Page 66 of Just Imagine
“Of course I’m happy.” Kit took another whack at the dough. “I’m nervous, that’s all.”
“A bride’s got a right to be nervous.” Patsy picked up her paring knife and began peeling peaches for a cobbler.
Lucy had stayed by the window, and she saw him first. “Mr. Parsell’s comin’ back from the paddock.”
Kit snatched up a muslin towel and wiped her doughy hands, then ran out the back door and raced toward Brandon, but as she saw his expression, her smile faded. “What’s wrong?”
He didn’t break his stride. “Cain refused his permission.”
Kit felt as if the wind had been knocked out of her.
“He said he didn’t think we’d suit each other. It’s insufferable. A Parsell being dismissed like that by a Yankee ruffian.”
Kit grabbed his arm. “We can’t let him get away with this, Brandon. It’s too important. I have to get Risen Glory back.”
“He’s your guardian. I don’t see what we can do. He controls your money.”
Kit barely noticed that neither of them spoke of love, only the plantation. She was too angered by his resignation. “You may be ready to give up, but I’m not.”
“There’s nothing more I can do. He’s not going to change his mind. We’ll just have to accept it.”
She wouldn’t listen. Instead, she turned away from him and strode determinedly toward the paddock.
Brandon watched her for a moment, then headed for the front of the house and his horse. As he mounted, he wondered if it might not all be for the best. Despite Kit’s captivating beauty and her fertile plantation, there was something about her that made him uneasy. Maybe it had to do with the voices of too many of his ancestors whispering to him.
She’s not at all the right sort of wife for a Parsell—even a penniless one.
Cain stood at the whitewashed fence, one foot propped on the bottom rail as he stared out at the grazing horses. He didn’t bother to turn when Kit charged up behind him, although he would’ve needed to be deaf not to hear her angry footsteps.
“How could you do this? Why did you refuse Brandon?”
“I don’t want you to marry him,” Cain replied, not looking at her.
“Is this your punishment for what happened yesterday at the pond?”
“This has nothing to do with yesterday,” he said so tonelessly she knew he was lying.
Her rage felt as if it were strangling her. “Damn you, Baron Cain! You’re not going to control my life any longer. You send word to Brandon that you’ve changed your mind, or I swear to God, I’ll make you pay!”
She was so small and he so large that her threat should have been ludicrous. But she was deadly serious, and they both knew it.
“Maybe you already have.” He headed out across the paddock.
She stumbled toward the orchard, not seeing where she was going, knowing only that she had to be alone. That day at the pond . . . Why had she told him the truth?
Because if she hadn’t, they wouldn’t have stopped.
She wanted to believe she could make him change his mind, but she knew as surely as she drew breath that he wouldn’t. Her childhood hatred of being born female returned in a rush. How she hated being at the mercy of men. Would she now have to drag Bertrand Mayhew here from New York?
The memory of his fussy ways and soft, pudgy body was repulsive to her. Maybe one of the men who had showered attention on her since she’d returned . . . But Brandon had been the Holy Grail, and choosing any other made her despair.
How could Cain have done this to her?
The question haunted her for the rest of the evening. She refused dinner and sealed herself in her bedroom. Miss Dolly came to the door, and then Sophronia. She sent them both away.
Long after dark, there was a sharp knock from the adjoining sitting room. “Kit, come in here,” Cain said. “I want to talk to you.”
“Unless you’ve changed your mind, I don’t have anything more to say to you.”
