Midnight Rose by Patricia Hagan Read Free Book Online Page B

fine children. He knew nothing about Erin’s background. In fact, the only thing he did know about her was that she set him on fire, and he had to have her, damn it.
    “You aren’t listening to a word I’ve said!”
    Keith’s sharp, indignant cry brought him out of his reverie, and he glanced at him, shook his head, and admitted, “I’m sorry. What did you say?”
    “I was asking,” Keith said, “whether you thought Christmas would be too soon for me to marry Mary Susan, because I thought it’d be nice if we made it a double wedding with you and Ermine.”
    “That sounds fine,” he said, though he didn’t know what he really thought, because he just wasn’t concerned with Keith and his problems. What he wanted to concentrate on was how to approach Erin. Hell, as eager as her mother was to find her a husband, he couldn’t just go charging over there and knock on the door as if he were commencing to court her officially. There had to be another way, a way to get the message across to Erin, who certainly had left the impression she was interested in anything but matrimony. That left only the position of mistress. She was smart. She’d catch on quickly—if he could just get to her.
    Keith, watching him with narrowed, suspicious eyes, finally accused, “You’re thinking about Erin Sterling, aren’t you?” Without giving him a chance to confirm or deny, he continued, “Now’s as good a time as any for me to tell you I think you should know people are talking. In church this morning, I overheard several of the women talking about that dance you were doing last night, though the criticism was more with whom you were doing it with.”
    Regarding him coolly, Ryan said, “She happens to be gorgeous, Keith, in case you were blind to everyone but Mary Susan. And she certainly can’t help who her stepfather is. Tell me, what do you know about her? I mean, where did her mother come from? What’s her family background?”
    “Oh, I don’t know,” Keith replied with an absent wave. He wanted to talk about Mary Susan, not some brazen female who’d dare go where she wasn’t invited. “Not from around here. South Carolina, I think I heard someone say a long time ago.”
    “Well, I’ve never heard much about Zachary Tremayne, but you seem to know a lot, from what you were saying last night, implying he’s into illegal slave trading.”
    “You’ve been away. He only got involved after America made it illegal, like I told you. Up till then he was just a rich plantation owner with no class or background and was just ignored. Still is. The same for his wife. Arlene, her name is. A very sweet woman. I know her from church, and when Lareina died, she was very kind, came to visit and brought me food long after everyone else had gone back to their own affairs and was no longer concerned with my grief. But none of that matters when it comes to being accepted socially, Ryan. You know that. So, get Erin off your mind. She’s pretty, but she’s not our kind.”
    “Depends on what I’ve got in mind for her.”
    “And that would be?” Keith raised an eyebrow.
    “As you said yourself,” Ryan gave a lazy grin, “maybe they should have presentation balls for potential mistresses…and maybe we actually went to one last night.”
    Keith joined him with a smirk of his own. “I’m beginning to understand.”
    “Good. So tell me. Does Erin go anywhere that I might be able to run into her so it looks like a chance meeting?” He related his fears of calling formally, lest her mother jump to conclusions.
    Keith obliged by telling him he’d seen Erin riding by the mill stream that fed into the James River at the southeast corner of the Tremayne plantation. “Before Tremayne won that adjoining tract in a poker game, which, I heard, he cheated to win, Pete Dabnem owned it, had a grist house there for grinding corn. Tremayne shut it down, ran everybody off, posted signs. I used to like to fish there, but he’s such a