Morning Song (15 page)

Under the circumstances, Jessie spent a great deal of time away from the house. She rode Firefly daily, roaming the nearby piny forest with Jasper at her heels from dawn to dusk. Usually she would take care not to come home until after supper was served, and would then take her own meal in the cookhouse with Rosa. Considering the forbidding atmosphere that permeated the dining 125

room each night, Jessie was not sorry to content herself with the leavings of the main meal. According to Sissie, who most often got the thankless task of waiting at table, the master sat at one end of the long table and the mistress sat at the other, eating in grim splendor separated by acres of polished wood while neither said anything more to the other than was absolutely necessary. The swishing of the intricately carved mahogany punkah fan overhead and the rattling of dishes as Sissie served were the only sounds that broke the tense silence.

Often Jessie did not even bother returning to the house for luncheon, when Stuart would invariably be absent and Celia would be waiting to pounce on her stepdaughter like a spider on a fly with some imagined (or occasionally not so imagined) misdeed. Instead Jessie took to carrying with her an apple and a chunk of bread, and found that she did not miss the heavier meals that had once been the highlights of her days. This method of snatch-as-snatch-can eating, coupled with the extra hours she was spending in the saddle, was having a markedly beneficial effect on Jessie's appearance. So gradually that she hardly noticed it, she was slimming down.

Every morning Stuart worked with Graydon

Bradshaw in the plantation office. Most afternoons he spent riding around Mimosa, educating himself about everything from picking cotton to pruning fruit trees to how the field hands'

children were cared for in the nursery down in the quarters. Pharaoh, the slave foreman who had labored under Brantley for years, could usually be found at Stuart's side. Pharaoh was a big man, dark as ebony and brawny with muscle. He was also as knowledgeable about the plantation as ever Brantley had been. 126

Had he not been a slave, Mimosa would have had to look no further for her new overseer.

As Stuart learned the intricacies of running a plantation, Graydon Bradshaw nominally oversaw^ things, while rarely venturing out into the blistering heat of the fields. Jessie saw little of the dapper new overseer, but she heard much through the servants. Celia was apparently spending a considerable amount of time helping her cousin settle in. Knowing Celia, Jessie did not quite like the sound of that. Although, she thought hopefully, surely even Celia would not go so far as to play her new husband false right under his nose with an overseer who also happened to be her first cousin.

Or would she? If she was capable of such depravity, Jessie hoped devoutly that she would be discreet. The explosion that would certainly ensue should Stuart catch her at her favorite game was frightening to contemplate. For all his kindness and charm, Stuart was very much a man, and Celia, whether he disliked her or not, was his wife. Jessie knew as well as she knew anything that Stuart was not the kind of man to tolerate being made a fool of. She herself had witnessed his temper. Should Celia play him false and he discover it, Jessie had no doubt that her stepmother would greatly rue the consequences.

Sometimes Jessie could not resist the temptation and, Jasper at her heels, joined Stuart as he rode up and down the fields. He accepted her companionship and that of the big dog without comment, and even asked her questions about topics ranging from soil conditions to the number of bales a field hand should be expected to pick a day. Jessie surprised herself with how much she knew. Most of his questions she was able to answer with at least a reasonable degree of intelligence.

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"Shouldn't you be wearing a bonnet?" he asked her one day, his attention arrested by the pinkened condition of her nose and cheeks. It was a hot day in the middle of August, and the sun was beating down relentlessly. As far as the eye could see stretched acres of cotton ready for picking. Their fluffy white bolls reflected the sun, making the scene seem dazzlingly bright. The field hands were also dressed in white from the waist up, loose cotton shirts that protected them as much as any clothing could from the sun and the heat, with woven black trousers beneath. Each field hand picked a row at a time, his back bent and his fingers flying as he worked. The men sang hymns and spirituals to make the work go faster. The low, melodious sound of their chanting was as much a part of the summer as the buzzing of the bees.

" I never bother to wear a hat," Jessie admitted with a shrug, more interested in who would win the race to finish his row that two young field hands seemed to be having. Their fingers moved with lightning speed as they stripped each plant and threw the bolls in the bags slung over their shoulders.

"In future, I wish you would. In the meantime, take this. You'll be getting freckles if you're not careful, and we can't have that." He was wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat. Despite the jocular tone of that last, he removed it to plop it down on her head. Jessie was both surprised and touched by the gesture. She was not used to having anyone consider her comfort at the expense of his own.

"I don't need it. I'm used to the sun, really I am. And I never freckle." Self-consciously she lifted a II.Iud to the hat, meaning to remove it and hand it back
to him. He stopped her with a gesture.

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"Wear it. You have beautiful skin. It'd be a shame to spoil it." Jessie's hand fell, and her eyes widened at the compliment. Stuart was no longer looking at her. His eyes swept the fields. His expression was unreadable. Had he meant what he said? Did he truly find her skin beautiful? The notion dazzled her. Of their own volition her fingers rose to touch her cheek.

Her skin rarely burned, and never freckled. Despite its pale creaminess and the reddish tint to her hair, it was remarkably impervious to the sun. His skin was far darker than hers, yet he probably needed his hat more than she did. After all, he had not had a lifetime to grow accustomed to the shimmering heat of Mississippi in August.

Whether he protested or not, she should give his hat back. But its wide brim did provide comfortable shade for her eyes. And just the idea of wearing something that belonged to him sent a guilty quiver of pleasure down her spine.

"Thank you. That does feel better," she said just as meekly as could be, and wondered at herself. Meekness was not normally one of her attributes. Nor was feminine flirtatiousness, which that remark had come dangerously close to qualifying as.

"You're welcome.'

He was looking at her again, unsmiling. The sun beating down on his bare head picked up blue highlights in the glossy black waves. The highlights matched almost exactly the glinting shade of his eyes. Against the swarthiness of his skin and the darkness of his brows and lashes, those eyes looked impossibly blue, bluer even than the cloudless sky. The lean, chiseled regularity of his features could have graced a coin. The width of his shoulders in the white linen shirt gave silent testimony to powerful muscles discreetly hidden. In deference to the suffocating heat, the collar 129

of his shirt was unbuttoned, allowing Jessie a tantalizing glimpse of crisp black chest hair. Unconsciously her eyes went lower, to his flat stomach and long, hard-looking legs in their snug black breeches and boots. Then they rose again to his face. His mouth drew her eyes. It was perfectly carved, the lower lip just a bit fuller than the upper, though at the moment both lips were slightly compressed. Jessie was mesmerized by that unbelievably beautiful mouth. She stared at it without even realizing that she was doing so, her own lips parting as a tiny shiver started up her spine.

Then Jasper, who'd been quartering the field for some minutes, put up an earsplitting combination of howls and barks as he caught sight of a rabbit and hared off in hot pursuit. The sudden onslaught of noise made the horses sidle restively, and brought Jessie back to herself with a start. She realized that she'd been staring, quite blatantly, at her stepmother's husband's mouth, and with a rush of embarrassment she wrenched her eyes away.

"You can't be cold." His words were abrupt.

"No." Despite her embarrassment, this remark out of the blue made her look at him in surprise. Jessie could only suppose that her shiver had been as much external as internal—but his attention was fixed on the front of her dress.

Puzzled, Jessie followed the direction of his eyes. She was wearing a simple linen shirtwaist and skirt, the weather being far too hot for her favorite riding habit, with only a chemise and a single petticoat for decency's sake beneath. The shirtwaist was an old one, thin from many washings, but it was clean and securely buttoned and not nearly as snug as it once had been. The skirt was a faded blue, and if it was a trifle short for riding sidesaddle, there was nothing of her legs on view, only scuffed black boots. 130

Seeing nothing in particular about her appearance that might account for the set expression on his face, she looked back at him questioningly.

"That shirtwaist is too tight." He sounded as disapproving as he looked.

"It is not," Jessie answered, surprised. Indeed, both the shirtwaist and the skirt had once been far tighter, so tight that she'd all but given up wearing them. It was amazing how much more comfortable clothes felt when they were a trifle loose.

"Oh, yes, it is," Stuart replied, and there was a grim note to his voice that made Jessie's eyes widen. What could she possibly have done to make him sound so angry all of a sudden? He looked pointedly down at her front, his mouth tight. Again Jessie followed his eyes with her own. But this time she saw what had elicited his disapproval. A scalding blush started to rise from her neck to her face.

If the rest of her was slimmer, her bosom was not. With her skin damp with sweat, the thin linen molded itself to her shape. The full, rounded contours of her breasts were revealed rather than concealed by the clinging cloth. But the worst part, the shaming part, was the way her nipples thrust forward, hard and cylindrical and plainly visible through the twin layers of shirtwaist and chemise.

Jessie was an innocent, but she knew enough about her own body to know what those engorged nipples meant. That delicious little shiver that had come from looking at Stuart's mouth had had an unwelcome physical accompaniment. One that was too horribly plain to see.

"Don't look at me," she said in a strangled voice. Her arms crossed over her breasts and her shoulders hunched, trying to 131

shield her shame from view. If she knew what the change in her body signified, so must he. Crimsoning, Jessie felt the most hideous embarrassment she had ever known in her life engulf her.

"When was the last time you had some new clothes?" He looked, and sounded, merely irritable.

Maybe, just maybe, he didn't realize the awful significance of what he'd seen. Maybe he truly thought that her nipples always looked like that, and he'd only just now noticed because her shirtwaist was too tight.

Please, God, let that be what he thought!

"At—at the wedding—and the yellow dress, the one you brought me." If she could just keep her wits about her, maybe she could keep him from realizing that her shameful response was a reaction to him. Just finding himself in her presence would embarrass him if he knew. He would begin to avoid her, and Jessie didn't think she could bear that. She'd grown to depend on him in ways that were far more important to her than the physical effect he had on her body.

"Besides those."

"When I was fifteen. Three years ago."

The heat of her spreading blush felt far more intense than the heat of the sun on her skin ever had. Jessie willed it to recede. To turn a thousand shades of crimson would only make him suspicious.

Stuart's lips tightened as his eyes moved over her again. Jessie held her breath, and forced herself to look fearlessly back at him even as her crossed arms shielded her telltale breasts.

"Celia's been remiss. I'll see that you get what you need." 132

Jessie started to reply, but before she could say anything Pharaoh rode up, and Stuart's attention switched to the big foreman.

"Mr. Stuart, it's comin' on to rain. We oughta be seein' about gettin' what's done been picked under cover."

Stuart nodded. "See to it. I'll be with you in just a minute." Pharaoh touched his forehead and rode off. Stuart looked at Jessie again.

"You go on back to the house and change out of those clothes," he said, and there was no mistaking that it was an order.

"Yes, Stuart." If she'd sounded meek before, it was nothing compared with how she sounded now. She was in a fever of anxiety to get away from him. His eyes met hers, narrowed. Then he touched his heels to his horse's sides and was off in a cloud of dust.

"Your hat . . . !" He would need it. Distant rumbles of thunder heralded a coming storm. But if he heard her, he gave no sign. Jessie sat and watched as he rode away. Then, still burning with embarrassment, she went to change her clothes.

XVIII

Two
days later, Miss Flora and Miss Laurel came to
call. Celia was having an "at home" day, and several of her particular friends were already taking iced tea with her in the front parlor. But when her husband's aunts drove up, she excused herself and hurried out to greet them, all smiles. Jessie, who had been playing with Jasper in the orchard and had chosen that 133

unfortunate moment to throw a stick for him that sent him galloping onto the front lawn, watched as Celia's smile changed to a forbidding frown as she listened to the old ladies. Nervous that Jasper's boisterous presence might have something to do with Celia's annoyance, Jessie summoned him from his snufflings at a molehill (the stick quite forgotten) with a low, two-note whistle.

Jasper's head came up, his tail wagged, and at the last minute he snatched up the stick before bounding back to his mistress. The gazes of Celia and the aunts followed Jasper's progress until all three pairs of eyes rested on Jessie, partially hidden by the dense trees.