Page 25 of Just Imagine
“We’ll discuss that when the time comes.”
He could keep her away from Risen Glory for years, exiled from everything she loved. She turned away and rushed back into the dining room. She remembered how she’d humiliated herself by offering to be his mistress, and her hatred choked her. When her exile was over and Risen Glory was safe, he was going to pay for this.
“What’ll it be, Kit?” he said from behind her.
She could barely force out the words. “You don’t give me much choice, do you, Yankee?”
“Well, well, well.” A woman’s voice, throaty and seductive, rippled in from the hallway. “Will you jes’ look at what that child brought back with her from New York City.”
“Sophronia!” Kit pitched herself across the dining room and into the arms of the woman who stood in the doorway. “Where you been?”
“Rutherford. Jackson Baker took sick.”
Cain stared at the newcomer with surprise. So this was Kit’s Sophronia. She was hardly what he’d envisioned.
He’d imagined someone much older, but she looked as if she were in her early twenties, and she was one of the most exotically beautiful women he’d ever seen. Slim and tall, she towered over Kit. She had high, chiseled cheekbones, pale caramel skin, and slanted golden eyes that slowly lifted as he studied her.
Their gazes met and held over the top of Kit’s head. Sophronia untangled herself and walked toward him, moving with a languid sensuality that made her simple blue cotton dress seem like a gown of the finest silk. When she was directly in front of him, she stopped and held out her slim hand.
“Welcome to Risen Glory, Boss Man.”
* * *
Sophronia acted hateful all the way back north on the train. Everything was “yes, sir” and “no, sir” to Cain, smiling at him and taking his side against Kit.
“That’s because he’s right,” Sophronia said when Kit confronted her about it. “It’s time you started to act like the woman you were born to be.”
“And it’s time you started remembering whose side you’re supposed to be on.”
Sophronia and Kit loved each other more than anyone else on earth, despite being black and white. Which didn’t mean they didn’t argue. And those arguments only accelerated after they reached New York.
The minute Magnus laid eyes on Sophronia, he started walking around in a daze, and Mrs. Simmons wouldn’t stop talking about Sophronia being so wonderful. After three days, Kit was sick of it. Then her already bad mood plummeted even further.
“I look like a jackass!” The dun-colored felt hat sat like a squashed gravy boat on Kit’s ragged hair. The material of her ocher jacket was of good quality, but cut too big in the shoulders, and the ugly brown serge dress dragged on the carpet. She looked like she’d dressed up in a spinster aunt’s clothes.
Sophronia splayed her long fingers on her hips. “What d’you expect? I told you those clothes Mrs. Simmons bought for you was too big, but you wouldn’t pay me no nevermind. You ask me, this is what you get for thinkin’ you know so much more than everybody else.”
“Just because you’re three years older than me and we’re in New York City doesn’t mean you can act like some kind of queen.”
Sophronia’s elegant nostrils quivered. “You think you can say anything you want to me. Well, I’m not your slave no more, Kit Weston. You understand me? I don’t belong to you. I don’t belong to anybody ’cept Jesus!”
Kit didn’t like hurting Sophronia’s feelings, but sometimes she could be pigheaded. “It’s just that you don’t ever show any gratitude. I taught you your sums. I taught you how to read and write, even though it was against the law. I hid you from Jesse Overturf that night he wanted to lie with you. And now you’re taking that Yankee’s side against mine every chance you get.”
“Don’t you talk to me ’bout gratitude. I spent years keepin’ you out of Miz Weston’s sight. And every time she caught you and locked you in that closet, it was me who let you out. I took a whippin’ for you. So I don’t want to hear anything about gratitude. You’re a noose around my neck. Suffocating me. Cutting off my life’s breath. If it wasn’t for you—”
Abruptly Sophronia broke off as she heard footsteps approaching outside the door. Mrs. Simmons appeared and announced that Cain was waiting below to take Kit to the school he’d chosen.
Just like that, the two combatants found themselves locked in each other’s arms. Finally Kit pulled away, picked up her ugly, gravy-boat hat, and walked to the door. “You be careful, hear?” she whispered.
“You mind yourself at that fancy school,” Sophronia whispered back.
“I will.”
Sophronia’s eyes clouded with tears. “We’ll be seeing each other again before you know it.”
PART TWO
* * *
