Pamela Morsi (38 page)

She stared up at him and swallowed. It was almost painful hearing the words.

“I loved my Bess and I always will,” he said. “But somehow I’ve come to love you as well. I love your wit, your courage, your honesty. I even love your outrageousness. Bess was none of those things and I never wanted her to be. But you are exactly those things and more and I cannot help but love you for them.”

Pansy’s eyes welled with tears. She didn’t want to cry in front of him, she feared she might not be able to stop.

“I know you love me, Amos,” she said. “I knew it that day in the barbershop. And I’ve known it every day since. But as you knew then and I know now, love itself may not always be enough. You’ve seen me publicly repent my sin and you’ve seen the beginning of my new life. I am a heroine this evening to the townsfolk and it seems as if all is forgiven. If because of that you now feel like I’m appropriate enough for you to align yourself with, then I simply have to refuse you. I have vowed to try and live a better life, but I cannot promise that you will always approve of me or that I will be the kind of woman you can forevermore admire.”

He heard her out completely before he made comment.

“It was a very good thing you did tonight,” Amos told her. “It was good for you. It was good for this community. It was good for your late husband and his family. I am very proud of you for doing it. But, like you, I approached the stage tonight with my decision already made. I realized that I loved you,” he said. “And a dear and good friend told me recently that when you love somebody, whatever they have been, whatever they have done, doesn’t matter more than your love. I came to hear you speak tonight, knowing that I was going to ask you to be my wife. If you had thrown your own rotten tomatoes or tightened down the screws on that land sale until everyone in town went bankrupt, I would have been sad for all of us, but I would have asked you to be my wife anyway. I love you. And that is what matters most.”

Pansy looked into his eyes, seeing the truth there. Seeing the honesty and fallibility and faithfulness. She knew she was seeing her future.

With a bang and a long, loud whistle, a rocket shot high into the air. When it reached its zenith, it burst into a bouquet of colorful stars that fell down from the sky in a shower of light.

“Ooooooh,” the crowd called out in awe.

Pansy and Amos smiled at each other.

“Mrs. Richardson, Mrs. Richardson.”

Kate Holiday hurried to her side.

“Come watch the fireworks with the reverend and me,” she suggested. Casting a glance toward Amos, she leaned closer and added, “It’s not the best thing for your reputation to be standing alone in the darkness with a man.”

Pansy nodded. “You are undoubtedly right,” she said. “But I’ve heard that the best cure for a bad reputation is a hasty wedding and a boring, ordinary marriage. I believe Mr. Dewey has just offered me both.”

Everyone arrived at the church exactly on schedule. But all were completely at sixes and sevens about what they’d discovered. The most fashionable and eagerly awaited social event of the year, Gussie Mudd’s wedding to Amos Dewey, had been canceled.

Gossip had rained on Cottonwood last night like Noah’s flood. Folks had hardly gotten used to the good fortune that had been visited upon them by Pansy Richardson, before Amos Dewy announced he was going to marry her.

But Amos was supposed to wed Gussie Mudd that next day. No, that wedding was off, Amos had replied, a little ill at ease at apparently having
forgotten
his former commitment. They had broken it off and he was to marry Mrs. Richardson instead.

The community, especially the ladies of the Circle
of Benevolent Service, was immediately called into action to comfort and console one of its own on the loss of her fiancé practically on the steps of the church.

Miss Gussie had no interest in anyone’s sympathy as she blithely announced to her friends that she too was getting married as soon as possible.

The Greek-temple wedding cake with the marzipan bride and groom was at the ready. So was the French champagne. The church was adorned with flowers and Miss Ima had gotten the dress altered just in time.

“There
will
be a wedding here this afternoon,” Reverend Holiday declared. “And you are all invited to attend. It just won’t be the couple that any of you expected.”

Speculation was rampant. Which couple would it be?

Some thought it would be Pansy Richardson and Amos Dewey.

Of course, it was already common knowledge that the two had taken their vows in this very church just a little before midnight the previous evening, unwilling to be parted even one more night. But that had been a hurried, hasty occasion. In the clear light of day, many were certain that the two would be taking a more formal approach to marital bliss and would choose to go through with the ceremony once again this afternoon.

Just as many folks were insisting the contrary. Gussie Mudd would never hand over her carefully planned wedding, the perfect wedding she had always dreamed of, to the woman who’d run off with her fiancé.

That Gussie herself would be the bride, marrying this afternoon to her business partner and Amos’s rival for her affections, Rome Akers, was the only scenario that made reasonable sense.

Those in the know, however, insisted that was not
possible. Gussie and Rome had left on the morning train to San Antonio to be wed on Marriage Island, a fortuitous spot on the San Antonio River that supposedly guaranteed a long and happy wedlock.

As the whole congregation waited in the summer heat in their best clothes, the debate raged.

Finally the door to the vestry opened and Reverend Holiday, with Huntley Boston at his side, walked in. Huntley, adorned in a handsome, neatly tailored cutaway coat, went to stand in front of the altar.

Everyone assumed the president of the Monday Morning Merchants Association was about to make some kind of an announcement. Perhaps there was, after all, to be no wedding today.

When instead the organ began playing the bridal processional, the entire crowd gave a startled gasp that was followed by stunned silence.

The church door opened and Viceroy Ditham escorted his lovely young daughter, Betty, gowned in Miss Gussie’s frothy lace-and-white-silk gown, down the narrow aisle to meet her future husband.

Too much news, no matter how good, can be stunning for a small community. Gossip becomes irrelevant when the world becomes nothing but.

“Do you, Huntley Boston, take Miss Elizabeth Ditham to be your lawful wedded wife?” Reverend Holiday asked.

In truth, somebody should have guessed. Gussie Mudd would never let such an expensive occasion as the perfect wedding go to waste. She had sold it to one of the few single gentlemen in town who was in a position to afford it. That was just good business.

Praise for PAMELA MORSI

“Like LaVyrIe Spencer, Pamela Morsi writes
tender books about decent people.”
Susan Elizabeth Phillips, author of First Lady

“A sweet love story.”
Publishers Weekly on Sweetwood Bride

“Morsi is best known for the sweet charm
of her novels…. Awfully good.”
Publishers Weekly on Sealed with a Kiss

“I’ve read all her books and loved every word.”
Jude Deveraux

Other Books by
Pamela Morsi

L
OVE
C
HARM
No O
RDINARY
P
RINCESS
S
EALED WITH A
Kiss
S
WEETWOOD
B
RIDE