delighted.” The parson turned his brown-eyed gaze toward her for an instant, the smile in those eyes telling her he meant it.
“This church endured a great scandal when it called a young, single man after my husband’s passing. The bylaws now state the pastor must be married. And I won’t approve your call if you are not.” Grandmother tapped her cane on the carpeted floor. She did have a way of shredding any scrap of joy, especially in church. “Your wife, Reverend. Where is she?”
His face paled and he glanced upward, as if seeking divine help. “The truth is, she—”
The vestibule door swung open and banged against the wall with a force that shook the gasolier.
“Stop this meeting!” A vaguely familiar, barrel-chested man took the aisle at a clip, his long, curly salt-and-pepper hair as oversize as his stovepipe hat.
Glaring at him, Grandmother muttered, “Will all of Natchez come dashing into this church today, demanding we stop what we’re doing?”
“Adams, if you cannot slow down and act civilly inside the church, you can find another attorney.” Uncle Joseph Duncan followed at a pace more sedate but still lively for a man of his advancing age. He smoothed his famed white moustache, his old-fashioned top hat in his hand. “And take off that outlandish hat in the house of the Lord. Even for a stovepipe, it’s ridiculous.”
Grandmother’s gaze hardened as she took a step toward the man who’d ignored Joseph and left his giant hat on his round head. “Absalom Adams.”
Cousin Absalom. Of a sudden, a fog of confusion settled over Clarissa’s mind. Absalom had died in the Battle of Lookout Mountain...
“I heard the rumor about my death,” he said. “I see you did too.”
“I also heard Joseph tell you to show respect in this church.” Grandmother Euphemia lifted her cane and swung it at Absalom’s hat, knocking the monstrosity to the floor.
“What do you think you’re doing? This is a thirty-dollar hat.” Absalom let out a string of curses that should have brought the roof down on his now-uncovered head.
At the sound of the man’s foul mouth, Reverend Montgomery stepped toward him until he stood inches from Absalom’s face. “Another such word and I’ll escort you out.”
The low growl of the reverend’s voice must have instilled some well-deserved fear into her cousin, judging from his wide eyes. “Who are you?” he asked, backing away.
The preacher closed the gap again. “I’m the Reverend Samuel Montgomery. I won’t tolerate your contempt in my church.”
Absalom’s face paled. “The Fighting Chaplain?”
The reverend remained silent, quirking one brow, threatening him with his dark glower.
Absalom broke away and retrieved his hat from beside the nearest box pew, muttering about the unfairness of life.
Clarissa shook off the fog and stepped toward her cousin. “What do you want? You caused enough trouble before you went to war. Why did you come back?”
“When you didn’t show up for our appointment, we came to you.” The hat trembled in Absalom’s hand as he moved a good distance from the preacher. “We need to talk about the old man’s will. About Camellia Pointe and his tenement down at the landing.”
“There’s nothing to talk about. He left the Yazoo ground to Father and Grandmother, and Camellia Pointe and Good Shepherd Dining and Lodging to me. And Good Shepherd isn’t a tenement—it’s a respectable hotel.” Clarissa turned from her rogue cousin toward Joseph. Her attorney’s downcast gaze shot a jolt of fear through her until she glanced at Grandmother and saw her pallor. Then the jolt grew to a thunderbolt. “Tell him it’s true, Uncle Joseph.”
At the tremor in her voice, her cousin smiled an oily smile. “I want the Fighting Chaplain here as a witness when you do.”
Emma announced she would sit in their carriage and read, leaving the others to start down the long hallway to the pastor’s study. Entering it, Grandmother poked her cane at Absalom’s ribs. “Why exactly are you not dead?”
“That’s harsh, Grandmother, even for you.” In the cypress-paneled room, Cousin Absalom pulled a cigar from the pocket of his mulberry-red frock coat and clamped his teeth around it, looking for all the world like a riverboat gambler. Which he could be, for all they knew.
“Considering how you left your entire family for dead during the yellow fever outbreak, I’d say it’s a question worth asking.” Grandmother rubbed the handle of her cane. “We thought we were finished enduring your treachery.”
“I was captured at Lookout Mountain and sent to the Johnson Island prison in Ohio, where they kept Confederate officers,” Absalom said around the fat cigar. “I stayed until Lake Erie froze over, then I escaped by walking across the ice to Canada. The Yankees reported me as dead.”
He had to be joking. “Cousin Absalom, that’s the most fanciful tale I’ve ever heard.”
“You’re lying, as always.” Fire shot from Grandmother’s eyes and she lifted her cane again.
The pastor cleared his throat and picked up his black Bible from the desk. “In the book of Ephesians, the apostle encourages us to speak the truth in love. I suggest we heed his exhortation and get on with our business, telling the truth and speaking it in love.”
Finally—a voice of reason in this emotional chaos. Fighting Chaplain or not, flaming evangelist or not, the new pastor had just silenced both Clarissa’s renegade cousin and her indomitable grandmother with one Bible verse. Could he be just what Christ Church needed?
“I agree. Let’s get this over with, before I make good on my threat to retire to Saratoga.” Joseph set his brown leather portmanteau atop the pastor’s walnut desk. “Whatever the circumstances, Absalom is here, and we need to read the alternate will.”
How could this mistake have happened, leaving them to think Absalom had gone to his eternal reward—or punishment? Admittedly, Clarissa hadn’t grieved overlong for her much-older cousin. But who would, considering how he had disappointed and hurt the family as long as she could remember?
Of course, Clarissa didn’t wish him dead, but neither was she elated to see him. To say so would be a lie.
And now perhaps they’d learn Grandmother and Papa no longer possessed the Yazoo Delta plantations, Clarissa didn’t own Good Shepherd Dining and Lodging—and her beloved Camellia Pointe...
After this meeting, everything would change. If Absalom wasn’t mentioned in Grandfather’s will, Joseph would merely have informed him that he’d receive nothing but the wind blowing through Camellia Pointe, and Absalom would have gone his way.
But he hadn’t. Instead he stood there like a pudgy, arrogant crown prince, waiting to become heir to his kingdom.
Suddenly eager to hear the worst so she could think through her options, Clarissa took a seat beside Grandmother on the wine-colored settee near the window. Cousin Absalom pulled the fireside wing chair into the center of the room and plopped all his plumpness into it. Between them, the reverend stood alert, eyes narrowed, as if hoping Absalom would make a wrong move so he’d have the pleasure
