Free Titans by Leila Meacham

snout.” Stirring sugar into her coffee, Estelle made a face. “Seth Singleton, God rest his soul, will turn in his grave if his son marries that holier-than-thou piece of fluff. From the time you and Sloan were children together, your father and Seth were dead-set on the two of you marrying and combining the ranches as one.”
    “That must have gotten by me,” Samantha said wryly, surprised by this new information. “By Sloan, as well.” She reached for her mother’s coffee cup and took a hot swallow to loosen her tight throat. “Daddy’s main concern wouldn’t be that if I don’t marry Sloan, I won’t marry at all, would it?” She did not add: And have those heirs he wants?
    A blush bloomed on the flat, weathered planes of Estelle’s cheeks. All the face creams now on the market and easily affordable to her mother’s budget had not effectively bleached years of her skin’s exposure to the sun. Estelle looked disconcerted. “What other man is out there that you would consider, Samantha?”
    “You mean what other man is out there to be considered?” Samantha said.
    Estelle sighed. “Why did Lawrence Hendrick and Tom Bedford have to go off and get themselves killed in the Spanish-American War, a conflict the U.S. shouldn’t even have been in? Who in the world ever heard of Cuba? Those boys would have been knocking each other out for your hand.”
    Samantha pushed back the chair and stood. “I’m only twenty, Mother, not an old maid yet. A candidate wearing the right spurs might come along for my affections yet.”
    “I’ve heard as much confidence in the song of a dying bird. You love Sloan Singleton and might as well admit it.”
    Samantha picked up her hat. “So what if I do? He’ll probably marry Anne, and who can blame him? She’s stunning, and he’s convinced she has a heart to go with her beauty. Maybe she does—for him, at least.”
    “Oh, good heavens! Anne Rutherford’s beauty is surface deep, not like yours that shines from the soul. And those noble causes of hers…” Estelle buttered a slice of toast with a furious swipe of her knife. “Only a show to make herself appear superior to everybody else. You’d think someone of Sloan Singleton’s common sense wouldn’t be taken in by her. His mother certainly wouldn’t have been, God rest her soul.”
    Samantha bent down and kissed her mother’s cheek. “You’ve just never forgiven Anne for suggesting to Miss Sims that she take her Sunday school class out to Millbrook Orphanage when I was ten years old,” she said.
    “And I never will, either. Anne did it deliberately to make you feel bad.”
    “She succeeded. Now I must be going. Thank you for a beautiful birthday party and a wonderful week.”
    “I hope you enjoyed yourself,” Estelle said, doubt in her look. “I know I enjoyed having you here. I so wish you’d have had one of the boys come collect you in a ranch wagon that’s easily recognized. I worry so when you ride back alone. Those drovers that come into town with the herds… nothing but a bunch of rowdies, and on horseback, they have no idea who you are.”
    “I’m safer on a horse than I’d be in a wagon, Mother. Pony can outrun anything on four legs, and you know I’m not bad with a gun, either.”
    Samantha could see the unease that image implanted. Was it the way of mothers that they were always anxious about their children’s happiness and safety? Would she ever have reason to know for herself?
    Mildred met her in the foyer as she was tying on her hat before the hall mirror. “You’ll go by the post office to collect your father’s mail? And what do you want to do about these?” The housekeeper had picked up Todd Baker’s birthday present from the calling card tray where Samantha had left them.
    Samantha took the tickets from Mildred’s hand. The date of the lecture was in eleven days, scheduled on Saturday, when she’d return for the weekend to attend a christening on Sunday. She knew no one to