An Inconvenient Marriage Read online

  Last-Minute Bride

  Widowed reverend Samuel Montgomery is excited to start over with his daughter in Natchez, Mississippi—until he learns he’ll lose his job if he doesn’t marry. His solution: a marriage in name only to heiress Clarissa Adams, who needs a husband to win her inheritance. Though the beautiful music teacher will make a good wife, Samuel doubts he can ever truly capture her heart.

  Marriage satisfies only the first provision of Clarissa’s grandfather’s will, which pits her against her cousin. And fulfilling the remaining stipulations won’t be easy between caring for Samuel’s rebellious daughter and managing an orphanage. But Samuel seems determined to stand by her side...and maybe even prove their marriage could be more than just convenient.

  “What’s so funny?” Samuel couldn’t keep a smile from his face, enjoying the sound of her laughter.

  “You are.” She smiled. “With your formality. Although Grandfather used to tell me stories of Grandmother calling him Reverend, even when they were alone.”

  “And what did he call her?”

  “Ducky dearest.”

  He could just imagine the dowager’s response. He grinned at Clarissa. “Hmm...it has possibilities.”

  The warmth in Samuel’s heart shot a grim warning, reminding him that romantic love was not for him. Sure, the dark-haired beauty before him was his wife, but only because she needed to hold on to this home, and he needed to keep his pastorate. He couldn’t treat her as if they had a real marriage, a real relationship.

  She laughed again. “Let’s leave Grandfather’s terms of endearment in the past. At home, you may call me Clarissa.”

  “And please call me Samuel.”

  Clarissa smiled, settling this issue, if nothing else. Although the arrangement seemed too casual,

  too intimate, for a wife who would never truly be

  his wife.

  Christina Miller has always lived in the past. Her passion for history began with her grandmother’s stories of 1920s rural southern Indiana. When Christina began to write fiction, she believed God was calling her to write what she knew: history. A Bethany College of Missions graduate, pastor’s wife and worship leader, Christina lives on the family’s farm with her husband of twenty-nine years and Sugar, their talking dog.

  Books by Christina Miller

  Love Inspired Historical

  Counterfeit Courtship

  An Inconvenient Marriage

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  CHRISTINA MILLER

  An Inconvenient Marriage

  It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.

  —Lamentations 3:22–23

  To my grandmothers:

  Sweet grandma Ruby Linstrot, whose stories of long ago made me love the past.

  Spunky grandma Violet Kahle, my fun and sassy inspiration for Grandmother Euphemia.

  With thanks to...

  The staff at Monmouth, the setting I chose for Camellia Pointe. Special thanks to Roosevelt, who served us his refreshing nonalcoholic mint juleps during our stay.

  Steve Laube, my fabulous agent, for his wise counsel and ever-available listening ear.

  Dina Davis, my smart, sweet, talented, hardworking editor and dear friend.

  Jan, my preacher husband, who cheerfully does life with this writer girl.

  Jesus, giver of gifts and fulfiller of dreams.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Dear Reader

  Excerpt from Suddenly a Frontier Father by Lyn Cote

  Chapter One

  Natchez, Mississippi

  February, 1866

  The cry piercing the damp winter air chilled the Reverend Samuel Montgomery’s bones even more than the wind blowing up from the Mississippi. He hadn’t heard a sound like that since Chickamauga—a cross between a rebel yell and the shriek of an anguished soul.

  He raced up the muddy brick walk and toward the ghastly sound, dropping his Bible in his haste. As always, when he’d heard similar screams of agony on the battlefield or in an army hospital, he breathed a hasty prayer for the suffering one. What could have ignited a sound like the strident voice calling through the stucco walls?

  “Help me...”

  Nearing the white-columned structure, Samuel reached into his frock coat pocket and checked his vial of anointing oil and his portable communion set, issued by the Confederate Army’s Chaplain Corps.

  His mind sped as fast as his booted feet while he prepared himself to anoint the sick or administer the Lord’s Supper to the dying. Judging from the hair-raising voice, he might be called upon to deliver either sacrament—or both—this windy winter day.

  And they were the last tasks he would have expected to perform as he took his first steps into his new church, Christ Church of Natchez.

  Samuel crashed through the doorway and crossed the vestibule at a run, the sweet tones of an unfamiliar song grating against his nerves. He snatched off his hat and pitched it toward the nearest corner. As he burst into the chilly, high-ceilinged sanctuary, voices and organ strains blended into a maddening refrain from the choir gathered near the pulpit.

  Did none of them understand someone was in trouble? Barreling down the sloped center aisle, he scanned the massive room, from pulpit to vestibule, from balcony to white-paneled box pew doors. No one lay suffering on the carpet. No one sat propped in a pew, gasping for air...

  “Help me—”

  “Stop the music!” Samuel shouted over the choir and waved his arms to get their attention. “Someone here is ill, or injured or—”

  “Who? Someone with you?” In the sudden silence, a dark-haired woman turned from leading the musicians and rushed toward him, her deep green skirts rustling. Perhaps she could help him discover the person in need.

  Although stunning with her ivory skin and delicate features, she looked but a mere five or so years older than his Emma—twenty years of age at most.

  He turned from her and crossed to the pulpit, then glanced upward. “It was someone inside. I heard it from out on the lawn. Perhaps we should search the balconies.”

  Her light, fast footfalls followed close behind. “Wait a moment—let’s think this through. What did you hear? Was it a man or a woman?”

  The compassion in her voice would have moved him under different circumstances. He turned to look into gold-flecked green eyes, sparkling in the light of the overhead gasolier. Those soft, gentle eyes could easily have diverted him from his task—if they belonged to a more mature lady. If he would ever again allow a woman to distract him. And if some poor soul didn’t need his help. “A woman is in trouble, and we don’t have time to stand around and chat about it. Did you not hear the cries for help? She screamed in agony and—”

  The twitters from the sopranos and altos interrupted his words, along with his train of thought.

 
Had he imagined the sounds? Surely not, but he’d heard of men suffering such maladies after experiencing the terrors of war.

  “Father, please...”

  His daughter’s whisper jarred him back to the present. He turned to Emma, who held his hat and muddy Bible. To his shame, he’d forgotten she was there. Her reddened cheeks cut through him, slicing yet another piece from his heart. Seemed he spent more time embarrassing his fourteen-year-old than he did in any other occupation these days. His daughter stood at a distance, more than arm’s length, as she had since he’d fetched her from her Kentucky boarding school two weeks ago.

  Until she turned, head bowed, and dashed back toward the vestibule.

  Where was she going? Why would she bolt this way in the midst of an emergency?

  “Now will you slow down and think?” The woman in green hesitated only a moment and then followed Samuel’s daughter down the aisle. Reaching her, she rested her hand on Emma’s shoulder and spoke into her ear. Emma immediately broke into a bright smile.

  How had the lady won his daughter’s affections so quickly when Samuel could hardly coax a word from her?

  “That was no scream.”

  The words broke into his haggard mind like a swarm of cicadas, interrupting his thoughts. He spun toward the sound. That was it—the voice he’d heard earlier. Shrill, piercing, yet with an unmistakable plantation accent—this was the woman in trouble. Samuel searched the choir for eyes pinched with pain, lips drawn in agony.

  Instead he saw a feisty-looking antique of a lady, her hazel eyes snapping and her wrinkled lips pursed. “What you heard was my solo, sir.”

  Solo? The screeching he’d heard had been—singing? “I beg your pardon, ma’am...”

  His face must have been as red as Emma’s. To insult a woman of her age—it was unthinkable. To do so to a parishioner—intolerable. And in front of other church members—unforgivable.

  How had this happened? He’d shepherded hundreds of men during the war, prayed with the sick, comforted the dying. He’d cared for them with the love of a father. But now, in the first moments of his first day at Christ Church, he was failing.

  Just as he was failing Emma.

  As he scrambled to think of a suitable apology, a man in a stylish suit and ruffled white shirt stepped into the sanctuary. “Chaplain Montgomery.”

  “Colonel Talbot.” He hastened toward his former commander and clasped his hand. If only Samuel had not committed such a blunder, he could have enjoyed reuniting with this friend he’d not seen since Lee’s surrender. Instead he leaned in close to whisper. “I fear I’ve inadvertently insulted a lady in the choir.”

  “You? I doubt you’d know how.”

  “Trust me, I did. I know I heard a woman cry for help, but she said she was singing.” Samuel chanced a glance at the lady, who stood dignified as a dowager among the sopranos who attempted to hide their smiles behind their hands or sheet music.

  The colonel looked in the direction Samuel indicated and then back again. “The lady in black?”

  He nodded. “The one who looks like she wants to cane me.”

  Colonel Talbot covered his mouth with his hand and rubbed his chin, but not before Samuel caught a glimpse of a grin on his face. Even if he hadn’t, the man’s laughing eyes would have given him away.

  “This is not funny, Colonel.”

  He cleared his throat. “You’re right, of course. She used to be a brilliant soprano, but her singing days passed when she left middle age, and no one has the nerve to tell her.”

  “But I distinctly heard her call for help.” Shriek for help would have been more accurate, but Samuel held his tongue.

  The colonel slowly lowered his hand as if unsure he wouldn’t yet give way to an outburst of laughter. “It’s a new hymn called ‘Help Me Be More Like Jesus.’ Since she penned it, we could hardly give the solo to anyone else.”

  “Hardly.” So Samuel had insulted not only the dowager’s voice but her composition, as well. This was worse than he’d first thought. “Who is she?”

  “Missus Reverend Hezekiah Adams. The founding minister’s widow.”

  No. The woman who’d called him to pastor here. Samuel let out a low groan. Missus Adams was, indeed, a dowager—of the church. He pulled his handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed his brow. “I’ve gotten myself into a bind. Only you know how much Emma and I need to stay in Natchez—and why.”

  As they strode toward the choir—and the dowager, the lady in green silently dismissed the singers from the back of the sanctuary, and they trickled out. Emma wiped her little finger under her eyes, no doubt trying to whisk away her tears.

  Tears that Samuel had inadvertently caused.

  No matter what it would take, he had to keep this pastorate, for Emma’s sake. That meant he must win over Missus Adams before she could ship him and Emma back upriver to Vicksburg. Otherwise he could never bring long-overdue happiness to their lives. Happiness they had never yet experienced as a family.

  God had led him here, to Natchez, to Christ Church. To a place of new hope, new beginnings. Of this Samuel was sure. Now he had only to convince the dowager.

  And by God’s grace, he intended to do just that.

  * * *

  Never in Clarissa Adams’s nearly twenty-one years had she seen such a commotion in church. Things wouldn’t calm down anytime soon, either, judging from the fire blazing in Grandmother Euphemia’s eyes.

  Nor had she ever seen anyone insult her grandmother, even unintentionally, and escape the dear woman’s finely honed sarcasm.

  What other new and unexpected thing might happen this day?

  “My father’s not always like this.” The girl set the bowler hat on the nearest pew, drew a handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed at the mud on the Bible.

  With a low laugh, Clarissa leaned in close. “I imagine sometimes he’s even worse.”

  The auburn-haired girl let out a giggle, then she covered her mouth with her hand and lowered her head.

  The poor girl. Her distress made Clarissa unsure who she felt more sorry for—her, Grandmother or the dark-haired father.

  Studying the girl, Clarissa recognized a subtle air about her, an air she’d herself had at that age. The girl’s natural vulnerability and lightheartedness of youth barely peeked through a veneer of stone.

  What tragic event had caused such hardness?

  Clarissa glanced at the red-rimmed eyes and tear-stained cheeks. The few moments she had wept couldn’t account for her appearance. Something or someone had made her cry earlier, that much was certain. Surely the handsome man with the kind eyes hadn’t injured his daughter in some way, had he? It seemed unlikely, but Clarissa turned wary eyes to him. Strange men arrived in postwar Natchez every day, seeking a pretty cotton heiress and an easy fortune—or so they thought. They weren’t to be trusted.

  But who were this father and daughter? And why had they burst in at the end of choir rehearsal?

  Clarissa glanced at the cameo timepiece pinned to her shirtwaist. Ten minutes to one. She had little time to find out before meeting her attorney as he’d requested in his terse note of this morning. “I’m sure he didn’t mean any harm. Fathers don’t realize how they sometimes embarrass their daughters.”

  “Does your father understand you?”

  The pointed edge in the girl’s tone brought back memories of Clarissa’s own family heartbreak, of the fear that had turned her words sharp as Father boarded a riverboat—alone—for the Yazoo Delta that long-ago February day. Memories of the cold wind blowing up to the bluff as Clarissa waved to a parent who didn’t look for her in the crowd. “I think Papa would empathize with me now, if he were here.” Instead of a hundred and twenty miles up the Mississippi River.

  “My mother went to heaven four years ago. I keep wishing Papa would find a new wife and finally be happy.” The girl cast a
wistful gaze at her father. “Maybe he’ll meet someone here in Natchez. Do you know of a lady he might like?”

  “Well, my grandmother is unmarried...” Clarissa pointed toward Grandmother Euphemia in her black widow’s weeds.

  The girl’s giggle made Clarissa smile. Well she knew how a good laugh could make any heartache easier to bear, and equally well she knew the pain of losing a parent. However, although the girl clearly needed a mother, that was a poor reason to wed. Marriages of convenience rarely ended in happiness. “I’m glad you came to town. Please call me Clarissa.”

  “I’m Emma Montgomery.”

  Montgomery? Clarissa’s gaze fixed on the black-suited man who now approached Grandmother Euphemia, his back straight as a Citadel cadet’s. She should have realized this was the Reverend Samuel Montgomery.

  She tried and failed to pull her attention from him, although she could feel Grandmother’s disapproving glare. This was the famed Fighting Chaplain, the war hero who’d saved his entire platoon from the Yankees? The one who’d traveled the South after the War for Southern Independence, using his newfound, widespread popularity to win converts and change lives in every town he entered?

  The man who wielded the sword of the Word as skillfully as he’d brandished his grandfather’s sword to conquer his enemy on a Tennessee battlefield?

  He certainly seemed more like a dignified pastor than a fierce warrior. And at this moment, he looked downright humble.

  As well he should, after what he’d said. Even if he was impossibly handsome and even charming in his embarrassment.

  Clarissa touched Emma’s arm, urging her up the aisle. As they approached the reverend, Graham Talbot and Grandmother, Emma drew a noisy, halting breath that had to come from her toes. Fearing more tears from her, Clarissa dropped an intentional twinkle into her eye and her smile in the hopes of lightening the mood. “Reverend Montgomery, Grandmother Euphemia and I welcome you to Natchez and to Christ Church.”

  He opened his mouth as if to reply, but Grandmother cut him off.