Shannon was genuinely bewildered. “The tinker? What has he to do with anything?”
“Cody said you spoke—” Brandon mentally hit his forehead with the heel of his hand. “Cody! Of course.” If his brother had been handy, Brandon would have landed him a facer. He sighed, stepping away from the window. “You never spoke to the tinker, did you?”
Shannon did not understand anything of the nature of this peculiar conversation. Now that she could see Brandon’s face clearly, she found herself fascinated by the enigmatic half smile curving his lips. She skirted the miniature chair she had been sitting on and stood behind it. “I spoke to the tinker.”
“But not about securing a position at another plantation.”
“No. We talked of other things. Certainly not that. It never occurred to me.”
“Cody has a lot to answer for.”
“What has Cody to do with this?”
“Too much, apparently,” he said as if to himself. “It’s unimportant now. I’ll deal with him later.” He withdrew his hands from his pockets, and they curled into light fists at his side. “Shannon.” The soft imploring in his voice caught her attention. She lifted her eyes to his. “I know you do not want to speak of the past, but I feel we must.”
Her lashes did not lower quickly enough to veil the pain in her violet eyes. “I cannot.”
“Very well,” he conceded, taken off guard by the hurt he saw in her hastily shuttered glance. None of what he had expected to see was there. Not disgust, hatred, or even fear. Those emotions would have been directed outward, toward him. This had been torment, an emotion of inner anguish. Her distress struck him deeply, and he chose to honor her privacy rather than invade it. “I have only a small request, which I hope you will honor. I would ask that you do not go out of your way to avoid me. There is no need for it.”
That was asmallrequest? “Of course.”
“I think we can be civil to each other, though that seems to be more my problem than yours.”
“Oh, no!” Shannon objected. “You have always shown me every courtesy.”
“I won’t argue the point.” Indeed, in light of the brutal treatment of her stepfather, Shannon probablydidbelieve he had treated her with unfailing politeness. He crossed the room and paused at the door. “I’d like you to join the family at dinner this evening.” Without waiting for her to object, Brandon closed the door behind him.
“What happened to your eye,Unca Cody?” Clara asked as she grasped her glass of milk in both hands and brought it to her lips.
Shannon had been wondering the same thing, but unlike Clara, she had managed to keep her curiosity in check. She laid her hand on Clara’s knee to keep the child from swinging her legs under the table. All the worries she had about eating dinner under Brandon’s watchful eye had vanished. Clara’s steady stream of chatter had set the mood, and Shannon found herself relaxing, even enjoying herself. As for Brandon, he was a gracious host, greeting Shannon as if she always sat with the family, and subtly encouraging her to take part in the conversation. Cody, Shannon noted, was relatively quiet. Shannon smiled at her observation. That merely meant he spoke only a little less often than Clara.
“Is there something wrong with my eye?” he asked solemnly. Cody winked at his niece with the one that was not swollen.
Clara grinned and licked at her milk mustache. “The other eye. Does it hurt?”
“Only when I do this.” He blinked it rapidly.
Clara set down her glass. “You’re silly,” she pronounced in serious tones. “Tell me what happened.”
Brandon appeared to study Cody’s face thoughtfully. “Yes, by all means, tell us what happened to your eye.”
Shannon’s head swiveled from Brandon back to Cody. She frowned slightly, trying to understand the odd current of words and glances between the brothers. Though Brandon’s tone was sincere, he seemed to be amused. For a brief moment Cody looked anything but, then his natural humor asserted itself and he grinned in a way that mocked himself.
He leaned forward as if in conspiracy with Clara. “My horse discovered a low-lying branch today, moments before I found it for myself.”
“How horrible!” Shannon gasped. “You could have been seriously injured.”
Cody tried to look cut to the quick. He pointed to his eye. “By morning this beauty will be more colorful than a Tidewater sunrise. Iamseriously injured.”
“Hardly,” Shannon said playfully. “I’ve had wor—” She stopped, realizing that she had been about to say she’d had worse. “I’ve seen worse,” she amended quietly, then, seeing neither brother was fooled, she pretended renewed interest in her food.
Brandon forced a lightness he didn’t feel. “This branch, Cody, I hope you’ll avoid it in the future.” He lifted his wineglass in a mocking salute.
Cody dubiously eyed the bruised knuckles of Brandon’s hand and rubbed his jaw. “It’s a certainty.”
Martha chose that moment to appear with dessert, a peach cobbler still warm from the oven. She and Addie cleared the table and set a piece of the cobbler in front of everyone. When they left, it was as if the earlier conversation had never taken place. Shannon remained completely ignorant of the real source of Cody’s puffy eye, just as Brandon and Cody intended she should be.
“I want to learn to ride, Papa,” Clara said, working her words around a mouthful of cobbler.
