by Jo Goodman
Brandon grunted and pushed his eggs around on his plate. Finally his fork clattered to the table. “Is that what you think is wrong with me, Cody, that I’m expiring for the love of a good woman?”
“More like a woman’s good loving. Hell, Bran, you’re like a bear with a sore paw around here, and I’m tired of being the one to point it out to you. Did you and Shannon have words? She’s as skittish as hot grease on a griddle whenever you come around.”
“Miss Kilmartin and I—”
“Cut line, Brandon! You don’t think of her as Miss Kilmartin any more than I do. If you’d stop treating her as if she had the damned plague, you might even find you could enjoy her company. For a while I thought…” His voice trailed off as he rubbed his chin with the back of his hand. “But never mind, nothing has come of it. Still, you don’t have to glare at her and take your bad humor out on the rest of us.”
“You don’t know anything about it.”
“Then tell me.”
Brandon picked up his fork and began eating. “No,” he said between bites.
Cody was not fazed by Brandon’s dismissal of the subject. “Are you planning to send her away?”
Brandon’s head snapped up. “No! What gave you that idea?”
Cody realized Brandon’s surprise was genuine. Good. “It was something Shannon said.”
“What?”
“She was speaking to the tinker when he passed through the other day. Asked him if he knew of any positions at the other plantations. He promised to get back to her if he heard of anything.”
“And you thought I put her up to it?”
“Yes. Why wouldn’t I? She seemed to be fitting in quite well here, then, I don’t know, she began to look distracted and nervous, even desolate.”
“How can you tell?” Brandon asked, bitterness surfacing. “Every time I see her she seems perfectly happy.”
“Catch her in the odd moment; you’ll see what I mean. She makes an effort to hide it, but it’s wearing on her. You, on the other hand, make very little effort to hide your displeasure.”
Brandon almost laughed out loud. Displeasure? What a paltry word to describe the depth of what he was feeling. “Well, I have no intention of asking her to leave. You may tell her that. Her work with Clara has been eminently suitable. If she chooses to go, it will be because she wants to.”
“You tell her.”
Brandon pushed away from the table. “I will.”
When Brandon was gone from the room, Cody rubbed his palms together gleefully, deciding Machiavelli had nothing on the machinations of Cupid.
Brandon knew exactly where to find Shannon at this time of the morning. He paused outside the door to the nursery and forced himself to take a calming breath. Nothing would be accomplished if he ranted at her.
He pushed open the door and was confronted by two faces, only one of which registered the least delight in his presence. He examined his daughter’s jam and butter smile and found his own lips lifting in kind. “Good morning, Clara.”
“Good morning,” she said brightly. “Would you like a scone, Papa?”
“No, thank you,” he returned gravely. “I came to speak to Miss Kilmartin. Would you mind finishing your breakfast belowstairs? I’m certain Oplas has something good for you in the kitchen. There’s a good girl,” he added as Clara scooted off her chair. She lifted her sticky face for a kiss, which Brandon obligingly gave her. He tapped her playfully on the bottom as she skipped out of the chamber.
“That was accomplished much more easily than I expected,” he admitted, turning toward Shannon.
Shannon busied herself cleaning up the breakfast remains and placing everything on a tray. “You have a spot of jam on your cheek,” she said.
“Pardon?”
“You have a spot of jam on your cheek.”
“Oh.” He withdrew a handkerchief and wiped it away. Not the most auspicious beginning to this interview, he thought, replacing the linen square.
For Shannon’s part, she thought she shouldn’t have told him about the jam. He looked less intimidating with the remnants of Clara’s sticky kiss at the corner of his mouth. “Is there something I can do for you?” she asked formally.
Brandon looked around at the child-size furniture and wondered where he could sit. He had no intention of towering over her. Nothing seemed particularly accommodating. He opted to stand at the far end of the room against the window. He had no idea the sunlight at his back cast his face entirely in shadow. Brandon thrust his hands into the pockets of his jacket. “I understand you are thinking of leaving the folly,” he said without preamble. He was already concentrating on his next words and never heard Shannon’s soft gasp. “I suppose it makes sense from your perspective, and I cannot blame you for holding me in disgust, even though your reasons are not clear to me. I know that I betrayed your trust in me. I told you I never touched anyone in my employ. You have been the exception. Naturally you are concerned that it will happen again. I promise—”
Shannon stood abruptly. “Please! Do not say another word!”
“But—”
Shannon stamped her foot in agitation. “Not another word!”
Brandon’s shock was a palpable thing. His brows lifted in astonishment to hear Shannon speak with such vehemence. His mouth snapped shut when he realized he was gaping stupidly at her.
“Forgive me,” she said, staring at the floor now, her voice but a whisper. “But I do not wish to speak of the past.” She drew deeply for air. “Are you asking me to leave the folly?”
“No! It’s what I came here to prevent, unless it is your wish, of course.”
“I have no wish to leave.”
“But what of the tinker?”
Shannon was genuinely bewildered. “The tinker? What has he to do with anything?”
“Cody said you spoke—” Brandon mentally hit his forehead with the heel of his hand. “Cody! Of course.” If his brother had been handy, Brandon would have landed him a facer. He sighed, stepping away from the window. “You never spoke to the tinker, did you?”
Shannon did not understand anything of the nature of this peculiar conversation. Now that she could see Brandon’s face clearly, she found herself fascinated by the enigmatic half smile curving his lips. She skirted the miniature chair she had been sitting on and stood behind it. “I spoke to the tinker.”
“But not about securing a position at another plantation.”
“No. We talked of other things. Certainly not that. It never occurred to me.”
“Cody has a lot to answer for.”
“What has Cody to do with this?”
“Too much, apparently,” he said as if to himself. “It’s unimportant now. I’ll deal with him later.” He withdrew his hands from his pockets, and they curled into light fists at his side. “Shannon.” The soft imploring in his voice caught her attention. She lifted her eyes to his. “I know you do not want to speak of the past, but I feel we must.”
Her lashes did not lower quickly enough to veil the pain in her violet eyes. “I cannot.”
“Very well,” he conceded, taken off guard by the hurt he saw in her hastily shuttered glance. None of what he had expected to see was there. Not disgust, hatred, or even fear. Those emotions would have been directed outward, toward him. This had been torment, an emotion of inner anguish. Her distress struck him deeply, and he chose to honor her privacy rather than invade it. “I have only a small request, which I hope you will honor. I would ask that you do not go out of your way to avoid me. There is no need for it.”
That was a small request? “Of course.”
“I think we can be civil to each other, though that seems to be more my problem than yours.”
“Oh, no!” Shannon objected. “You have always shown me every courtesy.”
“I won’t argue the point.” Indeed, in light of the brutal treatment of her stepfather, Shannon probably did believe he had treated her with unfailing politeness. He crossed the room and paused at th
e door. “I’d like you to join the family at dinner this evening.” Without waiting for her to object, Brandon closed the door behind him.
* * *
“What happened to your eye, Unca Cody?” Clara asked as she grasped her glass of milk in both hands and brought it to her lips.
Shannon had been wondering the same thing, but unlike Clara, she had managed to keep her curiosity in check. She laid her hand on Clara’s knee to keep the child from swinging her legs under the table. All the worries she had about eating dinner under Brandon’s watchful eye had vanished. Clara’s steady stream of chatter had set the mood, and Shannon found herself relaxing, even enjoying herself. As for Brandon, he was a gracious host, greeting Shannon as if she always sat with the family, and subtly encouraging her to take part in the conversation. Cody, Shannon noted, was relatively quiet. Shannon smiled at her observation. That merely meant he spoke only a little less often than Clara.
“Is there something wrong with my eye?” he asked solemnly. Cody winked at his niece with the one that was not swollen.
Clara grinned and licked at her milk mustache. “The other eye. Does it hurt?”
“Only when I do this.” He blinked it rapidly.
Clara set down her glass. “You’re silly,” she pronounced in serious tones. “Tell me what happened.”
Brandon appeared to study Cody’s face thoughtfully. “Yes, by all means, tell us what happened to your eye.”
Shannon’s head swiveled from Brandon back to Cody. She frowned slightly, trying to understand the odd current of words and glances between the brothers. Though Brandon’s tone was sincere, he seemed to be amused. For a brief moment Cody looked anything but, then his natural humor asserted itself and he grinned in a way that mocked himself.
He leaned forward as if in conspiracy with Clara. “My horse discovered a low-lying branch today, moments before I found it for myself.”
“How horrible!” Shannon gasped. “You could have been seriously injured.”
Cody tried to look cut to the quick. He pointed to his eye. “By morning this beauty will be more colorful than a Tidewater sunrise. I am seriously injured.”
“Hardly,” Shannon said playfully. “I’ve had wor—” She stopped, realizing that she had been about to say she’d had worse. “I’ve seen worse,” she amended quietly, then, seeing neither brother was fooled, she pretended renewed interest in her food.
Brandon forced a lightness he didn’t feel. “This branch, Cody, I hope you’ll avoid it in the future.” He lifted his wineglass in a mocking salute.
Cody dubiously eyed the bruised knuckles of Brandon’s hand and rubbed his jaw. “It’s a certainty.”
Martha chose that moment to appear with dessert, a peach cobbler still warm from the oven. She and Addie cleared the table and set a piece of the cobbler in front of everyone. When they left, it was as if the earlier conversation had never taken place. Shannon remained completely ignorant of the real source of Cody’s puffy eye, just as Brandon and Cody intended she should be.
“I want to learn to ride, Papa,” Clara said, working her words around a mouthful of cobbler.
Brandon pretended not to hear. Shannon smiled to herself, liking the way Brandon dealt with his daughter’s less than impeccable manners.
Clara swallowed what was in her mouth. “I want to learn to ride, Papa.”
Brandon answered immediately. “That’s admirable, Clara, but I haven’t any mounts to suit you.”
“If I had a pony, I could do it.”
“If you had a pony,” he agreed.
“I wouldn’t hit any branches. Me and my pony would fit under them just right.”
Cody choked a little, and Brandon patted him on the back with a force that was harder than was strictly necessary. “Thank you,” Cody said, moving quickly out of the way of Brandon’s next blow.
Brandon shrugged and turned back to Clara. “I’m certain you and the pony would fit nicely under any branch, if you had a pony.”
“May I have a pony?” she asked ingenuously.
Cody laughed as Brandon rolled his eyes. “She has the bit between her teeth, as it were.” He winked at Shannon as she groaned appreciatively.
“We’ll see,” Brandon equivocated. “Who would teach you to ride?”
Clara tugged at Shannon’s sleeve. “Mishannon would, wouldn’t you?”
Shannon shook her head. “I don’t know how to ride, Clara.”
Three voices joined in incredulous unison. “You don’t?”
Shannon lifted her chin a notch. “Not all of us are born to the manor.”
“To hell with being born to the manor,” Cody said bluntly. “One doesn’t have to be titled to know how to ride a horse. How did you get around?”
“I didn’t go many places,” she said, looking at her plate again, miserably aware of the differences that set her apart from the others at the table. “We had a small carriage that we took to town. I wasn’t allowed to drive it.”
Brandon shot Cody a quelling glance. “It’s hardly in the nature of a sin that you never learned to ride, no matter what some people in this room might think.”
Shannon smiled shyly at him. “I’ve been on a horse once,” she said, thinking of the time he had escorted her to her home in Glen Eden. “No, twice,” she amended, remembering that he had also brought her back to the folly.
Brandon observed her guileless expression with something akin to wonder. She hadn’t the least idea she was flirting with him. He trod lightly on the toe of Cody’s boot, wiping the simple grin from his brother’s face. “Then you’re not a complete novice,” he said politely to Shannon.
Clara clapped her hands to pull attention back to herself. “I have an idea,” she announced proudly. “Mishannon and me will learn to ride together.” Her blue eyes widened, containing all the duplicity that was lacking in Shannon’s. “If I may have a pony,” she added, smiling outrageously at her father. “And if you will learn us, Papa.” She cast a sorrowful look at Cody’s swollen eye. “You’re good with kites, Unca Cody, but Papa is better at horses.”
“And you are a rotten child,” Cody said with complete sincerity.
“Papa?”
Brandon raised his hands in surrender. “I’ll teach you.”
“And Mishannon, too?”
“And Mishannon.”
Having secured her father’s promise, Clara promptly turned her thoughts toward the naming of a pony she had yet to see.
Chapter 7
“Mail’s come, Massa Bran!” Addie called. She waved the flimsy packets above her head and then sashayed up the path leading from the folly’s wharf to the house.
“I’ll be right there,” he shouted back. Brandon dropped Rainbow’s leading string and plucked Clara from her pony’s saddle. Shannon had started to dismount, but Brandon stayed her with his hand, then reached for her waist and brought her down himself. It probably wasn’t fair, he thought, to use any excuse he could to touch her, but he was thoroughly weary of being fair. Day after day he watched Shannon blossom like a spring flower after a particularly cruel frost. In front of his eyes she gained a measure of spirit, and displayed a certain confidence that had the capacity to surprise her. He waited for her to speak of the things that still troubled her, desiring nothing more than to erase the torment from her eyes, yet she remained silent, and no amount of subtle coaxing on his part could move her to reveal her thoughts.
Brandon removed his hands from her waist. He returned her eager-to-please smile, though the gesture was not as effortless as it appeared. His fingers ached to undo the braided knot at the back of her head and lower his mouth to the fullness of hers. If she did not want to be kissed, then she should not have a mouth like that. That his argument made not one whit of sense didn’t disturb Brandon in the least.
“You and Clara wait for me here,” he said, tearing his gaze away from Shannon’s mouth. “We’ll continue the lessons after I look through the mail. I’m expecting some notifications from customs.”
That suited Shannon well enough. It would give her some time to have a heart-to-heart discussion with the mount Brandon had chosen for her. She picked up Clara and rested the child on one hip as Brandon hurried back to the house. “Maybe if you say a few words to Anthem, she’ll be more cooperative,” Shannon told Clara.
Clara fearlessly leaned forward and patted the white star on Anthem’s nose. “Papa says you’re just afraid, Mishannon. See, Anthem’s nice.”
“Not as nice as Rainbow.” She eyed Clara’s pony enviously, wishing she could take her lessons on it. After a week of being led in circles, she was convinced she was not meant to ride. Worse, Anthem seemed to sense it and made the learning that much more difficult.
Shannon and Clara carried on a serious discussion with the horse until she rudely walked away. “I suppose that puts me in my place,” Shannon said, laughing.
“I want to ride.” Clara pouted, stretching her arms toward the pony.
“Not until your father comes back.” She turned toward the house. “Look! There he is now.” Shannon was as surprised as Clara when Brandon ignored the training ring and headed straight for the stables. A moment later he reappeared and urged his horse to a gallop, going in the direction of the far field where Cody had gone earlier. Clara called after him, but he was already well out of earshot. Shannon frowned, knowing something of import had happened for Brandon to break his promise. “Come on, Clara. We’ll go back to the house.” Shannon called for a groom to take their horses. For once Clara’s soulful pleas made little impact on Shannon’s senses. She hefted the child in her arms and began walking, worry creasing her forehead.
Brandon pulled up the reins hard as he came abreast of Cody. He steadied his horse to keep it from trampling the precious plants on either side, then thrust a piece of paper in front of Cody’s nose. “Did you have anything to do with this?” he demanded. “So help me, I’ll blacken both your eyes if you did!”