Mail Order Bride: Winter (Bride For All Seasons 4)

“Since when,” Hannah, already rattling around in the kitchen, demanded with asperity, “are sweets to feed the soul considered frivolous?”

“Well...since you put it that way...”

A soft spatter of rain began hitting the windows and pattering lightly on the roof overhead. While the fragrance of fresh rain, that clean sweet smell that washed away accumulated dust, would always lighten the senses, the sting of coolness could not. Hannah, hunkered down in her sister’s cozy parlor, felt a surge almost of voluptuousness that reveled in the mellow light of lanterns and the snapping warmth of hearth fire.

Settling in with a sweep of plaid wool skirts, she asked Camellia how her health was faring.

“Oh, I seem to alternate between incredible bursts of energy and draining bouts of exhaustion,” the woman laughed. As if to prove her statement, she yawned behind one palm and then luxuriously stretched. “But, I must say, Ben is spoiling me atrociously. He hardly expects me to lift a finger.”

“Except when it comes to his meals, I’d be willing to venture.”

“Well...meals. You know, there’s very little that comes between a man and his empty stomach.” Laughing again, she reached for her teacup. “I take care of the everyday work, but the heavier things—laundry, and changing sheets, that sort of thing—he won’t let me touch.”

“But that’s a good thing, isn’t it? It seems to me, when you’re not often at your best, having to deal with so much extra would be awfully difficult.”

“Yes, you’re right. Except that he wants to hire someone soon to help out. Can you imagine, me with a maid? Why, Turnabout would never get over the scandal. I can just hear the gossip: Who does she think she is, royalty? Just because a woman is with child doesn’t mean she should spend the day, sitting around with her feet up. All the rest of us have managed on our own!”

Now they shared their laughter. Once upon a time, during the years that seemed an eternity ago and a world apart, their many-storied mansion had reverberated with the never-ending work of servants: upstairs and downstairs, cook, gardener, laundress, handyman, stable crew, and so on.

All four Burton girls, Hannah reflected with satisfaction, could be quite proud of the challenges they had been forced to take on and the varied types of work they had learned to accomplish since those early halcyon days. Then, existence was simply a continual stream of ease and pleasure, with no chore more daunting than the decision of which dress to wear for dinner.

“Have you begun to gather things together for a nursery?” asked Hannah, with a prospective aunt’s interest in details.

“Oh, yes. I’ve been cutting and sewing, making blankets and tiny garments that seem doll-size by comparison to a human child, knitting this and that.” Sighing with happiness, she nibbled on one of the bakery cookies. Quite delicious, actually; the taste would rival that of her own.

“And have you chosen any names?”

“Well, we’ve had some discussions, although nothing is really settled. For a girl, especially, it’s still tentative. But we both like Mary Frances.”

“Pretty. Is that a hand-me-down from someone either of you knew?”

“No. From out of the blue.” Camellia chuckled. “Hen, dear, would you be s

o kind as to pour another cup of tea for me? I declare, I’ve gotten so lazy these days that I don’t know what I’ll do when I have an infant to care for.”

Hannah, rising to acquiesce, couldn’t hold back a snort. “Maybe that’s precisely why you’re feeling lazy now, Cam. Storing up your strength. And if this little bump is a boy?”

“Cole,” she said quietly. “Cole Reese Forrester.”

“Oh, Cam.” Hannah felt her throat close up and sudden tears sting her eyes. “Oh, that’s lovely.”

Another Madonna’s smile, sweet and serene. “Ben was quite pleased when I suggested it. It’s as if his brother will be part of the family again—even though his brother hasn’t gone anywhere. Strange situation, isn’t it?”

Resuming her seat, with her own refilled cup, Hannah nodded. “This family has had a lot of strange situations to contend with, ever since Papa left us in such a mess. A year, Cam. It’s been a year. Hardly seems possible, does it?” She paused to consider the recent past, and all the myriad changes that had taken place, since then, in so many lives. “And your health is good, overall?”

A sudden gust of wind sent wet fallen leaves smacking against the window, and the hearth fire whooshed with distaste. An unpleasant autumn day, giving a forecast of the winter to come. White frost had traced patterns on outdoor glassware, for the past few mornings, and applied its own unique crunch to the dying grasses.

“It is. Dr. Havers is pleased with how I’m progressing. Goodness me, I wouldn’t dare disappoint him by gaining too much weight or allowing myself to become depressed. I’d never hear the end of it!”

With that segue, Hannah decided to disclose to her sister the rather unusual circumstance of Gabriel’s gift.

Camellia was equally puzzled. “It isn’t like him at all, is it?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Hannah had risen to poke at the flames and add a few more small chunks of wood to burn; her face was turned carefully away from observation. “I wouldn’t doubt that he was looking to get on Abigail’s good side by making her first purchase from the Table.”

“Abigail? But surely she—it doesn’t seem that he—I can’t imagine they—”

“Oh, imagine it, Cam. At least, so she informed me.” Brushing shavings and dust off her hands, Hannah returned to the chair opposite her sister’s settee. “Does Ben have to make a trip to Manifest soon, to check in on his second store?”