“Listen here, schoolteacher. This story has been a hundred years in the making. Two hundred. A millennium. Smoldering, burning from the inside out, gutting the foundations like a coal fire deep underground. About time it got some air. About time it burned in daylight.”

“My God, you want to put a match to it.”

He was a black shadow looming over her. “I want to burn the sin out of this wicked city.”

She was astonished. “People will die.”

“People will always die, praise the glory of Jesus!”

Gray Ellen felt a sudden sharp chill in her stomach. She held her breath. His eyes had gone cold as stars. Beads of perspiration jeweled his flawless yellow complexion. She could hear the quick beating of her own heart. She said, with all the control she could muster, “What do you want from me?”

“Come inside, teacher,” he whispered, taking her hands. She felt his cool fingers playing with hers. “Give me succor in the hour of my trial.”

She wrenched away and lurched along the clapboard wall, the boards cutting her back. The wall was the only thing keeping her up. “How dare you!” she wanted to shout, but what came out of her mouth was an inarticulate yelp. How had this happened? Had the whole point, from the schoolhouse until now, been only seduction? Were all the high-sounding words about social justice just a ruse to get her into bed?

As he stepped close again, she flailed at him with her balled fists.

He backed off, palms out, to show he meant no harm. “Teacher, teacher, calm yourself. I just want to be your friend.”

“Get away! I don’t need friends like you!”

The men across the street were still watching. One of them was pointing. Nobody was laughing.

He smiled and clasped his hands in front of him, bowed his head, watched her. “Teacher, don’t tell me your heart is pure. Don’t tell me you do not lust, as I do.”

“Goddamn you,” she said. Her hair was a mess, all unraveled on her shoulders and neck.

“His prerogative,” Grant observed pleasantly. “But you were looking and talking like—”

“I was what?” Now, anger was overcoming fear. “Who do you think you are?”

“You heard me.”

“How dare you! How dare you talk to me like this! How dare you touch a white woman—” It was out before she knew it. Now, she was all mixed up, angry at herself, furious at him, feeling dirty and low and victimized all at once. She felt had. He had pushed her into this.

Ivanhoe Grant smiled fiercely. “So it comes down to that. Then the lesson wasn’t wasted, after all.”

“Goddamn your lesson. Goddamn you.”

“You’re awfully dark, for a white woman. Maybe we’ve got more in common than you’d care to admit.” He laughed.

“Don’t you dare laugh about this!”

“ ‘Even in laughter the heart is sorrowful.’ ”

“Don’t go spitting proverbs at me!”