“Ahh,” he said, nodding with understanding. In case there was any doubt, she reached up and pressed her mouth to his ear, whispering a flurry of half words and broken sentences. When she ran out of breath, she thrust the wreath into Ryan’s hands and stood waiting for him to use his customary magic to fix it.
He suspected there was not much hope for it, but he made a few corrective twists and turns with the stems and held it up against Amanda’s hair. “Almost perfect,” he pronounced. “Maybe a few more bluebells. Do we have any left?”
Another flurry of wet whispers had Verity scampering back to the tree, her curls and petticoats bouncing.
“I don’t recall you ever having this much patience with me when I was her age,” Amanda noted.
“You were never as sweet-natured as Verity. Or as cute.”
She reached over and slipped her hand into his. “We’ll get through this somehow,” she whispered fervently. “I just know we will.”
The day of the wedding dawned cool and clear. Those servants who had not been up all night long were already busy with tasks when the bright pink eye of the sun winked over the horizon. They trooped through the house like ants through sugar, moving the last of the furniture out of the large parlor where the dancing would take place later that night. An archway had been constructed at one end of the formal gardens and was woven with hundreds of roses to frame the dais where the vows would be exchanged. Chairs were set in neat rows on either side of a central aisle, to be moved back after the ceremony and placed around the long trestle tables that had been erected closer to the house. China dishes were brought out in gleaming white stacks and covered with sheets; trays of food began appearing in astonishing quantities to sit patiently under yards and yards of filmy netting.
The minister arrived and gave the arrangements his solemn nod of approval, then was happily whisked away by William Courtland to wait until the clock struck noon. The hallways, porch, and lawns echoed with footsteps and laughter as carriage after carriage of guests drew up in front of the house and emptied their colorful cargoes. Every room bustled with activity. Chattering, gossiping women preened in front of any reflective surface they could find, while the men gathered over cigars and fine port wine and lamented over the soaring price of cotton.
By noon, the house was in utter chaos with the eye of the storm swirling around Alisha’s dressing room. She surely had to be the only one to have the use of a full-length cheval mirror all to herself, and as she stood before it, critically surveying herself from every conceivable angle, while the others in the room held their breaths, waiting for her verdict.
It could hardly be anything but favorable. The gown, which had seen her great-great-grandmother to the altar before the turn of the century, was a breathtaking creation of rose-colored silk sateen, as slippery as water, as light as air. The tight bodice was cut square and alarmingly low, originally meant to be worn with a delicate gauze scarf, but trimmed now with bands of gathered ruching. The sleeves were tight to the elbow before flaring in successive tiers of white and pink lace. The overskirt was a fountain of silk, again meant to be worn over wire panniers, but modified for Sarah’s wedding, and again for Amanda’s, with some of the bulk reduced to make a graceful sweep over the six layers of ruffled petticoats worn beneath. Alisha’s silvery blonde hair was piled high on her head, woven with ribbons and sprigs of tiny pink flowers.
Sarah Courtland pressed a much-abused handkerchief to her eyes, weeping happily as she watched her daughter turn another full circle in the mirror.
“Beautiful,” she sobbed. “Just beautiful. I cannot believe my eyes, Lissy. If only Grandmother Fayworth were here to see you now … and your sweet grandfather. How proud they would have been.”
Alisha was not so sure as she checked and rechecked her profile in the mirror. Mercy had nearly ruptured a vessel trying to lace her into the whalebone corset. An odd look had come into the old crone’s dark eyes when she realized she wasn’t going to get Alisha’s waist as small as the previous fitting, and if she suspected the reason for the added plumpness, she had kept her tongue between her teeth for a change.
After today it wouldn’t matter anyway. After today she would eat and eat and eat to her heart’s content, and if she started to gain a little weight, why, she would tell everyone it was because she was so happy and content. A month or so from now, when cream pies and custards couldn’t explain the location of all her gain, she would let Karl give out the happy news, leaving her in modest seclusion until the brat was born and she could get on with her life again.
She could do it. She would do it, by heaven. She had Josh, who loved her to distraction, and who would continue to love her even more desperately when he found out she was carrying their child. He would understand then why she had done it, why she had married Karl von Helmstaad, why she was about to allow … no, encourage the doughy old pig to consummate the union, and why it had been necessary to let him paw her and climb on top of her and push himself inside her enough times to make him believe he was the father of the child.
First, of course, she had to become the baron’s wife and get through this day without slapping her mother, screaming at her father, or taking a razor-sharp knife to her sister.
Alisha’s gaze narrowed as she sought Amanda out of the shadows. She was standing by the window, lost behind the haze of sunshine streaming through the panes. She’d hardly spoken a word all morning, seemingly too distracted with whatever filled her brain these days to even think to offer her twin a compliment or two on her wedding day. Stuck like glue to her left leg was Verity, her hand fisted so tightly to the folds of Amanda’s skirts, the material would be permanently wrinkled from the damp.
They were dressed alike in gowns of pale blue silk that perfectly matched the color of their eyes. Alisha would have preferred to see her sister dressed in sackcloth and bunting, but Karl had insisted on buying everyone new outfits to complement his bride.
Complements like that, Alisha could live without.
As twins, it should have come as no surprise that Amanda could be a rare beauty when she set aside the plain homespun and dressed her hair in spirals and ringlets instead of scraping it back into a severe, practical chignon. Today she was not only beautiful, but a visible threat to Alisha’s composure.
“Well?” she demanded. “Do I look like a baroness? Karl tells me when he takes me home next summer to meet his relatives, I shall be an honored guest in all the royal houses in Europe. Can you imagine that, Mother? Me? Sitting next to a duke or a duchess or a princess, for goodness sakes, eating little cakes and chatting about the weather.”
Sarah nodded and wailed into her handkerchief. Amanda acknowledged the momentous possibilities with a smile that set Alisha’s teeth on edge.
“Well, then,” she snapped. “Let’s get it over with, shall we? Before Father has the reverend too drunk on Karl’s brandy to read the service.”
Amanda led the way out into the dazzling sunlight, smiling only when she saw Ryan waiting at the end of the flower-strewn path. She had indeed been too distracted to do more than go through the motions of getting dressed, sitting still while tongs and irons shaped her hair, answering only if a direct question was asked. She was worried about Ryan, worried about her family, about Rosalie. Not the least of all, she was worried about Verity and her reaction to so many strangers who were bound to frighten her into hiding for most of the day.
The constant drag on the side of her skirt relented only when she came to a halt. Then a small face and body were pressed into the side of her thigh, buried in the crush of silk until the signal came to walk forward again. It was torture for the child, torture for the mother as they walked down the garden aisle. The only good thing about it—the sun was warm on her face, blinding in its brilliance, and served to blot out the faces and whispering mouths of the people they passed on their way to the dais.
At the end of the aisle, Alisha’s groom waited beside the imperiously tall, sedate Reverend Mr. Aloisius Kell
y. Almost a caricature by comparison, Karl von Helmstaad was short and balding. He stood ramrod straight in an effort to lessen the protruding girth of his belly, but it only made him look like a splay-footed penguin balanced precariously on a sheet of ice.
He turned at a signal from the reverend and saw his bride walking slowly toward him. Flushed with the purity of her beauty, he tipped forward eagerly and extended his arm in greeting. A collectively indrawn breath from the crowd came as Amanda declined the groom’s offer of assistance and stepped aside to make way for Alisha’s frosty countenance.
Out of the corner of her eye, Amanda saw Ryan struggling to keep his expression blank. He almost succeeded too, until the groom, trying his best to recover from his blunder, missed the step up onto the dais and nearly pitched headlong into the festooned arch.
Thankfully, the ceremony itself was short and sweet. The reverend’s voice droned out the service, prompting the exchange of vows and rings, and Amanda’s concentration drifted again, recalling the same words, the same vows she had taken with Caleb Jackson by her side. Their wedding day had been drab and overcast. The ceremony had taken place in the parlor at Rosalie with only the immediate families to bear witness. Caleb had promised, when the war ended, they would have a proper celebration, with all their friends in attendance, with music and laughter and happiness as far as they could see into the future …
Another promise made, she reminded herself with a little shake, was the one she had given her mother to keep an eye on their father, who, even though confined to a wheelchair, usually managed to slip out of sight in the winking of an eye. And true to form, when the vows were duly recited and solemnly pledged, he wasted no time in having some of his cronies roll him back down the aisle toward the long rows of refreshment tables. There they happily laid siege to the baron’s supply of expensive bourbon and repeatedly toasted the health of the bride and groom.
It seemed a harmless enough place for him to be for the time being and Amanda was glad of the opportunity to pry Verity away from her leg long enough to return some of the circulation to the limb.
She saw Ryan and caught his arm before he could pass.
“Ryan, thank goodness. Can you see if—” She stopped and frowned. “What is it? What’s wrong? You look as if you’ve swallowed a peach pit.”
“Over by the magnolia,” he said tautly. “That’s what’s wrong.”
Amanda followed his bleak stare but had to wait for a parade of feathered bonnets and daintily twirling parasols to pass before she could locate the reason for her brother’s sudden tension. When she saw it was only Dianna Moore standing in the shade with her father, she almost let a curse slip through her lips. But then the last of the slow-moving belles strolled past and Amanda saw the third member of the small group—a tall, broad-shouldered gentleman whose rakish smile and piratical good looks had been the main cause of the women meandering so slowly by. Not only was he standing at ease beside the Judge, he had Dianna’s hand tucked possessively into the crook of his arm, smiling down at her as if they were sharing a private joke.
“You don’t suppose he could be her Yankee … do you?” Amanda asked in a whisper.
“I have a feeling we are about to find out,” he said grimly, pulling his mouth into a smile of sorts as Dianna saw them and waved.
“Amanda! Ryan!” Dianna detached herself from her companion’s arm and came hurrying over. Petite and dark haired, she did not possess Amanda’s classical beauty; a close inspection would even find a smattering of reddish-brown freckles across the bridge of her nose. She had wide, expressive blue-green eyes that filled with adoration whenever they happened to settle upon Ryan Courtland, and today was no exception. Moreover, she took shameless advantage of the happy occasion to thrust her hands into his and surge up on tiptoes before him, brushing her lips across his cheek, leaving them flame red in her wake.
“Ryan …” Her voice was as soft as a whisper and shivered along his spine. “You look wonderful.”
Which he did. His shock of gold hair was freshly trimmed and tamed into a wave that ended just above the starched formality of his collar and cravat. The many months of hard work had added a powerful strain to the seams of his coat and trousers. Despite the slight limp in his left leg, he carried himself with an easy grace that recalled hot lazy days long gone by when men and women lounged in the shade of columned verandas and talked of nothing more serious than the next horse race on Natchez Island.
The Judge was a beat behind Dianna in taking Amanda into a jovial bear-hug that left them both laughing with affection.
“Amanda … by Jove, is that you under all those frills and fancies? No wonder you had the baron reaching for the wrong bride up there; I’d marry you myself if I was thirty years younger. How’s the family holding up under all this stuff and nonsense? Quiet parlor wedding would have done quite nicely, if you ask me, and if you”—he grasped Ryan’s hand in a particularly hearty shake—“ever do get around to asking for my daughter’s hand, that’s all you had best be expecting.”
Dianna went an immediate beet red and lost all of her breath on a gasped “Father!”
Accustomed to dealing brusquely and frankly with the drunks and derelicts who came before him in a courtroom, the Judge had never been one to mince his words, or apologize for not doing so. He looked very nearly like a derelict himself, with full white whiskers and thinning hair that flew out over his ears like wings. His frockcoat and breeches were ten years out of date, and the striped waistcoat could barely contain his burgeoning girth, a fact that made anyone in close proximity stand a little to the side in case the buttons let loose and put out an eye.
William Courtland and Frederick Arblaster Moore had been friends for over thirty years, since the day they met each other across the green of a dueling field. It had been deemed the only honorable way for two Southern gentlemen to decide who should be the one to court the lusty Miss Beulah Raye Tobina. Both men had missed with their first shot. Two subsequent attempts had sent their seconds ducking behind the coaches for safety, the fourth—for they were determined, if not accurate—killed a wild turkey the first three shots had flushed out of the nearby woods. Aided by a bottle of medicinal whiskey, it was decided the death of the fowl was an omen not lightly to be dismissed, and the two very drunk, very relieved men returned home that day to feast on turkey and discover they were better suited as friends than rivals.
“Where is that old scoundrel?” the Judge demanded. “Is he behaving?”
“Probably not,” Amanda answered on a sigh. “In fact, I was just on my way to check up on him.”
“Well, before you do, gal, spare a minute more and meet one of my wife’s distant cousins—third or fourth removed, I believe. Born on the wrong side of the Mason-Dixon line, wouldn’t you know, but then Esther—rest her soul—and her family always were a contrary bunch. Step on up here, m’boy, and meet the son and daughter of the best damned poker player this side of the Mississippi. Ryan, Amanda … Michael Tarrington.”
Up close, the Yankee looked even more imposing than he had in the shade of the magnolia. A full half head taller than any other man currently on the grounds, his broad shoulders made impressive work of filling a gunmetal gray jacket of the finest merino wool. A collared waistcoat of silver-green silk brocade was set off by a pearl-pink cravat, the latter knotted to within an inch of fashionable perfection and tacked to his shirt with an emerald the size of a giant pea.
He stood hatless under the sun, preferring to hold the rakish flat-top by his side. As he bowed cavalierly over Amanda’s hand, the sunlight burnished the thick chestnut waves of his hair, threading it with glints of red and gold and fiery copper.
“A very great pleasure,” he said, flashing a generous smile beneath the wide, full moustache. “The Judge and Dianna have told me enough about the Courtland family, I feel as if we have met already.”
“We have been hearing a great deal about you too,” Ryan said stiffly.
“Michael’s mother and
Mama were good friends as well as cousins,” Dianna interjected quickly, her hands fluttering with nervous tension. It was obvious she had anticipated a reaction from Ryan and wanted to avert any potential misunderstandings. “I can’t tell you how many summers we spent together as children. I mean, Michael and I were never exactly children together, he’s ages older than I am, but he has five sisters, two of whom I attended school with for a season. And we used to visit the seaside, near their home in Boston, at least once a year, right up until … until …”
“Until travel became awkward?” Tarrington supplied gently, still smiling from the “ages older” reference.
Dianna sighed her thanks and glanced up at Ryan, who had no such compunction toward subtlety.
“The war made a good many things awkward, travel being the least of our concerns. You fought for the North, naturally.”
The smoky gray eyes lifted slowly to Ryan’s. “Naturally. A somewhat different war than yours, I would imagine.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Navy,” he said easily. “I commanded a gunboat in the blockade.”
“Broke through the defenses at New Orleans in ’62,” the Judge provided helpfully. “Barged right on up to Vicksburg with his cannons blazing and his saber clutched between his teeth. Wasn’t for him and his damned ironclads, the Union never would have been able to come down the Mississippi and cut our supply lines in half. Saved the Federal Army the embarrassment of being chased on up into Canada by our cavalry. Now Ryan here,” he added, puffing up his chest, “rode with Jeb Stuart himself and would have been in the vanguard chasing you scallywags back where you belonged. Rode with Jeb in the first charge at Bull Run and stayed with him until ’64, in a battle outside of Spotsylvania.”
“Ryan had four horses shot out from under him that day,” Dianna elaborated in a breathless whisper. “The last one fell on his leg and broke his ankle, and the Yankee commander was so impressed by his bravery, he ordered his own surgeon to tend the wound.”
Straight For The Heart Page 12
