Travis was proudly bragging about the house he obviously loved, telling her how his grandfather had built it and how all the Stanfords loved it. But with each step Regan’s fear grew. Nicole’s responsibilities had seemed overwhelming, but now she was wishing she was going to be living in a small place like that. How was she going to manage this monstrous house, let alone the other duties Travis seemed to expect of her?
The house, when they reached it, was larger than it seemed. A massive square center section of brick, four and a half stories high, towered over her, with two L-shaped wings radiating to each side. Travis led her up wide stone stairs to the first floor and once inside began the hurried tour of his extensive house.
He took her through a blue room, a green room, a red room, and a white room and showed her the schoolroom and housekeeper’s room. Storage rooms were as large as her bedroom at Weston Manor.
With each room—each exquisitely furnished, beautiful room—Regan’s fear climbed higher in her throat. How could she possibly manage a place the size of this?
Just when she thought she’d seen every room a house could contain, Travis half-dragged her up the east stairs. The rooms on this second, main floor put the ones below to shame. There was a dining room with an attached parlor for ladies’ teas, another parlor for the family, a library for the men, two more sitting rooms for whatever anyone wanted them for, and an enormous bedroom with an attached nursery.
“Ours,” Travis said, before pulling her into the ballroom.
Here, Regan was stunned. She’d said very little since they’d entered the house, but now she felt her legs give way under her. Collapsing onto a sofa in the corner, she stared in awed silence.
If nothing else, the sheer size of the room would have been overwhelming. Seventeen-foot-high ceilings made one feel small, insignificant. The walls were paneled, painted the palest blue, and the oak floors were polished to a gleam. There seemed to be a great many pieces of furniture—six couches covered in rose-brocaded satin, innumerable chairs with seats upholstered to match, a harp, a pianoforte, and numerous tables—but they were all set about the border, leaving the floor open, covered in a long rug from the Orient.
“Of course we roll up the rug when we have parties,” Travis said proudly. “Maybe you’d like to give a party. We could invite a couple of hundred people to spend the night, and you and Malvina—she’s the cook—could plan all the food. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
It was all much too much. Tears in her eyes, her stomach aching, Regan ran through the ballroom toward the opposite door. She had no idea how to even get out of the house as she ran down a long passageway, finally opened a door, and fled into a lovely, small, blue and white room. She couldn’t even remember all the names of the rooms, much less where they were.
Flinging herself to the floor, her head in her arms on the seat of a blue and white couch, she began to cry. How could he do this to her? How could he not have told her?
Within seconds Travis was beside her, pulling her into his arms as he sat on the couch. “Why are you cry
ing?” he asked in a voice of such longing and hurt that she began to cry harder.
“You’re rich!” she blurted, tears closing her throat.
“You’re crying because I’m rich?” he asked in astonishment.
Even as she tried to explain, she was sure he’d never, never understand. Travis was so sure he did everything right; it had never occurred to him to doubt that he could accomplish anything. He didn’t know what it was like to be useless. Now he expected her to manage the house, the dependencies, servants, and, by the by, give a party for a couple of hundred friends.
“I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s wrong,” Travis said, handing her his handkerchief. “You surely can’t be angry because I’m not some poor farmer.”
“How…,” she sobbed. “How can I…? I’ve never even seen a loom!”
It took Travis a moment to piece that together. “You don’t have to do the weaving; just tell someone else to do it. The women will bring their problems to you, and you’ll fix them,” he said. “It’s all very simple.”
She would never make him understand! Jumping out of his arms and off his lap, she ran from the room, down the passage, back into the ballroom, through it, and into another passage, until at last she found their bedroom and collapsed on the bed in a flurry of muslin dress and petticoats.
Even over her sobs she could hear Travis’s slow, heavy footsteps as he approached. Pausing at the doorway, he seemed to study her for a moment before deciding that she needed to be left alone. As his steps retreated she began to cry harder.
Hours later, a maid, softly knocking on the door, asked her what she would like for supper. When she nearly replied “Yorkshire pudding,” Regan realized she didn’t even know what foods were available in America. Finally, she told the girl she didn’t feel like eating and to please go away. Perhaps she could stay forever in this room and never have to face the outside world.
Chapter 13
NO MATTER WHAT REGAN’S FIRST IMPRESSION WAS OF HOW difficult it was to run a plantation, she was far from the reality of it. Travis left their bed before the sun rose, and within minutes there were women in her room asking her questions. When she had no idea what answers to give them, she could see the way their eyes slid to one side. Once she overheard a maid mutter something about how a man like Travis could marry a nothing like her.
And everywhere she heard the name Margo.
A weaver showed her patterns Margo had given her. A gardener set bulbs from Miss Margo. In the blue room she found dresses that she was told belonged to Miss Margo, because she stayed here so often.
In the evenings at dinner, she asked Travis about this woman, but Travis only shrugged and said she was a neighbor. After having been away from his plantation so long, he was buried in work. Even during meals he went over papers with his two clerks, computing figures of goods received and goods exported. Regan didn’t have the heart to add to his burdens by telling him her problems.
And then one day Regan’s world came to a screeching halt. Travis had just returned to a quick dinner, talking to her with his mouth full about the arrival of a new ship from England, when the clatter of a horse’s hoofs on the brick drive outside made him start. The crack of a whip was followed by the shrill scream of a horse, and Travis was at the window instantly.
“Margo!” he bellowed down. “You strike that horse again, and I’ll use that whip on you.”
A deep, seductive laugh seemed to fill the dining room. “Better men than you have tried, Travis, my love,” a woman’s voice purred, followed by another crack and another scream from a horse.