Chapter Eighteen #2
was something the maid was supposed to do, but she didn’t feel like
taking the time to summon help. She went straight to the kitchen.
Ignoring the surprised cook, she rummaged through the jars until
she found the peppermints. Grabbing the whole jar, she rushed back
to the doorway of the parlor.
Ben was pacing back and forth, and he was
mumbling something under his breath. She had no idea what could
have happened to him. He was an absolute mess.
Mark came in through the front door, and she
ran over to him. “Ben just got here. He said he wanted to talk to
you. He said something bad just happened.” She gestured to the
parlor. “He’s in there.”
Mark gave the butler his hat and leather
briefcase then followed her into the parlor. “What’s going on?” he
asked Ben.
Ben glanced his way then came over to him. “I
married Annabelle.”
“You did what?” both Mark and Natalie asked
in unison.
“I didn’t mean to. It just happened,” Ben
replied with a wince. Then he noticed the jar she was holding.
“Does that have peppermints in it?”
She nodded and lifted the lid.
To her surprise, he took the whole jar and
plopped down in a chair. Then he shoved a couple of pieces into his
mouth.
Natalie gave Mark a startled look. They had
carefully laid out a plan to get everyone in the family together to
talk to Annabelle about Kenneth, and they were supposed to do that
at the dinner Mark’s parents were going to host.
“Excuse us for a moment,” she told Ben. Then
she led Mark aside and whispered, “You didn’t already talk to your
parents, did you?”
“No,” Mark whispered back. “I haven’t had
time to talk to them yet.”
Natalie didn’t know what to think. She took
another good look at Mark, and then, on one accord, they both
bolted back over to Ben.
“What happened?” Mark asked. “How did you get
Annabelle to marry you?”
“I didn’t,” Ben replied after he swallowed a
couple of peppermints. “The outlaws did.”
“Outlaws? What outlaws?” Natalie asked.
“There were three of them,” Ben said. “I
don’t know what they looked like. They all had bandanas over their
faces and hats. I was coming home from helping someone fix a fence
when I heard someone screaming. I followed the direction of the
screams and saw Annabelle running from two men on horseback. Those
men were the outlaws with those bandanas and hats.” Then, as if he
felt it necessary, he added, “I don’t know where the third horse
went.”
“Annabelle was being pursued by outlaws?”
Natalie asked.
Ben nodded and picked out another peppermint
from the jar. “I think she’d managed to get off of one of the
horses. I didn’t see her do it, but by the time I got to them, she
had one of the outlaws rolling over in pain in the grass, and she
was dodging the other two.” He shook his head. “I didn’t think. I
just acted. I saw the other two men advancing on her, and I urged
my horse to hurry over to them. Looking back, I think she probably
could have gotten away from them if I hadn’t intervened.”
“My parents made sure she could take care of
herself if she ever needed to,” Mark replied. “She learned to fight
at an early age.”
“I wish I had known that,” Ben said. “If I
had, I would have left her alone.”
“But you didn’t know, so you intervened and
now you’re married,” Natalie spoke up, encouraging Ben to keep
telling the story.
“Right,” Ben replied. “I called out for the
men to leave her alone, and the next thing I knew, one of the men
had a gun in my face and asked me why I was getting involved. I
said that I knew Annabelle. I had a personal interest in making
sure no harm came to her. They argued that I didn’t have a right to
be interested in her because she was already spoken for. They said
she was to marry someone else.” His eyes grew wide. “That’s when I
blurted it out. I didn’t even think about it. I just said it.”
“Said what?” Natalie pressed, wishing Ben
would just get to the point. The whole story had her on pins and
needles. She didn’t need the drama of him dragging it out.
Ben winced. “I told them she was expecting my
child, so she had to marry me instead of the other man.” Then he
grabbed more peppermints from the jar and put one in his mouth.
“You told them you got her in the family
way?” Mark asked.
“It was wrong. I know it was wrong,” Ben
said. “But it was the only way I could think of to stop them from
hauling her off to marry some unsavory man. I mean, they were
outlaws. I couldn’t let her marry an outlaw.”
“So how did you actually marry her?” Natalie
asked.
“Well, they said if I had actually gotten her
with child, I would do the right thing and marry her,” Ben replied.
“So I told them I was going to marry her. I thought they would let
things end there, but they didn’t. They insisted I make things
right immediately.” He put another peppermint into his mouth. “I
think they did that because they thought I was lying. I’ve never
been good at lying. Mark, you know that.”
“Ben,” Natalie began in an attempt to keep
him focused, “how did you get married to her?”
“They dragged me and Annabelle to a church
and found a preacher to marry us,” Ben said.
“And Annabelle went along with it?” Mark
asked, not hiding his surprise.
Ben winced again. “No. She protested the
entire time, but the preacher kept telling her she should have
thought about saying no before she allowed me to take her
innocence.” He clutched his stomach. “I’m going to be sick.”
“Where is Annabelle right now?” Natalie
asked.
“She’s at her parents,” Ben said. “I wanted
to explain everything, but she refused to let me talk to them. She
won’t even say anything to me.” He looked at Mark. “You know how
mad she was that time we almost ran into her by accident with that
cart and she ended up in the mud? This is much worse.”
“You can’t let Annabelle scare you,” Mark
replied. “She’s harmless. Sure, she seems intimidating, but she’s
really not.”
“You didn’t see the black eye she gave one of
those men,” Ben said. “And that wasn’t the one who was rolling
around in the grass in pain. The more I think about it, the more I
think she’s right. She had the situation under control. She didn’t
need my help.”
“Well, I think it’s wonderful you stepped in
to save her,” Natalie said. “You were trying to protect her.”
Ben shook his head. “She doesn’t see it that
way. She was saving herself when I came along and messed everything
up.”
“But you didn’t mean to,” Natalie insisted.
“Surely, that has to count for something.”
“Annabelle didn’t want to marry me. I just
forced her into something she didn’t want.” His gaze went to Mark.
“Was she still interested in Mr. Gordon’s nephew?”
“The nephew is no good,” Mark said. “You did
her a favor.”
Ben rolled his eyes. “Doing her a favor would
have been coming up with a better lie than saying she was expecting
my child. I should have come up with something better than that.
You would have come up with something better if you’d been there.
You always do a better job of thinking fast when the situation
calls for it.”
Natalie glanced over at Mark, and Mark
shrugged as if to say that it wasn’t his fault people were gullible
enough to believe him.
“I don’t know what to do.” Ben took out a
couple more peppermints from the jar. “Do I go back to your parents
and try to explain things, or should I wait for all of this to calm
down so we can all go back to our lives?”
“You’re married to her,” Natalie said. “You
can’t go back to your life as if the marriage never happened.”
“I can’t?” Ben asked.
“No,” Natalie replied, surprised he even
thought it was a possibility. “Ben, you’re her husband now. You
have a responsibility to her.”
“But she doesn’t want to be married to
me.”
“That doesn’t change the fact that the
preacher married you two.”
Ben stared at her for a moment then looked at
Mark. “Is she right?”
“Yes, she’s right,” Mark said. “Marriage
isn’t like buying a hat. You can’t return a wife for a refund.”
“I didn’t think of that,” Ben nearly
shrieked, dropping the jar.
Natalie hurried to pick it up and gathered
the few peppermints that had fallen to the floor.
“What did you think your life was going to be
like when you were marrying her?” Mark asked, as bewildered as
Natalie felt.
“I don’t know.” Ben paused then shrugged. “I
was only thinking of getting her away from those men.”
“Well, it’s time to start thinking of what
comes next.” Mark helped him to his feet and brushed off a piece of
peppermint that was sticking to his suit jacket. “You’re in love
with Annabelle. You should be glad this happened.”
“How can I be glad when she doesn’t want to
be with me?” Ben asked as Mark pushed him out of the parlor.
Natalie set the jar and peppermints on a
nearby table and hurried after them. While she didn’t consider
herself a snoop, she was dying to know how this was going to turn
out.
“She doesn’t want to be with you now,” Mark
said. “Fortunately for you, you have the rest of your lives to get
her happy about the marriage.”
“I’m sure it’ll take her until we’re old and
gray to stop being mad at me,” Ben muttered.
Mark took his hat from the butler who was at
the door. Natalie wondered if the butler had heard everything.
Probably. He’d been standing by the door the whole time, and Ben
wasn’t exactly the quietest person around.
Though she had nothing to do with the
impromptu marriage, she couldn’t bring herself to make eye contact
with the butler as he gave her a hat to wear. She mumbled a thank
you and put it on her head. Then she followed Ben and Mark as they
headed for Mark’s parents’ residence.