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 other'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
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
