Love, Come to Me(6)

“Anything you like in particular?” Heath inquired lazily.

Suddenly she wasn’t afraid of him anymore. “You look like any ordinary overgrown Southerner, as far as I can see.”

“They do grow us taller down South. You scrawny New Englanders spend too much time indoors, and the Lord knows you don’t eat well—”

“We most certainly do!”

“If you call fish and chowder good eating. In Virginia we fill a plate right to the edge with real food, not with the dabs of colored paste you call a meal. A little here, a little there . . . a man could eat for days and not get full.”

“How long have you been up here?”

“Almost a year.”

“You don’t look like you’ve suffered too much from our cooking—even if we don’t serve peach cobbler or fried chicken too often—”

“Fried chicken,” he said wistfully. “Or good smoked ham. Or black-eyed peas and bacon . . . or buttered yams . . .”

Lucy couldn’t help smiling. He possessed an artless charm that was difficult to resist. Suddenly she wanted to fix him a good dinner: corned beef and cabbage, brown bread flavored with blackstrap molasses and steamed in a pail for hours, apple pie for dessert. That would show him that Northern cooking could satisfy him just as much as whatever it was they ate down South.

“Why did you move to Concord?” she asked, and the sparkle left his turquoise eyes abruptly. “It hardly seems to make sense. Now that the war is over and Reconstruction—”

“Reconstruction. Like most everyone else around here, you have no idea what it is.”

“Yes, I do. It’s to help the South get on its feet—”

“And brace us up with hollow crutches. I’ve never understood why people here seem to expect us to be grateful to you for taking over our newspapers and our right to vote, and denying us the chance to say a word about it—”

“Obviously it will take some time for the South to restore itself,” Lucy countered in a dignified manner, “but eventually—”

“Eventually? Never.”

“What do you mean? Of course it will.”

He looked at her with disturbing concentration and quoted softly, “ ‘. . . how thy ways have changed, and thy sweet, smiling summer face altered its expression. But those times are gone . . . The soldiers have left thee little but the past and thy loneliness.’ ”

She stared at him, hypnotized by the rise and fall of his voice, the subtle cadences that fell so gently on her ears. “I . . . I don’t understand . . .”

“Of course you don’t. How could you?” He stood up and gave her a careless smile. “It was written by a very weary war correspondent . . . a Southern one, as a matter of fact. Are you hungry?”

“Yes, but I’d like you to explain—”

“I can make tolerable sourmilk biscuits.”

“Why did you—”

“And coffee.”

“Oh, all right! I won’t ask you any more questions.”

“You do like to ask a lot of them, don’t you?”

“Actually . . . there is one more thing.”

“Yes? What?”

Lucy hesitated and looked down at the clean, faded quilt, her face turning progressively brighter shades of red. It took several seconds of concentrated thought before she could phrase the question. “I . . . I need to . . . is there a water c-closet, or—”

“Of course. I don’t have a robe for you. Would you mind wearing one of my shirts?”

“No, I wouldn’t mind . . . thank you.”

Mercifully, he was sensitive to her mortification, his attitude completely matter-of-fact. Or was it just that after having been through the privations of a five-year war, he had forgotten that the functions of the human body were something that most people were embarrassed by?

As she watched him stride over to the chest of drawers, Lucy blushed even deeper, aware that underneath the covers she was wearing nothing but her corset cover and pantalets. He must have put them back on her last night after they had dried. It was a disturbing thought, that he was the only man who had ever seen her naked. Except for Dr. Miller, who had delivered her twenty years ago. All sorts of thoughts occurred to her, thoughts that she should have put away immediately, but she couldn’t help wondering what Heath had thought of her looks. In contrast to the fashionable ideal, she was dark-haired and petite, the owner of a lively tongue and feet that tended to move too quickly for the rest of her body to follow. Ever since the age of sixteen, her figure had taken on a generously curved shape that made her appear shorter than she really was. For years Lucy had wanted to be tall, slim, and elegant. Still, she had been told often that she was pleasing to the eye. Did Heath Rayne think she was?

Impassively Heath laid a soft white shirt and a pair of woolen socks across her knees, then turned his back. Since it didn’t appear that he was going to leave, she blushed deeply and dressed with record haste. Lucy discovered as she slid her arms into the silken garment that it had the same scent she had noticed about him before—clean and fresh, faintly dry. The shirt was hopelessly big for her. She rolled up each sleeve several turns to shorten it to her wrists. The hem of it would fall to her knees when she stood up. Wincing at the bruised and battered feel of her body, she pulled her legs out from under the covers and began pulling on the socks, the heels of which reached well past her own feet. Risking a glance upwards, Lucy saw that Heath had turned his dark golden head to the side, just enough to glance at her out of the corner of his eye. Instantly he moved his eyes back to the wall and lifted his shoulders in a slight shrug. She should have been terribly offended by his sneaky glance, as well as afraid and mistrustful of him. Strangely, her instincts told her not to be.