LoverforRansom Read online

  Sally had brought Cathleen a plate of fried chicken, boiled potatoes and pole beans accompanied by a stick of buttered cornbread. The fare here was nothing like the seafood dishes and soups Cathleen had eaten in Boston, but it was tastefully seasoned and palatable enough. Her glass of sweet tea had included a few chips of ice and she had to admit the cold beverage was refreshing in the stifling Southern heat.

  She’d dragged her chair to the window, where she’d eaten her entire meal, observing the newcomers and the horses. Ransom’s father was not nearly as tall as his son, but was impressive nonetheless. He’d picked Mrs. Byrne up and spun her around, causing her hoops and skirts to billow before returning her to her feet. Rather than whirl Jenny about, he lifted her into his arms and pressed a warm kiss to her cheek.

  As Jenny presented her dog, Cathleen heard her name mentioned. Fearing retribution, she held her breath until Mr. Byrne smiled and rubbed the dog’s head. Even from here, Cathleen could read the surprise and shock on his face at his daughter’s exuberance.

  Once greetings had been exchanged, Ransom and Morris Hunt began walking the horses toward the stables. Hunt was every inch as broad as Ransom but did not possess his height. He walked with a swagger and wore a tan-colored slouch hat that dipped on one side. His clothes, though covered in road dust, were fine and had been tailored to fit him.

  At his father’s side, Charles proudly led one of the horses. Ransom and Morris Hunt seemed to be easy with one another. Smiles flashed and laughter drifted up to her open window.

  When finally some of the commotion outside had died down, Cathleen kneeled on the braided rug and opened her trunk. Stashed in a drawer were several pamphlets she’d brought to distribute to women in the town. She withdrew one and re-familiarized herself with the tenets on the page.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony had penned most of the material themselves. Mrs. Stanton had studied the works of famed abolitionist and feminist Sarah Grimké. But whereas Grimké maintained that women and men were of equal intelligence and made by God to be partners, Stanton furthered the argument by adding that women deserved the right to vote.

  Other feminists refused to marry and espoused the idea of free love. Cathleen wasn’t sure what she thought about the idea of sex without marriage. For her, the opportunity had never arisen. She wasn’t the sort of woman who inspired lustful thoughts in men and she, better than anyone, realized that.

  Stanton had married, but refused to be called Mrs. Henry Stanton instead of simply Mrs. Cady Stanton. While there were those who grumbled about her radical ideas, the terminology of what she preferred to be called was hardly the promotion of a radical theory such as free love. Oh, Mrs. Stanton quietly supported the concept, but kept quiet about it publicly to gain more support for her suffrage movement.

  Cathleen swallowed thickly as she envisioned giving herself to a man—to Ransom Byrne—without the bonds of matrimony and without societal condemnation. Warmth infused her loins and throbbed between her legs in that spot that had only ever known her own illicit touch.

  The pamphlets slipped from her fingers and, eyes closed, she sat heavily and allowed her imagination to run free. She’d only known the man a scant two days, but he looked capable of pleasing a woman. Very capable. He looked as if he not only possessed the skills to bring a woman pleasure, would also take pride in excelling in the feat.

  Earlier, after Ransom had retired to the old house, Jenny had not offered any further commentary on the Widow Bostick. But Cathleen could imagine the type of woman who’d wear so much cologne.

  Cathleen thought of him with the faceless widow. How did their trysts happen? Did they chat first? Or did passion reign supreme and turn him into an untamable beast who ripped away the widow’s clothes to have his way with her?

  Heat crept into the back of her neck as she imagined his big hands tearing away her own clothes. Perspiration beaded between her breasts and she wondered how it would feel to have his tongue tracing between them. Her nipples tightened against her stays and that unceasing pulse between her thighs drove her to the edge of insanity.

  Desire threw her into a state of confusion. She’d never been kissed. But oh, she could fantasize about how his lips would feel against hers. She squeezed her thighs together and whimpered at the jolt of pleasure that emanated from her sex.

  A door slammed somewhere downstairs and she opened her eyes with a start and forced herself to think about the task at hand. She blinked away taboo daydreams about a man who would subject her to the degradation of being beholden to him.

  Soon, she would begin to educate these Southern women. Maybe even the Widow Bostick would be included. At any rate, they would learn and soon realize they should seize the right to vote before black men were afforded the privilege and stood alongside their white brothers in solidarity against women of all colors.

  Well, she thought wryly. With a little knowledge these women’s opinions would change. She’d see to that.

  * * * * *

  Just as Cathleen had predicted—and in spite of Aunt Chloe’s grumblings—the dog curled up in the bed next to Jenny and the child slept soundly.

  There’d been so much fuss made over the elder Mr. Byrne’s return that Cathleen had not been able to concentrate on her reading. She’d found that the lamp in the parlor radiated the best light and with everyone asleep, no one would mind if she ventured down to take in a chapter or maybe three of The Homes of the New World by Swedish feminist Fredrika Bremer.

  Clad in her nightrail and robe and with her hair loose about her shoulders, Cathleen tucked her book under one arm. Clutching her reading glasses firmly in her other hand, she tiptoed down the unending staircase, before making her way through the shadowy expanse of the hall to the front parlor. The grandfather clock’s sonorous ticking echoed through the quiet house.

  Accustomed to the dark, Cathleen put her book on the settee, donned her glasses then removed the chimney from the lamp on the marble-topped end table. She’d noticed earlier that the scissors to trim the wick were kept in the table’s drawer, so she retrieved them and angled the wick into a point so it would give off the brightest flame. She opened the tin matchsafe and struck a match on the grate. It flared to life in a puff of sulfur. Cathleen wrinkled her nose against the acrid stench as she held the match to the wick until it lit.

  The bright glow illuminated most of the massive parlor, casting the corners in even deeper shadow. Cathleen returned the globe, adjusted the height of the wick and then positioned the lamp as close to the settee as she could. Normally, she read braille books at night, but she’d only had space in her trunk for the teaching materials in braille she’d brought for Jenny.

  Opening her book, she leaned close to the light and, finding the place where she’d left off the day before, she began to read. After several minutes, her eyes began to ache and burn. She blinked and then went back to the passage.

  “You’re sitting so close to that light, you’ll catch the whole place on fire.”

  Cathleen gasped. Her head shot up, her ears recognizing Ransom Byrne’s voice before her eyes brought him into focus. He formed out of the shadows like a specter as he stepped into the light. Cathleen’s hand flew to her pounding heart. “Mr. Byrne, you startled me.”

  “Did I?” he asked in a voice far softer than she thought him capable of possessing. “I didn’t mean to. I couldn’t sleep and came to retrieve a book.” He gestured toward the bookcase. “And by the way,” he added. “I’m not one for pretense. My father is Mr. Byrne. Please, call me Ransom.”

  Clad in his snug-fitting dark trousers, boots and a white shirt with rolled-up sleeves, he obviously hadn’t expected to find anyone awake. But even in a state of amused surprise, the man oozed power. There was something raw about him that made her mouth go dry. His features held just the hint of a mischievous smile that caused something sinful to unfurl and spread through Cathleen’s body. Her gaze followed the pull of his suspenders as they delineated broad shoulders and the expa
nse of his flat chest.

  Cathleen wet her parched lips with the tip of her tongue. “That would hardly seem proper.”

  “Proper,” he scoffed and waved his hand in dismissal. His gaze fixed on her. Hard. “I’d prefer it.”

  How was she to respond? She debated offering her nickname, Catie, but it seemed presumptuous and scandalously intimate. Instead, she gave him a slight nod. The idea of uttering his Christian name aloud made her stomach flutter. In spite of what he requested, she would be mortified to do so.

  After laying her book on her lap, she removed her glasses and rubbed her tired eyes. When she opened them, she discovered Mr. Byr—Ransom bending to take the book. She swallowed thickly. Her thin cotton gown and robe proved no barrier against the heat from his hand as the backs of his fingers moved across her legs. She froze, terrified to move, to even breathe as he lifted the book and sat in the chair at the corner of the settee.

  “What are you reading?” he asked, even as he turned the volume over to glance at the title.

  “A collection of essays by Fredrika Bremer.”

  One dark eyebrow lifted in question. “I’m not familiar with her.” He eased back in the chair, letting his legs sprawl comfortably.

  Cathleen scooted her own feet back lest her shins come in contact with his calves. Her heart hadn’t stopped trying to drum its way out of her chest and her body throbbed in places she’d never thought possible. She became terribly self-conscious. Her hair was loose. She’d taken off her stays long ago and every breath made her painfully aware of the way her bare nipple brushed against the cotton.

  His gaze lifted and glided over her as smoothly as a summer breeze over a millpond. The way he looked at her left her feeling exposed, as if he’d happened upon her in a moment of dishabille. She resisted the temptation to smooth her hair or to draw the lapels of her robe closer about her chest. Her toes curled in her slippers, the tension not leaving her until his stare fell upon the page once more.

  He began to read aloud. “When will women perceive that, if they would worthily take a place in the forum, they must come forth with the dignity and power of the being who has new and mighty truths to enunciate and represent? They must feel and speak from the center of the sphere of women. Not all the good nature…” He stopped reading and grimaced. “What is this dusty tome about anyway?”

  “It’s about Miss Bremer’s travels in America. She’s quite a sensation in her home country of Sweden.”

  Again, he raised an eyebrow, but Cathleen could tell he was not impressed.

  “She, like my friends Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony, are working to secure equality for womankind,” Cathleen added, then awaited his response—which she was sure would be tart with vinegar.

  “Don’t you ever read anything for pleasure?”

  She toyed with the earpieces of her glasses, her mind fixed on the way his velvety drawl had played havoc with the word pleasure. She cleared her throat. “There are far too many important things to read to waste my poor eyesight on frivolities, Mr. Byrne.”

  He closed her book, set it on the table and stood. Cathleen flinched as his leg brushed hers when he passed on his way to the bookcase. He opened it and pressed his fingertip to his lips in thought as he perused its contents.

  Cathleen studied his casual stance. His weight shifted to one leg and his head cocked to the side. He looked back at her, stared so long it made her insides quiver and then turned back to the collection and removed a slender book from the shelf.

  “I shall read to you then,” he said with a smile and he returned to his chair. “To protect your poor eyesight from…frivolities.”

  Cathleen gulped as his long fingers opened the book and he thumbed through the pages. It looked like a child’s volume in his hands and she couldn’t help but wonder what he’d chosen.

  “Ah, here,” he said, placing his elbow casually on the armrest of his chair to hold the book at a comfortable height. “It was many and many a year ago, in a kingdom by the sea, that a maiden lived there that you may know by the name of Annabel Lee.”

  Edgar Allan Poe. Of course she was familiar with the famed Baltimore author. But she’d read his works in braille, and certainly had never heard them read aloud by a man with such a hauntingly husky voice. This night—this moment, with the clock’s pendulum ticking off the seconds in time with the poem’s meter and the flickering glow of the lamp—seemed to be made for the dark, beautifully macabre poem about a woman who’d died before her time.

  “For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams of the beautiful Annabel Lee,” Ransom continued.

  Cathleen closed her eyes, picturing a pair of young lovers walking hand in hand on a stormy beach. Ransom’s voice transported her and she felt the anguish of the author who’d lost his love only to find himself frequented by her ghost.

  “And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side, of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride, in the sepulcher there by the sea, in her tomb by the sounding sea.”

  Eyes still closed, Cathleen sat in the stillness, absorbing the song contained in the words. When her lashes fluttered open, she was surprised at the tear that traced down her cheek. Blushing, she swept it away. “Very nice, Mr. Byrne.”

  He raised his eyebrows in mock warning.

  She giggled. She actually giggled. Closing her eyes for a split second, she struggled to compose herself. She was acting like a bashful schoolgirl. “Ransom,” she corrected, her voice but a breath.

  In that instant, something had suddenly changed between them and she was at a loss to decipher it.

  Staring, he inhaled. “With your hair loose, you reminded me of the woman in that poem.”

  Her eyes widened. “Dead?”

  He chuckled without mirth. “No. Wild and windswept.”

  This time, Cathleen did begin to smooth her hair down.

  “No,” he said. “No. Don’t touch it. It’s perfect the way it is.” He must have realized he’d said too much. “I mean, it’s only you and me. There’s no need for pretense.”

  Cathleen nodded. Her gaze fell to the brown leather covered book in his hand. “Do you believe such love exists?”

  He snorted and closed the book. “This was the fancy of a man who imbibed too much and who thought too much. Love like that is for the young and foolish—for people who haven’t experienced the things I have.”

  Cathleen gnawed her bottom lip. “Are you referring to your time during the war?”

  He suddenly looked uncomfortable. His big and masculine exterior seemed incongruous with his sudden unease. “Yeah,” he admitted. “I saw and did things no living human being should ever have to see or do. Things that’ll make you hate yourself.”

  Cathleen didn’t know how to respond. Newspapers told of the hardships and combat. She’d seen soldiers boarding trains to join the fighting. She’d watched neighbors don their widow’s weeds. She herself had received a telegram informing her that her brother had been killed. But even when the war had come into her very home, it had always seemed a distant thing. But these Tennesseans had lived the war. This man had fought it. Federal troops had occupied their home. While on the train, she’d overheard tales about frightening guerilla raids from both sides, about men who didn’t live by any code of decency, who took what they wanted and killed indiscriminately. These families had lived day to day, wondering if their hard-earned food stores, their homes or even their very lives would be taken from them.

  “No,” Ransom continued. “The war was anything but glory.”

  Still, Cathleen remained uncharacteristically silent. While she pitied the plight of these people, in her eyes, the war had been a necessary evil, a vehicle through which an entire race had broken the bonds of slavery and declared themselves free. And yet, she didn’t feel free to admit her thoughts on the matter to Ransom Byrne. Not tonight.

  “What about you, Cathleen?” he asked, his gaze finding and holding hers, daring her to correct him. “Do you believe in that kind of
love?” His tone was almost mocking.

  Realizing he’d shifted the conversation back to the poem, she let out a laugh. “Of course not. In fact, I don’t agree with marriage at all and I shall never marry.”

  “How did you come to this conclusion?”

  “Contrary to what you might think, I haven’t chosen a life of spinsterhood because I am bookish and outspoken, not to mention plain.” She straightened, confused at the way a belief she’d always maintained with pride, now hurt. “No. I simply do not accept as true that a woman should have to marry and live out her days in subjugation.”

  “Subjugation?” he asked and then laughed. “I’ve always thought that was the other way around. All the married men I know are pretty beholden to their wives.”

  “That’s but a puerile joke. We all know that marriage gives husbands rights to a woman’s livelihood and even her body, if he so chooses to claim them. For a woman, marriage is nothing but legalized…rape.”

  This time, both his eyebrows shot up. “That’s a mighty strong word.”

  “A married man can demand his rights anytime he chooses. Therefore, if a woman is forced into coitus with him, it is legalized rape.” Cathleen lifted her chin, awaiting an argument. It was a strong word. But he needed to know how she felt about subjugation. She needed him to know it.

  Instead, he surprised her. “Don’t you ever feel desire?”

  Yes, I’m feeling it this very instant. Her insides felt as if they’d just melted. “Should there come a time when I find myself overwhelmed by the mysteries of the flesh, I will take a lover.”

  He seemed amused.

  She wanted to squirm. “Men are free to do so, are they not?”

  “Within reason, I’ll admit.”

  Such as your little tryst with the Widow Bostick? “Then why shouldn’t I be allowed the same freedoms?” All of a sudden the atmosphere in the room felt thick. She wondered if her ribald words brought the same images to his mind as they did to her own. Images of their naked bodies entwined, of her head thrown back so that her long locks brushed the small of her back as his mouth blazed trails of kisses down her neck. She drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly.