Charming the Snake
Page 21
The angel-serpents’ lilting song registered the renewal of Dare’s hope before his face revealed what he was feeling. “You know something I don’t?”
“I know she must have been trying to give you a message, but she sent it through the wrong brother. Chassy is totally against society marriages and never planned to make one. Her father and she fought about it on a regular basis. If you don’t believe me, ask her.”
“I believe I will.” Dare surged to his feet and jammed his arms into his jacket, his abrupt movements startling his bevy of angel-serpents. They flew up and circled him, crying and -- C.C. could swear -- giggling, their iridescent wings a beautiful kaleidoscope of ever-changing, shifting colors.
C.C. opened the door and out they flew, staying in tight formation around Dare’s rushing figure. He brushed past C.C. with a muttered apology, long legs carrying him after the serpents, which were all heading toward the Landing cathedral in the midst of town.
“Hurry up, little brother. We have a wedding to crash!”
Chapter Fourteen
Chastity sighed deeply. Listening to her young cousins chattering about her wedding did nothing to raise her spirits.
“Be still. I only have a little more to do.” Alicia spoke around a mouthful of pins. Stoically holding her pose while Alicia fidgeted and twitched and pinned her gown in to place for what felt like the tenth time, Chassy sighed again.
“All done. Now, step out of the dress. The seamstress needs to take it up one last time.” Getting up off her knees, Alicia dusted the non-existent dust from her shins. “Thank goodness the wedding is today. You’ve lost so much weight, we’ve had to take your dress in five times.”
I haven’t lost enough weight to suit me. I want to fade right away and become nothingness.
“I wish my father were here.” So I can strangle him for making me do this.
“Oh, honey, I know!” Ali threw her arms around her, gave her a loving squeeze. “But soon you’ll have someone of your very own. Someone to keep you company and --”
Chassy stared at Ali as if she had two heads. “Are you totally insane, Ali? The earl of Chesley is the biggest womanizer since Landing. The man’s a sleaze, a dog -- my apologies to dogs everywhere -- and a total reprobate. How could you possibly imagine I’d be happy with him?”
Ali swallowed. “B-because you asked father to arrange a contract of marriage with him...?”
“Arrgh!” Chassy reached toward her hair, seriously contemplating yanking the unruly mass out by the roots.
“Don’t do that!” Ali screeched, running forward and grabbing her cousin’s hands. “The hairdresser took two hours creating this masterpiece. Don’t you dare make a mess... Oh!” She slapped palm over her mouth. “I said the ‘D’ word. I’m so sorry.”
Chastity tapped her cousin’s forehead. “I know you have a brain in there, Ali; I’ve heard it rotating.”
“How can you be so mean on your wedding day?”
“Oh, this is the day to be mean, trust me.”
One of the cousins stuck their head around the door. “The bridegroom has arrived. Everyone get ready.”
The seamstress returned with her modified dress and helped her slip it carefully over the hairdresser’s masterpiece.
Shrieking and laughing, the girls scrambled to get ready. Grabbing up their bouquets and slipping on their shoes, they lined up in order.
Chassy couldn’t help smiling. In their gowns colored all rainbow shades, her little cousins looked like a bunch of willowy flowers. The one good thing this mock marriage had done was bring all her family together. It had been eons since she’d seen most of the people that had gathered under one roof to wish her happy.
The duchess of Pettibone sailed through the door, cutting a swath through the spectators and participants with equal disdain. “Everybody out, please; I need to speak to the bride.”
Alicia bristled. “I’m the matron of honor. Why do I have to leave?”
“Because you are the matron, dear, while she is an unmarried woman without a mother. I am here to deliver the requisite prenuptial speech. Now shoo!”
Once the room emptied, she turned to Chassy with her usual calm smile. Lowering her voice, she whispered, “Your father is secreted off the main sanctuary. We’ve wired the small office so he can monitor everything. I have to get back out to my husband now.” She started for the door.
“Hey!”
She looked back. “Yes, dear?”
“What about my talk?”
The grandmotherly duchess chuckled. “My dear Chastity, you have been Darian Acer’s lover. I should be asking you for advice. You could probably teach me a thing or three.” She winked as she stepped through the door and closed it gently behind her.
Chassy took a deep breath. Time to get this show on the road...
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“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today in the presence of friends and loved ones to unite these two people in holy matrimony...”
Chastity glanced through the hazy gauze of her veil at the tall man standing beside her -- Dare’s father, and C.C.’s. He looks like them... or should I say, they look like him? Dammit, why can’t everyone see how much he resembles C.C.?
The width of shoulder and length of leg, all three men shared between them. The differences were in their coloring. C.C. had to take after his mother, his blond, blue-eyed handsomeness a far cry from his half-brother. While Dare probably hated that he looked so much like the father who’d thrown him away.
She snuck another sideways glance at the man towering over her and saw the strong line of jaw was the same as his son’s. So were the liquid black eyes, shadowed with long, thick lashes. Shoulders and chest and thighs, all found their echoes in the beloved flesh she’d recently stroked and measured. A fleeting question regarding similarity in length elsewhere crossed her mind, and she grimaced and shooed it away. She didn’t care beans about the earl’s hidden assets. She was a one-man woman.
She wished the murderer would hurry and show up. This ceremony was getting frighteningly close to becoming real.
“If there be anyone here who knows just cause why this marriage should not go forward, let them speak now or forever hold their peace!”
“I know!”
“I know!”
The crowd gasped in one voice as the words rang out from opposite sides of the church in synchronization.
Chastity whipped about, searching for a glimpse of those who’d shouted their opposition. That had not been her father’s voice, but she could have sworn one of the voices had been female.
The priest’s stentorian tones rang out. “Come forward and state your objection before God and this assembly.”
Darian stepped from behind a pillar and made his way toward the front of the church. C.C. followed close behind. “I claim the woman by dual right of possession and declaration. She belongs to me.”
Chassy stopped breathing.
He looked magnificent. His hair wasn’t combed, and his clothes were wrinkled and... not up to his usual sartorial elegance, but the expression in his eyes as he approached lit her heart until it flamed like a miniature sun.
“No! I’ll not lose another son to an unworthy female. I’ll see her dead, first!”
A shot rang out, the sound deafening and echoing in the vaulted chamber. A hard push from the side sent Chastity hurling down the stairs, out of the path of the projectile.
Screams.
Shouts.
Pandemonium.
Strong hands lifted her off the floor. “Chastity, darling, are you okay?” Those beloved hands ran over her shoulders and arms, traced her torso, checking for injuries.
Dare.
Laughing and crying, she went into his arms, everything and everyone around her fading into insignificance measured against the joy of having the only man she’d ever loved at her side. “Oh, Dare, oh, darling, I’m fine now that you’re here.” She looked around. “What’s happening?”
Darian’s l
ips tightened. He drew her tighter against his shoulder. “Apparently, my mother is still alive, but perhaps not for long. She just tried to kill you.”
Chassy stiffened. “What? Where’s my father?”
It was his turn to stiffen. “Chassy, don’t you remember? Your father is dead.”
She avoided his concerned eyes. “Yeah, well... he’s about as dead as your mom is.” She cringed at his stony expression. “I can explain...”
He nodded, lips folded in a disapproving line. “Later. Right now, I need to check on my father. He took the shot meant for you when he pushed you out of the way.”
“Oh, my goodness,” she gasped. “Is he all right? Does this mean I can’t hate him any longer?”
That surprised a smile out of him. “I think he’ll be fine. He’s still worthy of hate. It didn’t look too serious. Probably just a flesh wound. Come on.” He took her hand and pulled her after him.
She held back. “Wait. I want to ask the priest something.”
She walked over to the prelate and tugged his sleeve. He bent to her, listening with a growing expression of shock and doubt. When she finished, he laughed aloud and nodded. “Well, why not, milady? Stranger things have happened in this church.”
Epilogue
“I am glad your father reinstated you to your title and inheritance, but so sorry about your mother.” Chassy snuggled up beside her new husband and slipped her hand into his. He squeezed her fingers, feeling a mix of emotions hard to put a name to.
“Thank you, darling. She was truly insane. I never dreamed she’d try to kill you again. When she came at us, the serpents thought she was attacking me. At least it was quick, if painful. Being struck by so many angel-serpents -- the venom acted blindingly fast.”
“She wasn’t really to blame for her actions. Our father drove her out of her mind with all his infidelities.” C.C. lounged on the couch opposite them, sipping brandy and recovering from the wild events of the day.
“At least he wasn’t to blame for our brother’s fiancée’s death. According to what Mom confessed, he was blind drunk when Eschell crawled into his bed, and he never knew he’d slept with her. Her mistake was bragging to Mom about the pregnancy. When Daniel discovered Mom after she’d drowned Eschell, she begged him not to turn her over to the authorities. You remember how he was?” he asked C.C., sorrow threatening to crush him as he recalled the brother he’d worshiped while growing up under his shadow.
“I remember. Straight as an arrow, but lamentably narrow in thought.”
That gave Dare pause. “That’s a pretty dead-on evaluation. Anyway, the only alternative for him was to end his own life. And she killed her maid in order to fake her death in that chamber fire. She disappeared and started a new life away from father and her guilt over Daniel’s suicide. Strange,” he mused almost to himself, “she killed several people and suffered no remorse. Daniel kills himself and she can’t live with that. I wonder if she ever loved me.”
Chassy leaned up and kissed him, peppering soft kisses all over his face. “I love you. That’s all that matters.”
Everyone was quiet for a while. After a few more sips, Chezann broke the silence. “I didn’t catch how your father came into this, Chassy.”
She turned her face toward him but didn’t lift her head from Dare’s shoulder. “Simple. Father caught sight of Dare’s mother in New India and recognized her. He and the earl had been drinking buddies. He told me she hated him almost as much as she did her husband. She blamed Dad for some of your father’s excesses. Thinking he would contact your father and tell him her whereabouts, she came to our plantation and tried to kill him.” She shrugged. “We decided I’d come to New Britain and pretend she’d succeeded, to give Father a chance to recuperate. The day I visited the duchess of Pettibone was the day he revealed this plot to flush out your mother. She was such a stickler for upholding appearances, he figured she wouldn’t, couldn’t, allow your father to remarry as long as she lived.
“I didn’t find out until you did that the duchess was her half-sister and your aunt. Your mother refused to recognize her. Their relationship was nothing like you two have. Father had made her a promise long ago never to reveal her relationship. The duke of Pettibone never knew she was not her father’s true daughter.”
Chastity looked up, and Dare saw her beautiful brown eyes swimming with tears. “It almost killed me to hurt you like I did. I told Father if I lost you, the murderer might as well have shot me, too, for I would be dead inside.”
“You can’t lose me.”
“Unless he’s buried in angel-serpents.” C.C. chortled. He pointed over to the mantle where two serpents reclined, their wings furled along their backs, drowsing in the heat of the fireplace.
“I think you taught them about windows, C.C.” Dare’s accusation made Chassy smile. “When we came home, we found all the windows ajar and over twenty serpents checking out the house. I’m worried over what you’ve started.”
“Then my work here is done!” With a laugh, C.C. jumped to his feet and placed his empty glass on the tea table. He touched Dare’s shoulder in a fleeting brotherly caress and leaned over him to kiss Chassy on the mouth.
“Hey, none of that, young buck!”
He chuckled at Dare’s not-so-fake grimace. “Relax, bro. I’m just kissing the bride... and my new sister.” He opened the door. “I imagine I won’t see you again until you two lovebirds decide to emerge from your nest.”
Before he could close the door, a serpent zipped out the narrow opening and fluttered above his head, chittering madly. Eyes widening, C.C. tentatively raised his arm, offering the angel-serpent a perch. Moisture added a luster to the blueness of his eyes when the dainty creature settled carefully on her new friend.
“Did you see that?” he asked, his voice hushed with awe.
The serpents on the mantle giggled and trilled, their amusement so obvious, Dare wondered how he had missed seeing their high level of intelligence for so long.
“C.C.”
“Yeah?”
“Congratulations. Now get out. I have to relieve my wife of her virginity, and you are cramping my style.”
“But...”
His little lady serpent grabbed his earlobe between her two tiny forefeet and tugged just as Chastity reared up and threw a couch pillow at him. It missed him by an inch.
With a resigned sigh, Darian untangled his limbs and climbed to his feet. Stalking over to the still open door, he pushed his brother through, whispering, “C.C., I can’t name what I can’t make.”
“Huh? Oh... oh! Okay.” Dare shook his head as his sibling finally caught on. For a rakehell, C.C. was awfully slow sometimes. “‘Crofton,’ remember, not ‘Chezann’!”
Latching the door, Dare leaned back, placed his hands behind him, and smiled at his wife. “You know, it occurs to me that C.C. needs to settle down.”
“You men are all alike. Once you get married, you can’t stand for your friends or brothers to remain single.” Chassy sat up and tossed off her gown, baring her lush breasts to his interested gaze. “Enough about C.C. Come fuck me!”
Dare sauntered over to the love of his life, hiding a grin. “Oh, I don’t think he’s ready for marriage. I was thinking along the lines of him finding a good woman willing to offer him carte blanche!”
Camille Anthony
Camille Anthony is a pseudonym for the author who lives in the beautifully wild Low Country of South Carolina. She is a transplant from Sunny California. A fertile imagination and a love of romance fuels her writing, which she has been doing since grade school. Her favorite stories are those of strong, honorable people--whatever the race, or planet of origin--who are driven by love and lust to find and hold that one special someone. She likes her heroines feisty, her heroes dominant and her passion red hot!
She loves to hear from her readers. Your comments and suggestions are appreciated.
Visit Camille on the Web at www.camilleanthony.com or e-mail her at camilleanthony@cami
lleanthony.com.
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