Just a Kiss Away by Jill Barnett Read Free Book Online

above the drawing room fireplace.
    Eulalie had studied the dress in the painting; she knew every flowing line, every glimmer of shot silk, every scrap of imported white lace. She’d had the best dressmaker in Charleston copy the gown for her and had taken an hour to get her hair just so. Small pearl earrings hung from her ears. Lovely little French kid slippers with Louis XV heels graced her feet, and the hem of her whispering gown allowed for the little pink and red beaded shoe rosettes to peek out as she glided across the room.
    She grabbed her skirts and lifted them so she could get another glimpse of her slippers. She wiggled her toes inside the shoes and watched the beads catch the lamplight in the room. The rosettes twinkled back at her like winks from the stars.
    A loud clatter rang up from the courtyard. She dropped the skirts in a flurry of lace flounces and ran to the shuttered windows, but she could barely see a thing through the narrow wooden slats. She tried to slide the shuttered doors open, but they jammed. All she could see through the small opening was the center of the massive courtyard. Between the dark of night and the carved post rails of the long verandah outside her room, she couldn’t make out a fool thing.
    Her heart pounded drumlike in her chest, and she ran to the large oval mirror that hung over her lingerie chest. She stared at her image, looking for flaws. She had to look perfect. This first impression was just too important.
    But something was wrong. She frowned at her reflection, trying to figure out what was missing. The cameo. She’d forgotten her mother’s cameo. Some more noise clattered up from below, and she rummaged through her jewelry case until she found the cameo. Quickly she pulled it off its wrinkled blue silk ribbon and threaded it through a brand-new piece of pearly white velvet ribbon. Holding it to her neck she took in her image again. Now everything was perfect. She bent her head slightly forward so she could tie the ribbon loosely at the back of her neck. Then she looked up at the reflection.
    The dark native face of a soldier appeared over her left shoulder. She opened her mouth to scream, but he placed the cold barrel of a gun at her head.
    And Eulalie LaRue, of the Belvedere LaRues, owners of Hickory House, Calhoun Industries, and Beechtree Farms, did the most ladylike thing she’d ever done. She fainted.

Chapter 4
     
    The splintered door of the crude hut flew open. Yellow morning light as bright as the Chicago fire flooded the doorway, momentarily blinding Sam, who was hunched in a dank corner of the grass hut. Aguinaldo’s men entered, a long, thick bamboo pole slung over their shoulders. Hanging from the pole was a lump of rough burlap that wiggled and snorted and squealed like a stockyard hog.
    With a solid thud the men dumped the bundle on the ground, then pulled out the pole and crossed the room, slamming and bolting the door in their wake. The bundle didn’t move for the longest time, as if being dropped had knocked it senseless. It regained its life swiftly, with more kicks and blows than a slum street fight. The bundle rolled, and the burlap peeled away, leaving that pink flower of the South sprawled in the middle of the now dim hut.
    Sam groaned. He was wrong. It had been senseless to begin with.
    He shook his head and stared at his hands, bound almost prayerlike. Praying wouldn’t help. She was here, following him like that proverbial black cloud. Her muttering brought his gaze up again. She looked ridiculous—a mumbling bundle of pink and white lace that tried to wiggle into a better position. He took a deep breath, half in irritation and half in resignation. God had a sense of humor, but he wondered why he seemed to be the brunt of it lately.
    He watched her maneuver, a pink flurry of scoots and shifts, into a sitting position, not an easy task with her bound hands and feet, and made worse by her miles of frilly female clothes. They rustled louder