Just Imagine (39 page)

Relief made Kit's knees wobble. Cain's eyes locked with Magnus's.

They stayed that way for several long, hard seconds before Cain looked away and shrugged. "What Magnus does is his own business. It doesn't have anything to do with me, one way or the other."

Kit gave a hiss of outrage as he scooped her up onto Vandal, mounted himself, and spurred the horse back up the drive.

Sophronia stared after them, bile rising in her throat. The major was supposed to be Magnus's friend, but he wasn't a friend at all. White stood together against black. That was the way it always had been, the way it always would be.

Despair overwhelmed her. She darted her eyes toward Magnus, but Cain's betrayal didn't seem to bother him. He stood with his legs slightly apart, one hand lightly balanced on his hip, and a strange light shining in his eyes.

The love she'd refused to admit burst free inside her, breaking all the invisible shackles of the past and sweeping away the rubble in a great cleansing rush. How could she have denied her feelings for so long? He was everything a man should be—strong, good, kind. He was a man of compassion and pride. But now, through her actions, she'd put him in peril.

There was only one thing she could do. She turned her back on Magnus and forced herself toward James Spence.

"Mr. Spence, it's my fault what's happened here today." She couldn't make herself touch his arm. "I been flirtin' with Magnus. Makin' him believe he meant somethin' to me. You got to forget all this. I'll go with you, but you got to promise you won't let any harm come to him. He's a good man, and all this is my fault."

Magnus's voice came from behind her, as soft and mellow as an old hymn. "It's no good, Sophronia. I won't let you go with him." He moved up beside her. "Mr. Spence, Sophronia is goin' to be my wife. You try to take her with you, I'll stop you. Today, tomorrow, a year from now. Doesn't make any difference. I'll stop you."

Sophronia's fingers turned icy.

Spence licked his lips and shot a nervous glance in the direction Cain had disappeared. Magnus was the bigger man, taller and more muscular, and Spence would be the loser in a physical match. But Spence didn't need that kind of fight to win.

With a sense of dread, Sophronia watched the play of emotions on his face. No black man could get away with hitting a white man in South Carolina. If Spence didn't get the sheriff to do something about it, he'd go to the Ku Klux Klan, those monsters who'd begun terrorizing the state two years ago. Images of whippings and lynchings filled her mind as he walked confidently over to his buggy and climbed up onto the seat.

He picked up the reins and turned back to Magnus. "You've made a big mistake, boy." And then he regarded Sophronia with a hostility he didn't try to hide. "I'll be back for you tomorrow."

"Just a minute, Mr. Spence." Magnus bent over to pick up the broken halves of the walking stick. As he made his way to the buggy, he walked with a confidence he had no right to feel. "I consider myself a fair man, so I think it's only right I tell you what kind of risk you'd be taking if you got any ideas about coming after me. Or maybe you might decide to send your acquaintances in bedsheets here. But that wouldn't be a good idea, Mr. Spence. Matter of fact, it'd be a real bad idea."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Spence sneered.

"It means I've got a talent, Mr. Spence, that you should know about. And I've got three or four friends with the same talent. Now, they're only black men like me, you understand, so you might not think their talent is worth your notice. But you'd be wrong, Mr. Spence. You'd be dead wrong."

"What're you talking about?"

"I'm talking about dynamite, Mr. Spence. Nasty stuff, but real useful. I learned to use it myself when we had to blast some rock to build the mill. Most people don't know too much about dynamite, since it's so new, but you strike me as a man who keeps up with new inventions, so I'll bet you know a lot about it. I'll bet you know, for example, just how much damage dynamite could cause if somebody set it off in the wrong place in a phosphate bed."

Spence regarded Magnus incredulously. "Are you threatening me?"

"I guess you might say I'm just trying to make a point, Mr. Spence. I've got good friends. Real good friends. And if anything was to happen to me, they'd be mighty unhappy about it. They'd be so unhappy they might set off a load of dynamite in the wrong place. Now, we wouldn't want that to happen, would we, Mr. Spence?"

"Damn you!"

Magnus put his foot up on the step of the buggy and rested the broken pieces of the stick on his knee. "Every man deserves his happiness, Mr. Spence, and Sophronia's mine. I intend to live a good, long life so we can enjoy each other, and I'm willing to do whatever's necessary to make sure we have that. Now whenever I see you in town, I'm going to take off my hat and say, 'Howdy, Mr. Spence,' real polite. And as long as you hear that 'Howdy, Mr. Spence,' you'll know I'm a happy man wishing you and your phosphate mine all the best." Drilling his eyes directly into Spence's, he extended the broken halves of the walking stick.

Taut with anger, Spence snatched them away and grabbed the reins.

Sophronia could barely take it in. What she'd just witnessed ran contrary to everything she believed, and yet it had happened. She'd just seen Magnus stand up against a white man and win. He'd fought for her. He'd kept her safe… even from herself.

She threw herself across the border of dry, wintry grass that separated them and tumbled into his arms, repeating his name over and over again until its rhythm became one with the beating of her heart.

"You're a trial to me, woman," he said softly, cupping her shoulders in his hands.

She lifted her gaze and saw eyes that were steadfast and true, eyes that promised both goodness and strength. He lifted one hand and moved his index finger over her lips, almost as if he were a blind man staking out the boundaries of a territory he was about to claim. Then he lowered his head and kissed her.

She accepted his lips shyly, as if she were a young girl. He made her feel pure and innocent again.

He pulled her closer, and his kiss grew more demanding, but instead of feeling afraid, she thrilled to its power. This man, this one good man, was hers forever. He was more important than a house in Charleston, more important than silk dresses, more important than anything.

When they finally drew apart, Sophronia saw his eyes glistening. This strong, hard man who had been coolly threatening to blow up a phosphate mine had turned soft and gentle as a lamb.

"You've been giving me a lot of trouble, woman," he said gruffly. "Once we're married, I won't stand for any more nonsense."

"Are we gettin' married, Magnus?" she inquired saucily. And then she splayed her long, elegant fingers along the sides of his head and pulled him back for another deep, lingering kiss.

"Oh, yes, honey child," he replied when he finally caught his breath. "We're gettin' married for sure."

  19

"I figured you for a lot of things, Baron Cain, but I never figured you for a coward!" Kit stormed out of the stables at Cain's heels. "Magnus is going to be a dead man, and it'll be on your conscience. All you had to do was nod your head, just nod your head, and Spence would have made himself forget that Magnus hit him. Now give me that rifle back right now! If you're not man enough to defend your best friend, I'll do it myself."

Cain turned, the carbine across his chest. "You even look like you're going back there, and I'll lock you up and throw away the key."

"You're hateful, do you know that?"

"So you keep telling me. Has it once occurred to you to ask me about what happened instead of throwing accusations around?"

"What happened was obvious."

"Was it?"

Suddenly Kit felt unsure of herself. Cain was no coward, and he never did anything without a reason. The edges of her temper cooled, but not her anxiety. "All right, suppose you tell me what you had in mind when you left Magnus with a man who wants to see him lynched."

"You've made me just mad enough, I'm going to let you figure it out for yourself."

He began walking toward the house, but Kit jumped in front of him. "Oh, no, you're not getting away that easily."

He shifted the carbine to his shoulder. "Magnus hated your interference, and he'd have hated mine, too. There are some things a man has to do for himself."

"You might as well have signed his death warrant."

"Let's just say I have more faith in him than you seem to have."

"This is South Carolina, not New York City."

"Don't tell me you're finally admitting your native state isn't perfect?"

"We've talked about the Klan," she said. "The last time you were in Charleston, you tried to get the federal officials to take action against them. Now you act like the Klan doesn't exist."

"Magnus is his own man. He doesn't need anybody to fight his battles. If you knew half as much as you think you know, you'd understand that."

From Magnus's viewpoint, Cain was right, but she didn't have any patience with that kind of male pride. It only led to death. As Cain walked away, she thought of the war, which had once seemed so glorious.

She fumed and stomped around for most of an hour until Samuel appeared, a grin on his face and a note from Sophronia in his hand.

Dear Kit,

Stop worrying. Spence is gone, Magnus is fine, and we're getting married.

Love,

Sophronia

Kit stared at it with a mixture of joy and bemusement. Cain had been right. But just because he was right about this didn't mean he was right about anything else.

Too much had happened,
and
all her feelings about Sophronia, about Risen Glory, and about Cain tumbled around inside her. She headed for the stable and Temptation, then remembered that Cain had ordered her not to ride the horse. A small voice told her she had only her own recklessness to blame, but she refused to listen. She had to settle this with him.

She stalked back to the house and found Lucy in the kitchen peeling potatoes. "Where's Mr. Cain?"

"I heard him go upstairs a few minutes ago."