"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, through those sudden surprising moments when they'd each known they were seeing the world in the same way. And she'd fallen in love with him through the deep, secret hours of the night when he'd stretched her and filled her and created the precious new life inside her.
How she wished she could do it over again. If only during those times when he'd softened toward her, she'd opened her arms and met his softness with her own. Now he was gone, and she'd never spoken the words of her love. But neither had he. Maybe because his feelings didn't run as deeply as hers.
She wanted to go after him, to start all over again, and this time she'd hold nothing back. But she couldn't do it. She was the one responsible for the pain she'd seen in his eyes. And he'd never pretended he wanted a wife, let alone a wife like her.
Tears ran down her cheeks. She hugged herself and accepted the truth. Cain was glad to be rid of her.
But there was another truth she needed to accept. The time had come to get on with her life. She'd been mired in self-pity long enough. She could cry in the privacy of her bedroom at night, but during the day she needed to keep her eyes dry and her head clear. There was work to be done and people who depended on her. There was a baby who needed her.
The baby was born in July, four years almost to the day since the hot afternoon Kit had arrived in New York City to kill Baron Cain. The child was a girl, with fair hair like her father's and startling violet eyes fringed with tiny, black lashes. Kit named her Elizabeth and called her Beth.
Kit's labor had been long, but the birth had gone without complications. Sophronia had stayed by her side the entire time, while Miss Dolly had fluttered about the house, getting in everyone's way and shredding three of her handkerchiefs. Afterward, Kit's first visitors had been Rawlins and Mary Cogdell, who seemed pathetically relieved to see that a baby had finally been produced from the Cain marriage, even though it had taken twelve months.
Kit spent the rest of the summer regaining her strength and falling deeply in love with her new daughter. Beth was a sweet, good-natured baby, happiest when she was in her mother's arms. At night, when she would awaken to be fed, Kit would tuck her close in bed, where the two of them would doze until dawn-Beth content with the milky-sweet breast of her mother and Kit full of love for this precious infant who'd been God's gift to her when she'd most needed it.
Veronica wrote her regular letters and occasionally visited from Charleston. A deep affection grew between the two women. Veronica still spoke outrageously about wanting to make love to Cain, but Kit now recognized her statements as none-too-subtle attempts to prod Kit's jealousy and keep her feelings for her husband alive. As if she needed anything more to remind her of her love for her husband.
With the secrets of the past swept away, Kit's relationship with Sophronia deepened. The two still bickered out of habit, but Sophronia talked freely now, and Kit took comfort from her presence. Sometimes, though, Kit's heart would ache as she watched Sophronia's face soften with a deep, abiding love when she caught sight of Magnus. His strength and goodness had laid to final rest the ghosts of Sophronia's past.
Magnus understood Kit's need to talk about Cain, and in the evenings while she sat on the piazza, he told her all that he knew about her husband's past: his childhood, the years of drifting, his bravery during the war. She took it all in.
The beginning of September found her with renewed energy and a deeper understanding of herself. Veronica had once said that she should decide which things in life were temporal and which were everlasting. As she rode through the fields of Risen Glory, she finally understood what Veronica meant. Now it was time to find her husband.
Unfortunately, that proved easier in theory than in practice. The lawyer who handled Cain's affairs knew he'd been in Natchez, but hadn't heard from him since. Kit learned that his profits from the sale of the cotton mill were lying untouched in a bank in Charleston. For some reason, he'd left himself virtually penniless.
She made inquiries throughout Mississippi. People remembered him, but no one seemed to know where he'd gone.
By the middle of October, when Veronica arrived from Charleston for a visit, Kit was in despair. "I've inquired everywhere, but no one knows where he is."