The Reluctant Bridegroom

by Shannon Farrington

  Again his wife nodded. Silently she moved to ring the bell. The maid came straightaway.

  “Go with Sadie,” Henry told Kathleen. “We’ll be along after a while to say good-night.”

  Now childless, Rebekah remained before him, looking fearful of what further instructions would be given. Deeply affected by her expression, Henry reached out to touch her hand. The moment he did, the front door flew open. Rebekah jumped.

  Henry turned to find his father standing in the foyer. The tension within him rose tenfold, but he tried not to let it show. “Father...what brings you home?”

  “The legislature is in an uproar again,” the man announced, his tone as sour as his expression.

  “I see,” Henry said. He glanced at his wife. Rebekah now wore a polite, albeit forced, expression.

  “Welcome home, sir,” she said.

  His father acknowledged her with a curt nod, then looked back at Henry. “I have much to discuss with you.”

  Henry inwardly sighed. This had not been his plan, but he couldn’t very well speak to his wife with his father breathing down their necks. I’m sorry. I want to make things right with you. Truly I do. He looked at her, hoping he could convey his thoughts with his eyes. Whether she understood or not, he wasn’t certain. She immediately stepped into the role of the gracious hostess.

  “May I fetch you some refreshment?” she asked his father.

  Harold nodded again. “Coffee.”

  Henry watched her float from the room, her silk skirts barely making a sound. As soon as she had gone, the man started in. “Detective Smith is making his rounds. He paid me a call. Paid calls on quite a few delegates, actually.”

  Henry’s heart quickened. Fearing Rebekah would overhear before he had a chance to explain, he steered his father toward the study. “What did he wish to see you about?”

  “Lincoln, of course! Although he was very vague about it.”

  “How so?”

  “He was asking if I knew anyone of late who had come into money or made a hefty profit in business.”

  Henry blinked. “Smith thinks Booth paid his fellow conspirators? He thinks the Maryland legislature was somehow involved?”

  “I don’t know what he thinks, and that is the problem!” His father abruptly changed course. “How’s your relationship with Van der Geld?”

  Henry’s mouth soured as he thought of what Rebekah had shared with him concerning the man, and what Henry had seen firsthand. “There isn’t a relationship, nor am I likely to cultivate one.”

  “What? Are you a fool?”

  Henry drew in a breath. “I have been, but by God’s help, I won’t be in the future.”

  “What exactly are you talking about?”

  “Father, I thought I could make this work. I thought I could keep this from her...but I can’t.”

  The man stepped closer. “Are you suggesting what I think you are? Are you going to tell her?”

  “I believe I must.”

  Harold Nash threw up his hands. “I can’t believe I’m hearing this! You mean to tell the daughter of the most powerful man in the state, my political adversary, that you gave John Wilkes Booth a lift in your carriage? That you put him on the train that took him to Washington, where he subsequently murdered the sixteenth president of the United States?”

  Henry could feel the anger building inside him. “Father—”

  “What are you planning to do when she tells her father about that? Or do you think she won’t?”

  “I hope she will be able to find it in her heart to forgive me. If not for my sake, then for the sake of Grace and Kathleen.”

  “For the sake of— Do you honestly think those children will secure your future? I can tell you right now, they won’t! Only power will. That’s what you need—power. That’s why you united yourself with her family in the first place. It certainly wasn’t because you loved her. I know for a fact you didn’t.”

  Furious, Henry slammed his fist upon the desk. He was just about to put his father in his place when he realized they were not the only two in the room. Rebekah was standing in the doorway, a cup of coffee in her hands, a devastated look on her face. A knife pierced Henry’s soul, for he knew she had heard every word.

  Chapter Eight

  “It certainly wasn’t because you loved her. I know for a fact you didn’t.”

  Rebekah could not move. She could not breathe. The words shredded her heart. As she stood in the doorway, holding the requested cup of coffee, the dark liquid sloshed all over the saucer. Somehow she had the presence of mind to set the cup on the nearby table before it spilled onto the floor.

  Henry drained pale the moment he saw her. “Rebekah? Oh, my dear...”

  My dear? She was not dear to him. She never had been. He’d married her to feed his ambition. He was just like her father.

  “Power.” She’d heard the ugly word drop from her father-in-law’s lips the moment she stepped into the room. “Power. That’s why you united yourself with her family in the first place...”

  As Henry started toward her, a great strength, one she hadn’t realized she possessed, surged within her. Turning on her heel, she strode from the study.

  “Rebekah, wait.”

  She heard him call but did not obey. Let him get angry. Let him come after me with his fists raised. I am through with crying, cowering, through with trying to please! With every step, her defiance grew. It burst forth as Henry caught her arm.

  “Don’t touch me!” she shouted.

  Her husband’s eyes widened in shock, but for the first time in her existence, a man obeyed her command. He immediately let go of her.

  “Rebekah, please—what you heard just now...let me explain—”

  Her words fired off, full of force, full of disgust. “There is nothing to explain! I understand perfectly. You weren’t courting me with any sincerity. You never had any desire to court me! You were courting my father’s favor! Exactly what kind of power did you hope to gain by marrying me? Do you wish to be governor after my father?”

  “No!’ he said emphatically.

  “Then you seek his fortune? My paltry dowry is all you’ll ever see. My brothers will inherit it all.”

  “I don’t want your family’s money or your father’s friendship,” Henry insisted.

  It occurred to her then that in addition to Harold, who had remained in Henry’s study, James, Hannah and Sadie were probably hearing every word of this conversation, not because they were eavesdropping behind the bannister but because Rebekah’s voice was surely carrying throughout the house.

  Let them hear, she thought. Let them learn the truth of the precious Mr. Henry! But then she thought of Kathleen and Grace. The poor children had suffered so much already. Rebekah couldn’t bear the thought of them learning the true character of their uncle. She lowered her voice, but her anger did not diminish. “Your father said you married me to gain power.”

  “He’s the one who wanted power, Rebekah, not me.”

  “And he convinced you to marry me?”

  “Yes—”

  Pain, like a steel bayonet, pierced her heart.

  “—No!” Henry then said. “It’s not like that... I admit I wasn’t thinking marriage—I was trying to tell you earlier that—”

  I wasn’t thinking marriage? So he had never had any desire to win her heart. He had lied! “If you didn’t want money and you didn’t want power, than just what did you want? Why did you wed me?”

  Shame flooded his features. “Protection,” he said.

  “Protection?” Her father was a powerful man, in good standing with both the government and the army. But why did Henry need his protection?

  “This wasn’t how I intended to tell you...”

  Her heart squeezed. So he’d in
tended to tell her this? How cruel could he be?

  “Rebekah, I give you my word—”

  Your word? What good was his word now?

  “—I was acting only in the role of a concerned city councilman when I visited Maggie Branson’s house the day before President Lincoln was assassinated...”

  Maggie? The day before the assassination? That caught her attention. Though she was sickened by the sight of him, she wanted to hear the rest of what he had to say. He told her then of a brief encounter with John Wilkes Booth. Rebekah thought her knees would buckle.

  “I had no idea of Miss Branson’s relationship with Lewis Paine,” Henry insisted, “and my encounter with the assassin was pure happenstance.”

  “Happenstance?” she exclaimed. “You drove Booth to the train station!”

  “He told me he was going to Washington, but I had no idea what he was planning.”

  His hands were again upon her arms. There was an imploring look in his eyes, one that reached deep inside her, tugged at her very soul. She did not wish to think the man before her, the man who so lovingly cared for his sister’s children, capable of conspiring to murder the president, but if he lied so convincingly concerning his hopes to win my affection, what else is he lying about?

  “Rebekah, please believe me.”

  His request served only to harden her. She’d never believe another word he said to her, ever again. “You are just like my father. You say and do whatever is necessary to get what you want!” Twisting free, she ran up the staircase, then locked the bedroom door behind her.

  * * *

  She knew. She knew everything and she believed him guilty of every imaginable wrong. Deception, cruelty—even treason. He could see it in her eyes when she fled from him.

  Henry wanted to prove his innocence to her, at least where the matter of Lincoln was concerned, but had no idea how even to begin. Pursuing her at this point would only further harden her heart. He had been shocked by the spine she’d shown him, the tenacity. After years of being told to keep silent, told what to think and when to speak, she had stood up for herself. He was proud of her for that, but he grieved over the fact that she’d done so because of her sense of betrayal by him.

  Footsteps sounded behind him. Henry turned to see his father standing calmly in the hall. He would have called the man to account for what he had said concerning Rebekah were he not so angry with himself.

  “Give it time, son,” Harold counseled. “She’ll resign herself to the situation soon enough. Then the house will quiet.”

  Resign herself to the situation? So she can walk through life, sober-faced and silent like her mother? Like mine? “That is the last thing I want!”

  His father blinked. “You can’t be considering divorce? If Van der Geld suffers such a disgrace—”

  “If Van der Geld suffers? Father, listen to yourself! She’s my wife! She gave me her heart unreservedly, and I’ve wounded it deeply! And all you care about is how her father will react? He’s the least of my concerns. But no, I’m not contemplating divorce. I want to mend the marriage.”

  “And just how do you intend to do that?”

  Henry didn’t know. He didn’t even know if it was possible, but of one thing he was now absolutely certain. If he had any hope of regaining the trust and respect of his wife, his father could no longer be part of the equation. This is my home now. This is my life. I alone am responsible for the outcome.

  “What I intend to do concerning my wife is my business,” he said firmly.

  “I see,” the older man said patronizingly. “If Detective Smith—”

  Henry stopped him with an upturned hand. Yes, the detective was part of this, as well. Henry knew he must settle that matter as soon as possible, but that was not the issue of the moment. “Father, with all due respect, I do not seek your counsel.”

  “You’ll seek it soon enough if your angry wife starts talking,” the man scoffed, “if she tells of your encounter with John Wilkes Booth.”

  With that, Henry realized exactly where he must start. Rebekah thought him a conspirator. If he went directly to Smith now, it would prove to her that he wasn’t. But I can’t have my father undermining everything I do. “Father, I’m afraid I must ask you to return to Annapolis.”

  Harold’s eyes narrowed. “You are asking me to leave?”

  “I am,” Henry said, regretting it had come to this.

  The man became indignant. Color rose to his face. “Have you no respect for your family?”

  “I am thinking of my family,” Henry replied, “and it is precisely because of them that I am asking you to go.”

  There was a weighty silence. Henry stared at his father. Harold stared at him. When Henry refused to back down, Harold turned on his heel. “I’ll be on the six o’clock train,” he called back over his shoulder. “Don’t come crying to me when you have ruined your life.”

  Henry had no intention of doing so. Anyway, if his life was indeed about to be ruined, then it was God’s judgment, his punishment for what he’d done to Rebekah.

  * * *

  Rebekah told herself she shouldn’t be crying. She had married a liar, a traitor, an accomplice to murder. She should be planning a way to escape this terrible household, yet tears streamed down her cheeks. Great sobs shook her entire frame. She had ignored her own counsel to guard her heart. She had wanted to fall in love with Henry, and had naively thought he wanted to love her in return.

  Reason told her it was better to know the truth now than later. What if a child had been conceived? She had at least mercifully been spared that.

  Abandoning the bedpost to which she had been clinging, Rebekah paced the floor. What am I going to do now? Where can I go? She knew full well she couldn’t return to her father’s house. The disgrace of a failed marriage would be nothing compared to the consequences of disgracing him.

  But if I told my father of the role Henry played in President Lincoln’s death, if I brought another traitor to justice, then wouldn’t he think differently of me? Surely he would not only welcome me back into his household but also praise me for being a patriot.

  Yet as much as she longed for her father’s approval and acceptance, she couldn’t help but think of the two innocent children sleeping across the hall. If Henry was arrested, would Grace and Kathleen not fall into his father’s hands?

  Rebekah shuddered at the thought. Harold Nash must not be permitted to oversee the children’s welfare. The man obviously cared for nothing but his own selfish ambition. Those two little girls would be miserable, lonely...and if either of them dared to voice their complaints—

  Dreadful memories swarmed over her. An iron hand, a riding crop, a razor strap—it made no difference. Each wounded deeply in its own way. Fierce determination rose within Rebekah. There had been no champion for her, no one in her father’s house to protect her from his rage. I will not leave Grace and Kathleen to suffer the same. So help me, I will not.

  But she could not take them away from here. The children were not her flesh and blood. She had no legal claim to them. Rebekah crossed the floor several more times, plotting, pondering. Then she froze. She knew what she must do, and she knew how hard it would be.

  Protecting them means staying...staying with a man who does not love me, one whose temper may flair at any subject, and who could be sent to prison at any moment. But if that did happen and she was here, perhaps Harold Nash would consign the children to her. Surely he would not wish to be troubled with them.

  Rebekah drew in a ragged breath, knowing there was another reason she could not run. No matter what Henry’s motives, she had made her marriage vow from the heart. God would surely be displeased with me if I went back on it. She had known her own father’s displeasure enough. She certainly did not wish to experience the wrath of the Almighty.

  So it is settl
ed, she thought, though her heart and mind were far from experiencing any peace. I must make the best of it. For my sake and for the children. I can manage a loveless marriage, even if I had wished for more. Mother has lasted all these years. So will I.

  Resolve dried her tears. Going to the bedroom door, she peeked into the hall. Seeing the space was empty, she crossed over to Grace and Kathleen’s room.

  The two little girls were sound asleep. One was in the bed, the other in the cradle. Rebekah stared at their sweet little faces, so innocent, so in need of security and love. She regretted not coming to them earlier, not kissing them good-night. She did so now, then stepped back and sighed. Yes, she would follow her mother’s example of steadfast duty, but there was one thing Rebekah was determined to do differently. She would bury her pain and disappointment deep inside. She would do her best always to have a cheery countenance in front of the children.

  Grace and Kathleen will never lack love from me.

  * * *

  Henry passed the night alone in his study. Once his father had left the house, he’d retired to the room and walked the floor for hours. His past actions tormented him, but the uncertainty of the future was even worse.

  Upstairs were a wife and two little girls for whom he was responsible. Henry was determined to come clean with Detective Smith, but even so, the original dilemma remained. Once he had confessed, how could he protect his sister’s children? How could he provide for Rebekah? Regardless of the reasons for their marriage, the state of it now, he was bound to her. His honor—what was left of it—demanded it. His heart wished for it, as well.

  He knew he wasn’t in love with her as a bridegroom should be, but he did care for her. She was a lovely woman. He thought her highly intelligent, caring. He enjoyed her company, and before tonight, she seemed to enjoy mine.

  Henry couldn’t help but wonder—if circumstances had been different, if politics and war had not been part of the equation, would they have fallen in love? He sighed heavily.

  It does no good to speculate now. This is my reality, and somehow I must manage it as best as I can for all involved.