Just Imagine aka Risen Glory Read online

  "I know what you're talkin' about. And I'm prepared to let you mate with me." She glowered. "Even though I'm gonna hate it!"

  Cain laughed; then his expression clouded as if he might be thinking about that damn spanking again. He yanked a cheroot from his pocket and stalked out the garden doors to light it.

  She followed him outside and found him standing by an old rusty bench, gazing out toward the orchard. She waited for him to say something. When he didn't, she spoke. "Well, what about it?"

  "It's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard."

  The glow from his cheroot cast a flickering shadow over his face, and panic welled inside her. This was her only chance to keep Risen Glory. She had to convince him. "Why is it so ridiculous?"

  "Because it is."

  "You tell me why!"

  "I'm your stepbrother."

  "Bein' my stepbrother doesn't mean a damn thing. It's purely a legal relationship."

  "I'm also your guardian. I couldn't find a single person in this county who was willing to take you off my hands, and judging by your recent behavior, I guess that's no surprise."

  "I'll do better! And I'm a real good shot. I can put all the meat on the table you want."

  That started him cussing again. "Men aren't looking for somebody who can put meat on the table when they're choosing a mistress, damn it! They want a woman who looks and acts and smells like a woman."

  "I smell real good! Go on. Smell me!" She lifted her arm so he could get a good whiff, but all he cared about was being mad.

  "They want a woman who knows how to smile, and say pretty things, and make love. Now, that leaves you out!"

  Kit swallowed her last morsel of pride. "I could learn."

  "Oh, for God's sake!" He stalked to the other side of the overgrown gravel path. "I've made up my mind."

  "Please! Don't-"

  "I'm not selling Risen Glory."

  "Not sellin'…" Kit couldn't seem to find her breath, and then a great wave of happiness washed over her. "Oh, Major! That's… that's the most wonderful thing I ever heard!"

  "Hold on. There's one condition."

  Kit felt a sharp prickle of warning. "No conditions! We don't need any conditions."

  He stepped into the amber pool of light spilling out from the dining room. "You have to return to New York and go to school."

  "School!" Kit was incredulous. "I'm eighteen years old. I'm too old for school. Besides, I'm already self-educated."

  "Not that kind of school. A finishing school. A place that teaches deportment and etiquette and all those other female accomplishments you don't know a damn thing about."

  "Finishing school?" She was horrified. "Now, that's the stupidest, most puerile-" She saw the storm clouds gathering in his expression and changed tack. "Let me stay here. Please. I won't be any trouble. Swear to Jesus. I can sleep out back, and you won't even know I'm around. I can make myself useful all kinds of ways. I know this plantation better than anyone. Please let me stay."

  "You're going to do as I say."

  "No, I-"

  "If you don't cooperate, I'll sell Risen Glory so fast you won't know what happened. Then you won't have a prayer of ever getting your hands on it."

  She felt sick. Her hatred of him coalesced into a hard, tight ball. "How… how long would I have to go to this school?"

  "Until you can behave like a lady, so I guess that's up to you."

  "You could keep me there forever."

  "All right. Let's say three years."

  "That's way too long. I'll be twenty-one by then."

  "You've got a lot to learn. Take it or leave it."

  She regarded him bitterly. "And then what happens? Will I be able to buy Risen Glory back from you with the money in my trust fund?"

  "We'll discuss that when the time comes."

  He could keep her away from Risen Glory for years, exiled from everything she loved. She turned away and rushed back into the dining room. She remembered how she'd humiliated herself by offering to be his mistress, and her hatred choked her. When her exile was over and Risen Glory was safe, he was going to pay for this.

  "What'll it be, Kit?" he said from behind her.

  She could barely force out the words. "You don't give me much choice, do you, Yankee?"

  "Well, well, well." A woman's voice, throaty and seductive, rippled in from the hallway. "Will you jes' look at what that child brought back with her from New York City."

  "Sophronia!" Kit pitched herself across the dining room and into the arms of the woman who stood in the doorway. "Where you been?"

  "Rutherford. Jackson Baker took sick."

  Cain stared at the newcomer with surprise. So this was Kit's Sophronia. She was hardly what he'd envisioned.

  He'd imagined someone much older, but she looked as if she were in her early twenties, and she was one of the most exotically beautiful women he'd ever seen. Slim and tall, she towered over Kit. She had high, chiseled cheekbones, pale caramel skin, and slanted golden eyes that slowly lifted as he studied her.

  Their gazes met and held over the top of Kit's head. Sophronia untangled herself and walked toward him, moving with a languid sensuality that made her simple blue cotton dress seem like a gown of the finest silk. When she was directly in front of him, she stopped and held out her slim hand.

  "Welcome to Risen Glory, Boss Man."

  Sophronia acted hateful all the way back north on the train. Everything was "yes, sir" and "no, sir" to Cain, smiling at him and taking his side against Kit.

  "That's because he's right," Sophronia said when Kit confronted her about it. "It's time you started to act like the woman you were born to be."

  "And it's time you started remembering whose side you're supposed to be on."

  Sophronia and Kit loved each other more than anyone else on earth, despite being black and white. Which didn't mean they didn't argue. And those arguments only accelerated after they reached New York.

  The minute Magnus laid eyes on Sophronia, he started walking around in a daze, and Mrs. Simmons wouldn't stop talking about Sophronia being so wonderful. After three days, Kit was sick of it. Then her already bad mood plummeted even further.

  "I look like a jackass!" The dun-colored felt hat sat like a squashed gravy boat on Kit's ragged hair. The material of her ocher jacket was of good quality, but cut too big in the shoulders, and the ugly brown serge dress dragged on the carpet. She looked like she'd dressed up in a spinster aunt's clothes.

  Sophronia splayed her long fingers on her hips. "What d'you expect? I told you those clothes Mrs. Simmons bought for you was too big, but you wouldn't pay me no nevermind. You ask me, this is what you get for thinkin' you know so much more than everybody else."

  "just because you're three years older than me and we're in New York City doesn't mean you can act like some kind of queen."

  Sophronia's elegant nostrils quivered. "You think you can say anything you want to me. Well, I'm not your slave no more, Kit Weston. You understand me? I don't belong to you. I don't belong to anybody 'cept Jesus!"

  Kit didn't like hurting Sophronia's feelings, but sometimes she could be pigheaded. "It's just that you don't ever show any gratitude. I taught you your sums. I taught you how to read and write, even though it was against the law. I hid you from Jesse Overturf that night he wanted to lie with you. And now you're taking that Yankee's side against mine every chance you get."

  "Don't you talk to me 'bout gratitude. I spent years keepin' you out of Miz Weston's sight. And every time she caught you and locked you in that closet, it was me who let you out. I took a whippin' for you. So I don't want to hear anything about gratitude. You're a noose around my neck. Suffocating me. Cutting off my life's breath. If it wasn't for you-"

  Abruptly Sophronia broke off as she heard footsteps approaching outside the door. Mrs. Simmons appeared and announced that Cain was waiting below to take Kit to the school he'd chosen.

  Just like that, the two combatants found themselves locked in each o
ther's arms. Finally Kit pulled away, picked up her ugly, gravy-boat hat, and walked to the door. "You be careful, hear?" she whispered.

  "You mind yourself at that fancy school," Sophronia whispered back.

  "I will."

  Sophronia's eyes clouded with tears. "We'll be seeing each other again before you know it."

  Part Two

  A Templeton Girl

  5

  The Templeton Academy for Young Ladies sat on Fifth Avenue like a great gray stone whale. Hamilton Woodward, Cain's attorney, had recommended it. Although the school didn't normally take girls as old as Kit, Elvira Templeton had made an exception for the Hero of Missionary Ridge.

  Kit stood hesitantly on the threshold of the third-floor room she'd been assigned and studied the five girls wearing identical navy blue dresses with white collars and cuffs. They were clustered around the room's only window to gaze down at the street. It didn't take her long to figure out what they were staring at.

  "Oh, Elsbeth, isn't he the handsomest man you ever saw?"

  The girl identified as Elsbeth sighed. She had crisp, brown curls and a pretty, fresh face. "Imagine. He was right here in the Academy, and none of us were allowed to go downstairs. It's so unfair!" And then, with a giggle: "My father says he's not really a gentleman."

  More giggles.

  A beautiful, blond-haired girl who reminded Kit of Dora Van Ness spoke up. "Madame Riccardi, the opera singer, went into a decline when he told her he was moving to South Carolina. Everybody's heard about it. She's his mistress, you know."

  "Lilith Shelton!" The girls were deliriously horrified, and Lilith regarded them disdainfully.

  "You're all such innocents. A man as sophisticated as Baron Cain has dozens of mistresses."

  "Remember what we decided," another girl said. "Even if she is his ward, she's a Southerner, so we all have to hate her."

  Kit had heard enough. "If that means I won't ever have to talk to you silly bitches, that's just fine with me."

  The girls spun around and gasped. Kit felt their eyes taking in her ugly dress and awful hat. One more-item to add to the ledger of hatred she was keeping against Cain. "Get out of here! All of you. And if I catch any of you in here again, I'll kick your skinny asses straight to hell!"

  The girls fled the room with horrified shrieks. All but one. The girl they'd called Elsbeth. She stood trembling and terrified, her eyes wide as teacups, her pretty lips trembling.

  "Are you deaf or something? I told you to get out."

  "I… I c-can't."

  "Why the hell not?"

  "I… I live here."

  "Oh." For the first time, Kit noticed the room had two beds.

  The girl was sweet-faced, one of those people with a naturally kind disposition, and Kit couldn't find it in her heart to bully her. At the same time, she was the enemy. "You'll have to move."

  "Mrs… Mrs. Templeton won't let me. I-I already asked."

  Kit cursed, yanked up her skirts, and sank down on the bed. "How come you were lucky enough to get me?"

  "My-my father. He's Mr. Cain's attorney. I'm Elisabeth Woodward."

  "I'd say I was pleased to make your acquaintance, but both of us know it'd be a lie."

  "I'd… I'd better go."

  "You do that."

  Elsbeth scampered from the room. Kit lay back on the pillow and tried to figure out how she was going to survive the next three years.

  The Templeton Academy used a system of demerits to maintain order. For every ten demerits a girl acquired, she was confined to her room all day Saturday. By the end of her first day, Kit had accumulated eighty-three. (Taking the Lord's name in vain was automatically ten.) By the end of her first week, she'd lost count.

  Mrs. Templeton called Kit into her office and threatened her with expulsion if she didn't start following all the rules. Kit had to participate in her classes. She'd been given two uniforms, and she was to start wearing them at once. Her grammar must improve immediately. Ladies didn't say "ain't" or "I reckon." Ladies referred to objects as "unimportant," not "useless as toad spit." And most of all, ladies didn't curse.

  Kit remained stoic during the interview, but inside, she was panicky. If the old biddy expelled her, Kit would have broken her agreement with Cain and lost Risen Glory forever.

  She vowed to hold onto her temper, but as the days passed, it grew more and more difficult. She was three years older than her classmates, but she knew less than any of them. They snickered at her cropped hair behind her back and giggled when she caught her skirts on a chair. One day the pages of her French book were glued together. Another day her nightgown was tied in knots. She'd gone through life with her fists swinging, and now her future depended on keeping her temper. Instead of retaliating, she collected the insults and stored them away to reexamine late at night as she lay in bed. Someday she'd make Baron Cain pay for every slur.

  Elsbeth continued to behave like a frightened mouse whenever she was around Kit. Although she refused to join in Kit's persecution, she was too timid to make the other girls stop, Still, her kind heart couldn't ignore the injustices, especially as she grew to realize that Kit wasn't as ferocious as she seemed.

  "It's hopeless," Kit confessed to her one night after she'd tripped over the skirt of her uniform in dance class and sent a Chinese vase crashing from a pedestal. "I'll never learn to dance. I talk too loud, I hate wearing skirts, the only musical instrument I can play is a jew's harp, and I can't look at Lilith Shelton without cussing."

  Elsbeth's teacup eyes rounded in worry. "You have to be nicer to her. Lilith is the most popular girl in school."

  "And the nastiest."

  "I'm sure she doesn't mean to be that way."

  "I'm sure she does. You're so nice yourself, you don't recognize ugliness in other people. You don't even seem to be noticin' it in me, and I'm 'bout as bad as they come."

  "You're not bad!"

  "Yes, I am. But not as bad as all the mean-minded girls who go to this school. I reckon you're the only decent person here."

  "That's not true," Elsbeth said earnestly. "Most of them are awfully nice if you just give them a chance. You're so ferocious that you scare them."

  Kit's spirits lifted a little. "Thank you. Truth is, I don't know how I could scare anybody. I'm a failure at everything I've done here. I can't imagine how I'm gonna last three years."

  "Father didn't tell me you had to stay so long. You'll be twenty-one. That's too old to be in school."

  "I know, but I don't have any choice." Kit fidgeted with the gray woolen coverlet. Ordinarily she didn't believe in sharing confidences, but she was feeling lonelier than she could remember. "Did you ever love somethin' so much you'd do just about anything to keep it safe?"

  "Oh, yes. My little sister, Agnes. She's not like other children. Even though she's almost ten, she can't read or write, but she's so sweet, and I'd never let anybody hurt her."

  "Then you understand."

  "Tell me, Kit. Tell me what's wrong."

  And so Kit told her about Risen Glory. She described the fields and the house, talked about Sophronia and Eli, and tried to make Elsbeth see the way the trees changed color depending on the time of day.

  Then she told her about Baron Cain. Not everything. Elsbeth would never understand her masquerade as a stable boy or the way she'd tried to kill him, let alone her offer to be his mistress. Still, she told her enough.

  "He's evil, and I can't do anything about it. If I get expelled, he'll sell Risen Glory. And if I do manage to last three years here, I'll still have to wait till I'm twenty-three to get control of the money in my trust fund so I can buy it back. The longer I wait, the harder that's going to be."

  "Isn't there any way you can use your money before then?"

  "Only if I get married. Which I ain't."

  Elsbeth was an attorney's daughter. "If you did marry, your husband would control your money. It's the way the law works. You couldn't spend it without his permission."

  Kit shrugge
d, "it's ail academic. There's no man in the world I'd shackle myself to. Besides, I was raised all wrong to be a wife. Only thing I can do right is cook."

  Elsbeth was sympathetic, but she was also practical. "That's why we're all here. To learn how to be proper wives. The girls from the Templeton Academy are known for making the most successful marriages in New York. That's part of what's so special about being a Templeton girl. Men come from all over the East to attend the graduation ball."

  "It doesn't make any difference to me if they come from Paris, France. You'll never see me at any ball."

  But Elsbeth had been struck with inspiration, and she wasn't paying attention. "All you have to do is find the right husband. Somebody who wants to make you happy. Then everything will be perfect. You won't be Mr. Cain's ward any longer, and you'll have your money."

  "You're a real sweet girl, Elsbeth, but I've got to tell you that's the most ridiculous idea I ever heard. Getting married would just mean I'd be handing another man my money."

  "If you picked the right man, it'd be the same as having it yourself. Before you get married, you could make him promise to buy you Risen Glory for a wedding present." She clapped her hands, caught up in her vision. "Just imagine how romantic it would be. You could go back home right after your honeymoon."

  Honeymoons and husbands… Elsbeth might have been speaking another language. "That's plain foolishness. What man's goin' to marry me?"

  "Stand up!" Elsbeth's voice held the same note of command as Elvira Templeton's, and Kit rose reluctantly.

  Elsbeth tapped her finger on her cheek. "You're awfully thin, and your hair is horrible. Of course it'll grow," she added politely, "and it is a beautiful color, all soft and inky. Even now it'd look quite nice if it were cut a little straighter. Your eyes are too big for your face, but I think that's because you're so thin." Slowly she circled Kit. "You're going to be quite pretty someday, so I don't think we'll have to worry about that."