The Scoundrel's Bride (27 page)

MARTHA PAYNE brought new and dainty underpinnings to Morality’s room as she dressed for her wedding. The bride took one look at the delicate scraps of silk and lace and blushed as red as a radish.

“Now I know what you’re thinking,” the elderly yet energetic woman said. “Ladies don’t wear lacy black unmentionables. But a dear friend advised me on this matter back before I married Mr. Payne, and I discovered that she was entirely right. Ever since, I’ve made it my practice to keep a supply on hand. I’ve probably given thirty sets to ladies like yourself over the years.” She smiled. “And a good many to older women like me, too. Trust me, dear. Your Mr. Burkett will think this is wonderful.”

Morality held the garment out in front of her. “Martha, you can see right through this chemise!”

Pale blue eyes twinkled behind wire-framed spectacles. “Isn’t it naughty?”

“But—”

“No.” Martha held up a hand. “You must hurry up, Morality dear, the preacher is downstairs waiting. As is your groom. I must say I thought he was handsome before, but all cleaned up he fairly takes this old woman’s breath away. Now, I must run check on the wedding cake, then I’ll be right back to help you button that beautiful green dress. You wear my gift too, you hear?”

Morality nodded and did what she was told. She would not, however, look at her reflection in the mirror until she’d covered all that black with green silk. Finally ready, nervous and excited and more than a little afraid, she started downstairs to meet her groom.

Coming from inside the long room that was the tavern section of the inn, Morality heard voices. Mr. Gallagher, Martha, and a laugh that sounded vaguely familiar, although she couldn’t place the name. She also heard a deep, resonant rumble. Zach. Taking a deep breath, she stepped to the doorway.

What she saw made her face bleach white. Reverend Simpkins!

ZACH LOOKED up to see a divinely beautiful, flame-haired angel dressed in green silk. With the complexion of a corpse.

“Good Lord, Morality, what’s wrong?”

“Miss Brown?” The reverend, a young man with the biggest set of ears Zach had seen this side of a jackass, stepped forward as if drawn automatically. “Why, Miss Brown, you’ve returned. I’m surprised…I didn’t think…” A beatific smile spread across his face. “How wonderful! Where is Reverend Harrison?”

“Uh…I…ah,” Morality stuttered.

Zach folded his arms, cocked his head, and stared at his bride. What the hell was going on here? “You know the reverend, angel?”

“I…uh…ah.”

The preacher nodded and looked at Zach. “We’re to be married.”

“Come again?”

“Well, I should say I have proposed marriage to Miss Brown, but her uncle refused my suit.” He took Morality’s hand. “He’s changed his mind? That’s why you’ve come back?”

Zach narrowed his eyes and set his jaw, experiencing a surprising rush of possessiveness. He restrained himself, barely, from yanking Morality away from the reverend. A suitor? Good God, what next? He glared at his bride, silently demanding she exercise her tongue with an explanation.

But Morality just stood there, her mouth working open, then closed, like a fish out of water.
An angelfish
.

Suddenly, he wanted to laugh at the absurdity of the situation. “What’s the deal, woman? Are you like a sailor with a woman in every port, only you’ve got a man in every pulpit?”

She found enough wind to groan, “Zach!”

He eyed the preacher. Skinny fellow, probably as strong as a sick kitten. And, judging by the conversation they’d shared upon his arrival, Reverend William Simpkins was chock full of godly qualities—piety, devotion, faithfulness. Just Morality’s type.

He and the Bible man had nothing in common.

Simpkins opened his mouth to speak as young Johnny pounded up the front porch steps, calling, “Wagon coming, Uncle Dan.”

Zach shot the innkeeper a look. Gallagher, obviously quick on the uptake, groaned. “And isn’t it just my luck to be a-missin’ the most entertaining moment of the year. Come along, Martha. Help me welcome our guests.”

“But the wedding!” Martha cried worriedly.

Zach crossed the room, laying a possessive hand on his bride’s shoulder. “Will be slightly delayed. Don’t worry, Mrs. Payne, I promise we won’t start without you.”

Martha Payne squeezed Morality’s arm and gave her a supportive nod as Daniel Gallagher escorted her from the room.

Reverend Simpkins’s gaze never left Morality, but the hope had slowly faded from his eyes. “I think I understand. I was summoned to perform a wedding ceremony and I’ve already met the groom. Are you the bride, Morality?”

“Oh, William.” Regret filled her voice and softened her eyes. She shrugged off Zach’s touch. “I’m sorry. I did wish to marry you. You’ll never know how much. If only things had been different.”

“Well, that’s a helluva thing for a man to hear at his wedding,” Zach drawled. Both Morality and her minister ignored him.

“I’ll admit to feeling the fool.” Simpkins watched her sadly, his hurt plainly visible. “My dear, it is but a few weeks since you and I parted company. If you were pledged to this gentleman, why did you encourage my suit? And why didn’t your uncle speak of your betrothal?”

Morality shook her head. “Oh, William, you mustn’t think that. Why, I only met Mr. Burkett when the Church of the Word’s Healing Faith arrived in Cottonwood Creek.”

He swayed backward. “Why, Morality. If that is true, how can you be marrying the man so quickly? The brevity of our acquaintance was one of the reasons Reverend Harrison refused my suit, and I courted you for two months!”

Zach had about reached the limit of his patience. “Look here, Simpkins, no matter how it came about, you missed your chance with Morality. I didn’t. That’s all you really need to know. Let’s get on with the hitching, all right?”

Simpkins snapped his teeth together and glared up at Zach, a surprisingly aggressive act for a preacher, not to mention the fact he was a good six inches shorter than the groom. “Sir. As a man of God it is my duty and my right to question the couples who come to me asking for the Lord’s blessing on a marriage. Until I have settled my doubts as to the advisability of this union, I will not marry you, Mr. Burkett.”

“Hell, preach,” Zach drawled sarcastically, “I don’t remember asking you. Besides, I’m already spoken for. I’m marrying Morality.”

The reverend went red to the tips of his ears. Morality grimaced, rolling her eyes in disgust. She stepped between the two men, turned her back toward Zach, and spoke in a soothing tone to the sputtering minister. “William, please. This is a difficult situation for both of us. I appreciate your concern more than I can say. But believe me, it’s too late for second thoughts. I must marry Mr. Burkett, I have no choice. I have eloped.”

Simpkins drew a horrified gasp. “My dear, tell me it isn’t true!”

Morality hung her head and didn’t reply.

Zach decided this nonsense had gone on long enough. He put his hands around Morality’s waist and yanked her back against him. “Time’s a-wastin’ folks. Let’s get down to business.”

“But I have a duty!” the reverend protested.

“Listen, preacher, upon my direction, Mrs. Payne has gone to great trouble to prepare a honeymoon cabin for me and my bride. No matter what you do or don’t do, Morality and I will definitely be sharing that bed down there tonight. Seems to me your ministerial duty would require you make certain there’s a knot been tied before the festivities. Doesn’t really matter to me, but for Morality’s sake, I reckon you should see to the marrying.”

For a long moment, the only sound to be heard was the muted exchange of conversation between Daniel Gallagher and the newly arrived guests. Then, eyes full of frost, Reverend Simpkins nodded and said, “Very well. Take your places by the hearth, if you will.”

As Simpkins opened his prayer book and thumbed through the pages, Zach, with a firm grip on Morality’s wrist, walked toward the tavern door and called up the stairs, “Mrs. Payne, Gallagher. We need witnesses.”

In short order, all those present at Gallagher’s Tavern and Traveler’s Inn, including the most recent visitors, a family of twelve with children ranging in age from one to fourteen, gathered in the barroom to witness the marriage of Miss Morality Brown, Miracle Girl, and Zach Burkett, bastard.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

SHORTLY AFTER THE TODDLER began to cry, the bride did, too. Not because the child’s wails were ruining her wedding, but because the preacher had stopped the ceremony for a third time to question the intelligence of her intentions.

At that point the groom pulled a pistol from his coat and demanded the service be continued without any further interruptions. At the conclusion of the nuptials, immediately following the distressed prelate’s declaration of “I pronounce you man and wife,” the groom put away his gun, gave his wife a passionate kiss, then drew back his arm and let his fist fly. The thwack of knuckles against ministerial jawbone echoed painfully through the room.

As the gathering gasped, Zach scooped his protesting missus into his arms and marched from the tavern. Daniel Gallagher leaned toward Martha Payne and murmured, “Burkett showed a lot of patience. I’d have hit the fellow the first time he stopped the service.”

Martha sniffed. “You made a mistake by not telling Johnny which preacher to fetch. I’ve listened to Reverend Simpkins’s sermons often enough to know he tends toward the overbearing. He was not the man to preside over this wedding.”

Daniel gave a rueful smile. “Especially since he’s in love with the bride.”

The father and three of his children rushed to help the preacher to his feet. Martha crossed to the tavern window where she gazed toward the departing groom and bride. Morality’s legs kicked furiously, showing an immodest length of leg and a froth of crinoline and lace.

The twice-widowed woman sighed, her aged eyes soft with the memory of romance. “There’s nothing quite so beautiful as young love.”

“PUT ME down!” Morality screeched.

He did, just long enough to reach beneath her skirt to rip the tapes on the crinoline.

“Zach!” She attempted to yank away, but she tripped on the loose undergarment and fell. Zach caught her, settled her in his arms, and continued his march toward the honeymoon cabin, leaving the offending crinoline behind in an abandoned heap.

“Why are you doing this? Everyone will see my underwear!”

Zach was too busy fuming to pay her much note. That pious son of a bitch. He wished he’d knocked the fellow’s teeth out. That holier-than-thou sort of preacher purely boiled his blood. Those types were worse than scripture swindlers like Morality’s uncle.

“Who does he think he is, offering to marry you ‘despite your sinful ways’ smack dab in the middle of our wedding. Sanctimonious prig. I should have shot him. He made you cry.”

Morality ceased struggling and began to bawl. She turned her head, clutched his lapel, and buried her face against his chest. Zach slowed his step as her tears soaked through his shirt and dampened his skin. Hot, they seemed to scald him and he grimaced.

Briefly, he considered reversing direction. Maybe he should return to the inn and carry out his threat. He imagined taking aim and pulling the trigger to send one of those ears flying through the air.

Easy enough target to hit, he mused. Too easy. Any man who made Morality cry deserved worse than losing an ear. A man who made her cry should—

“Damn.” He’d be damned if he’d pursue that line of thought.

Drawing a sobbing breath, Morality looked up at him through red-rimmed, shimmering eyes and said, “Mr. Burkett, your language!”

Zach glanced down at the woman in his arms. The familiar complaint poked a hole in his temper, and anger drained away like whiskey through a corkless barrel. She was a strong one, his angel bride. No matter how hard or how often the world knocked her flat, she always managed to climb back to her feet. He liked that about her.

He and his missus had a few things in common.

“Are you through using my best shirt for a hanky?” he asked, showing her a lopsided grin. “If you’ve more tears of joy threatening to spill, I’ve a real handkerchief in my pocket you’re more than welcome to.”

Her voice quavered as she said, “Joy? Sometimes I wonder if you are living in the same world as I am, Burkett. ‘Humiliation’ is the word that comes to my mind.” A fresh flood swelled in her eyes. “Oh, Zach, why did it have to be Reverend Simpkins?”

“Were you actually going to marry that fellow?”

She rested her head against his chest and nodded. Weariness etched her tone. “He’s a good man, Zach. His church is the biggest in Nacogdoches. He’s well respected, even by the Baptists, which is saying a lot for a Methodist minister, considering the war for souls being waged between the two religions here in East Texas.”

Zach snorted. “I don’t care how good he is, he’s not the man for you. You need a little bad in your life, woman. You need balance.” He kissed the top of her head, enjoying the fragrance of roses that clung to her hair. “That’s why you’re lucky to have me.”

“You’re not bad,” she insisted. “You’re just not as good as Reverend Simpkins.”

Zach halted abruptly. He lowered her to her feet, keeping one arm around her waist. She tried to pull away, but he held her tight. With one finger of his free hand, he tilted her chin up, silently demanding she look at him. When she did, he said in a whiskey-rough voice, “Angel, there’s good, and then there’s
good
. The kind of good a man acquires by being bad. I’m making you a promise. Before today is done, you’re gonna appreciate just how
good
I really am.”

Morality’s eyes widened and Zach added, “You’ll forget all about ol’ Simpkins. I’ll make sure of it.”

He’d do it, too. Morality deserved a better man than himself, but Reverend William Simpkins wasn’t it. In fact, he could make the argument that by marrying him, she’d avoided making a big mistake. “You’ll forget him,” Zach repeated. “Whatever the preacher said or did in the past doesn’t make a damn bit of difference now.”