Harrigan's Bride. Cheryl Reavis

and he looked exactly the way a bridegroom was suppose to look. All spit and polish—except for the ink stains on his fingers. He was newly barbered and unsteady on his feet—and infinitely pleased with himself.

      “You’re looking lovely this afternoon, Abby,” he assured her.

      “You, sir, have had a lot more to drink than I first thought,” she answered.

      He smiled one of his rare smiles.

      “Only a bit, Abby. To keep away the cold. The boys went to such a lot of trouble to get it. It would have been rude to decline.”

      “Is that the real reason?” she asked. “You don’t want to be rude?”

      “It is.”

      “Rude to them or rude to me?”

      “To you?”

      “Perhaps you need whiskey to get through this wedding, Thomas. Perhaps you’ve changed your mind but you’re too honorable to say so.”

      He frowned. “I have not changed my mind. Have you?”

      “Not as far as I can tell,” she said.

      He nearly smiled again and pulled the one straight chair close to the bedside and sat down. “So. You recognize me, then.”

      “Yes, but it wasn’t easy. You look so much prettier today than when I last saw you.”

      He smiled genuinely this time. “I had a great deal of help, I can assure you. I’m especially partial to this very fine maroon-and-gold, nonregulation sash—I forget which of my groomsmen contributed it.” He opened his coat so that she could see it better. “But it’s not as fine as your ribbon,” he said, leaning closer to inspect the pink ribbon Gertie had meticulously twined into Abiah’s long braid and then tied in a dainty bow.

      Abiah, too, had had a great deal of help getting ready for this event. Besides the ribbon, her plain muslin nightdress had been exchanged for a finely embroidered and tucked cambric chemise de nuit. It was quite beautiful, albeit too big for her. The sleeves kept falling over her hands. Of course, a pink ribbon and especially the chemise de nuit were hopeless gestures on Gertie’s part, regardless of Thomas’s compliment. Except for the sleeves, he wouldn’t even see the nightdress. Abiah was covered up well past her bosom by a borrowed gray velvet quilt placed under a crocheted “wedding ring” coverlet—something someone in the household—or in the town or across the river—must have thought would be appropriate. Clearly, when the bride was too ill to be dressed, then one must dress the bed instead. Enough pillows had been found so that she could be propped almost to a sitting position. Her beribboned braid hung artfully over her right shoulder. She was even lucid, so much so that she had no delusions about the way she looked, just as she had no delusions about the way she felt.

      “Don’t,” he said after a moment, and she looked at him.

      “I see the second thoughts running rampant, Abby. I don’t have any. I want you to put yours aside.”

      “I’m afraid, Thomas.”

      “Not of me, I hope.”

      She shook her head. “No, not of you. Of being…” She gave a quiet sigh. It was so difficult to put into words. If she were well, she wouldn’t have all these misgivings. If she were well, she would have at least a fighting chance of keeping him from resenting her and a marriage he’d wanted no part of.

      She sighed again. If she were well, there would be no marriage in the first place.

      “I’m cursed with a conscience,” she said finally.

      “I wouldn’t have you any other way, Abby.”

      She realized immediately that he was teasing her. “Thomas, you’re not taking this seriously.”

      “Of course I am—”

      Someone rapped sharply on the door. “Chaplain’s here, sir!” a voice said on the other side of it.

      “We’re worrying La Broie,” Thomas said. “Can we put him out of his misery?”

      “He’ll just have to bear up,” she said. “I have a question.”

      “It’s very improper for me to be in here, you know. Didn’t you see your landlady’s face when I came in here alone and shut the door?”

      “My landlady will have to bear up as well.”

      “Abby, we have to have this ceremony right now.”

      “But we haven’t discussed…anything.”

      “You’re alone in the world and you’re ill. And I’m going into God-knows-what with Burnside. We could discuss all manner of topics until kingdom come, but it would still come down to those two things. We have to concern ourselves with the present situation. Nothing else. We can’t worry about what might come along later.”

      “Sir!” La Broie said, rapping at the door again. They both ignored him and the burst of rowdy laughter from Thomas’s groomsmen.

      “Have you sent word to her?” she asked Thomas quietly.

      He didn’t pretend not to know who she meant. “That wasn’t necessary,” he said after a moment.

      “Not even to keep from being rude?”

      “No.”

      She watched him closely, trying to decide if that was really the case.

      Yes, she decided. It wasn’t necessary for him to tell his former fiancée anything. And perhaps that was yet another reason why he wanted this marriage to take place.

      “Your mother and grandfather? Do they know what you’re doing?”

      “No,” he said again.

      “Why not?”

      “Because I anticipated this. Your uncertainty. It’s better if they know later, after it’s done.”

      “I see. They’d disapprove that much.”

      “I don’t know if they would disapprove or not. The point is I don’t have the time or the inclination to hear opinions, one way or the other.”

      “You and I have nothing in common,” she said. “Besides the dire consequences of your bringing me across the river—and Guire.”

      “I wouldn’t say that. Have you or have you not read Emerson?”

      “Only because you insisted.”

      “That’s not the point, either. You know his work. We’ve had some most interesting discussions about Emerson. And if I said George Tockner you’d know precisely who I meant.”

      She tried to interrupt. The fact that she could recognize the name of a hallowed Harvard professor signified nothing as far as she was concerned. “Thomas—”

      “And William Cullen Bryant,” he continued, undeterred. “You’ve read his work.”

      “I’ve read Walt Whitman, as well, but I doubt anyone would see that as a basis for a marriage.”

      That remark certainly got his attention. “You’ve read Walt Whitman,” he repeated, as if he wanted to make absolutely certain he had this right.

      “I have,” she said.

      “Leaves of Grass.”

      “That was the title, yes. Your Mr. Emerson approved of the work, I believe.”

      “Never mind that. How the devil did you get your hands on a copy of Walt Whitman?” he asked—demanded—and she tried not to smile. She found him entirely adorable when he was discomposed.

      “Believe me, it wasn’t easy. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is the advisability of this marriage.”

      “What matters