Now, waiting on the back gallery for Clarissa as the sun began to set, he gave thanks that his daughter understood how wrong she’d been to eavesdrop with Beau. How they could lose Camellia Pointe if they all didn’t do their best to save it.
Yes, things had begun to change in Emma...
The door swung open and Clarissa stepped onto the gallery. Her long, dark hair flowed loose, soft in the wind, down her back and to her waist, as if she’d just brushed it for the night.
The way she looked at him took his breath—as if she wanted to be there with him. Enjoyed his company. Chose to spend time with him. It made him want to memorize her beautiful face, her enormous green eyes and flawless, fair skin. Made him never want to look away.
A thousand times he’d wished he could become a different sort of man, unbroken, who could win the love of his wife rather than constantly disappoint her. Now, Clarissa’s quick smile and sparkly eyes almost made him think he could.
“You—look lovely.”
Was that the best he could come up with? He winced, wishing he could pull those limp words back into his mouth.
And on Valentine’s Day yet. The envelope he’d slipped into his inner coat pocket rustled as he took a step nearer.
But she seemed not to care about his lack of flowery phrase or clever compliment, judging from the way her cheeks pinked and her hazel eyes darkened to a dewy green.
Then he noticed the leather-bound book in her hand, the size of a business ledger, its corners worn and its cover scratched.
Her business plan. Of course. For a moment, he’d forgotten the purpose of their meeting.
“Maybe we could take a stroll. I think better while I walk.” She took the arm he extended to her, and they started across the courtyard. “The moon’s full tonight, and the wind and clouds will make the moonrise spectacular. We could watch it later.”
Wait—was this heart-poundingly beautiful woman, her hair blowing wild in the wind, suggesting a romantic evening? With him? He slowed their pace, took a deep breath, until his pulse slowed a bit. “Let’s do that.”
He could feel her smile as they took the newly tuck-pointed steps to the lower gardens.
“I love this time of year—the camellias and azaleas in bloom, the paperwhites and dogwoods and tulips. I smelled the first scents of spring this morning.”
She turned her head toward the gardens in the gathering dusk, giving Samuel a whiff of her flowery perfume as it wafted from her hair. “I thought about Camellia Pointe’s improvements all day and finally decided on a two-point strategy. First, we divide the third-floor attic into bedrooms, then fix up the old servants’ cabins east of the house.”
“What will we do with those areas when we’re done?”
“I visited the city orphanage this afternoon. Miss Caldwell is beside herself. I’d like to bring home some of the children and put the girls in the attic and the boys in the cabins.”
More orphans? “How many?”
“They have bedding for all but five.”
With her beautiful eyes filled with her enthusiasm, her love for the orphans, she’d never looked prettier to Samuel. No woman had. But did she understand the sacrifice? “You’re talking about turning Camellia Pointe into an orphanage. Are you sure that’s what you want? Because Absalom could never come up with a better plan, so you’ll win the contest, but our lives will never be the same.”
“I had the idea last night, after I tucked the twins in bed and realized how quickly we formed a daily routine as a new family. Without the twins and Willie and Lilliana, this house would feel empty.”
It would also feel empty without Clarissa. “I feel better about living at Camellia Pointe since we use it for ministry. But how could we could afford to feed and clothe five more children?”
“The will says I’m to take charge of Camellia Pointe, so I’ll set a rental fee for Absalom and his family. That and the tour proceeds will pay for the renovations and the extra children.”
It seemed his wife was as smart as she was beautiful.
They stopped at the cabins, where they discussed and listed the necessary repairs, including supplies needed to make one cabin into a schoolhouse.
An hour later, when Samuel extinguished the lamp in the future schoolhouse and they stepped outside, night had fallen. Clarissa stopped a moment to glance behind them. “Don’t look to the east. I want you to get your first glimpse of the moon from the bridge.”
Amid the roar of the wind in the woods, they set out for the moonrise show, his anticipation surprising him. All this for a moon? But in the waxing and waning light, when the clouds were no doubt concealing and then revealing the moon, he could imagine that frosty globe in her eyes.
When they reached the duck pond, she set her book on a flat rock near the bridge, turned and took his hand. “You can look when we reach the crest of the arch.”
Happy to oblige, he kept his focus on her stunning face as they ambled up the bridge’s incline.
Then she stopped, gazed into the eastern sky and caught her breath. “It’s magnificent tonight.”
The full moon illumined the sky around it with cold, white beauty, black clouds scudding by and veiling the silver orb, then flying on toward the north. Now the moon was completely obscured in a black night sky, now it beamed forth again, shining behind and amid the clouds until another black shroud raced before it.
A magnificent sight indeed.
And then the thin cool light reflected on the crisp white collar of Clarissa’s dress, the wind blowing her dark hair before it, obscuring it as the clouds had the moon. And her eyes, shimmering in the moonbeams, lovelier than the sight above...
She tilted her head, a hint of a smile on her pink lips. A smile of invitation.
It couldn’t be. She welcomed his touch—perhaps even his kiss?
“Clarissa, dearest...” She tightened her hold on his hand, just a fraction, until the memory of their kiss rose in his mind. She leaned a little closer, bringing her sweet, flowery scent with her.
Since that night, he’d made her as untouchable as the moon. Now she seemed to draw him toward her with some invisible pull, and he cupped his other hand behind her neck, her hair silky in his hand.
Her eyes slid shut and Samuel held her closer yet—
Until movement from a distance stopped him.
No.
In the gazebo, fifty feet from them, a silhouette. Two silhouettes, nearly as close together as he now held Clarissa. Then a muffled giggle.
Emma.
Out here with Beau.
Getting into trouble. Big trouble.
Samuel broke free from Clarissa and sprinted to the gazebo. “Emma Louise, come out here. Right now.”
His fourteen-year-old daughter, out after dark with this young man—again? His gut wrenched as if he’d just gulped a whole pot of Clarissa’s coffee. What was Samuel still doing wrong? What was he doing even more wrong than before?
When Emma slunk out of the gazebo, Beau beside her, he saw her as both the child he’d left behind in Kentucky and the woman she was trying to be.
If he could only sever the bond between her and Beau. Cut in two whatever kept her running toward this young man and away from him. Couldn’t Emma see that he wanted her affection, her attention, her love? Even if he could separate his daughter from Beau, it wouldn’t draw her heart to him, her father.
He lifted his hand, meaning to touch her hair, draw her to him and away from the young man at her side.
She flinched as if he meant to slap her.
The thought ripped through his heart as if she’d drawn the sword on him. “Emma, please don’t cower before me. You know I won’t strike you. I never have.”
Her downcast face in the moonlight said all he needed to know.
Her mother had struck her.
Why had Emma not told
him her mother had mistreated her? Why had he left her so much alone with Veronica?
Why had he never seen the truth until now?
Then he noticed something glistening near her face in the moonlight. He hadn’t seen it before, but her hair was up, like a grown woman’s. A woman of marrying age, as Clarissa had said. And from Emma’s earlobes dangled filigree earrings set with sapphires.
The earrings that had mysteriously shown up on Veronica’s ears the evening after she’d betrayed him.
He’d always known his rival had sent them. And now his daughter wore them to a tryst with the son of his current wife’s enemy.
“Go to your room.” Of all he wanted to say, wanted to beg, wanted to demand, this was all he could manage around the tightness of his throat. And although he would rather have fled, he followed his daughter into the house and up the stairs.
She slammed her door behind her. He made for his own lonely room, shut the door and locked himself in, an even bigger failure than he’d been when he’d come to this town.
Chapter Thirteen
Clarissa flew across the bridge toward the family cemetery the next evening, running to beat the impending storm despite sore muscles from her swordplay lesson that morning. But had she made the right decision? Was her motivation pure? Perhaps not. But after last night, when Samuel had been only a breath away from kissing her—really kissing her—she had to carry out her task. Couldn’t wait to do it.
Across the pond now, carrying a fresh bouquet of camellias, she hastened down the dirt path to the woods’ edge where the stones stood. Absalom had been right about one thing: something of modest value was hidden at Camellia Pointe.
Clarissa slowed her pace as she approached Great-grandfather’s marker. She laid her flowers on the ground and brushed her fingers over the scripture verse Grandfather had etched into his own father’s stone: His compassions fail not. They are new every morning. Then she twisted the urn-shaped finial atop her ancestor’s headstone until it revealed the secret compartment inside the obelisk. The spot where Grandfather had hidden her garnet necklace the day the Yankees occupied Natchez.
She looked inside. After five years, the blue-velvet bag was still there.
When she had retrieved the bag and slid the finial back into place, she opened the drawstring and pulled out the silver bangle bracelet, engraved with blossoms and vines.
Time to get rid of it.
Clarissa had carried the pain and memory of this bracelet long enough. When Harold had given it to her all those years ago, she’d believed him when he’d said he loved her and wanted to marry her and wipe away all the tears of her past. If only she’d known he’d buy another, identical bracelet only a month later—and Belinda Grimes would wear it on their wedding day.
And on that day, Clarissa had hidden hers here, where she would never need to see it again. Until now, when bringing it out of the tombstone felt like starting a new life.
When the time was right, she’d give this bracelet to Emma. The girl needed a tangible sign of Clarissa’s love. Perhaps a woman more at peace with her past would sell the bracelet and use the money to buy a new gift for her stepdaughter. But somehow she needed to do this, needed to see that bracelet on the wrist of a girl not much younger than Clarissa had been when she’d accepted it. The finality felt right. She’d carry out her plan as soon as she could.
Having scattered most of the flowers on her mother’s and grandfather’s graves, she started back toward the house and her room.
When she had hidden the bracelet in her jewelry box and arranged the remaining camellias in Samuel’s vase, footsteps sounded on the stairs and hall, and then a knock at her door.
Samuel’s knock.
Clarissa hurried to let him in and close the door, her first glimpse of him taking her breath. How did he manage to grow more handsome every day?
“I stopped by Colonel Talbot’s house and he caught me up on some news.” Samuel moved a bit closer as if wishing to shield her. “He was at the docks this morning, checking on a cotton shipment, and he saw your cousin in an alley with a liquor wholesaler. Colonel Talbot sneaked into the alley to listen, and it seems Absalom has plans to build a large room onto the inn and turn it into a drinking parlor after the contest is over and he has won.”
“That doesn’t surprise me, but how can we prove it? What can we do to stop him?”
“Since it isn’t a drinking parlor now, we can’t do anything except make sure we win.”
Samuel’s mood shifted, his expression turning sheepish. He strode to the window and gazed out, as if he’d come here for another purpose but wasn’t sure how to carry it out.
Oh, Samuel. If only he knew how capable he was, how powerful his way with words. She moved closer, standing between him and the door. The way he fidgeted in front of the window, he might try to bolt. “Do you need my help with something?”
His dark curls gleamed in the waning sunlight as he turned to her. He reached into his coat and handed her an envelope with her name inscribed on the front, written in his bold, steady script.
She lifted the flap and drew out a card with a drawing of a young boy and girl in a flower garden, holding a big red heart between them.
“We can pretend it’s a camellia garden,” he said, his voice low and a boyish grin on his face.
She opened the card. Fondly, Samuel.
It made her smile. She’d grown fond of him as well. Quite fond.
“I had it with me last night and would have given it to you on Valentine’s Day had my daughter not required my attention.”
She touched his arm. “You’re a good man, Samuel.”
Not only good, but solid, dependable. One she could count on, could love. Could trust with Camellia Pointe, with her broken family. Even with her heart.
The realization washed over her like the wake of a steamboat on the riverbank. She was in love with Samuel.
More surprising, the knowledge didn’t send her into a panic as she’d always thought falling in love would do.
As he took her hand, a cloud passed across his face. She’d seen that look before, the day he’d proposed an inconvenient marriage, when he’d asked if she preferred another man to him. A sense of vulnerability, of opening his heart to her with no guarantee that she would accept what he had to say.
But this day, her answer would come from her heart rather than her head.
He lowered his gaze to the floor. “I...have something to tell you...”
Say it!
“I...well, I care for you a great deal, Clarissa.”
She saw through his hesitation to his fear. He merely needed a little help. “Samuel, do you mean you love me?”
Samuel’s head shot up, his eyes wide but not with pleasure. “What...what did you say?”
His sudden look of horror ripped through her heart. Had he not meant to profess his love?
He held up one hand, his head slowly shaking.
No. No, he had not. Not at all—
Sudden movement outside the window caught her attention. Grandmother, running across the lawn, her hands gesturing wildly above her head.
Absalom in the camellia garden, waving a gun at her.
Harold off to one side, holding Absalom’s coat.
“Oh, no—”
Clarissa turned and shot out of the room and down the stairs, letting the little valentine slip to the floor.
* * *
Do you mean you love me?
Samuel rubbed both hands over his face, trying to discern whether Clarissa’s words had been real. He could not have just heard them for the second time, from his second wife. From the second woman he’d fallen in love with.
He stood there silent in her room, numbness washing over him as it had when Veronica had spoken those exact words. But this time the numbness wore off as soon as it came, letting him
feel every sliced nerve ending, every severed vein to his heart. Because this time he’d thought he had a chance at love.
As he reached for his discarded valentine, the back door squeaked open. He forced himself to look out the window, to see what Clarissa had seen before she’d shattered what had remained of his heart.
His pulse stalled.
Harold Goss stood in the camellia garden, smiling at Clarissa as she ran toward him—just as Veronica had raced to the man she loved after Samuel had confessed his love for her.
How had this happened twice? He didn’t know, but this time he wouldn’t linger while the two ridiculed him. He’d move out first.
He stormed into his study, that pathetic bachelor bedroom, and threw his clothing and books into his smaller trunk. Hefting it onto his shoulder, he fled the room. Within minutes he had his horse and carriage in the drive, and he’d loaded his trunk. The church study would be his new home.
He took one last trip upstairs, snatched his father’s portrait from the mantel and stashed it in the large trunk next to Grandmother’s lavaliere. He locked the trunk and slipped the key into his pocket. He couldn’t exactly heave the chest into the Mississippi River as he wished, but he could at least throw away the key.
He grabbed his carpetbag, filled it with his remaining clothes and toiletries. Moving fast, giving himself no opportunity to reconsider, he stalked out of the room and up the hall to the front gallery. He pitched the bag over the railing and beside his carriage.
How could he have been such a fool as to have believed Clarissa loved him? She’d been kind, gentle and cheerful with him as she was with everybody. Even Honey. Samuel should have known better.
He wouldn’t make this mistake again.
* * *
“Absalom, have you lost your mind?” Clarissa raced to the camellia garden, where she had seen her cousin from the window. Where had he gone and where was Grandmother? Only Harold stood alone in the garden, grinning like the fool he was.
Absalom emerged from behind the stand of myrtles at the courtyard’s edge. Staggering a bit and waving his gun again, he turned his questionable focus toward Clarissa. “Are you going to try to throw me out too?”
An Inconvenient Marriage Page 20