The Matrimony Plan (18 page)

“Where were You when I needed You?” she said aloud.

Only the whistling of the wind answered.

Empty and lost, she walked out of the church onto the shaded walk. The noon sun blazed, but she didn’t feel its
heat. Kensington Drugstore stood across the street, flanked by Kensington Mortuary and Pearlman Actuarial Services. She no longer recognized any of them. The town she’d known her whole life had become foreign.

She wasn’t Felicity Kensington, only daughter of the richest man in Pearlman. All the fancy clothes in the world couldn’t hide the fact that she was a castoff, unwanted and unloved.

She was no one.

Where could she go? Though she instinctively walked home, the moment she saw the stately Federal, she halted. The same trees still lined the sweeping drive. The gardens still smelled as fragrant. The roses still bloomed in a profusion of scarlet and pink, but somehow it had changed. She no longer belonged.

She wiped her eyes for the hundredth time, trying unsuccessfully to stem the tears.

In front of the carriage house, Smithson washed the old Stanley Steamer. Daddy never drove it anymore. Daddy. He wasn’t her father, not really. Whenever he tired of her, he could set her aside like an old motorcar, for they didn’t share one drop of blood.

She bit her lip against the tears.

As blustering as Daddy could be at times, she loved him. He had bounced her on his lap and let her make entries in the ledgers that he later had to erase. He hugged her when she cried. In all her memory, Mother had never held her. When she was little, there’d been nannies and nurses. Later, Mother instructed, but she never just held her. It was all about how to behave, about clothes and being the best, about the rules for ladylike behavior. But what did that matter now? The truth was out.

Felicity turned away from the house, unable to bear the pain of looking at it any longer. Ms. Priss strolled past
without stopping, as if even she knew Felicity wasn’t worth the attention.

She stumbled down the hill. She couldn’t go home, and she had nowhere else to go. Mariah was her closest friend, but Felicity couldn’t go to the parsonage, not when Gabriel was there. Oh, what a mix-up that was. For so long she’d disparaged his lower social standing, but now the tables were reversed, and he outranked her.

Her cheeks burned with mortification. No doubt, Robert would laugh over his narrow escape, and the tale would spread throughout Newport until every soul had heard what happened to Felicity Kensington.

She could never show her face again, not even in Pearlman. She’d have to go elsewhere, but where and how? She had no money of her own and no belongings, not even clothes.

Kensington Estates, that beautiful section of Pearlman with its stately homes, meant nothing to her now. She walked away from it into the unknown. At the bottom of the hill, the park bustled with activity. The Renauds celebrated a birthday, and the children laughed and squealed. She longed for just one day filled with such delight, but watching it today proved too painful.

She wandered along the river, hoping to find solitude. At the rapids, a fisherman cast his line, seemingly unaware that the world had tilted on its axis. Through the trees, she could see glimpses of the parsonage’s white fence, lost to her now. How reluctant she’d been to enter the yard the day that Gabriel took in Slinky. Now she would give anything to live within its warm embrace.

Where to go?

Many years ago, when she needed to think things through, she would hide in a little cave upriver. There she would talk
to God, and there He always answered. It had been a long time, but maybe He would still listen to her.

She hurried along the path, looking for the spot where she used to climb down the riverbank to the cave. The trees and bushes had grown over the years, obscuring the markers she’d used as a child.

Finally, she found the cave, hiding behind drooping grasses and a tangle of undergrowth. It looked small and inhospitable. A grassy knoll by the river’s edge was better. There she sat and thought until the warmth of the sun made her drowsy, and she nodded off.

When she awoke, she saw the sun had dipped low. Hours must have passed. She rubbed her eyes. Then she heard a rumble of thunder. Dark clouds threatened from the west, obscuring the setting sun. The air smelled of rain. A crack of lightning brought her to her feet. She needed shelter, and the only one in sight was the cave.

She pushed through the undergrowth, though it tore out the hem of her skirt. She stopped to brush off the seeds and bits of dried leaves. Thunder rumbled, long and loud, then, with a crack, lightning struck nearby. She dove through the grasses into the cave just as the first raindrops fell.

The cave was shorter and darker than she remembered. She couldn’t stand up nor could she see. After her eyes adjusted, she could make out a stump, or rather a foot-thick segment of tree trunk that would serve as a chair.

She brushed it off and shrieked when a bug darted away. She’d forgotten about the centipedes and earwigs and other creeping insects that lurked in caves. Still, the thunder had grown louder, and there was no place else to get out of the weather.

If only she could have gone to the parsonage. She squeezed her eyes shut. Gabriel could never love her now. It was all well and good to help orphans, but marrying one
was another matter altogether. The Sophie Grattans in the congregation would murmur about the inferior wife. Oh, they wouldn’t say it that way. They’d hide their barbs behind complaints over little mistakes or say that he didn’t present the proper figure for a man in his position. But the real cause would be her.

She sucked in her lower lip. Every bit of the life she’d known was gone, shattered into pieces too small to repair. Why hadn’t Daddy told her? If she’d known who she really was, she would have lived differently. She would have treated others better. She would have cultivated friendships. She wouldn’t have looked down on her neighbors. Instead, she’d ruined everything.

She’d have to begin anew, somehow. She’d have to forget Gabriel. For his sake, she’d have to pretend she didn’t love him. She’d have to forget the way his lips pursed when he was deep in thought, forget the little indentation of worry between his eyebrows, forget the way he’d lain prone after trying to catch Slinky and then snorted with laughter when she thought he’d hurt himself, forget the unruly curls and even the rolled-up shirtsleeves.

She missed him. Each memory hurt almost more than she could bear, yet she heaped on more: how he’d caught her when she fainted, the awkwardness when she’d given him Slinky’s leash, how he’d encouraged her to go to veterinary college, how he’d respected her treatment of Slinky, how he’d wanted her on the Selection Committee.

Dear God, help me.

She rocked as the thunder boomed and the lightning flashed, knees hugged to her chest. Where could she go? What could she do?

“Who am I?” she whispered, lifting her face only to have water drip on it.

She buried her head in her knees again and wept, letting
the despair flow out until finally she felt nothing. The storm had quieted, and in the stillness, a verse from the hymn “Amazing Grace” came to mind: “I once was lost but now am found.”

“But I’m not found, God,” she muttered into her knees.

She let the emptiness take hold, yet one small corner of her soul refused to give up. Surely others had lost much. The apostles had left their families to follow Jesus, yet they never complained of loneliness. Gabriel had left his family to minister in a strange town. Peter and Luke and the other children had lost families. All survived.

“I am with you always; even unto the end.” The verse came vividly into her mind. Felicity didn’t realize she still remembered the scripture she’d memorized as a child. During the years at Highbury, she’d stopped reading the Bible. She figured the verses had slipped away as well.

Yet now this verse returned, a calm reassurance that in this bleakest of hours, God saw her, felt her pain and was with her.

“I’m so sorry, Lord,” she prayed. With throat clotted and tears flowing, she confessed her pride and selfishness, and as the rain calmed to a steady nourishing shower, she felt the most amazing renewal. If she opened her eyes, she could almost believe she’d see Jesus beside her, holding out a hand. She reached out and somehow felt His touch, reassuring her deep inside that she was loved.

God was and had always been her Father. He had never left her, even when she turned away. His love was constant. He would see her through this and every moment of her life.

“But what do I do?” she whispered.

She waited, listening to the silence for the answer.

It came in the oddest of sounds, like oars splashing in the river followed by an odd clink of metal on metal. It was very close, perhaps just below the cave. If a boat had been
out in the storm, they might need help. She scurried toward the entrance, then heard a thud and a low masculine voice.

“Bring’em up, boys.”

She froze. The muffled voice sounded vaguely familiar, yet she couldn’t quite place it.

“We’ll stash them in the cave,” the man said.

Then the undergrowth in front of the cave parted, revealing a man, outlined by the light of a half-shuttered lantern. The only things visible were his legs, his hands and a pistol.

“What on earth did you think you were doing?” Mariah demanded after putting Luke to bed for the night.

Gabriel knew he’d asked a lot of his sister. She’d come to help him keep house for a few months until he found a suitable wife or hired a housekeeper, and now he’d saddled her with a child. She’d had to open up a room and clean and feed and bathe the boy.

Meanwhile, he’d hid in the library, frantically reading scripture and praying for guidance. The whole fabric of Pearlman was splitting apart, and he had no idea how to stop the rupture. When the sheriff arrested Kensington for bootlegging, it would shatter the last shards of Felicity’s life.

Felicity. The look on her face would haunt him forever.

The truth wasn’t supposed to come out. That’s why he’d reluctantly agreed to send Peter to the Grattans. That’s why he’d tried to get the Grattans to back off by revealing their prejudices. That’s why Kensington had confided in him, but all that effort had come to naught. He’d been able to rescue Peter but not Felicity.

“A child,” Mariah scolded, “is not a dog.”

Slinky whined and raised his white eyebrows.

She ignored the protest. “Gabriel John, you simply cannot take in every stray you find. Mom and Dad might have let
you, but not me. There are consequences to your actions. That boy deserves a real family, with a mother and father.”

“I know.”

“Then why did you take him on?”

He couldn’t answer.

She threw up her hands. “Don’t tell me. I know. Felicity.”

“She was right about the Grattans,” he said quietly.

“Granted, but that doesn’t mean you had to take in Luke. Another family could have taken him. There were twenty-eight applicants. Mrs. Simmons took Peter. Surely you could have found someone else.”

Gabriel wrapped his cold fingers around the cup of tea. Though the evening was warm and sticky, he’d been chilled since the distribution. “I don’t have any answers, Mariah. I just know it’s the right thing to do.”

She studied him for a long time. Then, sighing, she rose and retrieved the teakettle. “It’s not just that, is it? It’s about Felicity’s boarding school idea,” she said as she refilled their cups.

He shook his head. “I can’t explain it, Mariah. I just know I couldn’t send him back on the train, not after…”

“What happened to Felicity had nothing to do with the distribution,” she said in a gentler tone. “You know that, Gabe. Her parents should have told her long ago. In fact, it’s amazing no one spilled it before now, considering how small the town is. Secrets don’t stay secret in small towns.”

Gabriel groaned and buried his head in his hands. “That’s the problem.”

“What’s the problem? Tell me, Gabe, because honestly I don’t see why you’re acting this way.”

He didn’t know if he could put words to it himself. That he loved Felicity? That he’d tried desperately to protect her and failed? That the worst blow was yet to fall?

“What’s going to happen when the bootleggers are caught?” he asked miserably.

Mariah drew in her breath sharply. “Her father.”

He nodded and dug his fingers into his hair, tearing at it like the penitents of the Old Testament. Why had he gone to the sheriff? Why had he come up with the idea of catching the criminals at the root cellar? Tonight’s new moon meant the bootleggers would likely act and the sheriff would trap them. On top of all Felicity had endured today, she’d lose her father.

A rumble of thunder rolled in the distance.

Mariah put an arm around his shoulders. “Good will prevail, Gabe. You have to believe it.”

“I don’t see how,” he mumbled.

A flash of lightning lit the kitchen windowpane, and a loud knock sounded on the kitchen door.

Mariah lifted her head. “Who could that be?”

His heart raced. He knew who he wanted it to be. Felicity. He leaped to his feet, hoping God had answered his prayers, and yanked open the door.

“Pastor.” Branford Kensington pushed past him into the kitchen. “Ms. Meeks.” He nodded stiffly and shoved a flashlight into a pocket of his canvas hunting jacket.

Gabriel stuffed down his disappointment. “Mr. Kensington.” Aside from being angry with himself, he was furious with Kensington for not dealing straight with his daughter.

Kensington scanned the kitchen. “I’d hoped my Felicity was here.”

If Kensington didn’t know where Felicity was, who did? “I thought she was with you.”

The man looked worried. “Haven’t seen her since she left the church, about noon.”

“Dear Lord,” Mariah gasped, covering her mouth with her hand.

The fear in the room escalated, driven by the accelerating storm. Blinding lightning was followed by a crack of thunder. It had struck close. Seconds later, wind and rain lashed the house. Kensington buttoned his jacket and set his jaw. “I’ll find her.”