Just Imagine aka Risen Glory

sure your name is on the deed to Risen Glory. You won't ever have to be afraid your precious plantation will be taken away from you again.'

Kit's heart was pounding in her chest like the wings of a trapped bird. 'I don't believe you. You can't just walk away. What about the cotton mill?'

'Childs can manage it for now. Maybe I'll sell it. I've already had an offer.' He grabbed a set of brushes from the top of the bureau and shoved them inside with the rest. 'I'm done fighting you, Kit. You've got a clear field now.'

'But I don't want you to go!' The words sprang spontaneously from her lips. They were true, and she didn't want to take them back.

He finally looked up at her, his mouth twisted in its old mockery. 'That surprises me. You've been trying your best to get rid of me one way or another since you were eighteen.'

'That was different. Risen Glory-'

He slammed the open palm of his hand against the bedpost, making the heavy wooden spindle vibrate. 'I don't want to hear about Risen Glory! I don't ever want to hear that name again. Damn it, Kit, it's just a cotton plantation. It isn't a shrine.'

'You don't understand! You've never understood. Risen Glory is all I've ever had.'

'So you've told me,' he said quietly. 'Maybe you should try to figure out why that is.'

'What do you mean?' She grabbed the bedpost for support as she closed in on him.

'I mean that you don't give anything. You're like my mother. You take from a man until you've bled him dry. Well, I'll be damned if I end up like my father. And that's why I'm leaving.'

'I'm not anything like Rosemary! You just can't accept the fact that I won't let you dominate me.'

'I never wanted to dominate you,' he said softly. 'I never wanted to own you, either, no matter how many times I said it. If I'd wanted a wife I could grind under my bootheel, I could have gotten married years ago. I never wanted you to walk in my dust, Kit. But, by damn, I won't walk in yours, either.'

He closed the satchel and began fastening the leather straps. 'When we got married-after that first night-I had this idea that maybe it could somehow be all right between us. Then it went bad right away, and I decided I'd been a fool. But when you came to me in that black nightgown, and you were so scared and so determined, I forgot all about being a fool and let you creep right back under my skin.'

He released the satchel and straightened up. For a moment he gazed at her, and then he closed the small distance left between them. His eyes were full of a pain that pierced through her as if it were her own. A pain that was her own.

He touched her cheek. 'When we made love,' he said huskily, 'it was as if we stopped being two separate people. You never held back. You gave me your wildness, your softness, your sweetness. But there wasn't a foundation underneath that lovemaking-no trust or understanding-and that's why it turned sour.'

He rubbed his thumb gently over her dry lips, his voice barely a whisper. 'Sometimes when I was inside you, I wanted to use my body to punish you. I hated myself for that.' He dropped his hand. 'Lately I've been waking up in a cold sweat, afraid that someday I'd really hurt you. Tonight, when I saw you in that dress and watched you with those other men, I finally realized that I had to go. It's no good between us. We started out all wrong. We never had a chance.'

Kit clutched his arm and gazed at him through the haze of her own tears. 'Don't go. It's not too late. If we both tried harder-'

He shook his head. 'I don't have anything left in me. I'm hurting, Kit. I'm hurting bad.'

Bending down, he pressed his lips to her forehead, then picked up the satchel and walked out of the room.

True to his word, Cain was gone when she returned to Risen Glory, and for the next month Kit moved like a sleepwalker through the house. She lost track of time, forgot to eat, and locked herself away in the big front bedroom she'd once shared with him. A young lawyer appeared with a stack of documents and a pleasant, unassuming manner. She was shown papers that gave her clear title to Risen Glory as well as control over her trust fund. She had everything she'd ever wanted, and she'd never been more miserable.

He gives away his books and his horses before he can grow too attached to them…

The attorney explained that the money Cain had taken from her trust fund to rebuild the cotton mill had all been repaid. She listened to everything he said, but she didn't care about any of it.

Magnus came to her for orders, and she sent him away. Sophronia scolded her to eat, but Kit ignored it. She even managed to turn a deaf ear to Miss Dolly's fretting.

One dreary afternoon in late February, as she sat in the bedroom pretending to read, Lucy appeared to announce that Veronica Gamble was waiting for her in the sitting room.

'Tell her I'm not feeling well.'

Veronica, however, wasn't so easily put off. Brushing past the maid, she climbed the stairs and entered the bedroom after knocking. She took in Kit's uncombed hair and sallow complexion. 'How Lord Byron would have loved this,' she said scathingly. 'The maiden withers like a dying rose, growing more frail each day. She refuses to eat and hides away. What on earth do you think you're doing?'

'I want to be left alone.'

Veronica shrugged off an elegant topaz velvet cloak and tossed it on the bed. 'If you care nothing for yourself, you could at least consider the child you're carrying.'

Kit's head shot up. 'How do you know about that?'

'I met Sophronia in town last week. She told me, and I decided to come see for myself.'

'Sophronia doesn't know. No one knows.'

'You don't imagine something that important could get past Sophronia, do you?'

'She shouldn't have said anything.'

'You didn't tell Baron about the child, did you?'

Kit mustered her composure. 'If you'll go down to the sitting room, I'll ring for tea.'

But Veronica wouldn't be distracted. 'Of course you didn't tell him. You're much too proud for that.'

All the fight left her, and Kit sagged into the chair. 'It wasn't pride. I didn't think of it. Isn't that odd? I was so stunned by the fact that he was leaving me that I forgot to tell him.'

Veronica wandered over to the window, pushed back the curtain, and stared outside. 'Womanhood has been hard coming to you, I think. But then, I suppose it's hard coming to all of us. Growing up seems easier for men, maybe because their rites of passage are clearer. They perform acts of bravery on the battlefield or show they're men through physical labor or by making money. For women, it's more confusing. We have no rites of passage. Do we become women when a man first makes love to us? If so, why do we refer to it as a loss of virginity? Doesn't the word 'loss' imply that we were better off before? I abhor the idea that we become women only through the physical act of a man. No, I think we become women when we learn what is important in our lives, when we learn to give and to take with a loving heart.'

Every word Veronica uttered settled in Kit's heart.

'My dear,' Veronica said softly as she walked over to the bed and picked up her cloak, 'it really is time for you to take your final step into womanhood. Some things in life are temporal and others are everlasting. You'll never be content until you decide which are which.'

She was gone as quickly as she had arrived, leaving only her words to linger. Kit heard the carriage move off down the drive, then grabbed the jacket that went with her riding habit and threw it over her rumpled woolen dress. She slipped out of the house and made her way to the old slave church.

The interior was dim and chilly. She sat on one of the rough wooden benches and thought hard about what Veronica had said.

A mouse scratched in the corner. A branch tapped at the window. She remembered the pain she'd seen on Cain's face before he'd left, and at that moment the door she'd kept so tightly shut on her heart swung open.

No matter how much she'd tried to deny it, no matter how hard she'd fought it, she'd fallen in love with him. Her love had been written in the stars long before that July night when he'd pulled her down off the wall by her britches. All of her life since birth had shaped her for him, just as all his life had shaped him for her. He was the other half of herself.

She'd fallen in love with him through their battles and arguments, through her stubbornness and his arrogance,