Although hardly more than a murmur, her voice reached Carolyn, prompting that one to recall the first wife’s diatribes when Cole had not been properly attired or on time. “Come now, Cole. We’ve known each other too long for you to worry about such formality.” Her voice dwindled as she lost the courage of her first thrust. Where once she would have jested in light repartee, the stiff coolness in Cole’s manner as he glanced toward her destroyed all thought of such banter. Perhaps her tone had carried some implication of her readiness to find fault with his new wife, for he seemed most protective of the girl. “I mean—” She could only finish lamely. “This is just a friendly dinner for neighbors, and certainly no high affair.”
Braegar held title to no such reservations. “As long as Cole doesn’t smell of the barn, I can tolerate him as he is.” He straightened his coat. “And there’s no sense standing here discussing it when there’s some excellent brandy in the parlor.”
As the guests were drawn into the parlor by the brash Irishman, Cole paused a moment with Alaina. His hand lightly traced the buttons running down her slim back, while his eyes searched hers, delving into those smiling gray depths for some clue to her game. Her lips curved softly beneath his stare, and she reached to straighten his collar, smoothing the shirt familiarly.
“Am I not providing a suitable haven from worrisome mothers?”
The muscle in Cole’s jaw twitched. He should have known better!
Alaina slipped her arm beneath his, ready to accept his guidance, but when he moved, she was at once both amazed and frightened by the unsureness of his step and the weight he placed on the cane. Anxiously she questioned, “Are you all right?”
He grunted, brushing off her concern. “The hours of sitting have made the leg stiff. It will loosen up in a bit.”
In the parlor, Cole stood beside her chair and, after Miles had served the libations to the guests, caught the servant’s eye and inclined his head toward the crystal decanter. The butler obediently poured a dram or two into a snifter and held the glass up for his employer’s inspection. Cole frowned a bit until Miles, with the slightest of shrugs, complied, bringing both snifter and decanter to set them on the table beside Alaina’s chair. Cole tossed down the first drink, then reached to pour himself another, briefly meeting his wife’s troubled gaze.
“Is that all for you, Cole?” Braegar queried with humor. “Or will you let Miles pass it around again?”
Cole nodded curtly toward the butler, and from a second decanter, the butler quickly replenished Braegar’s supply.
“I prefer Cole’s custom of enjoying the brandy before dinner,” the Irishman commented jovially. “It is most civilized.”
Eleanore sat in her chair like a displeased matron and briefly graced both Cole and Braegar with a cool glance. “It comes to me that an overaffection for spirits could well be a man’s undoing.”
When Miles came to announce dinner, Alaina rose and, slipping an arm through Cole’s, took the initiative as hostess. “Mister Burr, would you be so kind as to escort Mrs. Darvey into the dining room?”
Seeing that Alaina’s escort was already chosen, Braegar reluctantly lent his arm to Carolyn and followed after his mother. Thus, as Alaina had intended, Cole’s pace was unhurried by the presence of anyone behind him. With a gentle pat on his arm, she left him beside his chair and proceeded to her own at the far end of the table, there accepting Braegar’s ready assistance. The chair slid forward beneath her, and the Irishman claimed the place at her immediate left, leaving the two of them separated from the others by the length of the table. Alaina’s casual glance caught Cole’s sharp glare fixed upon her, and she raised questioning brows, wondering what she had done to deserve his anger.
Horace was helping Eleanore into her seat, and of a sudden, Cole realized Carolyn had been left to her own end. He hastened to limp around his own chair to hers, but before he could reach his objective, the lawyer moved to accomplish the necessary service.
“Rest yourself, Doctor Latimer,” the older man bade him. “I know your leg is bothering you.”
Cole flushed in prideful embarrassment. It seemed he could not perform the simplest chivalry with grace anymore and was ever reminded of the fact that he was lame. He slid into his own chair and hitched it forward, mumbling caustically, “I’m not a doctor anymore. I’ve given up my practice.”
Astounded by his colleague’s reply, Braegar leaned back in his chair to consider its import. He was totally unable to comprehend what had caused Cole to lose interest so completely in the work to which he had once been so devoted. Of the two of them, Cole had been the serious doctor, serious in his studies, serious in his concern for his patients, while Braegar realized that his own practice was carried on quite casually and that he relied as much on his good-natured affability as upon his skill to keep his patients content. Frederick Latimer had led them both as youths into the profession and encouraged them with his own zeal and love for it, but he had instilled something special in Cole, a gift for surgery Braegar had never managed to acquire.
“Perhaps he worries that his skill has been impaired somehow,” he mused and, catching the sidelong glance from the clear gray eyes beside him, perceived that he had spoken aloud. He hurried to set aright any possible misunderstanding. “Cole is the best surgeon around here, barring none. I can’t imagine why he has given it up.”
Cole finished another snifter of brandy without gratifying Braegar’s curiosity. It was the Irishman’s proximity to Alaina that aggravated him more than that one’s conjectures.
Serious conversation halted as the first course was served and the meal was entered. The appetizer was small, sweetened meats cooked in a zesty sherry sauce. Annie proved that whatever her politics, she was no simple Irish potato boiler but an accomplished cuisinière, well schooled in the tastes of a dozen countries.
When the talk was resumed, Eleanore could no longer resist broaching a subject that challenged her curiosity. “Cole, you haven’t told us anything about Alaina, how you came to know her, or why you arranged a proxy marriage. To be truthful, I’m not at all sure about this proxy thing. It is legal, isn’t it? I mean, you didn’t bring that poor child up here on some base pretext, did you? Good heavens!” Mrs. Darvey pressed her hand to her cheek as if aghast at her own thoughts. “You are married, aren’t you?”
Even with the distance between them, Alaina saw the tenseness in Cole’s face and manner, though from anger or pain she knew not which. “You may rest at ease, Aunt Ellie,” he assured the woman. “The exchange of vows was quite legal.”
“But hardly Christian, Cole,” Eleanore said in a reproving tone. She paused as Miles served her plate from the tea cart and, when the man had moved on, continued chidingly, “I don’t think your father would have approved. A good church wedding would have been so much more reassuring. Perhaps you should prevail upon the reverend to perform a church ceremony, just to put aside any gossip.”
“To hell with the gossips!” Cole growled. “I will not give them more meat to chew.”
“Mama, you know that Cole’s wound makes traveling difficult for him,” Carolyn interjected. “And I’m sure that Mister Burr, being a lawyer, can attest to the legality of a proxy marriage.”
“Indeed, madam. It fulfills every letter of the law,” Horace affirmed.
Only Alaina saw the scornful glance Annie threw over her shoulder as she pushed the serving cart through the swinging door into the kitchen. The delicious main course of braised veal was consumed with appreciation between comments, but Eleanore was not yet ready to be convinced of the properness of Cole’s marriage.
“How do your parents feel about you exchanging vows in such a manner, Alaina? Surely they must have felt some reticence.”
“My parents are dead, madam.” Alaina experienced a brief rise of irritation, but forced it down as she realized the question was put in all innocence. How could she expect someone who had remained so distant from the conflict to understand? “My father and brothers we
re killed in the war. My mother died trying to work our plantation, while the Union soldiers played their mischief on our crops and animals. I fled to New Orleans to escape the unwelcome attentions of a Yankee officer who swore he would see Saul and me hanged for spies. I met Cole on the dock the day I arrived, when he saved me from a mauling several drunken soldiers intended. That was two years ago, madam. Doctor Latimer was my cousin’s husband, and when she died, he offered marriage. To avoid being forced into a questionable relationship with a backwater river rat, I accepted his proposal.” She folded her hands sedately in her lap and met the troubled look of the older woman with a calm, level, but tightly controlled gaze. “Is there anything else you wish to know, Mrs. Darvey?”
Embarrassed by the result of her unchecked inquisitiveness, Eleanore replied contritely, “No, child. I believe you answered my questions quite adequately.”
A moment of strained silence passed. Half smiling, half frowning, Cole considered his young bride over the rim of his brandy snifter. A man could hardly find favor in being reminded that he had been his wife’s last resort. There would have to be much more resolved between them than just the matter of clothes, he thought.
“Drunken soldiers mauling young ladies?” Eleanore turned on him without warning. “Good heavens, Cole! What has our army come to? I begin to think I should talk this over with the governor.”
A commotion followed, a chattering discord with everyone talking at one time. Cole gave up trying to explain, and gradually the others subsided, all except Braegar who was bent upon directing an apology toward Alaina. “Forgive us for being so damned impertinent with our inquiries—”
Eleanore straightened herself indignantly in her chair. “Watch your tongue with that young lady, Braegar Darvey! And I should like to remind you that even in my dottering age, I am as yet capable of apologizing for my own errors—if the need should arise!”
The man grinned and laid his hand over Alaina’s. “Then I humbly apologize for my behavior, though I’ll wager you’ve heard as much from your own dear husband’s lips, for I fear he’s a proper scalawag like myself.”
Alaina smiled in an easing of spirit until she glanced toward Cole’s end of the table and found him watching her broodingly, then she sobered. His anger seemed to be at odds with anything Braegar Darvey did or said, and she could not fathom his reasons. She dismissed jealousy as a cause for Cole was far more handsome and manly, to her way of thinking. At times Braegar reminded her of a puckish little rascal, intelligent but decidedly mischievous. She found it equally hard to accept that Cole might feel remorse in the fact that Braegar was whole and hearty while he was something less than an able man. The reason seemed more personal than that and obviously of far greater consequence.
“Somehow, I cannot imagine that Cole married you just for the sake of duty.” Braegar shrugged carelessly. “It is typical, of course. He was always the upstanding gentleman in love, as in war. To hell with self, so to speak.” He caught his mother’s warning glare and tried to refrain, for the moment at least, from using any harsh language. “My saintly mother can vouch for it, and if there’s one who will speak the truth, she will.” He leaned forward and looked down the table at Cole to receive a dispassionate stare which might have hinted at a growing vexation. “As for myself, I would have more reason to marry a beautiful woman than for honor, and I can’t believe Cole and I are that far different.” A pause followed while he let the others consider this, then he raised his glass in salute to the newly wedded couple. “Here’s to your marriage, Cole, for whatever reason it came into being. But if it was for honor, your taste in women has certainly improved.”
“Braegar!” His mother was astonished at her son’s crudity. “What kind of toast is that? Mister Burr will go home thinking we’re the rudest family he’s ever met.”
Braegar shrugged. “I was just pointing out that if Cole married the first time for love and the second time for honor, he made the better contract in the latter case. If I am too blunt and honest, then you’ll have to bear with me. But if the man is too blind to see what a precious treasure he has gained, I say he’s a blasted fool!”
“I don’t think Cole is blind or a fool, Braegar Darvey!” Carolyn objected.
Her brother again lifted his heavy shoulders to convey his indifference. “You always claimed to understand Cole better than I could anyway.”
Annie Murphy came in with the cart again and accepted the empty plates Miles removed from the table and handed him the smaller ones from the tea cart. The butler was the epitome of proper decorum as he placed the dark plum pudding smothered in rum sauce before the guests. His eyes never raised as Braegar continued.
“It would still be a damned waste if Cole married Alaina for mere honor’s sake and not for his own.”
“You only met her yesterday,” Carolyn reminded him tartly. “How can you judge anyone in that short a time?”
With an impatient gesture, Cole shoved his dessert plate aside, ignoring Annie’s obvious disapproval as he slid back his chair and pushed himself to his feet.
Carolyn glanced up in surprise. “Where are you going, Cole? This pudding is delicious. You should eat yours.”
“He didn’t like me calling him a fool,” Braegar offered with humor.
“Sweet merciful heavens!” Cole swore to the ceiling. He braced himself against the edge of the table and favored each of the Darveys with an ill-humored smile. “I feel much like a wounded mouse beset by a flock of crows. Sooner or later you will pick me apart and leave nothing but bare bones.”
“Crows, indeed!” Eleanore raised her aging chin imperiously.
Cole pressed on, ignoring the interruption. “Can the fact not stand that I simply married two women who happened to be cousins? Both well-bred ladies of the South? Both beautiful?” He held up his hand, palm outward, as if swearing an oath. “Perhaps it was not done as much in gallantry as your conjectures would have it. Rather, we were simply brought to the altar by—” he glanced at Alaina and finished the sentence more kindly than she had expected—“fate. In either instance, marriage seemed the only solution.”
Alaina was pricked by his rather cavalier explanation. To her way of thinking, he stood in dire need of a comeuppance, the application of which she could not resist. Smiling prettily, she leaned her elbow on the table and crooned with honeyed sweetness dripping from an exaggerated, deep Southern drawl. “You thick-witted Yankee, if you ever put me in the same class with Roberta again, I’ll light into you so hard, you’ll think the wh-o-o-ole Confederate Army marched over you, mules, wagons, and all.”
The gentle, smooth tone of her voice and the radiance of her smile were such that a long moment passed before the impact of her words sank in. Cole raised an eyebrow and gave her an odd quirk of a grin. Horace Burr cleared his throat loudly and busily polished his glasses. Carolyn squelched a giggle and struggled to keep a straight face, while Eleanore’s eyebrows were unmercifully stretched upward. Braegar came to his feet in applause. When the furor died, the dining room was silent except for the sound of unbridled laughter drifting through the still-swinging kitchen door. The tea cart, stacked with dirty dishes, remained near Cole’s chair, mute evidence of the haste of Annie’s departure.
“I beg your pardon, Al,” Cole drawled. “It was the last thing I meant to—”
“Al!” Carolyn choked and gave up all thoughts of humor as she gaped at Cole. “You mean—that—she”—Carolyn gestured lamely toward the other end of the table— “is”—” She could go no further. Her mind raced over the details of Cole’s relationship with “Al,” at least as much as he had related through his letters.
Mrs. Darvey was almost afraid to venture a question and yet could not resist just one. “This is the same Al—who—scalded you?” Their whole family had chuckled long and hard over the tales which now came back to haunt her.
Braegar sank back into his chair with a stunned expression that changed to a thoughtful one as he, too, recalled the many mentions of “
Al” in Cole’s communications. He also recalled that the merest mention of Al had been enough to send Roberta into a shrewish frenzy.
Carolyn’s reeling mind had been snared by the threat Cole had made soon after he had met the urchin, that one day he would peel down the lad’s britches and blister his pampered behind. It ran over and over in her thoughts as she stared in mute shock at Cole. In fact, they all gawked at him, awaiting his answer, while Alaina, in pleased satisfaction, leaned back under Cole’s pained frown and, with a bland smile, refused to say another word. She was interested in seeing just how he would explain it all to them.
Cole sat down and glared around the table. “One and the same!” He pulled out a cigar and bit off the tip, while the Darveys waited expectantly. “Alaina disguised herself as a boy to pass the Union soldiers unmolested. At that time, I was just another bluebelly to be avoided. I took the lad ‘Al’ to his uncle’s house and was introduced to Roberta that very same day. I was not—ah”—he stared at the cigar in his hand—“let in on the secret until after Roberta and I were married.”
“Impossible!” Braegar denied.
“How terrible it must have been!” Carolyn wrinkled her nose. “Dressed like a boy?” She peered down the table at Alaina and found it hard to accept.
“You poor dear!” Eleanore consoled and, rising, went to stand near Alaina. “With all the things you’ve been put through, child, I would not blame you if you hated us all.”
Alaina smiled down the length of the table at her husband and, in the guise of innocence, questioned, “Did Cole tell you about the time in the stable?” Beneath his warning scowl, her grin deepened. “Or our dip in the watering trough? Did he mention the fight in the kitchen when Dulcie stopped him from thrashing me?”
“You poor child!” Eleanore gasped, then glared at Cole. “You beast!”
Irritably Cole jammed the cigar in his mouth, flicked the sulfur match alight with his thumbnail, tendered the flame to the end of the cheroot, drawing deeply. All the while his eyes never left his wife.