Forbidden Son

by Loretta C. Rogers

  On the eve of his wedding, his father had been all doom and gloom. “I’ve had second thoughts, son. I’m afraid I’ve pushed you into marrying this little redhead for all the wrong reasons.”

  “A little late for that now, isn’t it, Father?”

  “You’re not at the altar yet.”

  Tripp laughed a humorless sound. “All my life you’ve preached duty and honor. I’m duty-bound to marry Kathryn. If I leave her at the altar, where’s the honor?” He almost wished he could bite back the words. Instead, he’d walked toward the church sanctuary, ignoring the heat rising under his collar.

  The wedding rehearsal had proven awkward and stiff. His mother wasn’t feeling well and had retired to bed early. Pearlie Mae had baked Tripp’s favorite, ham with a bourbon-glazed pecan sauce. As he cut into a slice, he felt like a death row inmate consuming his last meal.

  How could anyone prepare to spend the rest of his life with an unloving wife? He wondered if someone had ever written a manual on how to survive marriage with a woman you didn’t love.

  He decided he didn’t know anything of men and women, love and marriage, becoming a father or raising a child. With a scowl, he tried to shrug off his pre-wedding jitters.

  On the morning of his wedding day, a small but persistent tapping on his bedroom door caused him to reluctantly open his eyes. He coughed to clear the rasp in his throat. “Who is it?”

  The door opened and his mother peered around the edge. “May I come in?”

  He scooted up against the pillows and motioned her forward. She wore gardening clothes and her slacks were damp and dirty from the knees down. “It’s a little early, Mother. The ceremony isn’t until two o’clock.”

  “A wedding should have lots of flowers. Look out the window.” She offered her son a dreamy smile.

  From where he stood, it looked as if his mother had cut every flower in her treasured garden. A wheelbarrow teemed with a variety of color—roses, daylilies, Queen Anne’s lace, lilacs, Echinacea, periwinkles, and impatiens.

  “They are lovely, Mother. I’ll contact Horace at the flower shop to see if he has time to arrange them.”

  Unless the florist could arrange his mother’s cuttings to fit with the calla lilies and pink miniature rosebuds Kathryn had ordered, he knew there would be hell to pay. Tension built behind his eyes.

  Mary Alice reached up and kissed his cheek. His mother had always been there for him, especially during the times when his father was too wrapped up in the law to have time for a little boy. His father had showered him with everything—everything except father-and-son quality time.

  “Tripp?”

  “Yes, Mother?”

  “Do you think the baby will be born before my mind fades completely into oblivion? I do desperately want to cradle a grandchild in my arms.”

  Tripp groaned inwardly. “There is no baby, Mother.”

  Their eyes met and she smiled. “I’m not so addle-patted, yet, that I don’t recognize that special glow a woman wears when she’s with child. Kathryn is glowing.”

  “Mother, there is no—”

  As if turning a key in a lock, she lifted her fingers to her lips. “Tick-a-lock and throw away the key. It’ll be our secret.”

  How could he resist? He hugged her. “She’s eight weeks, Mother. Can you hang on for seven months?”

  “As my great-granddaddy, Willard Calhoun, used to say when he’d imbibed a little too much of the corn whiskey, ‘I’ll do my damndest.’” She sighed heavily as she placed her hand on his chest. “Tripp, whatever happened to that young woman?”

  “I’m not sure who you mean, Mother.”

  “Yes, you do. Her parents were the sharecroppers from Tennessee. I think she made you happy.”

  If he didn’t know better, he’d think she was aware of his inner turmoil and the risk he was taking with his heart. “Her name was Honey Belle, and she went away.”

  “Be happy, son.”

  “I love you, Mother.”

  “And I you.”

  Be happy?

  With his marriage a few hours away, seven months from becoming a new father, ready to begin his career as a junior attorney, being happy was a tall order. Could anything good come from a muddled beginning?

  ****

  All was quiet. Tripp had contacted the florist, who assured him no one, not even Kathryn, would notice how he had blended Mary Alice’s flowers with those Kathryn had chosen to decorate the church.

  Tripp was running late. He still had time to dress and make it to the church on time. He checked his watch. It wouldn’t do to keep the bride waiting. That would amount to a monumental mistake, and he’d made too many of those already.

  He checked his watch again and took the stairs two at a time. At the bottom, his father grinned up at him.

  “Let’s get a move on. Don’t want to be late for your own wedding.” His father offered a wink as if approving of Tripp’s long-tailed white tuxedo.

  “Where’s Mother?”

  “She’s in the limo with Pearlie Mae.”

  They drove to the historic church where generations of Calhouns and Hartwells had attended since before the Civil War. Tripp felt weak in the knees as he tried to picture Kathryn in her feminine glory.

  At the church, ushers assisted Mary Alice and Pearlie Mae from the car and into the church.

  Tripp swallowed hard. His great Uncle Carson Calhoun extended his hand. “Where’s that little kid who used to follow me through the woods hunting arrowheads?”

  Tripp lifted a brow. “Right now, he wishes he was still a little boy.”

  Carson Calhoun straightened his nephew’s ascot. “Tripp’s got the jitters bad, hasn’t he, Harlan?”

  Judge Hartwell agreed as he reached into his coat pocket. He pulled out a small box and removed a pendant. “This is my father’s coat of arms from Scotland. He gave it to me the day I married your mother. Now I’m passing it on to you.”

  Tripp was more touched than he cared to admit when his father pinned the crest on the tuxedo’s lapel. And he knew someday he would do the same for his son.

  With a nod, Tripp murmured, “We should go in.”

  The three men followed the sidewalk to the east side of the church and entered through a door that led to the front of the church, where Tripp took his place before the altar, with his father as best man and his uncle as groomsman. As the pianist played the wedding march, Tripp struggled to quell the battle of emotions raging inside of him while everyone turned expectantly, all eyes on the bride as her father escorted her down the aisle. He placed her hand in Tripp’s.

  Moments later the reverend said, “Do you take this woman as your wife?”

  The words shook Tripp. He stared at the bouquet of baby pink rosebuds tied with a deeper pink bow. He felt utterly indifferent at binding himself to this woman.

  “Yes,” he whispered, irrationally fighting down all his doubts, hoping he’d find a way to love this woman. Yes, maybe he and Kathryn could build a happy life together—for the sake of the child.

  They exchanged traditional vows. He felt a moment of guilt over the words “love, honor, and cherish.” Did he really mean to keep this promise? He would do what was expected. Theirs was a marriage of necessity, of convenience, the joining of two aristocratic families. The building of a political empire.

  With a few brief words, he was tied to Kathryn.

  The ritual went on.

  They exchanged wedding bands—the physical ties that bound a man and woman together through sickness and sorrow, through hard times and good times. Or should. Tripp wasn’t sure of anything. Not even his bride’s loyalty. This was a marriage of convenience. Did the words “till death do us part” carry any weight, or were they meaningless, to be whisked away like dewdrops dying in the morning sun?

  Tripp couldn’t remember what they’d rehearsed. After he’d slipped the ring on her finger, he held her hand until the end, a small and delicately boned hand that had probably never washed a dish or pulle
d weeds from a flower garden.

  It was time to kiss his bride. He had to admit she looked beautiful. Like an apparition he had conjured up, calm and filled with resolve, but he could feel the slight tremble in her icy hands. His eyes held hers for a long moment before dropping to her lips.

  At that point, she lifted her face, parted her lips. She closed her eyes. She was a vision of beauty in her diamond tiara and white lace veil. He lifted the filmy material and gently took her mouth. There was hunger, as well. He felt it in her tremble.

  Unsure of what to do next, he frowned as he released her. Though he and Kathryn had shared many intimate moments, he wasn’t prepared for the effect she had on him. His mother’s words of wisdom curled around his brain like a smoky whisper. Marriage should start with friendship. Love will follow.

  The truth of the matter remained—were they really friends, or simply in lust? Only time would provide the answer.

  His eyes strayed to Kathryn’s still-flat stomach. Until she’d shown him the picture of the sonogram, he’d thought she was pulling another of her not-so-funny jokes. Part of him felt possessive and protective. He was married. An admission he found difficult to accept.

  When he’d kissed her, he wanted the earth to move under his feet. It didn’t.

  They turned, as one, to meet their wedding guests.

  Tomorrow would take care of itself.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Tripp lifted the crystal picture frame from his desk. He pressed deep into the black leather chair and swiveled it toward the window as he looked at the image of himself and Kathryn standing in front of the Eiffel Tower.

  Odd, he thought, how the adverse effects a simple gift could have on a man’s life. Many changes had happened since Christmas, and not all of them happy.

  For a moment he concentrated on the hustle and bustle of daily life taking place outside his office window. He leaned back and closed his eyes.

  Paris in the springtime had been a romantic adventure—

  His graduation gift to Kathryn. Looking back on it, he was certain he knew when Kathryn had conceived. It was the day they’d explored the Louvre, lunched inside the Eiffel Tower’s cafe, consumed wine on a riverboat ride down the Seine, and then more wine in their hotel suite—and still more wine—until they were both deliriously drunk and totally uninhibited. No thoughts of birth control. Just wild drunken abandonment with no cares for the consequences.

  The reality of those consequences came in May, the week before graduation with Kathryn’s tearful announcement that she was pregnant.

  As a wedding gift, the Hartwells had offered to buy a house in Charleston for Tripp and Kathryn. Not to be outdone, her parents wrote a check for a generous amount to furnish the two-story antebellum from stem to stern. With Paris still fresh in their minds, and a photo album filled with pictures to serve as a reminder of their holiday, much to Tripp’s relief Kathryn had agreed to forfeit a honeymoon.

  Six weeks later she no longer purred like a kitten when he came home from the office. Each day she grew more sullen and indifferent. He chalked her mood swings up to impending motherhood.

  ****

  Tonight Tripp sat at his end of the dining table. A bottle of wine stood on the table, nearly finished.

  “Tripp, we need to talk.”

  He looked at her. “Yes?”

  “I hate South Carolina. I hate the heat and the bugs. I sit all day long and twiddle my thumbs. I have no friends, you work all the time, we never go out anymore…” She threw her napkin across the table. “Honestly, I don’t know why I’m still here.”

  He drew a long breath, not trying to hide the weariness in his voice. “Because you’re pregnant and because you are my wife.”

  To underscore his equanimity, he used his knife to cut another slice of meat.

  She pushed back her chair. “Marriage was a mistake. Getting pregnant was a bigger mistake.” Her pacing reminded him of a caged lioness, and then she pounced.

  “You work for your uncles. Make them clear your schedule. Let’s fly to Paris like we did in March.”

  Mentally Tripp was already leafing through his work calendar. “I’m second chair on the Bradshaw murder case. This is an opportunity to prove myself.” He spread his hands wide. “With the trial only weeks away… I’m sorry, Kathryn. Now isn’t a good time.”

  She snatched the bottle of wine and lifted it to her lips. Tripp pushed from his seat and grabbed her wrist. “The doctor said moderate alcohol. You’ve had your one glass.”

  “To hell with the doctor. To hell with you.” Her breath huffed out as if she’d been running.

  By the way she avoided his gaze he suspected she had something else to say but had decided against it. A moment later, he sat alone at the dining table. The steak on his plate had lost its appeal.

  Willing to negotiate, he rose from the chair and with hands shoved into his pockets, climbed the stairs to the bedroom.

  “Kathryn.” He spoke to her back.

  “What?”

  “We have enough evidence to put Everett Bradshaw away forever. I don’t expect the trial to last more than a few weeks, at the most. When it’s over, we’ll celebrate the victory with a trip to wherever you choose.”

  Kathryn remained facing the window. He wrapped his arms around her waist and tried to hug her against his chest.

  “Don’t.”

  Tripp dropped his arms as she twisted around to face him. He’d heard that pregnancy caused some women to become temperamental. His uncle had advised him to agree with everything and with nothing at all.

  Her arms hung at her sides. “I’m going home—to Illinois.”

  “For how long?”

  “I was thinking of asking Daddy to find you a position as an aide on one of his committees. All your life you’ve lived in Podunk USA. You have no idea what it’s like on Capitol Hill. I want that, Tripp, and I want it now.”

  He braced his legs apart with a direct challenge. “Kathryn, we’ve discussed this. No favors. Everything in politics comes back to haunt you. I’ll make my own way. When and if I decide to run for office, I don’t want snarky reporters broadcasting it all over the news that my father-in-law paid the bill.”

  “Things aren’t working out, Tripp. I’ve already bought my plane ticket.”

  “Just like that?” His gaze held hers, with no room for evasion.

  “Why not?”

  He conceded. “Perhaps a couple of weeks with your mother, some shopping trips, lunch with friends at the country club is exactly what you need. When you return home you’ll feel better.”

  She looked at him as if weighing her reply. “I-I’m…not coming back.”

  His shoulders tensed. “For the baby’s sake, don’t you think our marriage deserves a chance?”

  With a guttural sound that reminded Tripp of an animal’s growl, Kathryn placed her hands on his chest and shoved with the force of a locomotive. The move caught him off guard and sent him sprawling. When the side of his head connected with the bed’s footboard, he thought this must be how it felt to have a bomb go off inside your brain. He lay on the floor, black spots dancing before his eyes. Pain riveted down his neck.

  Shaking away the dizziness, he was on his knees when Kathryn screamed. He stumbled from the bedroom.

  The maid shrieked, “Mister Tripp, hurry! The Missus done had an accident.”

  Ignoring the violent throbbing and the goose-egg rising over his temple, Tripp rushed to Kathryn’s crumpled body at the foot of the stairs. He placed fingers to the side of her neck, checking for a pulse. “Stay with her, Martha, while I call for an ambulance.”

  The maid wrung her hands as she fretted. “Lawsy me, Mister Tripp, Miz Kathryn come barreling down dem stairs like a nest of yellowjackets was after her. She was ’most to the bottom when she missed a step and flung her poor self to the floor. Oh, lawsy, she ain’t gonna die, is she?”

  His lips were tight. “If she rouses, keep her quiet and don’t let her move.” He prayed the
fall hadn’t hurt the baby.

  ****

  Tripp accepted the cup of coffee his father handed him. The Judge said, “I spoke with Mrs. Sutterfield. The Senator is tied up in special session, but she’s leaving on the first flight out.”

  For the umpteenth time, Tripp checked his watch. “Why hasn’t the doctor come to speak to us?”

  The Judge patted his son on the shoulder. “Try not to worry, son.”

  For two hours Tripp paced, sat, drank more coffee, and prayed. He’d finally settled in a chair, resting his throbbing head between his hands, when the doctor’s voice interrupted his thoughts.

  “Mr. Hartwell?”

  Blood pounded inside Tripp’s ears as he stood. “Yes?”

  “Your wife is resting.”

  “The baby?”

  “I’m sorry,” the doctor said, and a heavy sadness filled Tripp’s chest and his eyes closed, tears managing to slip between his lashes.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Two days later, Tripp sat in his office, his mind no longer on the impending trial. He stared at the letter in his hand and wondered what travesties he’d committed to cause the laws of nature to turn his once perfect life upside down.

  All during his childhood his mother had told him things happened in threes. He’d never really believed her—until now.

  Married less than two months, he’d mourned the death of a child and seen his wife pack her bags with the declaration that she was leaving. While Kathryn had agreed, for the sake of her father’s political reputation, to not file for a divorce, she’d announced her move to Illinois was permanent.

  This morning’s mail had delivered circumstance number three.

  A rap on the door caused Tripp to glance up from the letter in his hand. He motioned his Uncle Jake inside.

  “You have the Bradshaw briefs ready?”