Morgan's Child (7 page)

"The first ferry for the island leaves the inlet at seven."

"Too early. We'll catch the nine o'clock. There
is
a nine o'clock?"

"Nine-fifteen," Kate said weakly.

"I'll pick you up at eight so we won't have to rush. Thanks, Jo. Kate, be ready when I get here. I don't like to wait."

With that he was out the door, his sheer energy propelling him along, his muscles rippling beneath the expensively tailored shirt. From her position on the piazza, Kate saw him tousle the small gate-swinger's hair on the way.

Joanna smiled. There was something genuine and good-natured about her, and Kate liked her immediately. "Don't worry," Joanna said, "Morgan's always like that. In a hurry, I mean."

She picked up the small girl who clung to her hem. "This is Melissa, age three. That's Christopher hanging on the gate. And that," she said dramatically as a wail filled the air, "is Stoney. He's the baby. Don't look so alarmed, he's named Stonewall Jackson Dumont."

"Stonewall Jackson?" Kate repeated, trying to center her attention on matters at hand.

"Actually, he's Stonewall Jackson Dumont the Sixth. There's always been a Stonewall Jackson in my husband's family. They're named after the Civil War general who died after the Battle of Chancellorsville. Awful name, isn't it? Fortunately, the nicknames are passably cute. Come along, I expect you'll want to use the bathroom. I never dared to get more than a few feet away from one when I was pregnant." Like Morgan, Joanna spoke with a proper Charlestonian accent full of broad
As,
as in
The cahf went down the pahth in an hour and a hahf.

Kate followed her into the house, a cool oasis after the heat and humidity outside. Joanna scooped the baby up from his cradle near the door and continued up the stairs past framed countenances of what Kate assumed were Rhett and Dumont ancestors.

"Charlie, my husband, is out of town on business," Joanna said over one shoulder. The baby hung over the other shoulder. He spotted Kate treading heavily behind his mother and smiled a wobbly smile. He had so few teeth that he looked like a jack o'lantern.

"This is your room," Joanna said, throwing open the door on a pink-and-green floral fantasy at the head of the stairs. "There's an adjoining bath through there," she said, indicating a door. "Morgan said that you've recently eaten?" She turned questioning eyes on Kate.

"Yes," Kate said. At the sight of the bed, so inviting, she suddenly felt exhausted.

"Well, the kids and I have had an early supper, and it's almost bath time. I'll bathe them downstairs and put them to bed. I noticed that you didn't bring a suitcase, but I have maternity clothes you can have. I'll bring them up later."

"Oh, I couldn't—" Kate began, but Joanna waved away her objections.

"You can keep them. They've seen me through three pregnancies, and Charlie and I won't have any more kids."

"Thank you," Kate said. The words sounded so inadequate, and she felt so tired. Her eyelids drooped with weariness.

"I guess that's about it, so I'm off to fill the tub. 'Bye, Kate," and with that Joanna breezed out the door, shutting it gently behind her.

Kate sank down on the bed. The room was blissfully quiet, and the wide-louvered plantation shutters were closed. She reached out a tentative hand and smoothed the bedspread, which felt soft and cool to the touch.

She got up, went into the bathroom, plaited her hair into one long braid and tied it with a length of thread ripped from her hem. Then, after removing her dress, she climbed between the silky eyelet-edged sheets.

She felt the baby flutter gently against the skin of her abdomen and laid a protective hand there until it settled down.

Oh, baby, Joanna is your aunt. Wouldn't it be nice if
—

Yes, it would be nice. It would also be nice if Kate had never found herself in this predicament in the first place.

* * *

Joanna and the children were already in the kitchen the next morning when Kate limped downstairs, her heels smarting from yesterday's new blisters. She was wearing a blue chambray jumper chosen from the pile of clothes that Joanna had left in her room last night while Kate was sleeping.

"Good morning," Joanna said to Kate as she whisked around the kitchen, opening and closing the refrigerator door, pouring more milk for Christopher, mopping up Melissa's orange juice. The faint sugary smell of Fruit Loops hung in the air, and the children, sitting at a table in the window bay, were dressed in clean cotton play-suits.

"Bacon? Eggs?" Joanna asked.

"I can fix my own breakfast." Kate didn't want Joanna to go to any fuss on her account.

"I've already broken eggs into a bowl for scrambled," Joanna said. "It's no trouble to add a couple more. Maybe you could see to Stoney. He's fretful this morning."

The baby was bundled into a swing near the dining-room door. The swing was kicking back and forth on its own. Kate used the opportunity to peek into the dining room, where she saw a long sideboard, big gold-framed paintings of horses and highly polished silver things like soup tureens and goblets.

"What should I do for the baby?" Kate asked.

"Oh, hold him for a while. I'll feed him in a few minutes," Joanna said confidently as she emptied the eggs into a frying pan.

Kate approached Stoney. He stared up at her with suspicion. She wondered how old he was. Three months? Six? She had no idea. She knew nothing about babies.

Gingerly she slid her hands underneath him. He drooped like a beanbag when she lifted him up. His foot caught on the bar of the swing as he came out, and she had to wiggle him to free it. To her surprise, he smiled.

She smiled back. She couldn't remember ever holding a baby before. There had never been any around when she was growing up, and later, when her friends and classmates had started having children, she'd always managed not to have to touch them. And here she was, jiggling this mindless lump of cute. She thought she had never felt as helpless as she did at this moment.

"What's your name?" asked Christopher.

Kate looked around. "Kate," she said.

"Kate. Okay. Are you going to stay here today? Would you like to see my bug collection?"

Ah, a man after her own heart. Kate would rather spend time with a bug collection than she would with this baby, who was drooling down the front of her jumper. "I'd love to see your bug collection," she told Christopher. She felt Stoney's diaper. Did it feel slightly damp?

Stoney began to whimper. Kate jostled him against her shoulder some more, but it didn't help.

"Here, I know what he wants. Can you handle the eggs?" asked Joanna.

"Sure," Kate said, gratefully dumping the baby into Joanna's arms. She appropriated the frying pan and stirred. At least she knew how to scramble eggs.

When she next looked up, she saw Joanna nonchalantly unbuttoning her blouse. The sight riveted her. Yes, she knew that mothers nursed their babies. Yes, she thought it was the proper thing to do. And no, she hadn't ever actually watched anyone do it before.

Joanna settled into a rocking chair in the corner. Kate locked her eyes on the eggs in the frying pan, too embarrassed to look up again. The other children continued to eat, chattering about childish things.

When the eggs were done, when Kate couldn't go on scrambling them anymore, she saw that the baby had latched its mouth onto Joanna's right breast and was sucking away, a blissful expression on his face. Kate heard contented little kitten noises coming from deep in the back of his throat.

"The bacon's on the table," Joanna said. "Go ahead and eat without me. I can warm my eggs in the microwave later." Absently she caressed Stoney's soft hair, and when she stopped, the baby's little fist reached up and curled around one of her fingers. Kate could hardly pull her eyes away from mother and child.

What did it feel like to nurse a baby? What exactly was the sensation of a tiny mouth tugging insistently at the nipple? How long did they nurse, and how did you know when they'd had their fill? Suppose
she
wanted to nurse—of course she wouldn't, but supposing she did—would her nipples be big enough?

Kate ate her eggs, but she didn't taste them. In a while Joanna matter-of-factly switched the baby to her other breast, closing her eyes and rocking gently as his mouth worked at its task. She looked as contented as her baby.

"When will you have your baby?" Christopher asked Kate.

"In July," Kate said.

Joanna's eyes flew open. "Stop asking Kate questions," she ordered.

"I expect Kate's baby will like bugs. One child in every family should," Christopher said solemnly.

Joanna laughed. "I'm not so sure about that. I've had about all I can take of those fuzzy caterpillars you plucked off the Davidsons' hedge," she said. She bestowed a quick kiss on the top of Stoney's head. "This little critter has had enough this morning," she said as she buttoned her blouse.

The baby opened his eyes, then closed them again. Kate felt a tug of—what? Yearning? Considering the way her breasts ached, that was too mild a word. She didn't say anything as she stood up and pushed her chair under the table.

At that moment a shadow fell across the floor, and she wheeled to see Morgan Rhett standing in the doorway blocking the sun.

"Good morning," he said, opening the door and leaning inside. He looked Kate over appreciatively as Christopher whooped and tackled him around the knees. "Are you ready, Kate?"

"I will be in a minute," she said. "I have to get my things."

"Take your time," Morgan said. "I like visiting with my sister."

He pulled a chair away from the table and straddled it. Kate, feeling more ungainly than ever, felt her skirt brush his knees as she passed.

As Kate gathered her things from the guest room, she thought about Morgan and the way he had fit so naturally into the domestic scene downstairs in the kitchen. He seemed very different from the buttoned-down, tight-lipped man she had confronted in his office yesterday. He seemed—well, kind.

It struck her suddenly that perhaps this bit of kindness and caring was all that she would ever get from Morgan Rhett. After today, depending on what he decided about the baby, she might never see him again.

Reality pierced through her like a knife. This baby—Courtney and Morgan's baby—deserved a life in a place such as this peaceful house on Tradd Street. It was clearly an existence of privilege and comfort. Christopher and Melissa and Stoney were her baby's
cousins.
Because of who they were, they would have a happy and secure childhood and lives full of promise.

I want that for you,
she said fiercely to the baby.
You deserve it, and I'm going to fight for it the best way I know how.

She glanced in the mirror and was shocked to see how ferocious she looked. That, she supposed, was only natural. In a dispassionate way she thought about animal mothers in the wild and how they fought to the death to protect their young. This might not be her child; it was Morgan's child. But because of the physiological changes that had taken place in her body, she reacted as if it were her child, and in fact, for practical purposes, she was the only mother it had.

However, she'd have to remember to catch this particular fly with honey. With Morgan Rhett, vinegar would simply not do the job.

When Kate returned to the kitchen, a deliberately sweet smile unfurled across her face, Morgan paused in his conversation with the group gathered around him. He answered Kate's smile with a slow, lazy grin of his own so that her smile immediately became genuine in response. And in that moment something about the way he looked at her made Kate catch her breath.

It was ridiculous to take note of it, since she was always short of breath these days. Still, the dust motes suspended in the air between them might have been unspoken thoughts, and the balm of sunshine across Morgan's hair might have been a blessing.

She forced herself to turn away from him and said polite but sincere thank-yous and goodbyes to Joanna.

I must be out of my mind,
Kate thought to herself as she preceded Morgan out the door.
I have no business getting romantically interested in Morgan Rhett.

It wasn't as if he'd return her interest. To him she was just another problem to solve, another person to be reckoned with, perhaps a deal to be made.

When he held the car door for her, she swept past him, head held high. There was no reason to look in his eyes. In fact, there was every reason to keep her emotional distance.

And the main reason was right at this minute turning flips somewhere below her displaced navel, reminding her exactly why she happened to be with Morgan Rhett in the first place.

Chapter 4