Morning Song (3 page)

Something about the very pristineness of that glossy brown leather set Jessie's teeth on edge. Already she knew that this was not a man she was going to like.

She frowned as the stranger reached up to catch Celia around the waist and swing her from the buggy. Though the gesture was no more than any gentleman might offer to a lady, those longfingered hands in the black leather driving gloves curled around Celia's tiny waist with far too much intimacy, and he held her for too long to be quite proper. Watching, Jessie felt a stirring of embarrassment, as if she were witnessing something that should 18

have been private. Celia, of course, was beaming at him—which was nothing to be surprised at. If he was her lover, and Jessie was becoming more convinced with every passing moment that he was, then she would certainly smile at him. And he would look down at her with sickening ardency, and be reluctant to take his hands from her person. In other words, he would behave just as he was doing.

Celia was giggling appreciatively at something he said, her hands lingering on the impeccably tailored sleeves of his fashionable coat as he set her on her feet and, finally, released his hold on her waist. The rapt way she smiled up into his face, the possessiveness of her hands on his arms, even the way she seemed to lean into him as she talked, clinched the matter, as far as Jessie was concerned. The man was Celia's latest lover, and she had had the appallingly bad taste to bring him home to Mimosa. The question was, why?

Whatever his name was, wherever he was from, this man was trouble. Jessie felt it in her bones in the same way Tudi felt oncoming rain.

II

What
do you suppose she's up to?" It was more
a case of Jessie thinking aloud than asking a Question, but Tudi answered anyway.

"Lamb, I gave up tryin' to figure out Miss Celia years ago. Don't stare so, now. It ain't nice."

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Tudi-s admonition was a case of the pot calling i In* kettle black if Jessie had ever heard one, but that moment wasn't the time to say so. Besides, Tudi had a point. It wouldn't do to be caught gaping. As the horse and buggy were led away, Jessie set the locking chair in motion again with a gentle push of her foot

against the whitewashed floor, and took another bite out of the cherry tartlet. Beside her, Tudi lowered her eyes to her lap and once again began snapping
beans.

Then the stranger turned to escort Celia up the broad
steps that led to the upper gallery and the family sitting rooms beyond. Jessie took one look at his face and stopped eating again. The tartlet was suspended, forgotten, in her hand as she stared in growing dismay.

Even to her critical, untutored eyes, the man was dazzling. As the pair of them came up the stairs, he was smiling down at Celia, who had tucked her hand into the crook of his arm, his long fingers covering her childlike ones where they rested on his sleeve. His teeth gleamed white against the tan of his face, and his features were handsome and regular. As he threw back his head to laugh at something Celia said, Jessie saw that beneath thick black brows his eyes were very blue, as blue as the halcyon sky that overlay the Yazoo Valley that day.

Some of the local planters and their sons were attractive men, and Jessie privately thought that Mitchell Todd, whose family owned neighboring Riverview, was very handsome indeed. But Mitch and the rest paled before the sheer physical splendor of this man, who besides his good looks had about him an air of excitement and danger and rakish charm that the others definitely lacked.

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Jessie thought, whoever he is, he's not from these parts. Then they reached the top of the stairs, and both Celia and the stranger saw Jessie and Tudi at last. Jessie put the cherry tartlet carefully in her lap, hoping it would not ooze all over her, and gripped the armrests hard.

"Why, Jessie! Goodness, you do look a fright! Oh, well, it can't be helped, I suppose. Stuart, dear, this is my wayward stepdaughter." Celia rolled her eyes as if to emphasize whatever she had told the man about Jessie. He smiled at Jessie. It was an utterly disarming smile that made him look handsomer than ever. In response, Jessie's hands tightened on the armrests in an involuntary gesture of physical resistance to that potent charm. Her face tightened, too, and she knew that it had assumed the familiar sullen expression for which Tudi was forever chiding her and which she could not seem to help when she was around Celia. Celia, who in the most artless way imaginable was forever calling attention to her stepdaughter's myriad faults. Ignoring Tudi as she always did the slaves unless she was scolding them or giving them an order, Celia smiled at Jessie, too—unusual enough in itself to underline Jessie's forboding, if Jessie had been in any State to notice—and pulled the man toward the end of the porch where Jessie sat. The hummingbird, alarmed, took wing, adding the whirr of its movement to the jingle of the departing buggy. The silk skirt of Celia's fashionable afternoon dress rustled as she moved.

Celia was immaculate as always, from the top of her fetching little hat to the toes of the tiny satin slippers that just peeked out from beneath her skirt. Her dress was almost the color of the sky and the Granger's eyes—Celia had a predilection for pale blue

and in it Celia looked lovely and slender and amazingly young. 21

Jessie wondered, uncharitably, if her new beau had any notion that Celia had turned thirty the previous winter. Then Celia, the man in tow, stopped before her. Jessie stared stonily up into the stranger's smiling face as Celia prattled on in the artificially sweet voice she affected when she was in the company of men.

"Jessie, this is Stuart Edwards. Really, dear, you do look like you've been dragged through a bush luck ward! And is that a sweet you're eating? You
know
you must not eat sweets if you ever want to outgrow that baby fat! You really must make more of an effort with your appearance. You'll never be a beauty, I know, but you could at least strive for presentable! Stuart, pray forgive her! Usually at least her face is clean! Goodness, Jessie, I hadn’t realized until now, but you've just turned into a great gawk of a girl while my back's been turned, haven't you? You'll likely give Stuart a disgust of me and make him think I'm a dreadful stepmama and terribly old to boot, though I was decades younger than my late husband and really am of an age to be a sister to Jessie rather than her stepmama." This last was said with a frown for Jessie and a trilling laugh and a sideways glance for Stuart Edwards.

"It must be instantly clear to anyone who has the use of his eyes that you and Miss Lindsay are very much of an age," Edwards interrupted gallantly. "How do you do, Miss Lindsay?" The smooth compliment pleased Celia, who fluttered her lashes and simpered at him, uttering a sickening "Oh, Stuart!" Edwards smiled at her, then bowed politely to Jessie, who met his oozing charm with stony silence. Flattery might turn Celia all syrupy sweet, but it was wasted on her! Behind Edward s back Celia narrowed her eyes at Jessie in a look that promised retribution for her rudeness when they were alone. Jessie ignored 22

the implied threat. One advantage that her size gave her over her doll-like stepmother was that she no longer had to physically fear Celia.

"Really, Jessie, have you no manners at all? You must at least say, 'How do you do?' when you are introduced to someone." Celia's tone of pretty chiding hid her real urge to box her stepdaughter's ears, Jessie knew. Still Jessie said nothing, just looked up at the pair of them in a way calculated to make known her contempt. At her expression Celia made a disgusted little noise under her breath and took Edward's arm as if to draw him away. "Pray overlook her lack of manners, Stuart! I've tried my best with her, but as you see, she pays me no mind. Perhaps now that she's going to have a father again she'll-"

"What did you say?" Jessie spoke at last as that sank in, her voice an incredulous squeak. She could not have heard correctly, or understood what she had heard. Celia looked nervously, appealingly, up at the man beside her. Jessie realized that her ears had not deceived her. She got slowly, carefully, to her feet, rescuing the cherry tartlet from her lap without even realizing that she was doing so. Shock caused her to move as if she were suddenly very old.

Celia was a shade under five feet in height and delicately made, while Jessie was a good six inches taller and very far from delicate. Standing, Jessie loomed over her stepmother, and her demeanor was something less than loving. Edwards made a move as though he would get between them, but he did not and Jessie ignored him. Her eyes were on Celia. Celia, who stood with her back to Edwards looking up at Jessie with the malice that, when they were alone, was her usual attitude toward her stepdaughter.

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"Now, Jessie, dear, I feared you'd be a little upset
,
but you see, Stuart and I are in love and . . ." That artificially sweet voice grated on Jessie like fingernails on a blackboard. The hand that was not holding the cherry tartlet clenched at her side.

"Your stepmother has done me the great honor to promise to be my wife, Miss Lindsay," Edwards interrupted, moving closer to Celia, his voice and eyes hard in Celia's defense. "We hope you'll wish us happy."

Clearly his hope was destined to be unrealized, Jessie
looked from him to Celia for a long moment without speaking while the awful news sank in. Her stomach churned, and her face went paper-white.

"You're going to—get married again?" she croaked at last.

"Just as soon as it can be arranged." It was Edwards who replied, although the disbelieving question had been addressed to Celia. Jessie ignored Edwards as though he weren't there.

"Does this mean you'll be . . . going away?" Jessie still spoke to Celia in a voice that sounded as if she were being choked. Even as Jessie asked the question she knew the answer: Celia would never go away.

"Of course we'll take a little wedding trip, but I couldn't leave you for longer than that, could I, dear? No, of course not. Your dear father left you to my care, and I'll never violate that sacred trust, however much you may hate me for it!

Stuart will be moving in here, to relieve me of some of the burdens I've shouldered in trying to run this place as your father would have wished, and he'll try to be a father to you. Maybe, just maybe, his guidance will have the effect on you that mine has not. I—" "You can't do this!"

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"Oh, Jessie, why must you make everything so difficult? I only want what's best for us all. . . ." Celia's plaintive cry snapped Jessie's control.

"You—can't—do—this!" she hissed, taking a hasty step toward her stepmother. Celia squeaked and stepped just as hastily back. Jessie grabbed one of her stepmother's fragile arms and gave it a shake. "Do you near me, Celia? You just can't!"

"Get hold of yourself, Miss Lindsay!" This time Edwards did insert himself between Jessie and Celia, his hands gripping Jessie's shoulders hard enough to hurt. Jessie yanked free, at the same time, as had no doubt been Edwards' intent, freeing Celia.

"Jessie,
dear."
Celia rubbed her arm and looked on the verge of tears. Knowing her for a fake and a fraud, Jessie scowled murderously at her.

"I believe it would be best if we postponed any further discussion until your stepdaughter is more herself," Edwards suggested, wrapping an arm protectively around Celia's slight shoulders and giving Jessie a look that mingled dislike with clear warning.

"She
is
herself." Celia sounded despairing as she turned to look up at him, her small hands grasping his shirtfront in a manner that even Jessie would have considered pathetic if she hadn't known Celia so well. "She's always like this. She's hated me since I married her father. She—she never wants me to be happy—"

To Jessie's disgust, Celia then burst into noisy tears. Edwards, of course, fell for the sickening display hook, line and sinker. Jessie watched the pair of them balefully while Edwards held the sobbing Celia close and whispered comfortingly in her ear. Tudi, who still sat in the rocking chair, eyes lowered discreetly to the 25

beans she snapped while her ears practically stood out from her head as she drank in every word, took advantage of the twosome's distraction to flash Jessie a quelling look accompanied by a slight shake of her turbaned head. Jessie saw, but was too upset to heed the silent message. She felt as though she had tumbled headlong into a nightmare.

"You can't do this," she said again. Her words were addressed to Celia's slight back, which was heaving as she wept noisily into Edwards' shirt-front.

"I am going to marry your stepmother, Miss Lindsay," Edwards said, his voice even, his eyes wintry as they met hers. "You might as well accustom yourself to the notion, and stop subjecting us to these theatrics. I might warn you that as soon as I am your stepmother's husband you will be under my control, and I'm perfectly capable of dealing with spoiled children as they deserve."

Jessie stared at him, looked deep into eyes that were as cold and unyielding as ice, and felt such rage and hate fill her that she trembled with it. She was so angry that she caught her breath on what was almost a sob. But she couldn't cry. She never cried, and she would perish before she would sink so low in front of him—

them! Her chin came up, belying the wet glitter in her eyes. She didn't know It, but she looked very much a child suddenly, an angry, lost child. The corner of Edwards' mouth turned down impatiently as he saw the incipient tears, and he made a move as though he would lay a consoling hand on her shoulder. Jessie saw the sudden pity in his eyes and bared her teeth at him. How dared, he feel sorry for her!

"Miss Lindsay . . ." His hand actually touched her arm, gave her a little pat. Violently Jessie knocked his hand away. 26

"Don't
you dare touch me!" she spat, her eyes blazing hatred at him through the tears she refused to shed. Then with a wild cry she whirled and ran for the steps, shoving roughly past him, past Celia— who had recovered from her tears and was sniffing dolefully against his chest while her eyes, peeping sideways at Jessie, gleamed with triumph.