The Newlyweds - Arianne Richmonde Page 0,1

beacon, my wedding gown’s beaded hem and train heavy around my ankles, swishing and swinging and making me feel that my life was indeed fit for a character in some classic romance novel, centuries ago. Then Ashton and I had our first dance, and when he fixed his gaze on me, I felt my heart leap inside my chest all over again, the way it did the very first time we met.

The way it still did when I wasn’t thinking.

“Darling, oh my darling, you look divine!” My reverie was interrupted by Georgia-May, Ashton’s mother, who had been released from her care home—supervised of course—for just a few hours, to partake in the nuptial celebrations. All elegance in her double strand of pearls and pink chiffon dress, she looked at me dreamily for a moment and then a furrow of confusion scrunched her brow, and she suddenly seemed to not remember who I was nor why she was even here at all. The poor lady had Alzheimer’s. Something Ashton always hated to discuss.

I remembered in that brief moment—after my dance with Ashton and between Georgia-May’s hazy confusion and several sips of champagne—confiding in a friend, one time, that I was unhappy about something (I couldn’t remember what), and my friend had told me, “I’m so sorry your life hasn’t turned out exactly as you wanted it to be.” Her words had shocked me and angered me too. But it also gave me a kick up the butt. I decided in that second, I am going to make my life turn out exactly as I want it to be. And no one’s going to stop me.

And here I was now, marrying Dr. Ashton Buchanan.

Two

Everything was perfect for us for the first five months. We honeymooned in St. Barts. Ashton could afford to holiday on exclusive islands like St. Barts. It wasn’t that he was from old money, or even wealth; his father had been a shrimper. Ashton had inherited Distant Sands after his dad’s death. His great-grandfather had owned great chunks of the island—had won the land and several houses in a bet, over a century ago—but Ashton’s father had sold most of it off for practically nothing. Ashton had held onto Distant Sands, though, and its seven-acre lot. His was the only historic mansion that was still left standing. Romantic and beautiful as the house had always been, it was a dilapidated mess during Ashton’s childhood: the roof half caved in, dry rot eating at the wooden wrap-around porches. Passing nearly two centuries, the mansion—a three-story Greek Revival—had served for myriad purposes, notably a hospital during the Civil War. Ashton had made this house what it became: an exquisite piece of history shrouded in splendor and beauty. I say “shrouded” because nobody could look at this antebellum landmark and not feel just a little bit intimidated. Distant Sands could be a museum. Ashton had restored it with love, putting all his heart into everything: the grand, sweeping, curved marble staircase with wrought-iron bannisters lording over the marble-floored entrance hall, lit up by an original Venetian crystal chandelier and where the baby grand piano lived.

Ashton had brought everything back to its former glory. The French windows, the library with mahogany woodwork with top to bottom judge’s paneling. The heart pine and cherry wood inlay parquet floors, the windows—which didn’t look remade at all, of course, but as if they had been there forever.

There were two parlors, one a drawing room with Chippendale settees, where men once drank cognac and smoked cigars, the other where the ladies would “retire” after a formal dinner or sip iced tea and catch up with gossip. The house still retained the air of bygone days, with its Queen Anne wingback chairs, needlepoint and tapestry footstools, and silver tea sets displayed on mahogany or cherry wood sideboards and eighteenth-century cabinets. It was almost as if you could hear their chatter in the walls, the hazy, heated summer days. Ladies with fans sipping long, cool glasses of iced lemonade. I couldn’t help but feel this place would always haunt me—it wasn’t me; I would never fit in, never feel at home here, no matter what I did. Distant Sands. Its name spoke volumes to me. Distant. So true.

Distant Sands maintained its classic, Deep-South antebellum design, with wide wood plantation shutters and upper and lower front porches. The back porch overlooked shaded green wooded land, and the front of the mansion faced the water and a live oak tree of