Just Imagine (34 page)

"I'll—I'll set your plate on the table so you can eat after you've dried off."

"You do that," he said huskily.

She turned her back to him and took her time clearing off a small table by the fireplace. She could hear him drying off. When the sound stopped, she glanced cautiously at him.

He was dressed only in a pair of trousers, his hair damp and combed free of curl. She licked her lips nervously. The game had subtly shifted. "I'm afraid the food might be a little cold, but I'm sure it's delicious." She moved toward the door.

"Sit down, Kit. I don't like to eat alone."

She reluctantly took a seat across from him. He began to eat, and as she watched him, the four-poster bed in the corner of the room seemed to grow bigger in her imagination until it filled the room. She had to distract herself.

"I'm sure you're expecting me to take over Sophronia's responsibilities now, but—"

"Why would you want to do that?"

"I didn't say I wanted to. I can cook, but I'm terrible at the rest."

"Then let Sophronia do it."

She'd been prepared to rail at him for being unreasonable, but just like that, he'd knocked the wind out of her sails.

"There's only one household matter I want you to attend to, in addition to tending to me, of course."

She stiffened. Here it came. Something he knew she'd hate.

"A fox got one of the chickens last night. See if you can track it down. I'm sure you're a better shot than most of the men around here."

She simply stared at him.

"And if we want any game on the table, you'll have to put it there. I can't spare time from the mill right now to do it myself."

She couldn't believe what she was hearing, and she hated him for understanding her so well. She'd never have had this kind of freedom as Brandon's wife. But then, Brandon would never have looked at her as Cain was now doing.

The bed loomed larger. Her shoulders knotted with tension. She studied the sparkling prisms hanging from the lamp globe on the table, then ran her eyes over the books he kept near the bed.

The bed.

Her eyes settled on his hands. Broad-palmed, with lean, blunt-tipped fingers. Hands that had stroked her body and cupped every curve. Fingers that had explored her…

"Bread?"

She jumped. He held out a piece of bread he hadn't eaten.

"No. No, thank you." She struggled to hold onto her composure. "Miss Dolly was upset today. Now that I don't need a chaperone, she's afraid you'll send her away." She regarded him stubbornly. "I told her you'd do no such thing. I said she could stay here as long as she likes."

She waited for him to protest, but he merely shrugged. "I guess Miss Dolly's ours now, whether we want her or not. Probably for the best. Since neither of us gives a damn about convention, she'll keep us respectable."

Kit shot up from the table. "Stop being so reasonable!"

"All right. Take off your clothes."

"No. I—"

"You didn't think a bath and food were all I'd want from you, did you?"

"If you expect more, you'll have to force me."

"Will I?" He leaned lazily back in the chair and scrutinized her. "Untie those laces. I want to watch you undress."

She was shocked to feel a flush of excitement, and she struggled against it. "I'm going to bed. Alone."

Even as Cain watched her march to the door, he could see the fight she was waging with herself. Now that she'd tasted passion, she wanted him as badly as he wanted her, but she'd fight him before she'd admit it.

She was so damned beautiful it made him hurt just looking at her. Was this weakness what his father had felt with his mother?

The thought chilled him. He'd meant to push Kit tonight until he sparked the temper that was always her undoing. He should have known she was too worthy an opponent to play so easily into his hands.

But it had been more than a desire to make her lose her temper that had prompted his churlish behavior. He'd wanted to inflict the small, humiliating wounds that would tell her how little he cared about her. Once she understood that, it would have been safe for him to take her in his arms and love her the way he wanted to.

He still intended to make love to her. But not the way he wanted it to be, not with tenderness and care. He wasn't that foolish.

He rose and made his way through the sitting room to her bedroom. She'd locked the door against him, of course. He hadn't expected anything else. With a little patience on his part, he could melt her resistance, but he didn't feel patient, and the lock gave with a single kick.

She still wore her underclothes, although she'd loosened the ribbon on her chemise, and her hair hung loose, black silk trailing over ivory shoulders. Her nostrils flared. "Go away! I'm not feeling well."

"You'll feel better soon." He swept her into his arms and carried her back to his bed, where she belonged.

"I won't do this!"

He dumped her on the bed. She landed in a pile of petticoats and fury. "You'll do whatever I tell you."

"I'll clean your boots, damn you, and I'll bring your dinner. But that's all."

He spoke calmly against the raging of his blood. "Who are you angriest at? Me for forcing the issue? Or you for wanting me to force it?"

"I'm not—I don't—"

"You do."

He rid them both of their clothes, and her resistance melted with his first caresses. "Why does it have to be like this?" she whispered.

He buried his face in her hair. "Because we can't help it."

It was a meeting of bodies, not of souls. They each found satisfaction, but that was all. Exactly the way he wanted it.

Except afterward, he'd never felt emptier.

He rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. Scenes from his violent, unhappy childhood flashed before him. His father had lost more than his money to his wife. He'd lost his pride, his honor, and ultimately his manhood. And Cain was growing as obsessed with Kit as Nathaniel Cain had been with Rosemary.

The realization stunned him. His lust for this woman had blindsided him.

He drew a deep, agitated breath. Kit might desire him, but that desire wasn't as strong as her passion for Risen Glory. And beneath her desire, she hated him as much as ever.

Right then he knew what he had to do, and the knowledge was a knife in his gut. Desperately, he searched his mind for another way, but there wasn't any. He wouldn't let a woman steal his humanity, and that meant he couldn't touch her. Not tomorrow. Not next week. Not next month. Not until he'd broken the hold she had on him.

And that might take forever.

One week gave way to another, and they fell into a pattern of polite but distant coexistence, like two neighbors who nodded formally to each other over the fence but seldom stopped to chat. Cain hired extra men to work at the mill, and in little more than a month, the damage from the fire had been repaired. It was time to install the machinery.

As the days of summer ticked away, Kit's anger toward him yielded to confusion. He hadn't touched her since the Sunday night after he'd returned from Charleston. As long as she served him his meals when he came back from the mill, saw that his bath was ready, and superficially, at least, played the role of a dutiful wife, he treated her courteously. But he didn't take her into his bed.

She tramped through the woods in muddy boots and britches, the stock of his Spencer carbine tucked under one arm, a burlap bag holding quail or rabbits under the other. Although he wanted her waiting for him when he arrived home, he didn't care about proper female behavior the rest of the time. But even in the woods, she couldn't find contentment. She was too restless, too confused.

A letter arrived from Elsbeth:

My dearest, dearest Kit,

When I received your letter telling me of your marriage to Major Cain, I let out such a whoop, I quite terrified poor Mama, who feared I had injured myself.

You minx! To think how you used to complain about him! It is positively the most romantic
histoire d'amour
I have ever heard. And so perfect a solution to all of your troubles. Now you have both Risen Glory and a loving husband
.

You must tell me if his proposal was as romantic as I have imagined it. In my mind I see you in your beautiful gown (the one you wore to our graduation ball) with Major Cain on his knee in front of you, his hands clasped imploringly to his breast just as we used to practice it. Oh, my dear Kit (my dear Mrs. Cain!), do tell me if my imagination has done justice to the event.

I hope you will be delighted with my own news, which I suspect will not come as a complete surprise. In October I shall be a bride just like you! I've told you in my letters that I've been spending much time with my brother's longtime friend, Edward Matthews. He is a little older than I and, until recently, thought of me as a child. I assure you, he no longer does!

Dearest Kit, I detest the distance between us. How I wish rue could talk together as we used to and exchange confidences about the two men we love, your Baron and my darling Edward. Now that you are a married woman, I could ask you the questions I cannot bring myself to ask my own dear mama.

Can Eve's Shame really be as horrible as Mrs. Templeton suggested? I am beginning to suspect that she must be wrong, for I cannot imagine anything between my darling Edward and myself that would be repulsive. Oh, dear, I shouldn't be writing of this, even to you, but it has been so much on my mind lately. I will close now before I am any more indiscreet. How I miss you!

Ta chère, chère amie,

Elsbeth

For a week, Elsbeth's letter stared accusingly at Kit from the top of her bureau. She sat down to answer it a dozen times, only to put away her pen. Finally she could postpone it no longer. The result was glaringly unsatisfactory, but it was the best she could do.

Dear Elsbeth,

How your letter made me smile. I'm so happy for you. Your Edward sounds perfect, just the husband for you. I know you will be the most beautiful bride in New York. If only I could see you.

I am amazed at how close your imagination hit upon the truth of Baron's marriage proposal. It was just as you imagined, down to the graduation gown.

Forgive me for such a short note, but I have a hundred things still to do this afternoon.

All my love,

Kit

P.S. Don't worry about Eire's Shame. Mrs. Temple ton lied.

It was the end of August before Kit could bring herself to visit the spinning mill, and then only because she knew Cain wouldn't be there. It was harvest time, and he was in the fields with Magnus from dawn until long after dark, leaving Jim Childs in charge at the mill.

Even though Kit hadn't been near the mill since the awful night she'd tried to burn it down, it was never far from her thoughts. The mill threatened her. She couldn't imagine Cain being content to keep it small, but any expansion would be at the expense of the plantation. At the same time, she was fascinated by it. She was a Southerner born to cotton. Could the spinning mill perform the same miracle as the cotton gin? Or had it been a curse instead?

Like every other child of the South, she knew the story as well as she knew the lines in her own palms. The story had no boundaries of creed or color. It had been told by rich and poor alike, by free men and slaves. How the South was saved in ten short days. As she rode toward the mill, she remembered…

It was the end of the eighteenth century, and the devil seeds were killing the South. Oh, you could talk all you wanted about Sea Island cotton with its long, silky fibers and smooth seeds that slipped out as easily as the pit of a ripe cherry. But if you didn't own sandy soil along the coast, you might as well forget that Sea Island cotton, because it wouldn't grow anyplace else.

There was tobacco, but it sucked the life out of the soil after a few years, leaving you with land that wouldn't grow anything.

Rice? Indigo? Corn? Good crops, but they wouldn't make a man rich. They wouldn't make a country rich. And that was what the South needed. A money crop. A crop that would make the whole world come banging on her door.

It was those devil seeds. The South could grow green seed cotton anywhere. It wasn't temperamental. It didn't need sandy soil or sea air. Green seed cotton grew like a weed. And it was worth about as much because those devil seeds clung to the short, tough fibers like burrs, they clung like glue, they clung like they'd been nailed in, they clung like the devil had put them there just so he could laugh at any man foolish enough to try to get them out.

A man had to work ten hours to separate one pound of cotton lint from three pounds of those devil seeds. Three pounds of seeds for one small pound of cotton lint. Ten hours' work. The devil was having a fine time in hell laughing at them all.

Where was the money crop going to come from? Where was the money crop that would save the South?

They stopped buying slaves and promised manumission to the slaves they owned. Too many mouths to feed. No money crop. The devil seeds.

And then a schoolteacher came to Savannah. A Massachusetts boy with a mind that worked differently from other men's. He dreamed machines. They told him about the devil seeds and those short, tough fibers. He went to the cleaning shed and watched how hard they fought to pull out the seeds.

Three pounds of seed for one pound of cotton lint. Ten hours.

The schoolteacher set to work. It took him ten days. Ten days to save the South. When he was done, he'd made a wooden box with some rollers and wire hooks. There was a metal plate with slots, and a crank on the side that turned like magic. The teeth hooked the cotton and pulled it through the rollers The devil seeds fell into the box. One man. One day. Ten pounds of cotton lint.

The miracle was made. A money crop. The South was Queen, and King Cotton was on the throne. The planters bought more slaves. They were greedy for them now. Hundreds of thousands of acres of land had to be planted with green seed cotton, and they needed strong backs for that. Promises of manumission were forgotten. Eli Whitney, the schoolteacher from Massachusetts, had given them the cotton gin. The miracle was made.