Dropping the coverlet to the floor, she stepped into the tub and sank down the sloped back until water lapped her jaw. Grasping the tumbler, she closed her eyes and nursed the spirit.
Her nipples, already taut, contracted with the dual pleasures of scented bath water caressing her skin and the unbidden memory of Mr. Banner’s tongue caressing her. She gulped the whisky, set the tumbler on the table with a clack, and, pressing her palms against the bottom of the tub, willed the silvery threads of lust coursing through her to subside and dilute in the floral-scented bath water. But the tingle at the juncture of her thighs refused to ease.
The harder she tried to quell it, the stronger it grew, feeding off her resistance the way flames gained intensity from each panicked fan of air meant blow them out.
It was all she could do to keep her hands on the tub bottom and away from the escalating fire.
She forced her palms downward, imagined them melding with the copper. But the urge was too strong, a lightning-sparked fire ripping through primordial forest. And, as though commanded by a force outside her, one of her hands floated up to slide between her thighs. A moan escaped her as her fingers found her nub, swollen with anticipation and the remembered passion of Mr. Banner’s hands and mouth on her.
When her release came, it was with agonising relief. And pelvic-shuddering shame.
Aching isolation.
Eyes closed, she sank deeper in the water until it covered her mouth enough to muffle her sobs and capture her tears.
Chapter 22
Education and Transformation
OVER THE NEXT DAY, with help from Rufus and a two young field hands, Margaret transformed the rear parlour into a classroom. Overstuffed sofas and chairs and small, polished mahogany side tables were consigned to the attic along with Sweeney family portraits and memorabilia. Installed in their place were a long, narrow table, ten straight-backed chairs, and a large chalkboard hung on the wall, on which she transcribed in chalk the capital and lower-case letters of the alphabet.
Midweek, more crates arrived full of slates and additional boxes of chalk, primers, pencils, and textbooks. That night, with Maisie and Miss Lisette’s help, she unloaded everything and stacked it all in neat piles on the table, or on shelves, with a promise to Maisie they’d begin her tutelage Saturday afternoon, the day she’d set aside to begin all classes. She went to bed Friday night buzzing with joy and anticipation. Only the next morning, her eagerness fizzled fast as she surveyed the three blank faces returning her gaze.
Miss Alma had cautioned her against getting her hopes up when Margaret had asked her, earlier in the week, for help spreading the word to Sugar Hill’s residents of her offer of free tutoring—in any subject any of them wished.
“Even with your guarantee you’ll not hold anyone to task for leaving their work to come learn,” the elder woman had advised gently, “I don’t expect many to come. Mr. Banner is one of the few white folks they trust. And books, other than the Bible, are rare as gold bars in their houses. I mean no disrespect in telling you this, ma’am. I just don’t want you blaming yourself if the turnout is not what you hope.”
It was not at all what she’d hoped. And, despite Miss Alma’s warning, she did blame herself. She should have taken more time to get to know the field hands and earn their trust, as Mr. Banner had, before she imposed on them her world view that everyone should know how to read and write.
Well, there was naught to be done at the moment. She had three people awaiting instruction. Three who either wanted to learn or had been coerced by Miss Alma to put aside inhibition and take a seat, if not for their sake, then for their mistress’s pride.
If she did well with them and earned their trust, they would help her gain the trust of others who needed help. Maybe one day, she’d have more than ten chairs filled. Until then...
She willed a bright smile. “Good morning. Thank you for coming today. I appreciate the trust you’re placing in me, and I intend to do everything within my power to ensure it’s not misplaced.”
Three sober sets of eyes met hers. Only Coral smiled.
“Thank you, Mrs. Sweeney,” she murmured. “We appreciate you giving us this opportunity.”
Mr. Rufus and Magnus nodded.
Clasping her hands together, she nodded. “All right, class, take a slate, chalk, primer, and pencil each, and we’ll begin.”
THE UNEASE THAT INITIATED the morning’s lesson lessened with its progression so that by the time she watched her students file out of the makeshift classroom, she felt much relieved. Elated, even, having noted the modest change in her students’ individual and collective demeanour as they rose from their chairs and, thanking her, left as a group.
Magnus had caught on most swiftly. While Coral, despite Mr. Rufus being three times her age and possessed of half her visual acuity, would prove Margaret’s biggest challenge.
Inhaling a breath, she gathered her lesson notes together.
Coral would learn, could learn. She simply had to help her see and form the letters as they were, not as they tumbled on to the page, backwards and upside down. One of her former students in Texas had suffered similar difficulty, and she’d eventually found a way to help him after writing colleagues at Oxford and Harvard.
Advice had arrived in the form of recommendation that she have her student manipulate large letters carved of wood while reciting each letter’s name and the sound it made, the reasoning being that touch as well as sight and speech could help him imprint each letter’s correct formation and phonetics in his mind. The strategy had worked. And it should work for Coral, provided she stuck with her lessons and didn’t presume her affinity for drawing and stitching dresses could be satisfied without sufficient ability to read and write.
“I will. I am. I can so,” she murmured just as the distant chime of the grandfather clock heralded the first of twelve tones announcing the noon hour.
Normally, mornings from ten to noon were reserved for Mr. Banner. But the prospect of their resuming morning consultations seemed unlikely given he’d studiously avoided her since his unexpected—and unexpectedly delightful—visit to her bedchamber. She supposed she should be grateful he’d taken the initiative to restore appropriate boundaries between them. Instead, she felt frustrated, though more with herself than with him, because she couldn’t stop replaying—reliving—the memory of his tongue...
“Really, Margaret,” she muttered as she squared the papers. “Get yourself together. Or get yourself a willing lover. But whatever you do, stop obsessing—” A knock behind her preceded Miss Alma’s voice by a millisecond.
“I have your lunch ready, missus. Would you like me to serve it here in the dining room, or maybe on the veranda? It’s a lovely day out there.”
Was it? She’d been so focussed on her students, she hadn’t paid attention to anything else.
Sure enough, the parlour windows showcased a stunning afternoon. Tree leaves, and the white lawn statues, shimmered in the sunlight as if they’d been painted with liquid gold. She met Miss Alma’s questioning gaze.
“Do you mind packing up my lunch? I’d like to take it outside.”
“To the veranda? I could just serve—”
“No. Not the veranda.” With Miss Maisie and Miss Lisette at the neighbouring estate until late afternoon, and Mr. Banner busy avoiding her, she had a long few hours to wile before supper. She’d be damned if she’d waste them reading ledgers or sitting idle on the porch like a faithful dog awaiting her master.
“I’m going on a picnic.”
“A picnic, ma’am?” Miss Alma raised her eyebrows in uncharacteristic surprise. “By yourself?”
“No.” She smiled. “With me, myself, and I.”
SUN SPLOTCHED THE SHADOWS beneath the trees, creating an uneven patchwork of vegetation from which moss-quilted stumps and logs thrust from the spongy earth like the algae-wreathed timbers of a sunken ship. Twisting vines snaked overhead and along the ground like seaweed and eels.
The m
oist, muggy air and blinding blooms of tiny flying insects exacerbated the suffocating experience, forcing her to remind herself she could breathe—and should—as she picked her way along the barely perceptible path, her head down and the picnic basket growing weightier on her arm by the minute.
Perhaps she should have minded Miss Alma and brought Magnus or Coral along as a guide. But she was loath to impede further on their time.
Magnus had horses and conveyances and stalls and heaven knew what else to tend in the stable, while Coral planned to take advantage of the sun and July heat to wash Margaret’s bedsheets and, while they were drying, work on some of her dress designs. And Rufus had the house to mind
She breathed in, grateful she’d decided to take the afternoon off from reviewing ledgers and journals. Or thinking about Mr. Banner. With each new revelation of Sugar Hill’s brutal history, or foolish daydream about Mr. Banner and his wicked tongue, a greater portion of her heart and self-worth chipped away. Keep at it, and her ribs would sink into the hole left by her crumbled heart. She could almost hear the bones snapping—
She stopped, angling her head.
The cracking sound was real...and nearby. A twig, or branch, giving way to weight or pressure. Her nape tingled, the fine hairs lifting as she took careful note of her surroundings.
The path had become so overgrown and crowded that more darkness than sunlight gathered around her, and she found herself squinting to make out form from shadow. Holding her breath, she listened.
The snapping sound did not come again, though the caw of a crow did. It was quickly echoed by the dull rat-a-tat-tat of a woodpecker. Suppressing an urge to drop the basket and flee in the direction from which she’d come, she raised her chin.
If someone or something was watching, she could not show fear—that much she knew from her time on the Douglas’s ranch in Texas. Her cousin and aunt had been very patient with her fearfulness of everything beyond the borders of their main yard—mainly the cattle, coyotes, vaqueros, and rattlesnakes that made the plains their home—and very clear about her need to act confident.
“You can be a bowl of pudding on the inside, cousin,” Jake had advised her, “but when you’re out there”—he gestured to the vast grasslands—“you must be as hard as petrified wood on the outside. Not literally, of course, but in essence. You have to project fearlessness so others will know to give you a wide berth.”
A wide berth felt like a good thing to put between her and where she was right now.
She was about to turn around, head back, and do as Miss Alma had suggested—enjoy her lunch on the rear lawn in the shade near the small man-made pond—when a flash of movement, coinciding with a loud splash of water, froze her in place.
A less violent slap of water followed on the heels of the initial sound and ended with an explosive sigh of pleasure.
A man’s sigh of pleasure—beyond the screen of grasses and vegetation ahead and left.
Hefting the picnic basket higher on her arm, she let curiosity lead her the final few paces to where the path hooked. In moments, she was on the periphery of a clearing, at the centre of which was a pond larger than the one in the rear garden. This had to be the one Mr. Lyons had described. And, splashing in the silvery-green depths was Mr. Banner, fully clothed.
She hesitated, torn between her desire to stay and explore the place George had come to get away from his father and an equal urge to turn around and silently depart, giving Mr. Banner his deserved privacy. But it was rather difficult to look away from such a riveting scene.
After his initial plunge, he’d returned to the shore and now stood with his back to her in hip-deep water as he peeled off his sodden shirt.
She stared, transfixed by the ripple of muscle along his back and ribcage as he bent to swish the shirt in the water, rinsing and wringing the filthy garment until its near-charcoal colour faded to dingy grey, his moulded biceps flexing with each forceful twist of the material. Apparently satisfied he’d cleaned the shirt as best he could without aid of laundering soap, he turned around and waded towards shore.
She froze, attempting to blend in with the foliage and shadows as she mentally chided herself for not respecting Mr. Banner’s right to enjoy a swim in the midday heat by returning at once to the manor upon realising her planned destination was already occupied.
She held her breath, afraid to make a sound, terrified he’d look over and notice her staring at the breeches that clung to his muscular thighs and revealed every flex and contour, including the faintly darker bulge in his groin.
She closed her eyes, horrified less at having recognised the swelling and darkness for what it was and more at the scandalous rush of desire that had her imagining undoing the pewter buttons securing his breeches to guide him out—
Stop, Margaret!
She snapped her eyes open, cheeks burning with a fiery mix of desire and self-loathing. Certain he’d heard the frantic hammering of her heart, she looked over, only to find him turned the other way, preoccupied in draping his damp shirt over a spray of shrubbery near a stump.
Thank heaven.
She eased a foot backwards, desperate to remove herself from temptation and humiliation, then stilled as he lifted his hands to glide them over his face and then along his skull to shed water from his hair, arching his back as he did.
The action elevated every muscled rib along his torso and outlined the contoured concavity of his abdomen, thrusting his hipbone out as the long muscles along his spine hardened and those in his arms bunched and flexed. Water streamed over his sculpted shoulders and sides, glazing his golden skin so it glowed like oil-rubbed bronze.
Her throat constricted as another hot flush of need hit her, as strong and terrifying as a sandstorm. Her skin stung, and her mouth and lungs filled with dryness as she fought the urge to drop the basket and step out of the shadows—and into his arms.
Before she could melt into the jungle at her back, he turned towards the water and, to her increasing horror—and deepening delight—loosened his breeches and shoved them down.
Oh. Good. Lord.
She closed her eyes, but the image of his buttocks, firm and round and startlingly white in contrast to the honey-gold skin of his upper body, burned into her mind like a brand in flesh. Added to the image were the thick swaths of thigh muscle dusted with dark hairs that tapered from buttock to knee, and the calf muscles repeating the same strong definition in only slightly smaller form.
Hearing a splash, she eased an eye open. Relief flooded through her. He’d dived under the water. Now she could make good her escape.
Before she could turn around, however, he surfaced, facing her, raised an eyebrow, and smiled.
“Coming in?” he asked.
Chapter 23
Dare Me Do
HE HALF EXPECTED HER to protest and play ignorant, as if she’d only just stumbled around the bend to find him in the water. It would have been a lie, but one he was happy to let her tell if it prefaced her hasty retreat to the safety of manor. Instead, once she’d recovered her shock and dragged in a breath, she arched her eyebrows.
“Is that a dare, Mr. Banner?”
Was it? He supposed it was, given he’d been daring her almost from the moment she’d arrived at the pond.
He’d heard her coming as he’d made his way through the trees on an old Indian path etched permanently into the earth by slaves who’d used the old pond to bathe and wash clothes for over a century.
Apparently taking his silence for confirmation of his dare, she advanced a couple of steps to lower the picnic basket she carried to a grassy spot on the ground. Straightening, her gaze locked with his, she lifted off her hat and set it atop the pistol he’d left on the stone bench George had installed a decade earlier to take in the beauty of the sheltered location. She sat on the bench—not to admire the scenery—but to hike her skirts and remove her half boots.
Whatever he’d said about her being naive, she was not, as she had so primly informed him, fooli
sh. She knew better than to traipse out here wearing house shoes.
But did she know better than to accept a challenge from a man who was fast giving up any notion of attempting to quell the storm brewing between them? A storm that, if allowed to gain momentum, would sweep them up like sailing ships caught in a hurricane, a collision of senses and flesh and emotion so complete in its totality that, like masted vessels tossed to splinters, they might find themselves scattered and broken across dunes of remorse.
Despite such calamitous potential, his skin tightened, his cock no longer attempting to hide from the pond’s chill but flaring to full glory, desperate to capture and ride the winds of the coming storm for as long as they lasted.
Mouth dry, arms and legs aching, he cycled to keep himself afloat in the centre of the pond while his cock attempted to swim its way to shore, a painful tugging that grew fiercer when she stood and, leaning, worked her hands under the hems of her skirts to unhook her stockings.
Good Christ, she was going to do it.
She was going to strip, and join him in the water.
THE COLD WATER WAS a shock. Teeth gritted, Margaret took another cautious step into the chilly depths and tried not to think of the weeds brushing her calves or of what was squishing up between her toes.
Her coup de main was not quite the coup de maître she had hoped for. In fact, she was already halfway to regret while still clinging bull-headedly to her coup de théâtre, determined to show Mr. Banner that she would not be cowed, that she was prepared to rise to any challenge put before her—provided it served her purpose.
What purpose this moment of impetuous idiocy served, she wasn’t sure yet. Not that she planned to change direction. Not when she sensed coup de grâce close to hand.
What had started, almost from their very first meeting, as a mental tug-of-war had swiftly become a game of emotional chess, to what end she could not readily explain. Nor was it something easily stopped anymore, either.
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