River Lady Read online

  After two weeks of treatments, Nicole, her hands in Leah’s clean, soft, shining hair, stood back. “Do you think we can show her now?” she asked with a smile.

  “Wait.” Regan laughed. “Put this on, Leah.” She held out a deep green silk taffeta dressing gown, embroidered with tiny, colorful birds.

  “I couldn’t.” Leah hesitated, but Nicole’s look stopped her. Leah dropped the plain muslin gown she wore and slid her arms into the silk, her eyes rolling slightly at the feel of it. “It’s lovely.”

  “All right, now stand right here,” Regan ordered, posing Leah before a full-length mirror that was draped with a bed sheet.

  When Regan, with a flourish, pulled the sheet away, Leah made no reaction—because she had no idea who the person in the mirror was. She turned to see who was behind her, but when the reflection moved also, she stood still.

  The woman in the mirror was not just pretty; she was beautiful. Long, thick auburn hair cascaded about her shoulders, down her back, and big green, intense eyes looked out of a square-jawed face marked with a full, sensuous mouth. Tentatively, Leah lifted her hand to touch her own cheek—and the next minute she collapsed in a heap on the bed while Regan and Nicole laughed.

  “I think we’ve succeeded,” Regan said in triumph, then her head came up. “I want to show her off. Just a bit, right now.”

  “It’s early,” Nicole warned.

  “Come along, Leah,” Regan said, taking Leah’s hand.

  Regan led Leah through a part of the house she’d never seen before, through long hallways, past a vast dining room. “Does this place have an end?”

  “You’ll learn your way around. Now we’re going to Travis’s office.”

  “Wesley’s brother?”

  Regan gave a short laugh. “Wesley is usually thought of as Travis’s little brother.”

  “Not to me,” Leah said with confidence.

  Travis was sitting behind an enormous desk, ledgers open before him, one of his clerks beside him. Regan stood Leah before the desk and when the clerk looked up, his mouth dropped open in amazement. Travis glanced up, saw the man’s expression, and turned to look at Leah.

  “Good God!” he said, sucking air through his teeth. “She’s not—.”

  “She is,” Regan said proudly.

  “Fetch us some tea,” Travis commanded his clerk. “And stop gawking! Here, sit down. Leah, is it?”

  As if she’d always been treated as a lady, Leah demurely sat on the upholstered chair Travis held for her. The robe had parted somewhat and was exposing a great deal of cleavage, which Travis was enjoying. He looked up to see Regan glaring at him.

  “Filled out some, hasn’t she?” he said with a grin.

  The tea arrived almost instantly with two maids and a butler carrying a big silver tray, all three of them and Travis’s clerk gaping at Leah.

  “Out! All of you!” Travis commanded.

  Leah sat still, returning all their looks with curiosity, wondering who they were and what their jobs were.

  When the room was clear, Travis poured tea for Leah into a fragile porcelain cup and held it out to her with great politeness.

  “I am hungry,” Leah said and noisily moved her chair closer to the desk where the tray of cakes and sandwiches had been set. She blew loudly on the tea, slurped it so it bubbled through her teeth, set the wet cup down on the wooden desktop, then picked up three small pastries, mashed them in her saucer, poured cream from the silver pitcher over them, and began eating the concoction with her teaspoon. Halfway through she looked up to see Travis, Regan, and Nicole gaping at her.

  Nicole was the first to recover. “We have a bit more work to do yet,” she said softly before sipping delicately from her teacup.

  “That you do,” Travis said with a grunt.

  Leah resumed eating.

  Three days later Leah swore she hated those little cups and saucers that looked so pretty but seemed to always be falling apart in her hands. Regan threatened Leah’s life if she broke one more piece of expensive imported porcelain, so Leah again tried to learn how to handle them.

  “What does it matter how you eat as long as you get it inside?” Leah half cried as Nicole again corrected her use of a fork.

  “Think of Wesley,” Nicole said, using the phrase as a slogan to urge Leah on—and it always worked. The women used Wesley to entice Leah, to force her to be patient and learn the manners she needed to know. And they got the whole story from Leah about how she’d met Wes, how she’d loved him forever.

  After Leah had been at the Stanford Plantation for two months, her father, Elijah, was found dead in the river. Travis paid for a funeral that was beautiful. For the first time since she’d married Wesley, Leah saw her brothers and sisters. Each of them had gained weight, were unbruised and clinging to the hands of the people who’d taken them in. They looked at Leah with wide eyes, not even sure who she was, and left with their new families; Leah shed tears of joy because they seemed so happy now.

  Once, Leah looked across her father’s coffin and into the gaze of a beautiful young woman. But before Leah could even look her fill at this vision, Regan nudged her and Leah turned away. When she looked back, the woman was gone.

  “Who was she?” Leah asked later.

  “Kimberly Shaw,” Regan answered tightly.

  The woman who was supposed to marry Wesley, Leah thought, feeling very smug. She may have wanted him but I got him.

  Seeing the woman, Leah resolved to work harder so she’d please Wesley when he returned in the spring.

  Leah set her cup down easily, quietly, as if she’d always known how to eat and drink properly, leaned toward Travis, and smiled prettily. “And do you think this new cotton gin will help speed production? You don’t think the cotton market will collapse like the tobacco market did?”

  Regan and Nicole leaned back in their chairs and watched their protégé with pleasure. It had taken months of work, but Leah was passing the test. They’d never attempted to instruct Leah in what to talk about, merely how to say the words, so they were surprised when her main interest was farming. But of course she’d never been able to read—and they’d not yet tried to teach her how—so Leah talked of what she knew: farming.

  And Travis was eating it up, Regan thought with disgust. Sometimes, when Regan was talking about household problems, she’d see Travis’s eyes glaze over, but with Leah asking about his beloved fields, horses, and blacksmith shop, Travis was practically on the edge of his seat.

  “In the morning,” Travis was saying, “you can ride out with me and have a look at the tobacco.”

  “No,” Nicole said softly. “Tomorrow Leah goes home with me. I have been away too long and it’s time we dressed her.”

  “She looks dressed to me,” Travis said appreciatively, looking at the low-cut muslin gown Leah wore.

  “Travis,” Regan warned, ready to tell him what she thought of his ogling of Leah.

  Nicole laughed and prevented the impending quarrel. “No, Leah must go with me. The fabrics I ordered have come at last and my seamstress is there. Also, I’ll start teaching her how to manage a plantation. She can start on someplace small before tackling this monster of yours, Travis.”

  After a frown, Travis smiled, then took Leah’s hand and kissed it. “I’m going to miss your pretty face around here but Clay’ll take care of you.”

  Later Regan walked with Leah to Wes’s bedroom. “Nicole has an army of French craftsmen at her place. She and Clay went back to France last summer and returned with people Nicole had known when she lived there. Her dressmaker used to work for the queen. Now sleep well because you’ll leave early in the morning. Good night.”

  Leah removed her dress, an altered one of Nicole’s, put on a clean nightgown, and slipped into bed. It was July now, she thought. There was all the winter to go and then spring before Wesley would return to her. Touching her clean, soft hair, she knew she looked very different, and she prayed that she’d please him when he returned. More t