Words Spoken True: A Novel

by Ann H. Gabhart

“Your father doesn’t have to. Nobody has to but you. Marry me, Adriane.”

  “What?” Adriane wasn’t sure she’d heard him correctly.

  “You heard me. Marry me.”

  “Just because you need a press?”

  “No, because we need each other.” Blake stepped closer to her, and she didn’t back away. “You don’t want the Tribune to die any more than I want the Herald to die. Together we can make a great newspaper.”

  “Are you proposing we marry as some sort of business deal?” she asked faintly. “Just to merge the papers?”

  “No.” His eyes burned into hers. “No,” he repeated. “It would be a marriage in every sense of the word. A man and woman becoming as one.”

  He put his hand on hers, and she thought her skin might catch fire from the heat passing between them. His breath caressed her face. His scent filled her head. She could almost feel his desire leaping out at her and forcing her body to respond until every inch of her skin desired his touch.

  She whispered, “When?”

  “Now. Tonight. This minute.”

  She tried to rein in her runaway emotions. She reminded herself that just a few hours ago she’d told one man she couldn’t marry him. She could hardly marry another man the very same day. Especially a man she barely knew. And not with her father battling death upstairs in his room. The last thought was like a dash of cold water in her face, and she pulled her eyes away from Blake’s to stare at the floor as she said, “I couldn’t.”

  He put his hand under her chin and raised her face back up until once more he captured her eyes. “You must. There’s no other choice. There’s been no other choice since that very first day in Mrs. Wigginham’s parlor. Perhaps even before that. We both know that.”

  “I know nothing of the sort,” Adriane managed to say, even though the heat was racing through her again stronger than ever. The dash of cold water evaporated without a trace in the power of the flames.

  “Don’t lie to yourself, Adriane. Not tonight. You want to marry me. I can see it in your eyes.”

  “I need time,” Adriane said weakly.

  “Time is what we don’t have. We have to grab hold of what we want tonight. Marry me.”

  “But Father . . .” she began and hesitated.

  “He’ll understand. We’ll make him understand, and when he gets used to the idea, he may even be glad.”

  Tears pricked at her eyes in gratitude. He’d allowed her to keep hope for her father’s recovery. Even so, how could she marry him? Now. Tonight.

  As if he sensed her questions, he said, “I’ll send Joe for a preacher. We’ll take care of whatever else needs to be done tomorrow.”

  The word yes was rising up from the core of her being. She wanted to marry Blake Garrett, but while the thought of being with him freed a certain wild passion inside her, it also let loose dark memories from her childhood. She knew so little about what happened between a man and woman.

  Grace had tried to explain it once, but Grace’s straightforward common sense had completely deserted her as her face had turned red and she became tongue-tied. She’d managed to explain very little of the mechanics, although she had assured Adriane that with the right man the act of love would be as natural as breathing. But would it be? And even if it was, it would still bring babies. What was it Henrietta had said about her mother? Nine months from the marriage bed to the deathbed.

  “I’m afraid.” The words slipped out past her guard. She hadn’t planned to say them no matter how true they were.

  Blake’s eyes gentled. He pulled her close and wrapped his arms around her, and she surrendered to his embrace gladly. “You’ll never have anything to fear, my darling. Not with me.”

  His lips softly touched her hair, then her cheeks and eyelids. Adriane thought her insides were melting, but she couldn’t let go of her fear. She made herself remember her father upstairs and pulled away from Blake.

  He let her go, the first doubt beginning to show in his face, and somehow that doubt gave Adriane courage to say the words she wanted to say. “I will marry you.”

  Joy leaped into his eyes to replace the doubt, and once more he tried to pull her close. But she wouldn’t allow it.

  “Wait, Blake,” she said. “I will marry you tonight as you ask, but I still need time. My father needs me with him right now. I must stay by his bed.”

  “And not come to mine. Is that what you’re trying to say, Adriane?” Blake’s voice lost its gentleness. “I told you I wasn’t proposing a simple business arrangement. I won’t settle for that.”

  “And I understand and accept that. But I need time.” As she met his eyes fully, it was as if everything inside her tried to keep her from saying her next words, but she pushed them out. “I will also understand if you want to withdraw your proposal.”

  He studied her a moment. “How much time?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Again his eyes probed her before he finally said, “I would never force you to do anything you didn’t want to do, Adriane. Will you accept that as a promise of whatever time you need?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Then it will be as you ask. I’ll send Joe to find a preacher who will do the ceremony. Once that’s over, we’ll get out the paper.”

  “The headlines must be written,” Adriane said, a bit dryly.

  “That’s what you want, isn’t it?” Blake’s eyes bored into her.

  “Yes,” she admitted. “Yes, it is. And what my father would want.”

  His eyes were still searching her face. “Do you want to write a Colonel Storey letter while you sit with your father?”

  Adriane gasped, too surprised to deny she wrote the letters. “How did you know?”

  “I know you, Adriane,” he said simply. Then for the first time since she’d pushed him away, he reached out and touched her cheek. “May I kiss you, Adriane? It only seems proper to kiss the woman who has just agreed to become my wife.”

  Without a word, she held her face up to him, and he gently touched his lips to hers. The very softness of the touch set off the fire inside her again, and when he wrapped his arms around her, her own arms crept around his neck as his lips became more insistent.

  Then he was pulling away, looking down into her face before he gently brushed her forehead with his lips. “Don’t need too much time, Adriane,” he whispered before he abruptly turned her loose and went out the door.

  For a moment, she stared at the closed door, trying to wrap the memory of his embrace around her to keep away the fear, but the fear won out when the unnatural stillness of the house pressed down on her. She went back up the stairs to where her father lay pale and unconscious upon his bed, and she felt shame for the minutes she’d nearly forgotten him.

  Beck looked up at her. “What did he want?”

  “Our presses,” she answered. “He wants to merge the Tribune and the Herald.”

  Beck didn’t look surprised. “What did you tell him?”

  “I said yes. You’ll need to reset the masthead page.”

  “I can do that.” Beck studied her face closely a moment before he went on. “You ain’t telling me everything, Addie.”

  “No.”

  “Are you going to?”

  Adriane looked at her father as if she were afraid he might hear her. “He’s sending Joe for a preacher.”

  A slow smile broke over Beck’s face, but no answering smile came to her own lips as she asked, “Did I do the right thing, Beck?”

  “Not only the right thing, Addie. The only thing. That right thing we’ve been praying for.”

  “I don’t know.” Adriane sighed as she looked down at the floor. “What will we do about Coleman Jimson and the money Father owes him?”

  “We’ll worry about that after we put out this first issue. That’s the way it’s always been in the newspaper business. One issue at a time.”

  “It’s not just the newspapers we’re merging,” Adriane said softly.

  “He�
��s a good man, Addie.”

  “You don’t even know him. I barely know him myself.” A bit of panic edged into her voice.

  “You know him good enough, Addie. You love him. I can see that all over your face. That’s all that really matters.”

  After Beck left to go downstairs to get the presses ready, Adriane thought that was the one thing neither she nor Blake had mentioned. Love.

  Adriane looked at her father and noted the even rising of his chest. Then she turned her eyes to the darkened window on the far side of the bed. While she couldn’t see into the future any more than she could see what the darkness held outside the window, she could make herself face the truth in her heart.

  She loved Blake Garrett. More than she loved life. More than she loved the Tribune. Adriane’s eyes returned to her father’s white face. More than she loved her father. There had never been any answer but yes inside her to Blake’s demand that she marry him. It was the depth of that feeling that frightened her most.

  She slipped to her knees beside her father’s bed and prayed for light to take away the darkness of her fear. Love was good. Not something to fear.

  Her father used to tell her the same thing about the dark. “There’s no reason to be afraid of the dark,” he would tell her. “The dark can’t hurt you, and you know I’ll come. I always come.”

  “But sometimes it takes you so long,” she’d told him.

  “Then think of the light.”

  So she had, and when Beck had started reading the Bible to her, he’d pointed out Scripture about light as though he knew exactly what she needed. Beck always knew. She’d memorized those verses so she could whisper the Bible words like a mantra when Henrietta shut her inside the closet. She thought if she could repeat enough verses, the Lord would know she wasn’t bad all the time. That he wouldn’t turn his face from her and would bless her with light. He would send her father to rescue her sooner.

  But now it was her father who needed to be rescued from the dark. The familiar verses rose up in her memory. God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness . . . And the light shineth in darkness . . . I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.

  The light of life. That was her prayer.

  22

  They stood up together in the pressroom with Beck on her side and Joe on his. Adriane had washed her face and changed into a clean dress since she couldn’t bear the thought of marrying in a dress stained with her father’s blood.

  Blake had combed his hair back from his face, and he looked strangely solemn without the stray curls falling down on his forehead. He wore the same jacket still smudged with black and smelling of smoke.

  Reverend Cassaway, the preacher Joe had dragged from his bed to perform the ceremony, kept peering at them anxiously as if he expected one of them to back out while he recited the marriage ceremony.

  Adriane said “I do” when the man asked her if she would love, honor, cherish, and obey. She felt a deep stillness inside her as she stared at the worn Bible in the preacher’s hands and listened for Blake to make the same promise.

  When the silence lengthened, Adriane noted a tremble in the preacher’s hands as he waited for Blake to say the words. Her heart began to pound in her ears. Why didn’t Blake answer?

  Blake gently touched her cheek to tip her face toward him. As his eyes captured hers, she knew he’d been waiting for her to look at him before he said the words. She had no doubt as he spoke his “I do” that he was making a promise for life no matter what the reason was for this wedding.

  Reverend Cassaway must have felt the same thing, because he looked relieved as he smiled and pronounced them man and wife and told Blake he could kiss the bride.

  Both Beck and Joe were smiling along with the preacher as they waited for the kiss. Blake put his hands on her shoulders and stared down into her eyes. Even now they shared no smile. With a sudden flash of understanding, Adriane knew Blake was as afraid of what might be expected of him as she was of what might be expected of her.

  At last he kissed her softly before he whispered in her ear, “Thank you for doing me the honor of becoming my wife, Mrs. Garrett.”

  The name jolted her, and she pulled back to look at his face. Suddenly a smile was exploding from his eyes and wrapping warmth around her. She reminded herself of the seriousness of the moment. She thought about how upset her father would be that she’d married his enemy. She told herself she and Blake had not shared any spoken words of love. Yet in spite of all this, a smile was bubbling up from deep inside her and pushing out on her face in answer to his. And she felt surrounded by light.

  For one magical moment she didn’t think she needed any time at all. She was ready to give herself to Blake without conditions.

  Blake’s own smile became a laugh as he grabbed her up in a sweeping hug that lifted her off her feet. By the time he set her back down on the floor, she felt dizzy from more than the spinning hug. The feel of his body was burned into hers. Then Beck and Joe took turns kissing her flaming cheeks before slapping Blake on the back.

  The moment did not last. Even before someone knocking on the door interrupted the explosion of joy, Adriane had remembered how unseemly her conduct surely must be with her father so near death upstairs. She let the worry and sadness flood back through her, almost welcoming them, because she knew and understood those feelings. This joy that filled her when Blake touched her was too new, too strange. She again needed time.

  The knocking turned into a frantic banging and brought them all back to the realities of the night. Outside on the streets there was a riot.

  Beck picked up his gun from the table. “I’ll see who it is,” he said.

  Blake followed him out into the hallway while Adriane stayed frozen in her spot waiting.

  Beside her Reverend Cassaway cleared his throat nervously and looked at Joe. “I think I’ve performed the necessary service for these two as requested. Perhaps it would be best if I just hurried on home now. Mrs. Cassaway will be worried.”

  “Sure, preacher.” Joe slipped the man some money before he pointed the way to the back door.

  Reverend Cassaway tucked the bills in his vest pocket and wasted little time making his escape, pausing only a bare few seconds to say, “I do hope that’s not trouble of any sort and that you’ll be very happy, Mrs. Garrett.”

  After the man scurried off down the hall, Joe looked over at Adriane with an embarrassed grin and shrugged a little. “Sorry, Miss Adriane, but he was the best I could do this time of night.”

  Adriane was only half listening to Joe as she heard Beck open the door. What if it was Stanley? Or worse, his father. Coleman Jimson could have somehow heard of their troubles and be coming to demand payment of the money her father owed him. Adriane’s eyes went to Blake’s broad back between her and the door. She, at least, could no longer be that payment.

  She was relieved and surprised to hear Duff’s voice out in the hallway. “Where’s Miss Adriane?” he said.

  Adriane’s relief vanished at the sight of the boy’s face as he brushed past Beck and then Blake to find her. She met him at the door of the pressroom and wrapped her arms around him. “Oh, Duff,” she said. “What’s happened?”

  He tried to answer, but all he could get out was another “Miss Adriane” before the sobs choked out any more words. She’d never seen him like this. He was always so tough, old beyond his years, as he worked to take care of his mother and sisters. But now, this moment, he was a heartbroken child in her arms even though he was nearly as tall as she was. She held him and waited, her own heart growing heavier inside her.

  As quickly as the sobs came, they stopped. Still, she kept her arms around the boy and waited for him to share his sorrow. At last he raised his head off her shoulder. “It’s me sister, Miss Adriane. Lila.”

  The tears were gone as if they’d never been, but Adriane almost wished them back. She could hold him while
he cried. She knew no way to ease the terrible hopelessness on his face, and even before he spoke the words, Adriane knew there was no chance his sister would wake again.

  “Tell me what happened, Duff,” she said gently. “Was she caught out on the streets in the riot?”

  “No, I could’ve protected her from the likes of them.” His face went cold. “It was the slasher. He must have grabbed her as she left work. I should’ve never let her take that job at the tavern, but she promised she’d be watchful.” Despair washed over him as he repeated in almost a wail, “She promised.”

  For a minute he looked ready to break down again, but then his voice hardened. “I left me mother and sisters with neighbors to come be telling you, Miss Adriane. At least with me own sister, the Herald won’t be beating us with the headlines.”

  “We won’t print the headlines at all if you don’t want us to, son,” Blake said quietly behind the boy.

  Duff whirled to glare at him. “How could you know about it already?”

  “I didn’t,” Blake said, but Duff wasn’t listening.

  He threw himself at Blake, flailing him with his fists and screaming, “Maybe it’s true the rumor I been hearing. Maybe you are the slasher yourself. Killing the poor girls, killing me own sister for to sell more of your newspapers.”

  “Duff!” Adriane tried to grab the boy’s arms.

  “It’s all right, Adriane,” Blake said without looking at her. He allowed Duff to hit him a few more times before he caught his arms and held him. “You don’t believe that, Duff, but it could be you’re going to find the truth of why I’m here just as hard to believe.”

  Duff quit fighting and looked up at Blake. They studied each other a moment before Blake said, “You saw her, didn’t you?”

  “I had to make sure it was her, don’t you see? I thought maybe they could be wrong. So much was happening out on the street. I thought maybe Lila was just fearing to come home.”

  “But it was her.”

  “It was her.” The look on Duff’s face as he spoke the words sent a chill through Adriane. His voice changed as he begged Blake to help him make sense of it all. “Why’d he have to be doing that to her, sir? Why couldn’t he have just killed her easy without slashing her all up like that?”