The MacOaf’s face was above her. He was fanning her with her hat. She blinked against the sudden glare of light and the sudden horror of waking up to a face that belonged in a woman’s dreams, but instead had been foolishly given to a mule.
Her sense returned and she glanced down. Her jacket was gone and her shirtwaist and her corset cover were unbuttoned and lying open, even her corset laces were untied. She was almost all bare skin to the waist.
Her mouth fell open. In a rush, she looked around her. Her panicked gaze flashed upward to all that brick. She was outside the Cabot home in full public view, lying in the back of the wagon half undressed.
She shot up, gripping her shirt closed with one hand and swatting his hand away. “Stop waving that stupid hat in my face!”
He stopped and looked at the hat. “You think it’s stupid? I guess the feather is ugly.”
She snatched the hat and held it over her chest. “I’m half undressed, you fool!”
MacOaf sat back on his heels and shrugged. “It didn’t bother you that night in the garden when you were meeting Jack Cabbie.”
She was furiously trying to rebutton her clothes, but with the corset undone, they wouldn’t close. She stuck a hand inside her clothing and dug around. She jerked out the long corset strings. “Here. Pull.”
He wrapped the strings around one hand again and again like you would reel in a fish.
Oh God, no...
He kept wrapping the strings around his hand until her face was only a few inches from his.
She glared up at him. “I said, ‘pull.’”
“Okay, George.” He grinned. “Like this?”
A second later she was flat against him, breasts against his chest, her mouth so near his she could taste him. His other hand was under her skirt and on the back of her bare thigh, holding her right where she was.
“One more move from you and I’ll scream rape so loud the whole world will hear me.”
“And sully your name in front of this house? I don’t think so, George.”
“Well, that’s where you’re wrong. I have no reputation left to sully.” She inhaled enough air to scream for at least two minutes, opened her mouth, and hollered, “Ra—”
His mouth caught the rest of her scream; he was on her so quickly they fell back and landed hard on the wagon bed. His free hand was pinned between them with the weight of his body. She wiggled against him, trying to buck him off her, but he was too heavy. She still made as much noise as she could against his mouth.
He jerked his hand out from between them, pulled his mouth away, and covered her mouth with his hand. “Be quiet, George. Hell, you know I wouldn’t force you.”
She bit his hand.
“Ouch! Dammit!” He sat up, shaking his hand and scowling at her the whole time.
“Just stay away from me.” She pulled her corset laces off his other hand and jerked them so tightly she almost fainted again. She knotted them off and began to button up her clothes. “Just stay away. This whole thing is your fault!”
“Now, George...”
“Go away.” She tried to scoot out of the wagon, but he was in the way, so she jammed an elbow into his ribs. “Go back to your foggy wet island and your children and leave me alone. I don’t ever want to see you again. Do you understand?”
He didn’t say anything. He just stared at her from a face that showed no emotion. For just one second she thought he looked angry. He had no right to be angry. His life wasn’t ruined.
She crawled past him and jumped to the ground. She grabbed her hat with a sharp jerk and jammed it on her head. Then she just turned and walked away.
An hour later she was walking down the road to her home. He never followed her. She half expected him to, but he didn’t.
As she walked there was no wagon, no horse, no carriage anywhere on the road. The homes here were summer places. By now the summer crowd would have returned to their city houses.
They must know, every single one of them must know about her situation. She stumbled slightly and had to balance herself on a tree trunk. She stood there, her back pressed to the trunk for a moment, staring down the road. She had no idea what she was going to do.
From here she could see the house. The stone walls and the peaked roofline. She could see the tops of the trees and the ivy that grew over the back fence. She could see the bougainvillea that climbed up the side of the house and covered all that chipping paint and wood rot in the eaves.
