Twin of Ice (15 page)

Quickly, he ran across the lawn and put his hand on her ankle.

When Houston looked down and saw Kane, she nearly fainted. What in the world would he think of the woman he was going to marry? She knew quite well what Leander or Mr. Gates would say if they saw her now, in public, wearing her bedroom clothes, and climbing a rose trellis.

As Houston looked down at Kane, she said the only thing she could think of. “My hat isn’t on straight.”

She hoped that the sound he made was a chuckle.

“Honey, even I know that ladies don’t wear hats with their bathrobes.”

Houston was paralyzed. He didn’t mind!

“Unless you want ever’body to see you like that, you’d better get inside.”

“Yes,” she said, recovering herself and climbing to the top while he watched. Once on the balcony, she leaned over the side. “Kane,” she called to him, “your wedding gift is in your office.”

He grinned up at her. “See you real soon, baby.”

With that he stuck his hands in his pockets and went away whistling, nodding at the people he passed.

“Houston,” Opal said from behind her. “If you don’t get ready now, you’re going to miss your own wedding.”

“I’d rather die,” she said with great feeling and returned to her bedroom.

Ten minutes later, Kane was unwrapping the package Houston’d put on his desk. Inside were two boxes of cigars and a note.

It was signed with the name of a cigar store in Key West, Florida.

Kane was just lighting one when Edan entered. He held out the box to him. “From Houston. How in the world do you think she got these here in time?”

Edan took a moment to enjoy the cigar. “If I’m learning anything in life, it’s to not underestimate that lady.”

“Any woman who’d buy cigars like these is indeed a lady. Well,” he said heavily, “I guess I better go get dressed. You wanta come help me tie things?”

“Sure.”

The wedding dress was of Houston’s own design, simple but elaborate in its simplicity. It was of ivory silk satin cut in a long, gentle princess style with no horizontal seams from the high neck to the tip of the twelve-foot train. About the waist, extending over her breasts and flowing down her hips, was an intricate Persian design done in thousands of hand-applied seed pearls. The sleeves from shoulder to elbow were huge, their size further emphasizing the tiny waist of the dress. The tight cuffs that extended from elbow to wrist carried a repeat pattern done in pearls.

Houston stood very still as her friends attached the veil to her head. It was a five-yard-long froth of handmade Irish lace called Youghal, a bold design of wild flowers set off by spiked leaves. The complicated pattern of the lace complemented the satin smoothness of the dress.

Tia held out Houston’s teardrop-shaped bouquet of orange blossoms and white rosebuds, made to reach from her hands to just graze the floor as she walked.

Opal looked up at her daughter with tears glistening in her eyes. “Houston…” she began but could say nothing else.

Houston kissed her mother’s check. “I’m getting the best of men.”

“Yes, I know.” She handed Houston a little corsage of pink rosebuds. “These are from your sister. She thought that she’d wear red roses and you could wear pink. I guess she’s right that you don’t have to dress alike.”

“Our veils are different,” Houston said as Sarah pinned the flowers over the veil just above Houston’s left ear.

“Ready?” Tia asked. “I believe that’s your music.”

Blair was standing at the head of the double stairs waiting for her sister. Solemnly, they embraced.

“I love you more than you know,” Blair whispered. There were slight tears in her eyes as she pulled away. “I guess we should get this spectacle over.”

The polished brass rails of the staircase were covered with fern leaves and at regular intervals hung clusters of three calla lilies. Beneath the arch of the stairs was a twelve-piece string orchestra now playing the wedding march.

With heads held high, both twins walked slowly down the stairs, one curving east, one curving westward. Below them, in silence, the guests looked up at the beautiful women. Their tightly-fitted dresses were identical except for the lace veils, which varied in pattern and type of lace. The color of rosebuds at the sides of their heads also distinguished one twin from the other.

When the women reached the main hallway, the crowd pulled back and the twins walked straight ahead, down the short corridor outside the library door.

Once outside the door, they paused and waited for the six organs placed around the enormous room to begin playing. Inside, seated, but now rising, were the close friends and relatives of the couples.

As Houston looked down the aisle, she saw Jean Taggert standing between her uncle and her father. And ahead of the guests, on a raised platform that was canopied in greenery and roses, stood the men—in the wrong places.

Houston should have known it was too good to be true that all her plans would come about without anything going wrong. As it was now, she was walking up the aisle toward Leander. Quickly, she glanced at Blair to share the joke, but Blair was looking straight ahead—toward Kane.

Houston’s stomach began to turn over. This wasn’t just a simple mistake. With a pang, she thought of the flowers that Blair had sent her. Could Blair have arranged this so she’d not have to marry Leander? Did she want Kane?

The thought was ridiculous. Houston smiled. No doubt Blair was making a noble sacrifice and taking on Kane so Houston could have Lee. How sweet, but how wrong she was.

Still smiling, Houston looked toward Kane. He was staring at her intently and Houston was glad that he recognized her.

At least for a moment she was happy, but when his face darkened and he turned away, the smile left Houston’s face.

He couldn’t believe she’d arranged this switch so she could marry Leander, she thought. But of course he could.

As they drew closer to the platform, Houston tried to think of how to get out of this gracefully. Miss Jones thought she’d covered every possible situation that a lady could get herself into, but she’d never thought that a lady would find herself marrying the wrong man.

As the twins stepped onto the platform, Kane kept his head turned away, and Houston couldn’t help feeling a pang of resentment that he was going to do nothing to change positions. Didn’t he care if he got one twin or the other?

“Dearly beloved, we—.”

“Excuse me” Houston said, trying to keep her voice low so that only the five of them could hear. “I’m Houston.”

Leander understood instantly. He looked at Kane, who was still facing straight ahead. “Shall we exchange places?”

Kane didn’t look at either woman. “Don’t much matter to me.”

Houston felt her heart sink. Leander wanted Blair and Kane would take her, too. Quite suddenly, she felt as useful as a fifth wheel on a wagon.

“It matters to me,” Leander said, and the two men traded places.

Behind them, during the discussion, the audience had begun to twitter, but when Kane and Lee switched places, there was full-fledged laughter. Even though the people tried to cover their amusement, they weren’t successful.

Houston stole a glance at Kane and saw the anger in his eyes.

The service was over quickly and, when Reverend Thomas said to kiss the brides, Lee enveloped Blair with gusto. But Kane’s kiss was cool and reserved. He wouldn’t look her in the eyes.

“Could I speak to you in your office, please?” she asked. “Alone?”

He gave her a curt nod and released her as if he couldn’t bear to touch her.

The four of them walked out of the room very fast and, once outside the library, people descended. Kane and Houston were quickly separated, as one guest after another wedged his way close to the bride. There was much giggling about the mix-up at the altar. Not one person could resist the temptation to remind everyone how Lee never could seem to make up his mind about which of the twins he wanted.

Jean Taggert pulled Houston aside. “What happened?”

“I think my sister thought she was doing me a favor by giving me Leander. She was going to sacrifice herself by taking the man I love.”

“Have you told Blair that you love Kane? That you wanted to marry him?”

“I haven’t even told Kane. Somehow, I felt that he might not believe, me. I’d rather show him how I feel over the next fifty years.” In spite of herself, tears sparkled in her eyes. “At the altar, he said he didn’t care whether he married me or my sister.”

Jean grabbed Houston’s arm and pulled her away from an approaching relative. “When you marry a Taggert, you have to be strong. His pride’s been wounded and he’s liable to say or do anything when he’s hurt. Find him now and tell him what your sister did, or tell him it was just an error in planning—anything—but don’t let him brood in silence. He’ll build everything into a mountain of anger, and then there’ll be no hope of reaching him.”

“I asked him to meet me in his office.”

“Then why are you standing here?”

With the beginning of a smile, Houston deftly flung the long train twice over her left arm and marched down the hall to Kane’s office.

He was standing in front of a tall window watching the people outside, an unlit cigar in his mouth. He didn’t look around when she entered.

“I’m very sorry about the mistake at the altar,” she began. “I’m sure it was just a flaw in my planning.”

“You didn’t want to marry Westfield?”

“No! It was a misunderstanding, that’s all.”

He took a step toward his desk. “I gave up somethin’ today because I couldn’t bear the idea of humiliatin’ you.” He gave her a cold look. “I never could abide a liar.” He tossed a piece of paper at her.

Houston bent to pick it up. It was a note, laboriously hand–lettered, that said, I’ll be wearing red roses in my hair today. The name of Houston Chandler was at the bottom.

“Damn you,
Lady
Chandler! I played fair by you, but you—.” He turned away from her. “Keep the money. Keep the house. You worked for it hard enough. And you won’t have me to put up with. Maybe you can get Westfield to take that virginity that you’re so protective of.” He started toward the door.

“Kane,” she called after him, but he was gone.

Heavily, she sat down on one of the oak chairs in the room.

A few minutes later, Blair came into the room. “I guess we should get out there and cut the cake,” she said hesitantly. “You and Taggert—”

All Houston’s rage came to the surface and she came out of the chair toward her sister with anger in her eyes, “You can’t even call him by his name, can you?” she said furiously. “You think he has no feelings; you’ve dismissed him and therefore you think you have a right to do whatever you want to him.”

Blair took a step backward “Houston, what I did, I did for you. I want to see you happy.”

Houston clenched her fists at her sides and moved closer to Blair, prepared to do battle. “Happy? How can I be happy when I don’t even know where my husband is? Thanks to you, I may never know the meaning of happiness.”

“Me? What have I done except try everything in my power to help you? I tried to help you come to your senses and see that you didn’t have to marry that man for his money. Kane Taggert—.”

“You really don’t know, do you?” Houston interrupted. “You have humiliated a proud, sensitive man in front of hundreds of people, and you aren’t even aware of what you’ve done.”

“I assume you’re talking about what happened at the altar? I did it for you, Houston. I know you love Leander and I was willing to take Taggert just to make you happy. I’m so sorry about what I’ve done to you. I never meant to make you so unhappy. I know I’ve ruined your life, but I did try to repair what I’d done.”

“Me, me, me. That’s all you can say. You’ve ruined my life and all you can talk about is yourself.
You
know I love Leander.
You
know what an awful man Kane is. For the last week or so, you’ve spent every waking moment with Leander, and the way you talk about him is as if he were a god. Every other word you say is, ‘Leander.’ I think you did mean well this morning: you wanted to give me the best man.”

Houston leaned forward. “Leander may set your body on fire, but he never did anything for me. If you hadn’t been so involved with yourself lately, and could think that I do have some brains of my own, you’d have seen that I’ve fallen in love with a good, kind, thoughtful man—admittedly he’s a little rough around the edges, but then, haven’t you always complained that my edges are a little too smooth?”

Blair sat down, and the look of astonishment on her face was almost comical. “You love him? Taggert? You love Kane Taggert? But I don’t understand. You’ve
always
loved Leander. For as long as I can remember, you’ve loved him.”

Houston began to calm down as she realized that what Blair had done, she’d done out of love for her sister, out of wanting Houston to have the best. “True, I decided I wanted him when I was six years old. I think it became a goal to me, like climbing a mountain. I should have set my sights on Mt. Rainier. At least, once I’d climbed it, it would have been done. I never knew what I was going to do with Leander after we were married.”

“But you do know what you’ll do with Taggert?”

Houston couldn’t help smiling. “Oh, yes. I very much know what I’m going to do with him. I am going to make a home for him, a place where he’ll be safe, a place where I’ll be safe, where I can do whatever I want.”

To Houston’s amazement Blair rose from her chair with a look of fury on her face. “I guess you couldn’t have bothered to take two minutes to tell me this, could you? I have been through Hades in the last weeks. I have worried about you, spent whole days crying about what I’ve done to my sister, and here you, tell me that you’re in
love
with this King Midas.”

“Don’t you say anything against him!” Houston shouted, then managed to calm herself. “He’s the kindest, gentlest man and very generous. And I happen to love him very much.”

“And I have been through agony because I was worried about you. You should have told me!”

Houston took a moment to answer. Maybe she had been aware of Blair’s agony of the last few weeks, but part of her was too angry to care. Maybe she’d wanted her sister to suffer. “I guess I was so jealous of your love match that I didn’t want to think about you,” she said softly.

“Love match?!” Blair yelled. “I think I’m Leander’s Mt. Rainier. I can’t deny that he does things to me physically, but that’s all he wants from me. We’ve spent days together in the operating room, but I feel there’s a part of Leander I don’t know. He doesn’t really let me get close to him. I know so little about him. He decided he wanted me, so he went after me, using every method he could to get me.”

“But I see the way you look at him. I never felt inclined to look at him like that.”

“That’s because you never saw him in an operating room. If you’d seen him in there, you would have—.”

“Fainted, most likely,” Houston said. “Blair, I am sorry that I didn’t talk to you. I probably knew that you were in agony, but what happened
hurt.
I had been engaged to Leander for, it seemed to me, most of my life, yet you walked in and took him in just one night. And Lee was always calling me his ice princess, and I was so worried about being a cold woman.”

“And you’re no longer worried about that?” Blair asked.

Houston could feel the color in her cheeks rising. “Not with Kane,” she whispered, thinking of his hands on her body. No, she didn’t feel cool when he was near.

“You really do love him?” Blair asked, sounding as if loving Kane were the most impossible task on earth. “You don’t mind the food flying everywhere? You don’t mind his loudness or the other women?”

Houston caught her breath. “
What
other women?” Right away, she saw that Blair was hesitating about answering, and Houston had to use all her control to calm herself. If Blair thought she was going to once again decide what her sister should or should not do…“And Blair, you’d better tell me.”