Free Speak Through the Wind by Allison Pittman

Misses Austine. “But she never wanted me to. Said that it wasn’t a place for a young white girl like me.”
    “Kassandra,” he said, moving his body to create a barricade between her and the Misses Austine, “you never told me this.”
    “It was quite some time ago,” Kassandra said, shifting her feet. “But maybe they wouldn’t want me to be there.”
    Reverend Joseph gave a sigh of resignation and held out his arm, gesturing for the ladies in attendance to go through it into the house. “If you really won’t be comfortable there, I suppose there’s no harm in letting you stay home. We may have more people in to pay their respects.”
    “Oh, thank you, Reverend Joseph,” Kassandra said, hugging him tight around his waist.
    The Misses Austine exchanged yet another disapproving glance as their skirts brushed past her on their way to the front porch.
    And so it was that Kassandra found herself completely alone in Reverend Joseph’s house. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been wholly alone—Clara and the reverend were rarely gone at the same time—and she wasn’t completely sure what to do. The kitchen was no longer comfortable, with so many memories of Clara in every corner, and her upstairs room was uncomfortably stuffy in the late spring afternoon. Reverend Joseph’s study was out of the question, leaving only the formal dining room or the parlor in which Kassandra could settle down with her schoolbooks. After all, Reverend Joseph had been quick to point out, she had been given permission to miss school to attend the funeral. Now that she wasn’t going, she needed to keep up with her day’s lesson.
    So, trying very hard to concentrate on the Battle of Waterloo, Kassandra curled up on one end of the parlor’s sofa (how Clara would have hated seeing her stocking feet up on such fine upholstery), making herself read and reread whenever her mind trailed off to the circumstances that had brought her to this afternoon alone.
    When she heard the knock at the door, she sighed and put her book down. Her back popped a little as she stretched before crossing the parlor to the door, and she got her face ready to register polite gratitude for the offered flowers or food.
    The image she saw through the clouded glass door, however, stopped her dead in her tracks. She recognized the silhouette of that cap and the cocky posture—shoulders thrown back, hands in jacket pockets—and the familiar whistled tune. Her hand went cold as it reached for the knob and opened the door to Ben.
    “I saw the reverend leave a while ago,” he said by way of greeting. “Without you with him.”
    “What are you doing here?”
    “Went to the back door like always. Guess you didn’t hear me knockin’.”
    “You should not be here,” Kassandra said, but even as she spoke Ben was shouldering his way past her into the entryway never looking back as he walked straight into the front parlor.
    “Blast, but this is a fine house,” he said, never turning to look at Kassandra. He walked the perimeter of the room, his eyes taking in every inch of the furnishings, the paintings on the walls, the carpet. “And you with this all to yourself?”
    “You should not be here,” Kassandra repeated, following him. “It is not proper, us being here alone.”
    “Oh, now, Kassie,” Ben said, moving toward one of the high-backed chairs facing the sofa, “aren’t you going to ask me to sit down?”
    “No.”
    He sat anyway, stretching his legs out in front of him and settling himself back in the cushions.
    “I was just worried about you is all,” he said, his eyes still roving around the room. “I heard about what happened. Poor woman. I thought she didn’t look well.”
    “How could you have heard?”
    “People talk. One maid tells another, who tells another, who comes to the Points to visit some relative. I hear things. Now sit down, Kassie girl. You’re makin’ me nervous standin’ there.”
    Kassandra wasn’t sure