“I – uh – I beg your pardon, ma’am, did you say husband and wife?” Ham stammered. He was suddenly convinced that Maeve Collinswood was more beautiful than he had ever imagined.
“Mr. Jessup,” Maeve said stonily, “I have done some research and discovered you are nearly bankrupt. You inherited property in Illinois but apparently sold it off in recent years and spent all the proceeds. I do not need to know what you spent it on. You also seem to be in considerable debt, again, for reasons I do not need to know. You need cash, Mr. Jessup. For personal and social reasons I need a husband. You are considered reasonably respectable in the community and are relatively equal in station to myself socially. It would be a suitable match, and I have more than sufficient financial means to shore up your sagging situation. You may keep your clerical position if it pleases you to do so, and if not, you may lounge idly around the house all day. The choice is yours. Do you agree to the match?”
“What – I – don’t quite – “ Ham had none of his usual ready wit.
“This is a business arrangement, Mr. Jessup,” Maeve said, irritated. “That is all. Do not misunderstand. There will be a public ceremony but no actual marriage. We will reside in separate suites and rarely see each other. It is playacting, to help us both to remain respectable. Is that clear?”
Someone had definitely dashed a bucket of ice water in Ham’s face. He was certain of it. Maeve Collinswood retreated into that frozen, unreachable place, like a high, cold star, and Ham Jessup leaned forward.
“Where shall I sign?” he asked quietly.
June 30, 1844
“Congratulate me, Dan, I’m to be married,” Ham said as he met his friend for lunch during his last week at the Marlboro.
“You’re what?” Dan had started to seat himself across their usual table but he stayed upright.
Ham kept the silly smile pasted on his face. “Next week, my new quarters will be the Palacio Del Oro just outside Rio Grande City.”
“You’re marrying Maeve Collinswood?” Dan demanded.
“I am,” Ham replied steadily. “There’ve been walks in the park, cozy dinners at well-known restaurants, and nights at the opera stoically endured. The bans have been published; all is prepared for next Tuesday. She has even consented to let me steal Arthur, my valet here, from the establishment and bring him along with me at exorbitant wages. She didn’t even blink when I named the figure.”
“Do you love her, Ham?” Dan asked.
“She is fabulously wealthy and incomparably beautiful,” Ham responded. “She sings fit to break my heart, if I possessed such a thing. She pursued me. I did nothing to encourage her. How I came to her notice I cannot say, but I shall be forever grateful and dutiful.”
“Ham,” Dan growled. He still hadn’t sat down.
“Dan, you’re making a mistake here,” Ham said softly. “Sit down and listen to me.” Dan sat, very reluctantly. “This is nothing like what you think. This woman desires a man to make her respectable. Apparently every woman as elderly as twenty-seven does. I have had the good fortune to be the man chosen by Maeve Collinswood. There’s no possibility I’d ever accept a real marriage to a real wife and you know it, and you know why. Now, my friend, do I have your consent, if not you blessing?”
“You don’t need my consent, Ham,” Dan said. “And my blessing you can’t expect on something this far from the holy union God describes in His Word. Don’t defile it like this. You’re asking for God’s judgment if you go ahead with this – this – whatever it is – Ham, reconsider. That’s all I can think of to say.”
“Dan, I’m out of money,” Ham hissed. “The government checks don’t even cover the rent in any place I could find to live in. I’ve had to do more – more research, because the job doesn’t pay for learning what I need to know to do it. Also, there are stairs, lots of big stairs, in this world, particularly in the places Maeve Collinswood seems to gravitate to, and is determined to drag me to. Modifications in the design are very expensive. I have debts to pay.”
“Here,” Dan said, pulling an envelope from his breast pocket and shoving it across the table. “We wanted to help you move into a new place anyway. I’m sorry I couldn’t get it to you sooner.”
Ham opened the envelope, stared into it, stared up at Dan. “This is two thousand dollars,” he murmured.
“Tell her you’ve changed your mind,” Dan urged.
“I can’t. Have you got any idea what a scandal it’d cause? It’d probably get back to the job and I’d be cashiered. My work – my research – It’s all I have.”
“If you had God you wouldn’t be thinking of something like this,” Dan chided. “Ham, I feel like I dragged you away from the mouth of Hell two times already, and now you’re there on the edge again. Only this time I can’t throw you over my shoulder and carry you to safety. I guess we won’t be meeting for lunch anymore.”
“Dan,” Ham groaned.
“I can’t sanction this,” Dan said. “I’d like to write to you, if I may, but I won’t be able to look you in the eye if you’re going through with this. Consider that a wedding present.” Ham tried to hand him back the envelope but Dan rose quickly and left the dining room.
Ham hovered near the bar with a drink close at hand and searched the whirling crowd for Maeve. He found her, flushed, smiling, very, very beautiful, finishing some very spirited dance Ham had never seen. When it ended she pinned up some straying curls and accepted a kiss on the cheek from her elderly partner, who had no trouble keeping in step with her. Then she scanned the room, spotted Ham nursing his glass, pursed her lips, and made her way to him.
“You won’t dance even one dance with me?” she asked in an undertone. “It looks very odd, you know, at our wedding reception, that the groom doesn’t dance a single dance with the bride. If you don’t know how to dance I can guide you through a few steps, but to just refuse for no reason – “
“All right,” Ham hissed, shoving away his glass. It fell behind the bar and smashed on the floor. “A slow one, then, and don’t say what happens is my fault.”
“How drunk are you?” Maeve whispered.
“Apparently not nearly drunk enough,” Ham said, speaking very slowly and carefully, “because you still want me to dance with you and I’m agreeing to it.”
“This is a nice gentle waltz coming up,” Maeve said, glancing apprehensively at the people who had heard the breaking glass and were staring. “Come on. I’ll show you.”
Ham allowed himself to be led out onto the dance floor. Less than three minutes later, Maeve gratefully accepted the offer of a guest who asked to “cut in,” and Ham retreated to his place by the bar and got another drink.
A few moments after the end of the dance Maeve swept up to Ham’s side, took a champagne glass from the tray a waiter carried by her, and raised it into the air, tinkling on it with a spoon from the bar.
“I wish to propose a toast,” she called out. Immediately the chatter subsided. Everyone grabbed a glass of champagne. Ham looked at Maeve sideways and waited.
“To my husband,” she said with a brilliant smile. “Not afraid to wed the most notorious spinster in Texas, not afraid to risk embarrassment to please her by doing something his service to our country has made very difficult for him. I give you Hamilton Jessup!”
Everyone cheered and drank. Ham raised a glass also. “A toast to my wife,” he drawled. “Easily the most beautiful woman in the Republic of Texas, and the most dedicated to the cause of wounded soldiers. She even condescended to marry one. Maeve Collinswood Jessup! In fact, this seems like a fine opportunity to give you the privilege of doing your part to help the cause, since we’re likely to be at war if annexation is ever approved, at which time there will surely be more wounded soldiers.” He grabbed a waiter with an empty champagne tray. “Pass the hat, Mike, or the tray, in this case, and let’s see what our lovely guests want to do for our troops. I’ll prime the pot with two thousand dollars!”
Ham dropped the envelope he had r
eceived from Dan onto the tray. There were some surprised murmurs, but men began to get out their wallets. Women pulled off pearl necklaces and diamond earrings. The circulating trays became heavy with donations. Maeve watched in astonishment.
“I’ll be a fine living demonstration,” Ham promised softly. “You’ll rake in the donations. Just exhibit me and my grotesque inability to dance at all your parties and you’ll get the pity factor in spades.”
Maeve stared up at him. “I – I embarrassed you even more, didn’t I?” she faltered. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize your wound – I mean – it’s hardly noticeable when you walk. I never imagined – I only wanted to explain to people – so they wouldn’t think – I’m so sorry.”
“Never mind, darling,” Ham said. “We’re business partners now, so consider this my contribution to your cause. I’m not allowed to make much of a contribution to the marriage, now am I?”
He watched the sympathy, the compassion, fade from her expression, to be replaced by that frozen smile he was becoming so accustomed to seeing. She took a small step away from him and he breathed easier and tapped on the bar for another drink. A man came up as he waited and Ham stared at the newcomer in disbelief.
“My dear, did you compile our guest list by looking under rocks to see what crawled out?” he asked. “Nat Grover. Must be friend of the bride, because no one could be less a friend to the groom.”
The bulky, thickset man grimaced at Ham. “Well, Maeve, I advised you to pick a vet, but I didn’t imagine it would be this one,” Nathaniel Grover said. “I should have looked more closely at my invitation. Don’t believe everything he tells you about me. We all serve as best we can.”
“I’m totally unconvinced that you serve Texas at all, Grover,” Ham drawled. “I have a suspicion you serve somebody’s interests, I’m just never sure whether they’re yours alone or just politically expedient. What is your connection to my little wife?”
“Mr. Grover assists me in focusing my fund-raising efforts,” Maeve answered. She looked frostily at Ham. “We are engaged in quite a few endeavors now and I would appreciate your extending him hospitality in our home.”
Ham clapped his heels together and bowed. “Ma’am, I am your most obedient servant,” Ham replied. “A pleasant evening to you, Mr. Grover. I’ll just move to the other end of the bar where it smells better.”
Ham nursed a glass and watched Maeve and Grover in deep conversation, wishing he could read lips, wondering what nonsense Grover had fed Maeve to get her to believe he was interested in wounded soldiers. Ham gritted his teeth. Actually, the one thing Grover seemed expert at was making more of them.
At last the final guest departed. Ham had been imitating Maeve’s frozen smile for the last hour as they stood at the door accepting good wishes. He found most people accepted it as genuine, oddly enough, and it was easier to maintain than a real one.
“Well, we pulled it off,” Ham sighed. “You look absolutely fresh and ready to do the whole thing over. I compliment you. It must be the charity work. You’re used to pasting on a smile and pretending you like these people.”
“I find that there are things I have to do in life,” Maeve responded. “I accept that some of them are not pleasant. But some of them are rewarding. Thank you for at least making an appearance of sobriety. Apparently you handle your liquor very well.”
“Yes, and that is exhausting work,” Ham said. “Bed for me.”
“Ma’am, what shall we do with the donations?” A huge black man asked as he approached carrying a loaded tray.
“Lock them in the safe in the card room for tonight, Titus. I’ll have Mr. Goodwin in to make some sort of a count tomorrow. We’ll have to have those jewels appraised. It was very noble of you to turn my insult into such a wonderful opportunity, Mr. Jessup. I do want to apologize to you again for the humiliation I caused you. I was trying to find a way to make people understand why you weren’t dancing, weren’t able to dance. Mr. Grover suggested I make the toast.”
“Grover suggested you say what you did?” Ham asked.
“Yes,” Maeve answered. “He seemed surprised that I was unaware of the nature of your injury. As I said, you conceal it very well.”
“Grover – told you – the nature of my –” Ham stammered.
“Only that you were wounded in the leg by a bayonet,” Maeve said. She seemed to be getting genuine again. “Is that not correct?”
“I was, and it is,” Ham said curtly. “But I wonder why Nat Grover felt the need to stir up such an interesting form of domestic discord on our wedding night.”
“I thought he was trying to soothe the discord, not stir it up,” Maeve faltered.
“Hardly,” Ham snorted. “Grover knows how I react to comments about my precious war wound. He did it on purpose to make me angry, and angry with you. I apologize, my dear wife, sham wife though you are. My anger was misdirected. I suggest in the future you weigh carefully any advice or direction Nathaniel Grover gives you. He never acts without a purpose, and in my experience it’s seldom one that serves anyone’s interest but his own.”
“Mr. Grover must be another of those necessary and unpleasant things I must deal with at times, then,” Maeve replied. “I have to have his advice on certain things. But since you seem so sincere I will consider your advice as well, though I confess you give it so soberly I wonder how you can possibly be drunk at all.”
Ham bowed slightly and said nothing, waiting expectantly. “I have some letters to write,” Maeve said. “I’ll be up later. Good night, Hamilton.”
“Good night, Maeve,” Ham replied. He turned away, then looked at her, still clad in the magnificent wedding gown, headed toward her study. “May I ask you a question, ma’am?”
“What is it?” Maeve asked. A maid appeared with a robe, apparently intending to help Maeve undress in the study.
“Aren’t you the least little bit tired?” Ham asked.
“I still have things to do,” Maeve shrugged. “Good night.” She disappeared into the study. Ham approached the steps and looked dubiously upward. Then he began to climb, and reached the top without incident, not even a trip. At the top he turned and surveyed the empty entrance hall.
“So much for all my preparations,” he sighed. “Not a single witness to this momentous occasion. Oh well. At least I know my efforts weren’t wasted.”
“Ham, you’re wearing a wedding ring!” one of his office mates exclaimed as he passed Ham’s desk. Tad Cummings, an ordinary-looking, stout fellow with thinning brown hair and blue eyes, grabbed Ham’s hand and waved it around at the others in the room. “What on earth? When did you tie the knot?”
Ham looked absentmindedly at his hand. “Oh. Over the weekend,” he responded.
“What? No wedding trip? No honeymoon? And no invitations for your closest friends and fellow workaholics?” Greg Stevens demanded.
“It was a small, private thing,” Ham replied nervously. “She insisted. And we’re both buried in obligations. Me, work. She, a perfect housewife and very active in her church. Sewing circle, baking day, all that.”
“Is she pretty?” Tad asked.
“Oh, so very,” Ham said fervently.
“Ah, but can she support you in the style to which we’d all like to become accustomed?” Greg grinned.
“As a matter of fact, she can,” Ham grinned back. “Heiress, I think.”
“Will we ever meet her?” Tad asked.
“Doubtful,” Ham improvised. “She’s a shy little homebody.”
“Well, congratulations,” Greg said. “And that was really impressive work on that Saltillo thing. I love how you just take every blasted scrap of paper in the files and lay them out like pieces in a puzzle all over the floor and walk around staring at them until you figure out how they fit, and just throw them out if they don’t. It’s a privilege to sit here like an idiot and watch your wheels turn.”
“Thanks,” Ham replied uncomfortably.
“What is this?” Maeve deman
ded, coming upstairs to find a workman in Ham’s bedroom mounting a steel rod in the closet doorway just above the height of Ham’s head. “Why have you spoiled the room with this unsightly thing?”
“I beg your pardon, ma’am,” Ham said contritely. “I certainly should have asked. It is a chinning bar. I have one installed in my office at work as well. I lead such a sedentary life it helps encourage me to exercise occasionally.”
“Oh,” Maeve said. “Well, since it serves a good purpose, I suppose it’s all right. I’m sorry I overreacted.”
“Do you also object to other exercise equipment, ma’am?” Ham asked. “Perhaps you’d prefer I kept these things out in the carriage house, or somewhere that you wouldn’t have to look at them.”
“No, please, Hamilton, you should be comfortable in your own home and able to do what you please, within reason,” Maeve said hastily, “and exercising certainly seems within reason.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
“I’m sure your concert will be lovely this evening, ma’am,” Consuela, the maid, said as Maeve left her room and met Ham in the hallway one morning. “And happy birthday.”
“Thank you, Consuela,” Maeve said absently, juggling gloves, parasol and reticule. Consuela departed and they were alone. “Off to work, Hamilton?”
“Momentarily,” Ham said. “First, if I may, a birthday present for you.” Ham produced a small packet. “I apologize for not knowing it was your birthday until just a few moments ago. It was an oversight.”
Maeve looked at him, confused. “This wasn’t necessary,” she said.
“Possibly someone might ask what your husband got you for your birthday,” Ham shrugged. “It would seem odd if he got you nothing. Perhaps in years to come I might be allowed to forget it, but this one at least I should observe.”
Chasing the Texas Wind Page 2