He stepped into the amber pool of light spilling out from the dining room. "You have to return to New York and go to school."
"School!" Kit was incredulous. "I'm eighteen years old. I'm too old for school. Besides, I'm already self-educated."
"Not that kind of school. A finishing school. A place that teaches deportment and etiquette and all those other female accomplishments you don't know a damn thing about."
"Finishing school?" She was horrified. "Now, that's the stupidest, most puerile-" She saw the storm clouds gathering in his expression and changed tack. "Let me stay here. Please. I won't be any trouble. Swear to Jesus. I can sleep out back, and you won't even know I'm around. I can make myself useful all kinds of ways. I know this plantation better than anyone. Please let me stay."
"You're going to do as I say."
"No, I-"
"If you don't cooperate, I'll sell Risen Glory so fast you won't know what happened. Then you won't have a prayer of ever getting your hands on it."
She felt sick. Her hatred of him coalesced into a hard, tight ball. "How… how long would I have to go to this school?"
"Until you can behave like a lady, so I guess that's up to you."
"You could keep me there forever."
"All right. Let's say three years."
"That's way too long. I'll be twenty-one by then."
"You've got a lot to learn. Take it or leave it."
She regarded him bitterly. "And then what happens? Will I be able to buy Risen Glory back from you with the money in my trust fund?"
"We'll discuss that when the time comes."
He could keep her away from Risen Glory for years, exiled from everything she loved. She turned away and rushed back into the dining room. She remembered how she'd humiliated herself by offering to be his mistress, and her hatred choked her. When her exile was over and Risen Glory was safe, he was going to pay for this.
"What'll it be, Kit?" he said from behind her.
She could barely force out the words. "You don't give me much choice, do you, Yankee?"
"Well, well, well." A woman's voice, throaty and seductive, rippled in from the hallway. "Will you jes' look at what that child brought back with her from New York City."
"Sophronia!" Kit pitched herself across the dining room and into the arms of the woman who stood in the doorway. "Where you been?"
"Rutherford. Jackson Baker took sick."
Cain stared at the newcomer with surprise. So this was Kit's Sophronia. She was hardly what he'd envisioned.
He'd imagined someone much older, but she looked as if she were in her early twenties, and she was one of the most exotically beautiful women he'd ever seen. Slim and tall, she towered over Kit. She had high, chiseled cheekbones, pale caramel skin, and slanted golden eyes that slowly lifted as he studied her.
Their gazes met and held over the top of Kit's head. Sophronia untangled herself and walked toward him, moving with a languid sensuality that made her simple blue cotton dress seem like a gown of the finest silk. When she was directly in front of him, she stopped and held out her slim hand.
"Welcome to Risen Glory, Boss Man."
Sophronia acted hateful all the way back north on the train. Everything was "yes, sir" and "no, sir" to Cain, smiling at him and taking his side against Kit.
"That's because he's right," Sophronia said when Kit confronted her about it. "It's time you started to act like the woman you were born to be."
"And it's time you started remembering whose side you're supposed to be on."
Sophronia and Kit loved each other more than anyone else on earth, despite being black and white. Which didn't mean they didn't argue. And those arguments only accelerated after they reached New York.
The minute Magnus laid eyes on Sophronia, he started walking around in a daze, and Mrs. Simmons wouldn't stop talking about Sophronia being so wonderful. After three days, Kit was sick of it. Then her already bad mood 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!"