Emily French - Bogus Bride

Caitlin made a sharp movement of protest, and scooted so close to the edge of the bunk, she was in danger of falling off. She hugged her knees. “I may be naive, but I’m not stupid. Are you not going to tell me there was some mistake, some exaggeration? That the friends you invited to the wedding are not friends?” she asked, with an odd rasping note in her voice.

“Enemies come to your wedding. Friends come to your funeral.”

“With friends like yours, who needs enemies?” Caitlin swallowed the lump in her throat and blurted out, “Is Zoe your mistress?”

Samuel shook his head and said absolutely nothing, but she could see the change in his red-brown eyes. They held a speculative, half-amused look. It was like being slammed into a brick wall.

“So why don’t you deny these allegations? Why won’t you even try to defend yourself?” Caitlin choked out. She was so angry she felt she might burst.

Samuel stood up. “Caitlin, I’ll thank you to stay out of my—”

“Your what? Your affairs? After what just happened, how you can even think about—”

“Caitlin, I didn’t ask your opinion. Zoe is not my mistress. It is a simple matter of trust. Either you are with me or you are against me. As my wife, you have no other options. I will tell you that much.”

“What is it exactly that you want from a wife?”

Samuel’s brown eyes were cautious. He shrugged and said, “Oh, I want a woman who is so besotted with me that she won’t worry óver who or what I am. She won’t care what I have done in the past and will enthusiastically embrace every project I undertake in the future. She’ll be a faithful helpmate, a mother to my children, and never give me cause to suspect her loyalty….”

Samuel fell silent. His mouth twitched a little, as if in self-ridicule, but Caitlin did not find the expression reassuring. Her breath was coming fast, and her hands were balled into fists at her sides.

For a moment, she almost voiced her own sentiments, then her ever-present sense of humor came to her rescue. She suppressed a giggle and fixed him with a meek, understanding, dutiful look.

“You want a woman to follow you barefoot wherever you choose to lead?” she asked, a little too sweetly.

“Exactly,” he agreed, obviously pleased at her perception.

Caitlin caught her breath. The temper she had tried to control flared, and she did nothing to control it. Grabbing for a weapon, her hand curled around a metal candlestick. She hurled it. He didn’t so much as flinch, even when it hit his shoulder.

“You sound as if you want a doormat, you great oaf. Murder and mayhem sound very attractive to me right now.”

His brown eyes widened, and then he half smiled, teasing. “To love, honor, and obey… ”

She took the point, but faced him undefeated. “You’ve had the only promise you’re getting. Go take a walk, else I shall be converted into a doormat instantly.”

“I just might do that.” This time he dodged the missile, which hit the door frame. His rich laughter followed him down the passageway.

Z oe. Zoe. Zoe. The name spun like a fiery litany in Caitlin’s head, sharp and painful, keen as the blade of a sword cutting through her sensibility, releasing those wretched twin failings of hers, anger and pride.

Don’t think about it, she told herself fiercely. She stood in the center of the cabin, shivering, alone with the empty bunks, and fought to put one coherent thought in front of the other.

She was being too intense again. Overreacting.

Zoe. Zoe. The name kept ringing in Caitlin’s mind, an interior thunder drowning out the rational words she kept trying to think of, to cling to.

For a little while, she thought Samuel would come back to her. That he would smile, and she would run into his arms, and angry constraint between them would dissolve.

But he did not.

A deep shudder ran through her body, and she knew she should have kept her mouth shut Why was she so cursed with vinegar on her tongue? Because she felt indignant and resentful about a woman she had never seen, that was no perverse reason to attack Samuel.

Caitlin glanced down at the narrow gold band on her finger, and her mouth set in a contrite curve. Poor Samuel. The linkage of his name with this mysterious Zoe had obviously caught him off guard, and his wife had driven him away with her petulance and sharp words.

It was just that the shock had staggered her to the core and scattered her sensibilities. And now, in the aftermath, she was embarrassed by the viciousness of her attack, ashamed for the way she had spoken to him. The destructive power of words was as deadly as a gun, she mused.

She clasped the crucifix that hung about her neck and promised that she would do penance for her faults the first chance she had. A week of celibacy should do it, she thought with a revival of humor.

Caitlin let out a little giggle at this absurdity. In the intoxication of her rage, she’d forgotten that, in his youth, Samuel had often been the prodigious clown. He would become embroiled in any foolish scrape, so that his father had dared not contemplate which tales were true and which were false.

Unexpectedly, a vivid memory of Samuel came to Caitlin…. It had been the feast of Saint Francis of Assisi. The blessing of the animals.

Poppies red against the white altar cloth, sunlight fanning through the stained-glass windows, reflections of gold and delicate rainbow hues spilling like treasure on the gray stone floor, worn over the centuries to the sheen of polished pewter. It was stuffy and airless in the church, and Caitlin wished they would open the door.

Heads were raised during the singing of the hymns and bowed during the blessing. The ceremony seemed to go on forever, with every parishioner bringing along some creature to be prayed over. It was so boring, until Samuel let the doctor’s white mice out of their cage right in the middle of the church service.

Later, when all the fuss was over, he excused himself, saying he’d thought it’d liven things up. Caitlin grinned. It sure did.

Farmer Johnson’s wife fainted away right there and then, and silly Margaret Reade climbed onto a pew and held her petticoats up so high that all the boys could see her drawers. Samuel and the other boys crawled round under the pews, ostensibly trying to catch the terrified mice, while getting a great lesson in what women wore under those voluminous skirts.

Later, saintly Caitryn stoutly agreed that Samuel deserved a medal for liberating the poor dumb animals. At the time, she cowered in the aisle with the other girls, gasping in horror, as if a great wickedness had been committed. It was foolish Caitlin who was caught standing with the open cage clutched between her hands and a guilty expression on her face.

Caitlin could picture Samuel plainly the moment he realized the enormity of his stunt, and somehow the memory of it now made her smile. He’d been parchment-white, his freckles bright as threepenny pieces on his face. But with an unflinching, reckless, scornful courage, he’d taken the empty cage from her, taking full blame for his actions.

“That was very stupid, Cat. My old man won’t like it one bit. I reckon he’ll just about raise the roof!”

Caitlin had stood in great anger against the wall. “Don’t speak to me, Samuel Jardine!” She had found it difficult to speak, knowing he would be beaten for his actions. “There’s nothing I want to say to you!”

She found a bright side to this unfortunate recollection. People did not change. Samuel was as honest now as he had been then. Would he have sent for her after all these years if he had another woman? Of course not!