Willow: A Novel (No Series) (4 page)

There was a great stir in the sanctuary beyond as the news was delivered, and Willow could hear Norville shouting in outrage. She prayed that he would not confront her now, that he would not be angry enough to go back on their bargain.

Willow forced herself to meet Gideon’s eyes. Suddenly, inexplicably, she longed to touch Gideon’s butternut hair, learn the texture of it, trace the firm lines of his cleanshaven jaw. She kept her hands together in her lap. What did one say in a circumstance such as this? Should she thank him for the unwitting rescue? Could Gideon Marshall see it in her face, the foolish love she still felt for him, after all this time and in spite of so many things?

At that moment, the door crashed open, causing Willow to start violently, and Norville Pickering filled the chasm, his face taut and red with fury.

Gideon rose slowly from his crouching position before Willow. He turned to face Norville.

“Are you truly married to this scoundrel?” the thwarted groom demanded. He spoke with such force that spittle flew from his mouth.

Willow lowered her head again, lest he see the contradictory emotions in her face. “It would seem so,” she said softly.

Norville’s rage seemed to pulse in the small room. “I will have satisfaction for this, my good man,” he said to Gideon.

Gideon’s aristocratic mouth twitched slightly and then he spread his hands out wide. He was willing to accept Norville’s challenge, obviously, though Willow, watching him from out of the corner of one eye, had to concede that he was trying very hard to be gracious. “There is nothing I can say in my defense,” he confessed.

Norville’s manner, indeed his entire countenance, was petulance at its most essential. He threw back his thin shoulders and tugged hard at the cuffs of his suit coat. “I will not overlook this,” he vowed, and then he raised his fists like a prizefighter prepared for battle. “I
will
have satisfaction, sir, and I suggest you prepare to defend yourself.”

Willow stood up now, her head held high. “Don’t be an idiot, Norville. Fighting won’t solve anything, and this is God’s house, after all.”

Norville’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down, but he lowered his fists to his sides. Turning to Willow and looking as though he might actually burst into tears, he protested, “This is intolerable—good Lord, Willow, how could you deceive me this way?”

Willow swallowed all the things she might have said. After all, Norville Pickering still had the power to destroy her brother. She could not endanger Steven’s freedom, perhaps even his life, by speaking her mind. “I-I truly didn’t mean to deceive you, Norville,” she said gently. “Surely you realize that this cruel trick was more devastating for me than anyone. Imagine how I felt, Norville, why
just imagine
! I was young, I really believed that Mr. Marshall cared for me and had only the most honorable of intentions . . .”

Gideon thrust out an eloquent breath and rolled his eyes heavenward.

Willow flashed him one scathing look and insisted, “I
did
!” before turning her attention back to soothing the badly ruffled Norville. “Please”—disgust gathered into a lump in the back of her throat—“
darling
. You must believe that I was an innocent victim of this-this vicious and unconscionable deception.”

Norville lifted his receding chin. “And I will avenge your shame, my dear,” he promised, turning fiery eyes on Gideon once again. “I swear it. If it’s the last thing I ever do, I will restore your honor—”

Gideon made a sound that could have been either a chortle of amusement or a gasp, probably thinking, as Willow was, that if Norville ever raised a hand to him,
it would indeed be the last thing he ever did; he turned away, his coat straining across his broad shoulders as he folded his arms.

Evidently believing he’d made his point, Norville turned as well, without another word to Willow, and stormed out, leaving the door to the sanctuary gaping open.

Willow immediately strode over to Gideon Marshall, raised her foot, and kicked him, hard, in the back of his right leg.

After one howl of stunned anger and, she hoped, severe pain, Gideon whirled to face her.

“Why the hell did you do that?” he rasped.

Willow glared up into his face. “Why the
hell
do you think I did it?” she shot back.

A reluctant grin curved Gideon’s fine lips, and those familiar eyes, the ones she’d looked into so often, in her favorite dreams, assessed her frankly, going as far as her full breasts before returning to her throbbing face. “I guess I deserved it at that.”

“That and more!” Willow spat out, infuriated. God knew she was the subject of enough talk as it was, without this. By nightfall, everybody in Virginia City and for miles around would have heard about the ruined wedding and know what a fool this man had made of her, not once but
twice.
“You should just be thankful this is a church, because if it weren’t, I would have kicked you somewhere else!”

Gideon grinned that maddening grin and waggled one index finger in amused reprimand. “But this
is
God’s house, darling,” he reminded her.

“If God were minding His business, the roof would have already fallen in on your head, you-you dreadful man!”

He sighed and his hands came to Willow’s shoulders with an odd tenderness, his touch engendering a riot of inadvisable feelings within her. He gave a ragged sigh, and the look in his eyes was gentle. “What I did to you was unforgivable, I know. And I’m sorry, Willow, I really am. Since I can’t change the past, my apology—and subsequent efforts to make amends—will have to suffice.”

Willow’s heart leaped into her throat and pounded there so hard that she couldn’t speak.

Gideon arched one eyebrow, and the summer sun caught in his golden brown hair. “Why did you agree to marry me that night, Willow? You didn’t even know me.”

Willow’s cheeks turned crimson and her eyes filled with hot tears. She
had
known Gideon Marshall even then, had loved him because he was the man in Evadne’s portrait. But how could she answer his question honestly without making even more of a fool of herself?

“I must have been moonstruck or something,” she lamented.

He sighed. “Do you hate me so much, Willow? After all, I could have made love to you in that hotel room, compromised you in the fullest sense of the word, but I didn’t.”

The glow in Willow’s cheeks grew brighter still, and she trembled with latent shame and sharp disappointment at the memory of that wonderful, terrible night.

Before she could think of any suitable response to what
he’d said, however, Willow’s father had returned, and his wife, Evadne, was with him.

Her fine-boned face was a study in scandalized surprise.

“Gideon!” Evadne almost wailed, wringing her elegantly gloved hands. “What in the
name of heaven
?”

Gideon sighed again and looked annoyed before he turned to face his mother squarely.

“Am I disowned?” he asked ingenuously.

Forgiveness wasn’t long in coming.

Evadne, a beautiful woman with piles of dark hair and sparkling eyes the same changeable color as her son’s, smiled and flung her arms out wide, enfolding Gideon in a motherly embrace. “We weren’t expecting you until next month!” she trilled.

Gideon cast one look at Willow, standing there in her wedding dress, and shrugged. “From the looks of things, it’s a good thing I arrived early.”

Evadne’s gaze sliced menacingly to Willow. Probably she had already convinced herself that the whole nasty matter was the fault of her wanton stepdaughter, not her son. Gideon was Evadne’s favorite; to hear her tell it, he could do no wrong. “Yes,” she said, in a sandpaper voice, frowning thoughtfully now. “Well, the guests have all gone, but there will be talk of this for years. I do declare, I don’t know how I’ll hold my head up in polite society after this.”

“You’ll manage, Mother,” Gideon assured her wryly. “You always do, don’t you?”

Willow wanted to scream with frustration; if she
couldn’t get out of this close little room, away from Gideon and his mother, she would surely succumb to some sort of fit. She gathered her skirts in her hands and made her way, with as much dignity as she could summon up, toward the door.

Evadne’s quiet but still piercing voice stopped her. “You haven’t heard the last of this, young lady,” she warned. “Please go directly home and consider what you have done to poor Norville and his family, not to mention your father and me.”

The judge gave his daughter one beleaguered, sympathetic look and nodded.

Pride squared Willow’s shoulders and she walked out, through the empty sanctuary, directly across the wide, rutted road, and up the stone walk that led to the front door of the judge’s magnificent brick house.

She would change her clothes first thing, she decided, still dizzy with a combination of shock and undeniable relief, and then remain in her bedroom, giving the impression of guilty reflection. When it was dark, though, she would escape to the hills.

“Miss Willow!” shouted Maria Estrada, the housekeeper, as Willow started up the main staircase, the skirts of her modest wedding gown held high.

Willow froze, shut her eyes for a moment. “Yes?” she asked softly.

“Is the wedding over? Where is your new husband?”

Deflated now, Willow turned and looked down at Maria. The woman had been so much more than a housekeeper—she’d been a substitute mother. “It seems that
I’m already married,” she said, and the words felt shaky as she said them, like loose floorboards under her feet.

Maria’s mouth made a perfect O; then she gasped, her dark eyes wide with amazement.
“Madre de Dios,”
she whispered, aghast, crossing herself with the hasty expertise of the very devout. “How can you already be married?”

One hysterical giggle bubbled up into Willow’s throat and escaped. She was going to catch hell, not only from her stepmother but from the entire town as well, but that was nothing compared to the joy of knowing that she would not, in the near future, have to share Norville Pickering’s bed or endure his presence from day to day.

“What mischief are you up to?” demanded Maria, resting her hands on her ample hips now, skepticism rising in her wise and gentle face like water in a new well. No doubt, she would light candles and say many novenas for Willow’s immortal soul, but for now she was set on getting answers.

Willow couldn’t resist teasing a little.

Horror rounded Maria’s eyes to impossible dimensions and a bluster of Spanish invective followed.

Willow laughed and took pity upon her old friend. After all, this was a woman who had held her, dried her tears, taught her to make tortillas. “Relax, Maria. I didn’t set out to have two husbands, I honestly didn’t.”

“But . . .”

Willow wanted very much to be alone to sort out her thoughts and make some sort of plan, so she smiled warmly and promised to tell the whole story after she’d had time to collect her wits.

Ten minutes later, she was struggling with the fastenings of her wedding dress when Maria knocked lightly and then entered the bedroom with a tray and a raft of questions.

Although she would have liked more time—once she was free of the dress she prayed she would never have to wear again—comfortable in her satin chemise, Willow suppressed a sigh, helped herself to a cup of tea from the tray, and laced it with generous portions of sugar and milk.

“Are my father and Mrs. Gallagher back from the church?” she asked, mostly to stall.

Maria looked avid and exasperated, both at once. “They are in the sitting room, with Lancelot.”

Willow winced, closing her eyes. Lancelot was the silly nickname she and Maria had given Gideon long ago, when they’d known him only as the figure in the painting Evadne so cherished. How embarrassing it would be, though, if that were to slip out in front of Gideon.

Thanks to the interrupted wedding, Willow was mortified enough.

“You mustn’t call Mr. Marshall that in his hearing, Maria.”

Maria sighed dreamily. She’d taken a seat on the lid of Willow’s hope chest, a cup of tea in hand. “He is handsome, is he not? Just as handsome as his portrait.”

Willow suddenly wanted to cry. Over the years since she’d come to live with her father and Evadne, soon after her mother’s death, she had made up many romantic stories, all of them centering on the painted image of Gideon Marshall that hung in the sitting room downstairs.

Meeting him in San Francisco, at seventeen, had seemed the culmination of a wonderful fantasy. Because she had loved Gideon, through the portrait, for years, Willow had agreed to his proposal with joy.

Of course, she was nineteen now and, looking back, she realized all too well how silly it had been of her to ever believe that such a man would want her as a wife, and after knowing her only a few hours, too.

He was a rounder and a rake—what other kind of man would do what he did?—but the fault had not been entirely his. Willow herself had been gullible and stupid.

Glumly, because she knew Maria would insist, Willow explained about the fraudulent marriage ceremony back in San Francisco, which had turned out to be real. She went on to tell how Gideon had stopped today’s ceremony barely an hour before, leaving out an unnecessary account of her jubilation at escaping Norville Pickering. Considering what he could cause to happen to Steven, her brother, the reprieve was probably only temporary anyway.

*   *   *

Gideon was relieved when his mother left the judge’s study. She would go off to her room, no doubt separate from her husband’s, and shed melodramatic and copious tears. He didn’t envy Devlin Gallagher the days and weeks ahead.

Devlin laughed gruffly as he filled a snifter with brandy the color of his daughter’s eyes. “Damn,” he marveled.

Gideon stared at his mother’s doting husband, amazed. If the situation had been reversed, and he’d been in Judge
Gallagher’s position, he would have been furious. Looking to take a strip out of somebody’s hide.

“Have a drink,” said the judge, almost cordially.

The idea held infinite appeal. Gideon went to the side table and helped himself to a generous portion of straight whiskey. Two gulps washed a good bit of his nervousness away, along with a measure of the weariness of traveling so far.