Mackinnons #02 For All the Right Reasons (30 page)

When Alex joined them he was solemn and spoke softly. “May I borrow my intended for a minute, Captain?”

“If you promise not to take her too far away.”

Alex nodded, taking Katherine by the arm and walking her across the deck. “I doubt you’re enjoying this trip after already being so long at sea,” he said to her.

Katherine smiled up at him. “I’m enjoying it—only because I know it’s the last leg of it, for in truth, I am nigh sick of ships and even sicker of ship food.”

He laughed. “It won’t be much longer,” he said, pausing near a deserted section of railing and leaning over it to look out across the water.

Katherine stood beside him, adoring this closeness, this chance to be with him at last. A stiff silence stretched between them and she took advantage of it. She wasn’t foolish enough to think everything was rose tinted and lined with gilt between them. Alex had loved Karin. But in his wisdom he had proposed to her. She said,
in his wisdom,
simply because she believed it was true. Whatever the reason that prompted him to write for her, there was no doubt in her mind that it had been the right thing to do. She looked at the dear features of his strong profile and thought,
You may not love me completely now, but you will, Alex. I have enough love to sustain us until you do. You will love me. You will! I’ll become your wife soon, and there’s never been anything you did that was more right. I was always the mate God intended for you. Perhaps that’s where all my frustration came from—because I always knew it, and you didn’t.

“I must apologize,” he said, and Katherine jumped a country mile. He smiled. “Is an apology from me so unheard of that it would send you overboard?”

She returned the smile. “No, you startled me, that’s all.”

He looked down into the small, oval face that looked at him with such trust and knew he couldn’t hurt her with the truth. For a moment he had been about to tell her just that. The truth. He had, in fact, been staring at the water, as if it were a dark, gray slate where he had written all the reasons why she would hate being married to him—only he hadn’t counted on her looking at him like that, with the huge trusting eyes of a child, or a favorite childhood pet. How could he savagely kick out at that?

As he stared down at the sweet, adoring face, he tried to think of all the things he had in common with her, anything to soften the jolt of what he was about to do. God only knew many marriages had started with less. At least she wasn’t some stranger he’d never laid eyes on, and the Lord be praised, she wasn’t homely. He had always been able to talk to her, to tease and test her wit. Only now, the time he wanted most to unburden his heart to her, he could not. God, he felt as though he was saddled with so much. There were so many secrets between them, secrets that would shatter her if she ever found out—and while the secrets were enough to drag him down, it was the strain of knowing, being terrified he might let something slip, that he might unknowingly reveal the truth, or score a direct hit in a moment of anger, that caused him the most concern. Secrets were such ugly things, like slavery. Once you knew a secret, you were its captive instead of the other way around. Tension coiled like a deadly snake within his belly and he felt as if he could do nothing except wait—wait for the moment it would strike.

“What were you going to apologize for, Alex? Surely not the weather. I promise I don’t hold you responsible.” She looked about her. “At least it stopped raining.”

His mind raced. What could he tell her? What could he apologize for, now that he had decided to keep the truth from her? “A little slipup,” he said at last, “nothing more. We should have been married in San Francisco. There isn’t anyone at camp who can perform a marriage.”

The light faded from her eyes and her voice faltered as she spoke. “We…then we won’t be married. Is that what you’re saying?”

He felt the lightning flash of temptation prodding him to say what she feared was true, that they could not be married. He began walking along the ship’s railing, tucking her arm through his, but not looking at her. He had been silent for several minutes before he finally said, “What I meant to say is that we’ll be married by the captain, here, on this ship.”

Married to Alex, at last!

She almost accepted his proposal.

If she had been any other kind of woman, she would have. But Katherine was an honest sort, and the question that had been nagging in the back of her mind gave her no peace. She had tried dismissing it, tried putting it off until after they were married, she even tried ignoring it, hoping it would go away. It never did. Like gathering storm clouds, it grew and grew, picking up more moisture until it swelled, dark and thunderous, threatening to burst. Just as they reached her cabin door, it did just that. It burst. The moment it did, Katherine knew she had to ask that awful question. As Alex reached in front of her to open the door, she placed her hand lightly upon his sleeve.

“Alex, why did you write for me?”

He sucked in his breath and closed his eyes, willing the dryness in his throat away. So much rested upon his answer. Two lives were at stake here, his and hers. He opened his eyes and looked into hers. They were filled with hope. Hope, for Katherine was always like a cat; it had nine lives. In her eyes lay the disappointment of eight others. He felt the weight of it.
Dear God! The desire to tell the truth, the guilt if I do
.

“Because it was time I took a wife.”
Let it be, Katherine.

But she couldn’t.
Let it be, Katherine
. “Why me and not Karin?”

The hope was still there, shining as brightly in her eyes as before. He remembered an old musket his father had over the fireplace. On its stock were engraved the words: “Hope is a great falsifier of truth.”

“Because it was meant to be, Katherine.”

Desperate to ease the tension, to put her mind at rest, to stop all these painful questions and get on with this mockery, he forced a smile and as much lightheartedness as he could muster and said, “Because I knew
you
would come.”

Starbursts of delight shimmered in her eyes. Her laugh was musical and light as she shoved him playfully. “Oh you! You’re mean to say that. Why do you think Karin wouldn’t come?”

Her playfulness brought back the old teasing closeness he had always felt around her, and that made it so easy to slip into the mood with her, like a boat drawn along by the current. “Because she wasn’t speaking to me,” he said, “and you were.”

She accepted that answer because it was true. Karin wasn’t speaking to him, hadn’t been writing to him the entire time he was gone. His honesty surprised her. It also thrilled her.
He’s trying
, she told herself.
I can do no less
. Katherine was so full of joy she felt she must have floated through the doorway. Once inside, she turned to look at Alex and said, “You aren’t sorry, are you Alex?”

Go on, man. This is your last chance. You better take it
. “No,” he said, and turned away. He heard the door close behind him. He felt like a spider that spun himself into his own silken cocoon. He was trapped and the helplessness of it ate at him like a canker.

They were married the next morning.

But it wasn’t the wedding she had always imagined she would have. In fact, it wasn’t the wedding she imagined anyone would have.

They repeated their vows the next morning in the captain’s quarters which smelled of fish oil and stale wine. It was raining again, and that meant the portholes were closed, the smoke from the lamps mingling with the other unpleasant smells to a choking degree. Five people were gathered there, waiting for the bride, two of them being Alex and Adrian; the other three the captain, his first mate, and the cook, who served as witness.

At that moment Katherine was looking at herself in the mirror. Remembering the saying, she recited, “Married in blue, you’ll always be true.” And today was what? Friday? What was the saying there? “Monday for wealth, Tuesday for health, Wednesday best day of all, Thursday for losses, Friday for crosses…” A bad omen.
But it could have been worse, Katherine. At least this isn’t Thursday.
She turned away from the mirror. Stepping outside, she pulled her cloak over her head to keep her bridal bonnet dry.
Happy is the bride the sun shines upon
, the superstition went.

It was raining.

Rain, according to the saying means there will be tears ahead
. Another bad omen.

She walked slowly toward the captain’s cabin, another old saying coming to her.
A bride weeps on her wedding day, or tears will fall later
. She pulled her bridal handkerchief from beneath her cuff, for already there were tears in her eyes. It wasn’t hard to cry, for although she would, in a few moments time, be married to the man of her heart as well as the man of her dreams, she felt a heaviness inside that she could not shake.

Alex stood beside Adrian as he watched Katherine pause in the doorway in her makeshift wedding finery, his eyes dropping immediately to the pitiful bunch of artificial petunias clutched in her hand.
She’s always loved flowers. She should have real flowers.
But then he remembered this whole marriage was a sham, a fake, so why not have fake flowers as well?

Her cheeks were rosy from the brisk cold, her hair rich and glossy and beautifully arranged. Alex was tempted to just let his gaze rest there. But he didn’t, for something drew his attention away, allowing him to take notice of the rest of her. Katherine’s wedding dress was blue.

She was wearing what he recognized as her Sunday-best blue Linen, but something new had been added. Before, the dress had been collarless and cuffless, the rings from previous hemmings all too obvious. A white collar, delicately embroidered, was a new addition, as well as the white cuffs. Three tiny black velvet bows were new as well—tied beneath the collar, going down the front of the bodice—three black velvet bows that matched three rows of black velvet ribbon banding the skirt and hiding the telltale signs of how much she had grown.

Seeing her thus, it struck Alex powerfully and he was immediately overcome with shame. Here he was, one of the richest men in California and his bride was wearing an old blue dress he had seen a million times before. It was considered bad luck for the bride to make her own wedding gown. Shame ate at him. Not for Katherine, for there was nothing shameful about her, or the way she walked proudly into the cabin, her face so radiant it seemed to transform her. No, the shame was for himself and his callous disregard of what should have been obvious. He cursed softly under his breath at allowing her to set foot on this ship without buying her the finest clothes to be found on any sailing vessel in port. He should have taken her to the hotel and given her time to rest. He remembered her comment about ship’s food and another arrow of shame shot into him. He hadn’t even given her a decent meal before yanking her off one ship and shoving her into the bowels of another one. And regretfully, following that thought was the reminder of the hot bath and shave he had treated himself to before going to meet her ship, and just how long it had probably been since she had enjoyed such, after being on a ship for all those months it had taken to come here. At that moment, Alex wasn’t feeling very proud of his treatment of her.

As if sensing the same, Adrian picked that moment to lean toward him and whisper, “She looks more dignified and more lovely than I’ve ever seen her.” Alex simply nodded. He couldn’t speak for the choking remorse lodged in his throat. Katherine deserved more than she was getting.
I’ll make it up to her
.

Katherine hung her cape on a peg and came to stand beside Alex, knowing her best drab dress was damp and smelled of mildew. Her cream woolen shawl she had tried to mend as best she could, but that was rather difficult, because some rat had stolen into her trunk and eaten a hole in it big enough for a cannonball to pass through. About the only consolation she got was vowing to kill every rat she came across. If Katherine had been a woman of more fragile emotion she would have cried a second time.

But she was dry-eyed as she stood at his side before the captain, scanning the room with her eyes, trying to imagine herself standing just like she was, only inside the small church back in Limestone County and wearing the loveliest gown of white, carrying a bouquet of real flowers, surrounded by those she had known and loved all of her life. But reality was much too real for such imaginings to come to life. She looked at the captain, the first mate, the cook, then at Adrian, and finally, Alex. They were all strangers to her—stiff, polite, formal strangers.

Not really aware she had been here long enough to give her consent to the captain’s questions, her body recoiled in shock when the captain pronounced them man and wife. “You may kiss the bride,” said Captain Steptoe. It was a pale, startled face that looked up as Alex took her shoulders in his hands with a steadying grip and brushed her surprised mouth with cold lips. His lips weren’t the only thing cold. At least cold is how Katherine chose later to describe her bed on her wedding night. Well, either cold or her second choice: empty. In truth, it was both empty and cold, she decided, thinking back upon the way he judiciously walked her to her cabin, declined her invitation to come in, gave her a kiss she could only call perfunctory, and departed with all the precision and feeling of a Swiss clock.

And so, Katherine, who was married in alien surroundings in a world foreign to her, found herself sitting in her cabin, thinking it queer that the only thing familiar to her was the bouquet she still clutched in her hand—the one she had fashioned herself out of the horribly crushed petunias of her old straw hat. While removing the petunias she had had a flashing glimpse of Fanny Bright, as she had been that day she mended the ragged edges of her straw hat, the one Clovis took a chomp out of after church.

And then they came in a rush—thoughts of home and Clovis—Clovis, with his long, satiny ears pricked forward at the scolding she had given him, bits of Fanny’s hat still protruding from his mouth in a way that made them look like whiskers. And that thought gave way to another—the recollection of Clovis as a baby—an adorable collection of legs and ears, fuzzy as a bear cub. The attachment had been instant and she had felt a specialness for him from the moment he first looked at her with his soft brown eyes. Feeling her own eyes fill with tears, she thought it almost funny, the things that could bring a normally strong, self-determined woman like herself to tears. It wasn’t the hardship of her grueling journey. It wasn’t the separation from home, friends, and family. It wasn’t even the indifference Alex had greeted her with. No, the one thing that brought the tears coming one after the other was something she admitted to herself as being totally ridiculous: a mule.