Southern Seduction (6 page)

“So how are you going to get the pecans?” Brooke asked.
“That tree is very tall.”

George grinned widely, his white teeth gleaming against his dark skin.
“Here, you hold dis, Miz Brooke.” He handed her a cane pole. “Cause I’m goin’ to climb that there tree.”

“It’s pretty tall,” she’d warned him.

“Don’t matter none,” George answered with supreme confidence. He marched over to the huge tree where two of the other boys formed a step with their linked hands and gave him a lift up. After he’d successfully reached the second branch, he called for Brooke to hand him the pole.

“You must be careful.”

“Oh, Miz Brooke, I done dis a thousand times before.”

She was sure he hadn’t climbed this tree a thousand times, but she’d give him credit, he was an expert climber, navigating the lofty branches as nimbly as a squirrel.
Once he’d reached the upper-most branches, he began thrashing the limbs with the cane pole, and the pecans showered over everyone below like raindrops falling from the sky.

Brooke set down the basket she was carrying.
“Let’s see who can gather the most nuts. There will be a special treat for the winner.” All the children’s eyes grew wide at the prospect of a contest. “On your mark, get set, go,” she said and the children took off in all directions.

She laughed at the children scampering around and making a big game out of the drudgery of gathering nuts. She couldn’t remember when she’d enjoyed something trivial so much.

She and her rowdy crew returned to the kitchen with several big baskets filled to the
brim with nuts. Brooke asked Katie, one of the girls in the kitchen, to give all the children cookies and milk for their efforts, declaring they were all winners.

Everyone in the kitchen had smiled at Brooke, making her wonder if kindness was something they weren’t accustomed to seeing from the mistress of the house.

She supposed that the servants were slowly coming to the conclusion that she wasn’t such a bad person after all. It had felt wonderful to be doing something useful and productive.

Thank goodness, Mammy ran the house, and Prosper ran the kitchen. So far Brooke hadn’t met the mysterious cook
.  He’d traveled to one of his relative’s homes, but would be back soon so she’d been told. Mammy seemed to be a little of everything to everyone, and that was fine with Brooke, who was still trying to win the housekeeper over. So far she’d had a little success, but not much.

She could imagine the woman’s resentment.
Brooke just needed time. She had to earn the staff’s respect and trust. It would have been one thing if she had come to them as Travis’s wife, but that wasn’t the case.

Brooke remembered yesterday with a smile as she stretched, not yet wanting to give up the warmth of her covers.
Even with all the problems she’d encountered since her arrival, Brooke was glad she’d traveled to America. Back in London, she had been readily welcomed at parties and had even set some of the latest fashion trends, but she’d never been completely accepted. There were always the few that whispered about her. Now she had a chance at living some kind of a normal life, even if she still had to work through a few problems here.

But Brooke Hammond was nothing if not a survivor.
She would figure out the solutions to her problems.

As she slowly came awake, she looked around her room.
She really couldn’t complain about her accommodations. They were at the far end of the hall so it was very quiet. At night, the only sounds she heard were the cries of night birds calling in the wind.

The walls were painted a warm rose color.
The four-poster mahogany bed was big and soft with a feather comforter and quilts of pink and cream colored silk. All in all, the room was quite lovely.

A crackling sound caught Brooke’s attention, and she pushed herself up on her elbows to see.
Apparently, one of the upstairs maids had crept in while she’d been sleeping and built a small fire in the marble fireplace. Good, Brooke thought, the nights had turned surprisingly cool, considering the balmy days, and the idea of the cold, wooden planks under her feet was not very appealing at the moment.

She yawned and stretched and dared to stick one foot out of the warmth of the bed.
The air in the room was tolerably warm now that the fire was going. She couldn’t solve her problems by lounging, so she tossed back the covers and slid out of bed.

Today, Mr. Jeffries was leaving to attend to few matters before he returned to England.
Last night, he’d explained that he had business with other clients that would require his attention for a couple of months in St. Louis. Then he had to make sure that Jocelyn was settled comfortably in her New York home.

Mr. Jeffries pointed out that his departure would give Brooke and Travis time alone together, so they could get to know each other.
Brooke had her doubts that ten years alone with Travis would help.

He seemed to have little desire to know her at all.
Since she’d arrived, he’d made himself scarce, so getting to know him had proven difficult. However, he had managed to grace them with his presence at dinner every night so far. Although the conversation continued to be strained, Brooke kept trying.

Travis was proving to be a very stubborn man, and Brooke was slowly learning patience, not an easy task for someone who had none.

If she didn’t find a way to get Travis talking to her soon, she’d never be able to win him over.

Brooke splashed cool water on her face, remembering the scathing looks that Travis sent her way more than once every night at dinner.
She often wondered what the exasperating man was thinking because he seemed to be studying her. Whatever it was, he hid his thoughts very well.

Damned man.

She sighed. Travis Montgomery was an ever changing mystery. Brooke wasn’t sure how she was ever going to break through Travis’s frosty outer shell, and he most definitely had one. She suspected he was trying to drive her away by being rude, but that wasn’t going to work.

She was nothing if not persistent.

Brooke had to do something to make herself indispensable, and today was the day to get started, she decided as she peered into her wardrobe. She needed just the perfect outfit, she thought, hoping she remembered how to flirt and seduce a man after being out of practice for so long.

Perhaps it was like riding a horse, and one never forgot.
She smiled, then sobered. It had been two years since she’d lived the other life. From the moment Jackson had taken her in, she’d not had to work her wiles to get what she needed. At the moment, she felt pretty much like a brand-new virgin – well, maybe a well-experienced virgin. She chuckled to herself.

Her maid, Millie Anne, swung into the room, a bright smile on her face.
“Good mornin', misses,” she said cheerfully. “I come to help you get dressed. I sees you are already thinkin’ on what to wear,” she said, standing behind Brooke. “You got so many pretty things to choose from. I reckon you turned every man’s head back home.”

Brooke chuckled.
“Perhaps a few,” she said modestly. She tapped her chin thoughtfully as she looked over her selection of garments. “I believe I shall go riding today,” she said, over her shoulder. “It’s about time that I inspected the rest of the plantation.”

“Fresh air will do you
good.”

Brooke was glad to have Millie Anne.
The young woman seemed to be the only cheerful person in the entire household. She was pert and sassy, perhaps sixteen, and usually wore a bright smile, and her dazzling black eyes snapped with intelligence and humor. It seemed Millie Anne was one of Mammy’s nieces, and like Mammy, she was a free-black woman. Brooke learned that many of the workers on the plantation had been freed and now earned wages for working.

“Is it cold outside?” Brooke asked.

“Oh, yes ma’am. Or rather cool. Fall is in the air, and it’s only the end o’ September. Sometimes, October can be mighty warm, and dat’s good for sugarcane. If’n we get an early frost dat won’t be good. I heard the foreman say we’s goin’ to start cuttin’ the cane today.”

Brooke had gotten used to the fact that once Millie Anne
started talking, she would likely rattle on and on about whatever she was talking about. But Brooke also realized that she learned quite a lot of useful information from Millie’s ramblings.

“What does the weather have to do with the sugarcane?” Brooke asked as she selected one of her several riding habits.

Millie Anne moved over to the bed and began straightening the covers. “Dat dere cane is sensitive to cold. If’n we have a freeze, Master Travis will lose de crop. Somethin’ about the sugar won’t be sugar. Don’t know whats dey mean ‘bout dat, only dat, it ain’t good. Three years ago we had us a hard freeze, and Master Travis, he was in a real bad mood for a right long spell.”

Brooke laughed.
“You mean his present demeanor is an improvement?”

“D--demeanor?”
Millie Anne’s intelligent eyes narrowed with puzzlement.

“Mood,” Brooke explained.
“Do you mean that Travis is in a good mood now?” Brooke asked.

“Yes’um.”
Millie Anne smiled. “I even seen him smile a couple o’ times. But not much,” she added, fluffing the bed pillows. “He jus seems--” she paused, searching for the right words, “--kind o’ like he’s tryin’ to prove somethin’.”

“Well, let me know the next time you do see him smile.
I would really love to see that for myself,” Brooke said with a laugh as she brushed a bit of lint from the green, princess-style riding habit.

Millie Anne giggled.
“You sure do make me laugh, Miz Brooke. I’m sure you’ll make him laugh, too.”

Brooke arched a brow.
“Believe me, Millie Anne, that hasn’t been the case thus far.” Brooke shook out the habit, trying to eliminate the wrinkles, and then handed it to her. “I think I’ll wear this today.”

The girl held up the garment so Brooke could step into it.
“I used to work in de cane, you know. It be hard work. I sure like workin’ in de house much better.” Millie Anne tugged the ends of the riding jacket together. “Dis here was sure made fo’ you. It fits like your very own skin.”

“I had it made that way.”
Brooked tugged on the sleeves to adjust them. She inspected her reflection in the mirror. “I don’t like to wear anything bulky when I ride.”

“Come sit and let me do your hair,” Millie Anne said and gestured to the stool in front of the small dressing table.
“I don’t want nothin' to do with those horses. They’re too big fo’ me,” she said, shuddering.

Brooke watched in the mirror as the girl dressed her hair, pulling her heavy gold tresses up to the crown of her head, then
fastening the curls with gold combs. Once she had secured the hair, Millie pinned a dark green hat to the front.

“That’s perfect,” Brooke said, and Millie glowed at the compliment.
“Considering the way you dress my hair, I would have thought that you had always been a lady’s maid.” She reached up and patted the hand that rested on her shoulder. “And I’m really glad that you’re my lady’s maid.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

Millie Anne beamed all over. Evidently, she didn’t receive many compliments. Brooke couldn’t help thinking that at least one good thing had come out of her trip to Moss Grove--it had gotten the girl out of the cane fields.

“Tell me something,” Brooke said, pausing as she stood up.
“Were you going to be Hesione’s maid?”

Millie Anne shook her head.
“No ma’am. She has her own maid,” the girl said, placing the hairbrush and combs back down on the dressing table. “’Sides, Mammy wouldn’t want me to.”

“Why?”

“Well--I,” Millie Anne hesitated.

“I won’t say anything.”

“Mammy don’t like Miz Hesione.
And she’d thrash me good if she knew dat I was talkin’ about her. But . . .” Millie Anne grinned. “Mammy said Miz Hesione is lazy, spoiled, and not good enough for Master Travis.”

Brooke wanted to know more, but she didn’t want to let on that Millie Anne had given her some valuable information.
Instead, she said, “I think Mammy is probably a good judge of character. Tell me, why does everyone call her Mammy?”

“When she was much younger, she had a child, but he died with
de fever when he was one. After dat, she never had no more youngens, so she started motherin’ everyone else and we done called her Mammy ever since. She seems to understand everythin’ no matter what de problem we has.”

“I haven’t known her long, but there is something comforting about Mammy,” Brooke said. “What’s her real name?”

“Esther,” Millie Anne said. “Is dere anything else dat you be needin’?”

“Is Mr. Jeffries in his room?”

“Yes’um, he’s packing. I can show you. I’m headin’ dat way now.”

Brooke followed the maid out of the room and down to Mr. Jeffr
ies’s room. Brooke saw that the door was open, but she rapped on the door jamb just the same. Jeffries stood by the bed. A trunk was open nearby and clothes were strewn all over the bed. Millie Anne knocked louder than Brooke had, and Mr. Jeffries glanced their way. Smiling, he motioned for them to enter.