Six Little Sunflowers: Historical Romance Novella (American State Flower) (6 page)

“Mr. Kleg doesn’t either,” added Mrs. Kleg.

“Molasses is an excellent source of copper and manganese,” said Mrs. Grbic, “and a very good source of potassium and magnesium.”

“You don’t say,” mused Mrs. Dillingsford. “Perhaps I—”

“A ball?” blurted Félicie to get back on topic. “Must we have an engagement ball?”

The ladies all looked at her as if she had spoken Russian.

“What my lovely fiancée means is,” Captain Yeary said, and gave her hands a little squeeze, “is must we plan the ball now? Tomorrow she begins her new job as calligrapher at the hotel. Let’s give her a few months to adjust. How about we do a late summer engagement ball and a St. Valentine’s Day wedding?”

Perhaps he was not as worthless as she had thought.

Mrs. Grbic’s brows drew together. “I see.” And then she fell silent.

The other seven said nothing either

Félicie looked to Captain Yeary.

He shrugged.

What was that supposed to mean? She rolled her eyes before she could stop herself.

“How about this,” Mrs. Grbic said, a bit placatingly. “You two spend the afternoon making a list of possible wedding dates, foods you like, locations for the service, members of the bridal party, and any other preferences. We will stay here and work on parental duties.” She made a little motion with her hand that mimicked walking. “Go on.”

Then she smiled.

Her circle of friends smiled too.

With that, Félicie knew any further discussion was not to be had.

Before she could find a stick to shake, she and Captain Yeary were standing outside Mrs. Grbic’s three-story mansion. The sun shone bright, blue sky with nary a cloud. The breeze was gentle against her skin, the temperature moderate. The day could truly not be any more beautiful.

“It’s a beautiful day,” he said as if making a grand announcement.

Félicie rested her hands on her hips. “This is your fault.”

Captain Yeary touched his chest. “Mine? You must be confusing me with you.”

“Me?” Félicie coughed a breath. She glanced around and saw no one within earshot. “You were the one who accepted my proposal when we both know you intended nothing of the sort.”

“You proposed.”

“Because I was being greedy,” she said in all truth. “All you had to do was say no. N-O. Now go back into the house and tell them this was all a misunderstanding.”

“You tell them.” He crossed his arms. “You’re the one who made me succumb to your flirtation.”

“What? No! I—we—” she sputtered. She was not a flirt. She never flirted. She had more sense than—Félicie growled under her breath. There was a time for humor and a time for seriousness. This was not the former. “You may tell them whatever you want as long as it includes
we are not getting married
.”

He shrugged. “I can’t. If I do, they’ll think badly of me.”

“You care what people think?”

He gave her a stern look. “I have a reputation to uphold as a gentleman.”

“A woman’s reputation has always been more precarious than a man’s.” She let out a furious exhale. “As a gentleman, you must do the right thing. You must sacrifice for a lady. That you refuse to surprises me because I had just started to think favorably of—why are you smiling?”

“Anyone ever told you, you’re a sight when you’re in a dither?”

“You enjoy vexing me.”

“Not sure why I enjoy vexing you,” he said, still smiling, “but I do.” He leaned close. “Admit it, you enjoy being vexed by me.”

With a huff of breath, Félicie started east toward the trolley stop at the end of the block and away from Captain Yeary’s flirtations. As a Carey House employee, she had signed a contract stating she would be a woman of virtuous character. Women of virtuous character did not cry off an engagement. Women of virtuous character also did not propose for the sole purpose of earning a silk dress. Not even a silk dress. She had chosen tweed and calico—practical fabrics. With every step away from Captain Yeary, she could hear Mr. Eaton’s words as clear as they had been last night.

Miss Richmond, there is a rumor going around that you proposed to Carp for a free dress and for that reason alone. I shall choose to believe this is not the case. However, should I hear you ended the engagement, I will know you are not the woman I took you to be. In that case, you will need to find work elsewhere.

She grumbled under her breath. Pearl had to have been the one spreading the gossip. Or Alta. Truth was, it mattered not who started the gossip because she
had
proposed for a free dress and that reason alone. This was her self-created mire.

“Who is Miss Laurent to you? Sister? Cousin?” he called out. “I know you two are more than acquaintances.”

Félicie shook her head. Not in response but in hopes of ridding his voice from her mind.

His shoes thumped against the brick sidewalk as he raced to catch up.

“Mrs. Helaine Laurent of St. Louis—and before that New Orleans—moved to Wichita in ’96,” he said, falling into step. He flipped his hat back on his head. “Five months later she married attorney Mark Peddicord in a private civil service. Two teenage girls were in attendance. Almost two years later, one of his pro bono clients shot him point blank in the chest.”

Félicie stopped, her heart racing. She caught her breath. “How do you know this?”

“I made a few calls.”

“When?”

“Last night after I left you at the hotel.”

“You had me investigated?”

He quirked a brow. “I made a few calls. Is Helaine Peddicord your mother?”

Félicie swallowed to ease the tightness in her throat. “No. When Rena and I were fourteen, she took us on as apprentices.”

“So Miss Laurent isn’t her natural daughter either?”

“Charles and Helaine Laurent adopted Rena. He died a few months later of natural causes.” She clasped her hands together and straightened her shoulders. “Returning to the matter at hand...last night I consulted four etiquette books. All advise breaking an engagement by letter.”

He looked significantly confused. “Why letter?”

“By this means a man is best able to express himself clearly.”

“That makes sense,” he murmured.

Félicie grinned. She appreciated a person who listened to reason.

“Since we agreed to be honest with each other,” he began, “I believe it is in our best interest to wait until April to break the engagement.”

“April? Why then?”

His gaze shifted down to her figure.

Félicie felt her cheeks warm. “I am not staying engaged merely for a month of free meals.”

“They want to help.”

“I am not a charity case.”

“Why won’t you let someone do something nice for you?”

Félicie growled under her breath. It was bad enough that he saw her as a lost pet in need of rescue. To know Mrs. Grbic and her circle of friends saw her that way too…

“Captain Yeary, since you refuse to break the engagement as would a
true
gentleman
,” she said, with considerable emphasis, “then you leave me with no choice but to be so insufferable that you will jilt me.”

He stared at her for several seconds before busting out a laugh.

“You may stop,” she said.

His laughter ended abruptly. “You’re serious?”

“Unlike you, I am not a person who jokes around. If I say it”—she looked him directly in the eye—“I mean it. I shall make your life miserable.”

He started shaking his head. “Sweetheart, you cannot be insufferable enough to make me jilt you. You’re too nice of a person. Call me Carp. Everyone does,” he said as if it were an afterthought.

Even if they married—and they weren’t going to—she would never call him Carp. “First of all, you do not know me well enough to know how nice or not nice I am.” She ignored his raised brows. “Second, I certainly can be more insufferable than you are.”

“I breathe insufferability.” His cheeks ballooned with air, then slowly deflated with a
pfffft
.

“Now you are being childish.”

He leaned forward, smiled a little. “And you aren’t?”

In that moment, she realized how close his face was to hers. His eyes—they’d never seemed so green, so intense. He just stood there studying her. She almost believed he liked what he saw.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked.

His grin broadened. “You’re awfully cute when you’re in a dither.”

Ignoring the warmth in her cheeks, Félicie pointed to Mrs. Grbic’s house. “Go back right now and tell them we are not getting married.”

He crossed his arms. “To the winner go the spoils.”

“In light of these circumstances, that makes no sense.”

“To insufferable people it does.”

With a shake of her head, Félicie continued on to the trolley. For Carpenter Yeary’s well-being, she needed to walk away before she did something—something outlandish. Something not nice. Something horrible people did. Something involving ink and frogs and custard. Something—

Oh, why was she even pondering what she would do?

All that mattered was that Carpenter Yeary was underestimating her ability to make his life miserable.

He’s the dandiest man.

Ha! Pearl clearly had him confused with someone else.

Any man who can begin to elicit any woman’s love can perfectly infatuate her more and more, solely by courting her right; and all women who once start a man’s love—no very difficult achievement—can get out of him, and do with him, anything possible she pleases. The charming and fascinating power of serpents over birds is as nothing compared with that a woman can wield over a man, and he over her.

~Social Life; or The Manners and Customs of Polite Society

Tuesday evening – May 26
th

Madame Helaine Laurent’s House of Design

“H
OW ENJOYABLE CAN AN ENGAGEMENT BALL BE”—
Félicie gasped a breath as Mama Helaine fastened the back of the green-beaded ballgown—“when it takes this much effort to dress for it? I much prefer being the help.”

“Hush, he will hear you,” warned Mama Helaine.

Félicie looked over her shoulder to the woman who (once she heard a wedding committee had been organized) had announced to Mrs. Grbic’s circle of friends that she would be making Félicie’s ballgown and wedding dress, as a gift to the happy couple. That had led to Mrs. Topping making the motion that they accept the offering, and Mrs. Lester seconding, and all saying aye. Wedding plans should not be made by parliamentary procedure. Every day Carpenter refused to break off the engagement meant one day closer to them reciting wedding vows.

She sighed. “Carpenter would have to be standing on the other side of the velvet curtains to hear us. Besides, Rena is out there. You can bet she’s talking to him.”

Mama Helaine smoothed the sides of Félicie’s dress then swiveled her around. She smiled. “He will find no fault with this one.”

“He had better because this one is Rena’s.”

Mama Helaine responded with a
tsk, tsk, tsk.

Félicie eyed the wardrobe of ballgowns she had spent the last two hours modeling for Carpenter because she’d insisted he choose the one she wore for their engagement ball hosted by his “parental” half of the circle of friends. Any other man would have said “this one” after the first dress. Certainly after the second one. Having missed dinner because she’d dragged him to Mama Helaine’s right after she finished her day’s work, he had to be hungry and irritable and one degree closer to breaking their engagement. But here they were on her fourteenth gown, and the words “this one” had yet to cross his lips. Carpenter Yeary was a stubborn, obstinate, pig-headed man who refused to do the right thing and call off marrying her. He frustrated her to no end. None of her insufferableness seemed to push him over the edge, which was becoming all the more difficult because they still had to keep up appearances as a smitten couple.

Attend a weekend house party at the Kingfishers’ ranch.

Join him on a canoe trip down the Little Arkansas.

Help him manage the Fire Department’s Spring Auction.

Partner with him to run a booth in the high school’s alumni carnival.

The latter she couldn’t find fault with. Who wouldn’t enjoy convincing Wichitans to toss a pie in his face? Actually, she’d enjoyed all their couple activities during the last three months. Not that she would tell him. When Carpenter Yeary wasn’t trying to torture her, he was rather amusing and gallant.

He happily met her at the hotel every weekday morning and escorted her to breakfast in the dining room. He stopped questioning her relationship with Rena and Mama Helaine. He even insisted she spend her Sundays with them, to the point of forbidding Mrs. Grbic’s circle of friends to host events on Sunday. A man that considerate should have the decency to break an engagement.

Mama Helaine’s palm rested against Félicie’s cheek. “What troubles you?”

Félicie walked to the three-panel mirror and studied her reflection. Not a single strand of hair had escaped her smooth bun. Her cheeks no longer looked thin (or skeletal as Mama Helaine had oft complained). The princess-cut of the dress accentuated the fuller curves she had developed over weeks of extravagant dinners. A woman smitten with her fiancé should have a joy in her eyes. She looked tired, despite the bronze glow on her nose and cheeks from Carpenter’s attempt on Saturday to teach her how to play lawn tennis. No matter how unteachable she had tried to be, he’d taken it all in stride. The man had the patience of a saint.

Félicie sighed. “Nothing I can do will convince him to break the engagement.”

Mama Helaine stood next to her. “He is as stubborn as you are.”

That
she believed.

“He is more insufferable too,” Félicie said, and noted how pathetic she sounded. “If Carpenter would break the engagement, no one would think the worse of him. He is their hero.”

“Perhaps being their hero is exactly why he will not.” Mama Helaine stepped between Félicie and the mirror. “Man scales burning building yet flees marriage to woman half his size. Makes him look like he is a coward, does it not?”

Félicie considered this for all of two seconds. This was the same man who insisted they stay engaged for the free meals. She couldn’t admit that and risk Mama Helaine thinking poorly of Carpenter. So she just said, “Given time, people would forget and return to adoring him. I will lose the only job I have ever—” Blinking away the sudden tears of frustration, she held up her ink-stained fingertips. “Even when I spill an entire ink bottle over a day’s work, I still love being the calligrapher for the Carey House, the grandest hotel in all of Wichita. I’ve worked too hard to give it up.”

“Then you have no choice but to marry Carp.”

“We don’t want to be married,” she argued. “We made a list of why it would be detrimental for both of us. Neither of us can cook. Neither of us knows what to do with a crying infant. Neither of us likes to share, and the ability to share and compromise are key components to a successful marriage.”

Mama Helaine smiled.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“You talked about having children.”

Félicie let out an exasperated sigh. “Not about having them together. We discussed children in the general sense of their existence—loud and smelly existence—and that is not relevant to the matter at hand. You must tell Mrs. Grbic it is impossible to have the wedding dress finished until October—no, make it November,” she corrected, “because then Mrs. O’Brian will bring up how lovely Christmas weddings are. Mrs. Dillingsford loves all things Christmas, so she will insist we schedule it for then. Mrs. Topping will mention how much her husband loves egg nog. From there, they will discuss recipes, debate if it is possible to make a good egg nog without alcohol, and all attention to wedding details will be lost.”

Mama Helaine frowned. “You are asking me to lie.”

“I’m asking you to sew at a snail’s pace.”

“How is that not lying?” Mama Helaine pointed out.

“
Ugggh
.” Félicie drew in a breath and sighed. “I’ve reached the point of desperation. Mr. Eaton called me into his office this morning. He agreed I could have a two-week holiday at the end of June. That’s next month.”

“Why do you need a two-week holiday in June?”

“For the honeymoon Carp’s ‘parents’ have planned! What am I supposed to do on a honeymoon for two weeks?” Félicie pointed at Mama Helaine. “Stop—you may not laugh.”

Mama Helaine’s lips leveled even. “This is no laughing matter.”

“Indeed,” Félicie agreed. Her shoulders slumped as much as they could in a corset. “I keep getting asked about wedding invitations. Proper etiquette is two weeks before the wedding, which Old Man Ralley kindly reminded me this morning. Why do people think we are getting married in June? We never agreed to a June wedding. June is a terrible month for a wedding.”

“Actually, it is quite a lovely one.”

Félicie gave Mama Helaine a slant-eyed glare.

“I apologize,” Mama Helaine said with a not-so-repentant smile. “You should be happy about marrying Carp. I like him.”

“
Everyone
likes him.”

Mama Helaine’s brows. “Except you?”

“He has his...pleasant moments,” she acknowledged, “but that does not mean I wish to marry him. Please, Mama, will you help me stall this wedding?”

Tears pooled in Mama Helaine’s beautiful eyes. “
Bien sur
! I will do whatever necessary to see to my little girl’s happiness.”

Félicie kissed Mama Helaine’s cheek then relaxed as they held each other. “I should have let you adopt me,” she whispered. If she’d had, her life would have taken a different course. She would be happy and married to a man she loved instead of being engaged by accident to the wrong one. “You have been more a mother to me than my own was. You
are
my mother. I’m sorry I waited this long to tell you that.”

Mama drew back, tears streaming down her cheeks. She smiled. Whatever words she had were clearly held hostage by her emotions.

With a slow, in-drawn breath, Félicie faced the crimson-velvet curtains. Carpenter was out there, tired, hungry, irritable, and ready to be done with her. He had to be. Any man in his right mind would be. No more stalling. She strolled to the curtains, grabbing at the last second a red feather which she promptly stuck into her bun.

“Now that’s a hummer of a gown!” Carpenter exclaimed the moment she stepped into the showroom. He’d removed the black coat to his uniform and looked at ease in a snug white jersey undershirt that defined every muscle in his chest. No wonder he had been asked by a lady sculptor to pose for her students. Paintings, drawings, and sculptures of his naked form—

Her heart started beating a little faster.

Rena, sitting next to Carpenter with Miss Trudy-Bleu in her lap, gave him an annoyed look. She pointed at Félicie. “You like
this
one best?”

As he looked at Rena, his brow slowly furrowed with indecision, which Félicie didn’t believe for a moment. He turned his attention onto her. The corner of his mouth indented, and the back of her neck warmed.

Félicie started to turn around, but Mama stopped her and whispered, “You can do this.”

“Now that you mention it...” His gaze shifted from Félicie’s head down to where the green-beaded fabric pooled at her feet. “It does make her look short.”

“It wouldn’t make
me
look short,” Rena muttered.

“It hasn’t been hemmed,” Mama explained.

He grinned. “Then it’s perfect! You wouldn’t have one in blue, would you?”

“Blue?” blurted Félicie, but upon realizing how impatient she sounded, she gave him a sweet smile. “Darling, the first three gowns I tried on were blue. How about I go get them and you—”

“No, no, sweetheart. Those were all
plain
blue.”

“He’s right, Fay,” Rena said. “They were rather plain. This one is much prettier on you.”

“So you are fine with me wearing your dress?” Félicie asked.

“Certainly not.”

Mama smoothed the beads on Félicie’s left shoulder. “Carp, what shade of blue would you prefer on our girl?”

Carpenter looked over his shoulders, this way and that as if trying to find something in the rolls and bolts of fabric about the showroom. “The color needs to be more airy. Like a bird.”

Rena appeared to think. “A blue jay is iridescent blue.”

Carpenter’s face scrunched. “What is iridescent?”

Felice ignored his foppish question altogether. “He means the color of the sky.”

“Almost.” Carpenter pointed to a roll of turquoise silk. “Add that to a parakeet.”

“Eggshell blue,” suggested Mama. “Like a robin’s egg?”

“Possibly.” Carpenter stood up so quickly his chair fell to the floor. He walked around the shop and touched every piece of fabric he passed. “No, no, no.” He opened the drawers and looked through the laces and trims. Finally he withdrew a green ribbon the exact shade of a lime. “This is it,” he said, slamming the drawer. He walked to Félicie and draped the ribbon over her shoulder. “If this green was about six shades lighter and not so bright and a little softer looking and yellow about three-days-old, you’d have just the color.”

“Like a sunflower?” prompted Mama.

“Exactly.”

Félicie’s jaw dropped into an openmouthed gasp. “Carpenter Yeary, you are only doing this to—” She breathed through her nose and steadily released it. She looked to Mama. “The first dress I tried on will do.”

Carpenter opened his mouth.

“Shhh,” she said, pointing a finger at his face.

His mouth shut.

Rena looked confused. “That one isn’t yellow.”

“And the fabric was stiffer than a tarp,” Carpenter said with a dramatic wave of his hand. “It needs to be more like mosquito netting with flowers growing out of the bottom and have a red sash. Not real red. A kind of pink, a soft, dull pink, something like a pig’s snout or chicken—”

Félicie glared at him.

“—feet,” he finished then fell silent, looking contrite.

Mama waved at Rena. “On the workroom table upstairs is exactly what Carp wants. Run up and get the fabric. Bring every shade of pink tulle.”