The Bride's Rescuer

by Charlotte Douglas

  “The blue dress—”

  “Good heavens, no! Mr. Alexander has seen you in that dress.”

  “You’re not superstitious?”

  “Indeed I am! It’s terribly bad luck for a man to see his bride in her bridal clothes before the ceremony. The yellow dress is almost finished. We’ll add a special touch or two.”

  Although Celia was amused by the housekeeper’s fears, she agreed with her choice of a dress. The color was a pale yellow, more the shade of heavy cream. With the inset of ivory lace at the neckline that Mrs. Givens suggested, it would be a perfect wedding dress—nothing like the Vera Wang creation she’d bought for her marriage to Darren, but then Cameron was nothing like Darren.

  Then another thought struck Celia and she laughed aloud as she pictured herself in her wedding dress—and sneakers.

  “What is it?” Mrs. Givens asked.

  “Shoes. I only have the one pair—and not very bridal ones at that.”

  “Noah has some hides he’s tanned. They’re in the cowshed. I can cut soles from them and make you slippers out of some ivory satin I have.”

  “Mrs. Givens, you are amazing.”

  While Celia did the washing up, Mrs. Givens prepared bread dough for a week’s baking. Celia’s thoughts were happy, focused on her approaching marriage, but her mind kept returning to Clarissa, as a tongue seeks out an aching tooth.

  “Were you there when Cameron married Clarissa?” Celia asked, “and please don’t tell me you can’t speak of her. If I’m marrying Cameron, I should know about his past.”

  “What Mr. Alexander chooses to tell you is his business.”

  “I’m not asking you to divulge any secrets. Just tell me, as one woman to another, what their wedding was like.”

  Mrs. Givens scratched her nose as she remembered, leaving a smear of flour across its tip. “It was the most magnificent wedding of its day. Married in St. Paul’s, they were, with half of London there to see.”

  “And Clarissa’s dress?”

  “All silk and tulle, and yards and yards of Brussels lace, even her veil.”

  “All white?”

  “Oh, no. All in a lovely shade of silvery gray that set off her dark eyes and her complexion—like the finest white porcelain, it was. You can see it in her portrait.”

  “And Cameron?”

  “Dressed like a lord, all the way to his fine silk hat.”

  “They must have been very happy.”

  Mrs. Givens pummeled the dough on the table before her angrily, and when she glanced up at Celia, her eyes were blazing. “They were the two most miserable people on God’s earth.”

  The housekeeper’s statement shocked Celia, shattering the picture she’d had of Cameron and Clarissa. “But it was their wedding day.”

  Mrs. Givens wiped her floured hands on her apron and gazed at Celia with sad eyes. “The two hardly knew one another. Clarissa’s father was a business partner of Mr. Alexander, and he was desperately ill. He wanted a husband for his daughter before he died.”

  “And Cameron, what did he want?”

  “To protect his investments by marrying the other half of them.”

  The cold, calculated arrangement sickened Celia. “Even though they started out unhappily, surely they must have grown to love one another over time?”

  The housekeeper crossed the kitchen and placed her hand on Celia’s arm. “One of the reasons I’m so very happy about your marriage, m’dear, is that it offers Cameron the first chance for true happiness he’s ever had. Let it go at that. Don’t muddy the waters with too many questions.”

  Cameron called Celia into the house then, and in the flurry of preparations over the next week, she forgot Mrs. Givens’s account of Cameron’s marriage to Clarissa.

  Until it was too late.

  THE MORNING OF HER wedding day dawned overcast and drizzly, and, sensitized to omens by Mrs. Givens’s superstitious nature, Celia pondered the significance of the weather. But as the day progressed, the sky cleared, and the sun shone with enough radiance to please any bride.

  Noah journeyed inland during the rainy morning and returned with an armload of goldenrod, wild orchids and lacy ferns, which Mrs. Givens fashioned into a huge bouquet tied with ivory satin lovers’ knots.

  The three-tiered cake stood ready on the kitchen table, rich buttery layers with a filling of raisins, nuts, and dates in between, all covered with a creamy icing decorated with glistening orange leaves and blossoms of yellow frangipani.

  “If you’d wait a few months, we’d have orange blossoms,” Mrs. Givens teased as she placed the fresh flowers on the cake.

  Late in the afternoon, Celia bathed in the copper tub, twisted her hair into a French braid, intertwined with ivory ribbons and frangipani blossoms. She slipped on her dress and surveyed herself in the full-length mirror.

  A wide-eyed stranger stared back at her. “I hope you know what you’re doing this time,” the stranger said.

  Celia thought of her late parents and wished they could be here for her wedding. Even more than the average bride, she was beginning an entirely new life, joining Cameron willingly—even joyfully—in his exile on Solitaire. She couldn’t go home again, but she would make the island her home, and home for the man who had been so unhappy when she first arrived. She slid her feet into the delicate satin slippers Mrs. Givens had made and went to meet her groom.

  On the beach, Mrs. Givens, in her best dress of violet silk, stood proudly by the table beneath the chickee. Centered with the massive cake and decorated with tropical flowers, greenery and candles shielded from the wind by hurricane globes, the table, filled with an amazing variety of dishes, looked like a buffet on a cruise ship. The only thing missing was an ice sculpture.

  Mrs. Givens and Noah applauded as Celia stepped onto the path between the dunes.

  Cameron came forward and offered his arm. Dressed simply in a linen shirt and fitted slacks tucked into his high, polished boots, he looked more handsome than ever, and her heart swelled with pride that this fascinating and complex man loved her.

  Together they walked to the water’s edge and gazed westward toward the huge orb of gold hanging just above the horizon. Joining hands, they gazed into one another’s eyes and recited the vows they had memorized.

  Cameron placed a gold ring set with a sparkling square-cut emerald on her finger. “My father gave this ring to my mother when I was born. The emerald is my birthstone.”

  She caught the glint of tears in his eyes before he kissed her. As they broke from their embrace, the sun slipped beneath the horizon, and an incredible flash of green burst forth from its exit point and bathed the sky in pale green light.

  “An omen,” Mrs. Givens said.

  “A sign of my good fortune.” Cameron kissed Celia again. “Mrs. Alexander, you have made me the luckiest and happiest of men.”

  Celia, too, in the joy of the moment, considered the flash of green a symbol of good luck.

  THE WEEKS FOLLOWING her wedding were the happiest Celia had ever known. As had been his habit, Cameron rose before dawn for his plunge in the gulf, and an hour later, when she joined him at breakfast, she always found some small gift or token waiting beside her plate. While other women might have yearned for expensive jewelry and hothouse flowers, she delighted in his simple gifts, seeing in them Cameron’s way of showing his love for her.

  The first morning, she discovered a magnificent conch shell, its shining pink interior scrubbed clean.

  “It’s beautiful.” She ran her hand across its knurled surface. “I’ll make a display of the shells I’ve collected, and this will be the focal point.”

  “So long as you keep it close at hand,” Cameron said.

  “Why? If you wanted me to wear it next to my heart, it should have been smaller.”

  “Let me show you.” He picked up the huge shell, placed one end to his lips, and blew.

  The trumpeting blast brought Mrs. Givens on the run from the kitchen.

  “God in heaven,
I thought it was the call of Judgment Day,” she said before returning to her tasks.

  “You see its effectiveness,” Cameron told Celia with a grin. “If you need me, just sound a few blasts on this.”

  Other mornings there were wildflowers, exotic shells, a gull’s feather, a piece of driftwood carved like a dolphin and a book of poems marked at a special place.

  “Cameron, you spoil me. I love your surprises, but I have nothing to give you in return.”

  “Nothing? Dearest Celia, you have given me back my life.”

  While his statement may have sounded melodramatic, Celia noted evidence of new vitality in Cameron every day. His step seemed lighter, he laughed often, and he had abandoned his habit of consuming several snifters of brandy in order to sleep.

  He planned every day like an adventure, beginning the day after the wedding.

  “Every bride should have a wedding journey.” He returned the conch shell to her and attacked his breakfast with enthusiasm.

  “A journey? To Key West? Or back to England?”

  “I will never return there.” His words fell flat and cold on her ears.

  “I’m sorry. I thought—”

  “We will have to amuse ourselves with day trips. Today I’ll show you the dry prairies inland.”

  “Where Noah cuts grass for the cow?”

  “It’s more than grass. It—I can’t describe it. You must see it for yourself.”

  “I’d love to see it, but—”

  “If you don’t wish to go, say so.” Cameron set down his knife and fork. “I only want what pleases you.”

  “I want to see it, but I don’t have suitable clothes for tromping through a prairie.”

  Cameron grinned. “We’ll take care of that.”

  Later, outfitted in one of Cameron’s shirts and a pair of his slacks, cinched at the waist with a belt and rolled at the ankles, Celia joined him at the pier. They set sail for the mainland, and she snuggled into the curve of his arm as he sat at the tiller.

  “I’ve been thinking of a suggestion you made.” His amber eyes sparkled with excitement, making him even more attractive than usual. “The idea of writing a book about the Ten Thousand Islands is very appealing. And to maintain my anonymity, I can use a pseudonym.”

  “It’s a big undertaking.”

  “Not if you’ll help me.” He squeezed her shoulder gently and favored her with a loving glance. “We’ll work as a team, observing and taking notes.”

  Celia smiled her approval, drinking in the sight of him against the cloudless sky with the sun glinting off his hair. He pulled her closer and kissed her, until the wind shifted, drawing his attention back to his sailing.

  “At this rate,” she teased, “writing that book may take a very long time.”

  “We have all the time in the world.”

  All that day and the weeks after, Celia slogged with Cameron through wet prairies, sawgrass, swamp lilies and cattails, noting pickerel weed ponds, alligator flag and potato marshes filled with herons, limpkins, egrets, ibis, wood storks and sandhill cranes. Cameron pointed out marsh pinks and grass pinks, false fox-glove and coreopsis that would flood new green grasses with color in the spring. Together they clipped samples of the vegetation and sketched the birds, detailing colors and markings as well as nesting grounds and feeding habits.

  Life in the outdoors agreed with Celia, and she reveled in the fresh air. Most of all, she delighted in Cameron’s company.

  In the evenings after dinner, they tabulated their findings, pressed samples of grasses and blossoms into the books in Cameron’s study and discussed the best methods of organizing the information they’d gathered.

  Afterward, before bedtime, they’d take a blanket to the beach and lie on their backs for hours, watching the stars, easily picking out Orion’s Belt, the Big and Little Dippers, and the North Star.

  One night, a group of meteors streaked across the velvet darkness above them—myriad shooting stars. Celia made a wish that she would always be as happy with Cameron beside her as she was that moment. As if reading her thoughts, he drew her into his arms and made love to her on the soft sand. She fell asleep in his arms, and when she awakened, dawn lit the eastern sky. Cameron was wading into the gulf for his morning swim. She removed her clothes and joined him, wondering if Adam and Eve had been as happy in Eden, and if so, what horrible punishment their banishment had been.

  “I promised Mrs. Givens I’d go fishing for her today.” Cameron had lain on the blanket until the breeze dried his skin and was pulling on his clothes. “Want to go with me?”

  The November day had turned hot and muggy, and the prospect of spending hours on the open water in the hot sun had no appeal for Celia. “Would you mind terribly if I didn’t?”

  He tugged her to her feet and kissed her while she struggled to cover her nakedness with her discarded clothes. “Not at all. I don’t relish the outing myself, but we need fish, unless we want to eat beans until Captain Biggins arrives with supplies.”

  Later in the morning, with a sinking heart, Celia watched Cameron sail away. She hadn’t been separated from him for more than a few minutes since their wedding, and she felt as if she’d lost a part of herself when his boat vanished behind a mangrove island. She crossed the vegetable garden to Noah’s cottage where he sat on the front steps, weaving a fishing net.

  “May I join you?”

  His face split into a welcoming grin. “Morning, Miss Celia.”

  She sat beside him and took a raisin bun tied in a napkin from her pocket. After breaking it in two, she offered Noah half.

  He shook his head. “Done had my breakfast.”

  She munched her late breakfast while he knotted his cord and severed it from the net with a large knife, honed razor-sharp.

  “Seems like Mr. Alex ain’t so lonesome now he’s married.” Noah regarded her with a twinkle in his soft brown eyes.

  “I still don’t understand why he’s hidden himself away all this time.”

  Noah wove his cord through his net and knotted it again. “He was full of misery when he come here. I always thought rich, white men had everything and that all of them was happy. But Mr. Alex was about the miserablest man I ever did see.”

  “But why, Noah? Like you’ve said, he seems to have everything. What made him so unhappy?” Her conscience panged her only slightly at prying about her husband behind his back. After all, the better she knew him, the more she could love him as he deserved.

  Noah’s high forehead wrinkled in thought. “It’s a puzzle, but I’ve had lots of time to think on it. I figure it has to do with his first wife and his son what died before he come here.”

  Although Celia loved Cameron unconditionally, her knowledge of his life before she met him had huge gaps. If Noah could fill them, she was more than willing to listen.

  “He’d been here six years when I arrived,” she said. “For a man to live with such unhappiness for so long a time—it’s not rational.”

  “I know it don’t seem likely, but he was pining for his dead kin. He told me so himself.”

  She felt a pang of envy that Cameron had shared with Noah what he’d refused to tell her. “What did he say?”

  Noah leaned back on his elbows and stared out across the garden. “I remember it like it was yesterday. It was right after Mrs. Givens and all the furniture come. Mr. Alex called me into the parlor to help him open a crate. Inside was the picture, the one that’s hanging over the fireplace now.

  “When we’d pulled the last nail outta the crate, Mr. Alex lifted the picture out and leaned it against the mantel. When he looked at it the first time, he cried out—a pitiful sound, like it was dragged from the bottom of his soul.”

  Celia fidgeted uncomfortably at the thought of Cameron’s agony and wished she could have been there to ease his pain.

  “He waved his arm,” Noah said, “motioning me outta the room. When I left, I could hear him sobbing all the way over here.”

  “He wept, but said
nothing?”

  Noah shook his grizzled head. “He didn’t leave the parlor that whole day. Whenever I’d pass by, I could hear the brandy bottle clinking against his glass, and I knew he was trying to drown his sorrow in spirits.”

  “Had he always been a heavy drinker?”

  “Uh-uh. He wasn’t drunk once the whole time we was building these houses. The day that picture was opened was the first ever—and there ain’t been one as bad since.”

  Celia glowed with satisfaction that Cameron hadn’t taken a drink since their wedding, a comforting sign of his current happiness.

  “That night,” Noah said, “Mrs. Givens asked me to carry Mr. Alex up to his bed. I went into the parlor and found him sitting on the floor in front of the painting. At the time, I didn’t know who they was, so I asked him. ‘My wife and child,’ he says, and he laughed, an awful sound. Made the hair stand up on the back of my neck.”

  Noah rubbed the back of his neck as if remembering. “I asked him if he left them in England when he come here. He answered real queer.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He says, ‘I suppose you could say they’re in England, although Mrs. Givens swears they’re in heaven, wherever that is.’ Then he gets this wild look in his eyes, coulda burned a hole right through me. ‘They’re the reason I’m here,’ he says.”

  Noah shivered in the noonday heat. “‘But I thought you said they was dead,’ I told him.”

  The silence grew long as Celia waited for Noah to continue. When she could stand it no longer, she prodded him. “What did he say then?”

  Noah stared at her with wide, sad eyes. “I’ll never forget his answer. ‘Oh yes, they’re dead all right,’ he tells me. ‘I killed them.’”

  Chapter Eleven

  In spite of the hot Florida sun, Celia felt chilled to the bone, and a horrible darkness settled in her heart, sucking the light from the day. Had she escaped marriage with one murderer only to fall in love with another?

  “Cameron couldn’t have killed his wife and son,” she insisted. “You must have misunderstood him.”