Just Imagine (8 page)

"And here I thought there wasn't anything that got past you."

"Tell me!"

She thought she saw a flash of sympathy in his eyes. It disappeared as he explained the details of the guardianship and the fact that he was also the administrator of her trust fund.

Kit barely remembered the grandmother who'd set aside the money for her. The trust fund had been a constant source of resentment to Rosemary, and she'd forced Garrett to consult one lawyer after another about breaking it, to no avail. Although Kit supposed she should be grateful to her grandmother, the money was useless. She needed it now, not in five years or when she got married, which she wouldn't ever do.

"The guardianship is Rosemary's joke from the grave," Cain concluded.

"That damn lawyer didn't say anything to me about a guardian. I don't believe you."

"I've seen your temper firsthand. Did you give him a chance to explain?"

With a sinking heart, she remembered how she'd forced him out of the house as soon as he'd told her about Cain's inheritance, even though he'd said there was more.

"What did you mean earlier about it bein' a temporary state?"

"You don't think I'm going to let myself be saddled with you for the next five years, do you?" The Hero of Missionary Ridge actually shuddered. "Early tomorrow morning, I'm leaving for South Carolina to get this mess straightened out. Mrs. Simmons will watch over you until I get back. It shouldn't be much more than three or four weeks."

She clasped her hands behind her back so he couldn't see that they'd started to tremble. "How're you plannin' on straightening things out?"

"I'm going to find you another guardian, that's how."

She dug her fingernails into her palms, terrified to ask her next question, yet knowing she had to. "What's goin' to happen… to Risen Glory?"

He studied the toe of his boot. "I'm going to sell it."

Something like a growl erupted from Kit's throat. "No!"

He raised his head and met her eyes. "I'm sorry, Kit. It's for the best."

Kit heard the note of steel in his voice, and felt the few fragile remnants of the only world she knew snap She didn't even notice when Cain left the room.

Cain needed to get ready for a high-stakes game in one of the Astor House's private dining rooms. Instead, he wandered to the bedroom window. Not even the prospect of the late-night invitation he'd received from a famous opera singer lifted his spirits. It all seemed like too much trouble.

He thought about the violet-eyed scamp under his roof. Earlier, when he'd told her he was selling Risen Glory, she'd looked as though he'd shot her.

His rumination was interrupted by the shatter of glass and his housekeeper's scream. He swore and dashed into the hall.

The bathroom was a shambles. Broken glass lay near the copper tub, and clothing was scattered across the floor. A container of talc had spilled over the marble basin and dusted the black walnut wainscoting. Only the water in the tub was undisturbed, pale gold in the light of the gas jets.

Kit was holding Mrs. Simmons at bay with a mirror. She had the handle clenched in one fist like a saber. Her other hand gripped a towel around her naked body as she backed the unfortunate housekeeper to the door. "Nobody's givin' me a bath! You get out of here!"

"What the hell's going on?"

Mrs. Simmons grabbed him. "That hoyden's trying to murder me! She threw a bottle of witch hazel! It just missed my head." She fanned her face and moaned. "I can feel an attack of my neuralgia coming on."

"Go lie down, Edith." Cain's flint-hard eyes found Kit. "I'll take over."

The housekeeper was too upset to protest the impropriety of leaving him alone with his naked ward, and she fled down the hallway muttering darkly of neuralgia and hoydens.

For all of Kit's bravado, he could see that she was frightened. Briefly he considered relenting, but he knew he wouldn't be doing her a favor. The world was a dangerous place for women, but it was doubly treacherous for naive little girls who believed they were as tough as men. Kit had to learn how to bend or she'd break, and right now he seemed to be the only one who could teach her that lesson.

Slowly, he unfastened the cuffs of his shirt and began rolling them up.

Kit watched the tanned, muscular forearms emerging as he turned up his sleeves. She took a quick step backward, her eyes glued to his arms. "What do you think you're doing?"

"I told you to take a bath."

Dry-mouthed, she drew her eyes away. It was hard enough facing down Baron Cain when she was fully clothed. Now, with only a towel wrapped around her, she'd never felt so vulnerable. If he hadn't locked away her gun, she could have pulled the trigger without a second thought.

She licked her lips. "You'd… you'd better stop that right now."

His eyes drilled into hers. "
I
told you to take a bath, and that's what you're going to do."

She raised the tortoiseshell mirror. "Don't come any closer. I mean it. When I threw that witch hazel bottle at Mrs. Simmons, I intended to miss. This time I won't!"

"It's time you grew up," he said too quietly.

Her heart pounded. "I mean it, Yankee! Not a step farther."

"You're eighteen—old enough to act like a woman. It's one thing to go after me, but you went after someone who never did you any harm."

"She took my clothes away when I wasn't paying attention! And… and then she dragged me in here."

Kit still didn't know how Mrs. Simmons had managed to get her to the bathroom, except that after Cain announced that he was selling Risen Glory, she'd gone numb. It was only when the old lady started pulling away her clothes that Kit had come to her senses.

He spoke again, using the calm voice she found more frightening than his roar. "You should have remembered your manners. Since you didn't, I'll put you in that tub."

She flung the mirror against the wall as a distraction and darted past him.

He caught her before she'd gone three steps. "You don't want to learn, do you?"

"Let me go!"

Glass crunched under the soles of his shoes as he snatched her up in his arms and dropped her in the tub, towel and all.

"You filthy, stinkin'—"

That was as far as she got before he caught the top of her head and pushed her under the water.

She came up sputtering. "You dirty—"

He pushed her back under.

"You—"

He did it again.

Kit couldn't believe what was happening. He didn't keep her under long enough to drown her, but that didn't matter. It was the indignity. And if she couldn't hold her tongue, she'd be going under again. She glared at him as she came up, but she somehow managed to keep silent.

"Had enough yet?" he asked mildly.

She wiped her eyes and mustered her dignity. "Your behavior is puerile."

He began to smile, only to stop as he gazed into the tub.

That was when she realized that she'd lost her towel.

She drew up her knees to hide her body. "You get out of here right now!" Water splashed over the rim as she tried to retrieve the towel from the bottom of the tub.

He took a quick backward step toward the door, then stopped.

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.

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