“Listen, woman, I may not be as bright as you are, but I never turn down anything free. If your father wants to throw his money away on all kinds of fancy dresses for our wedding, that’s his business. It’s mine to take what he offers. Besides,” he added as they stepped on deck, “it’ll give us some time alone. Sort of a prehoneymoon honeymoon.”
She smiled at that. As much of a prehoneymoon as it can be with Dulcie at our side, anyway.
Mr. Reed, Raimey’s father, had insisted on sending them to Williamsburg to the best dressmaker in the South. Dent had not argued, for he wanted the time away from the family with Raimey. Mrs. Reed had wanted the two of them to get their photographs made there, as well, so he had gotten up and dressed in full uniform, including pistol and saber.
“I feel foolish in this rig,” he said as the two of them stood leaning on the rail. He was still wearing a sling, but his arm was mending and the doctors were confident that he’d have full use of it—with perhaps some rheumatism when he grew older, just as a reminder.
They stood there, Dent’s arm around Raimey’s waist, talking quietly. He had never found anyone he could talk to as he could to this woman who had appeared so suddenly in his life. She knew him better than he knew himself, and her handicap had come to mean very little to him. Dulcie was like Raimey’s eyes, and she would stay with her always.
As for Raimey, her heart was full. She had fully expected that she would never marry—and now she had a man who fit her like a glove. She loved him freely, openly, without limits, and she knew that time would only increase what she felt for him.
Dent was speaking about the plans for their stay in Williamsburg when he broke off suddenly. “What is it?” Raimey asked quickly, always sensitive to his mood.
“Somebody coming down the quay,” he said. He studied the two figures who were moving slowly toward the Loretta and said, “Two people, but they’re acting very strange. Something’s wrong with them.” He watched as they approached; then when they turned to climb the gangplank, he said, “Doesn’t look right, Raimey. Stand back against the bulkhead. I think I’d better challenge them.”
He waited until Raimey was back, then pulled his Colt free as the pair stepped on deck. He saw that one was a man, who was apparently sick, for the woman with him was holding him as though to support him. When Dent spoke, they both froze. “Hold it!” Dent said sharply. He half expected one of them to pull a gun, so careful had been their approach. “Who are you? Why are you sneaking onto this boat?”
The woman said quickly, “We have a cabin reserved.”
As she spoke, Dent blinked, for she had stepped into the feeble yellow light of the lantern. “Deborah!” he said incredulously. “What are you doing here?”
Deborah and Noel had started walking much earlier, but it had proved too much for Noel. He had begun to lag, and by the time they reached the ship, he was able to do no more than stumble along with Deborah’s help. Now he saw Dent standing before him, gun aimed, and he gasped, “Don’t shoot! I’ll go back, but let her go!”
It all was clear then, both to Dent and to Raimey. They had heard of Noel’s escape, and the alarm was out to watch for a Federal soldier and an old woman. Dent looked at Deborah, and some of the old bitterness welled up in him. Deborah saw it rise in his eyes but could say nothing. She stood there, knowing that Dent had been a possessive man and was now seeing her as a woman who had been taken from him. And the man who had done the taking was in his power.
Raimey came forward and touched Dent’s arm. She had known of Dent’s obsession with this girl and had even been jealous of it for a time. Now she said quietly, “Dent, what are you going to do?”
Dent stood there uncertainly. He had been haunted for so long by thoughts of Deborah Steele, and now here she stood, looking as lovely as ever. Even in the pale yellow light of the lantern, her face was beautiful.
All you have to do is turn them in.
The thought pushed at his mind, and he stood there almost ready to call for the officers of the ship.
He stood there weighing the options in his mind—and suddenly he realized that to turn them in would be to become the man he had once been! There was still something of the old Dent Rocklin in him, something that he thought had been erased, buried forever when he became a Christian. Now Dent realized that the battle for a man’s soul didn’t end with becoming a Christian—rather, that was when it began in earnest. If he were to give in to this base impulse to get some sort of petty revenge on Deborah because she had rejected him, he would be taking the first step back to being the man he was before God had done such wonderful miracles in his life.
Deborah was watching him, waiting for his decision—as was the soldier. Dent felt Raimey’s presence, too, even more strongly than he felt the presence of the two who stood before him. He waited for his impulse to weaken, to fade—and was appalled at how it only grew fiercer! But that very fact was his salvation, for he suddenly understood that it was not Deborah and Noel who were on trial …. No, he was the one being tested!
And he knew then the power of darkness and how it could destroy a man.
He looked at Deborah and saw the honesty on her face … and knew he couldn’t do it. He lowered the Colt, holstered it, then said quietly, “You’d better get to your cabin. The whole city’s looking for you.”
At that moment steps sounded on the stones, and Bing came stumbling up the gangplank. He halted abruptly at the sight of a Confederate officer blocking the way. His face went tight and he reached under his coat, but he stopped when Deborah said, “Bing! It’s all right. Let’s get to the cabin.”
Dent stepped back, and as Deborah passed she gave him a beautiful smile, saying, “Thank you, Lieutenant.” Then the three of them disappeared into the corridor.
Raimey pulled at Dent’s arm, and he turned to her. “Dent, I’m so proud of you!” She reached up and pulled his head down. Her lips were soft and gentle, yet strangely possessive. When she pulled away, she said, “Now you’re really all mine, Dent. Until this moment, part of you belonged to Deborah. But no more, isn’t that right?”
“No more,” he whispered, and they stood there watching the sun peep over the eastern rim.
“What’s going to happen to them, I wonder?” Dent mused.
“They’ll be fine,” Raimey said. “They’re like us, Dent. They love each other, and when two people love each other, not even a war can take that away.”
He held her close and said quietly, “I almost missed you, Raimey, but now I’ll never let you go.”
The boilers under their feet began to hiss, and the ship gave a slight shudder. An hour later the Loretta cleared Richmond, and as it moved down the river, there were those aboard who knew that life was good. The sun was up, bathing the ship in golden rays, and the white wake of the Loretta threw off golden flakes as the vessel moved toward the sea.
WHERE HONOR DWELLS
To Doug and Blanche
Our tribe is shrinking, buddy—
which makes you mean more to me than ever.
God bless you and Blanche and Mark
and the little ones!
PART ONE
The Coward
CHAPTER 1
BRAND OF A COWARD
Rachel!” Les Franklin grabbed his sister’s arm and pointed toward the street. “Look, here comes Vince—and he’s so drunk he can hardly sit on his horse!”
Rachel Franklin turned at once to see her half brother, Vince Franklin, dismount by almost falling off of his horse, then stagger into the arms of Bruno, a white-haired slave. She bit her lip in vexation, watching as Bruno caught Vince and kept him from falling, only to be rewarded by Vince’s shoving him away roughly. Vince then turned to look across the crowd that had gathered for the wedding of Dent Rocklin and Raimey Reed. He laughed loudly and moved toward the massive steps of the Congregational church, shoving his way through the crowd.
Rachel moved quickly to where her great-uncle Mark Rocklin stood. “Uncle Mark, Vince
is drunk. He’ll ruin the wedding if someone doesn’t stop him!”
Mark Rocklin was a tall, lean man of fifty with a pair of dark eyes that few men cared to face when they burned with anger. He had been a misfit among the children of Noah Rocklin, who was the patriarch of the Rocklin family in Virginia. Mark had never been interested in farming, as were his brother Thomas and his sister, Marianne. Mark’s brothers Stephen and Mason had not cared for farming either, but they had found worthwhile occupations: Mason had been a professional soldier in the Union Army for years; Stephen owned a prosperous ironworks in Washington.
Mark, however, had been a wanderer, a gambler with no roots. He came back to visit Richmond only on rare occasions, finding little there to draw him. Little, that is, except his great-niece Rachel, for the two of them had a similar temperament and so had formed a close and warm bond. Now he smiled at her, his face lighting with an uncharacteristic tenderness.
“I’ll see to him, Rachel.” Mark’s voice was low and even, but there was purpose in his face as he moved down the steps and halted right in front of Vincent Franklin. “Hello, Vince,” he said casually.
Vince stopped abruptly, almost falling. He caught himself, looked up, blinked owlishly, then said thickly, “Oh … Uncle Mark …”
“I need some company, nephew. Come and sit with me for the wedding.”
Vince reddened and an angry reply rose to his lips, but he was not too drunk to realize he had no choice. Mark Rocklin was a man of easy manners, but there was something dangerous about him. As Vince peered at his great-uncle, he suddenly remembered some of the things he’d heard about the man’s past. “Why … sure,” he muttered. He licked his lips, then said, “Maybe I’d better sit down. I don’t feel so good.”
“Let’s sit in the balcony, Vince,” Mark said, taking his arm and leading him firmly toward a side door. “We can see more from there.”
As the two men disappeared inside the church, Rachel turned to her younger brother, Les. “He’ll behave now,” she said, then added, “I wish he hadn’t come.”
“I’ll get him to leave after it’s over, Rachel,” Les said. At seventeen he was almost an exact copy of his father, with the same fair skin and reddish hair. But as he moved away from her, Rachel knew that Les could not handle Vince. None of them could.
“Come along, now, Rachel—”
She turned to see her father and mother at the front door. She hurried up the steps, hoping her father hadn’t noticed the commotion her half brother had created. But her father glanced over her shoulder and asked, “What was the trouble with Vince? I didn’t know he was back.” Brad Franklin was attired in the dress uniform of a Major in the Confederate Army, sword and all. His rather hungry-looking face was tense, as it usually was whenever Vince was around, and he shook his head angrily. “Why did he come at all?”
Nothing brought as much humiliation to Brad Franklin as the sight of his eldest son. A product of Brad’s first marriage, Vince was the image of his mother, Lila Crawford, and this alone was enough to stir painful memories. Lila had been as promiscuous and selfish as she had been pretty, but Brad had been young and in love. He had not discovered his wife’s self-centered nature until after they were wed—and then it was too late.
Brad had remained firm in his convictions after their marriage. He had refused to overlook Lila’s flirtations and involvements, demanding that she become the wife she had promised in her vows to be. So it was that less than a year after Vince’s birth, Lila divorced her husband, took her baby, and ran away with a gambler from Natchez. All of Brad’s attempts to reclaim his son had failed. He had seen Vince only a half dozen times after Lila’s departure, and never for more than a few moments. Then three years after Brad’s marriage to Amy Rocklin, he had received word of Lila’s death. Hoping to be at last reunited with his son, he had taken five-year-old Vince into his home—but by then the boy was totally spoiled and as selfish as his mother. It hadn’t been long before Vince’s half brother and half sister, and his father, had little to do with the boy.
Now, staring with distaste in the direction Vince had gone, Brad shook his head again.
“Never mind, Father,” Rachel said with a smile. She gave his collar a slight pull and said, “My, you look dashing! Doesn’t he, Mother? And look at you, in that new dress!”
Amy Franklin, the only daughter of Thomas Rocklin, was not really a beautiful woman, but she made people think she was. She was tall and dark like her father, and her fine dark eyes were her best feature. She smiled indulgently at her daughter. “Nobody looks at old women at weddings, Rachel. Let’s go take our seats before somebody else gets them.”
“Not much danger of that,” Brad said, holding the door open, then following the two women inside. “Sam Reed has got this wedding planned down to the last bouquet. I think you have to have a pass from him to even get in the church.”
An usher met them, saying, “This way, sir,” and led them to their seats. When they were situated, Rachel said, “Isn’t it lovely? I’ve never seen so many flowers!”
“Too bad the bride can’t see them, isn’t it?” Brad whispered.
“She can smell them,” Rachel said. “And she’s gone over every one, I do think, touching them.”
“A strange thing—for Dent to marry her,” Rachel’s father said thoughtfully. “We all thought it’d be that Yankee girl,
Deborah Steele, walking down the aisle with that boy.” He gave a restless shake to his shoulders, adding, “I guess Dent thought a blind woman wouldn’t mind the way he looks with all the scars.”
Though he sounded cold, Major Franklin was merely voicing what many others had thought. Dent Rocklin had been one of the most handsome men in the city of Richmond, the object of many women’s devotion. But a terrible saber cut on his face, which he had received at the battle of Manassas, had left him with a ghastly scar. It was, perhaps, natural that some would leap to the conclusion that he would marry someone such as Raimey Reed, who was lovely but totally blind.
Rachel shook her head firmly. “No, Daddy, it’s not like that. They’re really in love. I even heard Dent say that Raimey was the most wonderful gift God has ever given him. If I ever got a husband, I’d want him to love me as much as Dent loves Raimey.” Then she said quickly, as if to cover up a slip, “But here I am, the spinster of Lindwood, talking about a husband, just like all the old maids.”
“I wish you’d stop calling yourself that ridiculous name, Rachel!” A quick flash of anger flared in Amy Franklin’s eyes, and she added, “You could have been married long ago. There are a lot of young men around.”
“Lots of gophers and jackrabbits around, too.”
“Oh, you drive me mad, Rachel!” her mother said, then lifted her head. “Look, it’s starting!”
The organ began to whisper, then grew louder as the members of the wedding party began the old ritual. As it went on, Rachel felt tears gathering in her eyes despite herself. Angrily she blinked them away, hoping no one had seen her. She hated how easily she was moved to tears—though she seldom let them be seen. Long ago she had decided to keep a tight rein on her emotions. Usually she succeeded, but there were times when she could not stem the tide. It never ceased to shame her that she was a young woman who constantly struggled with her emotions. She had been taught from an early age that God had created her as she was, giving her gifts and characteristics that were special to her. Even so, she envied women who were always cool and stately, like her great-aunt Marianne Bristol and her own mother. I won’t cry! she thought fiercely as the wedding proceeded, but when Dent came out accompanied by his best man—his identical twin, David—she could not ignore the pang of pity that stabbed at her.
Dent and David had always been handsome. Now as Dent stood with his scarred face turned toward the congregation and waited for his bride, everyone could see the full extent of his injury—and there stood David as a graphic reminder of what Lieutenant Denton Rocklin once had looked like.
Since Dent’s inju
ry, Rachel had instinctively avoided staring at her cousin’s scarred face, not wanting to hurt him. Now that he could not see her, though, she lifted her eyes and took in the magnitude of the damage. The cut had caused Dent’s left eye to droop, giving him a sinister appearance; the scar pulled the side of his mouth to the left, which only added to that impression. Rachel could not help but glance at David, noting the firm lines of his face—and then she could look no more.
Then, suddenly, the organ began to swell in volume, and Rev. Jeremiah Irons gave a signal with his hand, bringing the congregation to their feet. Rachel turned to see Raimey, her hand resting on her father’s arm, coming down the aisle, a vision of loveliness all in white. A smile was on her lips and her blue eyes were clear, fixed in front of her. She moved with such confidence that it would never have occurred to someone who was seeing her for the first time that she was blind.
As she took her place in front of Irons, her father stepped back, and at once she reached out and put her hand on Dent’s arm. She knew he’d be there, Rachel thought. She’s always sure he’ll be there. The thought pleased her, bringing a softness to her lips. That’s what love is—just knowing that the one you love will always be there! Oh, heavenly Father, that’s the kind of love I want.
Then she listened as Irons read the familiar words and as Dent and Raimey spoke their vows, pledging themselves to God and to each other. It was quiet and solemn, and their words seemed to hang in the air like the notes of an organ heard from far away.
Finally the ceremony was over, and the Franklins rose. “Well, let’s go to the reception,” Rachel’s father said. “Reed’s reserved the ballroom at the Elliot Hotel. It’s going to be a dandy.” Just then, Rachel glanced up toward the balcony and saw Mark Rocklin sitting there, holding Vince in place with an iron authority. Her father, following her glance, frowned. “I’m glad Mark’s keeping a tight rein on him. He’s done enough to humiliate this family!”
Three Books in One: A Covenant of Love, Gate of His Enemies, and Where Honor Dwells Page 66