Free Silver Moon by Monica Barrie

morning, a steady line of workers moved to and from the building. Off to one side, Elyse saw Brace’s horse tied to a post.
    She rode to the same post, dismounted, tied Thistle, and went into the sugar plant. Waves of heat struck her when she stepped inside. It felt like stepping into an oven.
    Twenty vats, four rows of five each, sat in even lines. Suspended above them were mesh wheels to separate and refine the sugar cane. Sluice channels for water crisscrossed the ceiling. Huge fires roared beneath the vats, and three workers cleansed each vat in preparation for the arrival of the sugar cane. Brace stood off to the right, directing several workers. He wore only breeches, his massive chest bare, filmed with a sheen of perspiration. An errant ray of sunlight poured through a chink in the woven roof to glance across his chest, making the dark mat of damp hair shimmer.
    Elyse’s breath caught. The instant Brace turned she knew he had seen her. His face changed, and emotions flashed across it until he caught himself and settled his features into a stiff mask.
    A moment later, he stood before her, his eyes searching her face. “Are you looking for something?”
    Elyse shook her head. “Education. I want to learn how everything is done.”
    “Why?” He accented his question with the arching of his left eyebrow.
    Elyse fought down the stab of irritation. “Why?” she echoed. “Why must you be so hostile? Why can’t you accept me at my word?”
    “People like you don’t come into the fields. That’s for people like me,” Brace reminded her. His voice wasn’t harsh this time, just matter-of-fact.
    Elyse understood that the only way to get past his barriers was not to try…yet. Ignoring his words, she glanced around. “What are they doing? Why are they doing it that way?”
    Brace took in the questions she asked along with the perfectly sculptured features of her face. He wondered, briefly, if she was playing a game, but heard within her tone an underlying seriousness.
    Shrugging his shoulders and forcing his emotions to stay beneath the surface, Brace spoke. His voice took on the tone of a lecturer while he led her deeper into the sugar plant and pointed out everything, putting names to unfamiliar objects.
    When they emerged an hour later into the burning sun, she shielded her eyes and looked at Brace. “Thank you. When do we start the processing?”
    “The harvesting starts tomorrow morning—if there’s no rain. We’ve been lucky so far this month. Usually there is a fair amount of rain. By the day after tomorrow, the first loads of cane will be here.”
    “I intend to follow the entire process,” Elyse stated.
    “It’s not ‘lady’s’ work.”
    “Did my father sit in the house while the fields were harvested?”
    Brace shook his head.
    “Then I shan’t, either.” Saying that, Elyse went to her horse. She could feel Brace’s eyes boring into her skin with every step.
    Only when she had mounted did she allow herself to look at him. His face was set in tight lines; the muscles in his neck knotted together.
    “Perhaps tonight, after dinner, you could tell me more about the processing?”
    “I don’t think so,” Brace replied.
    They stared at each other until Elyse felt his eyes setting her body afire. Finally, when she could stand no more, she whirled the horse and rode away.
    Brace stood still until she had disappeared into the cane. His eyes never left her back, his heart never stopped its rapid beating.
    He wanted to hate her, to have her act like the other women of high breeding on Jamaica, but she would not. Brace knew that he could not stay near her for too long. For him it was the slowest of tortures; whenever she was near, he wanted to hold her, pull her to him, and kiss her with all the desires raging so powerfully within him.
    It had taken all his willpower to keep his emotions under control. The instant he had seen her standing in the doorway of the sugar plant, his blood raced. Her