Defiant Impostor (14 page)

By Friday morning, which dawned sunny and clear,
Susanna was anxious to escape outside after being cooped up in the house for so
long, and to see for herself how Cary's Finest had fared.

When Corliss declined to accompany her on her ride,
saying she was afraid of horses, Susanna decided to go alone. She only wanted
to see the closest fields; if their condition was good she imagined the others
would be much the same. She had no intention of riding out as far as she and
Adam had gone a few days ago, and she didn't want to go near that pond. Just
thinking about it brought back memories of his embrace, a troubling
recollection that had plagued her during the day. Yet even more disturbing was
how her memory became altered at night.

In her dreams, Adam kissed her slowly, lingeringly, his
mouth warm and tender at first, but then becoming passionately demanding, his
strong hands roaming at will over her body as she kissed him back

"Here she is, Miss Camille. All saddled and ready
to go."

Susanna blinked, startled. Her face felt warm as she
smiled at the spry older man who was leading the same spirited mare toward her
that she had ridden before.

"Thank you . . . uh . . ."

"Zachary Roe, ma'am. I'm the stable manager."
He threw his shoulders back proudly, his smile broadening. "A free man,
thanks to your fine papa."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Zachary." As he
gave her a boost into the saddle, Susanna fought to control her jumbled
thoughts.

"Would you like one of the hands to accompany you,
Miss Camille? I'd hate for you to get lost—"

"No, I'll be fine," she insisted.
"Adam" —she drew a quick breath, angry at herself for calling him by
his first name— "Mr. Thornton was an excellent guide the other day. He
showed me how to get across the fields."

"If you say so, Miss Camille. Have a good
ride."

She drew up on the reins, expertly wheeling the animal
around, then asked as an afterthought, "Have you seen Mr. Thornton this
morning, Zachary?"

"No, ma'am. His horse is gone, so he must still be
out checking the tobo. The rains were pretty bad these past few days."

"Yes," she agreed. "I want to check on
the plants, too."

"Oh, you don't have to worry none, Miss Camille.
With Mr. Thornton watching over 'em, I'm sure they came out of it just
fine."

She smiled tightly, nudging the mare into a trot with
her boot.

Didn't anyone but herself have a bad word to say about
Adam? she wondered, her irritation piqued. Were these people blind to what
manner of man he really was?

Within a few minutes, Susanna had cleared the main
grounds, and she urged the mare into a gallop. The first fields she came to
were empty, no laborers or overseers in sight, but the large-leafed plants
looked healthy, each sitting upon a small hill of earth. The ground was very
muddy and in the warm sunshine steam rose up from the moist dirt. It appeared
that narrow troughs had been dug around each tobacco hill, but other than that,
things seemed much as they had been the other day.

She rode on, wanting to hear some sort of assessment
from an overseer if she couldn't find Adam. She was glad when she finally spied
Josiah Skinner riding toward the neat cluster of houses where the overseers
lived, either alone or with their families. He changed his course and met her
halfway.

"What brings you out here this morning, Miss
Cary?" he asked, sweeping off his tricorn and clutching it beneath his
arm. His brown coat was damp, and his long, lean face looked worn and tired.
His breeches and jackboots were caked with mud.

"I wanted to see how the plants held up through
the storm. As far as I can tell, they seem all right, though I don't know much
about tobacco . . ."

"Everything's just fine," the overseer said,
reassurance in his gravelly voice. "I admit, it was going a bit rough for
a while, but Adam came up with the notion of digging troughs around the plants
so the water could run off. That's what saved us."

So that was Adam's idea, she thought, relieved to hear
that all was well with this year's crop. She should have known.

"You must have just missed him, Miss Cary. He rode
back to the house only a short while ago after telling everyone to get some
rest now that the weather has cleared. We were up all night, and the other two
nights we slept in short shifts. I was just heading home myself. "

"Of course, Mr. Skinner," Susanna said.
"I won't keep you. I'm sure Mr. Thornton will give me his own report when
I see him."

"He said that very same thing, but that it
wouldn't be until dinnertime."

"Dinner?"

The overseer eyed her curiously, though his weary
expression didn't change. "I think he wanted to get himself some rest
first, Miss Cary. He was up longer than any of us, digging side by side with
the field hands. He probably figured you'd trust his judgment just like your
father used to, and know that everything was all right unless he made it a
point to tell you different."

And leave her wondering all day if Cary's Finest was
ruined or not? Susanna fumed, veering her horse around after thanking the
overseer for his hard work and bidding him also to get some sleep.

She rode back toward the house, imagining how wonderful
it would feel to storm into Adam's bedroom and demand he give her a full
accounting of the past days' events, but she knew Camille would never have done
such a thing. Instead, as the coach house came into view, she decided to cool
her temper by exploring a little, her natural curiosity spurring her on.

She wanted to see his office. She had seen practically
everything else on the plantation, and she had no wish to while away the hours
in the library or in the game room playing solitary rounds of cards as she had
done since Tuesday. Maybe she would be able to gain a little more insight into
Adam's character by inspecting the place where, according to Ertha, he spent a
fair amount of time. Perhaps she might even find some information she could use
against him, in addition to his cocksure and improper advances toward her, when
the time came to fire him. The housekeeper had said the office had a private
door near the back of the coach house . . .

As she approached the large two-story building, Susanna
immediately spied the door. She dismounted and tethered the mare to a tree. She
was surprised to discover that the door led not into a room, but to a narrow
flight of stairs.

The wooden steps creaked as she ascended them, but no
one would dare question her if she was discovered here. She was the mistress of
Briarwood. She could do anything she wanted on this plantation.

Susanna opened another door at the top of the stairs
and, holding her breath in anticipation, stepped inside a small, sunlit room
that was furnished with a writing desk, bookcases, and a narrow bed pushed up
against one wall that took up much of the floor space. Other than the tall
stool behind the desk and a threadbare stuffed chair with an accompanying side
table placed near one of the two windows, there were no other furnishings, and
the bare, whitewashed walls gave the room a spartan appearance. The air was
tinged with the smell of leather and polish, drifting up from the coach house
below.

As she quickly scanned the crowded, well-dusted
bookshelves—his own private collection? she wondered—she noted books on the
growing of tobacco and horticulture—no surprise there—and others which did
surprise her. She had grudgingly sensed in Adam a keen intelligence, but from the
variety of subjects presented here—history, mathematics, religion, philosophy,
poetry, navigation, law, architecture, and many others—it was clear his
intellectual interests were diverse and admittedly more advanced than her own.

There were even well-thumbed volumes on English grammar
and a copy of
The Art of Fair Writing
,
which led her to think Adam might be a self-educated man. She also surmised
from the thick pools of dried wax beneath the pewter candleholders on the desk
and side table that he spent most of his evenings here. A half-empty glass of
some liquid—spirits, no doubt, judging from the tall crystal decanter which
appeared to be the only luxury in the room—had been left there, and a padded
footstool was placed an outstretched-leg's distance from the chair, giving her
the impression that he was one to relax and enjoy his reading time.

Susanna's gaze skipped to the writing desk. Some sort
of journal lay open, and she decided to take a closer look. She normally wasn't
one to pry into someone's personal diary, but in this case, she felt her
curiosity justified.

She was disappointed to discover that the journal held
only a day-to-day account of plantation business, written in a stilted scrawl.

How strange, she thought, perusing the spare,
matter-of-fact entries which made only slight mention of her:
Miss Cary arrived today
. . .
Tour of Briarwood with Miss Cary
. Hadn't
Adam received any schooling when he was younger, in England before he came to
Virginia or under Dominick Spencer's employ? From the scratched-out words and
occasional ink blots, it appeared not. But then, she hadn't had her first
writing lesson until she was thirteen, so their backgrounds weren't so
dissimilar.

Susanna's gaze fixed upon the last entry which to her
surprise held that day's date. Adam had clearly come here before he went to the
house, writing simply that Cary's Finest had survived the heavy rains. Bastard!
If he had had the energy to do this, why couldn't he have made an effort to
give her some kind of report before—

She jumped up from the stool with a gasp as heavy
footsteps sounded upon the stairs. Grabbing the nearest book from the shelf,
she plopped into the stuffed chair just as the door opened. Her heart pounding,
she stared blindly at the pages in front of her.

"I thought I might find you here, my love. I saw
your horse outside."

Thrilled more than she would ever admit by Adam's husky
voice, and chagrined that she had been caught snooping again, Susanna did not
have to feign her discomfort as she glanced up to find him walking toward her.

Her breath caught sharply, and she marveled anew at his
dark good looks. After not seeing him for three days, she had forgotten how
intensely handsome he was, despite that his face was deeply lined with fatigue
and that mud was spattered from his head to the toes of his thigh-high
jackboots. He was smiling at her, making her heart thump all the harder.

"I'm sorry, Adam. I should have asked your
permission first . . . but I was riding by the coach house and since Ertha said
you had an office here, I thought I'd take a look—"

"There's no need to be embarrassed, Camille. I
don't mind you coming up here, but I do question your choice of literature.
Chaucer's
Canterbury Tales
? I would
think that story too bawdy for a young lady, but I guess it does have its touch
of romanticism. And do you always read books upside down?"

Susanna realized to her dismay that it was indeed
Chaucer, a lusty tale long banned in Lady Redmayne's home, and yes, it was
upside down. Her cheeks fired with warmth. She really didn't know what to say
to explain herself, so she decided to ignore his observation altogether.

"You were looking for me?" she asked, setting
the book aside with studied nonchalance. Her obvious skirting of the issue must
have amused him, for he chuckled, nodding.

"Corliss told me you had gone for a ride out to
the fields, so I decided to follow you and give you the good news about the
crop. Then I spied your horse . . ." He paused, his gaze moving
appraisingly over her mauve riding dress. "You look very charming this
morning, my love. That color suits you. It heightens the beauty of your
eyes."

His compliment warming her further, Susanna guiltily
chided herself for her harsh judgment of him. So he
had
made an effort to find her despite his apparent exhaustion. Yet
she wished he wouldn't use that term of endearment. He obviously believed she
was a romantic ninny and easily swayed by pretty words. Familiar aggravation
bubbled inside her at his confident presumption, quickly overshadowing her
remorse.

"So you say that everything is fine with the
tobacco crop, Adam?" she asked, suddenly uncomfortable in such close
confines with him. His sheer physical size seemed to dwarf the small room, and
it didn't help that he smelled so overpoweringly masculine, a musky combination
of sweat, dirt, and horses which to her surprise she found quite appealing.
"Mr. Skinner told me that, too, but I wanted to hear it from you. I've
been worried—"

"Camille, you must learn not to worry unless I
give you reason to do so," he interrupted her gently, his smile fading as
his expression grew serious. "If there had been any critical problems, I
would have told you long before this morning. I wouldn't purposely leave you in
the dark, especially about something so important. You must trust me in this,
as your father did."

Trust you? she thought incredulously. How can I trust
you when I know exactly what kind of man you are? Greedy, ambitious,
opportunistic. Why, the list could go on and on!

"I care about this plantation as much as you do,"
Adam continued, shrugging out of his filthy coat and tossing it on the floor.
"I've worked this land for five years, Camille. I've done everything I
know to make it what it is today." He began to unfasten the buttons on his
vest. "There were many times during the past three days when I wanted to
leave the fields to reassure you, but I decided against it, thinking that if I
turned my back for a minute, the rain might win the battle we were waging. So I
stayed. If this caused you undue concern, then I apologize. But I did what I
thought was best."

Susanna, staring at him wide-eyed as he flung his
sweat-stained vest on top of his coat, scarcely heard what he was saying. Then
he began to undo the top buttons of his shirt, baring an upper chest that was
sleek and powerfully defined with muscle.