Up until now, Rhett Wilkerson had scared off any young pup who had come to woo his daughter. Wilkerson wanted to choose Melanie's prospective husband carefully, and not until she was eighteen would he even consider the question. But he did have his eye on young Nestor Previtts, whose father came from one of the oldest and most distinguished, and richest, families in the state. But Melanie hated Nestor.

"He's skinny and has pimples and smells bad," she pouted to her girlfriends.

What she secretly longed for was a handsome young man who resembled her brother, Jarvis.

Jarvis Wilkerson was twenty, and extremely handsome. He stood six foot one inch tall and weighed a hundred and ninety pounds. He had short, light brown hair and green eyes, set in an insolently handsome face, which could crease into a dazzling smile. His body was muscular and streamlined from much horseback riding, and he was an excellent polo player. His father wished that Jarvis, considered one of the state's more eligible young bachelors, would show a little more interest and ambition in something other than horses and girls, but he indulgently felt that after all, Jarvis was young and had to sow his wild oats.

Melanie often complained that her older brother was allowed to do as he pleased while her activities were severely limited, and her father had sternly reported that she was a lady and was expected to behave like one.

"With a young man, it is different," Rhett had said, with maddening sexism.

Thinking of this now, as she perched in the French window, basking in the warm sunlight, Melanie scowled with childish anger, her baby blue eyes snapping with Wilkerson fires. Like her father, she was stubborn and strong-willed and liked to have her own way.

Not that she resented Jarvis for having more privileges than she did. Melanie was devoted to her older brother, worshipped him, in fact. Just the thought of him made her heart go pit-a-pat, and she dreamed of being swept off her feet by a gallant young prince who looked exactly like Jarvis.