"I don't imagine it was forever," Elinor demurred dryly as the car pulled up in her driveway. "After ten children, he probably tired of her and sent her out to the fields to work. That's what many of the plantation owners did."
Cole chuckled as the driver opened Elinor's door. “You’re such a romantic, Ms. Prescott."
All the way up the pathway to the cottage steps, Elinor rehearsed. Handshake, polite smile, chaste passivity if he tried to kiss her. But with his powerful body close beside hers as they walked up the dark path, she had her doubts.
She had a hard time sitting next to him passively. How would she be able to resist responding if he actually held her in his arms?
Their steps echoed on the wooden steps as Elinor retrieved her key from her tiny evening purse. She briskly inserted the key and opened the door, turning around to him with her hand outstretched.
"Goodnight, Mr. Whittier." Her smile felt pasted on. "Thank you for the lovely meal."
His hand enveloped hers, warm and steady. Elinor's thoughts zipped back to their first handshake and how surprised she felt at his strength. Weren't wealthy men supposed to be soft from sitting behind desks?
Again, he held her hand, his face unreadable in the dark. "Thank you for a lovely evening, Elinor," he drawled. "I've enjoyed your company immensely."
"Oh, how nice," she uttered disjointedly, feeling stupidly disappointed as he released her hand. "Well..." She fumbled with the door behind her. "Goodnight again."
"Elinor!" he called to her softly, drawing her glance back over her shoulder.
"Yes?" she hesitated, half-turned on the threshold, her heart throbbing in breathless anticipation. He loomed, powerful and heady in the darkness, so close she could barely think.
He leaned to her, his warm breath brushing her cheek. "You really ought to get a light on this porch. For your own safety."
She didn't like the limo. Cole sat back in the seat as the blood pounded through his veins, a rage of hormonal disappointment. The last thing he'd wanted to do was walk away leaving Elinor Prescott untouched. But the play of the game dictated it.
All her defenses were up. He flattered himself enough to think he'd done her armaments some damage tonight, but not enough to start a siege. Not yet.
So he'd tantalized her, just enough to leave her wanting. Although she couldn't possibly be wanting as much as he was at this moment. Cole stretched his legs out in front of him, grateful for the space the limo afforded him. He relaxed, slowing the surging urgency in his groin while his mind replayed his strategy.
She didn't like the limo? The limo had to go. Some things were easy discards in the game of life, when the goal was worth the sacrifice.
Two
Standing alone in the silent, overgrown garden, Cole surveyed the huge house, the center point of his plans. Soon he wouldn't need to tread quietly, to inspect it in secret. Soon it would be his.
Oakleigh sat solidly on a gentle rise, its faded grandeur facing the distant river. Twenty-eight massive columns surrounded the house on three sides. Their once-white plaster surfaces were faded now, chipped and cracking under the onslaughts of nature. It seemed a haunted place, magic and monumental, a relic of an era long past.
Cole walked through the dusky afternoon half-light, remembrance washing over him like a jasmine-scented wind. Oakleigh evoked all the magnificence of the antebellum South, an era when plantation masters presided over hundreds of slaves, and ruled their kingdoms as they saw fit. The house itself had been built by slaves, a work force that had devoted years to erecting the monumental Greek Revival-style edifice.
Through the jumble of overgrown gardens, Cole ambled, letting the sense of the place slip back under his skin, as familiar as his own heartbeat. The scents of the underbrush, damp and rich, rose up to assault him with memories. For years after he'd left Bayville, he'd pushed the image of Oakleigh into the recesses of his mind. It had lain dormant, a time bomb of tangled emotion inextricably linked to the memories of his father.
For Cole, the house stood as a symbol, a resolution to years past when he'd grown up in the shadow of the big house. Soon it would be his. He'd have come full circle from a shack on the wrong side of the tracks to the big house on the hill.
In a way, it was for his father. John Whittier had been a handyman, Oakleigh's only defense against time, and only then when Daniel Prescott could no longer endure the decay. Although his father had never spoken of it, Cole knew he'd always felt a deep affinity for the pile of cypress and brick that was Oakleigh. When Prescott had called, John Whittier had gone, lovingly repairing the roof, fixing broken windows, and trying his best to push back the encroaching gardens.
A bird's low trill sounded high above Cole. Once a meticulously tended arboreal paradise, the grounds of Oakleigh had long ago yielded to the wilderness. A tangle of wisteria hung in twisting brown ropes from the sturdy limbs of an oak. Other than the occasional rustle of animal life, the grounds were silent. Cole leaned against the trunk, satisfied that he couldn't be seen from the house, and mentally began the restoration of Oakleigh.
Minutes later, he heard a woman's voice coming closer, half-humming, half-singing. A path ran through the garden, six or eight feet from where he stood. Belatedly, Cole remembered where the path led, and knew with certainty that Elinor was about to discover him.
She came around the corner in the path, walking easily, her head tilted back to follow a jay's flight. A thin finger of sunlight found its way through the trees and stroked her chestnut hair as she passed. Out of her path of vision, Cole took the opportunity to watch her without her awareness.
Elinor was beautiful, her body swaying easily as she walked. A soft rose-colored sweater hugged her body lovingly above the graceful sweep of her moss-green skirt. Cole felt his pulse leap at the sight of her.
She was closer now, lost in her daydreams and still unaware of his presence. Cole listened to her melodic humming and waited for the moment of discovery. Any second now, she'd catch sight of him, and would naturally wonder at finding him skulking here.
He'd had enough warning to come up with the outlines of a plan. As plans went, it was pretty sketchy, but he'd made do with less before. Deciding to take whatever advantage he could, Cole boldly stepped forward. "Out for a stroll, Red Riding Hood?"
Elinor's step faltered as he shocked her out of her preoccupation. "Oh! Good grief, Cole." She hesitated on the path, obviously thrown off balance. "You startled me."