Page 16 of Just Imagine

Kit was alone in the great rumpled bed when the noise in the hallway awakened her. She blinked against the sunlight, then bolted upright as she realized where she was. The sudden movement made her wince.

Sophronia rushed in without bothering to knock.

“Kit! Honey, are you all right? Magnus wouldn’t let me leave, or I’d have been here earlier.”

Kit couldn’t meet Sophronia’s eyes.

“I’m fine.”

She pushed back the covers. Her robe lay across the bottom of the bed. Cain must have put it there.

As she slipped into it, Sophronia stiffened. Kit saw her staring at the pale stain on the sheet.

“You stayed with Magnus last night?”

she said quickly, trying to divert her.

Sophronia pulled her gaze away from the bed and said unsteadily.

“The major didn’t give me much choice. Magnus slept on the porch.”

“I see.”

Kit headed into her own room, just as if everything were normal.

“A nice night for sleeping outdoors.”

Sophronia followed her. Kit began to wash in the water Lucy had left for her. The silence hung heavy between them.

It was Sophronia who broke it.

“Did he hurt you? You can tell me.”

“I’m fine,”

Kit repeated, too quickly.

Sophronia sat down on the side of the bed that hadn’t been slept in.

“I never told you this. I didn’t want to, but now . . .”

Kit turned away from the washstand.

“What’s wrong?”

“I—I know what it’s like to be . . . to be hurt by a man.”

She twisted her hands in her lap.

“Oh, Sophronia . . .”

“I was fourteen the first time. He—he was a white man. I wanted to die afterward, I felt so dirty. And all that summer he’d find me, no matter how hard I tried to hide. ‘Gal,’ he’d call out. ‘You. Come over here.’ ”

Kit’s eyes filled with tears. She rushed to her friend’s side and knelt beside her.

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”

“I didn’t want you to.”

She drew Sophronia’s hand to her cheek.

“Couldn’t you have gone to my father and told him what was happening?”

Sophronia’s nostrils flared, and she snatched her hand away.

“He knew what was happening. White men always knew what was happening to the slave women they owned.”

Kit was glad she hadn’t eaten, because she would have vomited. She’d heard stories, but she’d always been able to convince herself that nothing like that could ever happen at Risen Glory.

“I’m not telling you this to make you cry.”

Sophronia took her thumb to one of Kit’s tears.

Kit thought of the arguments about states’ rights she’d made over the years to anyone who said the war had been fought over slavery. Now she understood why those arguments had been so important to her. They’d kept her from confronting a truth she hadn’t been able to face.

“It’s so evil. So wicked.”

Sophronia rose and moved away.

“I’m doing my best to put it in the past. Right now, it’s you I’m worried about.”

Kit didn’t want to talk about herself. She returned to the washstand, acting as if the world were just the same as it had been the day before.

“You don’t have to worry about me.”

“I saw the expression on his face when he carried you into this house. It doesn’t take much imagination to know you had a hard time of it. But listen to me, Kit. You can’t keep all that ugliness stopped up inside you. You have to let it out before it changes you.”

Kit tried to think of what she could say, especially after what Sophronia had revealed about herself. But how could she speak of something she didn’t understand?

“No matter how terrible it was,”

Sophronia said.

“you can talk to me about it. I understand, honey. You can tell me.”

“No, you don’t understand.”

“I do. I know what it’s like. I know how—”

“You don’t.”

Kit turned.

“This wasn’t ugly like what happened to you,”

she said softly.

“It wasn’t ugly or awful or anything like that.”

“You mean that he didn’t . . .”

Kit swallowed and nodded. “He did.”

Sophronia’s face turned ashen.

“I—I guess I shouldn’t have . . .”

She ran out of words.

“I need to get back to the kitchen. Patsy wasn’t feelin’ good yesterday.”

Her skirts made a soft whooshing sound as she left the room.

Kit stared after her, feeling sick and guilty. Finally she forced herself to finish dressing. She reached into her wardrobe and pulled out the first thing her fingers touched, a candy-striped dimity. She’d lost her silver comb, so she tied her curls back with a pumpkin-colored ribbon she found in her drawer. It clashed with her dress, but she didn’t notice.

Just as she reached the foyer, the front door opened and Cain walked in with Miss Dolly. Kit was immediately swept into a peppermint-scented embrace.

“Oh, my sweet, sweet precious! This is the happiest day of my life, ’deed it is. To think that you and the major cherish tender feelin’s for each other, and I didn’t suspect a thing.”

This was the first time she’d heard Miss Dolly voluntarily refer to Baron a.

“the major.”

She studied her more closely, which gave her an excuse to avoid looking at Cain.

“I’ve already chastised the major for keeping me in the dark, and I should chastise you, too, but I’m too consumed by happiness.”

The older woman clasped her hands to her ruffled bodice.

“Just look at her, Major, in her pretty frock with a ribbon in her hair. Although you might want to find another color, Katharine Louise. That little pink satin you have, if it’s not too badly crushed. Now I must go talk to Patsy about a cake.”

With a quick peck at Kit’s cheek, she headed for the kitchen. When the clatter of her tiny heels on the wooden floor had receded, Kit was finally forced to look at her husband.

She might have been staring at a stranger. His face was empty of expression, his eyes distant. The passion they’d shared last night might have been something she’d imagined.

She searched for some trace of tenderness, some acknowledgment of the importance of what had passed between them. When she didn’t find it, a chill went through her. She should have known this was how it would be with him. She’d been foolish to expect anything else. Still, she felt betrayed.

“Why is Miss Dolly calling you ‘Major’?”

She asked this question instead of the others she couldn’t give voice to.

“What did you say to her?”

He tossed his hat onto the hallway table.

“I told her we were married. Then I pointed out that if she went on believing I was General Lee, she’d have to reconcile herself to the fact that you were living with a bigamist, since the general has been married for years.”

“How did she react?”

“She accepted it, especially after I reminded her that my own military record was nothing to be ashamed of.”

“Your military record? How could you frighten her like that?”

Finally she had a target on which to pin at least a small portion of her pain.

“If you bullied her—”

“She wasn’t frightened. She was quite pleased to hear how valiantly I was serving under General Beauregard.”

“Beauregard fought for the Confederacy.”

“Compromise, Kit. Maybe someday you’ll learn the value of it.”

He headed for the stairs and then stopped.

“I’m leaving for Charleston in an hour. Magnus will be here if you need anything.”

“Charleston? You’re leaving today?”

His eyes mocked her.

“Were you expecting a honeymoon?”

“No, of course not. But don’t you think it’s going to look a little strange if you leave so soon after our—our wedding?”

“Since when have you cared what people think?”

“I don’t. I was just thinking about Miss Dolly and her cake.”

Her anger ignited.

“Go to Charleston. Go to hell for all I care.”

She pushed past him and stalked out the front door. She half expected him to come after her, half hoped he would. She wanted a fight, a raging argument on which to blame her unhappiness. But the door remained shut.

She went to the live oak behind the house and leaned against one of the great drooping branches. How was she to survive being his wife?

For the next few days, she stayed away from the house as much as she could. At first light, she donned her britches and rode Temptation from one corner of the plantation to the next, everywhere but the spinning mill. She talked to the women about their gardens, the men about the cotton crop, and walked between the long rows of plants until the afternoon sun drove her into the refuge of the woods or to the banks of the pond.

But the pond was no longer a sanctuary. He’d spoiled that, too. As she sat beneath the willows, she thought about how he’d managed to take everything from her: home, money, and finally her body. Except she’d given that freely.

Sometimes the memory filled her with rage. Other times she’d feel edgy and restless. When that happened, she’d jump on Temptation and ride him until she was exhausted.

One day slid into another. Kit had never been a coward, but she couldn’t find the courage to face her callers, so she left them to Miss Dolly. Although she didn’t think the Cogdells would ever reveal the details of that awful wedding, the rest was bad enough. She’d married the enemy in a hurry-up affair that would leave them all counting on their fingers for months to come. Just as embarrassing was the fact that her husband had abandoned her the morning after their marriage, and she had no idea when he’d return.

Only once did she agree to receive company, and that was early Saturday afternoon, when Lucy announced that Mr. Parsell had come to call. Brandon knew how she felt about Cain, so he must realize that she’d been forced into the marriage. Maybe he’d thought of a way to help her.

She quickly changed from her britches into the dress she’d worn the day before and hurried downstairs. He rose from the settee to greet her.

“Mrs. Cain.”

He bowed formally.

“I came to extend my felicitations as well as the best wishes of my mother and my sisters. I’m certain that you and Major Cain will be very happy.”

Kit felt a hysterical bubble of laughter rising inside her. How like him it was to behave as if there’d never been anything between them but the most distant of friendships.

“Thank you, Mr. Parsell,”

she replied, somehow managing to match his tone. Propelled by her pride, she flawlessly played the role for which the Templeton Academy had trained her. For the next twenty minutes, she spoke of the condition of the roses that grew near the front of the house, the health of the president of the Planters and Citizens Bank, and the possibility of purchasing a new carpet for the church.

He responded to each topic and never once attempted to refer to any of the events that had transpired between them less than a week before. As he took his leave of her, precisely twenty minutes after his arrival, she wondered why it had taken her so long to admit to herself what an idiot he was.

She spent the evening curled in a chair in the rear sitting room, her old, battered copy of Emerson’s Essays on her lap. Across from her was the mahogany desk where Sophronia worked on the housekeeper’s records. Cain would expect her to take over now, but Sophronia wouldn’t appreciate her interference, and Kit had no interest in counting linens. She didn’t want to be mistress of the house. She wanted to be mistress of the land.

As night settled in, Kit sank deeper into despair. He could do anything he wanted to her plantation, and she couldn’t stop him. He cared much more about the mill than the fields. Maybe he’d decide to slice up the fields to make way for a road. And he was a gambler. What if he squandered the money from her trust? What if he decided to sell off the land for ready cash?

The clock in the hallway chimed midnight and her thoughts grew darker. Cain had always been a wanderer. He’d already lived here for three years. How long would it be before he decided to sell Risen Glory and set off for someplace new?

She tried to tell herself Risen Glory was safe for now. Cain was preoccupied with the spinning mill, so he wasn’t likely to do anything drastic right away. Even though it went against her nature, she had to bide her time.

Yes, Risen Glory was safe, but what about her? What about that hot pounding in her blood when he touched her? Or the heightened awareness that shot through her every time she saw him? Was history repeating itself? Was Weston blood calling out to Cain blood as it had done once before in the union that had nearly destroyed Risen Glory?

“Katharine Louise, why aren’t you in bed?”

Miss Dolly stood in the doorway, her frilly nightcap askew, her face puckered with worry.

“Just restless. I’m sorry I woke you.”

“Let me give you some laudanum, dear, so you can sleep.”

“I don’t need any.”

“You need your rest, Katharine. Now, don’t be stubborn.”

“I’ll be fine.”

She led Miss Dolly upstairs, but the older woman refused to leave her alone until Kit forced down several teaspoons of the laudanum.

She fell asleep, only to have her rest disturbed by opium-induced shadow-images. Toward dawn, a great tawny lion came to her. She smelled his male, jungle scent, but instead of feeling fear, she wove her fingers through his mane and pulled him closer.

Gradually, he changed into her husband. He whispered love words and began to caress her. Through the fabric of her dream, she felt his skin. It was warm and as moist as her own.

“I’ll fill you now,”

her dream-husband whispered.

“Yes,”

she murmured. “Oh, yes.”

He entered her then, and her body caught fire. She moved with him, and climbed with him, and just before the flames exploded, she called out his name.

The laudanum dream was still with her when she awakened the next morning. She gazed up at the pink-and-green silk bed hangings, trying to shake off the groggy aftereffects of the medicine. How real it had seemed . . . the lion who’d changed beneath her hands into—

She shot up in bed.

Cain stood at her washstand shaving before the mirror that hung above it. He wore only a white towel draped around his hips.

“Good morning.”

She glared at him.

“Go into your own room to shave.”

He turned and stared pointedly at her chest.

“The scenery is better in here.”

She realized the sheet had fallen to her waist, and she yanked it to her chin. Then she saw her nightgown lying crumpled on the floor. He chuckled at her sudden intake of breath. She lifted the sheet and stuck her head under it.

Sure enough. She wasn’t imagining the dampness between her thighs.

“You were a wildcat last night,”

he drawled, clearly amused.

And he’d been a lion.

“I was drugged,”

she retorted.

“Miss Dolly made me take laudanum. I don’t remember anything.”

“Then I guess you’ll have to take my word for it. You were sweet and submissive, and you did everything I wanted.”

“Now who’s dreaming?”

“I took what was mine last night,”

he said with deliberate relish.

“It’s a good thing that your freedom is a thing of the past. You obviously need a strong hand.”

“And you obviously need a bullet in your heart.”

“Get out of bed and get dressed, wife. You’ve been hiding out long enough.”

“I haven’t been hiding.”

“That’s not what I hear.”

He rinsed off his face, then reached for a towel to dry it.

“I ran into one of our neighbors in Charleston yesterday. She took a great deal of pleasure in telling me you weren’t receiving visitors.”

“Forgive me if I wasn’t anxious to listen to everyone clucking their tongues over the fact that I married a Yankee who abandoned me the morning after our wedding.”

“That really rankles, doesn’t it?”

He tossed down the towel.

“I didn’t have any choice. The spinning mill has to be rebuilt in time for this year’s crop, and I needed to make arrangements for the lumber and building supplies.”

He walked to the door.

“I want you dressed and downstairs in half an hour. The carriage will be waiting.”

She eyed him suspiciously.

“What for?”

“It’s Sunday. Mr. and Mrs. Cain are going to church.”

“Church!”

“That’s right, Kit. This morning you’re going to stop acting like a coward and face them all down.”

Kit jumped up, taking the sheet with her.

“I’ve never acted like a coward in my life!”

“That’s what I’m counting on.”

He disappeared through the doorway.

She’d never admit it to him, but he was right. She couldn’t keep hiding like this. Cursing under her breath, she threw aside the sheet and washed.

She decided to wear the blue-and-white muslin forget-me-not dress she’d worn on her first night back at Risen Glory. After she put it on, she pulled up her hair into a loose chignon, then perched a tiny confection of chip straw and blue satin on her head. For jewelry, she wore her detested wedding ring and eardrops set with moonstones.

It was a warm morning, and the worshipers hadn’t gone inside yet. As the carriage from Risen Glory drew up, Kit watched their heads turn. Only the young children darting about in a final burst of energy were indifferent to the arrival of Baron Cain and his bride.

Cain helped Miss Dolly out, then reached inside the carriage to assist Kit. She stepped down gracefully, but as he began to release her arm, she moved closer to him. With what she hoped was an intimate smile, she slid first one hand and then the other up the length of his sleeve and clung to it in a pose of helpless and adoring femininity.

“Pushing it a bit, aren’t you?”

he muttered.

She gave him a blazing smile and whispered under her breath.

“I’m just getting started. And you can go to hell.”

Mrs. Rebecca Whitmarsh Brown reached her first.

“Why, Katharine Louise, we didn’t expect to see you this morning. It goes without saying that your very sudden marriage to Major Cain has surprised us all, hasn’t it, Gladys?”

“It certainly has,”

her daughter answered tightly.

The young woman’s expression clearly told Kit that Gladys’s own eyes had been fixed on Cain, Yankee or not, and she didn’t appreciate being passed over for a hoyden like Kit Weston.

Kit went so far as to press her cheek to his sleeve.

“Why, Mrs. Brown, Gladys, I believe you’re teasin’ me, ’deed I do. Surely everyone in the entire county who possesses a pair of eyes guessed from the very beginnin’ how Major Cain and I feel about each other. Although he, bein’ a man, was much better able to hide his true emotions than I, a mere women, ever could.”

Cain made an odd choking sound, and even Miss Dolly blinked.

Kit sighed and clicked her tongue.

“I fought and fought our attraction—the major being a Yankee interloper and one of our most evil enemies. But as Shakespeare wrote, ‘Love conquers all things.’ Isn’t that so, darlin’?”

“I believe Virgil wrote that, my dear,”

he replied dryly.

“Not Shakespeare.”

Kit beamed at the women.

“Now, isn’t he just the smartest man? You wouldn’t think a Yankee would know so much, would you? Most of them being dim-headed and all.”

He squeezed her arm in what looked like a gesture of affection, but was, in fact, a warning to mind her manners.

She fanned her face.

“Gracious, it certainly is warm. Baron, darlin’, maybe you’d better take me inside where it’s cooler. I seem to be feelin’ the heat this morning.”

The words were barely out of her mouth before a dozen pairs of eyes traveled to her waistline.

This time there was no mistaking Cain’s wicked amusement.

“Of course, my dear. Let’s get you inside right away.”

He steered her up the steps, his arm around her shoulders as if she were a delicate, fruit-bearing flower in need of his protection.

Kit felt the churchgoers’ eyes piercing her back, and she could hear them mentally ticking off the months. Let them count, she told herself. Soon they’d see for themselves that they were wrong.

And then a horrible thought struck her.

The Conjure Woman had lived in a ramshackle cabin on what had once been Parsell land for as long as anyone could remember. Some said old Godfrey Parsell, Brandon’s grandfather, had bought her at a slave market in New Orleans. Others said she’d been born at Holly Grove and was part Cherokee. No one knew for certain how old she was, and no one knew her by any other name.

White and black alike, every woman in the county came to see her sooner or later. She could cure warts, predict the future, make love potions, and determine the sex of unborn babies. She was the only one Kit knew who could help.

“Afternoon, Conjure Woman. It’s Kit Weston—Katharine Louise Cain now—Garrett Weston’s daughter. You remember me?”

The door creaked open far enough for an old, grizzled head to protrude.

“You Garrett Weston’s young’un all grown up.”

The old woman let out a dry, rasping cackle.

“Your daddy, he be burnin’ in hellfire for sure.”

“You’re prob’ly right about that. May I come in?”

The old lady stood back from the door, and Kit stepped inside a room that was tiny and well-scrubbed, despite its clutter. Bunches of onions, garlic, and herbs hung from the rafters, odd pieces of furniture filled the corners, and an old spinning wheel sat near the cabin’s only window. One wall of the room held crude wooden shelves bowed in the center from the weight of assorted crocks and jars.

The Conjure Woman stirred the fragrant contents of a kettle hanging by an iron hook over the fire. Then she lowered herself into a rocker next to the hearth. Just as if she were alone, she began to rock and hum in a voice as dry as fallen leaves.

“There is a balm in Gilead . . .”

Kit sat in the chair closest to her, a ladder-back with a sagging rush seat, and listened. Ever since that morning’s church service, she’d tried to think of what she’d do if she had a baby. She’d be bound to Cain for the rest of her life. She couldn’t let that happen, not while there was still a chance for her, some miracle that would give her freedom and make everything right again.

As soon as they’d returned from church, Cain had disappeared, but Kit hadn’t been able to get away until much later that afternoon, when Miss Dolly retired to her bedroom to read her Bible and nap.

The Conjure Woman finally stopped singing.

“Child, you lay your troubles on Jesus, you gonna feel a whole lot better.”

“I don’t think Jesus can do much about my troubles.”

The old lady looked up at the ceiling and cackled.

“Lord? You listenin’ to this child?”

Laughter rattled her bony chest.

“She thinks You cain’t help her. She thinks ol’ Conjure Woman can help her, but Your son Jesus Christ cain’t.”

Her eyes were beginning to water from her amusement, and she dabbed at them with the corner of her apron.

“Oh, Lord,”

she cackled.

“this child—she’s so young.”

Kit leaned forward and touched the old woman’s knee.

“It’s just that I need to be certain, Conjure Woman. I can’t have a baby. That’s why I’ve come to you. I’ll pay you well if you’ll help me.”

The old woman stopped her rocking and looked Kit full in the face for the first time since she’d entered the cabin.

“Chil’ren are the Lord’s blessin’.”

“They’re a blessing I don’t want.”

The heat in the small cabin was oppressive, and she rose.

“When I was a child, I overheard the slave women talking. They said you sometimes helped them keep from having more children, even though you could have been put to death for it.”

The Conjure Woman’s yellowed eyes narrowed with something like contempt.

“Those slave women gonna have their chil’ren sold away. You a white woman. You don’t ever have to worry none about havin’ your babies ripped out of your arms so you never see them again.”

“I know that. But I can’t have a baby. Not now.”

Once again the old lady began to rock and sing.

“There is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole. There is a balm in Gilead . . .”

Kit walked over to the window. It wasn’t any use. The Conjure Woman wouldn’t help her.

“That Yankee man. He got the devil in him, but he got goodness, too.”

“A lot of devil and very little goodness, I think.”

The old lady chuckled.

“A man like that, he got strong seed. Ol’ Conjure Woman needs strong med’cine to fight that seed.”

She struggled out of her chair and shuffled over to the wooden shelves, where she peered into first one container and then another. Finally, she poured a generous supply of grayish-white powder into an empty jelly jar and covered the top with a piece of calico she tied on with a string.

“You stir a dab of this powder in a glass of water and drink all of it in the mornin’, after he have his way with you.”

Kit took the jar and gave her a swift, grateful hug.

“Thank you.”

She pulled out several greenbacks she’d tucked into her pocket and pressed them into her hand.

“You just do what ol’ Conjure Woman tells you, missy. Ol’ Conjure Woman, she know what’s best.”

And then she let out another wheezy cackle and turned back to the fire, chuckling at a joke known only to herself.