"Don't you talk to me 'bout gratitude. I spent years keepin' you out of Miz Weston's sight. And every time she caught you and locked you in that closet, it was me who let you out. I took a whippin' for you. So I don't want to hear anything about gratitude. You're a noose around my neck. Suffocating me. Cutting off my life's breath. If it wasn't for you-"

Abruptly Sophronia broke off as she heard footsteps approaching outside the door. Mrs. Simmons appeared and announced that Cain was waiting below to take Kit to the school he'd chosen.

Just like that, the two combatants found themselves locked in each other's arms. Finally Kit pulled away, picked up her ugly, gravy-boat hat, and walked to the door. "You be careful, hear?" she whispered.

"You mind yourself at that fancy school," Sophronia whispered back.

"I will."

Sophronia's eyes clouded with tears. "We'll be seeing each other again before you know it."

Part Two

A Templeton Girl

5

The Templeton Academy for Young Ladies sat on Fifth Avenue like a great gray stone whale. Hamilton Woodward, Cain's attorney, had recommended it. Although the school didn't normally take girls as old as Kit, Elvira Templeton had made an exception for the Hero of Missionary Ridge.

Kit stood hesitantly on the threshold of the third-floor room she'd been assigned and studied the five girls wearing identical navy blue dresses with white collars and cuffs. They were clustered around the room's only window to gaze down at the street. It didn't take her long to figure out what they were staring at.

"Oh, Elsbeth, isn't he the handsomest man you ever saw?"

The girl identified as Elsbeth sighed. She had crisp, brown curls and a pretty, fresh face. "Imagine. He was right here in the Academy, and none of us were allowed to go downstairs. It's so unfair!" And then, with a giggle: "My father says he's not really a gentleman."

More giggles.

A beautiful, blond-haired girl who reminded Kit of Dora Van Ness spoke up. "Madame Riccardi, the opera singer, went into a decline when he told her he was moving to South Carolina. Everybody's heard about it. She's his mistress, you know."

"Lilith Shelton!" The girls were deliriously horrified, and Lilith regarded them disdainfully.

"You're all such innocents. A man as sophisticated as Baron Cain has dozens of mistresses."

"Remember what we decided," another girl said. "Even if she is his ward, she's a Southerner, so we all have to hate her."

Kit had heard enough. "If that means I won't ever have to talk to you silly bitches, that's just fine with me."

The girls spun around and gasped. Kit felt their eyes taking in her ugly dress and awful hat. One more-item to add to the ledger of hatred she was keeping against Cain. "Get out of here! All of you. And if I catch any of you in here again, I'll kick your skinny asses straight to hell!"

The girls fled the room with horrified shrieks. All but one. The girl they'd called Elsbeth. She stood trembling and terrified, her eyes wide as teacups, her pretty lips trembling.

"Are you deaf or something? I told you to get out."

"I… I c-can't."

"Why the hell not?"

"I… I live here."

"Oh." For the first time, Kit noticed the room had two beds.

The girl was sweet-faced, one of those people with a naturally kind disposition, and Kit couldn't find it in her heart to bully her. At the same time, she was the enemy. "You'll have to move."

"Mrs… Mrs. Templeton won't let me. I-I already asked."

Kit cursed, yanked up her skirts, and sank down on the bed. "How come you were lucky enough to get me?"

"My-my father. He's Mr. Cain's attorney. I'm Elisabeth Woodward."

"I'd say I was pleased to make your acquaintance, but both of us know it'd be a lie."

"I'd… I'd better go."

"You do that."

Elsbeth scampered from the room. Kit lay back on the pillow and tried to figure out how she was going to survive the next three years.

The Templeton Academy used a system of demerits to maintain order. For every ten demerits a girl acquired, she was confined to her room all day Saturday. By the end of her first day, Kit had accumulated eighty-three. (Taking the Lord's name in vain was automatically ten.) By the end of her first week, she'd lost count.

Mrs. Templeton called Kit into her office and threatened her with expulsion if she didn't start following all the rules. Kit had to participate in her classes. She'd been given two uniforms, and she was to start wearing them at once. Her grammar must improve immediately. Ladies didn't say "ain't" or "I reckon." Ladies referred to objects as "unimportant," not "useless as toad spit." And most of all, ladies didn't curse.

Kit remained stoic during the interview, but inside, she was panicky. If the old biddy expelled her, Kit would have broken her agreement with Cain and lost Risen Glory forever.

She vowed to hold onto her temper, but as the days passed, it grew more and more difficult. She was three years older than her classmates, but she knew less than any of them. They snickered at her cropped hair behind her back and giggled when she caught her skirts on a chair. One day the pages of her French book were glued together. Another day her nightgown was tied in knots. She'd gone through life with her fists swinging, and now her future depended on keeping her temper. Instead of retaliating, she collected the insults and stored them away to reexamine late at night as she lay in bed. Someday she'd make Baron Cain pay for every slur.

Elsbeth continued to behave like a frightened mouse whenever she was around Kit. Although she refused to join in Kit's persecution, she was too timid to make the other girls stop, Still, her kind heart couldn't ignore the injustices, especially as she grew to realize that Kit wasn't as ferocious as she seemed.

"It's hopeless," Kit confessed to her one night after she'd tripped over the skirt of her uniform in dance class and sent a Chinese vase crashing from a pedestal. "I'll never learn to dance. I talk too loud, I hate wearing skirts, the only musical instrument I can play is a jew's harp, and I can't look at Lilith Shelton without cussing."

Elsbeth's teacup eyes rounded in worry. "You have to be nicer to her. Lilith is the most popular girl in school."

"And the nastiest."

"I'm sure she doesn't mean to be that way."

"I'm sure she does. You're so nice yourself, you don't recognize ugliness in other people. You don't even seem to be noticin' it in me, and I'm 'bout as bad as they come."

"You're not bad!"

"Yes, I am. But not as bad as all the mean-minded girls who go to this school. I reckon you're the only decent person here."

"That's not true," Elsbeth said earnestly. "Most of them are awfully nice if you just give them a chance. You're so ferocious that you scare them."

Kit's spirits lifted a little. "Thank you. Truth is, I don't know how I could scare anybody. I'm a failure at everything I've done here. I can't imagine how I'm gonna last three years."

"Father didn't tell me you had to stay so long. You'll be twenty-one. That's too old to be in school."

"I know, but I don't have any choice." Kit fidgeted with the gray woolen coverlet. Ordinarily she didn't believe in sharing confidences, but she was feeling lonelier than she could remember. "Did you ever love somethin' so much you'd do just about anything to keep it safe?"

"Oh, yes. My little sister, Agnes. She's not like other children. Even though she's almost ten, she can't read or write, but she's so sweet, and I'd never let anybody hurt her."

"Then you understand."

"Tell me, Kit. Tell me what's wrong."

And so Kit told her about Risen Glory. She described the fields and the house, talked about Sophronia and Eli, and tried to make Elsbeth see the way the trees changed color depending on the time of day.

Then she told her about Baron Cain. Not everything. Elsbeth would never understand her masquerade as a stable boy or the way she'd tried to kill him, let alone her offer to be his mistress. Still, she told her enough.

"He's evil, and I can't do anything about it. If I get expelled, he'll sell Risen Glory. And if I do manage to last three years here, I'll still have to wait till I'm twenty-three to get control of the money in my trust fund so I can buy it back. The longer I wait, the harder that's going to be."

"Isn't there any way you can use your money before then?"

"Only if I get married. Which I ain't."

Elsbeth was an attorney's daughter. "If you did marry, your husband would control your money. It's the way the law works. You couldn't spend it without his permission."

Kit shrugged, "it's ail academic. There's no man in the world I'd shackle myself to. Besides, I was raised all wrong to be a wife. Only thing I can do right is cook."

Elsbeth was sympathetic, but she was also practical. "That's why we're all here. To learn how to be proper wives. The girls from the Templeton Academy are known for making the most successful marriages in New York. That's part of what's so special about being a Templeton girl. Men come from all over the East to attend the graduation ball."

"It doesn't make any difference to me if they come from Paris, France. You'll never see me at any ball."

But Elsbeth had been struck with inspiration, and she wasn't paying attention. "All you have to do is find the right husband. Somebody who wants to make you happy. Then everything will be perfect. You won't be Mr. Cain's ward any longer, and you'll have your money."

"You're a real sweet girl, Elsbeth, but I've got to tell you that's the most ridiculous idea I ever heard. Getting married would just mean I'd be handing another man my money."