The Bourbon Thief(73)

“I didn’t mean to keep you waiting,” she said. “I was...” She stopped. “I don’t remember. I was walking, and I don’t remember.”

“You’re here. That’s all that matters. Are you ready?”

“Yes,” she said. “If you’re ready, I am.”

“You love him?” Daddy asked. He looked so handsome in his knee boots polished to a mirror shine and his black trousers and black jacket and cravat.

“I will love him all my life.”

“Then yes, I’m ready.” Her father grinned broadly as he lowered the veil down over her face. Then he nodded to a footman, who opened the door. The music she’d heard—it came from here, from this ballroom. A string quartet—two violins, viola, cello—played a soft wedding march, and for a moment it was drowned out by the shuffle of feet as the many guests in their fripperies and finery turned to look at Julien St. Croix’s young bride on her handsome father’s arm.

Oh, how they sighed at the sight of them. She heard the sighs, although she couldn’t see their faces. The veil obscured her sight so all she saw were shadows.

“I can’t see, Daddy. Don’t let me fall.”

“Never, my angel.”

“Is it true? Is the man I’m marrying the son of a count?”

“A baron, my love. He’s a baron. Only the best for you.”

“Wasn’t Granddaddy a baron?”

Her father didn’t answer. Maybe he hadn’t heard her over the music. On her father’s arm Tamara took halting steps toward the end of the aisle where her groom waited for her.

Her father stopped and she stopped. They were there.

“Be a good girl for your husband,” her father whispered in her ear, then kissed her cheek through the veil.

It was time. Her veil was raised, and she smiled at the man who would be her husband.

The smile left her face.

“Levi?”

“You look beautiful, Rotten.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I can’t marry you. I hate you.”

“That’s not a very nice thing to say to your husband.”

“I won’t marry you. I’ll never marry you.”

“It’s too late,” he said. “We’re already married.”

“How? I don’t... When?” Tamara looked around the room, scanning faces, looking for friends, for her father, who had gone.

“No wedding necessary,” came a voice from behind her. Tamara spun around and a woman in a red dress stepped out from the crowd of guests. “You’re already his. Blood of his blood. Bone of his bone.”

“Momma?”

“You’re bought and paid for,” Levi said over her shoulder. “You’re all mine.”

“No.” She shook her head. “You can’t sell people. You can’t sell people anymore.”

“Of course you can,” Levi said, grinning the devilish grin that she used to love and now she hated. “We do it all the time.”

“You sold me, Momma...” She stared at her mother grinning in all her triumph and glory. “Why did you sell me?”

“What else is a girl good for?” her mother asked. “It’s all I was good for, anyway.”

“A girl is good for leaving,” Tamara said, looking around at the blank faces staring at her as if she’d come from another planet. “And a girl is good for burning your house down.”

Tamara pushed a rack of candles over and the red rug she’d walked across caught fire.

Before anyone could stop her, she ran from the room, from the house, from her wedding, from her mother and the husband she should never have married.

She ran out into the garden and saw the house all in flames, beautiful marvelous flames.

“This is what a girl is good for,” she said, smiling. She found a stone bench out in the garden and sat down on it to watch the house burn. It caught fire so easily it was like the very walls were whiskey-soaked. The masonry turned a bright yellow and red and crumbled before her eyes into soft gray ash. The chimney tumbled off the roof. The red velvet curtains fluttered with flames and rolled up like scrolls as they burned. The sounds were like those of a rock slide as the house consumed itself and fell to pieces like a child’s tower of blocks that had been built so high there was nowhere else to go but down, down, down...

It would take a long while to burn out. She should rest. It had been such a long day. She lay on her side on the stone garden bench and closed her eyes. She’d sleep here, and then when she’d rested, she would walk on again until she found a new home. A light rain started to fall; she felt it on her face but ignored it. The house was already nothing but a pile of smoldering bricks, everyone inside dead and gone. A little rain wouldn’t help and it wouldn’t hurt. And she was very thirsty. She rolled onto her back and opened her mouth. Water flooded it and she choked.

“Sit up, Tamara. Come on.”

She felt a strong arm under her, forcing her into a sitting position.

“I’m sleeping.”

“Don’t sleep. You won’t wake up. Come on.”

She swallowed the water in her mouth and wanted more of it, enough to open her eyes.

A man was kneeling on the hard ground in front of her. She recognized the face, although she couldn’t quite place him.