The Book of James by Ellen J. Green Read Free Book Online

cheek. “See you in ten minutes in front of the altar.” He held out his hand to Edward Monroe. “Sir. Very nice to see you.”
    Cora’s father shook his hand and then stared after him as the
    young man sauntered on toward the ballroom. Cora jumped in.
    “Bradford’s best man. Another lawyer.”
    “Bloodsuckers. All of them. Let’s get on with it, shall we?”
    The ceremony was a blur followed by noise, activity. A plate
    full of food she could barely eat. People touching her. Laughter.
    Photographs. She was pulled in all directions by strangers. Final y the newlyweds stood together to cut the cake. Cora’s insides
    quaked. All eyes were on her. Her father was only a few feet away.
    40
    ELLEN J. GREEN
    Bradford cut a piece of the five-tiered masterpiece and fed it to her.
    She managed to slide a slice onto the plate, but her hand shook,
    and before she could fork a bite into his mouth, the fine bone-
    china plate slipped to the ground, smashing against the bricks. The cake landed on Bradford’s shoe. He stared down in dismay.
    All chatter stopped except for the strains of violin in the dis-
    tance. Cora dropped to her knees to wipe the icing off. She heard whispers around her, muffled laughter, but kept her head down
    and wiped more furiously. Bradford stayed silent.
    His mother final y came to her side and pulled her up by her
    arm. “Let the maid, dear. Come.” She wiped at Cora’s dress with a linen napkin. “Not the most dignified position for a bride during the ceremony. Hmmm? What were you thinking?”
    Later, her father murmured in her ear, “I didn’t need to make
    a laughingstock of you—you did it yourself. Dropping to your
    knees like a slave or a whore. Maybe Bradford will find use for
    you after al .”
    The words seared in her memory. For years afterward, she
    could tell by the look in Bradford’s eyes that if he could have taken back one day in his life, it would have been the day he married her.
    Without question.
    He’d learned the hard way that when you marry a person, you
    marry their family. And money or not, the impact was the same.

CHAPTER 9
    The quaintness of Dylan’s house took me by surprise. It was a small yellow colonial with dark-green shutters, just a few blocks from
    Germantown Avenue. A white picket fence wrapped neatly around
    the tiny front yard, encircling the house in suburban perfection.
    Dylan didn’t seem like the white-picket-fence type. He didn’t seem like the historic-colonial type either. I would have put him in one of those penthouse apartments I’d seen near the art museum, in
    the middle of the city.
    I sat on the toilet-seat lid while he picked gravel out of my
    hand with a pair of tweezers. He was perched on the edge of the
    tub, concentrating diligently on his task.
    “I don’t believe you could be so dumb. How did you manage
    to fall?”
    “Bad choice of footwear for a sprint in the woods.” I winced
    in pain.
    “Sorry,” he muttered.
    “That house was incredible. Like something in a movie. Have
    you ever been inside?”
    “No, Nick never invited anyone home with him.”
    42
    ELLEN J. GREEN
    “He was talking about that house right before he died.”
    Dylan stopped poking at my hand and studied my face. “What
    did he say about it?”
    “He was on morphine, so I thought he was just delirious. He
    described it for me and kept telling me I had to come here . . .” I stopped. I didn’t want to say anything more.
    “Did he say why?”
    I shook my head. “No. He did say something terrible had hap-
    pened there. Did it?”
    “Nick disappeared when he was sixteen or so.” Dylan hesi-
    tated. “People whispered about it, like there was some big secret behind it al .”
    He motioned to my leg. “You’re getting blood on your pants.”
    I didn’t realize I’d been running my hand all along the knee of my slacks while he was talking. The khaki fabric was soiled with dirt and red smears from my wound. He took my hand in his again. “If
    I were