had kissed her twice, once in gratitude and once in anger. But he was wed to Celia. Jessie knew, knew, that she'd be wise to remember that.
But no matter what she knew, as she watched them go inside together Jessie felt a funny tightening in the pit of her stomach. For a moment only, she was surprised: as tense as she was, she hadn't expected to feel hungry. Then she realized that what she was feeling wasn't hunger at all.
Ridiculously, idiotically, she was feeling jealous of Celia.
XXV
To Jessie's surprise, the evening passed pleasantly enough. If Stuart and Celia had quarreled— and although Jessie hadn't actually seen them, she was sure they had—there was no outward sign of it. Celia managed to curb her tongue for the duration of the meal and was no more flirtatious with Mitch or Billy than was appropriate. In fact, she addressed most of her remarks to her cousin Gray, and left the entertaining of Jessie's guests to Jessie herself, and to Stuart.
Jessie was almost amused to discover that the younger men addressed Stuart with veneration, as if he were a generation rather than less than a decade older than they. He, in turn, adopted an avuncular manner toward them that was equally inappropriate. Or maybe not. Chronologically, the age difference might not be that great, but there was a tremendous gulf between them in bearing and experience.
After the meal, the company, with the exception of Celia, who pleaded a headache, retired to the porch. Stuart and Gray blew a 184
cloud, while the younger men vied for Jessie's attention. Conscious of Stuart's watchful presence even as he talked lazily to Gray, Jessie went out of her way to respond to her visitors'
compliments and quips.
When it grew dark enough so that Sissie began lighting the lamps inside, Stuart stood up and tossed his cheroot over the side of the porch.
"Well, Gray and I have work to do. Jessie, you won't be out here long, will you?"
"We're just leaving, Mr. Edwards. Thank you for supper." Mitch and Billy stood hastily at Stuart's none-too-subtle hint, but it was Billy who spoke. Mitch echoed his thanks for the meal. Stuart nodded at them both and invited them to come back anytime. Then, with Gray at his heels, he headed inside for, presumably, the library, where he did most of the plantation's paperwork.
"Thomas, you go get Mr. Todd's and Mr. Cummings' horses," Jessie called down to the shadow she saw sidling around the corner of the house. Thomas was on his way to Rosa's kitchen, she knew. After supper was his favorite time for begging tidbits.
"Yes'm, Miss Jessie," Thomas yelled back, although Jessie thought she detected a shade of reluctance in his reply. She grinned. Rosa had served fresh ham and yams for supper, followed by molasses pie. Molasses pie was Thomas's favorite food in the world, and it was clear that he feared missing out. But Rosa would undoubtedly save him a slice, so Jessie didn't feel particularly guilty about depriving him of his treat.
"Will you be going to the Culpeppers'?" Mitch asked in a low voice as Billy turned to retrieve his hat from the seat of a rocker. 185
"You'll just have to wait and see," Jessie responded with a glimmering smile. Really, she did like Mitch. He was the handsomest boy for miles around (although he paled in comparison with Stuart's hard male splendor, a thought that Jessie resolutely dismissed almost as soon as it occurred). And he was kind, and good-natured, and . . .
"Do you think it'd be all right if I stayed for a little longer?
There's something I really want to say to you," Mitch whispered hastily just as Billy came back, hat in hand.
"What are you whispering to Miss Jessie about? If I didn't know you so well, I'd swear you were trying to steal a march on me." Billy regarded his friend with a scowl, then thrust Mitch's hat at him while retaining his own. "Here, I got your hat for you."
Mitch accepted the hat, but made no move to place it on his head as Billy had his.
"It's none of your business what I say to Miss Jessie. And you can just go on home without me. We go back in different directions, anyhow."
"I'm not leaving you here alone with her!"
"Are you trying to be insulting? If you are, then you better be prepared to back your mouth up with your fists!" To Jessie's alarm, the two young men were suddenly nose to nose, glaring at each other as though they were mortal enemies instead of friends. Quickly she put a hand on each one's arm.
"Mr. Todd! Mr. Cummings! Please!"
They looked down at her, suddenly shamefaced, and turned away from each other.
"Sorry, Miss Jessie," Billy muttered sheepishly, while sneaking in a scowl at Mitch.
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"That's all right, Mr. Cummings. Just because Mr. Todd was so nasty to you, I'll save you a dance at the Culpeppers'."
"You are going!" Both young men were immediately all attention.
"I suppose."
"That's wonderful. Just wonderful! And you'll save me a dance." Billy grinned at her, then looked triumphantly at Mitch.
"You notice she didn't say she'd save you a dance."
"Get out of here, braggart, before I remember we're supposed to be friends." Mitch gave Billy a cuff on the arm, but this time it was clear that he was only funning.
Billy grinned, picked up Jessie's hand, and before she knew quite what he meant to do, carried it to his mouth.
"I suppose I'll let this bouncer drive me away, but at least I'll leave you thinking about me."
With that Billy pressed a quick kiss onto the back of her hand, then released it with a flourish to run down the stairs to where Thomas waited with his horse. Mitch scowled after him. Jessie laughed. She quite liked Billy Cummings, too. Maybe, just maybe, if she gave herself a chance, she could find someone who had the same effect on her that Stuart had. Someone available. Someone like Billy, or Mitch.
"Now what did you want to say to me?" she asked Mitch pertly after they watched Billy ride away.
Mitch looked around uneasily. "Uh—could you walk with me a little way? We won't go far, but I, uh, I would rather not be interrupted."
"This sounds interesting." Jessie placed her hand on the arm Mitch offered her, and allowed him to escort her down the stairs. It was almost dark now, and the moon was already riding high in 187
the sky, although it couldn't have been much past seven o'clock. The wind had picked up with the setting of the sun. Jessie found herself wishing for a shawl.
Thomas still waited at the top of the drive with Mitch's horse. He looked at the pair of them expectantly as they approached.
"Mr. Todd won't be leaving quite yet, Thomas. You can take his horse back to the stable."
"Yes'm, Miss Jessie." The boy's response was proper, but there was a hint of disapproval in the eyes that watched Jessie stroll along the drive on Mitch's arm. Aware of that disapproval, Jessie tilted her chin a trifle higher in silent disregard of it. After all, how was she ever to find a man who attracted her as much as Stuart if she was never alone with one?
"So what did you want to say to me?" Jessie asked after Thomas, horse in tow, finally disappeared in the direction of the stable.
"Well. . ."To her surprise, Mitch seemed almost ill at ease. He looked around swiftly, then caught Jessie's hand and pulled her toward the orchard. Surprised, she nevertheless went with him. When the house was all but hidden from them by the thickness of the trees, he stopped.
"Good gracious, it must be something quite momentous!" Her voice was light, although she had to admit to feeling a bit nervous. Here, where the trees blocked out most of the remaining light, it was so dark that she could barely distinguish Mitch's feature. "I really musn't stay out here long. Most everyone we know would say it's not proper."
"It will be proper, if you say yes, ' Mitch said on a deep breath. Turning so that he faced her squarely, he caught both of her hands and stood looking down at her for a moment while she 188
began to get some inkling of what he must be going to say. "Miss Jessie, will you marry me?"
She was so taken aback that she nearly laughed aloud. She managed to clamp
down on the impulse, but she stood looking up at Mitch with the liveliest astonishment. Half a year ago she doubted that he'd had more than a vague notion of who she was, though he'd known her all her life. At Stuart's and Celia's engagement party, he'd been mortified at having to dance with her. And now, on the strength of her altered looks and a few dances, he was proposing marriage? The notion struck Jessie as exquisitely funny.
Or maybe it was nerves that was prompting her insane desire to giggle.
"Are you serious?"
She was so flustered that some of her newly acquired poise deserted her. As soon as she said it, she knew that that couldn't be the proper response to a gentleman's proposal of marriage. But no one had ever proposed to her before, and she was not quite up on the etiquette of it.
"Miss Jessie. Jessie." Mitch took a deep breath and looked intently down at her. He was some few inches taller than she, with even, regular features whose youthfulness was only emphasized by the scraggly mustache that decorated his upper lip. His shoulders were manly, his build solid, his hands as they gripped hers strong. Jessie gazed up into his face and wondered if she might, indeed, consider marrying him. Only a few months ago her wildest dream had been to be noticed by him. Now that he was—good heavens!—actually asking her to marry him, she should be over the moon with happiness.
At the very least, she should consider the possibility. 189
While she had been ruminating, he had been nattering on about how her beauty near unmanned him. She came back to herself when he got to the part about her eyes reminding him of the finest chocolates, and barely managed to subvert a renewed urge to laugh. Somehow having chocolates as eyes sounded distinctly unromantic.
"You are not attending! Are you?" He broke off his rapturous description of her charms with the accusation, looking affronted. Jessie pressed her wayward lips tightly together to keep the telltale smile from them, and nodded.
"Of course I am attending. It's just that—that I've never had anyone ask me to marry him before."
"Well, I should hope not," he said, mollified. "You're very young, Jessie, yet you're ready to be a wife, I think. And I—I would cherish you."
This last he said very low, and the muttered sincerity of it touched Jessie's heart at last.
"Mr. Todd ..." she began.
"Mitch," he corrected, his eyes fastened on hers as though mesmerized by them. Jessie was beginning to find his obvious admiration very pleasant, and in fact wondered if perhaps . . . perhaps . . .
"Mitch," she repeated, her eyelids fluttering down and then up again as a natural instinct for coquetry asserted itself. "I— I don't know what to say."
"Say yes, Jessie," he breathed, and his hands lifted hers to his lips, where he pressed a kiss on each of her knuckles in turn.
"Oh, Mitch ..." The touch of his lips on her hands was warm, and not at all unpleasant. It occurred to her to wonder what would happen if he kissed her, properly, on the lips. Perhaps his 190
kiss was all that was needed to break the spell of Stuart's. Perhaps, once Mitch kissed her, all the melting heat that Stuart awoke in her would spring to life for Mitch, and she could wed him and live happily ever after.
"Kiss me, Mitch," she whispered daringly. Her eyes closed and her lips pursed and lifted even as she issued the invitation. She felt Mitch's hands tighten on hers, felt him hesitate, and finally his mouth was on hers, softly kissing her lips.
Then a grim voice from the direction of the drive abruptly ended Jessie's experiment.
"That's quite enough, Mr. Todd," Stuart said.
XXVI
"Mr. Edwards!"
Mitch jumped away from her as if he'd been shot, spinning to face Stuart with such a guilty look on his face that Jessie felt like kicking him. She, on the other hand, felt not the least bit of guilt, and she hoped the haughty tilt of her chin showed it.
"I think it's time you left." Stuart was still talking to Mitch. Except for a single condemning glance when Mitch first let her go, Stuart had not so much as looked at Jessie. He stood less than six feet away, his fists planted on his hips, his booted feet spaced slightly apart. Against the background of the low, spreading fruit trees he looked tall, solid, and formidable.
"Sir, I—I know this looks bad, but I can explain. I—I was asking Jessie to marry me."
Stuart's eyes narrowed. "Were you, now?"
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Jessie decided that the time had come to put in her two cents.
"Yes, he was."
Still he spared her no more than a glance. His attention was all for Mitch, who was so nervous he was perspiring despite the evening's chill.
"And what did Jessie reply?"
"She—she didn't. Yet. You—she—she hasn't said." In the face of Stuart's icy disapproval, Mitch's
pretensions to manhood collapsed with amazing speed. He looked like a schoolboy caught by the headmaster with his hand in the jam pot. "Really? Jessie?"
Stuart did look at her, finally. Those narrowed eyes were unreadable in the shadowy gloom of the orchard. It was too dark even to see the expression on his face. Not that it would have been much use if she could have seen it, Jessie mused. When it pleased him to do so, he could keep his face as expressionless as stone.
"I have no intention of giving Mitch an answer in front of you," she said coldly. Mitch, clearly uncomfortable, glanced from her to Stuart and back. Paying him no heed for the moment, Stuart looked her up and down, thoroughly. Jessie knew full well that his gaze was meant to disconcert her. If he had succeeded, she refused to admit it even to herself.
"Are you saying that you need time to think over Mr. Todd's very flattering proposal?"
If there was a satirical edge to Stuart's words, Jessie chose to ignore it.
"Yes," she said defiantly, "that's just what I'm saying."
"An," he said, nodding as if he understood perfectly. Jessie flashed him a look that should have killed him. If he even 192
noticed it, it was impossible to tell. Not even his eyelashes flickered. He met her eyes with that icy, impenetrable look she'd come to know and hate, and said nothing.
"You'll think about it?" Mitch asked, swinging around to face her and thus diverting her attention from the object of her desire. Her lips pursed. He sounded so eager! Compared to Stuart's powerful masculinity, he looked young in the way boys are young, tall but ungainly, a trifle awkward, with his limbs not yet fully under control.
"I'll think about it," Jessie agreed, more warmly than she would have had Stuart not been listening. She already knew that eventually she was going to have to tell Mitch no. His kiss had awakened nothing in her but a desire to wipe her mouth on her hand when it was over. Maybe once that wouldn't have mattered to her, but no longer. Now, thanks to the hard-eyed man who was standing there regarding her as if she'd just crawled out from under a rock, she knew how a kiss should feel. Craving that feeling as she did, she'd be a fool to marry where it was lacking. And it was definitely lacking with Mitch.
"Unless and until Jessie decides to accept your offer, I suggest you refrain from taking further liberties with her person," Stuart said, then paused and fixed Mitch with steely eyes. "In other words, if I see your hands on her again outside the boundaries of an official engagement, I'll break them, and you too." Stuart's tone was still perfectly amiable, but the threat was not an idle one, it was clear. Mitch bit his lip, then nodded.
"I don't blame you, Mr. Edwards. I'd feel the same way if Jessie was under my protection. It won't happen again, I promise. It's just that—Jessie's so lovely, I kind of lost my head." 193
"You have my sympathy, Mr. Todd, if not my approbation." Stuart's dry response put a merciful period to Mitch's groveling.
"Under the circumstances, I'm sure you won't be offended if I suggest that it's time you headed for home. I've already ordered that your horse be brought around—for what I understand is the second time this evening—so there's no need for you to delay. Jessie can give you your answer another day—in the presence of a prope
r chaperone."
"Yes, sir." Mitch looked at Jessie. "Shall I come tomorrow?" He meant for his answer, of course. Oh, Lord, if Stuart weren't standing there she would give it to him now. Handsome and kind and good-natured though Mitchell Todd was, Jessie knew she couldn't wed him. What she had felt for him had been no more than an adolescent crush. With Stuart's coming it had withered and finally died.
"Let me think it over for a few days, please, Mitch. It—it's a very serious decision," Jessie said softly. The last thing she wanted was to have to face Mitch's entreaties again the following day. Somehow, she wasn't sure exactly how, but somehow, this whole unpleasant situation could be laid at Stuart's door. If he had never come on the scene, Mitch would never have proposed to her. While she didn't precisely regret the transformation in her life that had resulted in his proposal, she did regret that she no longer felt inclined to accept it. In the lonely days before Stuart's coming, if Mitch had asked to marry her she probably would have fainted, then jumped into his arms in her haste to agree. But Stuart had forced his way into her life and changed everything. Even her heart.
As that thought occurred to her, Jessie scowled direly at him. If he noticed her displeasure, he gave no sign of it. He stood there, 194
broad of shoulder, lean of hip, and immovable as a mountain, waiting for Mitch to go.
"Well. All right, if that's what you want." Mitch was braver than Jessie had credited him with being, after all. In spite of Stuart's frown, he turned and took both her hands in his. "Make your answer yes, Jessie. Please."
The words were very soft, designed for her ears alone. But from the sudden sardonic twist to Stuart's lips Jessie did not doubt that he heard them, too. Without waiting for her reply, Mitch released her hands and took himself off through the orchard. Minutes later they could hear his horse's hooves clattering down the drive.
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