Christina Miller - An Inconvenient Marriage

“Miss Clarissa picked these camellias,” his daughter said, touching the petals. “They’re the first ones to bloom, and she said I was her bridesmaid.”

It seemed his new bride had made herself quite indispensable already.

Joseph meandered his way, a grim set to his mouth. “Reverend Montgomery, as inopportune as this seems, I must ask you to deliver the next stipulation of the will.”

At his wedding? “Can it not wait?”

“I fear not. This letter is to be read immediately after both parties fulfill the first condition. I’m bound to follow Hezekiah’s instructions.”

Samuel’s pounding headache of this morning threatened to return and finish him off, and he rubbed his skull. “I’ll collect my wife and meet you inside.”

“And I’ll get Absalom. Both parties are to hear this letter together.”

Samuel hardly knew how to approach his bride, engaged as she was in whispered conversation with the lady in pink, so he merely stood beside her and cleared his throat.

She turned to him with a smile so genuine it took his breath. Hardly the reaction he’d anticipated from her, since she’d been visibly relieved to avoid a wedding kiss. But then a black-and-white bird dog, one he hadn’t seen before, jumped down from one of the carriages and headed toward them. His wife gave it the same smile she’d bestowed on him.

So much for winning her favor.

“Reverend, this is Graham Talbot’s wife, Ellie,” Clarissa said, “and their dog, Sugar.”

“Clarissa, you’ll need to begin to call your husband by his given name.” Missus Talbot offered Samuel her hand. “And you, Reverend, will need to think of a pet name for her.”

Pet name? He’d rather pet the dog. After releasing Missus Talbot’s gloved hand, he did just that. At least Sugar and Missus Talbot didn’t shrink from his touch. But neither of them apparently knew what a roughneck he was.

“We must step inside a moment,” he said as the dog ambled toward Emma. “Your attorney asked us to meet him.”

Miss Adams—Missus Montgomery—turned those hazel eyes on him, their gold flecks shimmering in the late-winter sunlight. “The next stipulation.”

Samuel pushed the door open the rest of the way and stepped aside to allow her to pass.

Inside the center hall, he hesitated. This house was even more grandiose inside than out. However, dusty sheets covered each piece of the hall furniture.

“The mural is French Zuber wallpaper and the gasolier is Waterford.” She said it without pretense or pride, as if she’d grown up playing around these priceless items. Which she apparently had.

When they entered the dining room, Joseph Duncan waited silently, his portmanteau on the sheet-covered table in front of him. Absalom sat at the head of the table as if he belonged there, first complaining and cursing their grandfather and his will, and then boasting about his “much-larger home” in Memphis.

Surely Samuel could tolerate this home easier than he could stomach the blustering braggart. And judging from the tension in those big hazel eyes, Absalom affected Clarissa even more deeply.

“It is extremely poor taste to talk business at a wedding, and I apologize,” Joseph said when Samuel had unshrouded a chair and seated his wife next to the gray-veined marble fireplace. He handed Samuel an envelope. “Unfortunately we have no choice. Reverend Montgomery, please read this letter from the Reverend Hezekiah Adams.”

Samuel took his specs from his pocket and slid them on. He opened and scanned the letter.

No. This couldn’t be. His aching head suddenly felt as if a dozen horses’ hooves pounded it. He glanced up at Joseph, who nodded his encouragement.

“‘To fulfill my second stipulation, both my grandchildren must live at Camellia Pointe for one year, beginning the day the first condition is fulfilled. Since the War has wreaked havoc on this estate, my grandchildren must live as family here and work together to complete its necessary repairs and restore it to its former glory.’”

Samuel drew a deep breath of defeat. But when he saw the way his new bride bit her lower lip, as if to stop it from trembling, he wanted to throw this hateful letter into the fire.

She didn’t want to live with Absalom any more than Samuel did—that much was clear. And if they’d known this stipulation before the wedding, would she have gone through with it? Would Samuel?

He shoved the thought aside. No matter what they would or would not have done, they were married now. And it was up to Samuel to make sure they kept this home, as much as he didn’t want it. Something about the desperation growing in her eyes made him want nothing more than to send President Davis’s carriage—and its owners—down that long, winding drive to the road, so Clarissa would never have to see them again.

And by the grace of God, he’d make sure to do just that.

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