When the door had closed behind them, Clarissa sat across the desk from the preacher, her pulse beating out her dread. “Please read it quickly. I fear the worst, and I have no idea how bad the worst could be.”
The parson reached into his inner frock coat pocket and retrieved a pair of rectangle-lens eyeglasses. When he had slipped them on, he opened the envelope, pulled out the single sheet and scanned it. “A personal note appears as page one. ‘My dear Clarissa, my first instruction may well be your hardest to fulfill. Please try to understand and trust my reasoning. As always, I hold your best interests at heart. Grandfather Hezekiah.’
“Next, we have the legal document. ‘Both potential heirs must be married before my granddaughter’s next birthday.’”
Married—
She might as well give up right now.
Except she couldn’t, because then she would also give up Camellia Pointe and Good Shepherd—her ancestral home and her grandfather’s legacy.
Samuel whisked off his specs and regarded her for a moment. “Forgive me, Miss Adams, but have you a beau? Because if you haven’t, you need to get one—soon.”
A beau. A husband.
In less than a month.
Even though Grandfather had known that falling in love would mean that, sooner or later, she would get hurt.
Sitting across the desk from Samuel, Miss Adams looked as if she wanted to turn and run at his words. The defiance in her face mirrored the expression he’d often seen in his daughter’s—and his late wife, Veronica’s—whenever he tried to reason with them. So much so that a part of him wished he could follow Miss Adams right out the heavy cypress vestibule doors. But clearly there was no escape for either of them. Without a wife, Samuel would lose this church—and possibly his daughter. Just as Clarissa would lose her home if she didn’t find a husband. And neither of them had the luxury of time.
Then comprehension softened her eyes and they turned dewy, the golden flecks deepening to burnished copper. “Grandfather always did want to marry me off.”
Samuel cleared his throat of the sudden lump forming there, the sweetness in her tone affecting him in a way he’d never known. Would she calmly accept the will’s terms and fulfill her grandfather’s wishes, allowing the late pastor to dictate her life from the grave? Or would she whisk aside her calm resignation and refuse?
“You are, of course, free to reject the will’s stipulations. But you won’t inherit.” Samuel brushed away his foolish sentiment. His job was to present the letter and advise her if necessary, not to become emotionally involved in this odd situation.
But his heart was involved—a full thirty minutes into the ordeal. It wasn’t like him. Why would this wisp of a young woman touch his heart so?
Miss Adams drew a deep breath and closed her eyes for an instant, as if in prayer.
And the truth hit him.
She affected him so deeply because her posture, her air of acquiescence in the midst of heartache looked just like a younger Veronica.
Samuel lowered his gaze, removing his glasses. How could he not have seen it? From the day of their betrothal, Veronica had worn the same expression of cool tolerance, of gentle acceptance amid suffering. Much of which Samuel had unintentionally caused.
And now, in order to keep his church, he may be forced into the same kind of marriage again.
The thought settled like lead in his stomach.
If only Missus Adams had told him Christ Church’s pastor must be married. He stood and paced to the window. The centuries-old live oak beyond his study stood sturdy, having weathered wind, fire, drought and war. As had Veronica, until—
“Reverend, are you well?”
Miss Adams’s kind voice brought him back to himself, and he composed his heart and controlled his countenance as he turned toward her. “I should ask you the same. This is a troubling revelation for you.”
“It is, because I cannot reject the will’s stipulations as you suggest. Camellia Pointe holds too many happy memories, and Good Shepherd is my grandfather’s legacy. Absalom would destroy both.” A tiny frown creased her forehead. “I can’t understand why Grandfather did this.”
“Have you anyone to consult, other than your grandmother and attorney?”
“They’re all I have, with my mother passed on and my father living...away for the past eight years.”
“Can you contact him, ask for his counsel?”
Emotions flitted across her lovely face—pain, embarrassment and then shame settled there. What could her father, the son of a great minister, have done to evoke such a reaction?
He stopped the thought cold. Samuel, of all men, knew that men of the cloth were just that: mere men, capable of sin. And so were their offspring. “Do you have other uncles besides Counselor Duncan?”
“‘Uncle’ is an honorary title for Joseph, as he is my grandmother’s second cousin. He stepped in to be an uncle to me when I was twelve.” She hesitated as if deciding how much to say. “Absalom’s father was my only uncle, but he and my aunt were killed in an accident. A year later, my mother died of influenza here in Natchez, and my father returned to our plantations in the Yazoo Delta. If I wrote to him today, I wouldn’t get a reply in time.”
Samuel opened his mouth to dispute the fact, but as her gaze turned downward, he realized she didn’t mean he could not reply in time—but that he would not. When she looked up again, the single tear glimmering on her lower lashes confirmed the truth. She rose from her seat and faltered, as if her legs were none too steady.
Samuel hastened around the desk to assist her, but she recovered in an instant. “To answer your earlier question, I have no beau, although I once did. Harold Goss. Harold was one of the first men in Natchez to receive a commission. Last anyone heard, he was in prison camp.”
Harold Goss? Surely she didn’t mean the greedy snake who owned the Daily Memphis Avalanche and had caused him no end of embarrassment with his false journalism. The poor girl...
She ran her fingertips over the desk, as if needing to feel its solidity in order to keep her balance as she started for the door. “I need to think about this. Please excuse me.”
Samuel hastened to the study door and opened it for her, bracing himself for the onslaught he knew would come from Absalom. That man and his boasting annoyed him like a Yankee. How he’d made the rank of major was beyond Samuel.
“Absalom has stepped out.” Miss Euphemia stood by the door with an army of pinched-faced, wrinkled men.
Samuel groaned inwardly, sure he was facing his deacons.
The deacons who had come to fire him before he could even start his work at Christ Church, since he didn’t have a wife.
“Apparently my grandson has recently married,” the elderly woman said, “and he left his wife to wait in his carriage this entire time. He went outside to try to appease her. If he hasn’t better sense than to treat her in such a fashion, they are both in for an unhappy marriage.” She waved toward the men at her side. “These are Deacons Bradley, Morris and Holmes.”
She hooked her hand through the crook of Miss Adams’s elbow, and the two retreated down the hall, presumably to discuss the will.
The most sour-looking deacon of the three, a balding skeleton of a man in waistcoat and cravat, stepped forward. “As