become his mistress.
Every night when she served Cain his dinner, she let her hips sway seductively, and she forced her breasts against his arm when she set food before him. Sometimes she forgot her fear of white men long enough to notice how handsome he was, and she'd recall that he'd been kind to her. But he was too big, too powerful, too much a man for her to feel easy with him. Regardless, she made her lips moist and her eyes inviting, practicing all the tricks she'd forced herself to learn.
An image of Magnus Owen appeared in her mind. Damn that man! She hated the way he looked at her out of those dark eyes, as if he felt sorry for her. Sweet, blessed Jesus, if that wasn't enough to make a body laugh. Magnus Owen, who wanted her so bad he couldn't stand it, had the gall to feel sorry for her.
An involuntary shudder swept through her as she though of pale white limbs wrapping themselves around her golden brown ones. She pushed the image aside and gnawed on her resentment.
Did Magnus Owen really think she'd let him touch her? Him or any other black man? Did Magnus think she'd been studying hard, grooming herself, listening to the white ladies in Rutherford until she could sound exactly like them, just so she'd end up with a black man who couldn't protect her? Not likely. Especially a black man whose eyes seemed to pierce into the farthest reaches of her soul.
She made her way to the kitchen. Soon, now, she'd have everything she wanted-a house, silk gowns, safety- and she was going to earn it in the only way she knew how, satisfying a white man's lust. A white man who was powerful enough to protect her.
That night it turned rainy. Howling February winds swept down the chimneys and rattled the shutters as Sophronia paused outside the library. In one hand she held a silver tray bearing a bottle of brandy and a single glass. With her other hand she unfastened the top buttons of her dress to reveal the swells of her breasts. It was time to make her next move. She took a deep breath and entered the room.
Cain glanced up from the ledgers on the desk. 'You must have been reading my mind.'
He uncoiled his rugged, long-limbed frame from the leather chair, rose, and stretched. She didn't let herself step back as he came out from behind the desk, moving like a great golden lion. He'd been working from dawn to dusk for months, and he looked tired.
'It's a cold night,' she said, setting the tray on the desk. 'I thought you might need something to keep you warm.' She forced her hand to the open V of her dress so he couldn't mistake her meaning.
He gazed at her, and she felt the familiar stirrings of panic. Once again she reminded herself how kind he'd been, but she also knew there was something dangerous about him that frightened her.
His eyes flicked over her, then lingered on her breasts. 'Sophronia…'
She thought of silk gowns and a pastel house. A house with a sturdy lock.
'Shh…' She stepped up to him and splayed her fingers over his chest. Then she let her shawl drop on her bare arm.
For the past seven months, his life had been filled with hard work and little pleasure. Now his lids dropped and he closed his long, tapered fingers around her arm. His hand, bronzed by the Carolina sun, was darker than her own flesh.
He cupped her chin. 'Are you sure about this?'
She forced herself to nod.
His head dipped, but in the instant before their lips met, there was a noise behind them. They turned together and saw Magnus Owen standing in the open doorway.
His gentle features twisted as he saw her ready to submit to Cain's embrace. She heard a rumble deep in his throat. He charged into the room and threw himself at the man he considered his closest friend, the man who had once saved his life.
The suddenness of the attack took Cain by surprise. He staggered backward and barely managed to keep his balance. Then he braced himself for Magnus's assault.
Horrified, she watched as Magnus came at him. He swung, but Cain sidestepped and lifted his arm to block the blow.
Magnus swung again. This time he found Cain's jaw and sent him sprawling. Cain got back up, but he refused to retaliate.
Gradually Magnus regained some semblance of sanity. When he saw Cain wasn't going to fight, his arms sagged to his sides.
Cain looked deep into Magnus's eyes, then gazed across the room at Sophronia. He bent down to right a chair that had been upended in the struggle and spoke gruffly. 'You'd better get some sleep, Magnus. We have a big day tomorrow.' He turned to Sophronia. 'You can go. I won't be needing you anymore.' The deliberate way he emphasized his words left no doubt about his meaning.
Sophronia rushed from the room. She was furious with Magnus for upsetting her plans. At the same time, she feared for him. This was South Carolina, and he'd struck a white man, not once but twice.
She barely slept that night as she waited for the devils in white sheets to come after him, but nothing happened. The next day, she saw him working side by side with Cain, clearing brush from one of the fields. The fear she'd felt turned into seething resentment. He had no right to interfere in her life.
That evening, Cain instructed her to leave his brandy on the table outside the library door.
6
Fresh spring flowers filled the ballroom of the Templeton Academy for Young Ladies. Pyramids of white tulips screened the empty fireplaces, while cut-glass vases stuffed with lilacs lined the mantels. Even the mirrors had been draped with swags of snowy azaleas.
Along the ballroom's perimeter, clusters of fashionably dressed guests gazed toward the charming rose- bedecked gazebo at the end of the ballroom. Soon the most recent graduates of the Templeton Academy, the Class of 1868, would pass through.
In addition to the parents of the debutantes, guests included members of New York's most fashionable families: Schermerhorns and Livingstons, several Jays, and at least one Van Rensselaer. No socially prominent mother would permit a marriageable son to miss any of the events surrounding the graduation of the latest crop of Templeton girls, and certainly not the Academy's final ball, the best place in New York to find a suitable daughter- in-law.
The bachelors had gathered in groups around the room. Their ranks had been thinned by the war, but there were still enough present to please the mothers of the debutantes.
The younger men were carelessly confident in their immaculate white linen and black tailcoats, despite the fact that some of their sleeves hung empty, and more than one who hadn't yet celebrated his twenty-fifth birthday walked with a cane. The older bachelors' coffers overflowed from the profits of the booming postwar economy, and they signaled their success with diamond shirt studs and heavy gold watch chains.
Tonight was the first time the gentlemen from Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore would have the privilege of viewing the newest crop of Manhattan's most desirable debutantes. Unlike their New York counterparts, these gentlemen hadn't been able to attend the teas and sedate Sunday afternoon receptions that had led up to this evening's ball. They listened attentively as the local bachelors speculated on the winners in this year's bridal sweepstakes.
The beautiful Lilith Shelton would grace any man's table. And her father was to settle ten thousand on her.
Margaret Stockton had crooked teeth, but she'd bring eight thousand to her marriage bed, and she sang well, a pretty quality in a wife.
Elsbeth Woodward was only worth five thousand at the outside, but she was sweet-natured and most pleasant to look at, the sort of wife who wouldn't give a man a moment's trouble. Definitely a favorite.
Fanny Jennings was out of the running. The youngest Vandervelt boy had already spoken with her father. A pity, since she was worth eighteen thousand.
On and on it went, one girl after another. As the conversation began to drift to the latest boxing match, a Bostonian visitor interrupted. 'Isn't there another I've heard talk about? A Southern girl? Older than the rest?'
