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
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
