The Redhead and the Preacher: A Loveswept Historical Romance

by Sandra Chastain

  Williamson interrupted her thoughts.

  “To my elder son, Peter Hobart, I bequeath the manor.”

  Charlie was careful to show no emotion. But inside, her hear warmed. The twenty-four-room mansion would be theirs now, theirs, to do with as they wished. Maybe she could convince Peter to sell it, to build a newer, brighter, more contemporary home … more like the one Elizabeth had given John and Ellen when they were married. Away from this mausoleum, Charlie would truly be free, the ghost of Elizabeth Hobart exorcised once and for all.

  “However,” the attorney continued, “if my son chooses to change residencies, proceeds from the sale of the house will be turned over to the Hobart Foundation.”

  The Hobart Foundation? Charlie blinked. A bolt of pain vise-gripped the back of her neck. The Hobart Foundation? Elizabeth had no right …

  “My remaining shares of Hobart Textiles,” Williamson droned, “will be divided equally between my sons Peter and John Hobart. It is my wish that the board of directors elect Peter to fill my vacancy as chairman.”

  Peter straightened in his chair. He tucked two fingers beneath his white collar and tugged the starched fabric from his throat.

  A numbing sadness filled Charlie’s heart. She studied Peter’s deep brown eyes, glossy from his contact lenses, distant since Elizabeth’s death three days ago, as though when his mother breathed her last breath, Peter had put on a mask, erected a wall, and hung a Do Not Disturb sign on his emotions. Yet Charlie had known him, loved him, and been married to him for too many years not to see through his armor and notice that his eyelids were puffy from his private tears.

  Even in his grief, even with the light silver threads that now wove along his temples, Peter still resembled that handsome college boy who had captured her heart: clean shaven and short haired, unfashionably so by the standard of the seventies. Marina, Charlie’s roommate, had not understood what Charlie saw in Peter. “He’s a bit of a nerd, isn’t he?” Charlie suddenly heard her old friend’s voice, saw her old friend’s black eyes flash, her wide mouth smile, not in sarcasm, but rather in honest incomprehension. Unlike Marina, Charlie had been looking for a husband, not simply a guy to sleep with. And unlike Tess, Charlie had never wanted to be independent, alone. Marina and Tess both came from families of considerable wealth, families who didn’t have to worry about their financial futures, about making car payments or being laid off from the mill. They had no idea what it was like not to have that, and what a “nerd” like Peter represented to someone like Charlie.

  Now, as Charlie’s gaze fell across her straight-postured, stiff-jawed husband, she knew that, in Peter, she had seen stability, security, and a world she so desperately wanted. Soon, it had evolved into something much more: it had become love. But blinded by the bliss of dreams coming true, Charlie had not foreseen that the world she was so eager to enter could become an inescapable trap. Inescapable until now.

  “To my grandson Darrin Hobart,” the attorney’s voice jarred her from her thoughts, “I bequeath my cottage in East Hampton on his twenty-first birthday, along with the contents and a separate trust to perpetuate the cost of care and service people.”

  The hairs on the back of Charlie’s neck began to rise. There were no contingencies, no threats of turning the beach, house over to the foundation. Charlie glanced over at Darrin in time to see a slow smirk crawl across his fleshy lips.

  “To my daughter-in-law Ellen Hobart,” Williamson continued, “I leave my responsibilities at the Hobart Foundation.” Now it was John’s turn to nod. The smallest hint of a smile passed across Ellen’s sweet face. Charlie clenched her fist and tried to take a deep breath—a “deep mental breath” as Tess once called it.

  Ellen, Charlie thought, doesn’t deserve the foundation. Charlie knew that the foundation’s “responsibilities” meant little more than being a figurehead, at a six-figure annual income. She had assumed that, as the elder daughter-in-law, she would have been—should have been—given the job. She should have known better.

  “To my daughter-in-law Charlene Hobart I leave the responsibility of watching over my son, Peter, of supporting him with the added pressures he will no doubt have in his new position at Hobart Textiles. Should they divorce,” the attorney added as he peered over his glasses, cleared his throat, then looked back at the document, “should they divorce, Charlene will relinquish all claim to either the manor, Hobart Textiles, or any asset—liquid or otherwise—presently, or in the future, connected with my estate.”

  The air grew heavy in the room. Charlie stared at the floor. With mechanical instinct, she reached up and pretended to tuck a loose tendril behind her ear, and tried to assimilate what she had just heard: that Elizabeth Hobart—with all her power and all her millions—had left Charlie nothing but ultimatums.

  “Two remaining grants to the family,” Williamson droned on, “are to my granddaughter, Patsy Hobart—who cherishes all things bright and sparkly. Patsy will receive my jewelry collection.” He paused, turned over a page, then read on. “To Jennifer,” he said, “I leave one Fabergé egg. She may select her favorite.”

  Jennifer. The name burned through Charlie. Elizabeth had referred to Jenny by her first name only, as though she was not entitled to the Hobart name. As though she was not her granddaughter. Charlie looked over at Jenny, who continued to stare out the window. She would, Charlie knew, be pleased with the Fabergé egg. But at fourteen, Jenny certainly knew its value could never compare with Elizabeth’s diamonds and sapphires and pearls, the abundance of jewels that Elizabeth had now left to Patsy, Jenny’s cousin, Ellen’s daughter.

  Charlie watched Jenny pull back a corner of the long velvet drape, then straighten the thick corded tassel, as though she were alone in the room, as though she had not heard that her ten-year-old cousin had just inherited a fortune, while she had been left an egg. Charlie wished her daughter would laugh, cry, or scream. She wished she would do something—anything. But Jenny remained stalwart, unaffected, unhurt.

  Williamson rambled through a few more insignificant mentions. Charlie tried to fold her hands as Ellen’s were, but found her palms sweaty and cold. Nausea seeped through her. Nausea, and a growing urge to flee to her room, pull the drapes, climb into bed, and never come out. She closed her eyes and tried to feel the comfort of the covers, the safe cocoon of the sheets. And then Charlie realized that the bed she longed most for was not the one she shared with Peter; it was the small, lumpy bed of her childhood home, the home she once, long ago, had so avidly wanted to leave. The home which, for these past years, she’d avoided—an unwanted reminder of her true heritage. A solitary tear crept from the corner of her eye as Charlie wondered how long it had been since she saw her mother’s smile or felt her father’s hug.

  The attorney snapped his briefcase closed, startling Charlie. She looked up to see that Peter and John and Ellen were standing; the now enormously wealthy Patsy and Darrin excused themselves and pranced from the library. Charlie said a weak good-bye to Ellen, then watched everyone depart. She remained seated; she could not get up. Her legs felt leaden, immovable.

  When Charlie looked over at the window, Jenny, too, was gone.

  She remained on the sofa, trying to think, trying to gather her scattered thoughts. I leave the responsibility of watching over my son, Peter.… Should they divorce, Charlene will relinquish all claim.… Elizabeth’s words echoed in Charlie’s mind. Even after all these years of trying, even after all these years of pain, she had not won Elizabeth’s acceptance. She had not even come close.

  “They’re gone,” came Peter’s voice from the doorway. “You didn’t come out to say good-bye.”

  Charlie sighed. “It wouldn’t have mattered.”

  Peter walked into the room and sat in the high leather chair across from her. “It would have been courteous.”

  Charlie said nothing.

  He crossed one long leg over his other knee. “You’re upset about Mother’s will, aren’t you?”

  “I think I have
a right to be.”

  Peter tented his hands, the tips of his fingers touching each other. “Well,” he said slowly, “you shouldn’t be upset about the foundation. You know how close she felt to Ellen.”

  “And I was the thorn in her side.”

  “Ellen was … well, Ellen was more in tune with Mother.”

  “But I am infinitely better qualified to run the foundation.” Charlie’s heart began to race. “I am smarter than Ellen. Your mother knew that. For godssake, Peter, my degree is in economics. Ellen’s is in”—she jumped from the chair and began to pace—“Ellen majored in homemaking or some such nonsense.”

  “At least she put her education to use.”

  Charlie halted. She snapped around to her husband. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  Peter seemed to shrink into the chair. “Jesus, Charlie, don’t take it personally. I was only trying to make a joke.”

  But the edge of his words had caught Charlie’s guilt and inched under her skin. She could almost hear Elizabeth’s unspoken accusation: You only married my son for his money. Your college degree was only a ruse to get your claws into the Hobart fortune.

  She readjusted the clip in her hair and tried to push the ghost of her mother-in-law from her mind. “Besides,” she said, “I’m sure you know that Ellen is not the only reason I’m upset.”

  “The divorce? Are you angry she mentioned that?”

  Charlie let her hands go limp at her sides. She was too tired to quarrel with Peter, too tired and too defeated. Still, Charlie knew Peter would expect her to carry on as she always had—as though Elizabeth didn’t bother her, belittle her, or make her feel undeserving. Peter would expect it because Charlie had let him believe it. It had been easier that way.

  She returned to her seat on the sofa. Peter believed that Charlie had everything under control … much the same way his mother had. A strange thought passed through Charlie’s mind: Maybe Elizabeth, too, had put up a front. Maybe Elizabeth had been just as insecure, as weak, and as scared as Charlie. Maybe she had acted otherwise because she had been so damn afraid of losing everything she’d worked so hard to get.

  Maybe Charlie wasn’t so different from Elizabeth, after all.

  She felt Peter’s eyes on her now. She raised her head to meet his gaze. Suddenly, Charlie saw not the capable, grown man before her, but a little boy. A little boy who had just lost his mother, the woman who’d always kept everything well in hand; a little boy who needed a woman to tell him what to do next.

  “What would you think about selling this place?” she asked. “About getting a place of our own?”

  Peter laughed. “Charlie, this is our home now. Yours, mine, and Jenny’s. Besides, you heard the will. If we leave here, the money will go into the foundation.”

  “You’ll make enough money as chairman.”

  He winced and averted his eyes from Charlie. She watched his gaze slowly roam the room, past the fireplace, over the floor-to-ceiling bookcases, around the pedestal of the antique globe, then stopped at the huge cherry desk with the intricate brass drawer pulls and hand-tooled leather top.

  “This was my father’s desk,” he said quietly.

  Charlie was torn between wanting to comfort him and wanting to groan.

  “I can still see him sitting here. No matter how busy he was, he always had time to read to me. And to John.” He blinked and looked back at hen “I don’t want to leave here.”

  Charlie had a sinking feeling of futility.

  “I am almost forty years old, Charlie. I am almost forty years old and I have no parents. I feel like an orphan.”

  She tried to quell her rising irritation. She was the one who should be upset now. She was the one who had been treated badly by Elizabeth. She, not Peter. “You have a family, Peter. You have me. And Jenny.” She twisted on the sofa and wondered why everything always seemed to come back to him. Why were his needs more important? Was he the only one who had a right to be happy—or sad? Charlie stared at her husband and wondered if all men were so self-centered.

  “My family belongs here,” he continued. “This is the house I was born in.” Then Peter dropped his head. “Are you sorry you married me?”

  She looked at the carpet, then back at Peter. The years in college flowed back to her mind, the years of eager anticipation, of hope, of early love. Then she thought of her mother, of her mother’s ongoing struggles. And Charlie remembered that life could have been worse.

  “No, Peter,” she said quietly, “I’m not sorry I married you.” She rubbed the edge of the velvet sofa and noticed the cording was thin. Perhaps it was time to redecorate this room—no, this entire old tomb, now that the queen was dead. Perhaps she should continue to carry on as before, and hope that life would be easier with Elizabeth gone.

  But then Charlie thought of Jenny, standing by the window, staring out. She thought of the responsibility she had to Jenny to give her the best life possible. “I’m not upset for myself so much,” Charlie said, “as for Jenny.”

  “Mother never knew how much Jenny means to us. Especially after …” he cleared his throat as his words trailed off into nothingness. “At least she left her a Fabergé.”

  “A token,” Charlie said, surprised at the sudden venom that spit from her voice.

  “An item valued at a couple of hundred thousand dollars is hardly a ‘token.’ ”

  Charlie laughed. “Come on, Peter. Your mother’s diamond and sapphire choker alone is worth more than any egg.” She rose again and paced to the window where Jenny had stood. She willed her control to return. “Besides,” she said as she waved her hand, “it isn’t about money, Peter. Elizabeth never accepted Jenny. Even in death.”

  Peter walked up behind her and rested his hands on her shoulders. “I’m sure Mother realized that Jenny will be my heir. Any money gleaned from the business will eventually go to her. As will the house.”

  Charlie looked out the window. Jenny was crossing the lawn, head down, pace slow, headed toward the stables. “Tell that to a fourteen-year-old whose grandmother had just kicked her in the heart.”

  Peter pulled his hands from her and marched toward the desk. “Dammit, Charlie! You’re acting like a spoiled brat. After all Mother did for you …” He slapped his palm on the edge of the desk. Charlie felt the sting as though he had slapped her face. He turned toward her again. “Oh, God, Charlie,” he said as he went back and stood, facing her, arms straight at his sides. “I’m sorry. That was a thoughtless remark.”

  Charlie kept her arms tight around herself. She looked at her husband but didn’t answer.

  “I don’t know why I said it.”

  She unfolded her arms and took his hands. “You said it because you believe it is the truth.”

  He shook his head. Tears formed in his eyes.

  Charlie remembered their first night together here at the manor. She had seen tears in Peter’s eyes then, when he was faced with his mother’s rejection. It had been part of the reason Charlie tried so hard, part of why she immersed herself in the symphony, the art museum, the ballet. They were things she thought would please Elizabeth, make Elizabeth accept her, make Peter glad he had married her. It had taken a couple of years for Charlie to realize Elizabeth found these pursuits frivolous—business was all she respected. Instead of bringing them closer together, Charlie’s efforts had only pushed them further apart. The irony was that business was what Charlie had once wanted for herself, long before Peter had entered her life, long before Elizabeth had made her feel so inferior. But Charlie had closed the door on a career, and staying busy, frenetically busy, became her refuge—a way to pass the time, a reason to get out of the manor, away from the watchful eye of the matriarch. And, she had hoped that someday Elizabeth would come to respect her and approve of her. Like Peter, she had kept trying.

  “Your mother could not help the way she was,” Charlie said, as she reached to brush a tear from her husband’s cheek. “Any more than I can. We all do our best. It’s
all we can do.”

  Peter tipped back his head as if trying to hold back more tears. “I don’t know if I can handle things without her.”

  Charlie felt the pain in his heart. Fifteen years, of marriage, she reasoned, bonded one human being to another. She wondered if it had been love or the storms that had become the glue for their vows. “You’ll handle things, Peter,” she said with conviction. “Now, I think I’d better find Jenny. She doesn’t understand this the way we do.” She left her husband standing by the window and wondered if, in fact, he—or any of them—would really be able to handle things without Elizabeth Hobart.

  A pungent scent of manure and hay filled Charlie’s lungs as she walked into the stables. She swallowed quickly and made her way past the stalls, looking into each one for Jenny. She knew Jenny would be here; from a young age, the girl had seemed to relate better to animals than to people.

  At the stall marked with the purple blanket that read Bluebell, Charlie stopped. Jenny stood inside, her chocolate silk dress covered with hay, her ivory face pressed against the sleek side of the regal Morgan. She was whispering to the horse, words that Charlie could not understand.

  When had her daughter become so somber? Charlie wondered. When had the vibrance of her childhood been dulled by this dark, melancholy cloud? And worse, why hadn’t Charlie noticed? She drew in a breath. “Honey, are you all right?”

  The whispers ceased. Jenny lowered her chin and tossed back her long, dark hair. She began brushing the horse. “I’m fine, Mother. I just came out to groom Bluebell.”

  Charlie took a step into the stall. “In your silk dress?”

  Jenny kept brushing.

  Charlie reached out for her. “Honey—” She broke off as Jenny moved to the other side of the horse.

  “With all the funeral stuff going on I’ve been neglecting the horses,” Jenny said clearly, not looking at Charlie.