Christmas Mail Order Bride - A Historical Mail Order Bride Novel (Western Mail Order Brides: Book 1) (18 page)

Penelope listened to this revelation with fascination. “Did Anders know?” she finally croaked through her constricted throat.

Matilda shook her head. “I really don’t know. We never told him, but he may have suspected anyway. As he grew, he showed such an unnatural hatred for the younger boy who was, in fact, his brother, I often wondered if he did know and resented him or felt threatened by his presence.”

“This is incredible!” Penelope marveled, glancing from one character in this elaborate drama to another.

“At any rate, Janet and Caleb have kept the secret admirably until now,” Matilda acknowledged. “I only felt it right to inform you. So many things about our family were kept from you before you agreed to marry Anders. You should feel under no obligation to remain here, or to pay any loyalty to our family. Especially now.”

“What do you mean?” Penelope asked.

“Don’t you see?” Matilda pointed out. “Caleb is the only heir to George’s fortune. He may not be a legitimate son, but he has a legal claim to inherit George’s empire. In any case, I didn’t think that you would mind.” She crinkled her eyes at Penelope.

Penelope blushed and looked away, abashed that, of all the people around her, Matilda would have guessed at the affection between herself and Caleb.

“Don’t worry, dear,” Matilda reassured her. “There’s nothing more to fear. There is now no barrier to you pursuing whatever romance you care to pursue with Caleb or with anyone else. Caleb will take possession of the ranch, and when he is ready, he can go into town and confer with Mr. Doyle at the bank about the accounts. I’m sure there’s a lot to sort out. God only knows what Anders has done with our money. But it’s Caleb’s money now. And this is his house. I’m sure he will keep Bill Olsen on as foreman, but whatever further decisions remain are his to make. It’s a tall order for a young man to fill, but I feel confident he will rise to the occasion and conduct himself somewhat better than Anders did.”

“I just cannot believe this!” Penelope expostulated again. “It seems too incredible to believe!”

“So before you go making any decisions about your future,” Matilda asserted, “I felt you had a right to know the whole truth. You are still free to leave, of course, and we will all do whatever is necessary to see you happily on your way. But I think there may be a place for you here, after all.”

“But what about you?”
Penelope returned. “What will you do?”

“Mrs. West,” Caleb interjected. “
will stay here as long as she wishes. She will live here for the rest of her life, if she wishes.” His voice boomed around the room with an authority Penelope didn’t recognize, and she stared up at him with fresh admiration. “I don’t know if I’m comfortable living in this house right away, anyway.”

“Oh, but you must!” Penelope maintained. “It just wouldn’t be right, for you to spend another minute outside of it, after everything you’ve endured. You should have been living in it all along.”

“Never mind about that,” Caleb rejoined. He crossed the room and lifted her by the hand from her seat. “We’ll both stay here, and we’ll live together here as man and wife, just as soon as the sheriff finishes finalizing the paperwork documenting Anders’s death, and just as soon as all the lawyers finish sorting out George’s will. Until then, you can stay in your same room, or move to another one, if you want to, and I’ll get myself wedged in somewhere. We’ll work it out.”

“Oh, it’s the answer to all our prayers!” Penelope exclaimed.

“And you, Janet,” Matilda crossed to stand next to her former housekeeper. “I beg you to come back, too. I beg you to forgive me for ever allowing Anders to drive you away. It was base and unworthy of me, and I shall live to regret it all my life.”

“Nonsense, ma’am!”
Janet countered. “You must forget all about the past, and you mustn’t ask me for any more forgiveness.”

“Well, then, at least come back and stay here with us,” Matilda pleaded. “At least stay here, for Caleb’s sake. I couldn’t live with myself if I thought I had done anything to keep you apart. Please, I beg you, come back.”

“I’ll come back,” Janet nodded. “We’ve got a lot of work to do around here before tomorrow.”

“What happens tomorrow?” Penelope wondered.

“Have you forgotten, my dear?” Matilda snickered. “Tomorrow night is Christmas Eve. I imagine the events of the last few days have left you bereft that we would ever have Christmas at all. But now, everything has come to its destined conclusion, and nothing remains but to celebrate the blessings left to us.”

“I had completely forgotten about it!” Penelope cried. “Oh, how could I forget about Christmas?
And I so looked forward to celebrating it here.”

“Well, now you can,” Matilda affirmed. “Janet, you deserve so much better than to be treated like a housekeeper, but you are the only person in the world I trust to make a proper Christmas dinner. Would you please make Christmas dinner for us tomorrow, and the four of us can enjoy it together.”

“I would be honored to,” Janet confirmed. “I wouldn’t feel comfortable in this house as anything other than a housekeeper, and wouldn’t let anyone else make Christmas dinner. Not while I’m around. No, sir. I even brought my recipe box. We can whip up some of your favorite cakes and have them ready for supper tonight and for dinner on Christmas Day.”

“What about Mrs. Wallace?” Penelope pondered.

“She is welcome to stay, too, if she wants to,” Matilda decided. “There’s plenty of room in this house for us all. But I don’t think Mrs. Wallace will stay here. I don’t think she likes it here very much.”

“Right!”
Janet clapped her hands. “Now, let’s get to it!” She bustled out of the room, and Matilda went with her to confront Mrs. Wallace.

Caleb drew Penelope close to him. “So, there you go. Here we are, together. Are you happy about that?”

“I’m ecstatic!” she breathed. “I just can’t believe you’ve lived in that bunkhouse all this time, when you were George’s son all along. It just boggles my mind!”

“It’s the rightful way of things,” Caleb told her. “If anyone told Anders I was his brother, he would never have rested until he saw me dead. As it is, it worked out for all of us.”

“All of us except Anders, you mean,” she pointed out.

He shrugged. “He got what he wanted in the end, too, I reckon. He got what was coming to him, leastways.”

“So, we can stay here, together, and no one can stop us?” she murmured.

“That’s right,” he grinned.

“And you won’t send me away anymore?” she ventured.

“No,” he conceded. “I won’t.”

To test this assertion, she embraced him and kissed him. He took her in his arms in turn and kissed her in return, fully, lingeringly, and hungrily. His lips parted, and their tongues mingled in the building of passion.

“Do you believe me now?” he breathed.

“Yes!” she sighed.

“And will you believe me if I tell you,” he asked, “that I have to go talk to Bill about the work going on out on the range? I have to tell him everything that’s happening, so he’ll know why I’m not at work
anymore. And then I’ll come back. Do you believe that?”

“Yes!” she whispered, kissing him again. “I’ll wait for you to come back!”

“I’ll be supervising the work out there from now on,” he considered, pulling away from her. “It’ll be a long way from bobbing my head and saying, ‘Yes, sir’ to every man on the job. It’s gonna take some getting used to. That’s for sure.”

“You’ll be splendid!” she squeezed his hand. “You’ll bring this place into shape in no time!”

“I’ll have to,” he remarked ruefully, moving toward the door. “From what I hear, Anders made quite a mess of this operation in the short time he had it in his hands. I hate to see the bank records.” With another kiss of farewell, he left the house. She listened to the footfalls of his boots crossing to the bunkhouse.

She grew tired waiting for him to return, and eventually, she retired to her room and fell asleep, still waiting. The morning light bringing her the remembrance of the last night’s discoveries brought with it a restoration of her hopes and dreams. To her surprise, she found only Matilda at the breakfast table, although Janet served them with her old silent reserve.

“Where’s Caleb?” she asked Matilda, when she assumed her seat at the table.

“He already left to go out with the men,” her mother-in-law informed her. “He said you were already asleep in bed when he came in last night, and you hadn’t come down yet when he left. He said he would be back later tonight for Christmas Eve.”

“Oh, good!” she exclaimed. “I was afraid something had happened, and he decided not to stay in the house after all!”

“Nonsense, dear!”
Matilda chided her. “He wouldn’t stay anywhere away from you for a single minute, if he could help it.”

“But how did you know?” Penelope inquired.

“Oh, anyone who looked twice could see it written plain as day on both your faces,” Matilda laughed. “Ever since you first showed up here, he’s been mooning around like he couldn’t see the ground in front of him, and every time anyone mentions him, your face lights up like a Christmas tree! Then, he rode off halfway across the county to bring you home when you were lost, and neither of you could keep your eyes off each other ever since. If I didn’t know before, the beating he took from Anders, when he tried to protect you, confirmed my suspicions.”

“Do you think Anders knew?” Penelope wondered.

“I don’t think so,” Matilda rejoined. “George might have, but Anders was out of his mind with drink long before you ever arrived here. He was bound to imagine the worst, no matter what. I never thought finding Anders a wife was a very good idea, but George wanted grandchildren so badly, he went ahead with the project. Even Anders wasn’t very thrilled with the idea. He went along with George, but he didn’t want the responsibility. He wanted to keep on drinking and playing cards.”

“I still
can’t hardly believe how everything has turned out,” Penelope confessed.

“Let’s not talk about it
any more!” Matilda suggested. “Let’s get busy with the Christmas decorations!”

“But I thought they were all finished,” Penelope responded.

“Nope,” Matilda giggled like a school girl, and Penelope marveled at the change in her demeanor. “The tree is finished, and Anders took down some of the decorations. But I kept everything in boxes. I don’t know why, but the wreaths and the ribbons he took down are out in the shed. I hid them there so he wouldn’t find them.”

“It’s too bad he broke the Nativity pieces,” Penelope complained.

“Never mind!” Matilda asserted. “We’ll get out what we have and we’ll decorate the house as best we can, and we’ll have a very Merry Christmas, if there’s anything I can do about it.”

“What’s come over you?” Penelope gaped at her mother-in-law. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so exuberant.”

Matilda giggled again. “I haven’t felt this exuberant in years! It’s strange, isn’t it? I’ve lost my son and my husband in less than a week, and I haven’t felt this happy in twenty years! Maybe I’m just determined to have a happy Christmas. It’s been that long since we had any happiness at Christmas time around this house! But I think the real reason is that I just couldn’t live with the guilt of seeing Caleb dispossessed in favor of Anders. Seeing him restored to his rightful place makes me feel like I’ve been let out prison! A great weight has lifted from my shoulders! And now, with him and Janet back in the house, and Anders not here anymore, making all our lives miserable with his demands and his threats—it’s the best Christmas ever! Oh, I must sound so silly to you!”

“Not at all!”
Penelope returned. “I feel the same way, although I hesitated to say anything because I didn’t want to upset you.”

“Upset me!” Matilda repeated. “Why would it upset me?”

“I didn’t want you to think I wasn’t mourning for Anders,” Penelope confessed. “I didn’t want you to think I was happy about Anders dying.”

“But, my dear,” Matilda clasped Penelope’s hands, “
I
am happy about Anders dying, and I’m his own mother! I can’t tell you what a relief it is to know that he won’t be coming home—ever! At first, I felt the way you did, that I had to keep my feelings hidden to be a good mother. Especially around George, who thought the sun rose and set on Anders. But now George is gone, too, there’s nothing left except to be happy! And I can be happy! I can’t bring back the years we squandered, but I can be happy. And by God, I’m going to be! No one’s going to stop me!” She lifted her face toward the ceiling and laughed out loud, even as Penelope saw tears glistening in her eyes. “Now, come on! Finish your breakfast and let’s get busy. Janet’s right. We have a lot of work to do, and tonight is Christmas Eve!”

The two women rushed out to the shed and soon came back in with their arms loaded with boxes and crates. True to her word, Matilda had hidden all the remaining Christmas decorations from Anders’s marauding plunder. In the crates, Penelope found their wreaths, their wooden painted bells, their ribbons, and all the rest. In the process of unpacking them and laying them out on the chairs in the parlor, Penelope and Matilda enjoyed an even more exquisite pleasure at planning their adornment of the house than they experienced the first time they carried out that project. They laughed and chatted with the familiarity of intimate family members, although they had known each other less than a month. Penelope unpacked the last boxes, and in them, found a collection of decorations she hadn’t seen before.