Jesse drew her forward, his strong hand at her waist. They were nearly of the same height and he didn’t have to bend far to reach her lips. His were gentle and firm on hers, a chaste, respectable kiss, but Diamond felt a spark zip between them. She found him attractive, God help her, and it seemed he might reciprocate the attraction. Could they have a real marriage?
They signed the register, Diamond using her new name for the first time. Diamond Weber. It sounded like a cross between fine jewelry and a charcoal grill. A giggle rose in her throat and she let it escape as a tentative smile. She now belonged to the man in front of her, for better or worse. She could only hope for the better.
Fourteen
Chapter 14
“It was kind of them to do this,” Jesse whispered in Diamond’s ear. They sat in a cozy restaurant where the wedding guests had gathered after the ceremony.
Diamond nodded. She had expected little more than a furtive ceremony in an empty church with Bryce and Ari as witnesses. Dishes clattered as the staff served chicken and dumplings. On a side table, a cake took the place of honor. The guests were kind and other than the two older couples, seemed to know nothing of Diamond’s true origins. It almost seemed like a real wedding.
“Thank you for the pearls.”
“I wanted to get you diamonds, for your name, but my budget didn’t run high enough.”
A pear-shaped diamond sparkled on her finger, but the rings they had exchanged were also compliments of the Pooles. “I’m sorry I have nothing for you.”
“I have everything I need. I only wish we could spend more time together, but as soon as I deliver you to my father, I must report for duty.”
Diamond twirled her wineglass, uneasy at being left in a stranger’s care. “Too bad your family couldn’t be here.”
He took her hand, stilling its restless energy. “I’m sure you miss your own family. Is your mother still alive? You told me your father died in the Mexican War, which must not be true.”
“My dad died in a war in Afghanistan, but my mother is still alive. We’re not close, but my disappearance must be hard on her.”
“It saddens me that the United States is still fighting wars. And I’m sorry about your mother. My father and I don’t always see eye to eye, but he’d miss me if I vanished. He’d want to know what happened to me. I know it can’t replace your own family, but my family will now be yours, too. Our marriage may surprise my father, but he will come around, especially if you don’t antagonize him.”
“You want me to pretend to be someone other than who I really am.” She pulled her hand free and dropped it in her lap.
“No, but he’s easier to get along with if you pretend to agree with him.”
Diamond shook her head. “I find it hard to believe that you joined the Confederate Army, and your brother the Union, just because he told you to. My mother hated me studying journalism in college, after what happened to my father, but that only made me more determined to become a reporter. But then, I’ve always been stubborn.” And look where it’s gotten me.
“I’m not trying to change you. If you want to knock heads with my old man, be my guest. But if you want your life to be a little easier, let him think you’re on his side.”
He probably should try to change her. She’d get in less trouble. And she just didn’t have the energy to keep fighting. “I felt a need to expose the truth, but I didn’t totally disagree with my mother. I wanted to cover local stories and stay out of war zones.”
“Yet you ended up in the middle of a civil war.”
“Ironic, huh?”
Before Jesse could respond, a waitress approached. “It’s time to cut the cake.” They followed her over to the table. Although the cake boasted a single layer, instead of the multi-layered confection Diamond had once imagined having at her wedding, flowers made of icing decorated the top. She took the knife from the waitress and cut the first slice.
“Do we feed it to one another?” she asked Jesse.
“Yes. Still a custom in your day?” He spoke softly so no one would hear.
She nodded, suspecting Victorian couples didn’t grind the cake into each other’s faces. She broke off a piece and raised it to Jesse’s mouth and he did the same to her. She’d fed him before, when he was ill, dripping water down his throat, but this felt different. Her fingers tingled where they touched his lips and the vanilla flavor of the cake burst in her mouth as he fed her. It wasn’t as sweet as other wedding cakes she had eaten, but it was good and light as air.
Bryce raised his glass for a toast, wishing them health and happiness, and even sounding as if he meant it.
The waitress took over the job of slicing and distributing the cake, allowing the couple a chance to mingle. Since they didn’t know most of the guests, they wandered over to Bryce and Ari.
“Thank you for all this,” Diamond said. “I didn’t expect an actual celebration.”
“Every girl deserves a wedding day,” Ari said, “even if the situation is not ideal. I should have married Bryce before Hannah was born, but he had to untangle himself from a previous engagement. Because we already had a child, the priest almost didn’t allow us to marry in his church.”
“A sizeable donation cleared his conscience,” Bryce said.
Humor sparkled in Ari’s eyes. “Whatever you had to do was well worth it. A piece of paper makes everything legal, but it can’t warm your heart like a memory.”
And these people, people she had once seen as adversaries, had given her a memory. She still wished she’d
