Natchez Flame (42 page)

“I intend to make that my greatest challenge.”

“Then we might as well get started.” He kissed her again and slid himself inside her, practicing for the wedding night ahead.

In the end, Brendan and Priscilla had to wait another day. Sue Alice was determined Priscilla should have a wedding, no matter how small. There were flowers to arrange, foodstuffs to prepare—to say nothing of a wedding gown.

“I wish we had time to have a proper dress made,” Sue Alice said, bustling into the main salon, “something special, just for you. Since we don’t, I hope you won’t mind wearin’ mine.”

Priscilla started in surprise. She set aside her mending with an unsteady hand and turned to find Sue Alice holding up the loveliest white lace gown Priscilla had ever seen. The sleeves were sheer above the elbow and so was the bodice above the bustline. The skirt was voluminous, flounced with row upon row of delicate white lace. Clusters of seed pearls glistened in the sunlight reflecting off the crystal chandelier.

“It’s beautiful, Sue Alice, but I couldn’t possibly—The dress must mean a great deal to you.” “I want you to wear it.”

“But what about your daughters?” Priscilla reached out to touch the fine white lace. “Shouldn’t you save it for them?”

“Lawd, those two mischief-makers may never find a man! Besides there’s two of them. They’d probably
just wind up fightin’ over it. Anyway, your wearin’ it won’t hurt it a bit.” She sized Priscilla up from head to foot. “With a nip here and a tuck there, it’ll fit just right, and I know you’re gonna look lovely.”

The gown was a pure, snowy white. Priscilla flushed to admit she was hardly a virginal bride. But the man she would marry was already her true and proper husband. In the eyes of God, they had never sinned.

“Can we be bridesmaids, Aunt Silla?” Charity asked, tugging at her skirts.

“You aren’t old enough yet for that,” her mother said, “but you can be flower girls.”

“What do flower girls do?” Patience asked.

“They walk in front of the bride dropping rose petals,” Priscilla said.

“And then they’re very, very quiet until the ceremony is ova’.” Sue Alice patted her daughter’s hand, and Priscilla fought a smile.

As the hour drew near, Priscilla grew more and more nervous. Sue Alice had insisted it was bad luck for a bride to see her groom before the wedding, so Priscilla had moved back into the main house for the night. Brendan had grumbled, but finally agreed. She hadn’t seen him since.

Rose had consented to be her maid of honor. Priscilla hadn’t seen her, but Sue Alice had spoken to her, and the two women had been working to get things ready.

Now, standing at the window of her bedchamber in the lovely lace gown, Priscilla looked down at the white-painted arbor the men had set up in the garden. Magnolias decorated the arch, and a runner of
white cloth marked the path she would follow. A black-garbed preacher stood with Bible in hand, talking to Jaimie. Little towheaded Matthew stood beside his equally towheaded father, Chris wearing a black frock coat, forest-green waistcoat, and tan trousers, his son in knee breeches and a short brown jacket.

A soft rap sounded that Priscilla hoped was Rose.

“I’ll get it,” Sue Alice said. “Then I’d better go see to the girls.” She opened the door and Rose walked in. “I’m glad you’re here. You can help your sister with her veil.” She flashed a last approving glance at Priscilla and dashed out into the hallway.

“You look beautiful,” Rose said, walking toward her.

“Thank you.”

“I’m happy for you.”

Priscilla smiled. “Sue Alice said she saw you with Jaimie. Does that mean things have worked out?”

Rose smiled and held out her hand. A simple gold ring on her third left finger gleamed in the sunlight. “We’re married.”

“Oh, Rose!” Priscilla leaned over and hugged her. Rose still seemed a little uncertain of their newly discovered kinship, but Priscilla was determined their sisterhood would flourish. “I’m so happy for you.”

“I almost didn’t do it. I was afraid that later … after he’d thought things over … he’d be sorry.”

“Jaimie isn’t like that. If you had read his letters, you would know.”

“I figured if he was willing to take a chance on me, I could surely take a chance on him. We got married
by the justice of the peace yesterday afternoon. Jaimie is taking me with him to Texas.”

“He’s going back to the Triple R?”

“He says Noble will need him.”

“And Jaimie needs you. I saw it in his eyes whenever he looked at you.”

Rose smiled again, and Priscilla took her hand. “I owe you an apology, Rose.”

“An apology? What in God’s name for?”

“When you told me about Stuart and McLeary, about Caleb’s involvement in the smuggling on the river, I didn’t understand how you could have stayed with him.”

“You were right. I should have—”

“I wasn’t right. You did what you had to. If I’d been through what you had, been abandoned and left to fend for myself the way you were, I don’t know if I could have made it. You not only survived, but did everything in your power to better yourself. Look how much you’ve accomplished—” Priscilla surveyed her sister’s blue silk crepe dress, the height of fashion and good taste. “You’ve taught yourself to be a lady. Now, as Jaimie’s wife, you’ll be a lady in every respect.”

“Do you really believe that?”

“Absolutely.” Priscilla held up her sister’s hand, admiring the ring on her finger. “This is the best wedding present you ever could have given me.”

Rose smiled. Then her fine dark brows drew together as she caught a flash of gold above the bodice of Priscilla’s gown. She reached for the locket nestled in the hollow of her sister’s throat.

“Papa gave it to me,” Priscilla said. “I’ve kept it with me always.”

Rose’s hand shook as she studied the locket. She let it fall away, then reached into the neck of her gown, and pulled her own small gold locket from where it dangled at the end of its chain. The two were identical.

Priscilla’s throat closed up.

“He must have loved us both,” Rose said softly. She stared at Priscilla, blinked, then discreetly brushed a tear from her cheek. “The best present anyone has ever given me is you, Priscilla,” Rose said. “I never thought of you as a sister. I hated you for so many years…. I blamed you—and I envied you. But once I met you, I realized you were nothing like I’d imagined. You were warm and kind, and you cared about me. I want you to know how glad I am to know you, how happy I am that you’re my sister.”

Warm tears slipped down Priscilla’s cheeks. “I’m just so glad I found you.”

Rose blew her nose on a lace-trimmed hanky she pulled from her reticule. “I think it’s time we stopped all this fussing and got ready for your wedding. I have a hunch your groom is more than a little impatient.”

Priscilla dabbed the last of the tears from her eyes. “You’re probably right,” she agreed straight-faced. “He’s taking this marriage very seriously. Why, the last time we were together, he kept me up half the night—practicing his husbandly duties.”

She tried not to grin, but the look on her sister’s face was just too priceless. They both went off into gales of laughter.

*  *  *

“Where the devil is she?” Brendan stood at the altar, shifting impatiently from one shiny black shoe to the other. Wearing a frock coat of fine black broadcloth, a silver waistcoat, and dove-gray trousers, he looked toward the house for the fifteenth time since his arrival.

“Relax, my boy. It’s a woman’s perogative to keep her groom waiting at the altar.” The preacher smoothed the ribbon that marked his place in the Bible.

“Better here than in bed,” Brendan grumbled.

“What?”

He cleared his throat. “I said, she’d better have a darned good reason.” Then he saw the twins in their best blue taffeta dresses, their hair clustered in blond ringlets that bobbed over their small shoulders, and smiled. Flower petals fell in great wads from their baskets as they walked along to the music of a harp that had been set up in the garden.

Rose followed the twins. From the corner of his eye Brendan saw Jaimie’s chest expand at the sight of her. She wore a gown of blue silk crepe, and her dark hair glistened like polished wood in the sunlight. The smile on her face reflected her happiness.

The harpist strummed the bridal march, and Priscilla stepped onto the long white runner. Looking as beautiful as Brendan had ever seen her, she clung to Chris Bannerman’s arm.

God I love her.
How it had happened, he couldn’t quite say. He never would have believed the fragile young woman who had passed out cold on the dusty Galveston streets would one day be his wife. That she
would be the one to free him from the past. That she would prove to be a woman of courage and determination, a woman who would show him the way to love.

He never would have believed he could be that lucky.

Chris placed Priscilla’s hand in Brendan’s, and his long fingers curved over her delicate ones. He felt a fierce pride and an undeniable longing.

“Dearly beloved,” the preacher began, “we are gathered together in the sight of God and these witnesses to join together this man and woman in the bonds of holy matrimony.”

Brendan hardly heard the words. His gaze remained fixed on the woman who would be his wife—had belonged to him in his heart since the moment he’d gone back to the Triple R to claim her.

There were the usual phrases; he heard them, but none of it mattered except that she would soon be his. From the corner of his eye he saw Sue Alice in her pretty pink silk dress, standing next to Chris, their fingers interwoven. She sniffed back a tear, and her husband squeezed her hand. Standing next to Priscilla, Rose pressed a hanky to the corner of her eye.

The preacher’s attention swung to him. “Do you, Brendan, take Priscilla, to be your lawful wedded wife? Do you promise to love her, comfort her, honor and keep her, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, forsaking all others, for as long as you both shall live?”

He had thought the words wouldn’t matter. Now
he felt an ache in his throat. He would cherish her always. “I do.”

“Do you, Priscilla, take Brendan, to be your lawful wedded husband? Do you promise to love him, comfort him, honor and keep him, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, forsaking all others, for as long as you both shall live?”

Priscilla heard the catch in her voice. “I do.” In a few more minutes she would be Brendan’s wife. He had come to her from a place deep inside him, crossed hundreds of miles, buried a dozen bitter memories. She vowed he would never regret it.

“You may place the ring on her finger.”

Chris handed him the simple gold band, and Brendan slid it onto her third left finger. Her hand shook a little and he glanced down at her. She prayed he could read the happiness and love in her eyes.

“With this ring, I thee wed,” Brendan repeated. There was so much pride in his voice, such fierce possession, Priscilla’s heart turned over.

“Having consented together in wedlock and having pledged your troth in sight of God and these witnesses, in the name of Almighty God, I now pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss your bride.”

Priscilla smiled at Brendan with all the joy she felt inside. As he lifted the veil from her face and pulled her into his arms, tears of happiness clung to her lashes. He kissed her thoroughly, pressing her against him, ignoring the minister, who began to clear his throat. Finally he broke away.

“I love you, Sill,” he said and then he grinned. “God, I’m glad that’s over.”

Priscilla gave him a dazzling smile. “Me too.”

Chris hugged her and kissed her chastely, and so did Jaimie. Then the small party adjourned to a corner of the garden where a table had been laid with foodstuffs, and crystal champagne glasses sat beside a silver ice bucket. Chris did the honors, toasting the couple and wishing them well through the years. Brendan toasted Jaimie and Rose.

It was a wonderful, loving celebration that went on for several hours, then she and Brendan left in Chris’s carriage. A suite at the Natchez hotel awaited them for the evening, a present from Chris and Sue Alice.

After a sumptuous dinner in their elegant suite of rooms, they retired to the huge four-poster bed to officially consummate their marriage. It was several hours later that Priscilla stirred, coming awake slowly, smiling with contentment as she propped herself against Brendan’s bare chest.

“This is the happiest day of my life,” she said.

He smiled down at her and tugged playfully on one of her curls. “For me, this is the luckiest. In fact, I can’t remember having such a streak of good fortune. If I were a gambling man—which I no longer am—I’d be rich. Then again, I guess I already am.”

Brendan kissed Priscilla lightly, holding her against him. He felt happy as he never had before, and yet with his words about good fortune, something continued to disturb him. Some loose end he couldn’t quite name.

It was crazy and he knew it, yet that same, uneasy, prickling up his spine had saved his skin more than once.