Just Imagine (24 page)

"Co ask Sophronia to hold dinner until you've had time to change out of that dirty frock." With a dismissive look, he turned to Veronica. "You'll have to forgive my ward. She's only recently graduated from finishing school. I'm afraid all her lessons haven't yet sunk in."

Kit's cheeks burned with mortification, and angry words bubbled inside her. Why was he doing this? He didn't care about soiled frocks and tangled hair. She knew that about him. He loved the outdoors like she did and had little patience for formality.

She fought to hold onto her temper. "I'm afraid you'll have to excuse me from dinner this evening, Mrs. Gamble. I, too, seem to have developed a headache."

"A veritable epidemic." Veronica's voice was softly mocking.

Cain's jaw set stubbornly. "We have a guest. Headache or not, I'll expect you back downstairs in ten minutes."

Kit choked on her rage. "Then I'm afraid you'll be disappointed."

"Don't try to defy me."

"Don't issue orders you can't enforce." Somehow she summoned the self-control riot to run from the room, but once she reached the hallway, she picked up her skirts and fled. As she approached the top of the stairs, she fancied she could hear the sound of Veronica Gamble's laughter coming from behind her.

But Veronica wasn't laughing. Instead, she was studying Cain with great interest and a small measure of sadness. So
that
was the way it was. Ah, well…

She'd hoped their relationship would move beyond friendship into intimacy. But now she saw it wasn't meant to be, at least in the foreseeable future. She should have known. He was too magnificent a man not to be difficult.

She felt a flash of pity for his ward. For all her extravagant beauty, the young woman didn't yet know her own mind, and she certainly didn't know his. Kit was much too inexperienced to understand why he'd deliberately embarrassed her. But Veronica understood. Cain was attracted to the girl, and he didn't like it. He was fighting his attraction by bringing Veronica here tonight, hoping that seeing the two women side by side would convince him he was drawn to Veronica instead of to Kit. But it wasn't to be.

Cain had won this round. The young woman had barely managed to hold onto her temper. Still, Kit Weston was nobody's fool, and Veronica had a feeling the game was far from over.

She tapped her fingernail on the upholstered arm of the settee and wondered if she should permit Cain to use her as a pawn in the struggle he was waging with himself. It was a foolish question, and it made her smile. Of course she'd permit it.

Life was dull here, and it wasn't in her nature to be jealous of another woman over something as natural as sex. Besides, it was all so deliriously amusing.

"Your ward is high-spirited," she said, just to stir the pot.

"My ward needs to learn submission." He poured a glass of sherry for her and, with an apology, excused himself.

She heard him taking the stairs two a time. The sound excited her. It reminded her of the glorious arguments she and Francis used to have, arguments they sometimes fought with deliriously angry sex. If only she could see what was about to happen in the room upstairs…

She sipped at her sherry, more than prepared to wait them out.

Cain knew he was behaving badly, but he didn't care. For weeks he'd been keeping himself away from her. As far as he could tell, he was the only single man in the community who wasn't jumping to her tune. Now it was time they had a reckoning. He was just sorry Veronica had to be subjected to Kit's rudeness.

And to his own.

But he wouldn't dwell on that. "Open this door."

Even as he rapped the panels with his knuckles, he knew he was making a mistake by coming up here after her. But if he let her defy him now, he'd lose any chance he had of keeping her under control.

He told himself this was for her own good. She was willful and stubborn, a danger to herself. Whether he liked it or not, he was her guardian, which meant he had a responsibility to guide her.

But he didn't feel like a guardian. He felt like a man who was losing a struggle with himself.

"Go away!"

He twisted the knob and let himself in.

She stood by the window, the last of the sunlight casting her exquisite face into shadow. She was a wild, beautiful creature, and she tempted him beyond bearing.

As she turned, he froze in place. She'd been unbuttoning her dress, and the sleeves had fallen down on her shoulders so he could see the soft rounds of her breasts visible above her chemise. His mouth went dry.

She didn't try to clutch the bodice together as a modest young woman should. Instead, she gave him glare for glare. "Get out of my room. You have no right to come charging in here."

He remembered Hamilton Woodward's letter accusing her of seducing his business partner. When Cain had received it, he had no reason not to believe it, but now he knew better. Kit's claim that she'd punched the bastard was undoubtedly true. If only he were as certain that she was turning aside Parsell's advances.

He tore his eyes away. "I'm not going to be disobeyed."

"Then you'd better bark out your orders to someone else."

"Watch it, Kit. I tanned that rump of yours once before, and it won't bother me to do it again."

Instead of backing away, she had the gall to take a step toward him. His hand itched, and he found himself imagining exactly how that backside would feel, bare beneath his palm. Then he imagined sliding his hand around that sweet curve—not to hurt, but to please.

"If you want to see what a knife feels like in your belly, just go ahead and try it, Yankee."

He almost laughed. He outweighed her by nearly a hundred pounds, but the little wildcat still thought she could challenge him.

"You've forgotten something," he said. "You're my ward. I make the decisions and you do as I say. Is that understood?"

"Oh, it's understood, all right, Yankee. It's understood that you're an arrogant ass! Now get out of my room."

As she jabbed her finger toward the door, the strap of her chemise fell over her opposite shoulder. The thin fabric caught at the crest of her breast, clung to that sweet peak for a moment, and then dropped, exposing the dark coral tip.

Kit saw him lower his gaze a moment before she felt the currents of cool air tickling her flesh. She looked down and drew in her breath. She snatched the front of her chemise and pulled it back up.

Cain's eyes turned from slate to pale smoke, and his voice was husky. "I liked it better the other way."

As quickly as that, the battle between them shifted to new ground.

Her fingers grew clumsy on the fabric of her chemise as he came closer. All her survival instincts urged her to run from the room, but the most she could manage was to turn away.

He came up behind her and traced the curve of her neck with his thumb. "You're so damned beautiful." he whispered. He gathered her curls into his hands and gently untangled them from the strap of her chemise.

Her skin prickled. "You shouldn't…"

"I know."

He leaned down and pushed her hair away. His breath feathered the skin at her collarbone.

"I don't—I don't want you to…"

He gently bit the soft flesh at the side of her neck. "Liar," he whispered.

She closed her eyes and let her back rest against his chest. She felt the cool, wet spot on her neck where his tongue had touched her flesh.

His hands moved up over her ribs and then, incredibly, over her breasts. Her skin turned hot and cold at once. She shuddered as he caressed her through her chemise, shuddered at how good it felt and at her insanity in submitting to such an intimacy.

"I've wanted to do this ever since you got back," he whispered.

She made a soft, helpless sound when he slipped his hands inside her dress, inside her chemise… and touched her.

Nothing had ever felt as good as those callused palms on her breasts. She arched against him. He brushed the tips and she moaned.

A knock sounded at the door.

She sucked in her breath and jerked away, scrambling to pull up her bodice.

"Who is it?" Cain barked out impatiently.

The door flew back on its hinges.

Sophronia stood on the other side, two pale smudges of alarm over her cheekbones. "What are you doing in her room?"

Cain's eyebrow slashed upward. "That's between Kit and me."

Sophronia's amber eyes took in Kit's disheveled state, and her hands knotted into fists in the skirt of her dress. She bit into her bottom lip as if she were trying to hold back all the words she didn't dare say in front of him. "Mr. Parsell is downstairs," she finally managed. The fabric of her skirt crumpled in her fists. "He has a book to lend you. I put him in the sitting room with Mrs. Gamble."

Kit's own fingers were stiff from the tight grip she had on her bodice. Slowly she relaxed them and nodded to Sophronia. Then she addressed Cain with as much composure as she could muster. "Would you invite Mr. Parsell to join us for dinner? Sophronia can help me finish dressing. I'll be downstairs in a few minutes."

Their eyes locked, stormy violet clashing with the gray of winter sleet. Who was the winner and who the loser in the battle that had just been fought between them? Neither of them knew. There was no resolution, no healing catharsis. Instead, their antagonism crackled even more powerfully than it had before.

Cain left without a word, but his expression clearly indicated it wasn't over between them.

"Don't say a word!" Kit began peeling off her dress, tearing a seam in her clumsiness. How could she have let him touch her like that? Why hadn't she pushed him away? "I need the gown in the back of my wardrobe. It's covered in muslin."

Sophronia didn't move, so Kit pulled it from the wardrobe herself and tossed it on the bed.

"What's happened to you?" Sophronia hissed. "The Kit Weston I used to know wouldn't lock herself in a bedroom with a man who's not her husband."

Kit turned on her. "I didn't invite him!"

"I'll bet you didn't tell him to leave, either."

"You're wrong. He was angry with me because he wanted me to have dinner downstairs with Mrs. Gamble, and I refused."

Sophronia jabbed her finger toward the gown on the bed. "Then why do you want that?"

"Brandon's here, so I've changed my mind."

"Is that why you're getting dressed up? For Mr. Parsell?"

Sophronia's question took her aback. Whom
was
she getting dressed up for? "Of course it's for Brandon And for Mrs. Gamble. I don't want to look like a country bumpkin in front of her."

Sophronia stiff features softened almost imperceptibly. "You can lie to me, Kit Weston, but just don't lie to yourself. You'd better make certain you're not doing this for the major."

"Don't be ridiculous."

"Leave him to Mrs. Gamble, honey." Sophronia walked over to the bed and pulled the muslin off the gown. At the same time, she repeated the words Magnus had said to her only a few weeks earlier. "He's a hard man with women. There's something as cold as ice inside him. Any woman who tries to get past that ice will only end up with a bad case of frostbite." She settled the gown over Kit's head.

"You don't need to tell me all this."

"When the major looks at a beautiful woman, all he sees is a body to bring him pleasure. If a woman understands that about him, like I expect Mrs. Gamble does, she can enjoy herself and there won't be any hard feelings afterward. But any woman who's fool enough to fall in love with him is only going to end up with a broken heart."

"This has nothing to do with me."

"Doesn't it?" Sophronia did up the fastenings. "The reason the two of you fight so much is because you're just alike."

"I'm not anything like him! You know better than anyone how much I hate him. He's standing in the way of everything I want from life. Risen Glory's mine. It's where I belong. I'll die before I let him keep it. I'm going to marry Brandon Parsell, Sophronia. And as soon as I can, I'm buying this plantation back."

Sophronia took a brush to her tangles. "And what makes you think the major will sell it to you?"

"Oh, he'll sell, all right. It's just a matter of time."

Sophronia began to draw her hair into a neat knot, but Kit shook her head. She'd wear it free tonight, with only the silver combs. Everything about her must be as different from Veronica Gamble as possible.

"You got no way of knowing he'll sell," Sophronia said.

Kit wasn't about to confess her late-night forages through the plantation's calf-bound ledgers, adding and subtracting her way through pages of boldly entered figures. It hadn't taken her long to discover that Cain had overextended himself. He was hanging onto Risen Glory and his spinning mill by the most fragile of threads. The smallest disaster could send him under.

Kit didn't know much about spinning mills, but she did know about cotton. She knew about unexpected hailstorms, about hurricanes and droughts, about insects that fed off the tender bolls until nothing was left. Where cotton was concerned, disaster was bound to strike sooner or later, and when it did, she'd be ready. She'd buy the plantation right out from under him. And she'd buy it at her own price.

Sophronia was staring at her and shaking her head.

"What's wrong?"

"Are you really wearing that dress downstairs for dinner?"

"Isn't it wonderful?"

"It's made for a ball, not for dinner at home."

Kit smiled. "I know."

The gown had been so outrageously expensive that Elsbeth had protested. She'd argued that Kit could put her clothing allowance to better use buying several more modest gowns. Besides, it was too conspicuous, she'd said, so extravagantly beautiful that, even on the most demure female—which Kit certainly was not—it would draw more attention than, perhaps, a well-brought-up young lady should wish to attract.

Such subtleties were lost on Kit. She only knew that it was glorious and she had to have it.

The overskirt of the dress was a billowing cloud of silver organdy caught up over gleaming white satin shot with silver thread. Crystal bugle beads covered the tight-fitting bodice, sparkling like night snow under a starry winter sky. More beads spangled the skirt all the way to the hem.