CHAPTER EIGHT

 

With Alisha’s wedding day fast approaching, the Courtland family had moved into the graceful, white-columned splendor of Baron von Helmstaad’s residence. The plantation itself was less than a quarter the size of Rosalie, but it was far enough from the river to avoid the devastating floods that had played havoc with other farms. So where others were failing, Summitcrest was as prosperous as it had been before the war.

The baron’s wealth, like his title, was inherited. He had remained in Europe during the war and had come to the “colonies” only in order to oversee the restructuring of the family business. He did not know the difference between a boll of cotton and a milkweed pod, nor did he care to learn. He was content to keep his land well groomed and the house freshly whitewashed, and the fact that he was soon to acquire a vivacious and lovely young wife to help him entertain in the extravagantly European style he so woefully missed ... well, it was the nearest thing to bliss he could imagine.

The Courtlands were ensconced in a private wing of the house (tucked away in a back corner, William had grumbled) where Alisha refused to allow the baron even the slightest glimpse of her. Not because of superstitions or tradition, but because she was far too busy taking inventory of her future domain. She gave the two dozen servants a taste of what was to come, ordering fresh flowers for every room each day and cheerful fires in every hearth to ward off the last traces of mustiness and damp in the unused furniture. Silverware was polished to a rich glow. Everything that was not scrubbed or scoured was set out to air and beaten to within an inch of ruination to remove the dust. Mountains of food were prepared and stored in the pantries; chickens were killed and plucked, the suckling pigs were spitted and salted and readied for the enormous cookfires that would be built in a trench at the side of the house.

The weather appeared to be cooperating. Four straight days of scorching sunshine had worked hard to undo some of the damage of the rain. For the first time in many weeks there was dust rising off the roads. A stiff breeze in the afternoons helped to chase the swarms of glutted mosquitoes and horseflies across the river; bonfires and smudge pots were lit at night to keep them there.

Amanda busied herself in the kitchen, helping Mercy prepare the stews and gumbos that were foreign fare to the baron and his people, but staples in a Southerner’s diet. By the end of the day, her tongue burned from testing sauces and her hands were red from shelling shrimp and crawfish, and she felt a personal, grudging dislike for each and every one of the hundred and fifty guests invited.

 

“I never thought this day would end.” Ryan sighed, joining her on the wide, shaded porch to share a cool glass of lemonade and watch the sun dipping below the rim of trees. “There’s the proof, however. Now, if we can just get through tomorrow’s wedding with our sanity and our backs intact …”

Amanda laughed and kneaded a knot of muscles high on his back, earning an appreciative groan in response. “Look on the bright side. We’ll be eating leftover chicken for a month and have enough ham and eggs to send Mercy into ecstasies.”

“It’s not worth it,” he grumbled, and hung his head forward so her fingers could work their magic on his neck. “And I still don’t know why I had to be here. I haven’t done anything any one of a dozen of von Helmstaad’s lackeys couldn’t have done. I should be back at Rosalie. I should be—”

“You should be quiet and endure, like the rest of us,” Amanda interrupted. “And you’re here to look handsome and be charming, and to keep a certain ragamuffin I know from getting under everyone’s feet.”

Ryan followed Amanda’s glance to where Verity was playing under the drooping arms of an old cypress tree nearby. She had been “helping” her uncle Ryan all afternoon, keeping him company on his errands to town, hunting out berries for Mercy’s pies and tarts, searching for the prettiest wild-flowers to weave into her hair in the morning. Her pinafore was streaked with dust and grime, as usual. Her hair was a tumble of tight yellow curls that would undoubtedly take hours to untangle before bedtime.

Amanda smiled and rested her cheek on Ryan’s shoulder. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For loving her so much,” she said softly. “She doesn’t really have anyone else in her life she can look up to, and I know how hard it is for you to play uncle and father and hero all rolled into one.”

“You neglected to mention mud pie specialist and personal pony,” he added wryly.“And it isn’t my fault she doesn’t have anyone else to look up to.”

Amanda sighed and straightened. She hadn’t told Ryan the details about her confrontation with Josh in the summer-house, only that they had they had both come to the conclusion they were better suited as friends than lovers. Ryan had had that look in his eye, however, as if he suspected there was more to it, but Amanda had remained adamant. There was already enough tension between her sister and brother; something like this might cause an irreparable break.

“Have you seen Dianna lately?” she asked, steering the conversation away from herself. “Do you know if she and the Judge are coming tomorrow?”

“Mmmm.”

“Is that mmmm you have seen her, or mmmm they are coming?”

He stalled a little by draining his glass of lemonade before answering. “I saw her in town this morning, and yes, both she and her father will be coming.”

“Then why such an overwhelming display of enthusiasm? I would have thought you’d be happy they made it back from Fayette in time.”

“I’m happy,” he muttered, and looked away.

“Positively thrilled, I can see.” She craned her neck forward and her frown deepened when she saw the expression on his face. “Ryan? What is it? What’s wrong?”

He sighed again and set his empty glass down on the step beside him. “She also told me some news about her Yankee friend.”

“Who …? Oh.”

“Yes, oh. It seems he wasn’t just here sniffing around her skirts. It seems he has also been sniffing around for land investments. He bought the Porterfields’ out. All forty thousand acres.”

“The Glen?” Amanda gasped. “A Yankee bought Briar Glen?”

“Several weeks ago.” He nodded glumly. “I guess the family wanted to keep it quiet as long as they could.”

Amanda’s shock was justified. The Glen was the biggest estate in southern Mississippi. By comparison, Rosalie was a farm and Summitcrest a homestead. She had not known the Porterfields were in such desperate straits to have had to sell the home their ancestors had lived in for generations—and to a Yankee no less! It must have broken what was left of poor Emma Porterfield’s heart, for she’d lost her husband and both sons in the war.

“Oh, Ryan,” she whispered. “How awful. About everything.”

He refused to meet her eyes. He watched Verity playing in the grass, her face twisted with concentration as she tried desperately and stubbornly to overcome the disadvantage of uncoordinated little fingers and uncooperative flower stems that refused to weave together the way her uncle had shown her.

Ryan’s face reflected a similar desperation and helplessness, and Amanda’s heart wrenched in sympathy. Why was everything going so horribly wrong? she wondered. Why could no one in this family be happy? Ryan’s strength was not bottomless, and her own, goodness only knew, was on the verge of collapse.

“Maybe she is only keeping company with him to make you jealous,” she suggested half-heartedly. “After all, a girl can only be patient for so long before she feels she has to take matters into her own hands.”

“Dianna isn’t the type to play games. And even if she was, how could I possibly go to her now? I have nothing. By the end of next week, I’ll have less than nothing.”

Amanda bit her lip. “Have you tried talking to Wainright again?”

“Hat in hand,” he spat. “I groveled so low I almost made myself puke.”

“He wouldn’t extend the deadline on the loan?”

“He wouldn’t extend me a glass of water when I was choking on my pride.”

Amanda’s teeth drew blood. “Have you thought of … of asking Karl? After all, he will be part of the family tomorrow.”

Ryan snorted derisively. “I didn’t have to ask him. While I was discreetly leading up to the subject, he voiced his sentiments in no uncertain terms. ’Never do it,’ he said. ’Never loan money to relatives. Never get it back, don’t you know. Besides that: develops character. Strengthens a man’s resolve if he struggles through a failure now and then.’”

Amanda’s shoulders slumped a little further. “And I don’t imagine Alisha would ever consider lifting a finger to try to change his opinion. The more he gave us, the less she would have to spend.”

She heard no argument from Ryan. Alisha did not even know—or care to know—how much they were in debt. She would probably look on the loss of Rosalie as a godsend, for she had come to associate the plantation with poverty and ruin.

Ruin, loss, and abject poverty aside, Verity approached her mother and uncle with by far the worst calamity of all. Her lower lip had all but disappeared into the bow of her upper and her chin was rigid with the effort it was taking not to give way to tears. She walked right up the short flight of steps and threw herself into Ryan’s arms, burying her face in his shoulder, curling her hands tightly around his neck.

“Whoa, now. What seems to be the problem here?” he asked.

Two huge blue eyes looked up at him with the forlorn despair of a cherub given the responsibility of holding up the entire Sistine Chapel. She brought one of her fists down from his shoulder and showed him the tangle of crushed and broken flowers she held.

“Ahh,” he said, nodding with understanding. In case there was any doubt, she reached up and pressed her mouth to his ear, whispering a flurry of half words and broken sentences. When she ran out of breath, she thrust the wreath into Ryan’s hands and stood waiting for him to use his customary magic to fix it.

He suspected there was not much hope for it, but he made a few corrective twists and turns with the stems and held it up against Amanda’s hair. “Almost perfect,” he pronounced. “Maybe a few more bluebells. Do we have any left?”

Another flurry of wet whispers had Verity scampering back to the tree, her curls and petticoats bouncing.

“I don’t recall you ever having this much patience with me when I was her age,” Amanda noted.

“You were never as sweet-natured as Verity. Or as cute.”

She reached over and slipped her hand into his. “We’ll get through this somehow,” she whispered fervently. “I just know we will.”

 

The day of the wedding dawned cool and clear. Those servants who had not been up all night long were already busy with tasks when the bright pink eye of the sun winked over the horizon. They trooped through the house like ants through sugar, moving the last of the furniture out of the large parlor where the dancing would take place later that night. An archway had been constructed at one end of the formal gardens and was woven with hundreds of roses to frame the dais where the vows would be exchanged. Chairs were set in neat rows on either side of a central aisle, to be moved back after the ceremony and placed around the long trestle tables that had been erected closer to the house. China dishes were brought out in gleaming white stacks and covered with sheets; trays of food began appearing in astonishing quantities to sit patiently under yards and yards of filmy netting.

The minister arrived and gave the arrangements his solemn nod of approval, then was happily whisked away by William Courtland to wait until the clock struck noon. The hallways, porch, and lawns echoed with footsteps and laughter as carriage after carriage of guests drew up in front of the house and emptied their colorful cargoes. Every room bustled with activity. Chattering, gossiping women preened in front of any reflective surface they could find, while the men gathered over cigars and fine port wine and lamented over the soaring price of cotton.

By noon, the house was in utter chaos with the eye of the storm swirling around Alisha’s dressing room. She surely had to be the only one to have the use of a full-length cheval mirror all to herself, and as she stood before it, critically surveying herself from every conceivable angle, while the others in the room held their breaths, waiting for her verdict.

It could hardly be anything but favorable. The gown, which had seen her great-great-grandmother to the altar before the turn of the century, was a breathtaking creation of rose-colored silk sateen, as slippery as water, as light as air. The tight bodice was cut square and alarmingly low, originally meant to be worn with a delicate gauze scarf, but trimmed now with bands of gathered ruching. The sleeves were tight to the elbow before flaring in successive tiers of white and pink lace. The overskirt was a fountain of silk, again meant to be worn over wire panniers, but modified for Sarah’s wedding, and again for Amanda’s, with some of the bulk reduced to make a graceful sweep over the six layers of ruffled petticoats worn beneath. Alisha’s silvery blonde hair was piled high on her head, woven with ribbons and sprigs of tiny pink flowers.

Sarah Courtland pressed a much-abused handkerchief to her eyes, weeping happily as she watched her daughter turn another full circle in the mirror.

“Beautiful,” she sobbed. “Just beautiful. I cannot believe my eyes, Lissy. If only Grandmother Fayworth were here to see you now … and your sweet grandfather. How proud they would have been.”

Alisha was not so sure as she checked and rechecked her profile in the mirror. Mercy had nearly ruptured a vessel trying to lace her into the whalebone corset. An odd look had come into the old crone’s dark eyes when she realized she wasn’t going to get Alisha’s waist as small as the previous fitting, and if she suspected the reason for the added plumpness, she had kept her tongue between her teeth for a change.

After today it wouldn’t matter anyway. After today she would eat and eat and eat to her heart’s content, and if she started to gain a little weight, why, she would tell everyone it was because she was so happy and content. A month or so from now, when cream pies and custards couldn’t explain the location of all her gain, she would let Karl give out the happy news, leaving her in modest seclusion until the brat was born and she could get on with her life again.

She could do it. She would do it, by heaven. She had Josh, who loved her to distraction, and who would continue to love her even more desperately when he found out she was carrying their child. He would understand then why she had done it, why she had married Karl von Helmstaad, why she was about to allow … no, encourage the doughy old pig to consummate the union, and why it had been necessary to let him paw her and climb on top of her and push himself inside her enough times to make him believe he was the father of the child.

First, of course, she had to become the baron’s wife and get through this day without slapping her mother, screaming at her father, or taking a razor-sharp knife to her sister.

Alisha’s gaze narrowed as she sought Amanda out of the shadows. She was standing by the window, lost behind the haze of sunshine streaming through the panes. She’d hardly spoken a word all morning, seemingly too distracted with whatever filled her brain these days to even think to offer her twin a compliment or two on her wedding day. Stuck like glue to her left leg was Verity, her hand fisted so tightly to the folds of Amanda’s skirts, the material would be permanently wrinkled from the damp.

They were dressed alike in gowns of pale blue silk that perfectly matched the color of their eyes. Alisha would have preferred to see her sister dressed in sackcloth and bunting, but Karl had insisted on buying everyone new outfits to complement his bride.

Complements like that, Alisha could live without.

As twins, it should have come as no surprise that Amanda could be a rare beauty when she set aside the plain homespun and dressed her hair in spirals and ringlets instead of scraping it back into a severe, practical chignon. Today she was not only beautiful, but a visible threat to Alisha’s composure.

“Well?” she demanded. “Do I look like a baroness? Karl tells me when he takes me home next summer to meet his relatives, I shall be an honored guest in all the royal houses in Europe. Can you imagine that, Mother? Me? Sitting next to a duke or a duchess or a princess, for goodness sakes, eating little cakes and chatting about the weather.”

Sarah nodded and wailed into her handkerchief. Amanda acknowledged the momentous possibilities with a smile that set Alisha’s teeth on edge.

“Well, then,” she snapped. “Let’s get it over with, shall we? Before Father has the reverend too drunk on Karl’s brandy to read the service.”

 

Amanda led the way out into the dazzling sunlight, smiling only when she saw Ryan waiting at the end of the flower-strewn path. She had indeed been too distracted to do more than go through the motions of getting dressed, sitting still while tongs and irons shaped her hair, answering only if a direct question was asked. She was worried about Ryan, worried about her family, about Rosalie. Not the least of all, she was worried about Verity and her reaction to so many strangers who were bound to frighten her into hiding for most of the day.

The constant drag on the side of her skirt relented only when she came to a halt. Then a small face and body were pressed into the side of her thigh, buried in the crush of silk until the signal came to walk forward again. It was torture for the child, torture for the mother as they walked down the garden aisle. The only good thing about it—the sun was warm on her face, blinding in its brilliance, and served to blot out the faces and whispering mouths of the people they passed on their way to the dais.

At the end of the aisle, Alisha’s groom waited beside the imperiously tall, sedate Reverend Mr. Aloisius Kelly. Almost a caricature by comparison, Karl von Helmstaad was short and balding. He stood ramrod straight in an effort to lessen the protruding girth of his belly, but it only made him look like a splay-footed penguin balanced precariously on a sheet of ice.

He turned at a signal from the reverend and saw his bride walking slowly toward him. Flushed with the purity of her beauty, he tipped forward eagerly and extended his arm in greeting. A collectively indrawn breath from the crowd came as Amanda declined the groom’s offer of assistance and stepped aside to make way for Alisha’s frosty countenance.

Out of the corner of her eye, Amanda saw Ryan struggling to keep his expression blank. He almost succeeded too, until the groom, trying his best to recover from his blunder, missed the step up onto the dais and nearly pitched headlong into the festooned arch.

Thankfully, the ceremony itself was short and sweet. The reverend’s voice droned out the service, prompting the exchange of vows and rings, and Amanda’s concentration drifted again, recalling the same words, the same vows she had taken with Caleb Jackson by her side. Their wedding day had been drab and overcast. The ceremony had taken place in the parlor at Rosalie with only the immediate families to bear witness. Caleb had promised, when the war ended, they would have a proper celebration, with all their friends in attendance, with music and laughter and happiness as far as they could see into the future …

Another promise made, she reminded herself with a little shake, was the one she had given her mother to keep an eye on their father, who, even though confined to a wheelchair, usually managed to slip out of sight in the winking of an eye. And true to form, when the vows were duly recited and solemnly pledged, he wasted no time in having some of his cronies roll him back down the aisle toward the long rows of refreshment tables. There they happily laid siege to the baron’s supply of expensive bourbon and repeatedly toasted the health of the bride and groom.

It seemed a harmless enough place for him to be for the time being and Amanda was glad of the opportunity to pry Verity away from her leg long enough to return some of the circulation to the limb.

She saw Ryan and caught his arm before he could pass.

“Ryan, thank goodness. Can you see if—” She stopped and frowned. “What is it? What’s wrong? You look as if you’ve swallowed a peach pit.”

“Over by the magnolia,” he said tautly. “That’s what’s wrong.”

Amanda followed his bleak stare but had to wait for a parade of feathered bonnets and daintily twirling parasols to pass before she could locate the reason for her brother’s sudden tension. When she saw it was only Dianna Moore standing in the shade with her father, she almost let a curse slip through her lips. But then the last of the slow-moving belles strolled past and Amanda saw the third member of the small group—a tall, broad-shouldered gentleman whose rakish smile and piratical good looks had been the main cause of the women meandering so slowly by. Not only was he standing at ease beside the Judge, he had Dianna’s hand tucked possessively into the crook of his arm, smiling down at her as if they were sharing a private joke.

“You don’t suppose he could be her Yankee … do you?” Amanda asked in a whisper.

“I have a feeling we are about to find out,” he said grimly, pulling his mouth into a smile of sorts as Dianna saw them and waved.

“Amanda! Ryan!” Dianna detached herself from her companion’s arm and came hurrying over. Petite and dark haired, she did not possess Amanda’s classical beauty; a close inspection would even find a smattering of reddish-brown freckles across the bridge of her nose. She had wide, expressive blue-green eyes that filled with adoration whenever they happened to settle upon Ryan Courtland, and today was no exception. Moreover, she took shameless advantage of the happy occasion to thrust her hands into his and surge up on tiptoes before him, brushing her lips across his cheek, leaving them flame red in her wake.

“Ryan …” Her voice was as soft as a whisper and shivered along his spine. “You look wonderful.”

Which he did. His shock of gold hair was freshly trimmed and tamed into a wave that ended just above the starched formality of his collar and cravat. The many months of hard work had added a powerful strain to the seams of his coat and trousers. Despite the slight limp in his left leg, he carried himself with an easy grace that recalled hot lazy days long gone by when men and women lounged in the shade of columned verandas and talked of nothing more serious than the next horse race on Natchez Island.

The Judge was a beat behind Dianna in taking Amanda into a jovial bear-hug that left them both laughing with affection.

“Amanda … by Jove, is that you under all those frills and fancies? No wonder you had the baron reaching for the wrong bride up there; I’d marry you myself if I was thirty years younger. How’s the family holding up under all this stuff and nonsense? Quiet parlor wedding would have done quite nicely, if you ask me, and if you”—he grasped Ryan’s hand in a particularly hearty shake—“ever do get around to asking for my daughter’s hand, that’s all you had best be expecting.”

Dianna went an immediate beet red and lost all of her breath on a gasped “Father!”

Accustomed to dealing brusquely and frankly with the drunks and derelicts who came before him in a courtroom, the Judge had never been one to mince his words, or apologize for not doing so. He looked very nearly like a derelict himself, with full white whiskers and thinning hair that flew out over his ears like wings. His frockcoat and breeches were ten years out of date, and the striped waistcoat could barely contain his burgeoning girth, a fact that made anyone in close proximity stand a little to the side in case the buttons let loose and put out an eye.

William Courtland and Frederick Arblaster Moore had been friends for over thirty years, since the day they met each other across the green of a dueling field. It had been deemed the only honorable way for two Southern gentlemen to decide who should be the one to court the lusty Miss Beulah Raye Tobina. Both men had missed with their first shot. Two subsequent attempts had sent their seconds ducking behind the coaches for safety, the fourth—for they were determined, if not accurate—killed a wild turkey the first three shots had flushed out of the nearby woods. Aided by a bottle of medicinal whiskey, it was decided the death of the fowl was an omen not lightly to be dismissed, and the two very drunk, very relieved men returned home that day to feast on turkey and discover they were better suited as friends than rivals.

“Where is that old scoundrel?” the Judge demanded. “Is he behaving?”

“Probably not,” Amanda answered on a sigh. “In fact, I was just on my way to check up on him.”

“Well, before you do, gal, spare a minute more and meet one of my wife’s distant cousins—third or fourth removed, I believe. Born on the wrong side of the Mason-Dixon line, wouldn’t you know, but then Esther—rest her soul—and her family always were a contrary bunch. Step on up here, m’boy, and meet the son and daughter of the best damned poker player this side of the Mississippi. Ryan, Amanda … Michael Tarrington.”

Up close, the Yankee looked even more imposing than he had in the shade of the magnolia. A full half head taller than any other man currently on the grounds, his broad shoulders made impressive work of filling a gunmetal gray jacket of the finest merino wool. A collared waistcoat of silver-green silk brocade was set off by a pearl-pink cravat, the latter knotted to within an inch of fashionable perfection and tacked to his shirt with an emerald the size of a giant pea.

He stood hatless under the sun, preferring to hold the rakish flat-top by his side. As he bowed cavalierly over Amanda’s hand, the sunlight burnished the thick chestnut waves of his hair, threading it with glints of red and gold and fiery copper.

“A very great pleasure,” he said, flashing a generous smile beneath the wide, full moustache. “The Judge and Dianna have told me enough about the Courtland family, I feel as if we have met already.”

“We have been hearing a great deal about you too,” Ryan said stiffly.

“Michael’s mother and Mama were good friends as well as cousins,” Dianna interjected quickly, her hands fluttering with nervous tension. It was obvious she had anticipated a reaction from Ryan and wanted to avert any potential misunderstandings. “I can’t tell you how many summers we spent together as children. I mean, Michael and I were never exactly children together, he’s ages older than I am, but he has five sisters, two of whom I attended school with for a season. And we used to visit the seaside, near their home in Boston, at least once a year, right up until … until …”

“Until travel became awkward?” Tarrington supplied gently, still smiling from the “ages older” reference.

Dianna sighed her thanks and glanced up at Ryan, who had no such compunction toward subtlety.

“The war made a good many things awkward, travel being the least of our concerns. You fought for the North, naturally.”

The smoky gray eyes lifted slowly to Ryan’s. “Naturally. A somewhat different war than yours, I would imagine.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Navy,” he said easily. “I commanded a gunboat in the blockade.”

“Broke through the defenses at New Orleans in ’62,” the Judge provided helpfully. “Barged right on up to Vicksburg with his cannons blazing and his saber clutched between his teeth. Wasn’t for him and his damned ironclads, the Union never would have been able to come down the Mississippi and cut our supply lines in half. Saved the Federal Army the embarrassment of being chased on up into Canada by our cavalry. Now Ryan here,” he added, puffing up his chest, “rode with Jeb Stuart himself and would have been in the vanguard chasing you scallywags back where you belonged. Rode with Jeb in the first charge at Bull Run and stayed with him until ’64, in a battle outside of Spotsylvania.”

“Ryan had four horses shot out from under him that day,” Dianna elaborated in a breathless whisper. “The last one fell on his leg and broke his ankle, and the Yankee commander was so impressed by his bravery, he ordered his own surgeon to tend the wound.”

The two men weathered the words of praise swirling around them but added nothing to either encourage or prolong the commentary. They assessed one another in silence, their faces impassive, carved out of stone. And though there had never been a time when they had actually faced each other as enemies in battle, they faced one another now as adversaries, wary and guarded.

Tarrington was the first to relent, his eyes losing none of their intensity, however, as they fastened once again on Amanda. “The Judge is not usually given to understatement, but I find in this instance, when he said you and your sister were twins and difficult to tell apart, he was short by a country mile. The resemblance is nothing less than extraordinary, Miss Courtland. Startling, in fact.”

“Then I can only imagine you must startle easily, Mr. Tarrington. And the name is Jackson. Mrs. Caleb Jackson.”

“Forgive me for the presumption,” he said, bowing slightly at the waist. While he was in the act of straightening and before his gaze had managed to rise above the elegantly smooth arch of her throat, he caught sight of a second small, pale face peeping out from behind the folds of Amanda’s skirt.

The change that came over his face was immediate. The lines across his brow disappeared, the deep creases at the corners of his mouth were given greater substance in a smile that expressed pure pleasure.

“Well, now … hello there. And who might you be?”

Verity burrowed back into the crush of silk like a mouse scurrying back into its hidey-hole.

“You will have to excuse my daughter,” Amanda said, lowering her hand by her side as if to offer further shielding. “Verity is not comfortable around strangers, especially tall, ominous-looking men.”

“Am I ominous-looking?” he asked, lifting his eyebrows in mild surprise. “My nieces and nephews all tend to think I look more like a large stuffed pony.”

“You have no children of your own, Mr. Tarrington?”

He smiled again. “I am not married. Nor, truth be told, do I have any burning wish to be."

"Indeed? How odd then, that you purchased one of the largest plantations in Mississippi."

"Not odd at all, Mrs. Jackson. The Glen sits on a magnificent tract of fertile land and I plan to restore it to a working farm."

"Ahh. A land speculator. The state is full of them."

Judge Moore harrumphed loudly into his hand and glared under his brows at Amanda. “A mite prickly today, are we?”

She had the grace to blush a little at the reprimand, though she offered no apology. The Yankee continued to stare at her, a thoughtful new gleam in the slate-gray eyes.

To break the awkward silence, Dianna touched Ryan's forearm again. "Emma was very happy with the sale. In fact, she came to Father a few weeks ago to ask his advice. She said the plantation was simply too much to handle on her own, and with no one left to inherit, she said she wanted to move back home to England. Michael happened to be passing through Natchez on business and … well … Father took him to look at the Glen. He met with Emma and arranged terms the same day.”

“At a fair and honest price, I can assure you,” Tarrington added. “Probably a damn sight too fair in today’s market.”

“But nowhere near its real value, I warrant,” Amanda muttered under her breath.

This time he stared at her openly and far too intimately for such a casual acquaintance. His eyes probed hers with a lazy menace that seemed to be warning her against pressing him too far. Indeed, it almost seemed as though he had given her a similar warning once before that she had ignored.

“Sir,” she demanded point blank. “Are you suffering under the impression we have met somewhere before? You keep staring at me as if you expect me to wink back and acknowledge some private joke we should be sharing.”

The bluntness of her query caught him off guard. "Forgive me, Mrs Jackson, I was unaware I was making you uncomfortable."

She dismissed his apology with a shrug. "At any rate, the only joke I sense here is the one you have perhaps played on yourself. Briar Glen is indeed one of the largest and grandest plantations in Adams County—forty thousand acres, if I am not mistaken—of good, rich land that produced nearly half the cotton in the region before the war. But the Porterfields also owned over a thousand slaves, a once-necessary evil in our part of the world, Mr. Tarrington, and one I am sure you abhor with as much zeal as the rest of your countrymen. It remains, nonetheless, the only practical way to plant, till, and harvest vast amounts of cotton without bankrupting yourself ten times over.”

“Oh”—Dianna gasped—“but Michael doesn’t plan to grow cotton, he—”

“He plans to try to live here as peacefully and harmoniously as he possibly can,” Tarrington interrupted. “Although it doesn’t look as if I am off to a good start.”

“Nonsense, m’boy,” the Judge said, slapping him on the shoulder. “No one’s drawn a gun and shot you yet. I call that downright sociable.”

“At the risk of sounding unsociable,” Amanda said sardonically, “you will have to excuse me now. I would like to take Verity out of the hot sun before she is melted permanently to my leg.”

Amanda reached down for the child’s hand and started to lead her away, aware of Dianna’s blurted excuses and her hasty footsteps following up the slope of the lawn.

“Amanda! Amanda, please … don’t be angry with me. Oh … I just knew it would turn out all wrong. I thought, I hoped if Michael came with us today and if Ryan got a chance to meet him and talk to him, he would realize what a fine, sweet man he really is. I know how you all feel about Yankees—I feel the same way too! But Michael isn’t like the rest of them. He’s my cousin, for pity’s sake; I’ve known him all my life and I can’t be rude to him. I just can’t. No matter what people think or what they say about Father and me entertaining a Yankee in our house. And don’t try to tell me they aren’t gossiping and wagging their nasty old tongues. I’ve seen the way they stare and the way they lift their hands and talk about us when we pass. I don’t care, I tell you. I don’t. Not if they’re so petty and cruel and awful that they could have known us all their lives and still treat us this way. But I do care what you think. And what Ryan thinks. Oh, God … did you see the way he was glaring at me! Do you think he hates me now? Do you think he truly hates me?”

“Dianna—” Amanda stopped walking and stopped trying to follow the breathless rush of questions and conclusions. “What on earth are you going on about? No one hates you. No one is whispering about you. We all have to deal with Yankees every single day because they aren’t simply going to go away even if we vow to ignore them the rest of our lives. As for the way Ryan was looking at you—it should have made you jump for joy. Or don’t you recognize a jealous man when you see one?”

“Jealous?” Dianna gasped. “Ryan was jealous? Of whom?”

Her bewilderment was so innocent, so completely without pretense, Amanda had to laugh. “Who do you think, goose? Who has been seen squiring you all around town for the past few weeks and who has set the gossips’ tongues wagging so furiously?”

Dianna’s mouth dropped open. “Michael? He’s jealous of Michael?”

Amanda shook her head in a gesture of hopelessness and started walking again. Dianna was delayed for the length of two pounding heartbeats before she scrambled after her, her expression suspended somewhere between wonder and disbelief.

“But … Michael is my cousin,” she said lamely.

“Ryan didn’t know that. And anyway, cousins marry cousins all the time; he probably would have thrown bigger fits if he had.”

The huge turquoise eyes grew even rounder. “Ryan has been throwing fits?”

“Great foaming ones,” Amanda nodded. “He’s been quite unpleasant to be around for the past month or so.”

“Jealous,” Dianna murmured again, obviously experiencing a resurgence of hope. Her complexion took on the hue of a dusky rose and her hand trembled where it touched Amanda’s arm. “Do you honestly, truly, sincerely think so? Oh, Amanda … I love him so much it hurts. If I only knew for sure he felt the same way—”

“He does. He is simply too proud and too pig-headed to do anything about it.”

“He never comes to call,” Dianna lamented. “I’m lucky if I see him once a month by accident, and even then I feel as brazen as a hussy when I run up and corner him on the street. Short of my asking him outright if he wants to marry me or not, I don’t know what more I can do.”

“You can tell him how you feel. You can make him understand how much you love him, regardless of what he does or doesn’t have in the bank. And if you don’t do it soon, he is noble enough and pig-headed enough to offer to read the banns for you and your Mr. Tarrington.”

“Michael? Good heavens, he’s the last man on earth I would expect to see standing willingly in front of an altar. His parents and sisters have been throwing debutantes at him since he was eighteen, and he’s either frightened them away or left town himself, taking to the seas for months on end until he thought it was safe to return again. As much as I adore him, I could never contemplate living with him. He is very set in his opinions and his ways, and I daresay a wife would be regarded as a nuisance.”

Amanda refrained from reminding Dianna she had only just finished praising him as being sweet and fine and honest. “Whatever you do, don’t tell Ryan any of that or you’ll be an old maid before he comes to his senses.”

While Dianna absorbed this last warning, they wandered close to the guests crowding around the pavilion. Verity broke away and tumbled into the outstretched arms of her kindly, crinkly old Auntie Rose. She came running back a moment later, her fist clamped around an enormous stick of cinnamon candy that had been brought specially for her. Amanda and Dianna both had glasses of punch thrust into their hands and were cautioned by way of broad winks that there was more in the glasses than apple cider and chokeberry juice. It was strong and warming, a welcome diversion for the two women until they thought it was safe enough to steal respective glances back in the direction of the magnolia tree.

To Amanda’s consternation, it wasn’t safe at all, for the Yankee’s piercing gray eyes were waiting for her. A stray beam of sunlight caught the white, wolfish smile as it spread slowly beneath his moustache, and he had the further audacity, the insufferable arrogance, to acknowledge her interest with a small tilt of his head.

“He is by far the handsomest man here, isn’t he?” Dianna commented on a sigh.

“If you like pirates with great hairy moustaches who look at you like they’re undressing you without your permission … I suppose some might think so.”

“I was talking about Ryan.” Dianna giggled. “But yes, Michael does look like a pirate. And he most certainly does seem interested in you.”

“Me?” Amanda looked aghast at her friend. “Don’t even say such a thing as a joke. Ryan would rupture something, then murder us both for good measure.”

She changed the subject quickly after that, but she could still feel the Yankee’s gaze on the back of her neck, and while she dared not risk another glance to confirm it, she suspected his smile had turned into quiet, mocking laughter.