LoverforRansom Read Online Free Page B

reflected in his stubbornness.
    She wondered if she’d said the wrong thing. “Mr. Byrne, if
you love your sister, help me help her.”
    His gaze darted from her to the closed door and back again.
    Cathleen sensed he was torn and her heart went out to
him—and also to the poor, angry child behind that door. She touched his arm.
“She’ll come out when she’s hungry. Trust me.”
    Tense muscles crackled beneath her fingertips.
    “You’ve seen this sort of behavior before?” he asked.
    “Sadly, yes.” And of course, she had seen it at Perkins
amongst the students. She’d never been the instructor who’d had to deal with it
though.
    He nodded as if he were resigning himself to the fact that
she knew best and Cathleen felt some of the tension ease out of her shoulders.
    “It might not happen tonight. But I assure you, by tomorrow,
she’ll come out of that room.”
    “For your sake, I hope she does,” he said, then turned on
his heel and bounded back down the stairs.
    After he disappeared from view, Cathleen clenched her fists.
She ground her teeth in frustration. She wouldn’t give up. Steeling herself,
she took a few steps toward the door. “Jenny, your supper is getting cold.”
    Nothing.
    “Your family is waiting for you.”
    “I’m not coming out.”
    Cathleen pursed her lips. She debated pounding on the door,
but decided it would only serve to alert the Byrnes. Instead, she paced over to
the tray and looked at the plate of fried chicken, delicious-smelling green
beans and mashed potatoes covered with gravy. Her stomach growled audibly.
    She couldn’t go down. Not yet.
    But if Jenny was going to be stubborn, this food didn’t need
to go to waste.
    * * * * *
    Disheartened, Cathleen lay awake in the giant four-poster
bed. She’d been blind most of her life and knew the sighted equated the loss of
vision with darkness. The blindness she’d known had been more akin to nothingness .
It wasn’t anything like the pervasive blackness that permeated this
monstrous house during the night.
    Wood popped and creaked as the house settled and cooled.
Insects seemed to drone and buzz far louder than was natural.
    Cathleen was a city girl, unaccustomed to country life. Her
earlier episode with the horse and wagon had exhibited that quite clearly to
everyone involved. Her face flamed with shame at the memory.
    In addition to the unfamiliar scents, sights and accents,
she just knew she’d never become comfortable with being waited on hand and foot
by the very men and women she’d striven to see freed. It didn’t make sense that
they would continue to remain in positions they’d been in before emancipation.
She’d seen an influx of many former slaves in the North, but not nearly so many
as she had imagined would flee their oppressors.
    Cathleen had never lived where servants were employed but
she’d encountered them at Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s home, and at the homes of
others who’d furthered the women’s movement. Those servants hadn’t been treated
any differently than she’d seen Mrs. Byrne treat hers. She’d even witnessed a
camaraderie between Ransom Byrne and little Charles she’d never perceived
between Northerners and their staff.
    She blew out a sigh and flipped onto her side, hoping sleep
would come. The bed was certainly comfortable enough, with its thick down
mattress and abundance of cool feather pillows that smelled like the clean
Tennessee outdoors. A stark contrast to Boston’s open air, which reeked of
closely quartered people, horse offal and burning coal, all mingled with the
fishy odors drifting from the harbor.
    Another scent lingered in the room that pleasantly overrode
all the rest. This was Byrne’s room and he’d left his unmistakable stamp on it.
    Cathleen’s impaired sight tended to intensify her other
senses—the decidedly masculine fragrances of spices, horses, leather, fresh
lumber and male musk all but assaulted her, reminding her with every breath of
the man who