stepped onto the gallery, leaving the door ajar. “I’d hoped to have the door fixed before you got here, Chaplain.”
“No need.” Samuel kept his eye on his daughter as she disappeared around the house’s west corner. He lowered his voice. “Colonel, I’ve made a grave error. You see, this house—”
“Don’t worry. The roof is sound, and the broken windows are boarded, so rain can’t get in and destroy the interior. Camellia Pointe is still one of the best of the grand old Natchez homes. You’ll need to make repairs at some point, but it’ll stand for a long time as it is.”
“You don’t understand. I’m not worried about its condition but rather the brazen display of wealth—”
At the sound of footfalls, Samuel hesitated, in case one of the approaching persons was Miss Adams. They would need to talk about this house, but in private.
“We’re ready,” an unfamiliar female voice called from inside.
The Reverend Gifford appeared from around the corner, with Emma on his arm and Beau at his other side. Other than the gray at his temples, he looked much the same as he had when Samuel last saw him, before the war. “Glad to see you’ve found a new wife, and a mother for this pretty girl. And I’m happy to see you taking the pulpit at Christ Church.”
“He’s the perfect choice for both the church and Clarissa,” Talbot cut in, pointing to the right. “The groom stands over there, or so the women tell me.”
The dowager exited the house and stood at the gallery’s edge, next to a square pillar, a camellia bush at her back. Behind her, Miss Adams seemed to float through the doorway, her dark hair contrasting with her high-necked white dress, its skirt narrower than current fashion dictated. The pink bridal glow in her porcelain cheeks made her even more lovely than before. Equally beautiful to Samuel was the look of adoration on his daughter’s face as she gazed upon her soon-to-be stepmother. Emma’s eyes shone as they had when she’d taken in the beauty of Camellia Pointe only minutes ago.
And had clutched his arm.
Father, I believe Miss Adams is the answer to my prayers for Emma. And if so, couldn’t Samuel manage to tolerate his wife owning a showy home like this?
Yes, he could, especially since he would rarely see it.
The colonel clasped his shoulder and gave him a soldierly shove toward the spot Samuel was presumably to occupy. A blond woman followed Miss Adams outside, wearing a more modern pink dress, and took her place beside Talbot. Joseph Duncan stepped out next, his stern gaze settling on Absalom’s family as they approached.
When the Reverend Gifford stood before them and started the ceremony, Samuel adjusted his frock coat, laid aside his misgivings and set his face like a flint. He’d failed his late wife and he’d failed Emma. For no reason could he do it again.
Samuel went through the motions, saying, “I do” and placing the ring on his bride’s finger when prompted. Finally, the words “man and wife” penetrated the fog of his brain.
“You may ki—”
At the tiny shake of Miss Adams’s head—or was she Missus Montgomery now?—the minister cut off his words. “You may...greet your guests.”
His wife’s sigh of apparent relief cut through Samuel’s own discomfort and shamed him more than an open rebuke.
Samuel mindlessly accepted congratulations from the lady in pink, the attorney and the reverend, and a fierce army backslap from his former commander. He stepped over to Emma, who, he now realized, carried a bouquet of white flowers.
“Miss Clarissa picked these camellias,” his daughter said, touching the petals. “They’re the first ones to bloom, and she said I was her bridesmaid.”
It seemed his new bride had made herself quite indispensable already.
Joseph meandered his way, a grim set to his mouth. “Reverend Montgomery, as inopportune as this seems, I must ask you to deliver the next stipulation of the will.”
At his wedding? “Can it not wait?”
“I fear not. This letter is to be read immediately after both parties fulfill the first condition. I’m bound to follow Hezekiah’s instructions.”
Samuel’s pounding headache of this morning threatened to return and finish him off, and he rubbed his skull. “I’ll collect my wife and meet you inside.”
“And I’ll get Absalom. Both parties are to hear this letter together.”
Samuel hardly knew how to approach his bride, engaged as she was in whispered conversation with the lady in pink, so he merely stood beside her and cleared his throat.
She turned to him with a smile so genuine it took his breath. Hardly the reaction he’d anticipated from her, since she’d been visibly relieved to avoid a wedding kiss. But then a black-and-white bird dog, one he hadn’t seen before, jumped down from one of the carriages and headed toward them. His wife gave it the same smile she’d bestowed on him.
So much for winning her favor.
“Reverend, this is Graham Talbot’s wife, Ellie,” Clarissa said, “and their dog, Sugar.”
“Clarissa, you’ll need to begin to call your husband by his given name.” Missus Talbot offered Samuel her hand. “And you, Reverend, will need to think of a pet name for her.”
Pet name? He’d rather pet the dog. After releasing Missus Talbot’s gloved hand, he did just that. At least Sugar and Missus Talbot didn’t shrink from his touch. But neither of them apparently knew what a roughneck he was.
“We must step inside a moment,” he said as the dog ambled toward Emma. “Your attorney asked us to meet him.”
Miss Adams—Missus Montgomery—turned those hazel eyes on him, their gold flecks shimmering in the late-winter sunlight. “The next stipulation.”
Samuel pushed the door open the rest of the way and stepped aside to allow her to pass.
Inside the center hall, he hesitated. This house was even more grandiose inside than out. However, dusty sheets covered each piece of the hall furniture.
“The mural is French Zuber wallpaper and the gasolier is Waterford.” She said it without pretense or pride, as if she’d grown up playing around these priceless items. Which she apparently had.
When they entered the dining room, Joseph Duncan waited silently, his portmanteau on the sheet-covered table in front of him. Absalom sat at the head of the table as if he belonged there, first complaining and cursing their grandfather and his will, and then boasting about his “much-larger home” in Memphis.
Surely Samuel could tolerate this home easier than he could stomach the blustering braggart. And judging from the tension in those big hazel eyes, Absalom affected Clarissa even more deeply.
“It is extremely poor taste to talk business at a wedding, and I apologize,” Joseph said when Samuel had unshrouded a chair and seated his wife next to the gray-veined marble fireplace. He handed Samuel an envelope. “Unfortunately we have no choice. Reverend Montgomery, please read this letter from the Reverend Hezekiah Adams.”
Samuel took his specs from his pocket and slid them on. He opened and scanned the letter.
No. This couldn’t be. His aching head suddenly felt as if a dozen horses’ hooves pounded it. He glanced up at Joseph, who nodded his encouragement.
“‘To fulfill my second stipulation, both my grandchildren must live at Camellia Pointe for one year, beginning the day the first condition is fulfilled. Since the War has wreaked havoc on this estate, my grandchildren must live as family here and work together to complete its necessary repairs and restore it to its former glory.’”
Samuel drew a deep breath of defeat. But when he saw the way his new bride bit her lower lip, as if to stop it from trembling, he wanted to throw this