She hovered over her knees and struggled with the sodden towel.
He cleared his throat. "Can you, uh, take it from here?"
She thought she detected a flush spreading over those hard cheekbones. She nodded and yanked at the heavy towel.
"I'll get one of my shirts for you to put on. But if I find a speck of dirt when you're finished, we'll start all over again."
He disappeared without closing the door. She gritted her teeth and imagined buzzards eating his eyeballs.
She washed herself twice, dislodging grime that had been comfortably residing in the nooks and crannies of her body for some time. Then she scrubbed her hair. When she was finally satisfied that even Jesus's Mother couldn't find any dirt on her, she stood to grab a dry towel but saw that the tub was surrounded with broken glass like a moat around a medieval castle.
This was what came of taking baths.
She cussed as she wrapped the sodden towel around herself, then shouted toward the open door. "Listen up, Yankee! I need you to throw me a dry towel, but you'd better keep your eyes shut, or I swear I'll murder you in your sleep, then cut you open and eat your liver for breakfast."
"It's nice to know that soap and water haven't spoiled your sweet disposition." He reappeared in the doorway, eyes wide open. "I was worried about that."
"Yeah, well, you just worry about holdin' onto your internal organs."
He grabbed a towel from the shelf across the bathroom, but instead of handing it to her like a decent person, he gazed down at the broken glass. "Every faculty which is a receiver of pleasure has an equal penalty for its abuse. Ralph Waldo Emerson, in case you don't recognize the quote."
Only after he'd passed over the towel did she feel safe in responding. "Mr. Emerson also wrote, Every hero becomes a bore at last. If I didn't know better, I'd think you inspired those very words."
Cain chuckled, somehow glad to see she still had her spirit. She was thin as a filly, all bony arms and long, skinny legs. Even the hint of dark fleece he'd glimpsed when her towel had fallen off in the tub had been somehow childlike.
As he turned away, he remembered her small, coral-tipped breasts. They'd seemed less innocent. The image made him uncomfortable, and he spoke more gruffly than he intended. "Are you dry yet?"
"Dry as I'm goin' to get with you standin' there."
"Wrap up. I'm turning around."
"And here I was just thinkin' how nice it is not having to look at your ugly face."
Aggravated, he stalked over to the tub. "I should make you walk through this glass in your bare feet."
"Couldn't be any more painful than enduring your bumptious company."
He snatched her from the tub, carried her out into the hall, and set her hard on her feet. "I put a shirt in your bedroom. Tomorrow Mrs. Simmons will take you shopping for some decent clothes."
She regarded him suspiciously, "just what do you consider decent clothes?"
He knew what was coming next, and he braced himself. "Dresses, Kit."
"Have you lost your mind?"
She looked so outraged that he nearly smiled, but he wasn't that stupid. Time to draw in the reins. "You heard me. And while I'm gone, you'll do exactly what Mrs. Simmons tells you. If you give her any trouble, I'm leaving orders with Magnus to lock you in your room and throw away the key. I mean it, Kit. When I get back I'd better hear that you behaved yourself. I intend to turn you over to your new guardian clean and respectably dressed."
The emotions that played over her face ranged from indignation to anger, then settled into something that looked uncomfortably like despair. Water from the dripping ends of her hair splashed like tears onto her thin shoulders, and her voice was no longer its normal bellow. "Are you really gonna do it?"
"Of course I'll find another guardian for you. You should be happy about that."
Her knuckles turned white as she clutched the towel. "That's not what I mean. Are you really goin' to sell Risen Glory?"
Cain hardened himself against the suffering in that small face. He had no intention of being burdened with a run-down cotton plantation, but she wouldn't understand that. "I'm not keeping the money, Kit. It'll go into your trust fund."
"I don't care about that money! You can't sell Risen Glory."
"I have to. Someday maybe you'll understand."
Kit's eyes darkened into killing pools. "The biggest mistake I made was not blowin' your head off."
Her small, towel-draped figure was strangely dignified as she walked away from him and shut her bedroom door.
4
"Do you mean to tell me there isn't anyone in this entire community who'd be willing to take over the guardianship of Miss Weston? Not even if I pay her expenses?" Cain studied the Reverend Rawlins Ames Cogdell of Rutherford, South Carolina, who studied him in return.
"You must understand, Mr. Cain. We've all known Katharine Louise a good deal longer than you have."
Rawlins Cogdell prayed that God would forgive him for the satisfaction he was taking in putting a spoke in this Yankee's wheel. The Hero of Missionary Ridge, indeed! How galling it was to be forced to entertain such a man. But what else was he to do? These days blue-uniformed occupation troops were everywhere, and even a man of God had to be careful not to offend.
His wife, Mary, appeared in the doorway with a plate holding four tiny finger sandwiches, each one spread with a thin glaze of strawberry preserves. "Am I interrupting?"
"No, no. Come in, my dear. Mr. Cain, you do have a treat in store for you. My wife is famous for her strawberry preserves."
The preserves were from the bottom of the last jar his wife had put up two springs ago when there was still sugar, and the bread was sliced from a loaf that had to last them the rest of the week. Still, Rawlins was pleased she was offering it. He would sooner starve than let this man know how poor they all were.
"None for me, my dear. I'll save my appetite for dinner. Please, Mr. Cain, take two."
Cain wasn't nearly as obtuse as Cogdell believed. He knew what a sacrifice the offering on the chipped blue willowware plate was. He took a sandwich even though there was nothing he wanted less and made the required compliments. Damn all Southerners. Six hundred thousand lives had been lost because of their stiff-necked pride.
Cain believed their arrogance was a product of the disease of the slave system. The planters had lived like omnipotent kings on isolated plantations, where they held absolute authority over hundreds of slaves. It had given them a terrible conceit. They'd believed they were all-powerful, and defeat had changed them only superficially. A Southern family might be starving, but tea sandwiches would still be offered to a guest, even a despised one.
The Reverend Cogdell turned to his wife. "Please sit down, my dear. Perhaps you can help us. Mr. Cain finds himself on the horns of a dilemma."
She did as her husband requested and listened as he outlined Cain's connection with Rosemary Weston and the fact that he wanted to transfer his guardianship of Kit. When her husband was finished, she shook her head.
"I'm afraid what you want is impossible, Mr. Cain. There are a number of families who would have been only too happy to take Katharine Louise in during her formative years. But it's too late for that. My goodness, she's eighteen now."
"Hardly a Methuselah," Cain said dryly.
"Standards of behavior are different in South Carolina than they are in the North." Her rebuke was softly spoken. "Girls of good family are raised from birth in the gracious traditions of Southern womanhood. Not only has Katharine Louise never shown any inclination to conform to these traditions, but she mocks them. The families of our community would be concerned about the influence Katharine would have on their own daughters."
Cain felt a spark of pity for Kit. It couldn't have been easy growing up with a stepmother who hated her, a father who ignored her, and a community that disapproved of her. "Isn't there anyone in this town who feels affection for her?"