A Victorian Christmas by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-03-07T23:39:57.513000+00:00

"Oh come to Kentucky,

Hettie, I adore you,

Come, let's be man and wife, I swear I'll be truuue.

I'll make you happy, never make you cry again.

O Hettie, have a heaart,

O Hettie, have a heaart,

O Hettie, have a heaaaart, come home with meeeeeee. "

Silence fell. The choir grinned and shuffled selfconsciously, evidently expecting applause. There was none. The child nearest the door gave a shrug, then a jaunty little wave, and walked out. The others filed after him.

Marion closed his mouth, then opened it again to pronounce a word Reverend Toombs had never heard in his church before.

Behind them, the astonished voices of wedding guests whispered and buzzed; someone muffled a laugh but someone didn't. Hettie put a hand over her mouth, but whether to hold in a laugh or a sob she couldn't have said. Inside her a war raged, soul-wrenching and life-deciding, between fury and exultation.

"What the hell is the meaning of this?" Marion sputtered, yanking her around by both wrists until she had to look at him. She couldn't answer. She kept turning, even though his grip was painful, until she faced the long aisle. The first face she saw was Olympia'sred, fishlike, confounded. The second was Uncle Elmore'shopeful, happy-sad, excited. He blew her a kiss, then winked and jerked his thumb over his shoulder.

Someone stood in the dim vestibule, fifty yards away. The great church portal stood open at his back, and snow swirled in circles behind his dark silhouette. Black on white; stillness on motion. But Hettie didn't need proximity or color or detail to know who it was. She took a deep, unsteady breath, pulled her veil aside, and turned back to her betrothed.

Cody's fingers clenched around the brim of his Stetson. Blind to the stares and deaf to the whispers of the hundreds of people craning their necks to look at him, all he saw was Hettie take Marion's hands in both of hers. Even from here her face looked sweet, and whatever she was saying looked urgent and earnest and heartfelt. The tension went out of him gradually, like a guitar string slowly loosening, and he lowered his head until he was staring at the snow-covered toes of his boots. He didn't regret anything. He'd do it all again, because there had been a chance, and he hadn't known and never would know a better way, except maybe by kidnapping her, to try to win her back.

He glanced back up and wished to God he hadn't, because now she was kissing Marion. He had to look away, and his heart felt like dry tinder somebody had just set a match to.

But something made him look up again, and when he did she was coming toward him. To punch him? he wondered, brain-addled. A low muttering began among the congregation, and by the time Hettie was halfway down the aisle it had become a roar. Cody stood still for one more uncertain second, and then her shining, smiling, tear-streaked face came into focus. He let out a raucous cowboy yell and threw his hat up to the vaulted ceiling.

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