Love, Come to Me(39)

“Honey,” Heath said quietly, and his white teeth flashed in a wry smile, “that ain’t half as bad as me marrying a Yankee.”

“You aren’t planning on ever going back, are you? I won’t. One of my reasons for marrying you is that I want to stay here, and you might as well know it.”

“No. I’m never going back.” His fingers closed on her arm in a brutally tight hold. “And that’s a promise I’ll never break.”

“You’re hurting me,” she said, tugging at her arm, and he released it instantly. Lucy rubbed the sore spot and looked at his shoulder, so near her face. Suddenly she wanted to rest against the inviting strength of that shoulder, perhaps let herself cry some more, rest her cheek against his steady heartbeat, and hide from the rest of the world in the circle of his arms. But somewhere inside her there was a hard knot of pride that would not let her seek comfort from him, and she clung to that pride desperately, finding that it lent her its own kind of strength. She was beginning to understand for the first time she did not need other people half as much as she had always thought she did.

Chapter 5

The dress Lucy had intended to wear for her wedding with Daniel was only half-done. She went to the dressmaker’s home and viewed the unfinished garment regretfully. They had planned it to be the most exquisite creation a bride had ever worn down the aisle of the First Parish, but now Lucy’s dream of the perfect bridal gown was only a “would have been.” She could still picture every detail of it clearly. It would have been made of white silk, pulled tightly in front to outline her figure, drawn into a huge bustle in the back and ornamented with cascading bunches of orange-blossom sprays. It would have had crystal-dotted tulle at the hem, while the overskirt would have been trimmed with a luscious drop fringe of satin and crystal. The veil would have been of white tulle, fastened in her hair with her mother’s gold combs. Oh, how heartbreakingly beautiful it would have been, and how admiring and envious everyone in Concord would have been!

But if she wore something like that to her wedding with the Southerner, people would have laughed and talked even more about her scalded reputation and how ridiculous it was for her to be festooned like an untouched maiden. It galled Lucy to have to sit down with the dressmaker and figure out a new design, one that could be made quickly and efficiently. But she would die before wearing one of her old gowns to her own wedding. She still had her pride, no matter whom she was marrying.

They finally decided to take the foundation of white satin that had already been sewn and finish it off with pink crepe de chine and morning glories—white funnel-shaped flowers, which Lucy privately dubbed “mourning glories.” Since her father had insisted that the marriage take place as soon as possible, the dress was finished and delivered to her in a week, just in time for the ceremony.

It was all happening so quickly that Lucy had no time to sit down and think about everything. There was the packing to be done, a small, conservative trousseau to be ordered, things to be bought. She did it all without any help, stubbornly refusing the tentative overtures of friendship from Sally and her former friends, feeling that the only way to get through all of this was to stand alone and pit herself against the world. She didn’t want to forgive Sally for her gossiping or the others for their snubs—no, it felt much better to grind her resentment between her teeth and chew on it a while.

On her last day spent in the home she grew up in, Lucy walked around aimlessly from room to room, her eyes alighting on the things that were the most familiar and precious to her. Most of what she would take with her had already been packed in trunks and boxes, which at this moment were being taken to Heath’s place by her father. The rooms looked empty without her knickknacks and possessions strewn about, and she wondered if her father would see that. If he did notice how bare the house was without her, he would never say so. It was not in his nature to say things like that.

She stopped in front of the mantelpiece, looking at all the odds and ends lined up on it. A little china figurine was perched on the edge, nearly ready to topple off. The faded figurine was a woman wearing an old-fashioned, high-waisted dress, her slippers and sash painted a shade of gold that had almost been rubbed away by age and handling. It had belonged to her mother. Lucy realized that she had nothing of her mother’s to take with her. She reached out hesitantly, rescuing the figurine from the uncertain balance and clasping it firmly in a small fist. Feeling as if she were stealing something she had no right to, Lucy wrapped it in a handkerchief and closed it in her handbag. What would Anne Caldwell have thought about all of this? Would she have been heartbroken that her daughter was marrying a Southerner? Maybe not. Anne had gone against her own family and married a man they hadn’t approved of. Maybe she would have understood.

Lucy sat down at her father’s rolltop desk, toying absently with a stack of letter paper as she allowed herself to think about Heath for the first time in days. She hadn’t seen nor heard from him personally since that crazy, disjointed night a week ago when she had accepted his proposal. She wondered what his reaction would be as he helped her father unload her boxes and trunks from the wagon. The small house would be improved a good deal by the things she had sent over—the blue and white china, the bright patchwork quilts, the expertly stitched sheets and embroidered cloths that she had made for her hope chest in the expectation that they were for her home with Daniel. A misguided hope chest. She did hope that she hadn’t embroidered a big C for Collier on anything.