Who Loves Them? (Who--? Series) Read online

  “But…” Christina stammered, “…what if he’s awful? What if he’s cruel, or selfish?”

  “I wouldn’t let you marry an abusive man, Christina. Give me a bit of credit. I am your grandfather, and I love you. I would never see you harmed. I cannot promise that your personalities will be a perfect fit, but marriage isn’t about romance and flowers, it’s about a partnership, and with dedication, that can be had easily if both partners respect one another. Gordon is a good and respectable man, and he will make sure you are happy and cared for.”

  Christina flinched at the mention of his name. “And am I going to meet Gordon today?”

  Christian shook his head. “Gordon hasn’t been told yet. We thought it was better…let the boy sow his wild oats, so to speak, without knowing he has a fiancée. He will be told in due time.”

  Christina laughed, inwardly fuming at the double standard that allowed her fiancé to play around in the interim, while she was expected to “keep herself tidy” for her future husband. It was ridiculous. She had half a mind to run down to the swimming hole and let Matthew, her best friend’s brother, get to second base just out of pure rebellion. She was angry enough to actually speak her mind. “So I have been carefully kept pure as the driven snow while he is out ‘sowing his wild oats’ with everything in a skirt?” When her grandfather didn’t respond, she knew she was pushing his limits, so she tried a different tact. “So what if Gordon falls in love with someone else? What will happen to your precious family?”

  Christian chuckled. “Then he will have to give her up and do his duty. But I doubt that will be a problem. He’s young, only four years older than you. He’s away at the university right now. Boys at the university don’t fall in love, Christina.”

  She sighed, defeated. “So when is this wedding to take place?”

  “The engagement will be announced after your twenty-first birthday, once the social season starts. The wedding will be the following spring.”

  Christina sunk back into the chair. “This is really happening. I’m going to be married in two years. What about school? I wanted to go to the university and study….” She suddenly saw all of her dreams being snuffed out right before her eyes.

  Her grandfather cut her off. “You will get married, have children, and keep house for your husband. It may seem old-fashioned to you, but our families have been doing things this way for decades, and there is no need for it to change. You may read and study all you like in your private time, keep an entire library if you wish, but your primary focus must be your husband. I am telling you about the arrangement now because I know it is a shock, and I want you to have time to think about it and prepare. This is your life, Christina,” he finished gently. “I want you to be as happy as you can be. But nothing will change what has been decided.”

  Chris shook her head. “No. No, I’m sorry, but this is not going to happen. Did you ever stop to think about how I might feel? Sure, I wasn’t born yesterday, but seriously…you can’t just sell me off. I have plans! You can’t just take them away from me. You’re a good, kind person.”

  Her grandfather sighed. “It’s not like that, Christina. It was a business deal that helped save our family, and it helped reunite two families. I knew that you would be unhappy about this.”

  Chris chewed on her bottom lip and felt tears well in her eyes. “Make my family proud? I thought graduating from the university with honors would make my family proud. Don’t you care that I want my own life? That I want to make my own decisions? Do you even believe in love?”

  “Chris…” her grandfather tried to clasp her hand, but she pulled it away.

  “No. You don’t.”

  Her grandfather sighed and ran a tired hand through his thinning hair. “There’s nothing I can do. Unless you can turn back time and damn us all to poverty, you must accept your fate.”

  She nodded, her hands clenching and unclenching in her lap. For a moment, she hated them all – her mother, her father, her grandfather. She knew she would do her duty to her family. It was who she was. She vaguely heard the study door open, and her grandfather get up and speak to first her father, and then her mother, as they entered. She vaguely noticed as she stood up, apologized for her shock to her grandfather, and hugged her ecstatic mother. She vaguely saw the frown on her father’s face and registered some displeasure there. She drifted out of the study and up the stairs, where she sunk onto her bed and cried.

  How could her grandfather be so cruel? True, she had never been overly fond of him, but that was because they had never really gotten to know each other. Now she knew why. He knew it would be more difficult to give her the news that she was already married if they were close. She sat up and beat her fists upon the walls. What did he expect of her? That she behaves like a prim and proper woman like the women in his time? They lived completely different lives. The women of her day weren’t like the women of his. Surely he knew this! He was a smart, intelligent man! She frowned. No, this was not going to happen, no matter how much he, and her family, protested that it would. She was not some old chew toy ready to be given away to a new owner.

  Why was her mother so happy about the situation? She was her only daughter! Surely she didn’t want to give her away so soon. Christina began to cry. Had she always known? Of course she had….it was silly to think her mother ever had her best interests in mind. She rolled over and screamed into her pillow and fell into a restless sleep, punctuated by dreams of her in a white dress, standing in a giant church with a priest marrying her to a faceless man.

  ****

  Mardi Gras that year, was of course, uneventful, Chris was usually lively with excitement, yet this year all her hopes and dreams faded away. Fat Tuesday was more of a sombre occasion that Chris would have liked, despite the fact that the Kings Cake party was quite lively and exciting. Chris wore a purple and pink taffeta dress and tried to stay away from her mother as much as she could.

  On the streets were: men and boys, women and girls, white and black, yellow and brown, grotesque, quizzical, diabolic, horrible, strange masks, and disguises. They appeared with heads of beasts and birds, beasts and birds with human heads; demi-beasts, demi-fishes, snakes' heads and bodies with arms of apes; man-bats from the moon; mermaids; satyrs, beggars, monks, robbers. They paraded and marched on foot, on horseback, in wagons, carts, coaches, cars, and in rich confusion, up and down the streets, wildly shouting, singing, laughing, drumming, fiddling, and all throwing flour while they broadcasted screams in high pitch voices as they went their reckless ways.

  Despite the rich excitement, Chris felt like she was a bird trapped in a cage. She smiled and spoke only when she was spoken to, and danced only when she was asked. She hardly ate anything, and tried to avoid her mother as much as she could. She felt like crying the whole entire time, and yet the day seemed to go on without anybody taking any notice. Nobody asked how she was feeling, since she hid her feelings so well. How was she supposed to be excited when she was soon to be married to a man she didn’t even know? She sighed. She only had a few years left of freedom…she had better make the most of it while she still could.

  Suddenly, her hands were full of drinks. She ate hardly anything, so the alcohol went straight to her head. She wondered whether she should eat some of the cake, but every time she hovered near it, her mother swatted her away.

  ****

  She didn’t notice she was drunk until she began having trouble standing up. All of a sudden the world started to lean over, and she had to focus to balance. She vaguely heard her mother tell her to lie down, but she ignored her and continued drinking. She couldn’t remember speaking to anyone, but she remembered laughing a lot, mainly to stop herself from crying. After a while she found herself slouched on the lounge, an empty wine glass in her hand. She stayed there for a while, watching everyone laughing and celebrating. No one seemed to notice her, which made her feel even more depressed. Was this how her life was going to be? Cast into the shadows and no one to care about what she wa
s doing or how she was acting, or whether she spoke to anyone at all? She sighed. She’d better get up and wash her face and return to the party.

  Her mother was telling everyone about Chris’ engagement, and Christine sullenly followed her around, smiling when she was supposed to, and hugging great aunts who probably didn’t even know her name. She felt like a slave and wished she could jump on a steamboat that would carry her down the Mississippi and away from her chaotic life. She imagined finding a flat in the Quarter and creating a whole new identity for herself. Her parents would never look for her there. They’d search up and down the streets of the Garden District, believing she’d take counsel with her “friends” who had been invited to the party. And by the time they reached the Quarter, she would have already moved into her campus room at Loyola, away from her family. She sighed. Her plan would never work. Of course her parents would know she had enrolled. And even if she moved away, they would still know. She knew her mother would contact every school in the state, and every school in the country, if she had to. She wouldn’t stop looking until she found her, and Chris would be forced to marry regardless. She frowned. What she wouldn’t give to be able to get away from it all. It wasn’t fair.

  Chapter 3

  Turks and Caicos, 2012

  The balmy island breeze felt magnificent on Chris’s face as she sipped her margarita, the third she’d had so far that afternoon. It was pleasant to be able to drink in public at last. The bartender hadn’t carded her, but she’d flashed her shiny new identification at him anyway, updated shortly before the impromptu birthday trip on which her best friend, Kate, had whisked her away.

  Her twenty-first birthday had been a typical celebration, a black-tie formal dinner where wine and champagne had flown freely and her mother had dressed her, as usual. The color had been wonderful, a deep emerald green, but it had been strapless, with a wide A-line skirt, the typical princess-y style dress that her mother loved. There were times she felt like her mother’s doll--there to be dressed and coiffed, while she just stood there, staring into her reflection in the mirror. Christina would have preferred something sleek, made of silk instead of taffeta. She had worn the earrings that her father had given her on her eighteenth birthday to irk her mother, instead of the cascading diamond earrings her mother had tried to loan her from her own collection, and the beautiful token from Lilly which she had clasped onto a silver chain. She missed Lilly, and wondered what she was doing. Was she still an ineligible bachelorette? Or had she finally married? She wished Lilly could have come with her, but her mother forbid it, saying: “You are in no way, shape or form, to continue your association with that girl. It’s time to act like the woman you need to be!” Still, Christina missed her, and the infrequent letters she received from her friend were not the same as seeing her in person.

  She tried to shrug off the annoyance. Kate had quickly intervened, telling Christina the next day to pack for a beach vacation. Kate had inherited a chunk of her trust fund on her own twenty-first birthday, and she had used a sizeable amount to take herself and Christina to this gorgeous resort, far away from parents, grandfathers, and arranged marriages. Her mother approved of Kate over Lilly, which of course, Christina knew she would. Kate’s family was like her own--elegant, poised, and rich. She even had the same snobbish-type mother who only cared about her family’s appearance. Half of this extravagant vacation was probably a result of Christina finally telling Kate about her engagement, she mused. Kate, whose parents were more forward-thinking and were sending her to the university instead of dooming her to eternal servitude, had been horrified. It felt really good to have someone on Chris’s side who felt outrage for her.

  Kate had gone over a dozen escape plans until Chris had finally held a tired hand up and said grimly, “It’s happening, Kate. So be prepared to put on a hideous dress of my mother’s choosing and stand next to me as my maid of honor and force a smile, because there’s no way out of this. Not without alienating my entire family. I’ve spoken to Lilly about it and there’s nothing we can do. She even thought of hiring people to kidnap me! But it’s no use.” Chris knew that was something she would never do. She could never run away and hide from her family.

  “To tell you the truth, I was surprised you named me maid of honour, since I knew you and Lilly are such good friends,” Kate told Chris.

  Chris shrugged. “It’s not up to me. But don’t worry – I am really happy that you are. I am sure you will make the day bearable. I don’t even know if Lilly and her family are going to be invited.”

  Kate smiled. “Of course they will be. Your mother couldn’t stand another scandal!”

  Chris smiled. No matter how independent she liked to think she was, she had been raised in luxury, and she was used to privilege. The thought of striking out on her own, penniless and without the structure of the tight-knit society she had grown up in, was terrifying. She knew that she was not cut out for it. If her fate was to marry this Gordon, then she would resign herself to it--after another margarita, or two.

  Kate was in the process of trying to flag down the bartender, brazenly adjusting her skimpy bikini top as she did so, when she suddenly stopped dead. “Oh my God, Chris.”

  Christina looked up from her margarita. “What?”

  “Look over there. That guy, underneath the umbrella. With the ice queen.”

  Christina glanced over in the direction that Kate was looking and swallowed hastily. Sitting under an umbrella two tables away from the bar was the most devastatingly handsome man she had ever seen. He was wearing cargo shorts and a short-sleeved button-down shirt, half undone, revealing a swath of tanned, muscular chest. He had thick black hair and full lips, and his arms…Chris felt a little dizzy. She’d studiously avoided all contact with men, even playfully, for the last two years. It was not fair to her or them since she was already “sold.” She felt a little overwhelmed just by looking at him.

  He was sitting with a beautiful blonde, a rail-thin model type wearing a skimpy white bikini and bright blue sarong. She was drawing more than a few admiring stares from the men who were around them when their wives and girlfriends weren’t looking, but she ignored them all. The ice queen looked annoyed at something the handsome guy had said, and waved a delicate hand toward the bar. He shrugged nonchalantly and stood up, frowning at her.

  “Oh my God, he’s coming over here.” Kate squealed, adjusting her top again. “Gosh, he’s beautiful.”

  “Mmmm,” Chris mumbled noncommittally, staring into her drink. She could feel her face flushing already, not a pretty look on a redhead. The closer he got, the more awkward Chris felt.

  He approached the bar where they were sitting. Chris glanced up just long enough to see that his eyes were the most startling shade of blue she had ever seen, before she returned to focusing on the glass in her hand. Even though he was still standing about six inches away, she felt as though he were looming over her. His presence was palpable.

  Kate, ever the oblivious flirt, chirped hello at him. He smiled politely, motioning to the bartender. “A beer for me and another strawberry margarita for Mindy.” His voice was smooth and cultured, with just the slightest undertone of an old Southern accent. He turned to face Kate, the polite smile still on his face. “Enjoying the sun?”

  Kate nodded. “It’s beautiful out today. I’m Kate, and this is my friend, Christina.” She waved her hand at a still red-faced Chris. “It’s her birthday.”

  He smiled a bit more authentically. “Well then, happy birthday. I’m Gordon. Gordon Buck. My friends call me Gordy.”

  Christina jerked upwards in her seat and choked on her margarita, coughing until her face turned a very unpleasant shade of purple. Kate had gone a flat, paper white. “Then you’re….”

  Christina cut her off, trying to speak once she had finished choking. “You’re very nice to wish me a happy birthday. Are you on vacation?”

  Kate looked blankly at her friend, but Gordon answered Christina directly. “Yes, with my fiancée,
Mindy.”

  “Fiancée?” Kate squeaked. Christina shot her a warning look.

  Gordon smiled quizzically. “Yes. We haven’t told our families yet, we wanted to enjoy a vacation; just the two of us before we break the news. My mother is a bit controlling and will not be very pleased.” He accepted the drinks from the bartender. “I hope you enjoy your birthday, Christina.” He walked away to re-join the blonde, leaving Kate with her mouth half open and Christina’s hands trembling. Christina was so shocked she couldn’t seem to get a deep breath.

  Kate grabbed Chris’s hand and pulled her away from the bar and inside the nearest ladies’ room. “What the hell, Christina? That’s him. That is your fiancé! Unless there’s another man with a Southern accent named Gordon Buck whose nickname happens to be Gordy! And he’s engaged. What are you going to tell your mother?”

  “He said their parents don’t know,” Christina said weakly. “And Kate, he doesn’t know. My grandfather told me two years ago they were keeping it a secret from him so he could enjoy being in college without the burden of knowing he had a fiancée at home. I thought they would have told him by now, though! He seems old enough!”

  Kate’s eyes widened. “So he’s been allowed to be the rich playboy all over campus and who knows where else, while you’ve had to be miss prim and proper until your wedding? He can do whatever he wants with ‘Mindy.’ and you’re expected to save yourself for him? If that is not a gender double standard, I don’t know what is.” Kate was outraged, and getting really worked up. “That is ridiculous! He should have been expected to do the same thing!”