"You'll learn your way around. Now we're going to Travis's office."

"Wesley's brother?"

Regan gave a short laugh. "Wesley is usually thought of as Travis's little brother."

"Not to me," Leah said with confidence.

Travis was sitting behind an enormous desk, ledgers open before him, one of his clerks beside him.

Regan stood Leah before the desk and when the clerk looked up, his mouth dropped open in amazement. Travis glanced up, saw the man's expression, and turned to look at Leah.

"Good God!" he said, sucking air through his teeth. "She's not."

"She is," Regan said proudly.

"Fetch us some tea," Travis commanded his clerk. "And stop gawking! Here, sit down. Leah, is it?"

As if she'd always been treated as a lady, Leah demurely sat on the upholstered chair Travis held for her.

The robe had parted somewhat and was exposing a great deal of cleavage, which Travis was enjoying.

He looked up to see Regan glaring at him.

"Filled out some, hasn't she?" he said with a grin.

The tea arrived almost instantly with two maids and a butler carrying a big silver tray, all three of them and Travis's clerk gaping at Leah.

"Out! All of you!" Travis commanded.

Leah sat still, returning all their looks with curiosity, wondering who they were and what their jobs were.

When the room was clear, Travis poured tea for Leah into a fragile porcelain cup and held it out to her

with great politeness."I am hungry," Leah said and noisily moved her chair closer to the desk where the tray of cakes andsandwiches had been set. She blew loudly on the tea, slurped it so it bubbled through her teeth, set thewet cup down on the wooden desktop, then picked up three small pastries, mashed them in her saucer, poured cream from the silver pitcher over them, and began eating the concoction with her teaspoon.

Halfway through she looked up to see Travis, Regan, and Nicole gaping at her.

Nicole was the first to recover. "We have a bit more work to do yet," she said softly before sipping

delicately from her teacup.

"That you do," Travis said with a grunt.

Leah resumed eating.

Three days later Leah swore she hated those little cups and saucers that looked so pretty but seemed to always be falling apart in her hands. Regan threatened Leah's life if she broke one more piece of expensive imported porcelain, so Leah again tried to learn how to handle them.

"What does it matter how you eat as long as you get it inside?" Leah half cried as Nicole again corrected her use of a fork.

"Think of Wesley," Nicole said, using the phrase as a slogan to urge Leah onand it always worked. The women used Wesley to entice Leah, to force her to be patient and learn the manners she needed to know. And they got the whole story from Leah about how she'd met Wes, how she'd loved him forever.

After Leah had been at the Stanford Plantation for two months, her father, Elijah, was found dead in the river. Travis paid for a funeral that was beautiful. For the first time since she'd married Wesley, Leah saw her brothers and sisters. Each of them had gained weight, were unbruised and clinging to the hands of the people who'd taken them in. They looked at Leah with wide eyes, not even sure who she was, and left with their new families; Leah shed tears of joy because they seemed so happy now.

Once, Leah looked across her father's coffin and into the gaze of a beautiful young woman. But before Leah could even look her fill at this vision, Regan nudged her and Leah turned away. When she looked back, the woman was gone.

"Who was she?" Leah asked later.

"Kimberly Shaw," Regan answered tightly.

The woman who was supposed to marry Wesley, Leah thought, feeling very smug. She may have wanted him but I got him.

Seeing the woman, Leah resolved to work harder so she'd please Wesley when he returned in the spring.

Leah set her cup down easily, quietly, as if she'd always known how to eat and drink properly, leaned toward Travis, and smiled prettily. "And do you think this new cotton gin will help speed production?

You don't think the cotton market will collapse like the tobacco market did?"

Regan and Nicole leaned back in their chairs and watched their protege with pleasure. It had taken months of work, but Leah was passing the test. They'd never attempted to instruct Leah in what to talk about, merely how to say the words, so they were surprised when her main interest was farming. But of course she'd never been able to readand they'd not yet tried to teach her howso Leah talked of what she knew: farming.

And Travis was eating it up, Regan thought with disgust. Sometimes, when Regan was talking about household problems, she'd see Travis's eyes glaze over, but with Leah asking about his beloved fields, horses, and blacksmith shop, Travis was practically on the edge of his seat.

"In the morning," Travis was saying, "you can ride out with me and have a look at the tobacco."

"No," Nicole said softly. "Tomorrow Leah goes home with me. I have been away too long and it's time we dressed her."

"She looks dressed to me," Travis said appreciatively, looking at the low-cut muslin gown Leah wore.

"Travis," Regan warned, ready to tell him what she thought of his ogling of Leah.

Nicole laughed and prevented the impending quarrel. "No, Leah must go with me. The fabrics I ordered have come at last and my seamstress is there. Also, I'll start teaching her how to manage a plantation.

She can start on someplace small before tackling this monster of yours, Travis."

After a frown, Travis smiled, then took Leah's hand and kissed it. "I'm going to miss your pretty face around here but Clay'll take care of you."

Later Regan walked with Leah to Wes's bedroom. "Nicole has an army of French craftsmen at her place. She and Clay went back to France last summer and returned with people Nicole had known when she lived there. Her dressmaker used to work for the queen. Now sleep well because you'll leave early in the morning. Good night."

Leah removed her dress, an altered one of Nicole's, put on a clean nightgown, and slipped into bed. It was July now, she thought. There was all the winter to go and then spring before Wesley would return to her. Touching her clean, soft hair, she knew she looked very different, and she prayed that she'd please him when he returned. More than anything, she wanted to please him. "I will be the best wife in the world to you," she whispered and fell asleep smiling.

In the morning before it was even light, Nicole and Leah were escorted by Travis to the dock. In the five months that she'd been there, Leah had barely seen the plantation except from her window, because she'd always been inside with Regan and Nicole, practicing her walk, her grammar, her table manners, how to sit, how to stand, whatever ordeal could be imagined for her.

At the dock, Travis bent and kissed her cheek, and touching the place, Leah looked up at him in wonder. "We'll miss you," he called as a man helped Leah into the waiting sloop.

Smiling, she waved to them until they sailed out of sight. How heavenly, she thought, how warm and kind and loving everything was. For moments she could almost forget what it was like to be angry twenty-four hours a day.

She turned to Nicole, who was watching her. "If Wesley were here it'd be perfect," Leah said laughing, hugging herself.

"I hope you're right," Nicole murmured, mostly to herself, before looking away.

Chapter 4.

At the dock of Arundel Plantation waiting to greet Nicole were identical twin boys, six years old, and two beautiful seventeen-year-old twins who were introduced as Alex and Amanda. Clay waited impatiently while everyone else hugged his wife, then he swept her into his arms for an embarrassingly passionate kiss, after which they walked away, each holding one of the boys' hands and looking into each other's eyes.

"They're always like that," Alex said half in disgust.

"They're in love, you idiot," Amanda snapped before turning to Leah. "Would you like to see the cloth that came in? Uncle Clay says it's for you."

"I have better things to do, so if you ladies will excuse me," Alex said as he mounted a beautiful roan horse and rode away.

"We don't need him anyway," Amanda said. "Come on, we have to hurry. Madame Gisele is awful when she's kept waiting. If she bullies you too much, just threaten to send her back to France. It makes her keep quiet for a few minutes at least," Amanda confided.

As Leah and Amanda walked together, Amanda chattering away, Leah was watching the early morning bustle going on about her as people went in and out of what seemed to be hundreds of buildings. Leah asked questions.

"The overseer's cottage, workers' quarters, ice house, the stables through there, the kitchen," were Amanda's answers. "She's upstairs waiting for us." Amanda led Leah through an octagonal porch at the back of a big brick house, up some beautiful stairs, past tables covered with freshly cut flowers.

"MomI mean Nicolelikes lots of flowers. Here we are, Madame," Amanda said politely to a tiny little woman with a big nose and fierce black eyes.

"You have taken your time," Madame Gisele said in such an odd way that Leah didn't quite understand her.

"It's her accent," Amanda whispered. "Took me awhile too."

"Out!" Madame commanded. "We have work to do and you are in the way."

"Yes, of course," Amanda said, laughing as she curtsied before leaving the room.

"Insolent girl!" Madame snapped, but there was affection in her voice. Then her eyes were on Leah, walking around her, examining her.

"Yes, yes, a good figure, a bit large in the bosom but your husband likes that, no?"

Leah smiled, turned red, and began to study the wallpaper of the attic room.

"Come, come, don't stand there. There's work to be done. Show me what you like so we can begin."

She motioned toward shelves along one wall that were loaded with bolts and rolls of fabric.

Leah stuck out her finger to touch a piece of deep blue velvet. "I* I don't know," Leah said. "I like everything. Nicole and Regan usually."

"Ah!" Madame Gisele cut her off. "Madame Regan is not here and Nicole is no doubt in the throes of passion with that magnificent man of hers and she will be of no use for days. So! Now you must learn to rely on yourself. Stand up straight! No dress will ever hang properly if your shoulders droop so. Have some pride in yourself. You are a beautiful woman, you have a rich, handsome husband who will return to you soon and now we will dress you splendidly. You have much to be proud of so show it!"

Yes, Leah thought, she is perfectly correct. I do have a lot to be proud of. She turned toward the fabric. "I like this," she said, touching a rust-colored velvet.

"Good! And what else?"

"This and this and* this one."

Madame Gisele stood back for a moment, looked up at Leah, then gave a short laugh. "You may look frightened but you're afraid of no one. True, no?"