An Inconvenient Marriage

by Christina Miller

  His words were frosty, colder than river wind.

  And he meant them.

  The depths of his agony, his guilt, spiked into her heart. How had she ever thought she could comfort him, could win his heart? He’d probably hoped she, as the granddaughter of one of the greatest preachers Mississippi had ever seen, would be the kind of woman he could fall in love with. And perhaps he’d tried, with the near kiss on the bridge, the valentine. But it hadn’t worked. He didn’t love her—couldn’t love her, because she wasn’t worthy of him.

  A man like Samuel could never fall in love with a woman as lacking as she.

  He turned from her. With the most broken demeanor she’d ever seen, he opened the door and stepped into the sanctuary, closing it behind him.

  Closing her out.

  Closing the door to her last shred of hope.

  Chapter Fifteen

  As the case clock chimed two that night, Clarissa stirred from her fitful sleep and sat up, listening. Some sound had awakened her. In the silence that followed, she struggled to remember the noise but recalled only a vague sense of foreboding. Had it been dream or reality?

  Dream, apparently. And how she wished to hear something, anything, from the other side of the suite door. The sound of Samuel rising in the night, the muted scrape of his desk chair against the floor. The rustle of the leaves of a book. His muffled prayers, his voice low in a hymn of praise...

  How could she have known how precious those sounds would become in her memory?

  Today Samuel had come home for Sunday dinner and attended her meeting with Joseph as both she and Absalom revealed their plans for the two properties. At midnight, after listening to Absalom drone on about his supposed plan to build more sleeping rooms and another dining room onto Good Shepherd, Samuel had gone back to church to stay the night. With him gone, the house felt empty, void of life, even with ten other people there. And would from now on, so Clarissa just had to get used to—

  The sound of horse’s hooves on the drive made her scramble to sit up. Then she remembered. The noise she’d heard in her sleep was the popping of the floorboard outside Emma’s room.

  Emma...

  Clarissa flung back her blankets and made for the front gallery, her white muslin nightgown billowing, her bare feet hot against the cool floor. At the sidelight, she caught sight of Beau’s runabout as it careened down the drive.

  The board popped again as she rushed into Emma’s room. Coals smoldered in the hearth. The full moon shone through the east window, illuminating the empty bed with its quilt still spread and a note on the pillow.

  Clarissa snatched the sheet of paper, her breath fast and her heart pounding to keep up with the fear shooting from her stomach to her chest, her throat. She hastened to the window and squinted in the dim light, barely able to make out the words.

  If my father doesn’t love me enough to stay, I’m not staying either. When you read this, I’ll be in Vicksburg and I will be Emma Louise Montgomery Adams.

  Adams?

  Clarissa looked out the window as Beau’s runabout turned onto Melrose Street.

  With no time to think, she dashed toward her room, clutching the letter as if it could somehow change things. She had to stop them before Emma was ruined. And Samuel...

  This would bleed his heart dry.

  “Missus Montgomery!” Sergeant John’s voice growled up the stairs like a grizzly as booted feet charged up the steps.

  She rushed to her room to slide on her wrapper. Holding it together at the waist, she met him in the hall. “Emma is gone. She’s off to marry Beau—”

  “I heard the runabout and got outside in time to see her climb in. Throw on some clothes while I get your shay. We’re going after her.”

  She hesitated. The shay—a buggy for two...

  “We’ll pick up the chaplain at the church.”

  Her face heated like the coals in Emma’s room. The sergeant knew their secret.

  She hastened to dress, then met him downstairs at the front door and climbed into the shay, whispering a quick prayer for Emma, Samuel and the rest of their household. Did Absalom know Beau was gone? Did everyone at Camellia Pointe except the children know Samuel wasn’t there?

  After a five-minute drive that felt like fifteen, they screeched to a halt in front of the church. Carriages and wagons still filled the streets, leaving nowhere to park except the middle of State Street. The sergeant handed Clarissa the reins and swung to the ground.

  Within minutes Samuel raced out the church’s side door, clambered in and sped along the still-muddy streets. His silence punctuating their problems, he kept his focus forward and his demeanor guarded.

  Finally they rounded the corner and found Beau’s runabout at the steamboat office. Samuel barely had the shay stopped before he hit the ground. Clarissa hastened down as well, the bright moon and burning gaslights of the surrounding businesses lighting her way.

  “Emma Louise, get out of the carriage.” Samuel kept his voice low and controlled, as if holding back from giving Beau the thrashing of his life.

  Beau leapt from the runabout and faced Samuel, fists balled at his sides. “She doesn’t have to do anything you say.”

  Before Samuel could reply, Absalom’s landau pulled up next to them. Immediately he leaped from the carriage and into the row.

  Amid the obscenities Absalom and Beau fired at Samuel, Clarissa hastened to Emma’s side. “Let’s wait in the shay—”

  “I’m not going.” Emma folded her arms across her middle like a child. “Beau is taking me to Vicksburg. We’re getting married and living with my grandparents.”

  “No, you’re not.” Samuel’s voice held both authority and a gravity Clarissa had never heard from him. “You’re coming home.”

  “What home? You abandoned me, just like you did when you went to war. And then again when you took me to that Kentucky school. Why should I live at Camellia Pointe when you won’t?”

  Samuel jerked back as if he’d been shot.

  “She’s right,” Absalom said, puffing out his chest. “She has no reason to stay in Natchez. Especially with a fraud of a preacher for a father.”

  “Emma, I never abandoned you...” Samuel’s voice cracked, all sternness gone, his impossibly handsome face drawn.

  His brokenness, his desperation, cried out to Clarissa to go to him, to comfort him, to make all this right somehow.

  But how could she, given the finality of his spurning?

  “I don’t care what your little brat does, but Beau is coming with me.” Absalom gave his stepson a shove toward the runabout. “I have bigger plans for him than marrying a penniless preacher’s daughter.”

  Clarissa held out her hands. “Come home, Emma.”

  The girl turned to Beau. “Let’s go. Forget the steamboat and drive me to Vicksburg.”

  Beau glanced at Absalom, who gave him a quick nod. “Nah, I’m going back. Pa’s right. I got no use for a choir girl, after all.”

  “But you said...” She dropped her gaze, the reality of Beau’s betrayal clearly sinking deeper every moment.

  And Clarissa knew how that felt. With Emma’s anguish burning inside her as if it were her own, Clarissa snatched the girl’s hands and gave them a tug. “Your father didn’t abandon you, dear. But Beau just did, so let’s leave him here with his snake of a father. Come home with me, where people love you and want you.”

  Emma leapt down from the runabout, fire in her beautiful brown eyes. “At least someone does.”

  Beau watched until he caught Emma’s eye, then he winked.

  Winked? After all but abandoning her on the wharf?

  And that nod from Absalom...

  They’d set up this entire event—Beau gaining Emma’s confidence, learning of her dream to live in Vicksburg, then offering marriage. Driving to the landing in an expensive runa
bout with a fine horse no young man would leave behind. Absalom knowing exactly when to catch them at the steamboat office.

  Beau had planned to drive the carriage home all along.

  And then they’d use the impropriety to blackmail Clarissa into forfeiting her inheritance.

  “You might turn a young girl’s head with your wink, Beau, but you don’t fool me,” Clarissa said. “You never had any intention of marrying her, and you still don’t.”

  Then Emma’s wide-eyed trust in the young man brought another flash of clarity. Beau would always be a bad influence in the girl’s life.

  As long as they all still lived together.

  The realization burned into her, scorched her soul. With Beau there, Camellia Pointe would ruin Emma.

  With a flourish, Beau snapped his reins and took off at a gallop.

  “Emma, Clarissa, please get in the shay.” Samuel squeezed out the words as if a boulder were lodged in his throat. “We’re going home.”

  “Which home, Parson? Camellia Pointe or the church study—where you sleep these days?” Absalom swung up into his landau, clearly missing the irony of his comment, given his own wife’s absence from Camellia Pointe.

  As her cousin took off, an ache started in Clarissa’s chest and seemed to intensify with every heartbeat, as if her heart wept within her.

  She had to leave Camellia Pointe.

  And when she did, she’d also leave behind her hope of reconciling with Father in their beloved home during the Festival. However, Emma couldn’t stay there with Beau. And by no means would Clarissa allow her to be sent away again. The girl would likely never recover from a wound so deep.

  She slipped her arm around Emma’s quivering shoulders and drew her toward the shay, crowding close to fit the three of them.

  Within moments they started back to the home that wasn’t a home with Samuel gone. But perhaps, just for tonight, Clarissa could fall asleep and forget for a few hours how she’d failed everyone in her life—and Camellia Pointe itself.

  * * *

  The next morning Samuel awakened to a sense of comfort in his bachelor bedroom. The sweet soprano voice in the next room, the aroma of bacon wafting under the door, the fresh camellias in his little vase all melded into an image of home.

  A false image. One he didn’t deserve.

  The bacon and singing made sense. They would be there even if he wasn’t. But the camellias? Why would Clarissa continue to grace his room with them when she hadn’t known he was coming home? It didn’t add up.

  He’d come back last night to discourage Absalom from telling the deacons that Samuel no longer slept in this house. But to be honest, he couldn’t have stayed away, even without Absalom’s interference.

  Emma clearly needed him here, and he also had to be near Clarissa, to hear her voice, to smell her sweet perfume. As much as he wished it wasn’t so, Samuel loved his wife, couldn’t stay away from her. Even if it meant sleeping in this bachelor bedroom.

  He rose and stood at the window. Maisie passed by below, taking the four youngest children for a walk. He’d missed the sunrise, having slept through it after his talk with Emma that had lasted until four in the morning, for all the good it did. Apparently, Clarissa had overslept too, since her morning sounds still drifted from her room.

  Samuel washed and dressed hastily, unsure of the reason for his rush. Did he want to sneak out before Clarissa made it to the dining room? Or was he trying to get downstairs quickly so he could spend as much time with her as possible?

  He had to be the sorriest excuse for a husband in the South, unable to live with his wife but unable to stay away. For the hundredth time he replayed the night on the bridge, and for the hundredth time he called himself a fool. Clarissa knew his failures as well as he did. If she’d begun to care for him that night, she’d come to her senses the next day, as she should. He’d already ruined Veronica’s and Emma’s lives. No need to destroy a third.

  He slid his Bible into his portmanteau and sat on the bed to pull on his boots.

  To his surprise, Clarissa knocked on his door as he was about to sneak out. Dark circles under her eyes gave her a wistful look that only accented her otherwise perfect skin, her gray dress clearly reflecting her mood. Her smile faltered a bit and she bit her bottom lip. “Can we talk before breakfast?”

  His heart stalled as her words rolled about in his mind. Was she weary of the constant tension? Whatever it was, it would change everything. That much he could discern.

  After an unsettling, silent walk to the pergola, they sat in rush-bottomed chairs Mister Forbes had put there for the children’s horticulture studies. “We’ve a decision to make,” Clarissa said as she arranged her gray skirts around her. “I don’t think Camellia Pointe is good for Emma. Keeping her here with Beau for a year would lead to even more trouble.”

  A lightning bolt of disappointment shot through him at her words, and he dropped his gaze to the open structure’s brick floor. He’d have thought Clarissa would fight to the death for Emma to stay with them. “I’ve been thinking the same thing all night but have no solution. I should probably send her away to school, as you say, but then she’d become even more rebellious.”

  “I didn’t say to send her away.”

  He raised his gaze to her wearied eyes.

  “We need to move, Samuel.”

  Move? “We can’t. We have to stay a year—”

  Then it hit him. She wanted to sacrifice her home for Emma. “No. We’re not giving up Camellia Pointe. Give me some time and I’ll think of something.”

  “There’s nothing to think of. Emma is more important than this house. I don’t put anything past Beau, let alone Absalom. I’m certain those two staged the incident with Emma, trying to force us out of this home, and they could do something worse next time.”

  “But if we leave Camellia Pointe, you’ll lose your grandfather’s legacy, and your grandmother will move away. We can’t go with her because I’m committed to the church. Besides, the move would affect everyone here. The children, Maisie, Sergeant John, Mister Forbes. I couldn’t afford a house big enough to hold us all—and we’re a family now.” He stood and gazed at the little white cabins that would house more orphans. “I won’t let you lose this home.”

  Samuel’s sudden desire to stay surprised him more than her willingness to go. When had this place begun to feel like home? Of a sudden, he understood her love for Camellia Pointe. Something about it, perhaps the years a man of God spent bathing it in prayer, now made it the most precious place on earth to him.

  Or was it simply because his heart was so entangled with the woman who’d loved it first?

  As they continued to debate to no avail, Willie ambled up to them, Honey nipping at his heels and his sword at his hip. Apparently he’d escaped Maisie’s watchful eye. “Wha’cha talking about? I never heard you argue before.”

  “We’re not arguing,” Clarissa said, not looking at him.

  “Sounded like it to me.”

  “No, we have a decision to make, and we don’t like either of our options. We’re merely discussing the possibilities.”

  “Then do this.” Willie crammed his hand into his pocket and pulled out a coin. “Heads, we do what Miss Clarissa says. Tails, we do what Papa Samuel says.” He set it onto his bent thumb, poised to toss.

  “Willie, we make important decisions through prayer and fasting and listening for God’s voice in our hearts. Not by tossing—”

  But Willie had already flicked the coin in the air. It flew high, glimmering in the brightening sun, fell to the brick walk, bounced and wedged into a crack—standing on its edge.

  Samuel blinked, moved closer. “How do you like that?”

  “Now what do we do? It’s not heads, and it’s not tails either,” Willie said, his eyes wide.

  What, indeed? Then Samuel recalled the morning he’d
asked God for a third way... “It means God has another solution. A third way.”

  Clarissa’s fatigue intensified in her face. “Neither move out nor stay? We have to do one or the other.”

  Willie bent over and retrieved the coin, held it up and examined it as if it held the answer. It wasn’t a copper Indian head penny as Samuel had thought. He moved closer and stretched out his hand. “I’ve never seen a coin like this. It’s gold...”

  “Real gold?” Willie shouted as he surrendered the coin.

  Samuel turned it over and then gave a long, low whistle. “Confederate gold. See here, where it says CSA?”

  “Willie, where did you get that?” Clarissa said, peering at the coin Samuel placed back into the boy’s grimy palm.

  “Absalom.”

  Clarissa frowned. “When? Absalom never gave anything away in his life, let alone Confederate gold.”

  “About an hour ago. I was fishing and I saw him and Harold Goss out in the cemetery. They had the lid off one of the old tombstones, and ol’ Absalom was messing with a blue sack. Then he said a piece of the roof blew off the sanctuary, and I could have the coin if I’d bring him a ladder so him and Harold Goss could fix it.”

  “They’re too lazy to patch a roof. I think they’re going to trim that tree, just to spite me.” Clarissa shaded her eyes with her hand and looked toward the chapel.

  Maisie came near then with the younger children. “Willie, you were supposed to stick close to me. It’s almost breakfast time.”

  “First I gotta think of a hiding place for my money. Hey, how much is it worth?”

  “Twenty dollars,” Samuel said.

  Drawing closer and examining the coin, Maisie lifted her brows. “How’d you get one of those French coins, Willie?”

  “French? It’s Confederate,” Samuel said.

  “Mister Loubet was from France, wasn’t he?”

  “Grandfather’s friend from Paris?” Clarissa asked. “How do you know him?”

  “I was here fitting you and your grandma for new dresses when he visited, right after Mississippi left the Union. He was showing the reverend these coins and boasting as how this would be the Confederate money.”