove-gray traveling dress, she hugged him and let him lap her face. Her hat fell to the carpet, loosening her carefully arranged hair, but she didn't care.

Cain's voice intruded on their reunion like a polar wind over a glacier. "I see finishing school hasn't improved you. You're still the same headstrong little brat you were three years ago."

Kit looked up at him and said the first thing that came to mind. "You're just mad because the dog's smarter than you are."

8

Not long after Cain had stalked out of the sitting room, Kit heard a familiar voice. "Lucy, did you let that dog in the house again?"

"He slipped past me, Miz Sophronia."

"Well, he won't slip past me!"

Kit smiled as she heard the approach of brisk, efficient footsteps. She hugged Merlin and whispered, "I won't let her get you."

Sophronia swept into the room, then drew to a sudden halt. "Oh, I'm sorry. Lucy didn't say we had a visitor."

Kit looked up and gave her a mischievous grin.

"Kit!" Sophronia's hand flew to her mouth. "Lord! Is it really you?"

With a laugh, Kit sprang to her feet and raced toward her. "It's me, all right."

The women hugged each other while Merlin circled them, barking at their skirts.

"It's so good to see you. Oh, Sophronia, you're even more beautiful than I remember."

"Me! Look at you. You look like you just stepped out of Godey's Lady's Book."

"It's all Elsbeth's doing." Kit laughed again and grabbed Sophronia's hand. They sank down on the settee, where they tried to catch up on three years of separation.

Kit knew it was her fault their correspondence had been so infrequent. Sophronia didn't like to write letters, and the few she'd sent were so full of praise for what Cain was doing at Risen Glory that Kit's replies had been scathing. Finally Sophronia had stopped writing.

Kit remembered her earlier agitation over all the improvements Sophronia had made to the house. Now that seemed petty, and she praised her for everything she'd done.

Sophronia drank in Kit's words. She knew the old house was shining under her care, and she was proud of her accomplishments. At the same time, she began to feel the familiar combination of love and resentment that always plagued her where Kit was concerned.

For so long, Sophronia had been the only one watching out for Kit. Now Kit was a woman with friendships and experiences Sophronia couldn't share. She was also beautiful, poised, and at home in a world Sophronia would never enter.

The old hurts began to throb.

"Don't think because you're home now you can start stickin' your nose in my business and tellin' me how to run this house."

Kit merely chuckled. "I wouldn't think of it. All I care about is the land. The fields. I can't wait to see everything."

Sophronia's resentment faded and worry took its place. Putting the major and Kit under the same roof was going to lead to trouble.

Rosemary Weston's old bedroom had been redecorated in blush pink and soft moss green. It reminded Kit of the inside of a ripe watermelon, close to the bottom where the pink meat joined the pale iridescence of the rind. She was glad the cool, pretty room would be hers, even though it was second-best to the bedroom Cain occupied. The fact that both shared a common sitting room made her uneasy, but at least it would allow her to keep a closer watch on him.

How could she have let him kiss her like that? The question she'd been trying to avoid asking felt like a fist in her stomach. True, she'd pushed him away, but not before he'd thoroughly kissed her. If it had been Brandon Parsell, she could have understood, but how could she have done such a thing with Baron Cain?

She remembered Mrs. Templeton's lecture on Eve's Shame. Surely only an unnatural woman would abandon herself like that with her most bitter enemy. Maybe there was something wrong with her.

Nonsense. She'd merely been exhausted from the trip, and Miss Dolly's chatter was enough to drive anyone into doing something irrational.

Determined not to think of it again, she stripped off her dress and stood in chemise and petticoat to freshen up at the washstand. Bathing was her favorite luxury. She could hardly believe she'd once hated it so. What a silly child she'd been. Silly about everything except her hatred for Cain.

She cursed softly under her breath, a habit even Elsbeth hadn't been able to stop. Before Cain had stormed out of the sitting room, he'd ordered her to meet him in the library after dinner. She wasn't looking forward to the interview. At the same time, he needed to understand he was no longer dealing with an immature eighteen-year-old.

Lucy had unpacked her trunks, and for a moment Kit considered throwing on one of her oldest dresses and dashing outside to reacquaint herself with her home. But she had to be downstairs soon, ready to do battle again. Morning would be time enough.

She chose a frock with sprigs of gay blue forget-me-nots scattered over a white background. The skirt was drawn up in soft folds to reveal an underskirt in the same blue as the flowers. Cain had provided a generous clothing allowance, damn his soul, and Kit had a beautiful wardrobe. Much of the thanks went to Elisabeth, who said Kit's taste was too erratic and hadn't trusted her to shop alone. The truth was, unless Elisabeth rode herd, Kit generally grew bored and settled for whatever the shopkeepers placed before her.

Impatiently she pulled out her hairpins. That morning, she'd dressed her hair in the Spanish style, parted in the center and pulled into a simple coil at the nape of her neck. With a few tendrils escaping here and there and her small jet earbobs, the sophisticated style had been perfect for her first encounter with Cain. But she couldn't tolerate the confinement any longer. Now she brushed her hair out until it crackled, then caught it back from her face with the silver filigreed combs Elsbeth had given her. It tumbled in a riot of curls that spilled over her shoulders. After dabbing jasmine scent at her wrists, she was ready to fetch Miss Dolly.

As she knocked at her door, she wondered how her fragile companion would handle sitting at dinner with a Yankee war hero. She knocked a second time, and when there was no response, pushed open the door.

Miss Dolly sat huddled in a rocking chair in the corner of the darkened room. Tears streaked her wrinkled cheeks, and she held the tattered fragment of what had once been a baby-blue handkerchief.

Kit dashed to her side. "Miss Dolly! What's wrong?"

The older woman didn't seem to hear. Kit knelt before her. "Miss Dolly?"

"Hello, darlin'," she said vaguely. "I didn't hear you come in."

"You've been crying." Kit clasped the woman's bird-frail hands. "Tell me what's wrong."

"Nothing, really. Silly memories. Making rag babies with my sisters when we were children. Playin' under the grape arbor. Reminiscence is part of old age."

"You're not old, Miss Dolly. Why, just look at you in your pretty white dress. You look as fresh as a spring day."

"I do try to keep myself pretty," Miss Dolly acknowledged, straightening a little in her chair and making a dab at her wet cheeks. "It's just that sometimes, on days like today, I find myself thinkin' about things that happened a long time ago, and it makes me sad."

"What kind of things?"

Miss Dolly patted Kit's hand. "Now, now, darlin'. You don't want to hear my ramblin's."

"You don't ramble," Kit assured her, even though only a few hours earlier, that very habit had been driving her to distraction.

"You've got a good heart, Katharine Louise. I knew it the moment I set eyes on you. I was so glad when you asked me to accompany you back to South Carolina." Her ribbons dipped as she shook her head. "I didn't like it in the North. Everybody had such loud voices. I don't like Yankees, Katharine. I don't like them at all."

"You're upset about meeting Major Cain, aren't you?" Kit rubbed the back of Miss Dolly's hand. "I shouldn't have brought you here. I was only thinking of myself, not of how it would affect you."

"Now, now. Don't you be blamin' your sweet self for a silly old woman's foolishness."

"I won't let you stay if it's going to make you unhappy."

Miss Dolly's eyes widened in alarm. "But I don't have anywhere else to go!" She pushed herself up from the rocking chair and began to cry again. "Silly foolishness… that's all this is. I'll-I'll just freshen up, and then we'll go right downstairs for dinner. I won't be a minute. Not a… not a minute."

Kit rose and embraced the woman's frail shoulders. "Calm yourself, Miss Dolly. I won't send you away. Not as long as you want to stay with me. I promise."

Hope flickered in her companion's eyes. "You won't send me away?"

"Never." Kit smoothed the puffy white sleeves of Miss Dolly's gown, then gave her powdery cheek a kiss. "Make yourself pretty for dinner."

Miss Dolly glanced nervously toward the hallway that lay beyond the safe haven of her room. "All-all right, darlin'."

"Please don't worry about Major Cain." Kit smiled. "Just pretend you're entertaining General Lee."

After ten minutes of primping, Miss Dolly decided she was ready, but Kit was so happy to see the older woman's spirits restored that she didn't mind the wait. As they descended the stairs, Miss Dolly began fussing over her. "Hold still a minute, darlin'. The overskirt on your pretty dress isn't caught up properly." She clucked her tongue while she adjusted the garment. "I do wish you'd be a little more careful with your appearance. I don't mean to be critical, but you don't always look quite as neat as a young lady should."

"Yes, ma'am." Kit assumed her most docile expression, the one that had never fooled Elvira Templeton but seemed to do the trick with Miss Dolly. At the same time, she made up her mind to murder Baron Cain with her bare hands if he did anything tonight to frighten Miss Dolly.

Just then he came out of the library. He was dressed informally in a pair of black trousers and a white shirt, his hair still damp from his bath. She relished the fact that he was too boorish to dress for dinner, even though he'd known there'd be ladies at the table.

He looked up and saw them coming toward him. Something she couldn't decipher flickered in his eyes.

Her heart began to pound. The memory of that lunatic kiss washed over her. She took a deep breath. The evening that lay ahead would be hard enough. She had to forget what had happened and keep her wits about her. Cain's appearance was going to terrify Miss Dolly.

She turned to soothe her, only to see the old woman's lips curving in a coquettish smile. Miss Dolly extended one lace-encased hand and made her descent into the hallway as gracefully as a debutante.

"My dear, dear General. I can't tell you what an honor this is for me, sir. You will never know the hours I've spent on my poor knees, prayin' for your safety. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine I'd have the honor of meeting you." She thrust her tiny hand into Cain's large one. "I'm Katharine's chaperone, Dorthea Pinckney Calhoun, of the Columbia Calhouns." And then she dropped a deep curtsy that would have done any Templeton Girl proud.

Cain stared in bewilderment at the top of her frilly cap. She bobbed back up, her head barely coming to his middle shirt button. "If there's anything, anything at all, I can do to make you comfortable during your stay here at Risen Glory, General, you need only ask. From this moment, this very instant, consider me your devoted servant."

Miss Dolly's eyelids batted at him with such alarming speed Kit was afraid she'd blind herself.

Cain turned to Kit for enlightenment, but Kit was mystified. He cleared his throat. "I believe-I'm afraid, madam, that you've made a mistake. I'm not entitled to the rank of general. Indeed, I hold no military office at all now, although some still refer to me by my former rank of major."

Miss Dolly gave a trill of girlish laughter. "Oh, my, my! Silly me! You've caught me like a kitten in the cream." She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "I forget that you're in disguise. And a very good one it is, I might add. No Yankee spy could ever recognize you, although it's a shame you had to shave off your beard. I do admire beards."

Cain's patience snapped and he turned on Kit. "What's she talking about?"

Miss Dolly pressed her fingers to his arm. "Now, now, no need to fret. I promise when we're in company I'll be very discreet, and only address you as Major, dear General."

Cain's voice sounded a warning. "Kit…"

Miss Dolly clucked her tongue. "There, there, General. I don't want you to worry your head for an instant about Katharine Louise. A more loyal daughter of the Confederacy does not exist. She would never betray your true identity to anyone. Isn't that so, darlin'?"

Kit tried to reply. She even opened her mouth. But nothing seemed to come out.

Miss Dolly plucked up the chicken-skin fan that dangled from her bony wrist and tapped Kit's arm.

"Tell the general that's so, darlin', this very instant. We mustn't let him worry unnecessarily about betrayal. The poor man has enough on his mind without adding to his burden. Go on, now. Tell him he can trust you. Tell him."

"You can trust me," Kit croaked.

Cain glared at her.

Miss Dolly smiled and sniffed the air. "If my nose isn't betraying me, I do believe I smell chicken fricassee. I'm more than a little partial to fricassee, 'deed I am, especially if it contains just a tiny dash of nutmeg."

She linked her arm through Cain's and turned toward the dining room. "You know, General, there's a strong possibility that we're distantly related. According to my great-aunt, Phoebe Littlefield Calhoun, her father's branch of the family is connected through marriage to the Virginia Lees."

Cain stopped dead in his tracks. "Are you trying to tell me, madam-Do you actually believe that I am General Robert E. Lee?"

Miss Dolly opened her Cupid's-bow mouth to respond, only to close it with a giggle. "Oh, no, you shan't catch me that easily, General. And it's naughty of you to test me, especially after I informed you that you could rely on my discretion. You're Major Baron Nathaniel Cain. Katharine Louise told me that quite clearly."

And then she favored him with a broad, conspiratorial wink.

Cain scowled throughout dinner, and Kit's normal appetite deserted her. Not only did she have to endure his company and the memory of their kiss, but she knew she'd planted the seed of Miss Dolly's latest madness. Miss Dolly, however, had no difficulty filling the strained silence. She chirped on about fricassees, distant relations, and the medicinal qualities of chamomile until Cain's face looked like a storm cloud. Over dessert, he came to a full state of alert when she suggested an informal poetry recitation in the parlor.

"Worst luck. Miss Calhoun." His gaze traveled down the table. "Katharine Louise has brought along some secret dispatches from New York City. I'm afraid I need to meet with her privately." One tawny brow shot upward. "And immediately!"

Miss Dolly beamed. "Why, of course, dear General. You needn't say another word. You go on. I'll just sit here and enjoy this delicious ginger cake. Why, I haven't-"

"You're a true patriot, madam." He pushed back his chair and gestured toward the door. "The library, Katharine Louise."

"I… uh…"

"Now."

"Hurry along, my dear. The general is a busy man."

"And about to get busier," he said pointedly.

Kit rose and swept past him. Fine. It was time they had a showdown.

The library at Risen Glory was much as Kit remembered. Comfortable chairs with sagging leather seats sat at angles to the old mahogany desk. The generous windows kept everything light and cheerful despite the somber leather-bound books that lined the shelves.

It had always been her favorite room at Risen Glory, and she resented the unfamiliar humidor sitting on the desk as well as the Colt army revolver that rested in a red-lined wooden box next to it. Most of all, she resented the portrait of Abraham Lincoln that hung above the mantelpiece in place of "The Beheading of John the Baptist." a painting that had been there for as long as she could remember.

Cain slouched into the chair behind the desk, propped his heels on the mahogany surface, and crossed his ankles. His posture was deliberately insolent, but she didn't let him see that it annoyed her. Earlier that afternoon when she'd been veiled, he'd treated her as a woman. Now he wanted to treat her as his stable boy. He'd soon see it wouldn't be that easy to ignore the years that had passed.

"i told you to stay in New York," he said.

"So you did." She pretended to study the room. "That portrait of Mr. Lincoln is out of place at Risen Glory. It insults my father's memory."

"From what I hear, your father insulted his own memory."

"True. But he was still my father, and he died bravely."

"There's nothing brave about death." The angular planes of his face grew harsh in the dim lamplight of the room. "Why did you disobey my orders and leave New York?"

"Because your orders were unreasonable."

"I don't have to explain myself."

"So you seem to think. I fulfilled our agreement."

"Did you? Our agreement was for you to conduct yourself properly."

"I completed my time at the Academy."

"It's not your activities at the Academy that concern me." Without taking his feet from the desktop, he leaned forward and extracted a letter from a drawer. Then he slapped it on the desk. "Interesting reading, although I wouldn't want to show it to anyone who's easily shocked."

She picked it up. Her stomach twisted when she saw the signature. Hamilton Woodward.

It is my sad duty to report that last Easter, while a guest in our house, your ward behaved in a manner so shocking, I can barely report it. On the evening of our annual dinner party, Katharine brazenly attempted to seduce one of my partners. Fortunately, I interrupted in time. The poor man was stunned. He has a wife and children, and is prominent in local charities. Her wanton behavior makes me fear that she might be afflicted with the sickness of nymphomania…

She crumpled the letter and threw it on his desk. She had no idea what nymphomania was, but it sounded horrible. "This letter's a lie. You can't believe it."

"I was reserving judgment until I had a chance to travel to New York at the end of the summer and speak with you personally. That was why I told you to stay where you were."

"We had an agreement. You can't set that aside just because Hamilton Woodward is a fool."

"Is he?"

"Yes." She felt the color burning in her cheeks.

"You're telling me you don't make a habit of offering your favors?"

"Of course not."

His eyes drifted to her mouth, forcing her to recall what had happened between them only a few hours earlier.

"If this letter's such a lie," he said quietly, "how do you explain slipping into my arms so easily this afternoon? Was that your idea of proper conduct?"

She didn't know how to defend something she couldn't understand herself, so she went on the attack. "Maybe you're the one who should explain. Or do you always assault the young women who come into this house?"

"Assault?"

"Consider yourself lucky I was fatigued by my journey," she said as haughtily as she could manage. "Otherwise my fist would have ended up in your belly. Which is what I did to Mr. Woodward's friend." He dropped his feet to the carpet. "I see." He didn't believe her. "It's interesting that you're so concerned about my behavior, but you don't seem to be giving any thought to your own."

"It's not the same thing. You're a woman."

"Ah, I see. And that makes a difference?" He looked prickly. "You know exactly what I mean."

"If you say so."

"I say you're going back to New York!"

"And I say I'm not."

"It isn't up to you to decide."

That was truer than she could bear to admit, and she thought quickly "You want to get rid of me, isn't that right? And put an end to this ridiculous guardianship?"

"More than you'll ever know."

"Then you'll let me stay at Risen Glory."

"Forgive me if I don't see the connection." She tried to speak calmly. "There are several gentlemen who wish to marry me. I simply need a few weeks to make up my mind which one I'm going to choose."

His face clouded. "Make up your mind in New York."

"How can I? It's been a confusing three years, and this is the most important decision of my life. I have to consider it carefully, and I need familiar surroundings to do that. Otherwise I'll never be able to decide, and neither of us wants that." The explanation was thin at best, but she gave it all the sincerity she could muster.

His glower grew darker. He moved toward the fireplace. "Somehow I can't see you as a devoted wife."

She couldn't see herself that way either, but still his comment offended her. "I don't know why not." She summoned an image of Lilith Shelton as she'd held court with her opinions about men and marriage. "Marriage is what every woman wants., isn't it?" She adopted the same wide-eyed vacuousness she'd seen so often on her former classmate's face. "A husband to take care of her, pretty clothes, a piece of jewelry on her birthday. What more could a woman want from life?"

Cain's eyes grew wintry. "Three years ago when you were my stable boy, you were a thorn in my side, but you were brave and hardworking. That Kit Weston wouldn't have been interested in selling herself for clothes and jewelry."

"That Kit Weston hadn't been forced by her guardian to attend a finishing school devoted to turning young girls into wives."

She'd made her point. He reacted with a bored shrug and leaned against the mantelpiece. "It's all in the past."

"That past has molded who I am now." She took a deep breath. "I intend to marry, but I don't want to make the wrong choice. I need time, and I'd like to have that time here."

He studied her. "These young men…" His voice dropped in pitch and developed an unsettling huskiness. "Do you kiss them like you kissed me yesterday?"

She needed all her willpower not to look away. "It was the fatigue from my journey. They're much too gentlemanly to have pressed themselves as you did."

"Then they're fools."

She wondered what he meant by that. He moved away from the fireplace. "Very well. You can have one month, but if you haven't made up your mind by then, you're going back to New York, husband or not. And another thing…" He tilted his head toward the hallway. "That crazy woman has to go. Let her rest for a day, then put her on the train. I'll make sure she's compensated."

"No! I can't."

"Yes, you can."

"I promised her."

"That was your mistake."

He looked so unbending. What argument could she offer that would convince him? "I can't stay here without a chaperone."

"It's a little late to worry about respectability."

"Perhaps for you, but not for me."

"I don't think she'll be much of a chaperone. As soon as any of the neighbors talk to her, they'll realize she's crazy as a loon."

Kit rose in hot defense. "She's not crazy!"

"You could have fooled me."

"She's just a little… different."

"More than a little." Cain regarded her suspiciously. "Just how did she get the idea that I was General Lee?"

"I… might have inadvertently mentioned something."

"You told her I was General Lee?"

"No, of course not. She was afraid to meet you, and I was trying to tease her into a better mood. I had no idea she'd take me seriously." Kit explained what had happened when she went to Miss Dolly's room.

"And now you expect me to go along with this charade?"

"It won't be hard," Kit pointed out reasonably. "She does most of the talking."

"That's not good enough."

"It'll have to be." She hated pleading with him, and the words nearly stuck in her throat. "Please. She doesn't have anyplace else to go."

"Damn it, Kit! I don't want her here."

"You don't want me here, either, but you're letting me stay. What difference does one more person make?"

"A big difference." His expression turned calculating. "You want a lot from me, but I haven't heard you offer anything in return."

"I'll exercise your horses," she said quickly.

"I was thinking of something more personal."

She swallowed. "I'll mend your clothes."

"You were more imaginative three years ago. Of course, you weren't as… experienced then as you are now. Do you remember the night you offered to be my mistress?"

She slid the tip of her tongue over her dry lips. "I was desperate."

"How desperate are you now?"

"This discussion is highly improper," she managed to reply with all the starch of Elvira Templeton.

"Not as improper as that kiss this afternoon." He came closer, and his voice was low, slightly husky. For a moment she thought he was going to kiss her again. Instead, his lips curled into a smile full of mockery. "Miss Dolly can stay for now. I'll make up my mind later how you can repay me."

As he left the room, she stared at the door and tried to decide whether she'd won or lost.

That night, Cain lay motionless in the dark, one arm crooked behind his head, and stared at the ceiling. What kind of game had he been playing with her this evening? Or was she the one playing the game?

Her kiss this afternoon had made it clear she was no innocent, but was she as wanton as Woodward's letter would have him believe? He didn't know. For now, he would simply have to wait and watch.

In his mind he saw a wild-rose mouth with bruised, petal-soft lips, and desire rushed through him, hot and thick.

One thing he knew for certain. The time when he could regard her as a child was gone forever.

9

Kit was up early the next morning despite her restless night. She pulled on khaki britches that would have scandalized Elsbeth, then shrugged into a boy's shirt and drew it closed over her lace-edged chemise. She regretted the shirt's long sleeves, but her arms would be brown as a butternut if she left them exposed to the sun. She consoled herself that the white material was as thin and fine as the fabric of her undergarments and would undoubtedly be cool.

She tucked her shirttails into her britches and fastened the short row of buttons snugly over the front. As she drew on her boots, she enjoyed the way the soft brown leather molded to her feet and calves. They were the first pair of good riding boots she'd ever owned, and she couldn't wait to try them out.

She arranged her hair in a single long braid at the back. Tendrils curled at her temples and in front of the tiny silver ear studs she'd fastened in her lobes. To shade her face, she'd bought a boy's black felt hat with a flat brim and a thin leather cord that fastened beneath her chin.

When she finished dressing, she frowned at her reflection in the cheval glass. Despite her masculine dress, no one could mistake her for a boy. The soft material of the shirt outlined her breasts with more definition than she'd anticipated, and the slim cut of the boy's britches clung to womanly hips.

What did it matter? She intended to wear her unorthodox outfit only when she rode on Risen Glory land. Anyplace else, she'd wear her new riding habit no matter how much she detested its confinement. She grimaced as she remembered that she'd also have to ride sidesaddle then, something she'd done only on occasional outings in Central Park. How she'd hated it. The sidesaddle had robbed her of the sense of power she loved and left her feeling awkward and unbalanced.

She let herself out of the house quietly, passing up breakfast and a morning chat with Sophronia. Her old friend had come to her room last night. Although Sophronia listened politely to Kit's stories, she'd volunteered little about the changes in her own life. When Kit had pressed her for details, she'd relayed neighborhood gossip that revealed nothing of herself. Only when Kit had asked her about Magnus Owen did she seem to be the Sophronia of old, haughty and snappish.

Sophronia had always been an enigma, but now she seemed even more so. It wasn't just the outward changes produced by pretty clothes and a good diet. Sophronia seemed to resent her. Maybe the feeling had always been there, but Kit had been too young to understand it. What made it even more puzzling was that, beneath that resentment, Kit felt the old, familiar force of Sophronia's love.

She delicately sniffed the air as she walked across the open yard behind the house. It smelled exactly as she remembered it, of good, rich earth and fresh manure. She even caught the faint scent of skunk, not altogether unpleasant at a distance. Merlin came out to greet her, and she stopped to scratch his ears and throw a stick for him to fetch.

The horses weren't yet in the paddock, so she let herself into the stable, a new building erected on the foundation of the one the Yankees had burned. The heels of her boots clicked on the stone floor, which was swept as cleanly as when Kit had attended to it.

There were ten stalls, four of which were currently filled, two with carriage horses. She inspected the other horses and dismissed one immediately, an old sorrel mare who was obviously gentle but had no sparkle. She'd be a good mount for a timid rider, but Kit wasn't timid.

The other horse excited her. He was a midnight-black gelding with a white blaze running down the center of his head. He was a large, powerful-looking animal, nearly eighteen hands, and his eyes were alert and lively.

She reached out a hand to stroke the long, elegant neck. "What's your name, boy?"

The animal whinnied softly and tossed his powerful head.

Kit smiled. "I have an idea we're going to be good friends."

Just then the stable door opened, and she turned to see a young boy, perhaps eleven or twelve, come in.

"Are you Miz Kit?"

"Yes. Who are you?"

"I'm Samuel. The major told me if you came to the stable today, I'm's'posed to tell you he wants you to ride Lady."

Kit looked suspiciously toward the old sorrel mare. "Lady?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Sorry, Samuel." She stroked the gelding's silky mane. "We'll saddle this one instead."

"That's Temptation, ma'am. And the major was most particular. He said for you to leave Temptation alone and ride Lady, and he said if I let you leave this stable on Temptation, he was goin' to have my hide, and then you'd have to live with that on your conscience."

Kit fumed at Cain's blatant manipulation. She doubted he'd see through on his threat to hurt Samuel, but the man still had the heart of a marauding Yankee, so she couldn't take the chance. She gazed longingly at Temptation. Never had a horse been better named.

"Saddle Lady." She sighed. "I'll talk to Mr. Cain."

As she'd suspected, Lady was more interested in grazing than racing. Kit soon gave up trying to urge the mare beyond a sedate trot and turned her attention to the changes around her.

All but a few of the old slave cabins had been destroyed. That was the part of Risen Glory she didn't let herself think about, and she was glad to see them gone. The cabins that were left had been painted and repaired. Each had its own garden, and flowers grew near the front doors. She waved at the children playing in the shade of the same buckthorns where she'd once played.

When she came to the edge of the first planted field, she dismounted and walked over to inspect it. The young cotton plants were covered with tight buds. A lizard slithered in the dirt near her boots, and she smiled. Lizards and toads, along with martins and mockingbirds, preyed on the bollworms that could be so destructive to the cotton plants. It was too early to tell, but it looked as if Cain had the beginnings of a good crop. She felt a mixture of pride and anger. This should be her crop, not his.

As she stood looking out across the land she knew so well, she felt a flutter of panic. It was far more prosperous than she'd imagined. What if she didn't have enough money in her trust fund to buy the plantation back? Somehow she had to get access to the plantation's books. She refused to consider the awful possibility that he might not be willing to sell.

She strode over to Lady, who was nibbling away at a patch of new clover, and snatched up the bridle she hadn't bothered to secure. She used a stump to climb back into the saddle, then headed toward the pond, where she'd spent so many happy summer hours swimming. It was just as she remembered, with its clean spring-fed water and willow-lined bank. She promised herself a swim as soon as she was certain she wouldn't be disturbed.

She rode on to the tiny cemetery where her mother and her grandparents were buried and paused outside the iron fence. Only her father's body was missing, buried in a mass grave in Hardin County Tennessee, not far from Shiloh Church. Rosemary Weston lay alone by the far corner of the fence.

Kit grimly set out toward the southeast corner of the property and the new spinning mill she'd heard about from Brandon Parsell. Just before she cleared the last stand of trees, she saw a big chestnut tied off to the side and decided it must be Vandal, the horse Samuel had told her about while he was saddling Lady. The gelding was a fine animal, but she missed Apollo. She remembered what Magnus had told her about Cain.

The major doesn't let himself get too attached to things-horses, the towns where he lives, even his books.

She rounded the trees and caught her first sight of the new spinning mill. The South had always shipped most of its bulk cotton to England for processing and weaving. In the years since the war, a handful of men had built a few scattered mills that took the ginned cotton and spun it into thread. As a result, compact cotton spools could be shipped to England for weaving instead of the bulky cotton bales, yielding a thousand times the value for the same tonnage. It was an idea whose time had come. Kit just wished it hadn't come on Risen Glory's land.

Last night, Kit had questioned Sophronia about Cain's mill and learned there wouldn't be any power looms for weaving. This would be a spinning mill only. It would take the ginned cotton, clean it, card it to straighten the fibers, then pull and twist them into yarn.

Now she saw an oblong brick building, two and a half stories tall, with many windows. The building was smaller than the pictures she'd seen of the big New England textile mills along the Merrimack River, but huge and threatening on Risen Glory's land. It would make everything so much more complicated.

The mill was alive with hammering and the voices of the workers. Three men worked on the roof, while another climbed the ladder leaning against the side of the building with a stack of shingles on his back.

They'd all shed their shirts. As one of them straightened, a wave of muscles rippled on his back. Even though he was turned away, she recognized him. She rode closer to the building and dismounted.

A burly man pushing a wheelbarrow saw her and nudged the man next to him. Both of them stopped what they were doing to stare at her. Gradually the construction site fell silent as, one by one, the men stepped out of the building or peered through open windows to see the young woman dressed in boy's clothing.

Cain grew conscious of the silence and looked down from his perch on the roof. At first he saw only the top of a flat-brimmed hat, but he didn't need to see the face beneath it to recognize his visitor. One look at the slim, womanly body so clearly revealed by that white shirt and those khaki britches that hugged a pair of long, slim legs told him everything he needed to know.

He swung his foot onto the ladder and descended. When he reached the bottom he turned to Kit and studied her. God, she was beautiful.

Kit felt her cheeks flaming with embarrassment. She should have worn the modest riding habit she hated. Instead of reprimanding her as she'd expected, Cain seemed to be enjoying her outfit. The corner of his mouth crinkled.

"You might be wearing britches, but you sure don't look like my stable boy anymore."

His good mood irked her. "Stop it."

"What?"

"Smiling."

"I'm not supposed to smile?"

"Not at me. It looks ridiculous. Don't smile at anyone. Your face was born to scowl."

"I'll try to remember that." He took her arm and nudged her toward the mill door. "Come on. I'll show you around."

Although the construction of the building was nearly completed, the steam engine that would power the machinery was the only equipment that had been installed. Cain described the overhead belt drive and spindles, but she had a hard time concentrating. He should have put his shirt on before he'd decided to act as her tour guide.

She met a middle-aged man with ginger hair and whiskers whom Cain introduced as Jacob Childs, a New Englander he'd hired away from a mill in Providence. For the first time, she learned that Cain had made several trips North during the past few years to visit the textile mills there. It galled her that he'd never once stopped at the Academy to check on her, and she told him so.

"I didn't think of it," he replied.

"You're a terrible excuse for a guardian."

"I won't argue with you there."

"Mrs. Templeton could have been beating me, for all you knew."

"Not likely. You'd have shot her. I wasn't worried."

She saw his pride in the mill, but as they moved back into the yard, she couldn't find it in her to compliment him. "I'd like to talk to you about Temptation."

Cain appeared distracted. She glanced down to see what he was looking at and realized her curves were more apparent in the sunlight than they'd been in the dim interior of the building. She moved into the shade and pointed an accusing finger at Lady, who was decapitating a patch of buttercups.

"That horse is nearly as old as Miss Dolly. I want to ride Temptation."

Cain seemed to have to force his attention back to her face. "He's too much horse for a woman. I know Lady's old, but you'll have to make do."

"I've been riding horses like Temptation since I was eight years old."

"Sorry, Kit, but that horse is a handful, even for me."

"But we're not talking about you," she said smoothly. "We're talking about someone who knows how to ride."

Cain seemed more amused than angry. "You think so?"

"What do you say we see? You on Vandal and me on Temptation. We'll start at the gate next to the barn, race past the pond to the maple grove, and finish right here."

"You're not going to bait me."

"Oh, I'm not baiting you." She gave him a silky smile. "I'm challenging you."

"You do like to live dangerously, don't you, Katharine Louise?"

"It's the only way."

"All right. Let's see what you've got."

He was going to race her. She gave a silent cheer as he grabbed his shirt from a sawhorse. While he buttoned it, he issued orders to the men who'd been standing around staring at her. Then he picked up a worn Western hat with a stained sweatband that testified to years of comfortable wear and set it on his head.

"I'll meet you at the stable." He rode from the clearing without bothering to wait for her.

Lady was eager for the oats that awaited her, and she made the homeward journey a little faster, but they still arrived well after Cain. Temptation was already saddled when Kit got there, and Cain was checking the cinch strap. Kit dismounted and handed Lady's bridle to Samuel. Then she walked over to Temptation and ran a hand down his muzzle.

"Ready?" Cain said shortly.

"I'm ready."

He gave her a leg up, and she swung into the saddle. When Temptation felt her weight, he began to prance and sidestep, and it took all her skill to keep him under control. By the time the horse had finally settled down, Cain had mounted Vandal.

As she rode from the yard, Kit was intoxicated by the sensation of leashed power in the animal beneath her, and she could barely resist giving him his head. She reluctantly reined in when she reached the gate near the barn.

"The first one who makes it back to the mill wins," she said to Cain.

He tipped up the brim of his hat with his thumb. "I'm not racing you."

"What do you mean?" Kit needed to race him. She wanted to compete with him at something where his size and strength wouldn't give him an advantage. On horseback, the differences between a man and a woman would disappear.

"Exactly what I said."

"Is the Hero of Missionary Ridge afraid to get beat by a woman in front of his men?"

Cain squinted slightly in the blaze of the late-morning sun. "I don't have anything to prove, and you're not going to bait me."

"Why did you come here if you weren't going to race?"

"You were doing a little bragging back there. I wanted to see if any of it was true."

She rested her hand across the pommel and smiled. "I wasn't bragging. I was stating facts."

"Talk's cheap, Katharine Louise. Let's see what you can do with a horse."

Before she could respond, he set off. She watched as he let Vandal break from an easy trot into a canter.

He rode well for a large man, so relaxed and easy he seemed to be an extension of his horse. She realized he was every bit as good a rider as she. Another black mark to chalk up against him.

She leaned over Temptation's sleek black neck. "All right, boy. Let's show him."

Temptation proved to be everything she'd hoped. At first she kept him abreast of Vandal and held him to a canter, but then, when she sensed the horse straining to go faster, she let him have his head. Veering away from the planted fields, she turned him into an open meadow. They tore across it at a fierce gallop, and as she felt the raw strength of the animal beneath her, everything else disappeared. There was no yesterday or tomorrow, no ruthless man with cold gray eyes, no kiss she couldn't explain. There was only the magnificent animal that had become part of her.

She spotted a low hedge ahead. With the barest pressure of her knees, she turned the horse toward it. As they thundered closer, she leaned forward in the saddle, keeping her knees tight to his flanks. She felt a great surge of power as Temptation effortlessly cleared the barrier.

Reluctantly she slowed him to a trot and turned back. She'd done enough for now. If she pushed the horse harder, Cain would accuse her of being reckless, and she wasn't going to give him an excuse to keep this horse from her.

He waited for her at the top of the meadow. She reined in beside him and wiped the perspiration from her cheeks with her sleeve.

His saddle creaked slightly as he moved. "That was quite an exhibition."

She kept silent, waiting for his verdict.

"Did you ride at all when you were in New York?" he asked.

"I wouldn't call it riding."

With a tug on the reins, he turned Vandal toward the stable. "Then you're going to be sore as hell tomorrow."

Was that all he was going to say? She watched his retreating back, then tapped her heels against Temptation's flanks and caught up with him. "Well?"

"Well, what?"

"Are you going to let me ride this horse or not?"

"I don't see why not. As long as you don't put a sidesaddle on him, you can ride him."

She smiled and resisted the urge to turn Temptation back toward the meadow for another gallop.

She reached the yard before Cain and dismounted while Samuel held the bridle. "You'd better take your time cooling him out," she told the youngster. "And put a blanket on him. I rode him hard."

Cain drew up in time to hear her orders. "Samuels nearly as good a stable boy as you were, Kit." He smiled and dismounted. "But he doesn't look half as fine in britches."

For two and a half years, Sophronia had been punishing Magnus Owen for standing between herself and Baron Cain. Now the door of the rear sitting room she used as an office swung open.

"I heard you wanted to see me," he said. "Is somethin' wrong?"

The time he'd served as Risen Glory's overseer bad wrought subtle changes in him. The muscles beneath his soft butternut shirt and dark brown trousers had grown sleek and hard, and there was a taut wiriness about him that had been lacking before. His face was still smooth and handsome, but now, as happened whenever he was in Sophronia's presence, subtle lines of tension etched his features.

"Nothing's wrong, Magnus," Sophronia replied, her manner deliberately condescending. "I understand you're goin' into town later this afternoon, and I wanted you to pick up some supplies for me." She didn't rise from the desk as she extended the list. Instead, she made him come to her.

"You called me in from the fields just so I could be your errand boy?" He snatched the list from her hand. "Why didn't you send Jim for this?"

"I didn't think about it," she replied, perversely glad that she had been able to ruffle his even temper. "Besides, Jim's busy washin' windows for me."

Magnus's jaw tightened. "And I suppose washin' windows is more important than takin' care of the cotton that's supportin' this plantation?"

"My, my. You do have a high opinion of yourself, don't you, Magnus Owen?" She rose from her chair. "You think this plantation's goin' to fall apart just because the overseer had to come in from the fields for a few minutes?"

A tiny vein began to throb at the side of his forehead. He lifted a work-roughened hand and splayed it on his hip. "You got some airs about you, woman, that are gettin' mighty unpleasant. Somebody needs to take you down a peg or two before you get yourself in real trouble."

"Well, that somebody sure enough won't be you." She held her chin high and swept past him into the hallway.

Magnus was generally so even-tempered it was hard to get a rise out of him, but now his hand whipped out and caught her arm. She gave a small gasp as he pulled her back into the sitting room and slammed the door.

"That's right," he drawled in the sweet, liquid tones of his plantation childhood. "I keep forgettin' Miz Sophronia's too good for the rest of us po' black folk."

Her golden eyes sparked with anger at his mockery. He pressed her body against the door with his own.

"Let me go!" She shoved at his chest, but even though they were the same height, he was much stronger, and she might as well have been trying to move an oak tree with a puff of thistledown.

"Magnus, let me go!"

Maybe he didn't hear the edge of panic in her plea, or maybe he'd been goaded by her once too often. Instead of releasing her, he pinned her shoulders to the door. The heat of his body burned through her skirt. "Miz Sophronia thinks just 'cause she acts like she's white, she's goin' to wake up some mornin' and find out she is white. Then she won't ever have to talk to none of us black folk again, except maybe to give us orders."

She turned her head and pressed her eyes closed, trying to shut out his scorn, but Magnus wasn't finished with her. His voice grew softer, but his words were no less wounding.

"If Miz Sophronia was only white, then she wouldn't ever have to worry none about a black man wantin' to take her in his arms and make her his woman and have chil'ren by her. She wouldn't have to worry about a black man wantin' to sit by her and hold her when she felt lonesome, or about growin' old lyin' in a big old feather bed. No, Miz Sophronia wouldn't have to worry about none of that. She's too fine for all that. She's too white for all that!"

"Stop it!" Sophronia lifted her hands and held them over her ears to shut out his cruel words.

He stepped back to free her, but she couldn't move. She stood frozen, her spine rigid, her hands clamped to her ears. Tears coursed down her cheeks.

With a muffled groan, Magnus took her stiff body in his arms and began stroking her and crooning into her ear. "There, now, girl. It's all right. I'm sorry I made you cry. Last thing I want is to hurt you. There, now, everything's goin' to be all right."

Gradually the tension ebbed from her body, and for a moment she sagged against him. He was so solid. So safe.

Safe? The thought made her jerk away. She drew back her shoulders and stood proud and naughty, despite the tears she couldn't quite stop shedding. "You got no right to talk to me like that. You don't know me, Magnus Owen. You just think you do."

But Magnus had his own pride "I know you've got nothing but smiles for any rich white man looks your way, but you won't spare a glance for a black man."

"What can a black man give me?" she said fiercely. "Black man's got no power. My mother, my grandmother, her mother before her-black men loved them all. But when the white man came skulkin' through the cabin door in the middle of the night, not one of those black men could keep him from havin' her. Not one of those black men could keep his children from being sold away. Not one of them could do more than stand by and watch the women they loved being tied naked to a post and whipped until their backs ran red with blood. Don't you talk to me about black men!"

Magnus took a step toward her, but when she turned away, he walked to the window instead. "Times are different now," he said gently. "The war's over. You're not a slave any longer. We're all free. Things have changed. We can vote."

"You're a fool, Magnus. You think just because the white man says you can vote, things are goin' to be any different? It doesn't mean nothin'."

"Yes, it does. You're an American citizen now. You're protected by the laws of this country."

"Protected!" Sophronia's spine stiffened with contempt. "There's no protection for a black woman except what she makes for herself."

"By selling her body to any rich white man who comes along? Is that how?"

She whirled around, lashing him with her tongue. "You tell me what else a black woman has to barter with. Men have been usin' our bodies for centuries and givin' us nothin' in return for it except a passel of children we couldn't protect. Well, I want more than that, and I'm goin' to have it, too. I'm goin' to have me a house and clothes and fine food. And I'm goin' to be safe!"

He flinched. "Sellin' yourself into another kind of slavery? Is that how you think you're gettin' your safety?"

Sophronia's eyes didn't waver. "It's not slavery when I choose the master and set the terms. And you know as well as I do that I'd have it all by now if it wasn't for you."

"Cain wasn't goin' to give you what you wanted."

"You're wrong. He would of given me anythin' I asked for if you hadn't spoiled it."

Magnus rested his hand on the carved back of the rose damask settee. "There's no man in the world I respect more than him. He saved my life, and I guess I'd do about anythin' he asked me. He's fair and honest, and every man who works for him knows it. He never asks anybody to do anythin' he hasn't done himself. The men admire him for that, and so do I. But he's a hard man with women, Sophronia. I never saw one yet could bring him to heel."

"He wanted me, Magnus. If you hadn't busted in on us that night, he would've given me whatever I asked for."

Magnus came toward her and touched her shoulder. She recoiled instinctively, even though his touch felt strangely comforting.

"And if he had?" Magnus asked. "Would you've been able to hide that shiver that comes over you every time a man so much as touches your arm? Even though he's rich and white, would you've been able to forget that he's also a man?"

He'd struck too close to her nightmares. She turned away and headed blindly toward the desk. When she was finally sure she could speak without her voice betraying her, she said coldly, "I've got work to do. If you won't get the supplies for me, I'll send Jim to town."

At first she didn't think he'd answer, but he finally nodded. "I'll get your supplies." Then he turned on his heel and left her alone.

Sophronia stared at the vacant doorway, and for a moment she was filled with a nearly overpowering longing to fling herself after him. The instinct faded. Magnus Owen might be a plantation overseer, but he was still a black man, and he could never keep her safe.

10

Kit's muscles ached as she descended the stairs the next morning. In contrast to the britches she'd worn the day before, she was dressed in a demure outfit of palest lilac voile with a delicate white lace shawl tossed around her shoulders. From her fingers dangled the lavender sashes of a floppy leghorn hat.

Miss Dolly stood by the front door waiting for her. "Now, aren't you pretty as a picture. Just fasten up that button on your glove, darlin', and straighten your skirts."

Kit smiled and did as she was told. "You look awfully pretty yourself."

"Why, thank you, darlin'. I do try to keep myself nice, but it's not as easy as it once was. I no longer have youth entirely on my side, you know. But just look at you. Not a single gentleman will be able to keep his mind on the Lord with you sittin' in the congregation lookin' like a piece of Easter candy waitin' to be devoured."

"Makes me hungry just watching her," drawled a lazy voice from behind them.

Kit dropped the lavender hat ribbons she'd been trying to arrange into a bow.

Cain was leaning against the doorjamb of the library. He was dressed in a pearl-gray morning coat with charcoal trousers and waistcoat. A thinly striped burgundy cravat set off his white shirt.

Her eyes narrowed at his formal dress. "Where are you going?"

"To church, of course."

"Church! We didn't invite you to go to church with us!"

Miss Dolly's hand flew to her throat. "Katharine Louise Weston! I'm shocked! Whatever can you be thinking of, addressing the general so rudely? I asked him to escort us. You'll have to forgive her, General. She spent too long on horseback yesterday, and she could barely walk when she got out of bed this morning. It's made her peevish."

"I understand completely." The merriment in his eyes made his expression of sympathy suspect.

Kit plucked up the sashes of her hat. "I wasn't peevish." She was all thumbs with him watching, and she couldn't manage a respectable bow.

"Maybe you'd better tie that before she destroys the ribbons, Miss Calhoun."

"Certainly, General." Miss Dolly clucked her tongue at Kit. "Here, darlin'. Tilt up your chin and let me."

Kit was forced to submit to Miss Doily's ministrations while Cain watched in amusement. Finally the bow was arranged satisfactorily, and they made their way out the front door to the carriage.

Kit waited until Cain had helped Miss Doily in before she hissed at him. "I'll bet this is the first time you've set foot inside that church since you've been here. Why don't you stay home?"

"Not a chance. I wouldn't miss your reunion with the good people of Rutherford for anything in the world."

Our Father who art in heaven…

Jewel-like puddles of sunlight streamed through the stained-glass windows and settled over the bowed heads of the congregation. In Rutherford, they still talked about what a miracle it was that those windows had escaped the spawn of Satan, William Tecumseh Sherman.

Kit felt uncomfortable sitting in her lilac finery amidst the faded dresses and prewar bonnets of the other women. She'd wanted to show herself off to good advantage, but she hadn't stopped to consider how poor everyone was. She wouldn't forget again.

She found herself thinking about her real church, the simple clapboard structure not far from Risen Glory that had served as the spiritual home for the slaves from the surrounding plantations. Garrett and Rosemary had refused to make the weekly trip to the white community's church in Rutherford, so Sophronia had taken Kit with her every Sunday. Even thought Sophronia was a child herself, she'd been determined that Kit hear the Word,

Kit had loved that church, and now she couldn't help but compare this sedate service with the joyful worship of her childhood. Sophronia would be there now, along with Magnus and the others.

Her reunion with Magnus had been subdued. Although he'd seemed happy to see her, the old informality between them was gone. She was now a white woman, fully grown, and he was a black man.

A fly buzzed a lazy figure eight in front of her, and she stole a glance at Cain. His attention was turned politely toward the pulpit, his expression as inscrutable as ever. She was glad that Miss Dolly was seated between them. Sitting any closer to him would have ruined the morning.

On the other side of the church sat a man whose attention wasn't as firmly fixed on the pulpit. Kit gave Brandon Parsell a slow smile, then tilted her head just enough so that her straw hat brim shielded her face. Before she left the church, she would make certain he found a chance to speak with her. She had only a month, and she couldn't waste a day of it.

The service ended, and the members of the congregation couldn't wait to speak with her. They'd heard the New York City finishing school had transformed her from a hoyden to a young lady, and they wanted to see for themselves.

"Why, Kit Weston, just look at you…"

"And aren't you a fine lady now."

"My stars, even your own daddy wouldn't recognize you."

As they greeted her, they faced a dilemma. Acknowledging her meant that they'd have to greet her Yankee guardian, the man Rutherford's leading families had been so diligently shunning.

Slowly, first one person and then another nodded to him. One of the men asked him about his cotton crop. Delia Dibbs thanked him for his contribution to the Bible Society. Clement Jakes asked whether or not he thought it would rain soon. The conversations were reserved, but the message was clear. It was time the barriers against Baron Cain came down.

Kit knew they'd later remark to each other that it was only for Kit Weston's sake they'd acknowledged him, but she suspected they welcomed the excuse to draw him into their insular circle, if only because it would give them a fresh topic of conversation. It would occur to none of them that Cain might not wish to be drawn in.

Standing off to the side of the church, a woman with an air of sophistication that set her apart watched what was happening with some amusement. So this was the notorious Baron Cain… The woman was a newcomer to the community, having lived in a large brick house in Rutherford for only three months, but she'd heard all about the new owner of Risen Glory. Nothing she'd heard, however, had prepared her for her first sight of him. Her eyes swept from his shoulders down to his narrow hips. He was magnificent.

Veronica Gamble was a Southerner by birth, if not by inclination. Born in Charleston, she had married the portrait painter Francis Gamble when she was barely eighteen. For the next fourteen years, they'd divided their time between Florence, Paris, and Vienna, where Francis had charged outrageous prices for flattering portraits of the wives and children of the aristocracy.

When her husband had died the previous winter, Veronica was left comfortably well off, if not wealthy. On a whim, she'd decided to return to South Carolina and the brick house that her husband had inherited from his parents. It would give her time to assess her life and decide what she wanted to do next.

In her early thirties, she was striking in appearance. Her auburn hair was pulled softly back from her face and fell in lustrous curls over the nape of her neck. Setting off its coppery hues were a pair of slanted eyes, almost as green as her fashionable Zouave jacket. On any other woman her full bottom lip would have been obtrusive, but on her it was sensual.

Although Veronica was considered a great beauty, her thin nose was a bit too long, her features too angular for true beauty. No man, however, seemed to notice. She had wit, intelligence, and the intriguing quality of watching those around her with an amused eye while she waited to see what life had in store.

She eased toward the doors at the back of the church, where the Reverend Cogdell was greeting his flock as they filed out. "Ah, Mrs. Gamble. How pleasant to have you with us this morning. I don't believe you've met Miss Dorthea Calhoun. And this is Mr. Cain of Risen Glory. Where has Katharine Louise gone? I wanted you to meet her, too."

Veronica Gamble had no interest in either Miss Dorthea Calhoun or anyone named Katharine Louise. But she was very much interested in the dazzling man who stood next to the pastor, and she gracefully inclined her head. "I've heard a great deal about you, Mr. Cain. Somehow I'd expected horns."

Rawlins Cogdell winced, but Cain laughed. "I wish I'd been as fortunate to have heard of you."

Veronica slipped her gloved hand into the crook of his arm. "The matter is easily remedied."

Kit had heard Cain's laughter, but she ignored it to focus her attention on Brandon. His regular features were even more attractive than she'd remembered, and the stray lock of straight brown hair that tumbled over his forehead as he talked was endearing.

He couldn't have been more different from Cain. Brandon was polite where Cain was rude. And she didn't have to worry about him mocking her. He was every inch a Southern gentleman.

She studied his mouth. What would it feel like to kiss it? Very exciting, she was certain. Much more pleasant than Cain's assault the day she'd arrived.

An assault she'd done nothing to stop.

"I've thought about you quite often since we met in New York," Brandon said.

"I'm flattered."

"Would you like to ride with me tomorrow? The bank closes at three. I could be at Risen Glory within the hour."

Kit gazed up at him through her lashes, an effect she'd practiced to perfection. "I'd enjoy riding with you, Mr. Parsell."

"Until tomorrow, then."

With a smile, she turned away to acknowledge several young men who'd been patiently waiting for a chance to speak with her.

As they vied for her attention, she noticed Cain deep in conversation with an attractive auburn-haired woman. Something about the attentive way the woman was gazing up at him grated on Kit. She wished he'd glance in her direction so he could see her so well surrounded by masculine company. Unfortunately, he didn't seem to notice.

Miss Dolly had been engaged in animated conversation with the Reverend Cogdell and his wife, Mary, who was her distant relative and the one who'd recommended her as a chaperone. Kit realized the Cogdells were looking increasingly bewildered. She hastily excused herself and hurried to Miss Dolly's side.

"Are you ready to leave, Miss Dolly?"

"Why, yes, darlin'. I haven't seen the Reverend Cogdell and his dear wife, Mary, in years. What a joyous reunion, hampered only by the recent events at Bull Run. Oh, but that's old folk's conversation, darlin'. Nothin' for you to worry your pretty young head about."

Cain must have sensed disaster, too, for he materialized at Kit's side. "Miss Calhoun, the carriage is waiting for us."

"Why, thank you, General-" Miss Dolly gasped and pressed her fingers to her mouth. "I-I mean Major, of course. Silly me." With her ribbons all aflutter, she scampered toward the carriage.

The Reverend Cogdell and his wife stared after her in open-mouthed astonishment.

"She thinks I'm General Lee living in disguise at Risen Glory," Cain said bluntly.

Rawlins Cogdell began to wring his pale, thin hands in agitation. "Major Cain, Katharine, I do apologize. When my wife recommended Dolly Calhoun for the post of chaperone, we had no idea-Oh, dear, this will never do."

Mary Cogdell's small brown eyes were filled with remorse. "This is all my fault. We'd heard she was nearly destitute, but we had no idea she was feebleminded."

Kit opened her mouth to protest, but Cain cut her off. "You needn't worry about Miss Calhoun. She's settling in comfortably."

"But Katharine can't possibly stay at Risen Glory with you under these circumstances," the minister protested. "Dolly Calhoun is hardly a proper chaperone. Why, she must have spoken to a dozen people today. By this afternoon everyone in the county will know about her. This won't do. It won't do at all. The gossip will be dreadful, Mr. Cain. You're far too young a man-"

"Kit is my ward," he said.

"Nonetheless, there's no blood bond between you."

Mary Cogdell gripped her prayer book. "Katharine, you're an innocent young woman, so I'm sure it hasn't occurred to you how this will look to others. You simply can't stay at Risen Glory."

"I appreciate your concern," Kit replied, "but I've been away from my home for three years, and I don't intend to leave again so quickly."

Mary Cogdell looked at her husband helplessly.

"I assure you that Miss Dolly is a stickler for the proprieties," Cain surprised her by saying. "You should have seen her fussing over Kit this morning."

"Still…"

Cain inclined his head. "If you'll excuse us, Reverend Cogdell, Mrs. Cogdell. Please don't trouble yourself any further." He took Kit's arm and led her toward the carriage, where Miss Dolly was already waiting.

Rawlins Cogdell and his wife watched the carriage drive away. "There's going to be trouble there," the minister said. "I can feel it in my bones."

Kit heard the crunch of gravel and knew Brandon had arrived. She rushed to the cheval glass to check her reflection and saw a proper young lady in a riding habit gazing back at her. There were no boy's clothes for her today, and no Temptation, either. She'd resigned herself to a sidesaddle and poor Lady.

That morning, while the sky was still the pale, soft pink of the underside of a seashell, she'd raced across the fields on Temptation. The wild, exhilarating ride was much different from what she could expect this afternoon.

She had to admit her new riding habit was flattering, no matter how much she disliked the idea of wearing it. Made of crimson broadcloth trimmed in black braid, the jacket fit her snugly in the bodice and accented her waist. The full skirt fell in graceful folds to the hem, which was decorated with a deep border of black braid in a swirling pattern that looked like a chain of script L's.

She checked to make certain there were no hanging threads or hooks that had escaped her notice. The four black frogs that held together the front of the jacket were all fastened, and her hat was on straight. It was black, a feminine version of a man's stovepipe, but with a lower, softer crown and a wisp of crimson veiling trailing from the back. She'd fastened her hair in a neat bun at the nape of her neck and even polished her boots.

Satisfied that she looked her best, she snatched up her riding crop and left the room, giving no thought at all to the black kid riding gloves lying in her glove box. When she reached the hallway, she heard voices coming from the piazza. To her consternation, she saw Cain standing in the drive talking to Brandon.

Once again she was struck by the contrast between the two men. Cain was much bigger, but that wasn't all that set them apart. Brandon was properly dressed in hat, coat, and trousers, with a bottle-green four-in-hand showing above the top of his vest. The clothes were old and no longer of the most fashionable cut, but they were neatly pressed, and he wore them well.

As for, Cain, he was bareheaded and wearing an open-collared shirt rolled at the sleeves and a pair of muddy trousers. He stood in an easy slouch, one hand stuffed into his pocket, a dirty boot propped on the bottom step. Everything about Brandon indicated culture and breeding, while Cain looked like a barbarian.

Her eyes lingered on him a moment longer before she clutched her riding crop more tightly and walked forward. Lady waited patiently next to the mounting block. The old sidesaddle Kit had found in the attic rested on the horse's back.

Kit gave Cain a cool nod and Brandon a smiling greeting. The admiration in his eyes told her that the efforts she'd taken with her appearance hadn't been in vain. Cain, however, seemed to be enjoying some private joke, one she quickly realized was at her expense.

"You watch yourself today, Kit. Lady can be a real handful."

She gritted her teeth. "I'm sure we'll get along fine."

Brandon made a motion to help her mount, but Cain was quicker. "Allow me."

Brandon turned away with obvious displeasure to mount his own horse, and Kit placed her fingers in Cain's outstretched hand. It felt strong and much too competent. After she'd settled into the sidesaddle, she looked down to see him gazing at her cumbersome skirts.

"Now who's the hypocrite?" he asked softly.

She gazed over at Brandon and gave him a blinding smile. "Now, Mr. Parsell, don't you ride too fast for me, y'hear? I've been up North for so long, my riding skills are rusty, 'deed they are."

Cain snorted and walked away, leaving her with the pleasant sensation that she'd had the last word.

Brandon suggested they ride to Holly Grove, his former home. As they trotted down the drive toward the road, Kit watched him covertly studying the planted fields that stretched out on both sides of them. She could only hope he was already making plans.

Holly Grove had been put to the torch by the same soldiers who'd spared Risen Glory. After the war, Brandon had returned to a crumbled ruin and blackened chimneys already overgrown with wild grape vines and blackberry brambles. He hadn't been able to pay the punishing taxes on the land, and everything had been confiscated. Now it stood idle.

They dismounted near what had once been the smokehouse. Brandon tied the horses, then took Kit's arm and led her toward the ruins of the house. They'd been chatting pleasantly as they rode, but now he fell silent. Kit's heart swelled with pity.

"It's all gone," he finally said. "Everything the South believed in. Everything we fought for."

She gazed at the devastation. If Rosemary Weston hadn't taken that Yankee lieutenant into her bedroom, this would have been the fate of Risen Glory.

"The Yankees laugh at us, you know," he went on. "They laugh because we believe in chivalry and honor. But look what happens when there's no chivalry and when honor's turned into a joke. They take away our land, tax us until we can't buy bread. Radical Reconstruction is the Almighty's curse on us." He shook his head. "What have we done to deserve so much evil?"

Kit stared up at the twin chimneys, like great ghostly fingers. "It was the slaves," she heard herself saying. "We're being punished for keeping human beings in slavery."

"Poppycock! You lived with the Yankees too long, Kit. Slavery is God's plan. You know what the Bible says."

She did know. She'd heard it preached often enough from the pulpit of the slave church by white ministers the plantation owners sent to remind their people that God approved of their enslavement. God had even issued instructions regarding a slave's obligations to his master. Kit remembered Sophronia sitting by her side during these sermons, stiff and pale, unable to reconcile what she was hearing with the loving Jesus she knew.

Brandon took her arm and led her back along the overgrown path, away from the house. Their mounts were peacefully grazing in the clearing near the smokehouse. Kit walked over to a tree that had fallen long ago in a storm and sat on the trunk.

"It was a mistake bringing you here," Brandon said as he came up beside her.

"Why?"

He stared off toward the blackened chimneys in the distance. "This makes the differences between us all the more apparent."

"Does it? Neither of us has a home. Remember that Risen Glory's not mine. Not yet, anyway."

He gave her a searching look. She plucked at a piece of tree bark. "I only have a month, and then Cain's going to force me to go back to New York."

"I can't tolerate the idea of your living in the same house with that man," he said, sitting next to her on the tree trunk. "Everybody who came into the bank today was talking about it. They say Miss Calhoun's not a fit chaperone. You watch yourself with Cain, you hear? He's not a gentleman. I don't like him. Don't like him at all."

She was warmed by Brandon's concern. "Don't worry. I'll be careful."

And then she deliberately tilted her face up to him, slightly parting her lips. She couldn't let this excursion end without kissing him. It was something she had to do so she could erase Cain's brand on her mouth.

And on your senses, a small voice whispered.

It was true. Cain's kiss had set fires in her blood, and she needed to prove to herself that Brandon Parsell could spark those same fires.

His eyes were partially shadowed by the brushed beaver brim of his gray hat, but she could see him looking at her mouth. She waited for him to come closer, but he didn't move. "I want you to kiss me," she finally said.

He was shocked by her forwardness. She saw it in his frown. His attitude irritated her even as it endeared him to her.

She reached up and gently lifted off his hat, noticing as she laid it aside that there was a small red line across the upper part of his forehead from the band. "Brandon," she said quietly, "I only have a month. There isn't time for me to be coy."

Even a gentleman couldn't ignore so bold an invitation. He leaned forward and pressed his mouth to hers.

Kit noticed that his lips were fleshier than Cain's. They were also sweeter, she decided, since they remained politely closed. This was a tender kiss compared with Cain's. A pleasant kiss. His lips were dry, but his mustache seemed a little rough.

Her mind was wandering, and she brought her attention back to what she was doing by lifting her arms and throwing them enthusiastically around his neck.

Were his shoulders a little narrow? It must be her imagination, because they were very solid. He began trailing kisses across her cheek and the line of her jaw. His mustache scratched the sensitive skin, and she winced.

He pulled back from her. "I'm sorry. Have I frightened you?"

"No, of course not." She swallowed her disappointment. The kiss hadn't proved anything. Why couldn't he set aside his scruples and do the job right?

No sooner had she thought this than she admonished herself. Brandon Parsell was a gentleman, not a Yankee barbarian.

He dropped his head. "Kit, you must know that I wouldn't hurt you for anything in the world. I apologize for my lack of restraint. Women like you are to be cherished and shielded from the more sordid aspects of life."

She felt another prickle of irritation. "I'm not made of glass."

"I know that. But I also want you to know that if anything… permanent were to happen between us, I would never debase you. I'd bother you as little as possible with my own needs."

This was something she understood. When Mrs. Templeton had spoken about Eve's Shame, she'd told them there were husbands who were most considerate of their wives, and they should pray to marry such a man.

She was suddenly glad Brandon's sweet kisses hadn't stirred a raging fire in her. Her response to Cain had been nothing more than a reaction to the strange emotions of being home again.

Now she was more certain than ever that she wanted to marry Brandon. He was everything a woman could want in a husband.

He made her put on her hat so she wouldn't get sunburned and gently chastised her for forgetting her gloves. As he fussed over her, she smiled and flirted, playing the Southern belle to perfection.

She reminded herself that he was accustomed to a different sort of woman, one who was quiet and retiring like his mother and his sisters, and she tried to restrain her normally impulsive tongue. Still, she managed to shock him with her opinions about Negro suffrage and the Fifteenth Amendment. As two small furrows etched themselves between his eyes, she knew she had to make him understand.

"Brandon, I'm a well-educated woman. I have opinions and ideas. I've also been on my own for a long time. I can't be what I'm not."

His smile didn't quite erase the furrows. "Your independence is one of the things I most admire about you, but it's going to take a while for me to get used to it. You're not like the other women I know?."

"And do you know a lot of women?" she teased.

Her question made him laugh. "Kit Weston, you're a minx."

Their conversation on the ride back to Risen Glory was a happy combination of gossip and reminiscences. She promised to go on a picnic with him and let him escort her to church on Sunday. As she stood on the porch and waved good-bye, she decided that, all in all, the day had gone well.

Unfortunately, the evening did not.

Miss Dolly waylaid her before dinner. "I need your sweet young eyes to sort through my button box. I have a pretty mother-of-pearl in there somewhere, and I simply must find it."

Kit did as she was asked, even though she needed a few minutes alone. The sorting was accompanied by chatter, twittering, and fluttering. Kit learned which buttons had been sewn on which dresses, where the garments had been worn and with whom, what the weather had been like on that particular day, as well as what Miss Dolly had eaten.

At dinner, Miss Dolly requested that all the windows be closed, despite the fact that the evening was warm, because she'd heard rumors of a diphtheria outbreak in Charleston. Cain managed Miss Dolly well and the windows remained open, but he ignored Kit until dessert.

"I hope Lady behaved for you today," he finally said. "The poor horse looked terrified when you marched toward her with all those skirts on. I think she was afraid you'd suffocate her."

"You're not nearly as amusing as you seem to think. My riding habit is the height of fashion."

"And you hate wearing it. Not that I blame you. Those things should be outlawed."

Her opinion exactly. "Nonsense. They're very comfortable. And a lady always likes to look her best."

"Is it just my imagination, or does your accent get thicker whenever you want to irritate me?"

" 'Deed I hope not, Major. That would be most impolite of me. Besides, you're in South Carolina now, so you're the one with the accent."

He smiled. "Point taken. And did you enjoy your ride?"

"I had a wonderful time. There aren't many gentlemen as pleasant to be with as Mr. Parsell."

His smile faded "And where did you and Mr. Parsell ride?"

"To Holly Grove, his old home. We enjoyed catching up on old times."

"That's all you did?" he asked pointedly.

"Yes, it's all," she retorted. "Not every man's interests when they're with young women are as narrow as yours."

Miss Dolly frowned at the sharpness in Kit's voice. "You're dawdlin' over your dessert, Katharine Louise. If you're finished, let's go to the sitting room and leave the general to his cigar."

Kit was enjoying irritating Cain too much to leave. "I'm not quite finished yet, Miss Dolly. Why don't you go? I don't mind the smell of cigar smoke."

"Well, if you don't mind…" Miss Dolly set her napkin on the table and rose, then stood at her chair as if she were gathering her courage. "Now, watch your manners, darlin'. I know you don't mean anything by it, but sometimes you seem a bit sharp when you speak to the general. You mustn't let your natural high spirits keep you from giving him his proper respect." Her duty done, she fluttered from the room.

Cain looked after her with some amusement. "I must admit, Miss Dolly's beginning to grow on me."

"You're really a terrible person, do you know that?"

"I admit I'm no Brandon Parsell."

"You're certainly not. Brandon's a gentleman."

He leaned back in his chair and studied her. "Did he behave like a gentleman with you today?"

"Of course he did."

"And what about you? Were you a lady?"

Her pleasure in their bantering faded. He still hadn't forgotten that ugly letter from Hamilton Woodward. She didn't like how much it bothered her to know he questioned her virtue. "Of course I wasn't a lady. What fun would that be? I took off my clothes and offered myself to him. Is that what you want to know?"

Cain pushed back his plate. "You've grown into a beautiful woman, Kit. You're also reckless. It's a dangerous combination."

"Mr. Parsell and I talked politics. We discussed the indignities the federal government's been forcing on South Carolina."

"I can just hear the two of you now. Sighing over what the Yankees have done to your poor state. Moaning over all the injustices of the occupation-none of it the South's fault, of course. I'm sure you two made quite a pair."

"How can you be so callous? You can see the horrors of Reconstruction all around you. People've had their homes taken from them. They've lost savings. The South is like a piece of glass being ground underneath a Yankee bootheel."

"Let me remind you of a few painful facts you seem to have forgotten." He picked up the brandy decanter at his elbow, but before he could pour from it, he shoved the stopper back into the neck. "It wasn't the Union that started this war. Southern guns fired on Fort Sumter. You lost the war, Kit. And you lost it at the expense of six hundred thousand lives. Now you expect everything to be just like it was." He regarded her with disgust. "You talk about the horrors of Reconstruction. The way I see it, the South should be thankful the federal government has been as merciful as it has."

"Merciful?" Kit leaped to her feet. "Do you call what's happened here merciful?"

"You've read history. You tell me." Now Cain was on his feet, too. "Name any other conquering people who've dealt so leniently with the ones they've conquered. If this had been any country but the United States, thousands of men would have been executed for treason after Appomattox, and thousands more would be rotting in prisons right now. Instead, there was a general amnesty, and now the Southern states are being readmitted to the Union. My God, Reconstruction is a slap on the wrist for what the South has done to this country."

Her knuckles were white where they gripped the back of the chair. "It's too bad there wasn't enough bloodshed to satisfy you. What kind of man are you to wish the South more misery than it's already had?"

"I don't wish it any more misery. I even agree with the leniency of federal policies. But you'll have to forgive me if I can't work up much righteous indignation because people in the South have lost their homes."

"You want your pound of flesh."

"Men have died in my arms," he said quietly. "And not all of those men wore blue uniforms."

She released her grip on the chair and rushed from the room. When she reached her bedroom, she sank onto the chair at her dressing table.

He didn't understand! He was seeing everything from the Northern perspective. But even as she mentally listed all the reasons he was wrong, she found it difficult to reclaim her old sense of righteousness. He'd seemed so sad. Her head had begun to pound, and she wanted to go to bed, but there was a job she'd already put off for too long.

Late that night after everyone was asleep, she made her way downstairs to the library, and to the calf-bound ledgers in which Cain kept the plantation's accounts.

11

The next few weeks brought a steady stream of callers. In better times the women would have dressed in their prettiest gowns and arrived at Risen Glory in fine carriages. Now they came in wagons drawn by plow horses, or they sat on the front seats of broken-down buggies. Their gowns were shabby and their bonnets rusty with age, but they carried themselves as proudly as ever.

Self-conscious about the extravagance of her wardrobe, Kit dressed plainly for her first callers. But she soon discovered that the women were disappointed by her simple gowns. They made pointed references to the pretty lilac frock she'd worn to church, and had her hat been trimmed in taffeta or satin? They'd heard the gossip about her clothes passed from maid to cook to the grizzled old woman who sold she-crab from a tub off the back of a pushcart. Kit Weston's wardrobe was rumored to contain beautiful gowns of every color and description. The women were starved for beauty, and they wanted to see them all.

Once Kit understood, she didn't have the heart to disappoint them further. She dutifully wore a different dress every day and, with several of the younger women, abandoned subterfuge altogether and invited them to her bedroom so they could see for themselves.

It saddened her to realize that the clothes meant more to her visitors than they did to her. The dresses were pretty, but they were such a bother with their hooks, laces, and overskirts that always caught on furniture. She wished she could give the green muslin to the pretty young widow who'd lost her husband at Gettysburg, and the periwinkle silk to Prudence Wade, who'd been left scarred by smallpox. But the women were as proud as they were poor, and she knew better than to offer.

Not all her callers were women. A dozen men of various ages made their way to her door in as many days. They invited her on buggy rides and picnics, surrounded her after church, and nearly got into a fight over who was to accompany her to a Chautauqua lecture on phrenology. She managed to turn them down without hurting their feelings by telling them she'd already promised to attend with Mr. Parsell and his sisters.

Brandon was increasingly attentive, even though she frequently shocked him. Still, he remained at her side, and she was certain he intended to ask her to marry him soon. Half of her month was over, and she suspected he wouldn't wait much longer.

She'd seen little of Cain, even at meals, since the night of their disquieting conversation about Reconstruction. The machinery for the mill had arrived, and they were busy storing it under tarps in the barn and sheds until they were ready to install it. Whenever he was nearby, she was uncomfortably conscious of him. She flirted outrageously with her male admirers if she thought he was watching. Sometimes he seemed amused, but at other times a darker emotion flickered across his features that she found disquieting.

Gossip traveled quickly, and it wasn't long before Kit learned that Cain had been seen in the company of the beautiful Veronica Gamble. Veronica was a source of mystery and speculation to the local women. Even though she was Carolina-born, her exotic lifestyle after her marriage made her a foreigner. There was a rumor that her husband had painted a picture of her lying stark naked on a couch, and that it was hanging on her bedroom wall as bold as brass.

One evening Kit came downstairs for supper and found Cain in the sitting room reading a newspaper. It had been nearly a week since he'd appeared for a meal, so she was surprised to see him. She was even more surprised to find him dressed in formal black and white, since she'd never known him to wear anything but casual dress in the dining room.

"Are you going out?"

"Sorry to disappoint you, but I'm eating in this evening." He put down his paper. "We have a guest for dinner."

"A guest?" Kit looked down at her muddy gown and ink-stained fingers in dismay. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"It didn't occur to me."

Kit's whole day had gone badly. Sophronia had been cranky that morning, and they'd quarreled about nothing. Then Reverend Cogdell and his wife had come calling. They'd recounted all the gossip that Kit's stay at Risen Glory without a proper chaperone was producing and urged her to live with them until someone more suitable could be found. Kit had been doing her best to reassure them that Miss Dolly was up to the task when her companion had fluttered into the room and insisted they roll bandages for the Confederate wounded. When they'd left, Kit had helped Sophronia clean the Chinese wallpaper in the dining room with bread crusts. Then she'd spilled a bottle of ink while she was writing to Elsbeth. Afterward, she'd gone for a walk.

There'd been no time to change for dinner, but since she wasn't expecting anyone except Miss Dolly at the table, she hadn't been concerned about the condition of her plain muslin dress. Miss Dolly would scold her, but she scolded her about her appearance even when Kit was dressed up. Again she glanced at the ink stains on her fingers and the mud on her skirt from kneeling to free a baby field sparrow caught in a tangle of brambles.

"I'll need to change," she said just as Lucy appeared at the door.

"Miz Gamble's here."

Veronica Gamble swept into the room. "Hello, Baron."

He smiled. "Veronica, it's good to see you again."

She wore a stylish jade-green evening gown with an underskirt of bronze-and-black striped satin. A border of overlapping black lace trimmed the décolletage and set off the pale, opalescent skin of a natural redhead. Her hair was swept up into a sophisticated arrangement of curls and braids caught in a crescent of bronze silk laurel leaves. The difference in their appearances couldn't have been more apparent, and Kit selfconsciously smoothed her skirt, which did nothing to improve it.

She realized Cain was watching her. There was something oddly satisfied in his expression. He almost seemed to be enjoying comparing her unkempt appearance with Veronica's perfection.

Miss Dolly swept into the room. "Why, I didn't know we were having company tonight."

Cain performed the introductions. Veronica replied graciously but that didn't ease Kit's resentment. Not only was the other woman elegant and sophisticated, but she radiated an inner self-confidence Kit didn't think she'd ever possess. Next to her, Kit felt callow, awkward, and unattractive.

Veronica, in the meantime, was engaging Cain in conversation about the newspaper he'd been reading.

"… that my late husband and I were great supporters of Horace Greeley."

"The abolitionist?" Miss Dolly began to quiver.

"Abolitionist and newspaper editor," Veronica replied. "Even in Europe, Mr. Greeley's editorials supporting the Union cause were much admired."

"But, my dear Mrs. Gamble…" Miss Dolly gasped like a guppy "Surely you don't mean-I understood you were born in Charleston."

"That's true, Miss Calhoun, but I somehow managed to rise above it."

"Oh, my, my…" Miss Dolly pressed her fingertips to her temples. "I do believe I've developed a headache. I'm sure I won't be able to eat a bite of din ner. I think I'll just go to my room and rest."

Kit watched in dismay as she fled from the room. Now she was alone with them. Why hadn't Sophronia told her that Mrs. Gamble was expected so Kit could have taken a tray in her room? It was outrageous for Cain to expect her to dine with his mistress.

The thought made her chest hurt.

She told herself it was outraged propriety.

Veronica sat on the settee while Cain took his place in a green-and-ivory-upholstered chair next to her. He should have looked ridiculous on such a delicate piece of furniture, but he seemed as comfortable as if he were astride Vandal or perched on the roof of his cotton mill.

Veronica told Cain a story about a comic mishap at a balloon ascension. He tossed back his head and laughed, showing even, white teeth. The two of them might have been alone for all the notice they were taking of Kit.

She rose, unwilling to watch them together any longer. "I'll see if dinner's ready."

"just a minute, Kit."

Cain uncoiled from his chair and walked toward her. Something calculated in his expression made her wary.

His eyes roamed over her crumpled frock. Then he reached for her. She started to back away, only to have him catch a lock of hair in his fingers near one of her silver combs. When his hand came away, he was holding a piece of twig.

"Climbing trees again?"

She flushed. He was treating her as if she were nine years old and deliberately embarrassing her in front of their sophisticated guest.

"Co ask Sophronia to hold dinner until you've had time to change out of that dirty frock." With a dismissive look, he turned to Veronica. "You'll have to forgive my ward. She's only recently graduated from finishing school. I'm afraid all her lessons haven't yet sunk in."

Kit's cheeks burned with mortification, and angry words bubbled inside her. Why was he doing this? He didn't care about soiled frocks and tangled hair. She knew that about him. He loved the outdoors like she did and had little patience for formality.

She fought to hold onto her temper. "I'm afraid you'll have to excuse me from dinner this evening, Mrs. Gamble. I, too, seem to have developed a headache."

"A veritable epidemic." Veronica's voice was softly mocking.

Cain's jaw set stubbornly. "We have a guest. Headache or not, I'll expect you back downstairs in ten minutes."

Kit choked on her rage. "Then I'm afraid you'll be disappointed."

"Don't try to defy me."

"Don't issue orders you can't enforce." Somehow she summoned the self-control riot to run from the room, but once she reached the hallway, she picked up her skirts and fled. As she approached the top of the stairs, she fancied she could hear the sound of Veronica Gamble's laughter coming from behind her.

But Veronica wasn't laughing. Instead, she was studying Cain with great interest and a small measure of sadness. So that was the way it was. Ah, well…

She'd hoped their relationship would move beyond friendship into intimacy. But now she saw it wasn't meant to be, at least in the foreseeable future. She should have known. He was too magnificent a man not to be difficult.

She felt a flash of pity for his ward. For all her extravagant beauty, the young woman didn't yet know her own mind, and she certainly didn't know his. Kit was much too inexperienced to understand why he'd deliberately embarrassed her. But Veronica understood. Cain was attracted to the girl, and he didn't like it. He was fighting his attraction by bringing Veronica here tonight, hoping that seeing the two women side by side would convince him he was drawn to Veronica instead of to Kit. But it wasn't to be.

Cain had won this round. The young woman had barely managed to hold onto her temper. Still, Kit Weston was nobody's fool, and Veronica had a feeling the game was far from over.

She tapped her fingernail on the upholstered arm of the settee and wondered if she should permit Cain to use her as a pawn in the struggle he was waging with himself. It was a foolish question, and it made her smile. Of course she'd permit it.

Life was dull here, and it wasn't in her nature to be jealous of another woman over something as natural as sex. Besides, it was all so deliriously amusing.

"Your ward is high-spirited," she said, just to stir the pot.

"My ward needs to learn submission." He poured a glass of sherry for her and, with an apology, excused himself.

She heard him taking the stairs two a time. The sound excited her. It reminded her of the glorious arguments she and Francis used to have, arguments they sometimes fought with deliriously angry sex. If only she could see what was about to happen in the room upstairs…

She sipped at her sherry, more than prepared to wait them out.

Cain knew he was behaving badly, but he didn't care. For weeks he'd been keeping himself away from her. As far as he could tell, he was the only single man in the community who wasn't jumping to her tune. Now it was time they had a reckoning. He was just sorry Veronica had to be subjected to Kit's rudeness.

And to his own.

But he wouldn't dwell on that. "Open this door."

Even as he rapped the panels with his knuckles, he knew he was making a mistake by coming up here after her. But if he let her defy him now, he'd lose any chance he had of keeping her under control.

He told himself this was for her own good. She was willful and stubborn, a danger to herself. Whether he liked it or not, he was her guardian, which meant he had a responsibility to guide her.

But he didn't feel like a guardian. He felt like a man who was losing a struggle with himself.

"Go away!"

He twisted the knob and let himself in.

She stood by the window, the last of the sunlight casting her exquisite face into shadow. She was a wild, beautiful creature, and she tempted him beyond bearing.

As she turned, he froze in place. She'd been unbuttoning her dress, and the sleeves had fallen down on her shoulders so he could see the soft rounds of her breasts visible above her chemise. His mouth went dry.

She didn't try to clutch the bodice together as a modest young woman should. Instead, she gave him glare for glare. "Get out of my room. You have no right to come charging in here."

He remembered Hamilton Woodward's letter accusing her of seducing his business partner. When Cain had received it, he had no reason not to believe it, but now he knew better. Kit's claim that she'd punched the bastard was undoubtedly true. If only he were as certain that she was turning aside Parsell's advances.

He tore his eyes away. "I'm not going to be disobeyed."

"Then you'd better bark out your orders to someone else."

"Watch it, Kit. I tanned that rump of yours once before, and it won't bother me to do it again."

Instead of backing away, she had the gall to take a step toward him. His hand itched, and he found himself imagining exactly how that backside would feel, bare beneath his palm. Then he imagined sliding his hand around that sweet curve-not to hurt, but to please.

"If you want to see what a knife feels like in your belly, just go ahead and try it, Yankee."

He almost laughed. He outweighed her by nearly a hundred pounds, but the little wildcat still thought she could challenge him.

"You've forgotten something," he said. "You're my ward. I make the decisions and you do as I say. Is that understood?"

"Oh, it's understood, all right, Yankee. It's understood that you're an arrogant ass! Now get out of my room."

As she jabbed her finger toward the door, the strap of her chemise fell over her opposite shoulder. The thin fabric caught at the crest of her breast, clung to that sweet peak for a moment, and then dropped, exposing the dark coral tip.

Kit saw him lower his gaze a moment before she felt the currents of cool air tickling her flesh. She looked down and drew in her breath. She snatched the front of her chemise and pulled it back up.

Cain's eyes turned from slate to pale smoke, and his voice was husky. "I liked it better the other way."

As quickly as that, the battle between them shifted to new ground.

Her fingers grew clumsy on the fabric of her chemise as he came closer. All her survival instincts urged her to run from the room, but the most she could manage was to turn away.

He came up behind her and traced the curve of her neck with his thumb. "You're so damned beautiful." he whispered. He gathered her curls into his hands and gently untangled them from the strap of her chemise.

Her skin prickled. "You shouldn't…"

"I know."

He leaned down and pushed her hair away. His breath feathered the skin at her collarbone.

"I don't-I don't want you to…"

He gently bit the soft flesh at the side of her neck. "Liar," he whispered.

She closed her eyes and let her back rest against his chest. She felt the cool, wet spot on her neck where his tongue had touched her flesh.

His hands moved up over her ribs and then, incredibly, over her breasts. Her skin turned hot and cold at once. She shuddered as he caressed her through her chemise, shuddered at how good it felt and at her insanity in submitting to such an intimacy.

"I've wanted to do this ever since you got back," he whispered.

She made a soft, helpless sound when he slipped his hands inside her dress, inside her chemise… and touched her.

Nothing had ever felt as good as those callused palms on her breasts. She arched against him. He brushed the tips and she moaned.

A knock sounded at the door.

She sucked in her breath and jerked away, scrambling to pull up her bodice.

"Who is it?" Cain barked out impatiently.

The door flew back on its hinges.

Sophronia stood on the other side, two pale smudges of alarm over her cheekbones. "What are you doing in her room?"

Cain's eyebrow slashed upward. "That's between Kit and me."

Sophronia's amber eyes took in Kit's disheveled state, and her hands knotted into fists in the skirt of her dress. She bit into her bottom lip as if she were trying to hold back all the words she didn't dare say in front of him. "Mr. Parsell is downstairs," she finally managed. The fabric of her skirt crumpled in her fists. "He has a book to lend you. I put him in the sitting room with Mrs. Gamble."

Kit's own fingers were stiff from the tight grip she had on her bodice. Slowly she relaxed them and nodded to Sophronia. Then she addressed Cain with as much composure as she could muster. "Would you invite Mr. Parsell to join us for dinner? Sophronia can help me finish dressing. I'll be downstairs in a few minutes."

Their eyes locked, stormy violet clashing with the gray of winter sleet. Who was the winner and who the loser in the battle that had just been fought between them? Neither of them knew. There was no resolution, no healing catharsis. Instead, their antagonism crackled even more powerfully than it had before.

Cain left without a word, but his expression clearly indicated it wasn't over between them.

"Don't say a word!" Kit began peeling off her dress, tearing a seam in her clumsiness. How could she have let him touch her like that? Why hadn't she pushed him away? "I need the gown in the back of my wardrobe. It's covered in muslin."

Sophronia didn't move, so Kit pulled it from the wardrobe herself and tossed it on the bed.

"What's happened to you?" Sophronia hissed. "The Kit Weston I used to know wouldn't lock herself in a bedroom with a man who's not her husband."

Kit turned on her. "I didn't invite him!"

"I'll bet you didn't tell him to leave, either."

"You're wrong. He was angry with me because he wanted me to have dinner downstairs with Mrs. Gamble, and I refused."

Sophronia jabbed her finger toward the gown on the bed. "Then why do you want that?"

"Brandon's here, so I've changed my mind."

"Is that why you're getting dressed up? For Mr. Parsell?"

Sophronia's question took her aback. Whom was she getting dressed up for? "Of course it's for Brandon And for Mrs. Gamble. I don't want to look like a country bumpkin in front of her."

Sophronia stiff features softened almost imperceptibly. "You can lie to me, Kit Weston, but just don't lie to yourself. You'd better make certain you're not doing this for the major."

"Don't be ridiculous."

"Leave him to Mrs. Gamble, honey." Sophronia walked over to the bed and pulled the muslin off the gown. At the same time, she repeated the words Magnus had said to her only a few weeks earlier. "He's a hard man with women. There's something as cold as ice inside him. Any woman who tries to get past that ice will only end up with a bad case of frostbite." She settled the gown over Kit's head.

"You don't need to tell me all this."

"When the major looks at a beautiful woman, all he sees is a body to bring him pleasure. If a woman understands that about him, like I expect Mrs. Gamble does, she can enjoy herself and there won't be any hard feelings afterward. But any woman who's fool enough to fall in love with him is only going to end up with a broken heart."

"This has nothing to do with me."

"Doesn't it?" Sophronia did up the fastenings. "The reason the two of you fight so much is because you're just alike."

"I'm not anything like him! You know better than anyone how much I hate him. He's standing in the way of everything I want from life. Risen Glory's mine. It's where I belong. I'll die before I let him keep it. I'm going to marry Brandon Parsell, Sophronia. And as soon as I can, I'm buying this plantation back."

Sophronia took a brush to her tangles. "And what makes you think the major will sell it to you?"

"Oh, he'll sell, all right. It's just a matter of time."

Sophronia began to draw her hair into a neat knot, but Kit shook her head. She'd wear it free tonight, with only the silver combs. Everything about her must be as different from Veronica Gamble as possible.

"You got no way of knowing he'll sell," Sophronia said.

Kit wasn't about to confess her late-night forages through the plantation's calf-bound ledgers, adding and subtracting her way through pages of boldly entered figures. It hadn't taken her long to discover that Cain had overextended himself. He was hanging onto Risen Glory and his spinning mill by the most fragile of threads. The smallest disaster could send him under.

Kit didn't know much about spinning mills, but she did know about cotton. She knew about unexpected hailstorms, about hurricanes and droughts, about insects that fed off the tender bolls until nothing was left. Where cotton was concerned, disaster was bound to strike sooner or later, and when it did, she'd be ready. She'd buy the plantation right out from under him. And she'd buy it at her own price.

Sophronia was staring at her and shaking her head.

"What's wrong?"

"Are you really wearing that dress downstairs for dinner?"

"Isn't it wonderful?"

"It's made for a ball, not for dinner at home."

Kit smiled. "I know."

The gown had been so outrageously expensive that Elsbeth had protested. She'd argued that Kit could put her clothing allowance to better use buying several more modest gowns. Besides, it was too conspicuous, she'd said, so extravagantly beautiful that, even on the most demure female-which Kit certainly was not-it would draw more attention than, perhaps, a well-brought-up young lady should wish to attract.

Such subtleties were lost on Kit. She only knew that it was glorious and she had to have it.

The overskirt of the dress was a billowing cloud of silver organdy caught up over gleaming white satin shot with silver thread. Crystal bugle beads covered the tight-fitting bodice, sparkling like night snow under a starry winter sky. More beads spangled the skirt all the way to the hem.

The neckline was low, falling well off her shoulders. She glanced down and saw that the tops of her exposed breasts were still faintly rosy from Cain's hands. She quickly looked away and put on the necklace that went with the gown, a choker of crystal bugle beads drizzling onto her skin like melting ice chips.

The very air around her seemed to crackle as she moved. She slipped on satin slippers with spool-shaped heels, the ones she'd worn at the Templeton ball. They were eggshell instead of the stark white of the gown, but she didn't care.

"Don't worry, Sophronia. Everything's going to be fine." She gave Sophronia a quick peck on the cheek and made her way downstairs, the gown shimmering around her in a crystalline cloud of ice and snow.

Veronica Gamble's smooth forehead betrayed nothing of her thoughts as Kit swept into the sitting room.

So the little kitten had decided to fight. She wasn't surprised.

The gown was outrageously inappropriate for the occasion and quite wonderful. Its remote ice-maiden perfection served as a perfect foil for the girl's vivid beauty. Mr. Parsell, who'd so blatantly wrangled a dinner invitation, seemed stunned by her appearance. Baron looked like a thundercloud.

The poor man. He would have done better to have left her in that dirty dress.

Veronica wondered what had happened between the two of them in the room upstairs. Kit's face was flushed, and Veronica's observant eyes caught a small red mark on her neck. They hadn't made love, that was certain. Cain was still as tightly coiled as a jungle beast about to spring.

Veronica sat on Cain's right during dinner, with Kit at the foot of the table and Brandon next to her. The meal was delicious: fragrant jambalaya accompanied by oyster patties smothered in a cucumber-curry sauce, green peas flavored with mint, beaten biscuits, and, for dessert, rich slabs of cherry pie. Veronica was certain she was the only one who noticed the food.

She was excessively attentive to Baron throughout the meal. She leaned close to him and told him her most amusing stories. She laid her fingers lightly on his sleeve and occasionally squeezed his hard-muscled arm with deliberate intimacy.

He gave her his total attention. If she hadn't known better, she would have believed he didn't notice the subdued laughter coming from the other end of the table.

After dinner, Cain suggested the men take their brandy in the sitting room with the women instead of remaining at the dinner table. Brandon agreed with more eagerness than was polite. Throughout the meal.

Cain had barely been able to conceal his boredom with Brandon's stuffiness, while Brandon couldn't quite hide his contempt for Cain.

In the sitting room, Veronica deliberately took a place on the settee next to Kit, even though she knew the girl had taken a dislike to her. Yet Kit was courteous and thoroughly entertaining once they began to talk. She was exceptionally well read for a young woman, and when Veronica suggested that Kit borrow her copy of a scandalous new book by Gustave Flaubert that she'd just finished reading, Brandon sent her a thunderous look of disapproval.

"You don't approve of Kit reading Madame Bovary, Mr. Parsell? Then perhaps we'd better leave it on my shelf for the time being."

Cain regarded Brandon with amusement. "I'm sure Mr. Parsell isn't so stodgy as to object to an intelligent young woman improving her mind. Or are you, Parsell?"

"Of course he's not," Kit said too quickly. "Mr. Parsell is one of the most progressive men I know."

Veronica smiled. A most entertaining evening, indeed.

Cain crossed the hall and let himself into the library. Without bothering to light the lamp on his desk, he pulled off his coat and opened the window. The guests had left some time ago, and Kit had excused herself immediately afterward. Cain had to get up at dawn tomorrow, and he knew he should go to bed, but too many old memories had come back to nag at him tonight.

He gazed out into the darkness with unseeing eyes. Gradually the nighttime rasp of crickets and the soft, wheezy cry of a distant barn owl became less real than the bitter voices of the past.

His father, Nathaniel Cain, was the only son of a wealthy Philadelphia merchant. He lived in the same brownstone mansion in which he'd been born and was a competent, if unexceptional, businessman. He was nearly thirty-five when he married sixteen-year-old Rosemary Simpson. She was too young, but her parents had been anxious to rid themselves of their troublesome daughter, especially to such a well-heeled bachelor.

From the beginning, it was a marriage made in hell. She hated her pregnancy, had no interest in the son who was born exactly nine months after her wedding night, and grew to regard her adoring husband with contempt. Over the years she embarrassed him in public and cuckolded him in private, but he never stopped loving her.

He blamed himself for her restlessness. If only he hadn't forced a child on her so soon, she might have been more content. As time passed, however, he ceased blaming himself for her misdeeds and blamed only the child.

It took her nearly ten years to run through his fortune. She left him for a man who had been one of his employees.

Baron had observed it all, a bewildered, lonely child. In the months after his mother's departure, he stood by helplessly, watching his father being consumed by his unhealthy obsession for his faithless wife. Filthy, unshaven, drowning in alcohol, Nathaniel Cain sealed himself inside the lonely, decaying mansion and constructed elaborate fantasies of everything his wife had not been.

Only once had the boy rebelled. In a fit of anger, he'd spewed out all his resentment against the mother who'd abandoned them both. Nathaniel Cain had beaten him until his nose streamed with blood and his eyes had swollen shut. Afterward, he didn't seem to remember what had happened.

The lesson Cain had learned from his parents had been a hard one, and he'd never forgotten it. He'd learned that love was a weakness that twists and perverts.

Hard-earned lessons were the best-remembered. He gave away books when he finished them, traded horses before he could grow too fond of them, and stood by the window of the library at Risen Glory staring out at the hot, still night thinking about his father, his mother… and Kit Weston.

He found little comfort in the fact that so many of the emotions she aroused in him were angry ones. It bothered him that she made him feel anything at all. But since the afternoon she'd invaded his house, veiled, mysterious, and wildly beautiful, he hadn't been able to get her off his mind. And today, when he'd touched her breasts, he'd known there'd never been a woman he'd wanted more.

He glanced over at his desk. His papers didn't seem to have been disturbed tonight, so she hadn't slipped in when he'd gone out to the stable to check on the horses. He probably should have locked up the ledgers and bankbooks after he'd found evidence of her snooping, but he'd felt a perverse sense of satisfaction in witnessing her dishonesty.

Her month was almost up. If tonight was any indication, she'd be marrying that idiot Parsell soon. Before that happened, he had to find a way to free himself from the mysterious hold she had on him.

If only he knew how.

He heard a soft sound in the hallway. She was roaming again, and tonight he was in no mood for it. He stalked across the carpet and twisted the doorknob.

Kit spun around as the library door crashed open. Cain stood on the other side. He looked rough, elegant, and thoroughly untamed.

She wore only a thin nightdress. It covered her from neck to toe, but after what had passed between them in her bedroom earlier, she felt too exposed.

"Insomnia?" he drawled.

Her bare feet and unbound hair made her feel like a hoyden, especially after spending the evening with Veronica Gamble. She wished she'd at least put on her slippers before she'd come downstairs "I-I didn't eat much at dinner. I was hungry, and I wanted to see if there was any cherry pie left."

"I wouldn't mind a piece myself. We'll look together." Even though he spoke casually, she sensed something calculating in his expression, and she wished she could keep him from following her to the kitchen. She should have stayed in her room, but she'd barely eaten anything for dinner, and she'd hoped a late-night snack would fill her stomach enough so she could sleep.

Patsy, the cook, had left the pie under a towel on the table. Kit cut a small piece she no longer wanted for herself, then handed Cain the pie plate. He grabbed a fork and carried everything over to the kitchen door. As she sat at the table, he opened it to let in the night air, then leaned against the doorframe to eat.

After only a few bites, he set aside the pie. "Why are you wasting your time with Parsell, Kit? He's a stiff."

"I knew you'd say something unpleasant about him." She jabbed her fork at the crust. "You were barely civil all evening."

"While you, of course, were a model of courtesy to Mrs. Gamble."

Kit didn't want to talk about Veronica Gamble. The woman confused her. Kit disliked her, yet she was also drawn to her. Veronica had traveled everywhere, read everything, and met fascinating people. Kit could have talked to her for hours.

She felt the same kind of confusion when she was with Cain.

She toyed with one of the cherries. "I've known Mr. Parsell since I was a child. He's a fine man."

"Too fine for you. And I mean that as a compliment, so pull in your claws."

"Must be one of those Yankee compliments."

He moved away from the door, and the walls of the kitchen seemed as if they were closing in on her. "Do you really think that man would ever let you ride a horse in britches? Or trounce through the woods in your skirts? Do you think he'll let you curl up on the sofa with Sophronia's head in your lap, or show Samuel how to shoot marbles, or flirt with every man you see?"

"Once I marry Brandon, I won't flirt with anyone."

"Flirting's in your nature, Kit. Sometimes I don't even think you know you're doing it. I've been told that Southern women acquire the knack in the womb, and you don't seem to be any exception."

"Thank you."

"That wasn't a compliment. You need to look elsewhere for a husband."

"Strange. I don't remember asking your opinion."

"No, but your future bridegroom will have to ask for my permission-that is, if you want to see the money in your trust."

Kit's heart skipped a beat. The stubborn set of Cain's jaw frightened her. "That's only a formality. You'll give your permission to whomever I choose."

"Will I?"

The pie clotted in Kit's stomach. "Don't toy with me about this. When Mr. Parsell asks permission to marry me, you'll grant it."

"I can't fulfill my responsibility as your guardian if I believe you're making a mistake."

She shot to her feet. "Were you fulfilling your responsibility this evening in my room when you… when you touched me?"

A sizzle of electricity coursed between them.

He looked down, then slowly shook his head. "No. No, I wasn't."

The memory of his hands on her breasts was too recent, and she wished she hadn't brought it up. She turned away. "Where Brandon's concerned, I know my mind."

"He doesn't care about you. He doesn't even like you very much."

"You're wrong."

"He desires you, but he doesn't approve of you. Ready cash is hard to come by in the South. What he wants is your trust fund."

"That's not true." She knew Cain was right, but she denied it. She had to make certain he wouldn't stand in the way of her marriage.

"Marrying that stiff-necked bastard would be the biggest mistake of your life," he said finally, "and I'm not going to be part of it."

"Don't say that!"

But as she stared at that implacable face, she felt Risen Glory slipping away from her. The panic that had been nibbling at her all evening clamped down hard. Her plan… her dreams. Everything was slipping away. She couldn't let him do this. "You have to let him marry me. You don't have any choice."

"I sure as hell do."

She heard her voice coming from far away, almost as if it didn't belong to her. "I didn't want to tell you this, but…" She licked her dry lips. "The relationship between Mr. Parsell and myself has progressed… too far. There must be a wedding."

Everything went stilt between them. She watched as he took in her meaning. The planes of his face grew hard and unrelenting. "You've given him your virginity."

Kit managed a slow, unsteady nod.

Cain heard a noise roaring inside his head. A great internal how! of outrage It echoed in his brain, clawed at his skin. At that moment he hated her. Hated her for not being what he'd believed-wild and pure. Pure for him.

The nearly forgotten echo of his mother's scathing laughter rattled in his head as he fled the stifling confines of the kitchen and stormed outside.

12

Magnus drove the buggy home from church with Sophronia at his side and Samuel, Lucy, and Patsy in the back. When they'd first left church, he'd tried to make conversation with Sophronia, but she'd been brusque, and he'd soon given up. Kit's return had upset her, although he didn't understand why. There was something strange about that relationship.

Magnus looked over at her. She sat at his side like a beautiful statue. He was tired of all the mysteries surrounding her. Tired of his love for her, a love that was bringing him more misery than happiness. He thought of Deborah Williams, the daughter of one of the men working on the cotton mill. Deborah had made it clear that she wanted Magnus's attention.

Damn it! He was ready to settle down. The war was behind him, and he had a good job. Risen Glory's small, neat overseer's house situated at the edge of the orchard pleased him. His days of hard drinking and easy women were over. He wanted a wife and children. Deborah Watson was pretty. Sweet-natured, too, unlike the vinegar-tongued Sophronia. She'd make a good wife for him. But instead of cheering him up, the idea made him feel even more unhappy.

Sophronia didn't smile at him often, but when she did, it was like a rainbow unfolding. She read newspapers and books, and she understood things in a way that Deborah never could. Most of all, he'd never heard Deborah sing when she was going about her work the way Sophronia did.

He noticed a crimson-and-black buggy coming toward them. It was too new to belong to any of the locals. Probably a Northerner's. A carpetbagger, most likely.

Sophronia straightened, and he looked more closely at the vehicle. As it drew nearer, he recognized the driver as James Spence, the owner of the new phosphate mine. Magnus hadn't had any contact with the man, but from what he'd heard, he was a good businessman. He paid an honest day's wage and didn't cheat his customers. Still, Magnus didn't like him, probably because Sophronia so obviously did.

Magnus saw? that Spence was a good-looking man. He tipped a biscuit-colored beaver hat, revealing a thick head of black hair, parted neatly in the center, and a set of trim side whiskers. "Good morning, Sophronia," he called out. "Nice day, isn't it?" He didn't even glance at the other occupants.

"Mornin', Mr. Spence," Sophronia replied with a sassy smile that set Magnus's teeth on edge and made him want to shake her.

Spence replaced his hat, the buggy passed, and Magnus remembered this wasn't the first time Spence had shown an interest in Sophronia. He'd seen the two of them talking when he'd driven her into Rutherford to shop.

His hands tightened involuntarily on the reins. It was time they talked.

The opportunity came late that afternoon, when he was sitting with Merlin on the front porch of his house, enjoying his day of leisure. A flicker of blue in the orchard caught his attention. Sophronia, in a pretty blue dress, was walking through the cherry trees, gazing up into the branches and probably trying to decide whether there was enough fruit left to justify another picking.

He rose and sauntered down the steps. Stuffing his hands into his pockets, he ambled into the orchard. "Looks like you might as well let the birds enjoy those cherries," he said when he reached her.

She hadn't heard him come up behind her, and she whirled around. "What do you mean, sneakin' up on me like that?"

"Wasn't sneakin'. I guess I'm just naturally light on my feet."

But Sophronia refused to respond to his bantering. "Go away. I don't want to talk to you."

"That's too bad, because I'm talkin' to you anyway."

She turned her back to him and began to walk toward the house. With a few quick steps, he planted himself in front of her. "We can talk here in the orchard"-he kept his voice as pleasant as could be-"or you can take my arm, and we'll walk over there to my house, and you can sit in that big ol' rockin' chair on my front porch while I say what I have to say."

"Let me by."

"You want to talk here? That's fine with me." He took her by the arm and steered her toward the gnarled trunk of the apple tree behind her, using his body to block any chance she had of sliding past him.

"You're makin' a fool of yourself, Magnus Owen." Her eyes burned with bright, golden fires. "Most men would've taken the hint by now. I don't like you. When are you goin' to get that through your thick skull? Don't you have any pride? Doesn't it bother you to be chasin' after a woman who doesn't care anything about you? Don't you know that half the time I'm laughin' at you behind your back?"

Magnus flinched, but he didn't move away. "You just go ahead and laugh at me all you want My feelin's for you are honest, and I'm not ashamed of them." He rested the heel of his hand on the trunk near her head. "Besides, you're the one should be ashamed. You sat üi church this mornin' cryin' out praises to Jesus, and then you walked out the door, and the first thing you did was make eyes at James Spence."

"Don't you judge me, Magnus Owen."

"That Northerner may be rich and good-lookin', but he's not your kind. When are you goin' stop fightin' what you are?"

Magnus's words made Sophronia ache, but not for anything would she let him see that. Instead, she tilted her head provocatively and rested it against the tree trunk. At the same time, she pushed her breasts ever so slightly forward.

A stab of triumph shot through her at his quick intake of breath and the way his eyes drank her in. It was time she punished him for trying to interfere with her life, and she was going to punish him in the way that would hurt the most. A little ache spread inside her at the thought of causing him pain. The same ache she felt whenever he looked at her, spoke to her, or turned those soft dark eyes in her direction. She fought her weakness.

"You jealous, Magnus?" She placed her hand on his arm and kneaded the warm, hard flesh beneath his sleeve. Touching a man usually gave her an ugly clawing feeling inside, especially if it was a white man she had to touch, but this was only Magnus, and he didn't scare her a bit. "You wishin' it was you instead of him I was smilin' at? Is that what's botherin' you, Mistuh Overseer?"

"What's bothering me is watching all those wars goin' on inside you and not being able to do anythin' about it," he said huskily.

"There aren't any wars goin' on inside me."

"There's no reason to lie to me. Don't you understand? Lyin' to me is just like lyin' to yourself."

His gentle words cracked the chrysalis of her self-protection. He saw it happening just as he could see through the sham of her seduction to the vulnerability behind it. He saw it all, and he still knew he had to kiss her. He damned himself as a fool for not having done it sooner.

Slowly, ever so slowly, he lowered his head, determined not to frighten her, just as determined to have what he wanted.

The knowledge of what was to come flickered in her golden eyes. He saw a tremor of uneasiness, a hint of defiance.

He came nearer, then paused at the point of illusion, where his lips first sensed the warmth of hers. Instead of touching them, he feathered her skin with his warm breath.

She waited, whether as a challenge or in resignation, he didn't know.

Slowly, the illusion became reality. His lips brushed hers. Tenderly, he kissed her, yearning to heal with his mouth her hidden wounds, to destroy devils, tame demons, and show her a gentle world of love and softness where evil didn't exist. A world where tomorrow held laughter and hope that knew no color. A world where forever lived inside two loving hearts wedded in joy as one.

Sophronia's lips trembled under his. She felt like a trapped bird, frightened yet somehow knowing her captor wouldn't harm her. Slowly his healing magic seeped through her pores like warm summer sun.

He gently lifted her away from the tree and enfolded her in his arms. The maleness that had frightened her for so long didn't seem terrifying now. How soft his mouth was Soft and clean.

Much too soon, he drew away from her. Her mouth felt abandoned, her skin cold despite the heat of the June afternoon. It was a mistake to meet his eyes, but she did it anyway.

She drew a deep, shattering breath at the love and tenderness she saw there. "Leave me alone," she whispered. "Please, leave me alone."

And then she fled, tearing across the orchard as if an army of devils were at her heels. But all the devils were inside her, and she couldn't outrun a single one of them.

Kit had forgotten how hot it could be in South Carolina, even in June. Heat haze shimmered in the air above the cotton fields, which were covered now with creamy white four-petal blossoms. Even Merlin had deserted her this afternoon, preferring to nap in the shadow's of the hydrangeas that grew near the kitchen door.

Kit should have done the same thing. Her bedroom was shuttered like the rest of the house to keep out the afternoon heat, but she hadn't been able to rest there. Two days had passed since the Saturday night dinner party, but her encounter with Cain kept coming back to her.

She hated the lie she'd told him, but even now she couldn't think of anything else she might have said that would have guaranteed he'd give the permission she needed to marry. As for Brandon… She'd received a note asking her to accompany him to the Wednesday evening church social, and she was reasonably certain he'd propose to her then. No wonder she was in a fitful mood. Impulsively she turned Temptation into the trees.

The pond lay like a small, glimmering jewel in the center of the woods, where it was safely tucked away from the bustle of the plantation. It had always been one of her favorite places. Even on the hottest August days, its spring-fed water was cold and clear, and the thick barrier of trees and underbrush acted like a fence around it. The spot was quiet and private, perfect for secret thoughts.

She led Temptation to the water's edge so he could drink his fill, then wandered around the pond's perimeter. The willows there had always reminded her of women who'd tossed their hair forward over their heads and let the ends dip into the water. She tugged at a switch and stripped the leaves into neat stacks in her fingers.

The lure of the water was irresistible. The workers never came near here, and Cain and Magnus had gone into town, so no one could disturb her. She threw her hat aside and tugged at her boots, then tossed off the rest of her clothes. When she was naked, she made a shallow dive from a rock at the edge and cut into the water like a silverfish. She came to the surface gasping at the cold, laughed, and dived under again.

Eventually she settled onto her back and let her hair unfold like a fan around her head. As she floated, she closed her eyes against the flaming copper ball of sun balanced on the treetops. She felt suspended in time, part of the water, the air, the land. The sun touched the hills of her body. The water lapped at the valleys. She felt almost content.

A bullfrog croaked. She rolled onto her stomach and swam in lazy circles. When she began to feel chilled, she headed into the shallower water at the edge and lowered her feet to the sandy bottom.

Just as she was about to step out, she heard Temptation nicker. From the border of the woods came the answering whistle of another horse. With a curse, she scrambled up the bank and dashed toward her clothes. There was no time for undergarments. She grabbed her khaki breeches and tugged them on over her dripping legs.

She heard the horse coming closer. Her fingers were too stiff from the chilly water to allow her to manage the buttons. She snatched up her shirt and shoved her wet arms into the sleeves. She was fumbling with the button between her breasts when the chestnut gelding broke through the line of trees, and Baron Cain invaded her private world.

He reined in near the spot where her undergarments still lay. Loosely crossing his hands on the pommel of the saddle, he looked down at her from the great height of Vandal's back. His eyes were shaded by the brim of his tan hat, leaving their expression unfathomable. His mouth was unsmiling.

She stood frozen. Her wetly translucent shirt revealed every inch of the skin it clung to. She might as well have been naked.

Cain slowly swung his leg over the saddle and dropped to the ground. While she struggled with the buttons on her breeches, she thought how wrong it was for such a large man to move so quietly.

His boots were dusty, and he wore his fawn trousers low on his narrow hips. His pale butternut shirt was open at the throat. His eyes remained shadowed under his hat brim, and not being able to see their expression made her even more uneasy.

As if he were reading her mind, he dropped the hat to the ground, where it landed next to her undergarments. She wished he'd left it on. The scorching heat in those gray eyes was threatening and dangerous.

"I-I thought you were going into town with Magnus."

"I was. Until I saw you heading out on Temptation."

"You knew i was here?"

"I would have shown up earlier, but I wanted to make sure we wouldn't be interrupted."

"Interrupted?" The button on her breeches refused to behave beneath her fingers. "What difference would that make?"

"Don't bother fastening it," he said quietly. "It's just going to come back off again." Mesmerized, she watched him lift his hands and slowly unbutton his own shirt.

"Don't do that." Her voice sounded breathless, even to her own ears.

He tugged his shirt free of the waistband of his trousers, then stripped it off and let it fall to the ground.

Oh, she knew what he was doing… She knew, but she didn't know… "Sophronia's going to be expecting me," she said in a rush. "If I'm not back soon, she'll send somebody to look for me."

"Nobody's coming after you, Kit. I told them you wouldn't be back until late. We have all the time in the world."

"We have no time. I have… I have to go." But she didn't move. She couldn't.

He came closer, exploring her with his eyes. She felt him take in all the curves that her wet clothing outlined with such scrupulous attention to detail.

"Do you still want me to turn you over to Parsell?" he asked.

No! "Yes. Yes, of course I do."

"Then I will." His voice grew husky and seductive. "But first we have something to settle between us."

She shook her head, but she didn't try to back away. Instead, she heard herself say inanely, "This isn't proper."

"Most improper." His smile held a gentle note of mockery. "And neither of us cares."

"I care," she said breathlessly.

"Then why don't you climb up on Temptation right now and ride away?"

"I will." But she didn't move. She simply stood there and gazed at the muscles of his bare chest burnished by the late-afternoon light.

Their eyes locked, and he drew nearer. Even before he touched her, she felt the heat of his skin.

"We both know this has been between us ever since the day you came here. It's time we put an end to it so we can get on with the rest of our lives."

Temptation whickered.

He brushed her cheek with his finger and spoke softly. "I'm going to have you now, Kit Weston."

His head dipped so slowly that he might have been moving in a dream. His lips touched her eyelids and closed each one with a soft, quieting kiss. She felt his breath on her cheek, and then his open mouth, like a warm cave, settled over hers.

The tip of his tongue gently played with her lips. It slid along them and tried to coax away the uncertainty that held them shut. Her breasts had been so cold. Now they crushed against the hard warmth of his bare chest. With a moan, she opened her mouth and let him in.

He explored every part of the velvet interior that she made so freely accessible. His tongue touched hers. Gradually, he coaxed her into his mouth until she finally took what he offered her.

Now she become the aggressor. She entwined her arms around his neck. Tasted. Invaded.

He made a muffled sound deep in his throat. She felt his hand slide between their bodies. He pushed aside the open V of her britches and flattened his palm on her stomach.

The intimacy inflamed her. She dug her fingers into his thick, tawny hair. He pushed his hand beneath her shirt and found her breast. As his thumb circled the small, tight bud at the center, she pulled her mouth away with a smothered cry. Would she go to hell for this? What she was letting him do… This man wasn't her husband but her dearest enemy.

She felt herself falling and realized he was taking her to the ground with him. He cushioned their landing, then rolled her onto her back.

The earth was soft and mossy beneath her. He tugged at the button between her breasts, pushed aside the wet fabric, and exposed her breasts.

"You're so beautiful," he said huskily. He lifted his gaze to her face. "So perfect. Wild and free." Locking his eyes with hers, he covered her nipples with his thumbs and began making a series of small circles.

She bit her lip to keep from crying out. The frenzied sensations spiraled inside her, growing hotter and wilder.

"Go ahead," he whispered. "Let yourself feel."

The sound she made came from a place deep inside her.

His smile was smoky and full of satisfaction. He kissed the hollow of her throat, then the nipples he was torturing so expertly with his fingers.

Fiery pinwheels whirled behind her eyes as he suckled her. Just when she knew she could bear it no longer, his mouth trailed to the patch of flat, smooth stomach exposed by the open V of her britches. He kissed her there, then drew them down over her hips.

Finally she lay beneath him, naked except for her open white shirt.

Every nerve in her body quivered. She was frightened. Ecstatic. Noises played inside her head.

"Open for me, sweet."

His hands guided her… pushing… separating… Oh, yes…

Feathers of air touched her intimately. Her thighs were spread. She was open to his gaze, and the first trickle of apprehension hit her. Eve's Shame. Now he would do to her this momentous, awful thing that men did to women.

There's pain… There's blood…

But this wasn't pain. He brushed the curls between her thighs, and it felt more wonderful than anything she'd ever imagined.

His breathing grew heavy in her ear, and the muscles in his shoulders quivered beneath her palms. Her apprehension returned. He was so powerful, and she was defenseless. He could tear her apart. Yet she lay here.

"Wait," she whispered.

His head came up, his eyes darkly glazed.

"I shouldn't be… I need…"

"What's wrong?"

Her fear of him evaporated, but not her anxiety. So much was wrong, and right then, she knew she had to tell him. "It wasn't true," she managed. "What I told you. I've-I've never been with a man."

His brow clouded. "I don't believe you. This is another one of your games."

"No…"

"I want the truth."

"I'm telling you the truth."

"There's one way to find out for certain."

She didn't understand, not even when she felt his hand between her thighs. She sucked in her breath as he pushed his finger inside her.

Cain felt her wince, heard her gasp of surprise, and something inside him twisted. The membrane was there, that tenacious survivor of her rough, unruly childhood. Taut as a drumhead, strong as she was strong, it protected her even as it damned him.

His vulnerability frightened him, and he hated that. He sprang to his feet and cried out, "Isn't there anything about you that's what it should be?"

She stared up at him from her bed in the moss. Her legs were still parted. Long and slender, they held the secrets she'd shared with no man. Even as he grabbed his shirt and hat, he wanted her with a ferocity that made him shake, and pain he refused to acknowledge consumed him.

He stalked across the patch of grass to the place where his horse was tied. Before he mounted, he washed all feeling from his face and turned to inflict some of his own torment on her. But he couldn't think of words cruel enough.

"This isn't over between us yet."

13

Brandon proposed to her at the Wednesday night church social. She accepted his offer of marriage, but, pleading a headache, declined his invitation for a walk around the church grounds. He pressed a kiss to her cheek, took her back to Miss Dolly, and told her he would be calling at Risen Glory later the next afternoon to secure Cain's permission.

Kit hadn't lied about having a headache. She was barely sleeping, and when she did sleep, she'd jolt awake to the memory of the strange, tortured expression she'd glimpsed on Cain's face when he'd discovered she still was a virgin.

Why had she allowed him to touch her like that? If it had been Brandon, she could have rationalized it. But Cain… Once again she was plagued with the notion that there was something very wrong with her.

The next afternoon, she rode Temptation hard and then changed into an old dress and took a long walk with Merlin. When she returned, she met Brandon coming down the front steps.

Ridges of disapproval engraved themselves between his eyes. "I hope no one's seen you in that dress."

She felt a spark of irritation, then put the blame on herself, where it belonged. She'd known he was coming this afternoon, but she hadn't thought to save time to change. She really was hopeless. "I was walking in the woods. Have you spoken with Cain?"

"No. Lucy said he's in the paddock. I'll speak with him there."

Kit nodded and watched him walk away. Her stomach pitched with anxiety. She had to find something to do or she'd go crazy. She made her way to the kitchen, where she greeted Patsy, then began mixing ingredients for a batch of Miss Dolly's favorite beaten biscuits.

Sophronia came in while she was working and watched with a frown as she banged the wooden mallet at the dough. "I'm glad I'm not those biscuits. For somebody who's supposed to be getting married soon, you don't look too happy about it."

Somehow they all knew what was happening. Even Lucy had found an excuse to come into the kitchen right behind Sophronia, who took coffee beans from a burlap bag in the pantry and put them in the big wooden grinder.

"Of course I'm happy." Kit took another whack at the dough. "I'm nervous, that's all."

"A bride's got a right to be nervous." Patsy picked up her paring knife and began peeling peaches for a cobbler.

Lucy had stayed by the window, and she saw him first. "Mr. Parsell's comin' back from the paddock."

Kit snatched up a muslin towel and wiped her doughy hands, then ran out the back door and raced toward Brandon, but as she saw his expression, her smile faded. "What's wrong?"

He didn't break his stride. "Cain refused his permission."

Kit felt as if the wind had been knocked out of her.

"He said he didn't think we'd suit each other. It's insufferable. A Parsell being dismissed like that by a Yankee ruffian."

Kit grabbed his arm. "We can't let him get away with this, Brandon. It's too important. I have to get Risen Glory back."

"He's your guardian. I don't see what we can do. He controls your money."

Kit barely noticed that neither of them spoke of love, only the plantation. She was too angered by his resignation. "You may be ready to give up, but I'm not."

"There's nothing more I can do. He's not going to change his mind. We'll just have to accept it."

She wouldn't listen. Instead, she turned away from him and strode determinedly toward the paddock.

Brandon watched her for a moment, then headed for the front of the house and his horse. As he mounted, he wondered if it might not all be for the best. Despite Kit's captivating beauty and her fertile plantation, there was something about her that made him uneasy. Maybe it had to do with the voices of too many of his ancestors whispering to him.

She's not at all the right sort of wife for a Parsell-even a penniless one.

Cain stood at the whitewashed fence, one foot propped on the bottom rail as he stared out at the grazing horses. He didn't bother to turn when Kit charged up behind him, although he would've needed to be deaf not to hear her angry footsteps.

"How could you do this? Why did you refuse Brandon?"

"I don't want you to marry him," Cain replied, not looking at her.

"Is this your punishment for what happened yesterday at the pond?"

"This has nothing to do with yesterday," he said so tonelessly she knew he was lying.

Her rage felt as if it were strangling her. "Damn you, Baron Cain! You're not going to control my life any longer. You send word to Brandon that you've changed your mind, or I swear to God, I'll make you pay!"

She was so small and he so large that her threat should have been ludicrous. But she was deadly serious, and they both knew it.

"Maybe you already have." He headed out across the paddock.

She stumbled toward the orchard, not seeing where she was going, knowing only that she had to be alone. That day at the pond… Why had she told him the truth?

Because if she hadn't, they wouldn't have stopped.

She wanted to believe she could make him change his mind, but she knew as surely as she drew breath that he wouldn't. Her childhood hatred of being born female returnee! in a rush. How she hated being at the mercy of men. Would she now have to drag Bertrand Mayhew here from New York?

The memory of his fussy ways and soft, pudgy body was repulsive to her. Maybe one of the men who had showered attention on her since she'd returned… But Brandon had been the Holy Grail, and choosing any other made her despair.

How could Cain have done this to her?

The question haunted her for the rest of the evening. She refused dinner and sealed herself in her bedroom. Miss Dolly came to the door, and then Sophronia. She sent them both away.

Long after dark, there was a sharp knock from the adjoining sitting room. "Kit, come in here," Cain said. "I want to talk to you."

"Unless you've changed your mind, I don't have anything more to say to you."

"Either you can come in here or I'll join you in your bedroom. Which is it going to be?"

She pressed her eyes shut for a moment. Choices. He presented them to her and then took them away. Slowly she walked to the door and turned the knob.

He stood across the sitting room, a glass of brandy in his hand, his hair rumpled.

"Tell me you've changed your mind," she said.

"You know I haven't."

"Can you even imagine what it's like to have another person control your life?"

"No. That's why I fought for the Union cause. And I'm not trying to control your life, Kit. Despite what you think, I'm trying to do what's right."

"I'm sure that's what you've told yourself."

"You don't want him."

"I have nothing else to say to you."

She turned and headed back to her room, but he caught her in the doorway. "Stop being so stubborn and use your head! He's a weakling, not the kind of man who could ever make you happy. He lives in the past and whines because things aren't the way they used to be. He was born and bred for only one thing, and that's running a plantation on slave labor. He's the past, Kit. You're the future."

There was more truth in what he was saying than she would admit. But Cain didn't know the real reason she wanted to marry Brandon. "He's a fine man, and I would have been privileged to call him my husband."

He gazed down at her. "But would he have made your heart pound the way it did at the pond when I held you in my arms?"

No, Brandon would never have made her heart pound like that, and she'd have been glad of it. What she'd done with Cain made her feel weak. "It was fear that made my heart pound, nothing else."

He turned away. Took a sip of brandy. "This is no good."

"All you had to do was say yes, and you'd have been rid of me."

He lifted his glass and tossed down the rest of his drink. "I'm sending you back to New York. You're leaving on Saturday."

"What?"

Even before Cain turned and saw her stricken expression, he knew he'd driven a knife into her heart.

She was one of the most intelligent women he'd ever known, so why did she have to be so stupid about this? He knew she wouldn't listen to him, but he still tried to think of something he could say that would penetrate her stubborn will and make her see reason, but there was nothing. With a muffled curse, he left the sitting room and headed downstairs.

He sat in the library for some time, his head bowed, a muscle twitching in his cheek. Kit Weston had gotten under his skin, and it scared the hell out of him. All his life he'd watched men make fools of themselves over women, and now he was in danger of doing the same.

It was more than her wild beauty that stirred him, more than the sensuality she hadn't yet entirely claimed. There was something sweet and vulnerable about her that unearthed feelings inside him he hadn't known he possessed. Feelings that made him want to laugh with her instead of snarl, that made him want to make love with her until her face lit up with a joy meant for him alone.

He leaned his head back. He'd told her he was sending her back to New York, but he couldn't do it. Tomorrow he'd tell her. And then he was going to do his best to start over with her. For once in his life, he was going to set his cynicism aside and reach out to a woman.

The thought made him feel young and foolishly happy.

The clock chimed midnight when Kit heard Cain go to his room. On Saturday she would have to leave Risen Glory. It was a blow so devastating, so unexpected, she couldn't comprehend how to deal with it. This time there would be no schemes to sustain her as there'd been during her three years at the Academy. He'd won. He'd finally beaten her.

Rage at her powerlessness overcame her pain. She wanted vengeance. She wanted to destroy something he cared about, to ruin him as he'd just ruined her.

But there was nothing he cared about, not even Risen Glory itself. Hadn't he turned the plantation over to Magnus while he completed his cotton mill?

The mill… She stopped her pacing. The mill was important to him, more important than the plantation, because it was his alone.

Devils of rage and hurt whispered to her what she could do. So simple. So perfect. So very wrong.

But no more wrong than what he'd done to her.

She found the slippers she'd kicked off hours earlier and stole from the room on bare feet. Noiselessly, she crept down the back hallways and staircases of the great house and out through the rear.

The night was clear, with just enough moonlight for her to see where she was going. She put on her slippers and made her way through the fringe of trees that surrounded the yard toward the outbuildings beyond the house.

The storage shed was dark inside. She reached into the pocket of her dress and pulled out the candle stub and matches she'd gathered from the kitchen. Once the candle was lit, she saw what she wanted and picked it up.

Even half full, the kerosene can was heavy. She couldn't risk saddling a horse, so she'd have to carry it on foot for almost two miles. She wrapped a rag around the handle so it wouldn't cut into her palm and let herself out of the shed.

The deep quiet of the Carolina night amplified the sound of the kerosene sloshing in the can as she walked along the dark road that led to the cotton mill. Tears slipped down her cheeks. He knew how she felt about Risen Glory. How he must hate her to banish her from her home.

She loved only three things in her life: Sophronia, Elsbeth, and Risen Glory. Her whole life had been marked by people trying to separate her from that home. What she planned to do was evil, but maybe so was she. Why else would so many people hate her so much? Cain. Her stepmother. Even her father hadn't cared enough to defend her.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. The kerosene sloshing in the can told her to turn back. Instead of listening, she clung to her despair. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. A dream for a dream.

There wasn't anything inside the cotton mill to steal, so the building wasn't locked. She hauled the can to the second floor. With her petticoat, she gathered up the sawdust lying around and piled it at the base of a supporting post. The outer walls were brick, but a fire set here would destroy the roof and the interior walls.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

She wiped her tears on the sleeve of her dress and saturated the area with kerosene. With a sob of agony, she stepped back and threw in a lighted match.

It ignited in a quick, noisy explosion. She stumbled backward toward the stairs. Great tongues of flame lashed at the wooden post. Here was the vengeance that would comfort her when she left Risen Glory.

But the destruction she'd wrought appalled her. This was ugly and hateful. It only proved that she could inflict pain as well as Cain.

She grabbed an empty burlap sack and began beating at the flames, but the fire was burning too fast. A shower of deadly sparks rained on her. Her lungs burned. She stumbled down the stairs, gulping for air. At the bottom, she fell.

Billows of smoke swept down after her. The hem of her muslin dress began to smolder. She smothered out the embers with her hands and crawled to the door.

The great bell at Risen Glory began to ring just as she felt the clean air on her face. She pushed herself up from the ground and stumbled into the trees.

The men had the fire out before it could destroy the mill, but it had damaged the second floor and much of the roof. In the predawn light, Cain stood wearily off to the side, his face streaked with soot, his clothing scorched and smoke-blackened. At his feet lay what was left of a kerosene can.

Magnus came up beside him and silently surveyed the damage. "We were lucky," he finally said. "The rain we had yesterday kept it from spreading too fast."

Cain stabbed at the can with the toe of his boot.

"Another week and we'd have been installing the machinery. The fire would have gotten that, too."

Magnus looked down at the can. "Who do you think did it?"

"I don't know, but I intend to find out." He looked up at the gaping roof. "I'm hardly the most popular man in town, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised that someone decided to get back at me. But why did they wait so long?"

"Hard to say."

"They couldn't have found a better way to hurt me. I sure as hell don't have the money to rebuild."

"Why don't you go back to the house and get some rest? Maybe things'll look better in the morning."

"In a minute. I want to take another look around first. You go ahead."

Magnus squeezed his shoulder and headed for the house.

Twenty minutes later Cain spotted it. He bent down on one knee at the bottom of the burned staircase and picked it up in his fingers.

At first he didn't recognize the piece of tarnished metal. The heat of the fire had melted the prongs together, and the delicate silverwork across the top had folded in on itself. But then, with a sudden wrenching in his gut, he knew it for what it was.

A silver filigree comb. One of a pair that he'd so often seen caught up in a wild tangle of black hair.

The twisting inside him turned to agony. The last time he'd seen her, both combs had been tucked into her hair.

He was crushed by a vise of raw emotion. He, of all men, should have known better than to let down the barriers he'd so carefully erected. As he stared at the misshapen piece of metal in his hand, something tender and fragile shattered inside him like a crystal teardrop. In its place was left cynicism, hatred, and self-loathing. What a weak, stupid fool he'd been.

He stood to pocket the comb, and as he walked out of his ruined mill, his face twisted with a vicious, deadly sense of purpose.

She'd had her revenge. Now it was his turn.

14

It was midafternoon before he found her. She was huddled beneath an old wagon that had been abandoned during the war in some brush at the northern edge of the plantation. He saw the soot streaks on her face and arms, the scorched places on her blue dress. Incredibly, she was asleep. He prodded her hip with the toe of his boot.

Her eyes flew open, but he was standing against the sun, and all she could see was a great menacing shape looming above her. Still, she didn't need to see more to know who he was. She tried to scramble to her feet, but he settled his boot on her skirt, pinning her to the ground.

"You're not going anyplace."

Something dropped in front of her. She looked down to see the melted silver hair comb.

"Next time you decide to burn something down, don't leave a calling card."

Her stomach churned. She managed a hoarse whisper. "Let me explain." It was a stupid thing to say. How could she explain? He already understood too well.

His head shifted slightly, blocking the sun for an instant. She winced as she glimpsed his eyes. They were hard, cold, and empty. Mercifully, he moved and the sun blinded her again.

"Did Parsell help you?"

"No! Brandon wouldn't do such a-" Brandon wouldn't, but she would. She wiped the back of her hand over her dry lips and tried to get up, but he wouldn't move his foot.

"I'm sorry." The words were so inadequate.

"I'm sure you're sorry that the fire didn't get it all."

"No, that's not-Risen Glory is my life." Her throat was raw from the smoke, and she needed water, but first she had to try to explain. "This plantation is all I ever wanted. I… needed to marry Brandon so I'd have control of the money in my trust fund. I was going to use it to buy Risen Glory from you."

"And how were you going to make me sell? Another fire?"

"No. What happened last night… it was…" She tried to breathe. "I saw the ledgers, so I knew you were overextended. All it would have taken was a bad season, and you'd have gone under. I wanted to be ready. I wasn't out to cheat you. I'd have given you a fair price for the land. And I didn't want the mill."

"So that's why you were so determined to get married. I guess even a Parsell isn't above marrying for money."

"It wasn't like that. We're fond of each other. It's just…" Her voice trailed off. What was the use? He was right.

He lifted his foot from her skirt and walked over to Vandal. There was nothing he could do to her that was worse than what he'd already planned. Sending her back to New York would be like dying.

He came toward her again, a canteen in his hand. "Drink."

She took it from him and tilted the rim to her lips. The water was warm and metallic, but she drank her fill. Only when she handed the canteen back did she see what dangled from his fingers.

A long, thin cord.

Before she could move, he caught up her wrists and wrapped the cord around them.

"Baron! Don't do this."

He tied the ends to the axle of the old wagon and headed back to his horse without responding.

"Stop it. What are you doing?"

He vaulted into the saddle and spun the horse out. As suddenly as he had appeared, he was gone.

The afternoon passed with agonizing slowness. He hadn't fastened the cord so tightly that it cut into her wrists, but he'd done the job well enough that she couldn't free herself. Her shoulders ached from the strain of her position. Mosquitoes buzzed around her, and her stomach rumbled with hunger, but the thought of food made her nauseous. She was too filled with self-hatred.

He returned at dusk and dismounted with the slow, easy grace that no longer deceived her. He'd changed into a clean white shirt and fawn trousers, all of it at odds with her filthy condition. He pulled something from his saddlebags and moved toward her, the brim of his tan hat shadowing his face.

For a moment he gazed down; then he squatted beside her. With a few deft motions, the cords she'd struggled to untie came loose. As he released her wrists, she sagged against the wagon wheel.

He tossed her the canteen he'd brought with him, then opened the bundle he'd taken from his saddlebags. Inside was a soft roll, a chunk of cheese, and a slab of cold ham. "Eat," he said roughly.

She shook her head. "I'm not hungry."

"Do it anyway."

Her body had a more pressing demand than food. "I need some privacy."

He pulled a cheroot from his pocket and lit it. The blaze of the match cast a jagged, blood-red shadow across his face. The match went out. There was only the glowing ember at the tip and the ruthless slash of his mouth.

He jerked his head toward a clump of bushes barely six feet away. "Right there. No farther."

It was too close for privacy, but she'd lost the luxury of freedom when she'd piled the sawdust around the supporting post at the mill.

Her legs were stiff. She climbed awkwardly to her feet and stumbled toward the bushes. She prayed he'd move farther away, but he stayed where he was, and she added humiliation to all the other painful emotions she was feeling.

When she was done, she returned to the wagon and the food he'd brought. She had a hard time forcing it down, and she ate slowly. He made no attempt to hurry her, but leaned against the trunk as if he had all the time in the world.

It was dark when she was done. All she could see of him was the massive outline of his body and the burning tip of the cheroot.

He walked toward his horse. The moon came out from behind a cloud and washed them in silver light. It glittered on his brass belt buckle as he turned back to her. "Climb up. You and I have an appointment."

The flat, deadly tone of his voice chilled her. "What kind of appointment?"

"With a minister. We're getting married."

The world came to a thundering stop. "Married! Have you lost your mind?"

"You might say."

"I'd marry the devil first."

"We're one and the same. But then, you'll find that out."

The night was warm, but the cold certainty in his voice made her blood chill.

"You burned down my mill," he said, "and now you're going to pay to rebuild it. Parsell isn't the only one who'll marry you for the money in your trust."

"You're insane. I won't do it."

"You're not going to have any choice. Mount up. Cogdell's waiting for us."

Kit's knees went weak with relief. Reverend Cogdell was a friend. Once she told him what Cain had in mind, he'd never go along with this. She walked over to Vandal and began to mount.

"In front of me," he growled. "I've learned the hard way not to turn my back on you."

He swung her up, then mounted himself. He didn't speak until they'd left the clearing behind. "You'll get no help from Cogdell, if that's what you're hoping. I confirmed all his worst fears, and nothing will keep him from marrying us now."

Her heart skipped a beat. "What fears are you talking about?"

"I told him you were pregnant with my child."

She couldn't believe what she was hearing. "I'll deny it! You'll never get away with this. "

"You can deny it all you want. I already told him you would. I explained everything to him. Since you found out you were pregnant, you haven't been acting rationally. You even tried to kill yourself last night in the fire. That's why I couldn't let you have your way any longer."

"No."

"I told him I'd been begging you for weeks to marry me so our child wouldn't be a bastard, but you wouldn't agree. He said he'd do the job tonight, no matter how much you protested. You can fight all you want, Kit, but in the end it won't do you any good."

"You're not going to get away with this."

There was the barest softening in his voice. "He cares for you, Kit. You'll spare him and yourself a lot of pain if you do what you're told."

"You go to hell!"

"Have it your way."

But even as she cursed him, she knew she'd lost. There was an awful kind of justice in it. She'd done something evil, and now she would pay for it.

Still, she made one last effort when she saw the minister and his wife waiting for them at the old slave church. She pulled away from. Cain and ran to Mary Cogdell.

"Please… What Cain said isn't true. I'm not going to have a baby. We never-"

"There, there, dear. You're upset." Her kind brown eyes clouded with tears as she patted Kit's shoulder. "You need to calm down for the baby's sake."

That was when Kit knew she couldn't escape her fate.

The ceremony was mercifully brief. Afterward, Mary Cogdell kissed her cheek, and the minister urged her to obey her husband in all things. She dully listened to them tell Cain that Miss Dolly had settled in with them for the night, and she understood that Cain had gotten her out of the way.

He led her back outside to Vandal, and they set off for Risen Glory. The closer they got, the more her panic grew. What would he do to her when they were alone?

They reached the house. Cain dismounted and handed Vandal over to Samuel. Then he clasped Kit around the waist and lifted her to the ground. For a moment her knees threatened to buckle, and he steadied her. She recovered and pulled away.

"You have my money," she said as Samuel disappeared. "Leave me alone."

"And deny myself the pleasure of our wedding night? I don't think so."

Her stomach constricted. "There's not going to be a wedding night."

"We're married, Kit. And tonight I'm going to bed you."

Eve's Shame. If she hadn't been so exhausted, she might have argued with him, but she had no words left. All she could think about was running.

Lights shone in the darkness from Magnus's house at the edge of the orchard. She picked up her skirts and began to run toward it.

"Kit! Come back here!"

She ran faster. Trying to outrace him. Trying to out-race her own vindictiveness.

"Magnus!" she screamed.

"Kit, stop! It's dark. You're going to hurt yourself."

She raced into the orchard, jumping over the jutting roots that were as familiar to her as her own palm. Behind her, he cursed as he tripped over one of those same roots. Nevertheless, he gained on her.

"Magnus!" Again she screamed.

And then it was all over. From the corner of her eye she saw Cain hurl himself through the air. He tackled her from behind.

She cried out as they both fell to the ground.

He pinioned her with his body.

She lifted her head and sank her teeth into the muscled flesh of his shoulder.

"Damn it!" He pulled her to her feet with a growl.

"What's going on here?"

Kit gave a sob of relief at the sound of Magnus's voice. She broke away and ran toward him. "Magnus! Let me stay at your house tonight."

He put his hand gently on her arm and turned to Cain. "What are you doin' to her?"

"Trying to keep her from killing herself. Or me. Right now, I don't know which one of us is in more danger."

Magnus looked at her questioningly.

"She's my wife," Cain said. "I married her not an hour ago."

"He forced me into it!" Kit exclaimed. "I want to stay at your house tonight."

Magnus frowned. "You can't do that. You belong to him now."

"I belong to myself! And both of you can go to hell."

She turned to run away, but Cain was too quick for her. Before she could move, he caught her and tossed her over his shoulder.

The blood rushed to her head. His grip tightened on her thighs. He began to stalk toward the house.

She punched him in the back and got a smack on her bottom for her efforts. "Stop that before I drop you."

Magnus's feet came into view walking beside them. "Major, that's a fine woman you've got there, and you're handling her a little rough. Maybe you'd better give yourself some time to cool down."

"That'd take the rest of my life." Cain turned the corner to the front of the house, his boots crunching on the gravel drive.

Magnus's next words sent Kit's already uneasy stomach pitching. "If you ruin her tonight, you're goin' to regret it the rest of your life. Remember what happens to a horse that gets broke too fast."

For a moment, stars swirled behind her eyelids. Then she heard the welcome sound of feet rushing down the front steps.

"Kit! Sweet Jesus, what's happened?"

"Sophronia!" Kit tried to jerk upright. At the same time, Sophronia grabbed Cain's arm.

"Put her down!"

Cain pushed Sophronia toward Magnus. "Keep her out of the house tonight." With that, he carried Kit up the steps and through the door.

Sophronia struggled inside the circle of Magnus's arms. "Let me go! I have to help her. You don't know what a man like that can do to a woman. White man. Thinks he owns the world. Thinks he owns her."

"He does." Magnus held her to him and stroked her. "They're married now, honey."

"Married!"

In calm, soothing tones, he told her what he'd just heard. "We can't interfere with what takes place between a man and his wife. He won't hurt her."

As he said it, he hoped she wouldn't hear the faint thread of doubt in his voice. Cain was the most just man he knew, but tonight there had been something violent in his eyes. Despite this, he continued to comfort her as he led her across the dark orchard.

Only when they reached his house did she grow aware of their destination. Her head shot up. "Where do you think you're taking me?"

"Home with me," he said calmly. "We're goin' to go inside and have a little bite to eat. Then, if you feel like it, we'll sit in the kitchen and talk for a spell. Or if you're tired, you can go in the bedroom and sleep. I'll get myself a blanket and make a bed right out here on the porch with Merlin, where it's nice and cool."

Sophronia said nothing. She simply gazed at him. He waited, letting her take her time. Finally she nodded and went into his house.

Cain slouched in the wing chair that rested near the open window of his bedroom. His shirt was open to the waist to catch the breeze; his ankles were crossed on a footstool in front of him. A glass of brandy dangled from the hand that hung over the arm of the chair.

He liked this room. It was comfortable, with enough furniture to be functional but not enough to crowd him. The bed was large enough to accommodate his tall frame. Next to it was a washstand and across the room were a chest and a bookcase. In the winter the polished floorboards were covered with braided rugs for warmth, but now they were bare, the way he liked them.

He heard splashing from the copper tub behind the screen in a corner of the room, and his mouth tightened. He hadn't told Sophronia that the bath he'd asked her to have ready upon his return was for Kit, not himself. Kit had ordered him out of the room; then, when she'd seen he wasn't going, she'd stuck her nose in the air and disappeared behind the screen. Despite the fact that the water could no longer be warm, she wasn't in any hurry to get out.

Even without seeing her, he knew how she'd look when she rose from that tub. Her skin would glow golden in the light from the lamp, and her hair would curl over her shoulders, its inky blackness stark against the pale cream of her skin.

He thought about the trust fund he'd married her for. Marrying for money was something he would have despised another man for doing, yet it didn't bother him. He wondered why. And then he stopped wondering, because he didn't want to know the answer. He didn't want to acknowledge that this marriage had little to do with money or rebuilding the cotton mill. Instead, it was about that single moment of vulnerability when he'd abandoned the caution of a lifetime and decided to open his heart to a woman. For one moment, his thoughts had been tender, foolish, and ultimately more dangerous to him than all the battles of the war.

In the end it wouldn't be the cotton mill he was going to make her pay for, but that moment of vulnerability. Tonight, the antagonism between them would be sealed forever. Then he'd be able to go on with his life without being tantalized by phantom hopes for the future.

He raised the brandy to his lips, took a sip, then set the glass on the floor. He wanted to be stone-cold sober for what was about to happen.

From behind the screen, Kit heard the scrape of wooden legs across the bare floor and knew he'd grown impatient with waiting. She grabbed for a towel and, while she wrapped it around herself, wished she had something more substantial to cover her. But her own clothing was gone. Cain had disposed of her ruined garments after she'd taken them off.

Her head shot up as he pushed back one end of the folding screen. He stood resting one hand on top of the wooden frame.

"I'm not finished yet," she managed to say.

"You've had enough time."

"I don't know why you forced me to take my bath in your room."

"Yes, you do."

She clutched the towel more tightly. Once again she searched for some escape from what lay ahead, but there was an awful sense of inevitability about it. He was her husband now. If she tried to run, he'd catch her. If she fought him, he'd overpower her. Her only course lay in submission, just as Mrs. Templeton had advised in that distant life Kit had lived only a little more than a month ago. But submission had never been an easy course for her.

She gazed at the thin gold ring on her finger. It was small and pretty, with two tiny hearts at the top delicately outlined in diamond-and-ruby chips. He told her he'd gotten it from Miss Dolly.

"I don't have anything to put on," she said.

"You don't need anything."

"I'm cold."

Slowly, without taking his gaze from hers, he unbuttoned his shirt and passed it over.

"I don't want to take your shirt. If you'll move out of the way, I'll go to my room and get my robe."

"I'd rather stay here."

Obstinate, overbearing man! She gritted her teeth and stepped out of the tub. Holding the towel to her body with one hand, she reached for his shirt with the other. Clumsily, she slipped it on over the towel. Then she turned her back to him, dropped the towel, and rapidly fastened the row of buttons.

The long sleeves kept getting in her way, making the job more difficult. As the shirttails clung to her damp thighs, she was conscious of how thin the material was over her nakedness. She turned up the cuffs and edged past him. "I need to go to my room and comb out my hair or it'll tangle."

"Use my comb." He inclined his head toward the bureau.

She walked over and picked it up. Her face stared back at her from the mirror. She looked pale and wary, but she didn't look frightened. She should be, she thought, as she drew the comb through the long strands of wet hair. Cain hated her. He was powerful and unpredictable, stronger than she was, and he had the law on his side. She should be screaming for mercy now. Instead, she felt an odd agitation.

In the mirror's reflection she saw him slouch into the wing chair. He idly crossed one ankle over his knee. His eyes caught hers. She looked away and combed her hair more vigorously, sending droplets spattering.

She heard movement, and her gaze darted back to the mirror. Cain had picked up a glass from the floor and was lifting it to her reflection.

"Here's to wedded bliss, Mrs. Cain."

"Don't call me that."

"It's your name. Have you forgotten already?"

"I haven't forgotten anything." She took a deep breath. "I haven't forgotten that I've wronged you. But I've already paid the price, and I don't need to pay any more."

"I'll be the judge of that. Now put down that comb and turn around so I can look at you."

Slowly she did as he said, a queer excitement building along with her dread. Her eyes settled on the scars that marred his chest. "Where did you get the scar on your shoulder?"

"Missionary Ridge."

"What about the one on your hand?"

"Petersburg. And I got the one on my gut fighting over a crooked poker game in a Laredo whorehouse. Now unbutton that shirt and come over here so I can take a better look at my newest piece of property."

"I'm not your property, Baron Cain."

"That isn't what the law says, Mrs. Cain. Women belong to the men who marry them."

"Keep telling yourself that if it makes you happy. But I don't belong to anybody except myself."

He rose and walked toward her with slow, deliberate steps. "Let's get something straight right from the start. I own you. And from now on, you'll do exactly what I say. If I want you to polish my boots, you'll polish them. If I tell you to muck out my stable, you'll do that, too. And when I want you in my bed, you'd better be flat on your back with your legs spread by the time I have my belt unbuckled."

His words should have made her stomach churn in fear, but there was something too calculated about them. He was deliberately trying to break her, and she wasn't going to let him do it.

"I'm terrified," she drawled.

She hadn't given him the reaction he wanted, so he came after her again. "When you married me, you lost your last bit of freedom. Now I can do anything I want with you, short of killing you. And if I'm not too obvious about it, I can probably do that, too."

"If I don't get you first," she retorted.

"Not a chance."

She tried again to reason with him. "I did a terrible thing. It was wrong, but you have my money. It's triple what it should cost you to rebuild that mill, so let's put an end to this."

"Some things don't have a price." He rested one shoulder against a bedpost. "This should amuse you…"

She regarded him warily. Somehow she didn't think so.

"I'd already made up my mind not to send you back to New York. I was going to tell you in the morning."

She felt sick. She shook her head, hoping it wasn't true.

"Ironic, isn't it?" he said. "I didn't want to hurt you like that. But everything's changed now, and I don't much care about that." He reached out and began unfastening the buttons of her shirt.

She stood perfectly still, her earlier spark of confidence evaporating. "Don't do this."

"It's too late." He parted the shirt and gazed down at her breasts.

She tried not to say it, but she couldn't help it. "I'm afraid."

"I know."

"Will it hurt?"

"Yes."

She closed her eyes tight. He removed her shirt. She stood naked before him.

Tonight would be the worst, she told herself. When it was done, he'd have lost his power over her.

He caught her under the knees and carried her to his bed. She turned her head away as he began to strip off his clothing. Moments later, he lowered himself to the side of the bed. It sagged beneath his weight.

Something twisted inside Cain at the sight of her turned away from him. Her closed eyes… The resignation in that heart-shaped face… What had it cost her to admit her fear? Damn it, he didn't want her like this. He wanted her spitting and fighting. He wanted her cursing him and sparking his anger as only she knew how.

He cupped her knees to prod a reaction from her, but even then she didn't fight him. He pushed her legs apart and shifted his weight to kneel between them. Then he looked down at the secret part of her, bathed in lamplight.

She lay still as he separated the dark, silken threads with his fingers. His wild rose of the deep wood. Petals within petals. Protectively folded around the heart of her. His stomach knotted at the sight. He knew from the afternoon at the pond how small she was, how tight. He was flooded with a damning sense of tenderness.

From the corner of his eye he saw one delicate hand curl into a fist on the counterpane. He waited for her to swing at him, to fight him for what he was doing. Wished for it to happen. But she didn't move, and her very defenselessness undid him.

With a groan, he lay down and pulled her into his arms. She was trembling. Guilt as powerful as his desire ate at him. He'd never treated a woman so callously. This was part of the madness that had claimed him. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

He held her against his bare chest and stroked the damp locks of her hair. As he soothed her, his own desire raged, but he didn't give in to it, not until her trembling finally stopped.

Cain's arm felt solid and ironically comforting around her. She heard his breathing slow, but she knew he wasn't asleep, no more than she was. Moonlight silvered the quiet room, and she felt a strange sense of calm. Something about the quiet, something about the hell they'd been through and the hell that no doubt lay ahead, made questions possible.

"Why do you hate me so much? Even before the cotton mill. From the day I came back to Risen Glory."

He was quiet for a moment. Then he answered her. "I never hated you."

"I was destined to hate whoever inherited Risen Glory," she said.

"It always comes back to Risen Glory, doesn't it? Do you love this plantation so much?"

"More than anything. Risen Glory is all I've ever had. Without it, I'm not anything."

He brushed away a lock of hair that had fallen over her cheek. "You're a beautiful woman, and you have courage."

"How can you say that after what I did?"

"I guess we all do what we have to."

"Like forcing this marriage on me?"

"Like that." He was still for a moment. "I'm not sorry, Kit. No more than you are."

Her tension returned. "Why didn't you go ahead and do what you were going to? I wouldn't have stopped you."

"Because I want you willing. Willing and as hungry for me as I am for you."

She was too conscious of their nudity, and she turned away from him. "That won't ever happen."

She expected him to get angry. Instead, he propped himself up on the pillows and gazed down at her without attempting to touch her. "You have a passionate nature. I've tasted it in your kisses. Don't be afraid of it."

"I don't want a passionate nature. It's wrong for a woman."

"Who told you that?"

"Everybody knows it. When Mrs. Templeton talked to us about Eve's Shame, said that-"

"Eve's what?"

"Eve's Shame. You know."

"Good God." He sat up in bed. "Kit, do you know exactly what happens between a man and a woman?"

"I've seen horses."

"Horses aren't humans." He put his hands on her shoulders and turned her toward him. "Look at me. Even though you hate me, we're married now, and there's no way I'm keeping my hands off you. But I want you to know what's happening between us. I don't want to scare you again."

Patiently, in language that was simple and direct, he told her about her own body and about his. And then he told her what happened when they were joined.

When he was done, he got out of bed and walked naked over to the table where he picked up his brandy glass. Then he turned and stood quietly, letting her satisfy the curiosity she wouldn't confess to.

Kit's eyes drank in his body, so clearly illuminated in the moon-drenched room. She saw beauty of a kind she'd never before witnessed, a beauty that was lean and muscular, that spoke of strength and hardness and things she didn't entirely understand. Her eyes went to the center of him He quickened under her gaze, and her apprehension returned.

He must have sensed her reaction, because he set down his glass and returned to her. This time his eyes held a challenge, and even though she was afraid, she'd never refused a challenge, not when it came from him.

The corner of his mouth twisted in what might have been a smile. Then he lowered his head and brushed his lips against hers. His touch was feather-light and soft, his mouth closed. There was no hard, probing tongue to remind her of the other, less friendly invasion that would soon take place.

Some of her tension dissolved. His lips found a path to her ear. He kissed the valley below it and then took the lobe with its tiny, silver stud gently between his teeth and teased it with his lips.

Her eyes drifted shut at the sensations he was arousing in her, then snapped open again when he clasped her wrists and stretched them above her head.

"Don't be afraid," he whispered, trailing his fingers down the soft underside of her arms. "It'll be good. I promise you." He paused at the crook of her elbow, brushing his thumb back and forth across the sensitive inner surface.

Everything that had passed between them should have made her wary, but as he traced delicate circles in the quivering hollows under her arms, she found the past evaporating and the exquisite sensations of the present taking her prisoner.

He slid the sheet to her waist and gazed at what was revealed. "Your breasts are beautiful," he muttered huskily.

A more gently reared woman would have lowered her arms, but Kit hadn't been gently reared, and modesty didn't occur to her. She saw his head dip, watched his lips part, felt his warm breath on her tender flesh.

She gave a moan as he circled the small nipple with his tongue. He transformed its softness into a tight, pulsing peak. She arched her body, and he opened his lips to encompass what she offered. Tenderly he suckled her.

She found herself lifting her arms to cradle the back of his head in her palms and pull him closer. As his mouth tortured one nipple, he attended to the other with the tough, callused pad of his index finger, teasing the tip and then catching it with his thumb and squeezing it ever so gently.

Not knowing men, she couldn't understand what a tight rein he was keeping on his own passion as he pleasured her. All she knew was that the pull of his mouth on her breast was firing nerve endings deep inside her.

He pushed the sheet away and lay next to her. Once again his mouth found hers, but this time he didn't have to coax it open. Her lips were already parted for his pleasure. Still he took his time, letting her become accustomed to the feel of him.

As he played at her lips, Kit's own hands grew restless. One of her thumbs settled over his hard, flat nipple.

With a groan he plowed his hands into her damp, tangled hair and drew her head up off the pillow. He plunged his tongue into her mouth and took possession of the slippery-hot interior.

The wildness that had always been part of her nature met his passion. She arched beneath him, splaying her fingers over his chest.

The last vestige of his self-control snapped. His hands were no longer content with her breasts. They moved down her body to her belly and then into the dark, silky triangle.

"Open for me, sweet," he whispered huskily into her mouth. "Let me in."

She did open. It would have been unthinkable not to. But the access she offered was still not enough for him. He stroked the inner surface of her thighs until she thought she would go mad. Finally her legs were splayed wide enough to satisfy his desire.

"Please," she gasped.

He touched her then, his wild rose, the center of her. He gently opened her so it wouldn't be so difficult, taking his time even though he was nearly crazed from needing her as he'd never before needed a woman.

He moved on top of her, kissing her breasts, kissing her sweet young mouth. And then, unable to hold back any longer, he poised himself at the very center of her and slowly entered.

She stiffened. He soothed her with his kisses and then, with one smooth thrust, he broke through her maiden's veil and put innocence behind her.

She plummeted back to reality at the small, sharp pain. Until now, there had been only pleasure. This felt like a betrayal. His caresses had lied to her. They'd promised something magical, but in the end it had been a devil's promise.

His hand cupped her chin and turned her face. She glared up at him, too conscious of what was buried deep and massive inside her.

"It's all right, sweet," he murmured. "The hurt is over."

This time she didn't believe him. "Maybe for you. Get off!"

He smiled a smile that was deep and smoky. His hands returned to her breasts, and she felt the melting begin again.

He began to move inside her, and she no longer wanted him to leave. She dug her fingers into the hard muscles of his shoulders and buried her mouth in his neck so she could taste him with her tongue. His skin was sea salt and clean, and the stroking inside her was moving deeper, piercing womb and heart, melting her bones, her flesh, and even her soul.

She arched and strained and let him ride her through day and night, through space itself, clinging to him, to the sweet male of him, the hard shaft of him, driving deeper and deeper into her, carrying her higher, flinging her into the blinding brightness of the sun and moon where she hung for eternity and then shattered into a million slivers of light and darkness, answering his great cry with her own.