Just Imagine (20 page)

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.

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