senses. We can find the girl a husband. The cobbler's boy is looking for a wife. He could."

"Travis, you can take your cobbler and."

"Wesley!" Regan interrupted. "Are you going to hate Leah when she's your wife?"

"I shall give her and the child the best of everything. Now, shall we go inside to my," he smiled in

an ugly way"bride?"

Leah became Mrs. Wesley Stanford before the sun went down on that fateful Sunday. Through some inner strength, she held herself upright and answered the nervous preacher's questions firmly. She didn't quite understand how it had all come about, but it was so much like one of her dreams, standing in a marriage ceremony with the man she'd always loved, that the pain in her body seemed to slip away.

The solemn group didn't say a word when the service was complete. Leah was helped to make her mark beside Wesley's signature in the church registry, then Clay's strong arms carried her to a waiting wagon. She was too ill to notice where she was or that her new husband and his brother refused to look at her.

She was placed in a boat, rowed upstream, and put into another wagon. At long last she was gently laid on a soft, clean bed.

"My room," Wesley snorted at Regan as Clay put the girl on the bed. "It's fitting then that I should leave."

"Leave!" Regan gasped. "With a new wife and."

Wesley's look stopped her. "If you think I can look at that every day and stay sane you don't know me very well. I have to go away for awhile and get used to the idea." He pulled a carpetbag from a wardrobe bottom and shoved clothes into it.

"Where are you going?" Regan whispered. "You won't leave her and the baby?"

"No, I know my duty. I'll take care of both of them but I need some time to resign myself to* that !" He sneered at the sleeping Leah on his bed. "I'll go to my farm in Kentucky, do some work, and should be back in the spring. The kid'll be old enough to travel then."

"You can't stick us with your leavings," Travis said from the doorway. "You were the noble one who felt he had to make an honest woman of her. Woman! I can't even tell if she's human. Take her with you. I don't want to be reminded of your stupidity."

"Take the expense of her keep from my half of this place," Wesley shouted.

"Don't part like this," Regan pleaded, but Wesley was already gone. "Go after him," she told Travis. "Nicole and I will take care of the girl. Don't part with your brother like this."

After hesitating, Travis touched his little wife's cheek, then tore down the stairs. From the bedroom window Regan watched the brothers embrace before Wesley started toward the dock and the boat that would take him west.

Chapter 3.

Two days after Wesley left, Leah was delivered of a stillborn child. She cried over the tiny coffin then was ushered back to bed where she slept for days, waking only briefly to eat lightly.

When Leah finally woke and looked about her, she was sure she was in heaven. She lay in the middle of a big four-poster bed hung with cream-colored cloth. The walls were painted white and hung with pictures of sailing ships and men hunting, and there were chairs, tables, and cabinets such as she'd never seen before.

She allowed herself only a moment to enjoy the view before she swung her legs out of bed. She was wearing a cap on her head and a brilliantly white gown; wonderingly, she touched the garment while her head stopped spinning.

"What do you think you're doing?" asked a woman from the doorway. "Miss Regan!" she shouted over her shoulder.

When Regan arrived, Leah was struggling with the woman to be allowed out of bed. "Sally, that will be all."

"You don't know what her kind's like," the maid said, sniffing, pushing at Leah's shoulders.

Regan drew herself up. "Sally!" she commanded. "Out of this room and I'll speak to you later." When she was gone, Regan turned to Leah, who was again trying to sit up. "You must rest."

"I have to see about the little ones. The old man'll let them starve."

Gently, but with force, Regan pushed Leah back into bed. "That's all been taken care of. Travis and Clay went to your farm and got all your brothers and sisters and they're being placed in people's homes. As for your father, no one's seen him in weeks, not since he* came to church. Right now all you have to do is rest, eat, and get well. When you're better, you can see your family. Ah, here's the food."

Leah was bewildered when a prettily painted wooden tray laden with food was placed over her legs.

"I didn't know what you'd like so I ordered a variety," Regan said, lifting domed silver lids to show fragrant, hot food.

"I*" Leah stammered.

Regan patted her hand. "Eat as much as you can and enjoy it, then I want you to sleep. We're going to fatten you up before we set to work. The chamber pot's under the bed." With that Regan left the room.

Leah tore into the food with both hands, eating as she always didas fast as she could. She was unaware of the flecks of food she splashed on the bed hangings. When she finished, she used the chamber pot and emptied it out the window, just as she had at home. Scratching, she went back to bed and slept, missing Travis's furor when he heard what Leah had done with the contents of the chamber pot.

For ten days Leah did nothing but rest and eat and, as her scratches and bruises finished healing, Regan looked at her in speculation. Regan had told Leah about Wesley's leaving for Kentucky, pretending that it was something he'd intended to do all along.

Leah learned to leave the chamber pot for a maid, but she never had the courage to leave the bedroom. She sat at the window and looked out at the acres of buildings that went with Travis's plantation, saw the hundreds of people moving about their jobs, and she began to feel restless.

"When am I gonna start that work you mentioned?" she asked Regan.

Regan took Leah's chin in her hand and studied her face in the sunlight. The bruises were almost completely healed. "How about tomorrow morning?"

"Good." Leah smiled. "You got anything I can wear? Somethin' old," she said, nodding toward Regan's blue silk dress.

"I don't think we'll worry about your wardrobe yet," she said thoughtfully. "Yes, I think we'll start tomorrow if Nicole is available." She gave Leah no time to ask questions. "I must go. There are so, so many preparations to make," she said distractedly as she left the room.

When Leah woke the next morning, both Nicole and Regan were standing over her wearing worn, coarse dresses of muslin, their hair covered, and stern expressions on their faces.

"It's not going to be easy," Regan murmured. "Where do we start?"

"Body first, hair tomorrow."

Before Leah could say a word, each woman grabbed an arm, pulled her from the bed, and led her out of the bedroom. Leah, while being half dragged, gazed about her in wonder at carpets, pictures, furniture of magnificence. They led her downstairs to a relatively plain room that was still beautiful compared to where she'd lived. "Is this gonna be my room? Wait a minute!" she gasped as Regan and Nicole practically tore the nightgown from her. She bent, struggling to cover her nude body. "You can't."

"Get used to it, Leah," Regan ordered, "because you won't be wearing any clothes for a couple of days."

"You have no right," she began, grabbing her gown from the floor.

"Get in!" Regan commanded, pointing to an enormous tub standing in the middle of the room.

Leah stood perfectly still where she was, holding her discarded gown before her.

Nicole took over. "Leah," she said firmly, "You're a Stanford now and with the name and the beautiful house go certain responsibilities. For one thing, you cannot sit at a dining table smelling worse than a mule, which you do right now. Therefore, Regan and I are going to devote the next few weeksor months if need beto making you into a Stanford. We're going to clean you, cream you, mask you, and when that's finished we're going to tackle your grammar, your walk, your manners, and anything else that needs work."

Leah looked from one woman to the other. "When you get through with me will I smell like you do?

When Wesley comes back will he see me wearin' a pretty dress?"

Regan and Nicole exchanged smiles. "A beautiful dress. Wesley will be proud to have you as his wife."

Days later she wondered whether she would have gotten into that first tub of water if she'd had any idea what those two fiendish women had planned. She'd assumed they'd be happy with her clean skin, but Nicole clucked over her.

"This won't do at all. Too many years of neglect."

Leah, wrapped in a cotton robe, was led to another room and in this one sat a tub of* "What isthat?" she said with a gasp.

"Mud," Regan answered, laughing.

So Leah was immersed in mud, made to stand in her birthday suit until it dried, and given three more baths. Then she lay on a table while Nicole and Regan tried to scrub her skin off with coarse leather gloves. She was put into another tub of water, this one greasy with vegetable oil, and when she was removed they rubbed her with cucumber cream.

"Not bad," Regan said at the end of the day, hair straggling in her eyes, her dress filthy. "I think we accomplished a lot." She smacked Leah on her bare bottom, handed her a robe, and escorted her upstairs.

Exhausted, but her skin feeling tingly and alive, Leah fell into the bed.

The next morning Nicole and Regan were there again. Leah groaned and pulled the covers over her head.

"Oh no, Leah," Regan said, laughing, "greet the day with a smile." She pulled the covers off, but Leah did her own walking downstairs to the torture chambers.

"I've been itching to do this," Nicole said, pulling the cap from Leah's dirty hair. "I wonder what color it is?"

Leah sat in a hard chair while Nicole took a stiff-bristled brush to her scalp, scrubbing so hard it brought tears to her eyes.

"Dandruff," Nicole murmured, but Leah didn't even know what that was.

While Nicole scrubbed, Regan applied a cornmeal mixture to Leah's face. When the mask was dry, they began washing her entire head. It took four shampooings to remove years of grease and dirt.

"I won't swear to it but I think there're touches of red in here," Nicole said.

Even wet, Leah's head felt lighter than it ever had, but before she could speak, Nicole began dumping handfuls of mayonnaise on her newly clean hair. Her head was wrapped in a very hot towel and she was left alone in the darkened room, her head leaning backwards, grated raw potato under her eyes.

Wesley, she kept thinking. I'm really, truly his wife, and he's worth all of this.

In the evening her hair was washed again and rinsed with rainwater mixed with lemon juice, vinegar, and rosemary. Nicole had covered all the mirrors on their path from Wesley's bedroom to the storage areas where they were working, so Leah had no idea how she looked, but as she sank into the bed she knew she smelled better.

Leah was appalled to learn that Nicole and Regan expected her to change her underclothes and bathe every single day. She felt that if it'd been done once it was done forever, but on the third day they pushed her into a tub again. They were determined to soften Leah's skin since it bore calluses from years of work. Her elbows and knees were scrubbed raw, then bleached with lemon juice and massaged with strawberry cream.

And always there were lectures. Nicole taught her how to care for her skin and hair even if she spent all day in a field behind a team of horses. Since Leah couldn't read, they made her memorize recipes for creams, facial masks, hair conditioners, and shampoos; on and on they went, making Leah recite them until she could repeat them even asleep.

After two weeks of treatments, Nicole, her hands in Leah's clean, soft, shining hair, stood back. "Do you think we can show her now?" she asked with a smile.

"Wait." Regan laughed. "Put this on, Leah." She held out a deep green silk taffeta dressing gown, embroidered with tiny, colorful birds.

"I couldn't." Leah hesitated, but Nicole's look stopped her. Leah dropped the plain muslin gown she wore and slid her arms into the silk, her eyes rolling slightly at the feel of it. "It's lovely."

"All right, now stand right here," Regan ordered, posing Leah before a full-length mirror that was draped with a bed sheet.

When Regan, with a flourish, pulled the sheet away, Leah made no reactionbecause she had no idea who the person in the mirror was. She turned to see who was behind her, but when the reflection moved also, she stood still.

The woman in the mirror was not just pretty; she was beautiful. Long, thick auburn hair cascaded about her shoulders, down her back, and big green, intense eyes looked out of a square-jawed face marked with a full, sensuous mouth. Tentatively, Leah lifted her hand to touch her own cheekand the next minute she collapsed in a heap on the bed while Regan and Nicole laughed.

"I think we've succeeded," Regan said in triumph, then her head came up. "I want to show her off. Just a bit, right now."

"It's early," Nicole warned.

"Come along, Leah," Regan said, taking Leah's hand.

Regan led Leah through a part of the house she'd never seen before, through long hallways, past a vast dining room. "Does this place have an end?"