Morning Song Read Free Page B

come up with some other excuse to be gone for several weeks without giving rise to scandal, while she pursued her new interest away from watching eyes and the constraints of propriety. Such deviousness might fool the neighbors, who would be shocked and loudly condemning if they knew that the charming widow Lindsay had had as many lovers as a cat in neat, but it didn't deceive Jessie. After half a lifetime spent observing her, Jessie was thoroughly familiar with the real Celia, who bore only a surface resemblance to the sweet, slightly silly female she pretended to be. The real Celia was as hard and ruthless in pursuit of her desires as a tigress, and about as kindnatured as one, too.
    "First time she's brought one of 'em home," Tudi muttered, scowling, her hands stilling in the bowl of beans at last as the buggy rocked to a stop before the front steps. It was true, Celia never brought her
    en home, and that, of course, was one reason Jessie felt so uneasy at this one's advent. But to hear her disquiet echoed so succinctly by Tudi, before she'd even managed to pin the cause of it down herself . . .
    Jessie glanced in sidelong surprise at her onetime nursemaid, who had taken over the reins of the housekeeping long since, when as a bride Celia had shown no disposition to do so. Though why Jessie should be surprised to discover that Tudi thoroughly understood the situation, Jessie couldn't fathom. Tudi, for all her comfortable girth and placid disposition, had the eyes of a hawk and the brain of a fox. Celia's subterfuges wouldn't have fooled 17

    her any more than had Jessie's inventive excuses for misdeeds when she was small.
    The stranger stepped down from the buggy, and Jessie's eyes swung back to him. One of the yard boys ran up to take charge of the equipage, but Jessie's eyes never left the man. So intent were he and Celia on each other that neither noticed that they were under intense and hostile observation from the upper gallery. Tudi's hands were still plunged deep into the bowl of beans, unmoving, while Jessie had stopped both rocking and eating to watch.
    Even from the back the stranger was worthy of feminine attention. He was tall, with broad shoulders, long muscular legs, and an abundance of wavy black hair. As far as Jessie could tell, his black coat and tan breeches bore not so much as a speck of dust or a wrinkle, which by itself was enough to distinguish him from the planters and their sons who were Celia's official callers. It was mid-May of 1841, not as hot and sultry as it would be later in the summer in the steamy Delta region, but still quite warm, and already the menfolk thereabouts were rumpled and smelled of sweat by midday. But this man-why, his boots even gleamed!
    Something about the very pristineness of that glossy brown leather set Jessie's teeth on edge. Already she knew that this was not a man she was going to like.
    She frowned as the stranger reached up to catch Celia around the waist and swing her from the buggy. Though the gesture was no more than any gentleman might offer to a lady, those longfingered hands in the black leather driving gloves curled around Celia's tiny waist with far too much intimacy, and he held her for too long to be quite proper. Watching, Jessie felt a stirring of embarrassment, as if she were witnessing something that should 18

    have been private. Celia, of course, was beaming at him—which was nothing to be surprised at. If he was her lover, and Jessie was becoming more convinced with every passing moment that he was, then she would certainly smile at him. And he would look down at her with sickening ardency, and be reluctant to take his hands from her person. In other words, he would behave just as he was doing.
    Celia was giggling appreciatively at something he said, her hands lingering on the impeccably tailored sleeves of his fashionable coat as he set her on her feet and, finally, released his hold on her waist. The rapt way she smiled up into his face, the