Ian heard the softest murmur and felt a whisper of breath against his nape. “The usual place!”
The young ladies had departed upstairs to rest quite some time ago. Now the matrons were leaving the men to their brandy and cigars.
The whisper had come from Lavinia Trehorn, the lovely and wickedly sensual thirty-year-old widow of the late, lamented, much-older-but-filthy-rich Lawrence Trehorn.
And though Ian had definitely determined that this time home he would tell his parents he intended to enter into an engagement with Risa immediately—Risa was beautiful, poised, well educated, and well acquainted with the military, and the love and longing she stirred within him would surely be the kinds that lasted forever—marriage might be a long time coming.
A very long time.
And the prospect of love and marriage was a completely different concept from that of Lavinia. Lavinia was at a point in life where simple essential lust had become rather like breathing; she sought no commitments.
“What was that, Ian McKenzie?”
Ian blinked. The sensual scent of Lavinia’s musky perfume remained behind to distract him.
“Ian McKenzie! Explain yourself, sir!”
He realized that Alfred Ripply, the gin-blossomed shipbuilder from Tampa, was querying him on his last statement. Something he had said about the state of the Union—and couldn’t begin to remember right away.
The whisper in his ear had thrown him.
He cleared his throat, then paused, aware of another female stare upon him. He could feel the burning gaze of the young woman who was refilling brandy glasses in the parlor.
Lilly.
Lilly was his friend. She was an exotic young woman whose physical makeup combined the very best of her Indian, Negro, and white blood. She despised Lavinia and was trying—while being a competent servant all the while—to impart to Ian with the power of her stare alone the fact that he shouldn’t follow Lavinia. He arched a brow back to Lilly, reminding her that he was as yet an unmarried man, over twenty-one… and certainly able to stay out of the evil clutches of such a woman as Lavinia—except for that “evil” he was growing rather anxious to share.
Lilly let out a barely audible sniff.
Lilly was a free woman; there had never been slaves at Cimarron. Ian’s grandfather, who had brought his sons to Florida, had despised the notion of slavery. Cimarron was a plantation, and it worked as such, but they managed to do so, and do so well, with paid labor.
Lilly had come to them at the end of the “Third Seminole War,” as the government called it. It had been the last cry of a devastated people, and Ian had understood the brief but bitter hostilities better than most, since his closest kin, outside his immediate family, had Indian blood running in their veins.
Lilly had actually lived among a very small tribe of Creek Indians residing inland from Tampa Bay. Her husband had joined with the warriors who were once again seeking some semblance of justice. The last conflict had ended much as those wars waged before it; the Seminoles who had survived remained spiritually undefeated, and had retreated deeper into the Everglades. The whites had gladly washed their hands of a nasty battle.
Ian had been incredibly grateful not to have been involved. There had been no Indian trouble in Florida when he had made his decision to accept his appointment to West Point. He had graduated as a lieutenant, but he’d have gladly resigned his commission rather than take arms against the Seminoles. Thankfully, at the time hostilities broke out, his command had been in Texas. Then he’d been assigned to the hotbed brewing out in the Kansas/Nebraska arena before being ordered down to Key West to work with the men there attempting to chart the hammocks, rivers, and streams through the Everglades. The traveling he had done throughout the country had left him certain that he could speak with an educated opinion concerning the very grave state of the Union at that moment.
But he was damned sorry he had said whatever it was that he had. He didn’t want to argue politics right now. Lavinia’s whisper had been far too enticing.
He glanced at Lilly. Lilly shook her head, worried about him. He smiled. Lilly should understand his attraction to Lavinia, and the fact that he could take care of himself without risking his own future plans or injuring any sweet, young, innocent girl. After all, he was going to marry a very proper young woman, but there would be endless plans to make, and God alone knew when his wedding might actually take place. Meeting Lavinia was pure entertainment for both parties, with no one getting hurt in any way. He wasn’t in love with Lavinia, and Lavinia knew it. Neither, of course, was Lavinia in love with him. They had become friends in the short times he had been home, and Lavinia was a widow who had now taken on a number of lovers, quite discreetly, of course. Lavinia was, and had said so frankly, quite enormously fond of good sexual entertainment without the silly restrictions of society. As a widow—one who would lose her dear departed husband’s bank accounts to his brother should she remarry—she could see little reason in denying herself what pleasures and amusements might remain to her.
“McKenzie! Ian McKenzie! You make no sense, sir!” Alfred Ripply said, banging his cane against the polished hardwood of the library floor. “You sit there and say that John Brown deserved to hang, and in what is nearly the same breath, you say that Lincoln—that hideous long lank of malformation!—seeks no evil against Southerners, only strength in the Union!”
Ian sighed, glancing at his father where he stood across the room, an elbow leaned against the mantel. Jarrett McKenzie remained as tall and supply muscled as ever; his stance hadn’t altered a hair in all the years Ian could remember. His father’s dark eyes were grave against his handsome, dignified features; his hair, nearly jet-black, was just becoming touched with silver. Ian and Jarrett had certainly had their differences over time, but now, in many ways, they were discovering they were very much alike. In the last few years Ian had come to realize that he didn’t just love his father; he admired him very much. Jarrett’s opinions had definitely influenced much of his own thinking, but his life experiences had served to convince him of the tightness of his beliefs, at least in his own soul. And that was where, Jarrett had always taught him, it mattered most.
“John Brown is, in my opinion, sir, a sad case. He believed most heartily that God had sanctioned his deeds in the pursuit of a higher goal. However, I say that he deserved to hang because murder is a crime punishable by hanging according to our laws. John Brown willfully and brutally murdered many men, claiming to do so in retaliation for raids into anti-slavery territory by pro-slavery men. Brown didn’t have the right to be judge and jury for those men.”
Ian rose and bowed to the men in the room. His uncle James—up with his family for lan’s mother’s annual birthday gathering for his father—was watching him oddly. Ian offered his uncle a quick, wry grimace, then turned back to Ripply and the others. “Gentlemen, if you’ll excuse me, I believe I’ll see to the wine list for this evening. Father?”
Jarrett was evidently aware that his son was heartily sorry he’d ever allowed himself to become embroiled in such a conversation. Ripply wanted total agreement with his own beliefs, and nothing less. And he probably had no conception of just how ugly the argument over slavery could become.
He hadn’t seen some of the atrocities committed out in Kansas, Nebraska and Missouri as each side struggled to prove that God had commanded their credo to be the right one.
“Indeed, Ian,” his father said. “Please do so.”
And he was free.
Naturally, he didn’t need to see to a wine list. Such arrangements had all been taken care of long ago. His father didn’t know about Lavinia; he only knew Ian needed to escape, and he understood.
He decided, however, that he’d best make his exit in the direction of the kitchen.
And that was why, although he never saw the young lady involved, he clearly heard her kissing O’Neill—and then slapping him.
Ian disliked O’Neill. O’Neill, whose father had just announced his son’s engagement to the cotton heiress Elsie Fitch, was rumored to have fathered several children already, scattered about the state. And if rumor held true, he had denounced each unwed young woman when her condition became apparent. O’Neill was probably considered conventionally handsome, and obviously he could be a charmer.
When Ian entered the kitchen and happened upon the kiss and the slap, he was quickly certain that whoever the luckless lass might be, she was in his house and therefore deserved his protection. Assuming she wanted it.
But when he forced back the dolly to enter the pantry, O’Neill was alone, somewhat bent over, nursing his cheek—and more of his anatomy, so it seemed. His face reddened so that the hand imprint on it seemed to deepen when he saw Ian.
“Excuse me, Ian. Difficulties with an affair de coeur which must now be fini. I’m afraid that one was in love with me,” he said ruefully.
“Indeed. It certainly sounded like it,” Ian said dryly.
“She was totally inappropriate for marriage,” Peter said defensively.
“You do seem to have that problem with the women who attract you.”
Peter reddened still further. “My father would have none of it.”
“But at least the concept of marriage did pass through your mind this time,” Ian said politely.
Peter gave him an awkward smile and lifted his hands. “You’ve been around in the world, Ian,” he said. “You know how women can be. This one is… wanton. A little hellion. So ripe she was bursting. She wanted me. I couldn’t deny her. Believe me, Ian, I’d have had to have been a rock to resist her. You cannot imagine—”
“Peter, spare me, and spare my father’s house your theatrics, and whatever callous cruelty you might bestow on your inappropriate women.” He started to walk by, then hesitated. “You’re not toying with a servant in my father’s house, are you?” For a moment, he was afraid that Lilly might have been involved.
Peter drew himself upright at last, watery blue eyes spitting hatred. He knew Ian disliked him, and he was furious that Ian should have come upon such a scene. “Certainly not! And if rumor does truth justice in any way, Ian McKenzie, you’ve no right to condemn other men for their affairs with women.”
Ian arched a brow, yet he managed not to reply. He wasn’t about to argue with Peter or try to explain the difference in enjoying the company of a mature and independent woman and seducing a young innocent. But then again, maybe he had no right to condemn Peter after all; he didn’t know the woman involved. And he was growing somewhat anxious.
The hell with Peter and his problems.
The usual place. Lavinia could be impatient. She’d only wait so long.
“Take care in my father’s house, Peter,” he said softly.
“Or what?” Peter demanded, his tone surly.
“Or I will have to make certain that you do,” Ian said evenly, then stepped past the man and hurried through the doorway that led back out to the great hall.
As he left the house, he could hear the sounds of angry voices spilling from the library. He forgot Peter, and he wanted to forget the overwhelming sense of doom that seemed to hang over his country.
He felt a burning sense of nostalgia for the way it used to be. For the slow, easy days when there was little to disturb the way the river rippled, when barges moved slowly and lazily by and the day-to-day life at Cimarron was like clockwork. When the pines sheltered the land, and the crystal pools cooled a man’s flesh from the heat of the sun. That was his world. Unique from the North; unique, even, from most of the South. Much of his world still remained a wilderness, civilization bordered by primitive blues and greens. His crystal pools were like no others; the sunshine here was brilliant, the sunsets radiant with vibrant colors. His land was like an Eden.
Mmm… Eden.
Private, secluded. Seductive. He was going to be very glad for a few minutes’ respite with Lavinia in his own private Eden.
Before his whole damned world careened straight to hell.
Alaina hurried along the path, her footsteps light and quick upon the pine-carpeted forest floor. She hesitated just briefly, looking back. The trail from Cimarron was empty. Peter O’Neill was not following her, ready to insist anew that there could be something between them in private, even if…
Her cheeks burned.
But she wasn’t being followed. She had left Peter doubled over, and no one had seen her; no one had followed her. She could escape. And after the events of the afternoon, she was desperate for some time alone.
To cool down.
She knew where to go. To the soothing refuge where she’d been headed when Peter had so rudely stopped her.
There was a beautiful freshwater pool just ahead, or so she had been promised. A pool as private as Adam’s and Eve’s own Eden, locked away in the depths of the forest that began just where the Cimarron lawn ended. Ian McKenzie’s cousin, Sydney, had assured her she would find the pool easily enough, and that it was magnificent—gloriously clean and crystal clear, fed by underground springs. Sydney knew, of course, because she was a McKenzie herself, though not one of the McKenzies of Cimarron. Sydney had grown up in the far south of the state, as had Alaina, a part of the state still referred to as savage by those who felt they had completely civilized central Florida.
Such sentiments usually amused Alaina, and also gave her a certain sense of pride—which allowed her to feel at least a little contempt for the numerous young ladies at the Cimarron party this afternoon who were whispering about her—and her father—as they supposedly lay down to nap. She hadn’t needed Peter to tell her that she and her father were, in a strange way, not exactly preferred society to a number of the very rich mothers and fathers in the state. From her experience, young ladies never did nap when they supposedly did so at social events—they gossiped. But it didn’t matter to Alaina; she just didn’t give a damn. Young ladies didn’t swear, either, of course, but since her father was far more intrigued with plant life than human, he’d never realized in the least that he might have neglected her “proper” upbringing.
And thank God he didn’t have the least idea that she was uninterested in either resting or hearing what might be said.
Or that because of his eccentricities, she might not be considered decent marriage material. God! That Peter would dare say such a thing to her. And to imagine that she had thought herself in love with such a crude, detestable man, that she had considered marrying him! After all that he had suggested to her… Oh, God. She was mortified.
She stopped short. There it was. The pool. Large, with small bubbles appearing here and there from the deep springs beneath. Great oaks dipped their branches down upon the water. The water was so clear, she could see all the way to the depths.
She was dying to swim. She had started off for the pool, intending to plunge in, and she hadn’t been worried in the least before what people might think.
But now she felt that she had to remind herself that no decent woman would run out into the wilds of Cimarron and go swimming.
Well, she had just been informed that she wasn’t exactly decent material to begin with!
She spun around, inspecting the clearing. Insects chirped softly. A blazing sun burned down. Her temper burned as well, and the water was so inviting. She wanted so desperately to feel it, to feel as if she could wash away Peter’s touch—and his hateful words. The men were busy with brandy and port, the women were gossiping. The pool was a private place, known only by the McKenzies.
She sat upon a heavy pine log and began industriously working at the ties on her elegant dress boots. With some difficulty she next shed her gown, petticoats, and the corset that was threatening to asphyxiate her. She paused just a moment, thinking that she remained somewhat decent in her chemise and pantalettes. But then again, if her clothing didn’t dry quickly in the sun, she’d have to return to the house—and the gossips—quite damp. If she stripped down and kept her clothing in perfect shape, took her swim, dressed, dried her hair in the sun, and returned to the house, no one would be the wiser. And besides, she still felt Peter’s horrible, horrible touch. Breathed his scent upon her flesh….
She slipped from the rest of her clothing, carefully arranged it all in a pile a distance from the water, then gasped just slightly as the cool spring water touched the hot fire of her flesh.