After agonizing long moments, he kissed her. He tasted minty and sweet, and his tenderness made her slide her arms around his waist as she soaked in the pure bliss of his nearness, as she savored the warm scent of his woodsy soap. For an instant, the span of a breath, she let herself believe he meant this kiss, that he loved and cherished her as he made her feel in this moment.
Strong, wise, pure-hearted Samuel, kissing her as if he’d chosen her, as if she was the woman of his dreams...
What would it be like to be that woman, feeling his love and care?
Samuel finally released her and she felt a sigh fall from her lips, too fast for her to catch it. Clarissa turned from his gaze in the hope he hadn’t noticed. His roguish grin told her he had.
“Well, Natchez has certainly changed since I left.” Belinda Grimes, or rather, Belinda Goss’s tone clearly said she disapproved.
“Looks to me like it changed for the better,” Harold said, and Clarissa had the distinct impression he’d have liked to be the one kissing her.
And that was just too bad for him. She followed her husband’s lead and took Samuel’s arm in a possessive, almost flirtatious way, drawing a deeper smile from him.
Then a cold realization hit her—she had kissed her husband. Kissed him and liked it.
And must never do it again.
Immediately a sense of loss bore down on her, as if she’d carelessly forfeited something precious, never to find it—or feel it—again.
She shook off the sensation. Even if she wanted a real marriage with Samuel, which she didn’t, he didn’t want her.
But what if someday—?
“Cut the cake, Clarissa.” Miss Ophelia held out a long knife and cake server, her gaze intense upon them.
Had she guessed their pretense? Did she somehow know she had just witnessed their first—and only—kiss?
The thought was ridiculous. Of course, she couldn’t know. But gazing into the wise old eyes, Clarissa wondered anew.
Could Miss Ophelia know more about them than they did?
* * *
Two agonizing hours later, Samuel bid farewell to the last guests, wanting nothing more than to get home to his study. Harold Goss and his conniving wife should have been one of the first couples to leave, not the last. As it was, Samuel had stuck by Clarissa like the most doting husband, giving Goss less opportunity to make things uncomfortable for her.
Which seared the memory of their kiss all the deeper.
He’d been right to give Miss Ophelia the idea of a bridal kiss. And he didn’t regret it, since it had shut up Clarissa’s old beau and stopped Belinda Goss and her talk of an arranged marriage. Clarissa was a good wife, an excellent stepmother to Emma, and nobody needed to know the details of the marriage that worked just fine for them both.
At least it had, until he’d tasted her kiss...
He’d had no expectations. He’d merely thought he’d give her the sort his late wife always demanded—quick, neat, polite. That was what nice people did, she’d said. But when he’d taken Clarissa in his arms, all thoughts of a quick encounter had left his mind.
And then she’d kissed him back, and every person in the room had seemed to vanish. Just as their family had faded away this afternoon, as she’d sung to him to meet her by moonlight.
Samuel squeezed his eyes shut for an instant to block the memory. But it didn’t work. When he opened them, Clarissa still stood beside him, still sweet, still kind, still beautiful.
Still filling his thoughts.
“Please come and visit us, Reverend. And bring your wife, if you wish.” Belinda started to raise her hand, then let it drop, as if she’d suddenly remembered he didn’t play her game of hand-kissing.
“By all means. We live in the old Harborough place now,” her husband said, slapping Samuel on the shoulder, hard.
Samuel stood like a rock, refusing to allow this beefy dandy the satisfaction of making him stagger under his blow. What was Goss’s game? As always, the Fighting Chaplain story had come up tonight, and afterward, Goss had done his best to pick a fight. Testing him, perhaps? Most men respected Samuel’s military history; some even feared him a bit, although he never encouraged it or brought up his past. This man, however, was different. Arrogant. Overconfident. With an agenda.
He would bear watching.
“The Harborough estate? It recently went to auction,” Clarissa said, her voice tight.
“I’ve always loved that house.” Belinda’s eyes shone in the gaslight of the center hall.
Goss’s face took on a smugness that turned his pretty-boy looks a little ugly. “Anything my wife wants, she gets.”
Yes, Samuel could believe it.
“But the family came up with nearly all the back tax money.” Clarissa’s compassion tightened her voice and darkened her eyes. “The Freedman’s Bureau officer gave them an extra week—”
“The Bureau doesn’t control everything in Natchez.” Goss’s condescending tone grated on Samuel’s nerves. Clarissa’s too, if her little frown meant anything.
“Do come by and see what we’re doing with the place. If I’d known you needed a host for the Spring Festival, I would have offered our home. We call it Goss House,” Belinda said in her simpering voice. “We’ve gotten rid of those misshapen old trees in the front lawn, so we can see all the way to Main Street from our hill.”
Clarissa’s eyes flew open wide. “You cut down those beautiful four-hundred-year-old live oaks?”
“I wanted a clear view of Main Street. What’s more beautiful than my darling husband’s new stores, making us tons and tons of money?”
Clarissa’s brow smoothed then, her emotions swept from her pretty face. She drew a great breath and released it, as if in an attempt to control her feelings. She extended her hand to Belinda. “I wish you both all the best in your business ventures. I’m sure your stores will help the city recover from the losses of war.”
She quickly released the other woman’s hand and stepped back as if giving them room to pass through the door.
Samuel hid the smile tugging at his mouth as the Gosses stepped into the cold night. What a gracious way to throw an obnoxious couple out of the house.
After giving their hostess a warm farewell, he escorted Clarissa to the carriage and headed east, toward Camellia Pointe and his bedtime apple-mint tea.
But she clasped his arm and pointed behind them. “Good Shepherd is on the river.”
The boardinghouse. How could he have forgotten? Looked like he’d have to wait a while for his tea. He tugged the line and pulled the carriage around, following the directions she gave.
Her nearness in the carriage threatening to distract him, he kept his focus on the street. She sat closer to the door than she had on the way to the party. Avoiding his closeness, avoiding his touch. No doubt avoiding a repeat performance of their kiss. Although she needn’t have worried.
“It was kind of you to—avail yourself for me tonight,” she said.
Avail himself? Was that how she viewed his kiss? He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. Obviously it hadn’t affected her as it had him.
But what had he expected, hoped for? He was common, rough, a husband of convenience. Had he thought she would now fall at his feet, beg for more of his kisses? No, and he was a fool for not anticipating her response. “It was nothing.”
Not entirely true, considering the way it had made his heart pound like horses’s hooves.
“Harold is my former beau, the one I told you about.”
“I remembered him from my time at the Memphis church.” And didn’t like him any more this night than he had then.
“Hence your act of gallantry to protect me.”
Since when did kissing a beautiful woman make a man gallant? Perhaps she was thinking she’d been gallant to bear up under it. “Think no more of it
.”
And he meant it. Now, if only he could do the same.
As they drove down steep Silver Street from the bluff to the landing, he set his mind to the business at hand. No sense dwelling on things he couldn’t change.
They pulled up at a sprawling, white frame building. “My grandfather had a heart for poor people traveling the river.” Clarissa’s voice turned soft. “Before he built Good Shepherd, Natchez-Under-the-Hill had no accommodations fit for families and women traveling alone. Now they have a safe place to spend the night.”
The inn’s quiet proved her right, compared to the tinny piano music and off-key singing that blared from the drinking establishments surrounding it. He helped Clarissa from the carriage and offered his arm. She took it in the lamplight. “You don’t come here alone, do you?” he asked.
“Grandmother and I come together. Her position in the church and community protects us both.”
“That protects your reputations but doesn’t keep you from harm. From now on, I’ll escort you. Anything could happen in a place like this.”
“I’d be grateful. I’ll not bother you more than necessary.”
Bother—no. Distraction—most certainly.
Inside, he glanced around the small lobby with its pine floors and furnishings, its braided rugs and white, ruffled curtains. He drew a deep breath. Something made this place feel peaceful, safe.
“I gave rooms to two traveling families at no cost this week, ma’am,” a white-haired man called from the hotel desk. “The mother of one of those families died this morning.”
“My manager, Frank Reeves,” Clarissa introduced him, sympathy in her big eyes. “What can we do for them?”
“Ask Missus Woods. She’s with them in room eighteen.”
Clarissa and Samuel headed toward the stairs to the second floor. At room eighteen, Samuel knocked on the door. A towheaded boy, smaller than Willie and with a straight-up cowlick, answered.
The son of the deceased? His hollow look twisted a raw place in Samuel’s heart.
A woman in a black dress and white apron bustled to the door, her gray hair nearly hidden under a white cap. “Miss Adams, your timing is perfect. I was about to send you a message about these poor children.”
“This is my new husband, the Reverend Samuel Montgomery...” When she hesitated, he looked in the direction of her gaze. A pretty little girl, about the size of the boy and with the same nearly white hair, sat on the bed and stared out the window.
Another broken heart.
“If I try to get her away from the window, she cries her little heart out.”
“Why?” Samuel whispered. “Where is her father?”
“He didn’t come home from war. The children’s uncle brought them to town to see if anyone had heard from him.” The housekeeper pulled a sodden hanky from her sleeve and dabbed her eyes. “And this morning, little Peter came out into the hall and told me he couldn’t wake his mother.”
“Is she—have they buried her yet?” Clarissa said, glancing at the two empty beds in the room.
“Mister Greenly and his boy come and got her and buried her right away, because we don’t know what kind of sickness she had.” She leaned in close. “If I’d been here, I’d not have let the girl see them take her mother away. She sat at this window and watched them carry her up the street to his place.”
Waiting for her mother to come back.
“That’s the saddest story I’ve ever heard.” Clarissa withdrew her lace-edged handkerchief and held it to the corner of one eye for a moment. “What of their uncle?”
“One of the maids saw him board the late steamer for Vicksburg. Left these two as orphans, and didn’t pay for the room either.” She lifted her hand to her lips as if sipping from a bottle. “Drinker, you know. Probably a drifter who can’t forget the war.”
No, none of them ever would.
“We’d heard of your marriage, so we took care of things ourselves, not wanting to bother you right after your wedding.”
Yes, a true bride and groom wouldn’t have wanted the interruption. Samuel, however, might have welcomed it. “What shall we do with them? The city orphanage?”
“It’s a fine home,” Clarissa told the twins, “run by a nice lady who is my friend. She’ll take care of you until your father gets home.”
“What if he don’t come home?”
Samuel had no answer. A child of Peter’s age shouldn’t be familiar with so much suffering.
Clarissa sat on the bed with the girl, whispering to her, but the child turned away and held her hands over her ears.
Samuel should try to help, as his wife was making no progress, but a ruffian like him could never comfort a small girl. After a while, when it became clear the girl would have no part of Clarissa, he approached her anyway. Clarissa stood to make room for him, and he sat next to the child. “My name is Samuel. What’s yours?”
“Prudy,” she whispered.
The amazed look on his wife’s face mirrored his own astonishment. “Peter wants to go with me to the lady’s friend’s house,” he said in his gentlest voice.
She turned from the window and wrapped tiny arms around his neck.
Just as Emma used to do. Back when she was little, before he’d become the enemy. He blinked away the mist forming in his eyes, turning his face a little so his wife wouldn’t see. Then he stood, lifting Prudy with him, and carried her to the carriage.
Ten minutes later, he and Clarissa stepped into the office of the rundown mansion that housed the Natchez Children’s Home. The headmistress, Miss Caldwell, settled her bony frame into a hard chair behind a desk piled high with stacks of paperwork. The bare walls lent no cheer to the room, and the paltry fire on the marble hearth did little to dispel the chill, darkness or gloom.
After seating Clarissa on a worn and faded gold-upholstered settee, Samuel took the remaining seat in the room: a thin-spindled, pine kitchen chair unhindered by paint or decoration. The two children stood near the sorry little fire, gripping each other’s hands as if afraid the woman behind the desk would rip them apart. Which she may well do, for all Samuel knew.
The thought didn’t settle well.
“Miss Caldwell, these children are war orphans. Their mother passed early this morning, and their father has not returned from war,” Clarissa said. “I know you take only Natchez children, but would you make an exception, since their father was a soldier in the glorious Confederate army?”
“I sympathize with them, Missus Montgomery. But tonight I received word of a fire at the Melville orphanage, and I sent a telegraph promising to take all their children temporarily. Thirty-six of them.”
Clarissa sucked in a breath. “Wherever will you put them?”
“The smallest ones will double up in the beds. Older ones will sleep on the floor, under tables, wherever we can make a pallet.” Miss Caldwell’s kind face turned vexed, the heft of her responsibilities clearly weighing on her. “I know what you’re thinking. With that many children, we wouldn’t notice two more. But only thirty-six children survived the Melville fire. The other fourteen were lost due to overcrowding.”
The knowledge hit Samuel hard and an image of Willie passed through his mind. “What can we do to help here?”
“Take these two children home with you.”
“To Camellia Pointe?”
“I hear the surprise in your voice, Missus Montgomery, and I realize you are newly married. But you have plenty of room.” She looked rather pointedly at the two children trying to warm themselves by the meager fire. “‘I was a stranger, and ye took me in.’ It’s what Jesus taught us to do.”
“I’m embarrassed that I didn’t think of it.” Clarissa stood and clasped her hands together, her lip trembling a bit. “I’m ashamed of myself. The granddaughter of a minister of the Gospel should do better.”
Who was
this amazing woman he’d married? For once, Samuel, a man who talked for a living, could think of nothing to say.
Chapter Ten
After Clarissa had put Lilliana and the twins to bed, baked applesauce cookies and retired for the evening, Grandmother Euphemia called her to her room, an ominous tone to her voice.
“This corner room is too drafty for me,” she said, buttoning her white lacy bed jacket up to her neck and patting the bed. “As soon as we get rid of Absalom and his entourage, I’m moving back to my own room. After I have it fumigated and sanitized.”
Dressed in her gown and wrapper, Clarissa crawled in next to her on the poster bed and pulled up the quilt, thinking of the chill in the drafty orphanage. “I can’t imagine that’s the reason you called me here.”
“It certainly is not.”
“I know—you’re unhappy with me because I brought the orphans home. You have every right to be upset, but I had no choice—”
“No, I want to talk about Absalom.” She paused, probably to wait for Clarissa to close her wide-open mouth. “He’s up to something. This evening, just before dusk, I saw him and that Harold Goss skulking around the sanctuary. And don’t tell me it was a late-night prayer meeting.”
“What were they doing?”
“It looked like they were going over plans. Maybe a contract—or a land grant of some kind. Absalom had a packet of papers tied with string, like Joseph uses for his contracts—”
“Wait, you saw string?”
Grandmother gave Clarissa a look that said she’d like to shake some sense into her. “Would I know it was tied with string if I didn’t see string?”
“Where were you when you saw it?”
“In the gazebo.”
“You could see string from there?”
“Well, no, not with my eyes.”
“Grandmother...”
The old dear let out a puff of air. “All right, I used Emma’s binoculars.”
Despite all she had on her mind, Clarissa had to laugh at the image of her dignified grandmother spying on her own grandson.
An Inconvenient Marriage Page 15