Annie's Song (9 page)

Over the last week, he had come to like Annie’s father less with each successive encounter. For years, he had admired the man. Now, after getting better acquainted with him, he knew him for the self-centered, insensitive bastard he really was. And those were his fine points.

Drawing up beside Alex, Trimble hooked his thumbs under his jacket lapels, rocked back on his heels, and said, “It’s a fine morning for a wedding, wouldn’t you say? Yes, indeed, absolutely perfect.” When Alex didn’t concur, his smile faltered, and with a true politician’s knack for equivocation, he amended,

“A trifle warm, perhaps. But at least we can count on it not to rain. Not that we couldn’t use a good downpour.”

The way Alex saw it, it was not, by any stretch of the imagination, a fine morning. As far as that went, it had been a rotten week as well. He was about to marry a girl without her consent. Whether Annie understood that or not, he did. Night after night, he’d lain awake to stare at his ceiling, telling himself that the end would justify the means, that he was doing the right thing. But was he? It was a question Alex couldn’t answer with any certainty, not without a crystal ball and a seer to foretell the future. Not that he believed in such bullshit.

He gave his future father-in-law’s attire a scathing glance. With a total lack of regard for the significance of the occasion, Trimble wore a loosely cut tan sack suit over a lightly starched white shirt and a V-necked, rose-colored cotton sweater. His matching tie was an even deeper shade of pink. It was a decidedly casual outfit, more appropriate for entertaining guests out on the lawn than for a wedding, even one as informal as this.

Conversely, Alex had been uncharacteristically particular about what he wore this morning. He’d ended up choosing a dark gray tailored suit and a heavily starched white shirt, the front of which was so stiffly polished it threatened to crack when he moved. Since he detested the smell of shirt enamel, a blend of wax and spermaceti that filmed his nostrils and clung bitterly to the back of his tongue, he couldn’t help but resent the other man’s informality.

With another broad grin, James slapped Alex’s arm. “Got the bridegroom jitters, do you? Step into the parlor. I’ve got just the cure.” With a conspiratorial wink, he leaned closer. “My special stuff. Peach brandy, the likes of which you’ve never tasted.”

As he was drawn toward the parlor, Alex looked back over his shoulder at Annie. Her big blue eyes were still riveted to him. He flashed her another smile, hoping to reassure her. Before he could read her reaction, James led him through the archway into the other room.

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Brandy and pompous asses. Over the next few minutes, Alex decided it was a particularly nauseating mixture. Neither Trimble nor the minister seemed to realize the magnitude of what they were about to do.

Alex could think of nothing else. True, his intentions were good, but that would not lessen the impact all this would have on Annie. Shortly after this mockery of a wedding took place, she would be carted away from the only home she’d ever known by a man who terrified her. The more Alex thought about that, the more inclined he was to agree with his housekeeper, Maddy, that this entire arrangement was a sin against God and all that was holy.

Finishing his brandy, the minister drew his watch from his pocket. A tall, portly man with thinning black hair the exact same shade as his suit, he made Alex think of funerals. He realized why when he noticed the man was wearing a black collar instead of the customary white. “Well, James?” he said. “Let’s get on with it, shall we? As I mentioned when we talked earlier in the week, I’ve a busy schedule. I managed to fit this in, but only just barely. I’ve two christenings and another wedding to do this afternoon, plus a funeral yet this morning that I didn’t plan on.” He gave a raucous laugh. “That’s the trouble with dying parishioners. They never choose a convenient time.”

A muscle began to twitch under Alex’s eye, a purely nervous reaction to anger, one of the few outward signs he hadn’t learned to control over the years. This wedding, he realized, was nothing more than a bothersome chore for both these men, an irritating necessity to be gotten out of the way with as little fuss as possible.

“When it comes to busy schedules, no one understands better than I.” James set his half-empty snifter on the mantel. “Well, Alex? Has that brandy given you enough false courage to say the two most dreaded words in the English language?” He guffawed and winked at the reverend. “I’ve never known a bachelor yet who could say ‘I do’ without getting a case of cold feet, myself included.”

Alex tightened his grip on the glass and set his back teeth to prevent himself from saying something he might regret. While James stepped to the archway to hail his wife, Alex gazed into the fireplace.

Had the good reverend been informed of the reasons for this sudden marriage? Given James’s confident manner, Alex had a nasty suspicion that his future father-in-law had ensured the minister’s cooperation by making a substantial donation to his church. Stained-glass windows and fancy steeple bells didn’t come cheap. The thought sickened him. Money spoke with eloquence; no one knew that better than he. But men of the cloth were supposed to be above taking bribes.

Kitchen smells drifted into the parlor from somewhere at the back of the house—cinnamon, vanilla, and yeast dough—to mix nauseatingly with the sticky sweetness of his brandy. For a dizzying instant, he could have sworn the roses on the wool rug were moving. He blinked, craving the bracing effects the liquor might provide, but half afraid his stomach might rebel if he drank the rest of it.

Annie ... She was definitely not a cherished daughter. A well-kept secret, more like, one that was about to be spirited by sleight of hand from one household to another. And in a few months, after her child is born, she’ll be spirited back home, he reminded himself.

That thought, along with the remainder of the brandy, bolstered his flagging determination. A week ago, he had made a decision for the good of Annie and her child. All his reasons for reaching that decision still stood. He could not allow his niece or nephew to be branded as unadoptable and raised in an orphanage. He absolutely could not.

When Edie Trimble entered the parlor, dragging her daughter behind her, Alex clenched his hand around
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his empty glass with such force that the crystal nearly shattered. Her eyes gigantic in her pale face, Annie glanced first at him, then at the minister, and lastly at her father. She was clearly not accustomed to being in the presence of guests, least of all a man who so greatly resembled her rapist. Plucking frantically at her mother’s fingers to loosen her grip on her wrist, the girl dug in with her heels and put all her weight, slight though it was, into balking.

Edie rewarded Annie’s efforts by digging her fingers into her forearm and giving her a hard shake. “Stop that!” she fairly shrieked.

Annie flinched and threw up her other arm to shield her face. It was patently obvious to Alex that Edie might have slapped her had there been no one else in the room. His gaze shifted to the red fingerprints the woman had left on the girl’s arm. With precise movements, he placed his snifter on the mantel and turned toward the minister.

“Let’s get this business over with,” Alex said with ill-concealed distaste.

Edie, perfectly turned out in a pink shirtwaist and a rose-colored skirt that coordinated nicely with her husband’s outfit, cast him a startled glance. Alex met her gaze. He didn’t give a rap if she guessed what he was thinking. Just because he had never struck a woman and had no intention of starting with her, that didn’t mean he was above entertaining the notion.

As he strode toward the minister, he gave Annie’s shabby blue frock a long look. A man of Trimble’s means could certainly afford to dress his daughter in something better, especially on her wedding day.

Farce or no, this was still a wedding. The toes of the girl’s black shoes were worn down to rough leather.

Her white ribbed stockings, revealed from the shin down by the schoolgirl length of her frock, were grass-stained. He’d seen orphans turned out more nicely.

At his approach, Annie began to struggle against her mother’s hold again. He drew up several feet shy of where he had originally planned to stand. With her hair in a wild tangle of dark curls around her face and dressed as she was, she looked more like a child than a woman. A terrified child.

Not wishing to frighten her by staring, Alex tore his gaze away and focused his attention on the minister, who had opened his prayer book and was leafing quickly through the pages to find his place. His black suit had seen better days, he noticed, and standing so close to the man, he detected the acrid smell of stale sweat emanating from his whipcord jacket. Given the warm morning, the rank odor was almost overwhelming. It was enough to turn Alex’s stomach, and he wasn’t pregnant. He shot a concerned glance at Annie.

Evidently unnerved by his scrutiny, she bent her head, concealing her face behind the thick curtains of her dark hair. Alex wondered what she was thinking, if she had any inkling at all of what was about to happen. When her mother released her wrist, she glanced longingly over her shoulder at the door. Then, obviously afraid to test Edie’s temper by running, she began to fidget, scuffing the toes of her high-top shoes against the nap of the rose-patterned rug and tugging nervously on the buttons of her bodice. He had to smile when she suddenly intertwined her fingers, turned her hands palm out, and extended her arms to pop her knuckles. A knuckle-popper himself, he understood how soothing the popping sensation could be when a person was nervous.

“Annie, stop that!” Edie scolded.

“Leave her be,” Alex inserted in a low voice.

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Edie’s eyebrows, so very like her daughter’s, shot nearly to her hairline. “I beg your pardon?”

“She’s not hurting anything.” Glancing toward the minister, he said, “Widlow, given the circumstances, let’s skip the unnecessary parts and get down to business.”

More than happy to oblige, the reverend found his place and marked the spot with a tattered red ribbon.

Smiling vacuously at no one in particular, he coughed to clear his throat and, in a singsong voice, began the nuptials.

When the moment finally came for Annie to say “I do,” Edie Trimble caught the girl’s face between her hands and none too gently prompted her to nod her head. The minister never gave so much as a pause and rushed to finish the short ceremony.

Forgoing the privilege of kissing his bride, Alex gave her a wide berth and followed his parents-in-law and the minister to a small parlor desk, where the marriage documents awaited their attention. After scrawling his name on the appropriate line, Alex stepped back so Annie might approach without feeling threatened. Duly witnessed by those present, her mark, which her father helped her to make, sufficed where her signature was required.

Just that simply, they were married. Alex could scarcely believe it. Ignoring the beaming faces of the minister and Annie’s parents, he fixed his gaze on his bride. Still hovering near her mother, she stood with her head hanging again, a dejected posture that was beginning to wear on his nerves even as it caught at his heart. It occurred to him that she might be growing weary, and given her condition, that couldn’t be good for her.

He met Edie Trimble’s gaze.“So all would be ready after the ceremony, I instructed my driver to park my carriage out front and see to the loading of the trunks. If we head directly for Montgomery Hall, Annie will still have most of the day to settle in before you have to leave her there alone tonight.”

Edie caught her lower lip in her teeth and glanced uneasily at her husband. Standing slightly behind Alex, James Trimble coughed nervously. “Dear God, did I forget to mention that we’ve had a change of plans?”

Alex shot the man a look. “A change in what plans?’’

“Well, you see, Alex, I forgot to check my calendar when we arranged for the wedding to take place this morning.” He glanced at the minister. “As I’m sure you gathered from our earlier conversation, Reverend Widlow was booked solid every other day this week, so we couldn’t reschedule for another time.”

“What exactly are you saying, Trimble?”

“I’m hosting a garden luncheon this afternoon. Edie is going to have her hands full, I’m afraid. You’ll have to manage without her until tomorrow.”

“Manage without her?” Alex knew his voice was rising, but he couldn’t seem to help himself. “My managing without her isn’t the problem, James, and you damned well know it. If Edie will be busy today, I’ll leave Annie here until tomorrow. When she makes the move to Montgomery Hall, she should have her mother with her. We all agreed on that.”

James tugged on his ear, then glanced at the floor, the wall, everywhere but at Alex. “Well, you see, it’s
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a little more complicated than that. Some of my guests are from out of town, and I’ve invited them to sleep over. Annie’s room will be occupied.” He lifted his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “I thought she’d be staying at your place.”

Silence settled over the room, an awful, tense silence broken only by the monotonous ticking of a pendulum clock standing against one wall. When he had first seen James this morning, Alex had thought his attire too casual. Not so. The man was dressed perfectly for the garden party he planned to host.

A garden party that obviously took precedence over his daughter. It seemed that just about everything took precedence over Annie, Alex thought scathingly. Funerals. Garden parties. Overnight guests. Damn him. It wasn’t that Alex had expected a fancy wedding with all the trimmings. The very idea was ludicrous. But it seemed to him there was a principle involved here, one that James Trimble had overlooked. Respect. When it came to his daughter, that seemed a commodity he had in pitifully short supply.