She reminded herself that he was accustomed to a different sort of woman, one who was quiet and retiring like his mother and his sisters, and she tried to restrain her normally impulsive tongue. Still, she managed to shock him with her opinions about Negro suffrage and the Fifteenth Amendment. As two small furrows etched themselves between his eyes, she knew she had to make him understand.
"Brandon, I'm a well-educated woman. I have opinions and ideas. I've also been on my own for a long time. I can't be what I'm not."
His smile didn't quite erase the furrows. "Your independence is one of the things I most admire about you, but it's going to take a while for me to get used to it. You're not like the other women I know?."
"And do you know a lot of women?" she teased.
Her question made him laugh. "Kit Weston, you're a minx."
Their conversation on the ride back to Risen Glory was a happy combination of gossip and reminiscences. She promised to go on a picnic with him and let him escort her to church on Sunday. As she stood on the porch and waved good-bye, she decided that, all in all, the day had gone well.
Unfortunately, the evening did not.
Miss Dolly waylaid her before dinner. "I need your sweet young eyes to sort through my button box. I have a pretty mother-of-pearl in there somewhere, and I simply must find it."
Kit did as she was asked, even though she needed a few minutes alone. The sorting was accompanied by chatter, twittering, and fluttering. Kit learned which buttons had been sewn on which dresses, where the garments had been worn and with whom, what the weather had been like on that particular day, as well as what Miss Dolly had eaten.
At dinner, Miss Dolly requested that all the windows be closed, despite the fact that the evening was warm, because she'd heard rumors of a diphtheria outbreak in Charleston. Cain managed Miss Dolly well and the windows remained open, but he ignored Kit until dessert.
"I hope Lady behaved for you today," he finally said. "The poor horse looked terrified when you marched toward her with all those skirts on. I think she was afraid you'd suffocate her."
"You're not nearly as amusing as you seem to think. My riding habit is the height of fashion."
"And you hate wearing it. Not that I blame you. Those things should be outlawed."
Her opinion exactly. "Nonsense. They're very comfortable. And a lady always likes to look her best."
"Is it just my imagination, or does your accent get thicker whenever you want to irritate me?"
" 'Deed I hope not, Major. That would be most impolite of me. Besides, you're in South Carolina now, so you're the one with the accent."
He smiled. "Point taken. And did you enjoy your ride?"
"I had a wonderful time. There aren't many gentlemen as pleasant to be with as Mr. Parsell."
His smile faded "And where did you and Mr. Parsell ride?"
"To Holly Grove, his old home. We enjoyed catching up on old times."
"That's all you did?" he asked pointedly.
"Yes, it's all," she retorted. "Not every man's interests when they're with young women are as narrow as yours."
Miss Dolly frowned at the sharpness in Kit's voice. "You're dawdlin' over your dessert, Katharine Louise. If you're finished, let's go to the sitting room and leave the general to his cigar."
Kit was enjoying irritating Cain too much to leave. "I'm not quite finished yet, Miss Dolly. Why don't you go? I don't mind the smell of cigar smoke."
"Well, if you don't mind…" Miss Dolly set her napkin on the table and rose, then stood at her chair as if she were gathering her courage. "Now, watch your manners, darlin'. I know you don't mean anything by it, but sometimes you seem a bit sharp when you speak to the general. You mustn't let your natural high spirits keep you from giving him his proper respect." Her duty done, she fluttered from the room.
Cain looked after her with some amusement. "I must admit, Miss Dolly's beginning to grow on me."
"You're really a terrible person, do you know that?"
"I admit I'm no Brandon Parsell."
"You're certainly not. Brandon's a gentleman."
He leaned back in his chair and studied her. "Did he behave like a gentleman with you today?"
"Of course he did."
"And what about you? Were you a lady?"
Her pleasure in their bantering faded. He still hadn't forgotten that ugly letter from Hamilton Woodward. She didn't like how much it bothered her to know he questioned her virtue. "Of course I wasn't a lady. What fun would that be? I took off my clothes and offered myself to him. Is that what you want to know?"
Cain pushed back his plate. "You've grown into a beautiful woman, Kit. You're also reckless. It's a dangerous combination."
"Mr. Parsell and I talked politics. We discussed the indignities the federal government's been forcing on South Carolina."
"I can just hear the two of you now. Sighing over what the Yankees have done to your poor state. Moaning over all the injustices of the occupation-none of it the South's fault, of course. I'm sure you two made quite a pair."
"How can you be so callous? You can see the horrors of Reconstruction all around you. People've had their homes taken from them. They've lost savings. The South is like a piece of glass being ground underneath a Yankee bootheel."
"Let me remind you of a few painful facts you seem to have forgotten." He picked up the brandy decanter at his elbow, but before he could pour from it, he shoved the stopper back into the neck. "It wasn't the Union that started this war. Southern guns fired on Fort Sumter. You lost the war, Kit. And you lost it at the expense of six hundred thousand lives. Now you expect everything to be just like it was." He regarded her with disgust. "You talk about the horrors of Reconstruction. The way I see it, the South should be thankful the federal government has been as merciful as it has."
"Merciful?" Kit leaped to her feet. "Do you call what's happened here merciful?"
"You've read history. You tell me." Now Cain was on his feet, too. "Name any other conquering people who've dealt so leniently with the ones they've conquered. If this had been any country but the United States, thousands of men would have been executed for treason after Appomattox, and thousands more would be rotting in prisons right now. Instead, there was a general amnesty, and now the Southern states are being readmitted to the Union. My God, Reconstruction is a slap on the wrist for what the South has done to this country."
Her knuckles were white where they gripped the back of the chair. "It's too bad there wasn't enough bloodshed to satisfy you. What kind of man are you to wish the South more misery than it's already had?"
"I don't wish it any more misery. I even agree with the leniency of federal policies. But you'll have to forgive me if I can't work up much righteous indignation because people in the South have lost their homes."
"You want your pound of flesh."
"Men have died in my arms," he said quietly. "And not all of those men wore blue uniforms."
She released her grip on the chair and rushed from the room. When she reached her bedroom, she sank onto the chair at her dressing table.
He didn't understand! He was seeing everything from the Northern perspective. But even as she mentally listed all the reasons he was wrong, she found it difficult to reclaim her old sense of righteousness. He'd seemed so sad. Her head had begun to pound, and she wanted to go to bed, but there was a job she'd already put off for too long.
Late that night after everyone was asleep, she made her way downstairs to the library, and to the calf-bound ledgers in which Cain kept the plantation's accounts.
11
The next few weeks brought a steady stream of callers. In better times the women would have dressed in their prettiest gowns and arrived at Risen Glory in fine carriages. Now they came in wagons drawn by plow horses, or they sat on the front seats of broken-down buggies. Their gowns were shabby and their bonnets rusty with age, but they carried themselves as proudly as ever.