an attorney, but I’ll let you know if he does. Stay as far from him as you can, which won’t be easy while living in the same house.” Joseph made for the hall then stopped in the doorway and smoothed his magnificent white moustache. “And his wife, and his stepson. I don’t trust them any more than I trust Absalom.”
Yes, Absalom’s family was no more honest than her cousin himself. Suddenly the coming year felt more like ten.
“I’ll let myself out,” Joseph said. “And best wishes on your marriage. May it be long and happy.”
Joseph’s footfalls sounded in the center hall, then the front door opened and closed, leaving Clarissa alone with her husband. Sitting across from her, he looked anything but happy. His Adam’s apple bobbed a bit as if he were swallowing back some dark emotion—anger, fear? Regret?
He turned his deep brown eyes on her then, and something there made her wish she hadn’t done it, hadn’t married him out of convenience. For that instant, his eyes reflected the vulnerability she’d seen in the church parlor just before he’d proposed marriage. Did he long for a woman’s love? If so, she had stolen that dream from him, taken away his hope of romance. She was now his only chance for that and, of course, she couldn’t bring that dream to pass. Even though he was a minister, he was still a man—and men couldn’t be trusted.
The parson tugged at his lapels as if his coat had suddenly shrunk and was cutting off his breath. Then he took a long look around the room, first at the Duncan Phyfe sideboard, scarred now with what looked like sword slashes from the house’s days of Yankee occupation. Next he gazed at the faded, dusty, gold draperies and smudged paneled walls, and his expression changed, took on a more disapproving air. “This home...”
His appraisal startled her more than her grandfather’s strange will. What Southern estate had escaped marring from the Yankees’ hands? Certainly none in Natchez. “I know it needs a good cleaning, some repairs...”
His brown eyes radiated concern as he pulled his gaze back to her. “I meant no criticism of its condition but rather its opulence. I have always lived humbly. You see, my grandfather taught me that the manse should be the pastor’s home. But to fulfill the will’s conditions, it appears we must live here.”
We must...but Clarissa would have said we may. Before this morning, she’d all but given up hope of living in her beloved Camellia Pointe again. But now she would, because of Reverend Montgomery. She owed him her gratitude, and she’d make sure he got it. “If only Absalom didn’t have to live here too.”
“Indeed.”
“I need to find my grandmother and tell her of the new development in the will.”
“And I need to inform Emma. She’ll be overjoyed to learn this will be her home for a year. She loved Camellia Pointe from the moment she saw it.”
Just a year? “Of course, she will be welcome to stay here until she marries.”
His expression changed quicker than an eighth note. “Not without us here.”
“But we’ll be here. I intend to win the contest and inherit this estate.”
“I’ll do everything in my power to make sure you do, and we’ll keep it as long as we can afford its upkeep and taxes.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “But after the year is up, we must move into the manse.”
What was wrong with him? Didn’t he understand how much Clarissa needed to live here, in this house? Then she realized he couldn’t know, because she hadn’t told him. “I couldn’t bear to live in it for a year and then move away. And what of my grandmother?”
“She’s welcome to live in the manse with us.”
Clarissa suppressed a sigh as she realized her new husband also didn’t know about their current living arrangements or why they’d moved from Camellia Pointe. She could hardly expect him to make the right decisions until he did. “We need to have a long talk—”
The front door squeaked open, and then light footsteps and the tapping of a cane sounded. Within moments, Grandmother Euphemia appeared, clutching the handle of her cane as if it would otherwise run away. Samuel stood and seated her next to Clarissa. “Was it good news or bad?”
“The worst.” Clarissa braced herself for Grandmother’s oft-repeated lecture on how charity believeth all things.
To her surprise, it didn’t come. “Whatever it is, tell me, so we can decide what to do next.”
“We have to live here for a year. With Cousin Absalom.”
Grandmother’s hand fluttered to her chest. She hesitated. “Is there no way around it?”
“Joseph thinks not.” Clarissa leaned closer to her grandmother. “Is your heart bothering you again?”
She dropped her hand to the table and scowled for a second. “Not so much that I can’t hold my own with that renegade grandson of mine. He gave your grandfather and me so much heartache that, when he was reported dead, I felt a measure of relief with my grief. And now here he is, resurrected, so to speak, and no doubt ready to cause more trouble than ever.”
Reverend Montgomery opened his mouth but got no chance to speak. Instead, Grandmother shifted her gaze to him, a defiant glare in her hazel eyes. “And don’t you lecture me. You’d feel the same if you’d lived through his backstabbing and treachery as I have. I hardly know whether to call him Absalom, Lazarus or Judas.”
“In light of that parade of biblical troublemakers—well, other than Lazarus—I won’t give you a sermon on love this time. But next time, I will.”
Clarissa sucked in a breath of horror. If there was one thing Grandmother hated more than tardiness—or early arrivals—it was receiving a personal sermon. Or correction of any kind. Even Grandfather Hezekiah hadn’t gotten away with that.
The smirk on Grandmother’s face took Clarissa back. Her grandmother was enjoying being threatened with a sermon? Clarissa glanced over at the reverend, who sat with brows lifted and a hint of a grin on his face—a friendly warning.
And Grandmother let him do it.
Before she could fully grasp this new side of her grandmother, the older woman straightened, eyes snapping. “You’re more like your late grandfather than I like to admit. However, we haven’t time to discuss it. Everyone needs to get settled in.”
“You’re right,” Clarissa said, although her grandmother’s tone told her she simply didn’t want to keep talking about any of this. “I assume you want to keep your old rooms, but where would you like to put Absalom and his wife? And what about his stepson?”
Grandmother was on her feet and halfway to the door before Clarissa could stop her. “Where are you going? I need you to tell me where to put these people.”
“Figure it out yourself. Put them anywhere you like.”
Clarissa scrambled to keep pace with her grandmother, who was now in the hall. The reverend caught up with them at the front entrance.
“I’m not staying. I barely survived the last time he lived here.”
Clarissa clasped her grandmother’s arm. “That’s a bit of an
