Amethyst turned back the comforter and lay across the bed with a sigh. She was exhausted, and extremely glad they hadn’t planned to travel to New Orleans until tomorrow afternoon.
“Harper,” she ventured as he came and sat beside her, “who is this person?” She pointed to the first page of the guest register, where a practically illegible name was scrawled on the first line.
He read over her shoulder. “I have no idea.”
“Not a friend of yours?”
“I can barely read it.” He chuckled. “What does it say? ’A. Birecled?’ Never heard of ’em.”
“I thought maybe it was the man you hired to set up for the wedding.”
“I didn’t hire anybody. Enoch and his sons took care of everything.” Harper tried to close the book and take it away from her, but she held on. He frowned. “What man?”
“This afternoon, about an hour before the wedding, I went out on the courting porch, and there was a man down in the yard. An old fellow, with gray hair and a beard. He looked as if he’d been through some hard times—you know, expensive clothes, but ragged and worn.”
“I don’t know any such man.”
Amethyst laid the book aside, pushed the vision of the old man out of her mind, and snuggled close to her husband. Husband. She liked the way that sounded, liked the idea of being his wife. Not that she would ever be a traditional wife, of course. She had never been traditional in any way, and had no intention of starting now. But being married to Harper felt so right. As right as anything she had ever done.
Her gaze drifted to the wardrobe, where her wedding dress hung on the door, still adorned by the amethyst-and-pearl brooch.
“Tell me about the brooch, Harper. Where on earth did you find it?”
A shadow flitted across his face. “Do we have to talk about that now?”
Amethyst narrowed her eyes and scrutinized him. “I’d just like to know, that’s all. I had one like it once, a long time ago. It had belonged to my grandmother, and was supposed to be mine on my wedding day It just seems so—well, so miraculous—that you found one like it when you didn’t even know.”
“Your grandmother had one, you say?” His voice was low, muted.
“Almost exactly like it—except that one pearl was missing.”
He was silent for a long time.
“Harper? Is something wrong?”
“One pearl was missing from this one.” He sighed. “I had it replaced before I gave the brooch to you.”
His words fell into Amethyst’s heart like leaden pellets. “This brooch was missing a pearl?”
“Yes.”
She thought about the inscription on the back: Sincerity, Purity, Nobility
“Harper, where did you buy it?”
“I didn’t want to tell you. I was a little ashamed, I guess. I didn’t buy it, Amethyst, I won it.”
Harper felt his neck burn red with embarrassment. Here he was, on his wedding night, confessing to his wife of eight hours that he had obtained her wedding gift in a gambling parlor. He would have let the subject drop right then and there, but she wouldn’t leave it alone.
“You won it?” She jerked at his arm, and her eyes flashed fire. “You’d better tell me the whole story, Harper Wainwright. Immediately.”
He sighed and nodded. “All right. I won it in a poker game—or rather, my friend Sligo did. He was my sergeant overseas, and we got discharged at the same time. We ended up in Memphis, at this little tavern. He got into a poker game and didn’t have any money, and so I staked him—”
“The brooch, Harper,” she said through gritted teeth. “What about the brooch?”
“I’m getting to it. The man running the game thought he had a sure thing—a full house, as I recall. He bet everything, including this brooch, against Sligo’s three hundred dollars.” He paused, remembering. “Sligo had four tens.”
Amethyst stared at him blankly. “That beats a house full, I gather.”
“A full house,” he corrected. “And yes, it does. The man was furious, but what could he do? He gave Sligo the brooch, and Sligo gave it to me.”
“And it had a pearl missing when you got it.”
“Yes. I kept it for years; I don’t know why. Sligo was killed in a bar fight two weeks later—maybe it was just the sentimental attachment to my friend. But there was something else, too—something about the brooch itself. Whenever I looked at it, I couldn’t help thinking there was more to it than just a pretty trinket. It always seemed—I don’t know, alive, maybe—as if it had a heart of its own, and a history. When we fell in love, I decided to give it to you as a wedding present; I figured it was a lot more valuable than anything I could afford to buy for you. But of course I wouldn’t give it to you with a pearl missing.”
He stopped and searched her face.
“Are you angry?”
Amethyst blinked. “For what?”
“That I would give you the winnings from Sligo’s poker game as a wedding present.”
“No,” she said, her voice trailing off absently. “No, Harper, I’m not angry. . . .”
And she wasn’t. Baffled, maybe. Confused, most certainly. But angry? No, she wasn’t angry.
“It was the most valuable thing I had ever owned,” he went on. “At least I think it’s valuable.”
“It’s valuable all right. As priceless as the one who wears it is to the one who gives it.”
Harper shook his head. “Excuse me?”
“My grandmother’s journals. That’s what Grandpa Silas’s grandmother told him about the brooch.”
“Then it truly is precious,” he murmured, stroking her arm. “You know I love you, don’t you, sweetheart? That I’d never do anything to hurt you?”
“Yes, I know.” Despite his tender words, Amethyst could not keep the tears from her eyes.
“Then why are you crying?”
She took a deep, shuddering breath. “Harper, do you know the name of that gambler? The one who bet the amethyst brooch?”
She waited while he searched his memory. “Yes, I think I do. Sligo made fun of his name, baiting him, trying to make him give away his hand. Said it was a prissy name. No, that wasn’t it. A pansy name.”
A chill ran up Amethyst’s spine. “A pansy name? What was the gambler’s response?”
“He seemed a little agitated, I think, but he tried to hide it. His name was—wait, it’ll come to me. Benedict. Yes. Avery Benedict.”
Amethyst shut her eyes, and every muscle in her body stiffened as the truth washed over her. Avery. Benedict. Pansy.
She grabbed up the guest book and flipped to the first page. “Look again.” She pointed to the name scrawled on the top line.
“Benedict!” Harper said. “A. Benedict!” He furrowed his brow in a frown. “But why would a gambler from Memphis sign his name in our wedding book?”
“The man I saw from the courting porch this afternoon,” Amethyst whispered. “That poor, bedraggled fellow. That was your gambler. Avery Benedict. My father.”