Page 11 of The Dravenhearst Brides
Margaret lowered her lashes, abashed.
It was her turn. She lifted her eyes, dropped them again, unable to pour herself into him as he had into her. She whispered her vows to the marbled floor and hoped he would forgive her cowardice.
She felt vaguely sweaty, heart hammering when she finally finished. Then came a whiff of the old familiar fear, the phantom spirit of a flushrising on her neck. The anxiety was always there, lurking in the wings. Was she growing dizzy, her vision tunneling?
Mary, Mother of God,she prayed to a statue of the Holy Mother in the corner, just over her groom’s shoulder,give me strength.
The preacher’s drone buzzed remotely in her ears. Her breast continued to heave, the flush on her neck rising, becoming fully realized. She feared she might…
The world snapped into crystal clear focus when he touched her. Dravenhearst’s fingers lifted her chin, curled around her jaw and cheek, almost gentle save for the rough-hewn texture of his calloused skin. Gooseflesh rose on her arms.
When she met his eyes, her mind errantly skittered to what would undoubtedly happen later this evening. The feel of these workworn fingers on her bare limbs. Her mouth dried at the thought. She knew little of the mechanics—for all the pontificating about her wedding day, her mother had stayed quite mum onthatmatter. Margaret had never even been kissed, how on earth was she supposed to—
His lips were approaching.
Her mind short-circuited, bursting like fiery hot filaments inside a worn-out Edison bulb. His hand was still on her cheek. She felt the barest pressure and yielded, letting him turn her head to the side, just so. His lips landed somewhere near the corner of her mouth, half on her cheek. It was over quickly, featherlight and horrifically proper. He pulled away in a hurry and dropped his hand.
Margaret’s lips parted in surprise as something akin to—dare she admit it?—disappointmentrushed in. She wasn’t sure that abysmal happenstance even counted as a real kiss.
Mind scrambling to catch up with her legs, Margaret was paraded through the church on Dravenhearst’s arm. Her husband was stiff, as stoic as a pallbearer in a funeral march.
Just before the church doors opened, just before she was blinded by the bright light of the Kentucky summer, she was assaulted by a vision—her white silk wedding gown turning black, dripping in ebony rivulets until she was shadow-clad from head to toe. Over her head bloomed a weeping veil, heavy with black lace spun from a spider’s web. She was, in that final moment within the chapel walls, not a bride, but a woman marked for mourning. For death.
According to her mother, Margaret’s wedding day should herald a new dawn, a new beginning…
“Mrs. Dravenhearst,” her husband drawled, gesturing to the open-top roadster waiting on the street. The corner of his lip turned upward in a shifty half-grin. “Shall we?”
Margaret hesitated, grounding her runaway mind with facts.
Her gown was white, not black.
The veil bridal, not weeping.
Her name was Dravenhearst, no longer Greenbrier.
And so Margaret was the same, but also, somehow, irreparably different.
Mrs. Merrick Dravenhearst.
Her mother was right, this felt like a beginning. The beginning of the end.
5
June 17, 1870
Dear Diary,
A woman’s worth will never be higher than on her wedding day. She depreciates every day thereafter.
—Excerpt, the diary of Eleanor Dravenhearst
ThedrivetoDravenhearstDistilling began in silence. After opening her door, Dravenhearst slipped behind the wheel of the sporty roadster himself. The beast of an automobile roared to life, and suddenly, Margaret was waving mechanically over her shoulder to Pa as the wheels churned clouds of dust.
As her father disappeared from sight, Margaret knew a moment of panic. When would she see him again?
Wouldshe see him again, hearty and hale?
Margaret moved her hand from its stilted wave to her head, feeling the pull of her bridal veil in the rising wind. Her other hand encircled the magnolia bouquet in a death grip as the roadster whipped around a sharp turn.
