Tender Betrayal Page 4

Audra dropped her eyes. “I would have to have an escort. My father expects your mother to see that I do not go out alone.”

  “So? We’ll bring her along. She is my main reason for being here, you know. And bring your brother. I’d like to get to know him, too. We’ll see some sights. Maybe it will make you feel a little better about being so far from home.”

  Audra felt her heart growing lighter. She had not expected this turnabout. “I would like that, Mr. Jeffreys.”

  Lee studied the deep pools of green that looked back at him. This young woman was stirring something in him he had not expected to feel. He could not help thinking that she must be naked under that robe and gown, every inch of her smooth and firm body untouched. “Call me Lee.”

  She nodded. “I really must not stand out here this way one minute longer.” She turned and hurried to the doors, stopping once to look back at him. “Thank you for the invitation. I truly am sorry if I offended you earlier.”

  Lee smiled. “I’m sorry, too. We got off on bad footing. I’ll make up for it tomorrow.” He studied the lustrous red hair that cascaded down her back when she turned away again. It was brushed out long and loose, and he felt a terrible urge to get his hands caught up in it.

  Miss Audra Brennan had spunk and pride, yet there was a gentle kindness about her, and she apparently had a great ability to love, considering how she felt about her brother. He was beginning to like her, a hell of a lot more than he would have thought possible a few hours ago.

  “Until tomorrow, then,” he said softly, thinking how beautiful she must look lying against silk sheets, how full her lips were, how green her eyes. By God, for a moment there he had actually wanted to hold her, and he’d gotten the distinct impression she just might have let him, or at least wanted to let him. Then again, she might have slapped his face.

  3

  “So, Joey, what do you think of Connecticut?” Lee turned to glance at the young man, who sat in the rear of one of Lee’s father’s finest English-made carriages. He gave Joey a smile and turned back around to guide the roan gelding that pulled them. The horse, named Belle, was one of the strongest and most magnificent animals belonging to Maple Shadows, and this particular buggy was the most elegant and comfortable. For some reason Lee found himself wanting to impress Audra Brennan.

  “I like it j-just f-fine,” Joey answered.

  “Joey is excited,” Audra spoke up. “He told me to thank you for letting him come along.”

  Lee glanced at her, thinking how perfectly lovely she looked today, wearing a white cotton dress trimmed with little green and yellow embroidered flowers. She wore a wide-brimmed silk hat that was tied under her chin with a green sash, and white gloves covered her delicate hands. Fourteen-year-old Joey was well built for his age, and a good-looking boy. He had Audra’s auburn hair, but his eyes were brown rather than green. He had a quick smile, and Lee already liked the boy.

  “You should let Joey speak more for himself,” he told Audra. “He needs more confidence, that’s all. You do too much of his talking for him.” He looked back at Joey. “You say whatever you want, Joey, and don’t worry about how slowly it comes out of your mouth.”

  The boy grinned again. “Are we going to a b-beach?” he asked. He was already learning to like Lee Jeffreys.

  “Yes, we are, as a matter of fact. We could have gone just outside the house, I suppose, but I thought a buggy ride would be nice.” Lee proceeded to point out some of the other elegant estates on Mulberry Point, where the wealthy of New York City, Stamford, and New Haven had built summer homes. “My father owns a canvas factory—makes tents and awnings and such,” he told Audra. “He also owns a boot-and-shoe factory and an iron mill. Keeps him and my brothers pretty busy. I’m not really interested in the family businesses. I wanted something of my own—thought about staying in the army after West Point but decided to get my law degree instead. I’ve set up my own practice in New York, but unlike my father and brothers, I take vacation time once in a while. It’s good for the soul. I love it here. Brings back good boyhood memories.”

  Audra studied the strong hands that held the reins as Lee guided the horse and buggy down a slope to a secluded beach. Today he wore dark pants that fit his muscled body well, and a white shirt but no tie. “Too warm for formal clothes,” he had told her. There was a brashness about him that stirred her, a sort of rebellious, free attitude. He was so different from the men she knew in Louisiana, certainly unlike Richard. Lee was not quite so formal and gentlemanly, yet he was gracious and mannerly in his own way. There was a definite difference between Yankee men and the southern gentlemen to whom she had been exposed. Lee was livelier, more abrupt, and, she sensed, more daring.

  She turned to watch the surrounding woods, and the way the sun filtered through the thick-leaved branches of oak and maple trees. The carriage rocked and bounced over a small lane that led down to a beach, where Lee halted the vehicle and climbed down, tying the horse. Audra moved to step out of the carriage, then blushed when Lee grabbed her about the waist and lifted her down as though she weighed no more than a feather. She liked the feel of his strength, and his hands on her. Something about the way he just grabbed her instead of politely taking her hand excited her.

  “I would have brought Mother, if she wasn’t having another one of her terrible headaches,” he said. “I’m really worried.”

  “I feel so sorry for her,” Audra answered. “She’s had one other bad spell since I arrived. There doesn’t seem to be much anyone can do for her when she gets that way.”

  “I know, and I can hardly stand to think of her feeling so ill. She doesn’t deserve to suffer that way. I would have stayed with her, but she insisted she would feel better if we went off and tried to have a good day. The quieter it is around the house, the better.” Lee helped Joey take some picnic items out of the carriage. He met Audra’s eyes then, grinning. “Is this the first time you’ve gone off with a man unescorted?” he teased.

  Audra felt the heat rising in her cheeks. “Joey is with us, so we are not exactly unescorted, Lee Jeffreys. However, I am trusting you to be a gentleman, and I am doing this because I am hoping it will make your mother feel better to know she has not ruined our day.”

  He leaned closer, and she felt a flutter in her stomach. “And your father doesn’t ever need to know, right?”

  She turned away and laughed lightly, totally confused by her feelings. She had not expected to like this man at all, let alone be excited about going for a ride with him. She had tried on three different dresses before deciding which to wear. Poor Toosie’s fingers must be quite sore from buttoning and unbuttoning her clothes so many times.

  Lee spread out a blanket on the sand, and they all sat down to sandwiches and lemonade that Toosie and the kitchen maid had prepared for them. For a few minutes they did more eating than talking. Audra knew Lee was right about how furious her father would probably be if he knew she had come here with a man, a Yankee man, no less, with only Joey for an escort. Her father had trusted Mrs. Jeffreys to watch over her, but the woman was simply not up to it today, and for reasons she could not herself explain, Audra had dearly wanted this outing. If it led to Lee liking her better, it would be worth the risk.

  She watched the ocean waves crest along the beach, shaded her eyes to study sea gulls flying nearby. A few landed near them, and Lee threw them a piece of bread. Several of the birds quickly converged on the morsel and began fighting over it. Audra laughed, realizing she felt more relaxed and less lonely today than she had since arriving here. It seemed strange that Lee might be the reason. He handed Joey a small basket that had contained their bread.

  “If you walk along the harder sand out there where the waves come up, you’ll find all kinds of interesting things,” he told Joey. “Snails, seashells, what have you. You can use this to collect them if you want something to do.”

  Joey rose, taking the basket. “Th-thanks. I have a c-c-c—” He stopped and sighed, obviously very frustrated with himself.
“C-collection at the house. I’ll t-take them all home with me.”

  “Good.” Lee began removing his ankle-high, elastic-sided boots. “Take your boots and socks off first, young man. It feels good to squish the sand between your bare toes.”

  Joey eagerly obeyed. Not only was Lee not the least bit disparaging of his speech problems, but the man also just plain knew how to have fun. It had been a long time since he could relax and not be so self-conscious. Now that he was getting older, his father was constantly lecturing him that he couldn’t ever be the man of the house and oversee the Negroes if he didn’t stop his stuttering, let alone be able to talk with congressmen and the like, all requisites for a wealthy plantation owner. This was the most fun he had had in a long time, and he laughed at the realization that his sister was embarrassed that he and Lee were removing their shoes and socks, but he could not resist the feeling of freedom it gave him. His own father had never spent a leisurely day with him, not even when he was little.

  “Have fun!” Lee told him.

  Joey grinned and took the basket and left, glorying in the feel of the sand on his bare feet.

  Lee turned to Audra. “Your father ridicules him, doesn’t he?”

  The remark made Audra forget her temporary surprise at Lee’s removing his shoes and stockings without even asking if she minded. It seemed somehow improper to look upon the bare feet of a man she hardly knew. She glanced away from them to watch the sea gulls walk about on their spindly legs and pick at the sand, looking for food.

  “I am afraid he does,” she answered, “but not to be mean. He loves Joey very much. I just don’t think he understands that his speech problem is something emotional—something from our mother’s death, I’m sure.” She met Lee’s eyes then. “He never stuttered until after that, and he has a difficult time learning. That frustrates Father. Since Joey is his only son, Father seems to feel he has been somehow cheated, and I am afraid Joey feels very unloved. I don’t think Father means for it to come across that way. He just wants so much for Joey to be able to take on responsibility. He worries about the future of Brennan Manor.”

  She watched her brother bend down to pick something out of the sand. “There is nothing Joey wouldn’t do to impress our father and try to make him proud of him. He tries, but nothing works, and I can’t help but try to make up for the loss of our mother and the hurt he feels over the way Father treats him. Sometimes when we are talking alone and he is relaxed, he hardly stutters at all. It’s worse when he’s around Father.”

  Lee followed her gaze to watch Joey himself. “He’s heading for manhood, Audra. You can’t be doing his talking for him, and you can’t keep protecting him.” He picked up a pebble and threw it, but it didn’t quite reach the water. “Is there anything in particular he’s good at?”

  Audra paused to drink some lemonade. “Well, he likes to carve. He has all kinds of figures in his room. Sometimes he sings when he is carving, and strangely enough, when he sings, he doesn’t stutter at all. He is also a good marksman for his age. At home he goes rabbit-hunting.”

  Lee looked into the bigger picnic basket, taking out a fresh-baked cookie. “Well, then, maybe I’ll take him hunting when you’re having your lessons. He can’t just sit around the house bored. Me, I’ve always got to be doing something.”

  A gust of wind blew at Audra’s hat, and she retied the wide satin sash that held it under her chin. “Are you a good lawyer, Lee?” The question made him laugh, and Audra thought what fine, straight white teeth he had.

  “How do you expect me to answer that?” he asked, still grinning. “Of course I’m a good lawyer. I wouldn’t already have my own firm if I wasn’t.”

  Again Audra was almost startled by a sudden rush of sweet desire she had never experienced before meeting this man. She turned her gaze from him again, and she pretended to be interested in watching her brother. “What is the name of your law firm?”

  “Jeffreys, James, and Stillwell. We’re already one of the most sought-after firms in New York City.”

  “I see. My father is acquainted with several lawyers in Baton Rouge, and even New Orleans. He is very well-known and respected, you know.”

  Lee kept his smile, realizing how proud she was of her father and Brennan Manor. “I gathered that,” he answered. If she needed to believe her father was the most important man on earth, what was the real harm? He had once thought the same about his own father. He felt he understood Joey better than she realized. Joey was the outsider, the one who could never please his father. It was a lonely place to be. He decided he would have a good talk with the boy, make sure he understood that he could do whatever he wanted in life no matter what his father thought, or what the man tried to force him to do. His own situation was not the same as Joey’s, but he knew about the pressures a father could put on a son.

  “We don’t live close enough to the Gulf to go to beaches like this,” Audra was saying. “Once when we visited my Aunt Janine in Baton Rouge—she’s my mother’s sister—we took a steamboat south to the Gulf. I enjoyed that.” She looked back at him. “Did I tell you the Mississippi River runs right past the east end of my father’s plantation?”

  Lee caught her youthful excitement. “I’ve never seen the Mississippi. I guess the places where we live each have something unusual about them, don’t they?”

  “And pretty.” Audra picked up a twig lying nearby and began tracing in the sand with it. “Oh, the Mississippi is beautiful, Lee. A river is so different from the ocean. It flows lazily along, making no waves. The river is part of the reason my father does so well. Cargo boats can come right up to our property to pick up loads of cotton. It saves my father from having to haul it by wagon first to a port. Brennan Manor produces tons and tons of cotton every year.”

  “Sounds convenient, being right beside the river like that.” How many slaves does it take to pick all that cotton? he wanted to ask, but he didn’t feel like getting into another argument over slavery, not today. They were just beginning to like each other and get along. He wondered if Audra sensed his thoughts, for she suddenly changed the subject as she threw more crumbs to the gulls. “Why didn’t you want to work with your father and brothers?” she asked. “If that’s too personal a question, you don’t have to answer it.”

  Lee poured himself more lemonade. “I don’t mind. Besides, I don’t really have an answer. It’s just something my brothers really seemed to want to do, but I hate the smell and the grime of the factories. I guess what I really hate is the sight of those poor workers sitting or standing at the same station twelve and fourteen hours a day, doing the same things over and over, freezing in winter and sweating to death in summer, breathing that dirty air, all for slave wages—” He hesitated on the words, giving her a sly glance. “Sorry. I just meant that the people in those factories don’t earn much in return for how hard they work. I guess I just can’t tolerate the wealthy lording it over the poor, exploiting them just to make even more money, whether they’re slaves or paid.” Damn, he thought, here we are right back on the subject again.

  “A-ha!” Audra leaned down on one elbow. “Then you are admitting that the people who work in your own father’s shops are hardly any better off than slaves.” Audra also had not wanted to get into the subject, but she could not pass up the comparison and the chance to show Lee Jeffreys that slavery was not such a terrible thing, maybe not even as bad as people having to work in those dirty factories.

  Lee smiled, chagrined. “In a way.” He finished his lemonade and leaned closer to her. “One big difference—people up here aren’t bought and sold like common chattel. They aren’t whipped and forced to live in squalor, and we don’t tear babies out of mothers’ arms, or breed our help in selected pairs like cattle.”

  Audra scowled and sat up straighter, embarrassed at the last remark. Was this going to turn into another heated debate? Why didn’t she know when to keep quiet? “Some slave owners treat their people that way, but we don’t. It is true that my father’s fa
ther was the first in the family to own slaves. He bought them from among some of the original captives brought here from Africa. My father has also bought and sold slaves, but most of those we own now are families, Negroes we have kept on and who have intermarried and had children, like Lena and Toosie.”

  Toosie, Lee thought. Again he wondered about the woman, but he was afraid he would offend Audra if he admitted his suspicions about her heritage. Besides, Audra seemed to be sure who the woman’s father was.

  Audra rested on her elbow again, both of them partially reclined on the blanket. “We will probably never agree on these things, Lee,” she said with a hint of apology, “so why don’t we go back to talking about your father and brothers. What are they like?”

  He forced a grin. He didn’t know her well enough to go into a family history and try to explain the hard feelings. “You mean my bragging mother didn’t already tell you everything there is to know?”

  This time it was Audra who laughed, and Lee drank in the sound of it. She had a lilting laugh that seemed to fit perfectly a beautiful young woman with an enchanting way of speaking and a voice that belonged to an angel.

  “Yes, I suppose there is very little left that I don’t know,” she told him. “Let’s see—you all look very much alike, except that you are the only one who inherited your mother’s blue eyes. You are all tall like your father, you all have tempers, and so you don’t always get along. You are the only one who attended West Point, but all three of you attended Yale. Carl handles the shoe factory, and he is thirty-three and has a wife and three children. David is two years younger and is also married but has no children. He is in charge of the canvas factory, and both are involved in the iron mill. Your father oversees everything, and he works much too hard.”

  Lee gave her a wink. “You see? I can’t add much to that.”

  They both smiled, and for a moment their eyes held, neither of them saying a word, each suspecting the other was thinking something that was surely not possible, each feeling a building attraction. For a moment Audra actually thought he might lean a little closer and try to kiss her, and in that same moment Lee thought about doing just that.