«I’m Caleb Black.»

Willow forced herself to smile. «Forgive me for not recognizing you. From Mr. Edwards’ description, I expected a somewhat older gentleman. Is Mr. Edwards with you?»

There was a very faint emphasis on the word gentleman that most men would have missed, but not Caleb Black. His mouth shifted into a curving line that only a charitable person would have called a smile as he jerked a thumb over his shoulder.

«Out in those mountains, Mrs. Moran, a gentleman is less use than a handful of spit. But I wouldn’t expect a fine southern lady such as yourself to understand that. We all know the importance you Virginians place on elegant manners.» Caleb looked past her toward the wide doorway at the far side of the lobby. «Eddy and the Widow Sorenson are waiting for us over there.»

A faint flush rose beneath Willow’s translucent skin, a combination of embarrassment at her own accidental rudeness to him and anger at Caleb’s intentional insult to her. She hadn’t meant to demean him with her careless tongue. The long journey from her ruined West Virginia farm might have hardened the muscles of her five Arabian horses, but it had turned her own brain to pudding.

Unhappily Willow admitted that she deserved at least some of the bleak appraisal in Caleb’s whiskey eyes, eyes which at the moment were lingering with faint contempt on the fit of her clothes. The dress had been tailored for her in 1862, before war had wholly ravaged her family’s farms and fortunes. New, the dress had more than allowed for each curve of Willow’s budding body. Four years later, Willow’s curves had become more pronounced. The cut of the dress had stayed the same. As a result, the blue-gray silk pulled across her breasts and fit tightly around her waist.