“He’s . . . James Grady is in a class all of his own. I think I’d better go now or the girls will get the wrong idea about us.” Quickly, she left the room.
It was a full minute before Cay started to bang her fist against the pillow. Worse and worse and worse. Everything was going downhill rapidly. She was facing spending weeks being tortured by three lovesick females. Two of them seemed intent on making Cay their husband, while the third was going to make her show a letter that Cay couldn’t reveal before she was allowed to have even a drawing pencil. What was she supposed to do during these weeks?
If that weren’t bad enough, at the end of the time, Tally was to come and get her.
Yet again, Cay thought about leaping out the window and getting on her horse. Better still, she should dive into the river and swim home. She wondered if the St. Johns joined the James River somewhere. Maybe if she got a boat, she could row herself northward. She couldn’t help smiling as she thought of how Alex would worry when he found her gone. It would serve him right! she thought. He deserved to be scared to death after what he’d condemned her to. And after she’d saved his worthless life!
As she began to fall asleep, she wondered where he was sleeping tonight, and she hoped it was someplace uncomfortable and smelly.
Fifteen
Cay pushed the eggs about on her plate. She was so down spirited that she didn’t even care what kind of bird the eggs came from. She’d already seen so many strange creatures flying and running about that she couldn’t keep track of them. Yesterday she’d tried her best to ask the girls what the huge bird flying overhead was, but they weren’t interested in the birds, only in Cay. All they wanted to do was to touch her, to sit close to her, to make her look at them.
“There’s no way he’s right,” Cay mumbled as she thought about Alex saying that all girls acted like that. Cay could assure him that she’d never come close to behaving that way with any of her many suitors. She’d always conducted herself in the most respectful, ladylike way possible. The few times when she was alone with one of the three men she was considering marrying, she’d never done anything that she couldn’t have done in front of her mother. Maybe not her father, but her mother, yes.
“Did
you say something?” Thankfull asked from the doorway as she put another bowl of food on the table.
Cay was the only guest at the boardinghouse, and if she ate even half of what was served to her, she’d get fat. She wondered if being fat would make the girls leave her alone.
“Your brother hasn’t been by this morning,” Thankfull said. “Do you think he’ll want breakfast?”
“I don’t know where he spent last night and I don’t know if or when he ate.”
“I see,” Thankfull said tentatively.
“I spent last night under the stars,” Alex said from the doorway.
Cay turned to his voice and had to stop herself from running to him. It was wonderful to see someone who wasn’t a stranger. Even though she stopped her smile before it could engulf her face, he saw it.
“Mr. Yates,” Thankfull said, “please sit down and have breakfast. I’ll fix you a plate of eggs.”
She left the room and Alex sat down across from Cay. “Miss me?” He picked up a piece of toast from the plate in the center of the table.
“Not at all. I hope you froze last night.”
“I only wish summers in Scotland were as warm as the winters here. How long do you plan to stay angry at me, lass?”
“Stop calling me that or Thankfull will hear you.”
“What do you think her parents were thankful for when she was born?”
It was nearly the same joke that Cay had thought of when she was introduced, but she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of hearing her say so. She just glared at him and went back to moving her eggs around on the plate.
“Grady is to arrive today.”
“I hope he doesn’t.” Cay’s voice was angry. “I hope you have to stay here, too.”
“You want me with you that bad, do you?”
“I don’t want you with me at all. I just don’t want to have to stay in this place and wait for my brother to come and ridicule me.”
“Lass,” Alex said patiently, “they have mail service out of here, so you can write to your other brothers and ask them to come and get you. What was the pretty one’s name?”
“Ethan. No. If Adam said Tally was to come for me, then it will be Tally. No one contradicts Adam.”
A quick frown crossed Alex’s face, but he got it under control. “Will you come see me off tomorrow?”