Just Imagine (22 page)

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."