Just Imagine (41 page)

Kit was waging a battle of her own. She'd perversely asked Lucy to pack the crystal-and-silver dress after Cain had told her he disliked it. But she hadn't really intended to wear it. Yet when the time came to don the more appropriate jade-green velvet, Cain's words had haunted her.

I can't imagine anything worse than bringing some unwanted brat into this sordid mess we call a marriage…

She heard Cain's laughter echo from the other end of the table and observed the attentive way he listened to Veronica. The ladies left the gentlemen to their cigars and brandy. Then it was time for the dancing to begin.

Brandon abandoned Eleanora to her father and asked Kit for the first dance. Kit gazed into his handsome, weak face. Brandon, who talked of honor, was willing to sell himself to the highest bidder. First to her for a plantation, then to Eleanora Baird for a bank. Cain would never sell himself for anything, not even his cotton mill. His marriage to her had been retribution and nothing less.

As she and Brandon moved out onto the dance floor, she saw Eleanora at the side of the room looking unhappy, and she regretted her earlier flirtatiousness. She'd drunk just enough champagne to decide she needed to settle a score for all unhappy women.

"I've missed you," she whispered as the music began.

"I've missed you, too, Kit. Oh, Lord, you're so beautiful. It's nearly killed me to think of you with Cain."

She pushed closer to him and whispered mischievously, "Dearest Brandon, run away with me tonight. Let's leave it all, Risen Glory and the bank. It will only be the two of us. We won't have money or a home, but we'll have our love."

She concealed her amusement as she felt him stiffen beneath the cloth of his coat.

"Really, Kit, I—I don't think that would be—would be wise."

"But why not? Are you worried about my husband? He'll come after us, but I'm certain you can take care of him."

Brandon stumbled. "Let's not—that is to say, I think, perhaps—too much haste—"

She hadn't wanted to let him off the hook so easily, but a bubble of rueful laughter escaped her.

"You're making fun of me," he said stiffly.

"You deserve it, Brandon. You're an engaged man, and you should have asked Eleanora for the first dance."

He looked confused and a bit pathetic as he tried to regain his dignity. "I don't understand you at all."

"That's because you don't really like me very much, and you certainly don't approve of me. It would be easier for you if you could just admit that all you feel for me is a most ungentlemanly lust."

"Kit!" Such unvarnished honesty was more than he could accept. "I beg your pardon if I've offended you," he said tightly. His eyes caught on the crystal-spangled bodice of Kit's gown. With great effort, he tore his gaze away and, smarting with humiliation, went in search of his fiancée.

With Brandon's departure, Kit was quickly claimed by Sergio. As she took his hand, she glanced toward the far end of the room, where her husband and Veronica had been standing a moment before. Now only Veronica was there.

Her husband's indifference prodded Kit to the limits of what even she considered acceptable behavior. She whirled from one partner to the next, dancing with Rebel and Yankee alike, complimenting each one extravagantly and letting several hold her too closely. She didn't care what any of them thought. Let them talk! She drank champagne, danced every dance, and laughed her intoxicating laugh. Only Veronica Gamble sensed the edge of desperation behind it.

A few of the women were secretly envious of Kit's bold behavior, but most were shocked. They looked around anxiously for the dangerous Mr. Cain, but he was nowhere in sight. Someone whispered that he was playing poker in the library and losing badly.

There was open speculation about the state of the Cain marriage. The couple had not once danced together. There'd been rumors that it was a marriage of necessity, but Katharine Cain's waistline was as slim as ever, so that couldn't be.

The poker game folded shortly before two. Cain had lost several hundred dollars, but his black mood had little to do with money. He stood in the doorway of the ballroom, watching his wife sail across the floor in the arms of the Italian. Some of her hair had come loose from its pins and tumbled in disarray around her shoulders. Her cheekbones still held their high color, and her lips were rosy smudges, as if someone had just kissed her. The baritone couldn't seem to look away from her.

A muscle twitched in the corner of Cain's jaw. He pushed past the couple in front of him and was about to stride onto the ballroom floor when John Hughes caught at his arm.

"Mr. Cain, Will Bonnett over there claims there wasn't a bluecoat in the whole Union army could out-shoot a Reb. What d'ya think? You ever meet a Reb you couldn't pick off if you set your mind to it?"

This was dangerous talk. Cain tore his eyes away from his wife and turned his attention to Hughes. Even though nearly four years had passed since Appomattox, social interaction between Northerners and Southerners was still tenuous, with talk of the war pointedly avoided when they were pushed together.

He looked over at the group of seven or eight men made up of former Union soldiers as well as Confederate veterans. It was obvious that they'd all had more than enough to drink, and even from where he was standing, he could hear that their discussion had progressed from polite disagreement to open antagonism.

With a last glance toward Kit and the Italian, he walked with Hughes to the men. "War's over, fellows. What do you say we all go sample some of Mrs. Gamble's fine whiskey?"

But the discussion had gone too far. Will Bonnett, a former rice planter who had served in the same regiment as Brandon Parsell, punched his index finger in the direction of one of the men who worked for the Freedmen's Bureau. "No soldier in the world ever fought like the Confederate soldier, and you know it."

The angry voices were beginning to catch the attention of the other guests, and as the argument grew louder, people stopped dancing to see what the commotion was about.

Will Bonnett spotted Brandon Parsell standing with his fiancée and her parents. "Brandon, you tell 'em. You ever see anybody could shoot like our boys in gray? Come on over here. Tell these bluebellies how it was."

Parsell moved forward reluctantly. Cain frowned when he saw that Kit had moved up, too, instead of remaining in the back with the other women. But what else had he expected?

By this time Will Bonnett's voice had reached the musicians, who gradually put down their instruments so they could enjoy the argument. "We were outnumbered," Bonnett declared, "but you Yankees never outfought us, not for a minute of the war."

One of the Northerners stepped forward. "Seems like you got a short memory, Bonnett. You sure as hell got outfought at Gettysburg."

"We didn't get outfought!" an older man standing next to Will Bonnett exclaimed. "You got lucky. Why, we had boys twelve years old could shoot better than all your officers put together."

"Hell, our
women
could shoot better than their officers!"

There was a great roar of laughter at this sally, and the speaker was slapped heartily on the back for his wit. Of all the Southerners present, only Brandon didn't feel like laughing.

He looked first at Kit and then at Cain. The injustice of their marriage was a splinter under his skin. At first he'd been relieved not to be married to a woman who didn't behave as a lady should, even though it meant the loss of Risen Glory. But as the weeks and months had passed, he'd watched Risen Glory's fields bursting white with bolls and seen the wagons laden with ginned cotton head for Cain's spinning mill. Even after he'd become engaged to Eleanora, who'd bring him the Planters and Citizens Bank, he couldn't erase the memory of a pair of wicked violet eyes. Tonight she'd had the audacity to poke fun at him.

Everything in his life had soured. He was a Parsell and yet he had nothing, while they had everything—a disreputable Yankee and a woman who didn't know her place.

Impulsively he came forward. "I believe you do have a point about our Southern women. Why, I once saw our own Mrs. Cain shoot a pinecone out of a tree from seventy-five yards, even though she couldn't have been more than ten or eleven at the time. There's talk to this day that she's still the best shot in the county."

Several exclamations met this piece of information, and once again Kit found herself the object of admiring masculine eyes. But Parsell hadn't finished. It wasn't easy for a gentleman to settle a score with a lady and remain a gentleman, but that was exactly what he intended to do. And he'd settle with her husband at the same time. It would be impossible for Cain to go along with what Brandon was about to propose, but the Yankee would still look like a coward when he refused.

Brandon fingered the edge of his lapel. "I've heard that Major Cain is a good shot. I guess we've all heard more than enough about the Hero of Missionary Ridge. But if I were a betting man, I'd put my money on Mrs. Cain. I'd give about anything to send Will across the street for his matching set of pistols, place a row of bottles on Mrs. Gamble's garden wall, and see just how good a Yankee officer can shoot against a Southern woman, even if she does happen to be his wife. Of course, I'm sure Major Cain wouldn't permit his wife to take part in a shootin' contest, especially when he knows he has a pretty good chance of coming out the loser."

There were hoots of laughter from the Southern men. Parsell had put that Yankee in his place! Although none of them seriously believed a woman, even a Southern one, could outshoot a man, they'd enjoy seeing the match all the same. And because she was only a woman, there'd be no honor lost to the South when the Yankee beat her.

The women who'd gathered nearby were deeply shocked by Brandon's proposal. What could he be thinking of? No lady could make such a public spectacle of herself, not in Charleston. If Mrs. Cain went along with this, she'd be a social pariah. They glared at their husbands, who were encouraging the match, and vowed to curtail their consumption of spirits for the rest of the evening.

The Northerners urged Cain to accept the challenge. "Come on, Major. Don't let us down."

"You can't back out on us now!"

Kit felt Cain's eyes on her. They burned like fire. "I can't permit my wife to engage in a public shooting contest."

He spoke so coldly, as if he didn't care at all. He might have been talking about a mare he owned instead of a wife. She was merely another piece of property.

And Cain gave away his property before he could become attached.

The wildness claimed her, and she came forward, sparking fires in the beads of her gown. "I've been challenged, Baron. This is South Carolina, not New York. Even as my husband, you can't interfere in a matter of honor. Fetch your pistols, Mr. Bonnett. Gentlemen, I'll face my husband." She shot him a challenge. "If he declines, I'll face any other Yankee who'd care to shoot against me."

The shocked gasps of the women went unheard beneath the triumphant whoops of the men. Only Brandon didn't join in the joviality. He'd meant to embarrass them both, but he hadn't meant to ruin her. After all, he was still a gentleman.

"Kit—Major Cain—I—I believe I was somewhat hasty. Surely you cannot—"

"Save it, Parsell," Cain growled, his own mood now as reckless as his wife's. He was tired of being the conciliator, tired of losing the battles she seemed determined to thrust them into. He was tired of her distrust, tired of her laughter, tired even of the expression of concern he glimpsed too often in her eyes when he came in exhausted from the mill. Most of all, he was tired of himself for caring so damned much about her.

"Set up your bottles," he said roughly. "And bring as many lamps as you can find into the garden."

With a great deal of laughter, the men moved off, Northerner and Southerner suddenly drawn together as they figured the odds on the match. The women fluttered with the excitement of being witnesses to such a scandal. At the same time, they didn't want to get too close to Kit, so they drifted farther away, leaving husband and wife standing alone.

"You've got your match," he said stonily, "just like you've gotten everything else you've wanted."

When had she gotten anything she wanted? "Are you afraid I'll beat you?" she managed to ask.

He shrugged. "I figure there's a pretty fair chance of it. I'm a good shot, but you're better. I've known that since the night you tried to kill me when you were eighteen."

"You knew how I'd react when you forbade me to shoot, didn't you?"

"Maybe. Or maybe I figured that champagne you've been drinking has tilted the odds in my favor."

"I wouldn't count too much on the champagne." It was false bravado. Although she wouldn't admit it, she had drunk too much.

Veronica descended on them, her habitual amusement cast aside. "Why are you doing this? If this were Vienna, it would be different, but this is Charleston. Kit, you know you'll be ostracized."

"I don't care."

Veronica spun on Cain. "And you… how can you be a party to this?"

Her words fell on deaf ears. Will Bonnett had reappeared with his pistol case, and Kit and Cain were swept out through the back doors into the garden.