Nobody's Angel (27 page)

Steaming pots of rice and red beans, greens flavored with bacon grease, spoonbread, spicy sausages, caramelized yams, crawfish, catfish, flounder, and crab joined such staples as baked chicken and dumplings, ham, corn- bread, stewed tomatoes, black-eyed peas, mock oysters, and sweet potato pie. Every member of her family left the table groaningly replete at every meal. Everyone, that is, except Susannah herself. She could scarcely eat more than a few mouthfuls at a time. The hollows beneath her cheekbones and the new prominence of her collarbone might have pleased her had she been in any condition to notice.

The Haskinses' party was to be held on the coming Friday evening, and Mandy was to attend with Susannah as her chaperone. Susannah, for all that she and Mandy were not on the best of terms, was busy two days before sewing her sister's gown. For years she had fashioned the best of their garments, because dressmaking, like cooking, was a skill at which she excelled. This particular dress was to be fashioned of the green silk Mandy had purchased in town and made to a design that Mandy had discovered on a fashion plate and coveted—fitted through the elongated bodice, with the newly fashionable pagoda sleeves, which were tight to the elbows and then flared to end in frills of lace above the wrist. The skirt, which was full and sweeping, was made to be worn over panniers, and for all Susannah's present annoyance with Mandy she was fashioning this most important dress with painstaking care. She and Mandy might be at odds, but she still wished for her sister to be the loveliest young lady present.

Susannah had only to make a few minor adjustments to sleeves and waist, add the dark green velvet bows that she meant to use for adornment, hem, and press it, and the dress would be done. When Mandy, followed by the faithful Em, came in from gathering the eggs Susannah meant to use in a custard pie for supper, Susannah sent her up to her room to change into the new dress, then bade her return to the kitchen for the final fitting. Mandy, nothing loath to oblige her sister in this instance, did as she was told.

All four girls were in the kitchen when Ian strode in the back door. For a moment, he stopped at the sight that greeted him. As his gaze ran over the young women, his eyes narrowed. Susannah supposed the four of them made quite a tableau. Mandy, the centerpiece, stood on a small stool. Clad in the new dress, with her auburn hair tousled and excited roses in her cheeks, she was beautiful. Susannah, her mouth full of pins, knelt at Mandy's feet, carefully marking the hem. Em, frowning with concentration, held a strip of the same silk of which the gown was fashioned against Mandy's curls. Susannah felt a bow matching the dress would look best in Mandy's hair, while Mandy and Em favored a cunning lace frill. Sarah Jane stood by Mandy's side, frowning as she pinched the material tighter at the waist.

Mandy beamed at Ian and held her arms out away from her sides to invite his attention to the dress.

"Isn't it beautiful?" she asked rapturously.

"Beautiful," he replied. "But no more beautiful than its wearer."

"You are such a flatterer," Mandy said, dimpling, and shot him a glance of unbridled adoration. On the floor, Susannah nearly swallowed a mouthful of pins. Sarah Jane did her one better: she glared at the intruder. Em, aware of the tension in the room but not exactly sure of the cause, giggled.

"Did you want something, Connelly?" Sarah Jane asked brusquely, thrusting a pin through the loose material at Mandy's waist so carelessly that Mandy yelped and jumped.

"Yes, Miss Sarah Jane, I did." He moved toward the girls, looking Mandy over critically. "If you wish to be completely fashionable, I would suggest making the panniers a little wider. When I last was in London, they were wearing them so wide that ladies could rest their elbows on their skirts."

"As that was some time ago, doubtless our fashion plates are at least as up-to-date as your memory." Finished with the hem, Susannah spat the pins into her hand, then spoke without so much as looking at Ian. The taut- ness of her voice brought a protective frown to Sarah Jane's face, while Em and Mandy, oblivious of everything save fashion for the moment, frowned down at the maligned skirt. "If Sarah Jane's finished, you can step down, Mandy."

Sarah Jane nodded, though her eyes were fixed on Ian. "Are you going to tell us what you wanted?"

At practically the same time, Mandy gave a little shriek. "I can't move! I'm too full of pins!"

"Allow me to assist you, ma'am," Ian said, and moved forward to catch Mandy under the arms and swing her down. Mandy's hands flew to his shoulders; when he set her down she was laughing. They were standing close together, so close that the new green skirt billowed over the lower part of Ian's legs, and Mandy gazed up into his eyes with a dazzling smile. He was smiling too, lazily, as he looked down at her. For a moment they stayed as they were, his hands on her waist, her hands on his shoulders, while the other three Redmon girls stared. Mandy's fragile auburn-haired beauty was the perfect foil for Ian's tall, black-visaged handsomeness. Together they were breathtaking.

Susannah felt her stomach clench and anger heat the blood in her veins.

"Mandy!" she said sharply, even as Sarah Jane said, "Connelly!"

Both looked around. Mandy smiled smugly. Ian raised his brows.

"What did you want?" Sarah Jane spoke first, her words sharp. Ian smiled at her, a mocking smile that told Susannah that he was quite well aware of the reason behind Sarah Jane's sudden coldness toward him. He dropped his hands from Mandy's waist and turned away to address himself to Susannah.

"That big sow of yours broke through the fence. She's haring off through the fields with her young ones after her." There was a certain malicious undertone to his voice that told Susannah that he relished bringing her such calamitous news and had deliberately waited as long as he could to deliver it, too.

"What! Miss Isolda?" Susannah clambered to her feet, her eyes wide with mixed annoyance and alarm. "Why didn't you tell me sooner? She's probably halfway to town by now!"

But she didn t wait for his answer, which of course could have provided a far different picture from the half truth he had told her about the sow just to vex her. Picking up her skirts, which fortunately were old (though that consideration for them never even entered her head), and quite forgetting her bonnet, she ran out the back door toward the barn to see if she could get a glimpse of the escapees.

When Susannah caught sight of the sow, she didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Stopping on the rise just past the barn, she stood for a moment, huffing and puffing from the speed of her pursuit. Fortunately, Miss Isolda and her piglets hadn't gone far. Unfortunately, they'd been stopped by the scent emanating from the pieces of sweet potatoes that had just been planted in the west field. Six little pigs and a very large sow were spread out over the field, their noses busily scooping tubers from the dirt as they gobbled down what they considered a delicacy.

"Oh, no! Sooo-ey! Pig, pig, pig!" But under the circumstances, calling them proved useless, as Susannah had feared it would. Miss Isolda looked around, fat pink snout quivering, droopy black ears twitching, and regarded her with beady black eyes that were bright with intelligence. With a grunt, she returned to her rooting.

There was nothing for it but to get a rope, catch Miss Isolda, and drag her back to her pen. Her piglets would follow her, Susannah hoped.

"I put up a board so the rest of them couldn't get out," Ian said behind her. "She's the one who broke through."

"What did you do, just stand there and watch?" Susannah asked nastily, whirling to glare at him. Without waiting for his reply, she stalked off to the barn and returned with a rope.

When she returned, Sarah Jane, Mandy, and Em had joined Ian on the rise.

"Good. I'm going to need all the help I can get," Susannah greeted them grimly. Sarah Jane, who had always been somewhat afraid of the hogs, nodded, her expression resolute but a little nervous. Em grinned. Mandy looked appalled.

"But I can't! Truly! Look, I'm wearing my new dress!"

It was true. Mandy was still wearing the green silk dress. Susannah acknowledged the fact with a grimace.

"Stay here, then." Susannah started down the rise, with Sarah Jane and Em following. Ian, the swine, stayed with Mandy, his arms folded over his chest and a kind of smile playing about his mouth that told Susannah he expected to be amused. That he was her bound man and that she could order him to help her, or even to catch the pigs himself, occurred to Susannah, only to be immediately dismissed. From the moment she had bought him, Ian Connelly had done precisely what he wished to do and nothing more. If she ordered him to help her, he would laugh in her face.

At least burning rage was a good antidote to pain.

"Sooo-ey! Pig, pig, pig!"

All three girls called the pigs, who seemed scarcely aware of the humans who were descending on them with varying degrees of resolution. At least they seemed unaware until one of the girls got close. Then the pig under pursuit would trot some distance away and commence his rooting again.

"Miss Isolda! Pig, pig, pig!" Susannah said coaxingly as she approached the huge sow, rope in hand. Miss Isolda's back reached nearly to the top of Susannah's thighs, and she must have weighed somewhere in the neighborhood of six hundred pounds. But she was a gentle creature, with a fondness for having a spot behind one floppy black ear rubbed or her back scratched. She was white with large areas of black and managed to keep herself surprisingly clean, considering that her favorite method of bathing was a lolling roll in the mud.

Susannah had already fashioned a loop in one end of the rope and needed only to drop it over the sow's neck. Which, of course, was easier said than done. In her favor was the fact that she had raised Miss Isolda from a piglet smaller than her own half-grown piglets were now. Against her worked the sow's intelligence—and greed.

The third time Miss Isolda trotted away from her dangling snare, Susannah had to stop herself from stomping her feet. It was blazing hot, the glaring sun was making her head ache, two of her sisters were stumbling around in the dirt as futilely as she was herself, and her third sister was standing up on a hill with their bound man, flirting madly while the pair of them snickered at the goings-on in the field below. The thought of Ian's amusement should she give way to temper was what kept Susannah from doing it. She would catch Miss Isolda and remain outwardly calm while doing it, or die in the attempt.

Susannah decided to use the sow's greed as a weapon. Bending, she burrowed in the hot, crumbling soil until her fingers encountered a tuber. Drawing it out, she held it in her hand as she approached the sow. "Pig, pig, pig!"

Miss Isolda was barely interested—until she saw the tuber. Then her round little eyes brightened, and she sniffed the air. Her pink snout quivered.

"Pig, pig, pig!" Susannah repeated encouragingly, holding out the tuber in her left hand while her right readied the loop. Approaching the sow, she leaned down.

Miss Isolda lunged for the root. Susannah squeaked in sheer surprise at her speed and dropped the coveted delicacy. The sow's head went down, Susannah's hand holding the loop snapped up—and somehow or another the sow was caught.

"Hooray!" The cheer came from Em. Looking around, Susannah grinned triumphantly at her and Sarah Jane, who seemed to slump with relief.

"Come help me lead her out," Susannah called. Even as Sarah Jane and Em moved to comply, trudging over the uneven rows, Susannah glanced over her shoulder to see what Mandy and the human swine made of her success.

Mandy and Ian stood facing each other. Mandy had her hands on Ian's shoulders. Ian was holding her waist. As Susannah watched, Mandy stood on tiptoe to plant a kiss on Ian's smiling mouth. Even from that distance, Susannah could feel the heat that shimmered in the air around the too-beautiful pair.

At first she didn't believe what she'd seen. Then she did believe. Jealousy so hot and fierce that it could have melted stone exploded through her veins.

26

It took perhaps half an hour to drag and coax Miss Isolda back to her pen. Her piglets followed, just as Susannah had hoped they would. Ian had wedged a discarded door into the hole the sow had made in the fence, and with the part of her mind that was still capable of reasonable thought Susannah acknowledged Ian's presence of mind in taking quick action to keep the rest of the hogs in. With the larger portion of her brain, she went over and over the scene that had just played out on the hill. Every time she recalled Mandy going up on tiptoe to press her lips to Ian's, she wanted to kill.

Once Miss Isolda and her piglets were safely penned, Susannah sought out Mandy, who had followed the triumphant pig-chasers and now stood some little distance away observing the pigs' return to everyday life. Ian stood beside her, a half-grin quirking his mouth as he ran his eyes over Susannah's sweat-and dirt-streaked person.

"Always so elegant," he murmured, apparently to no one in particular.

Susannah's blood boiled anew. She hated him, fiercely, savagely, hated him so much in that moment that she would have laughed had God sent a lightning bolt down from heaven to smite him dead. But she kept her rage under tight rein for fear he would guess the full extent of it—and its cause.

"Amanda," she said in a dangerously quiet voice, shifting her eyes to her smiling little sister, "go back to the house."

Mandy's eyes met hers and widened. Her smile faltered, and she opened her mouth as if she would argue, apparently thought better of it, and closed it again. With a sidelong glance at Ian, she did as she was bid, deliberate allure in every line of her lithe figure as she carefully lifted her hem clear of the grass and swayed toward the house.

Unfortunately for her efforts, Ian's eyes never moved from Susannah's face.

When Mandy was out of earshot, Susannah focused entirely on Ian. He was not smiling now, nor frowning either, but just looking down at her from his great height with an expression she could not decipher. The bright afternoon sun lent reddish glints to his black hair; it lightened his gray eyes to a shade near silver; it cast the classical beauty of his features into high relief, including the sensual curve of his mouth.