An Inconvenient Marriage

by Christina Miller

  Samuel glanced at Clarissa, trying to read her expression. Would she want to become indebted to Absalom or, worse, to her former suitor? The little stubborn-looking line between her eyes made him think not.

  “I’d give this place to the Yankees before I’d borrow money from either of you.”

  Samuel wanted to applaud her. Willie did, pounding his palms on the table. “Atta girl, Miss Clarissa!” he shouted between shrill whistles through his teeth.

  “Willie, this is not an army camp.” Samuel gave Willie the sternest look he thought the boy could handle.

  “You needn’t concern yourself with our finances, Absalom.” Clarissa got up and the men all stood. “Samuel, Joseph, Emma and I need to get to choir practice.”

  Samuel stayed behind while Clarissa went upstairs to fetch her cloak and check on baby Lilliana in her crib. Paying no mind to Absalom’s boasting and Goss’s irritating comments about money, Samuel took a moment to reflect on Clarissa’s detailed plans for fixing the grounds. They made good sense. She’d clearly given the restoration much thought. It seemed Samuel’s most valuable asset, in ministry and at home, was his wife.

  The thought warmed a part of him he’d once thought eternally frozen.

  Joseph didn’t listen to Absalom and Goss long before he finally stood. “I have no further interest in your conversation, Adams. And I don’t want to be late for choir.”

  When he and Samuel reached the hall, Goss’s voice rang out from the dining room. “Your tenor section was always weak. Can I stand in? What time is rehearsal?”

  Samuel ignored him and stepped outside with Joseph. “Absalom and Goss are annoying enough by themselves, but together they’re irritating as a tone-deaf soloist.” And if Samuel needed to, he’d stretch his baritone voice into tenor and squeak out every note like a girl to keep Goss out of the choir.

  Joseph whacked him on the shoulder, a hard slap for an octogenarian. “Don’t let them get to you.”

  Well, they already had. He glanced behind him, where Clarissa had come downstairs. Goss detained her near the back door, regaling her with some inane story about having seen a wild turkey chasing a bobcat on Lookout Mountain—

  Wait—wasn’t that where Absalom said he’d been taken prisoner?

  Had the two served together there?

  Samuel hastened toward the door, fire in his gut. If they’d been together as soldiers and were captured together, had they escaped together too? And what had they been doing since they got out? Something profitable enough to earn Goss a Paris wardrobe and a whopping-big diamond tiepin. Enough for Absalom to buy President Davis’s luxury carriage...

  And now Absalom and Goss had shown up in Natchez three days apart.

  There was more to this than Samuel knew, than Clarissa knew. It was time they found out.

  Chapter Eleven

  For the first time, Clarissa dismissed the choir fifteen minutes early. Joseph’s gray-haired driver stepped down from his high seat outside the carriage and opened the door. Then Joseph helped her into his brougham to take her home, as was his custom after choir. He motioned for Emma to join them as well. The canny slant of his eye brought a flush to Clarissa’s cheeks. Had he seen Samuel’s tender look as he bid her good day? Hitting a sour note in a packed sanctuary would have embarrassed her less. That look had brought back every detail of their kiss—as if those details weren’t always just under the surface of her consciousness.

  She settled into the leather seat, Emma flouncing in beside her. “I shouldn’t have cut practice short, but all I can think about is Camellia Pointe.” Well, almost all. “I have hundreds of bricks to replace, not to mention the other work the grounds need. And I can’t start until my voice students have gone home this afternoon.”

  “Choir sounded fine. We didn’t need to sing the anthem again.” Joseph lumbered up the steps, the carriage creaking and swaying with his weight. In the opposite seat, he grabbed his walking stick from the floor and rapped the ceiling, signaling his driver to take off. “You’ll get the work done. I’ve never known you to fail.”

  “Mister Forbes has been helping a lot by making the children care for the grounds as part of their horticulture class. Except Beau. Absalom made him stop. Mister Forbes, Emma and Willie are painting the bridge and gazebo today. But we have so many distractions.” Not the least of them being her memory of Samuel’s kiss—feeling like a cherished wife, false though the notion was. She’d give Mother’s best pearls if she could forget it.

  Her face heated again, and a snort from Joseph made her glance up. That look was back.

  “Joseph, you’re mistaken about whatever you think you know about us.”

  His laughter shook his stocky frame. The man was impossible. “There’s nothing wrong with having feelings for your husband.”

  “I admit he is extraordinarily handsome and a fine man. But this marriage was arranged for convenience.” At Emma’s cheeky giggle, she frowned. “If anyone knows that, it’s the man who read my grandfather’s will.”

  When they’d finally turned off East Melrose Street and had mercifully made it halfway up Camellia Pointe’s drive, something white and billowy caught Clarissa’s attention. Grandmother Euphemia sat in a rocker on the front gallery—in her nightgown? At eleven o’clock in the morning?

  Grandmother never wore her gown outside her bedroom, let alone the house. Something had to be wrong. She was so overworked, she’d probably become ill, and it was Clarissa’s fault for not looking out for her. But why was she outside in her nightclothes?

  She turned to Joseph as his driver stopped the conveyance behind an unfamiliar shay and pony parked just beyond the door. “She must be sick. She stayed home from choir to take care of the children, and it must have been too much for her. I should have canceled rehearsal today. From now on, I need to stay home more.”

  “It’s probably nothing—”

  “She might have come out to see the pony.” Emma leapt from the carriage as soon as the driver opened the door.

  “Not dressed like that.” Clarissa bounded out behind her and raced toward the house, where baby Lilliana slept in Grandmother’s arms, and Prudy played at her feet. “Are you sick? Is the baby all right?”

  “We’re fine.” She lifted her hand to her chest, her voice weaker than Clarissa had ever heard it. “I’ve merely been putting Lilliana to sleep. She was awake most of the night and, wouldn’t you know, the privacy of the backyard doesn’t suit her fine sensibilities.”

  Which meant Grandmother had been up all night too. The dark circles under her eyes and her disheveled hair proved it. “I didn’t hear her cry last night.”

  “I brought her outside when she started to fuss. Poor little thing apparently likes the outdoors.” She glanced in Joseph’s direction as he alighted from his carriage. “Excuse me for my appearance, Joseph, but it seems we stand on convention less every day around here. It’s hard telling how you’ll find us from now on.”

  “But you can’t sit on the porch with her every night,” Clarissa said. “Lilliana will sleep with me from now on.”

  “No, she won’t. Samuel has an important job and needs his sleep.”

  Stepping toward her, Clarissa reached for the baby. “So do you.”

  “Clarissa.” The sharp hazel gaze pinned her to her place. “I’ll not have it.”

  With a questioning glance at Joseph, now at her side, Clarissa let the matter drop, along with her empty hands.

  “Your husband bought the shay and pony for you and had them delivered,” Grandmother said, clearly changing the subject to her own advantage.

  Shay? Clarissa turned toward the little carriage and gray pony she’d barely noticed in her concern for Grandmother.

  “Mister Blaize from the livery said Samuel wanted a small, dependable conveyance and a gentle horse you or I can handle alone. I’m sure Joseph and Ophelia will be glad
they won’t have to carry us to town anymore.” She started back into the house with the baby and little Prudy, calling over her shoulder as she pulled the door shut behind her. “The pony’s name is Stonewall Jackson, of all things.”

  A pony. How long had it been since Clarissa had her own horse? She eased toward Stonewall and petted his nose. Thick-maned and with kind brown eyes, the pony was just what she needed, although she hadn’t realized it until this moment.

  “A perfect match.” Joseph ran his hand over Stonewall’s mane. “He’s a gentle one, all right. Your parson has a good eye for horses.”

  And a good heart.

  “Clarissa, your grandmother is right.” Joseph’s voice took on his fatherly tone as he took her elbow and led her a distance from Emma. “You shouldn’t keep the baby in your room. Someone else needs to care for her at night.”

  “There’s no one else. Emma is too young and has her studies.”

  Joseph ran his index finger and thumb over his magnificent moustache, as he always did when thinking through a dilemma. “How about Maisie Johnson? You know her—the freedwoman who used to work for your grandmother.”

  “The seamstress? I haven’t seen her much lately. We’ve been making over our old clothes instead of buying new.”

  “She’s now the former seamstress. Yesterday, Harold Goss bought all the Main Street property that wind and war hadn’t already claimed. Maisie’s little rented shop was one of them.”

  “But she lived above the shop.”

  “Last night she slept at Good Shepherd. She’s in a tough spot. Her sewing machine belonged to her former landlord, so it’ll be a while before she can save enough to start over. If she moved in here as governess, you could let her use your machine as part of her pay.”

  The solution seemed almost too simple.

  “I’ll talk to Maisie today,” Joseph said, starting toward his brougham.

  That afternoon, when Clarissa finished her weekly voice lessons with two of her students from town, she fed and diapered the baby and rocked her to sleep, leaving Grandmother to rest. Then she changed into her brown work dress, the one her mother had used as a gardening dress, and headed outside to her repair work. The frock’s old-fashioned style and sweet modesty suited Clarissa today as a sense of calm and thankfulness settled upon her. Everything might work out after all. She had more hope for Camellia Pointe than she’d had since before the war. Even her grandmother’s health might improve, now that they may soon have a governess.

  As she descended a crumbling set of steps in the landscaping, she glanced around for the children. Knowing Willie, he was outside with Peter, exploring and investigating who-knew-what. She hastened to the gazebo, but Emma wasn’t there. Come to think of it, she hadn’t seen the girl since she’d stopped to pet Stonewall.

  Beau, however, gazed down at Clarissa from his perch on the upper gallery rocker. Clarissa paused and looked around again, but the lawn was empty of children playing and void of their giggles. When she turned toward the house again, Beau was gone.

  Approaching the spot where Samuel had unloaded bricks for her, Clarissa stopped and breathed a prayer for them all, including Maisie Johnson. Camellia Pointe needed her—

  Clarissa stopped at the sight before her. The wheelbarrow was missing and the bricks were gone from half the walk, their sand bed dug up. The bricks lay scattered about the lawn, along with the sand. Beau must have done this, to slow their progress.

  And wouldn’t you know—right in front of the little rise where the choirs would perform on Festival day.

  She turned to check the garden path and brushed her fingers over the tip of the angel statue’s wing as usual. But this time, the angel’s right hand was missing.

  Her short-lived peace vanished like mist over the bayou on a hot summer morning.

  Footsteps sounded on the walk nearer the house. Clarissa glanced up as Samuel wove his way through the camellia bushes around the courtyard and headed toward her.

  Home for his dinner. Was it one o’clock already?

  His brows rose as he drew near enough to see the damage. Reaching her, he hesitated, then his mouth twitched into a crooked grin. “Absalom’s not above stealing your inheritance, but I didn’t expect him to do it brick by brick.”

  His quirky smile was adorable in its boyishness, lighting on his ever-manly face, mischief in the always-serious, soft brown eyes. Somehow his lightheartedness lifted some of her gloom. If Samuel wasn’t worried about the missing bricks, maybe she shouldn’t be either. Perhaps she could trust his judgment this once.

  “Although I can’t imagine why anyone would dig up the dirt under the sand bed,” he said.

  “Or break one of our statues.” She showed him the handless limb.

  “I’m not sure what I can do about a marble statue.” Samuel leaned over, sifted some fresh soil through his fingers, then dusted off his hands. “But I’ll take care of the walks. Where can I get more sand?”

  “At the sandbar, downriver from the waterfront. But you don’t have time—”

  At the sound of a whoop behind her, she turned to see Willie and Peter struggling to push the wheelbarrow, half full of bricks, across the lawn.

  “What are you doing?” Samuel called to them while they were still fifty yards away.

  “Helping.” When they reached Samuel and Clarissa moments later, Willie collapsed on the grass, his chest heaving with exertion.

  “By tearing up the part of the walk that didn’t need to be fixed?”

  “’Course not. We came out here to lay bricks and found it this way.”

  “Did you see anybody when you got here?” Samuel asked, kicking at the fresh dirt.

  “Beau was heading inside when we were going out. It had to be him.”

  No doubt. Clarissa pointed to the marble angel near the steps. “Do you boys know anything about the broken statue?”

  “Yeah, I was going to tell you about that...” Willie dropped his gaze to the ground. “Remember last Sunday, when Papa Samuel preached, ‘And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off’?”

  At least Willie had been listening in church.

  The sternness in Samuel’s eye suggested he hadn’t seen this bright side of the situation. “I mentioned the verse in passing, yes.”

  “Well, I was chasing Pete and I ran into the statue, and one of its fingers jabbed me in the chest. Since its hand offended me, I cut it off with my sword.”

  Samuel puffed out a breath. “Willie, that’s not what that verse means. And it’s not how we use our swords.”

  “Guess not. I didn’t think it would break.” The boy’s remorse spoke loudly in his tone.

  “Let’s forget it this time,” Clarissa said. “You can make up for it by helping to fix the sidewalks.”

  When the boys had unloaded their wheelbarrow and raced off toward the stable for more bricks, Samuel gestured for Clarissa to join him on the terrace wall. “I’ll take the boys to the sandbar. We’ll load up and be back before you know it.”

  Which would give Clarissa plenty of time to have a talk with Absalom.

  “And leave Absalom to me. Since he seems to respect the Fighting Chaplain nonsense, I might be able to get more cooperation from him than you would.”

  There Samuel went again, somehow sensing exactly what she was thinking. How could he know her so well in such a short time? “He’s trying to keep us from meeting our deadline, but I can deal with him. You need to give your attention to the church. Camellia Pointe is my concern.”

  So were Absalom and his family. Clarissa would need to watch them closer—

  Unfamiliar voices in the camellia and rose garden interrupted her thoughts. The branches rustled as a dozen or so uninvited guests left the paths and trampled through the garden, crushing the snapdragons and pansies.

  At the front of the crowd, a hulk of a former Confederate
soldier pierced Samuel with his hard blue gaze. He wore tattered grays, his right sleeve pinned up at the shoulder and his left hand hovering over the pistol on his hip. “I’m here for the Fighting Chaplain.”

  * * *

  The last time Samuel heard those words, he’d been obliged to relieve three drunken Yankee privates of their weapons, along with what dignity they’d had. Now he shoved down the memory and surveyed the group. A few well-dressed men, a woman in a fancy blue dress. A half dozen dirt-smudged drifters with the hopeless expressions Samuel had seen on hundreds of defeated Southerners since Lee’s surrender.

  No threat there.

  Except for the former soldier with the reckless, nothing-to-lose attitude of a man tough enough to take out a platoon by himself, with only one arm.

  Samuel took a step toward the man, sizing him up, looking for weaknesses but seeing none save the missing limb. Which somehow heightened his intimidating demeanor and made him seem even more dangerous than if he’d had the arm.

  Clarissa clutched Samuel’s hand and held tight, as if she saw him as a real man rather than a roughneck. As if she trusted him to keep her safe.

  The thought nearly brought him to his knees while stirring every protective instinct he’d ever had. He squeezed Clarissa’s hand before pulling away. “Wait here.”

  She followed him up the garden slope anyway. For a moment, Samuel relished the thought that she was convinced he could take care of her. He strode toward the crowd, the old alertness coming back fast as he headed toward the man with sergeant’s stripes. He averted his eyes from the thin, curved scar across the man’s left cheek. “What do you want, soldier?”

  “I said I want to see the Fighting Chaplain. You him?”

  Samuel’s spine stiffened as it did every time he heard the puffed-up-sounding name. “Some refer to me as such. I’m the Reverend Samuel Montgomery.”

  The soldier held out his hand. “Sergeant John Buchanan. I fought down the line from you the day you saved your platoon. And you prayed with me in the trench the next day and changed my life.” His throat worked, hard, as if the man had been holding back his emotions about that battle and that prayer these three years. “When you prayed with me, they had just cut off my arm, and I was in so much pain, I didn’t remember what you looked like. But I came here from Charleston, South Carolina, anyway, to shake your hand and to pray God’s blessings on you, sir.”