Page 48 of Frankly, My Dear

“Maybe I won’t hate it here as much as I thought.”

Hours later, James approached the back of his house, heading toward the kitchen. He had finally got all the equipment and goods unloaded from the flatboats, showed the new slaves to their cabins, ridden out over the fields with Fergus to see how the cane was coming up, and helped install some of the new equipment in the sugar mill.

His muscles ached, his skin itched with sweat and dirt, and his stomach growled hungrily. But it felt gloriously good to be home.

James soaped his hands and arms in a washbasin on a bench outside the back door, sloshing some of the water over his stubbled face. He heard the low murmur of voices as he entered the large detached kitchen and stopped in the doorway, unseen for the moment. His heart lurched at the warm domestic tableau, one he couldn’t recall ever seeing when Giselle was alive.

Selene, her smooth skin shining from a recent bath and her long hair lying in a wet swath down her back, sat at the table talking companionably with Blossom. They were drinking coffee and eating…beignets.

He smiled and shook his head with wonder at Selene’s enthusiasm for food, especially sweets. He was not repulsed. In fact, the years of food deprivation she often spoke of tugged at his sympathies, and, oddly, he wished he could make up to her for all the things she’d missed in life.

If she spoke the truth, she had never had a normal childhood, having worked modeling clothes from an early age. She’d never experienced paternal love—her father having left before her birth—or maternal love, being raised by a cold mother with an eye for profit.

But then, his father and mother had never been there for him, either. His father had not cared enough, and his mother, in her self-absorption, had spent a lifetime pining for a man who never loved her enough. She’d had no affection left over for a little boy’s needs.

He still shuddered when he thought of his childhood in New Orleans, neglected by his mother, ignored by his father. A bastard child who ran wild, like a native, through the French Quarter and the outlying bayous.

But back to Selene. James sensed, from what Fergus had relayed of Reba’s conversations with her, that Selene had been made to feel less than a woman in her dealings with men, too. Hell, he knew more than anyone how failure felt, especially after his debacle of a marriage.

Reba claimed Selene had been mistress for years to a man who had never appreciated her worth. An unfamiliar thrum of jealousy swept through him at the image of Selene in the arms of another man. He should not feel possessive toward the strange woman from the future, but he did. And that was dangerous.

He had to concentrate his efforts on making his plantation prosper. He had to spend more time with Etienne, whose behavior was clearly out of hand. He had to help his mother overcome her mental problems. He had to do something about the slaves who depended on him. So many burdens and responsibilities weighed him down.

Love was out of the question. Even lust was a complication his over-encumbered life could not handle.

“…and then I met James at the Quadroon Ball, where he thought I was one of those light-skinned black women looking for a protector,” Selene was telling Blossom, meanwhile licking the sugar off her fingers with maddening sensuality.

“Tsk tsk! Is that man daft? Anyone can tell you ain’t got a drop of the blood in you, chile.”

James stepped into the room. “So I’m daft, am I, Blossom? Now isn’t tht a fine welcome home?”

The woman got up clumsily from her bench and rapped him affectionately on the shoulder with her cane. “Dontcha be sassin’ me, boy.”

He leaned down and kissed the old woman affectionately on the cheek, even as she swatted him away with embarrassment. “I toldja before, boy, it don’t look good for a master to be kissin’ one of his slaves, even one as old as me.” But he could see that she was pleased.

“And I told you, Blossom, that you’re no more a slave than I am. I gave you your papers.”

He laughed and sat down next to Selene on the bench. Her face turned pink as his thigh brushed hers and she scooted her bottom over, creating a short distance between them. Suddenly he stiffened, remembering Giselle’s distaste for his body after a day in the fields. In his foolishness, he had painted Selene as different. He told himself he didn’t care.

He turned back to Blossom. “Is there any food left over? I’m sure you’ve already discovered that Selene’s stomach is a bottomless pit.”

Blossom’s wide mouth pursed with disapproval. “Watch your tongue ’round a lady, boy. And you know well and good that I made all your favorites, like I always do when you come home—turtle soup, seafood gumbo, jambalaya, greens, biscuits, and beignets.”

“Beignets?” Selene exclaimed, turning to James accusingly. “You never told me you like beignets, too. Why, you brute, you made me think I was the only one with a gluttonous passion for the pastries.”

He couldn’t help but grin. Selene rose to the bait so easily.

Blossom’s observant gaze swiveled back and forth between the two of them as they exchanged barbs. “I ’spect you’re hungry. So you just dig in here,” Blossom said, putting a bowl of gumbo and a heaping platter in front of him, accompanied by a cup of hot coffee. She placed a dish of beignets in the center of the table, and James saw Selene eye them hungrily. He chuckled and tapped her fingers lightly with a spoon when she reached tentatively for another one. “Those are mine.”

“Selfish!”

“Prudent.”

“You should share.”

“You’re going to get fat.”

“I’m starting aerobics tomorrow.”