Giovanna: The Cowboy's Calabrese Mail Order Bride (Sweet Land of Liberty Brides Book 1) (6 page)

This book
--Book One

Giovanna: The Cowboy’s Calabrese Mail Order Bride

Book Two:

The Circuit Rider’s Rhineland Mail Order Bride
  Read the full, free Chapter One below!

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Thank you for reading the first book in the
Sweet Land of Liberty Brides
series. This series highlights the courage and travails of first-generation Americans as they brought the customs, language, religion and pride of their native countries to the open lands of the great American west. These hardy and loving people formed the backbone of the young nation as they blended lives together in America’s “melting pot.” This series is a pleasure to write and if you enjoy, please add an Amazon review to let others know.

Nathalie Luxe slipped into a dark alcove near the door of the church and slid the black kid leather glove off her right hand. She gingerly stretched her fingers and shook her wrist to get the blood flowing back through them. After hours greeting mourners who had come to pay their respects, she longed to rub her feet as well, but didn’t dare until she was able to return home. 

“Herr Luxe was a great man,” a voice behind her ear whispered hoarsely. “I am sorry he has left you alone in this crowded city.”

Nathalie jumped and quickly stretched the glove back over her fingers. “Pardon me, sir, I did not see you nearby,” she replied as she offered her sore hand in greeting. “I thought the guests had all left already, Mister—?”

“Jacobson, Silas Jacobson, Miss Luxe. I’ve been your grandfather’s attorney here in New York since he arrived in ’52.”

“Mr. Jacobson. I’m sorry; I don’t recall meeting you before.”

“Your grandfather did not believe in socializing with business partners. Bad for business in case hard decisions had to be made.” Mr. Jacobson licked his dry lips then patted them with a silk handkerchief from his suit coat pocket. Nathalie watched his movements in fascination mixed with a growing unease.

“Speaking of decisions to be made, won’t you come by my office when you’re feeling refreshed, Miss Luxe? Here is my card.”

Nodding agreement, Nathalie took the card. With a flourishing bow, Mr. Jacobson glanced around and quietly slid out the large wooden door, blinking at the light of day before disappearing into the crowds on the sidewalk.

She stared after the strange man and then looked down at his card. “Are you quite well,
Fraulein
?” came a gentle voice.

“Yes, I’m well,” Nathalie said as she tucked the card into her sleeve. “Are we finished then? Is there anyone to left to greet?”

“No,
Fraulein
. It’s time you went home and rested. You will trust old Gadsen now, won’t you? Your grandfather did all these years.”

Nathalie smiled at the kind valet she had known since she left her home on the Rhine River in 1881 to live with her grandfather in New York. “Yes, Gadsen. Only you must rest, too. This last month has been hard on both of us.”

Gadsen offered his arm, and Nathalie put her gloved hand through the crook of his elbow. Smiling down at her, he patted her hand. “Some hot tea, a bath and to bed, then,” Gadsen said. “It’s the best medicine I know.”

Nathalie woke before dawn, having slept a dreamless sleep. For a moment she nearly jumped up to check on her grandfather’s progress through the night; but no, he was gone, and she didn’t need to get up.

Herr Benjamin Luxe was the last living member of her family, and despite his gruff outward appearance, he had been a kind and loving father figure to Nathalie.

Lying there in bed, Nathalie let her mind wander through memories she had long suppressed. She could not remember her mother, although her father told Nathalie sweet tales of her. After her death, Nathalie’s father had left her with her maternal
Oma
Dwiger, while he moped about Europe for seven years. Having run out of money, he finally acquiesced to join his father in business in New York. The long trip on the ocean liner had been exciting for the young girl of nine, right up until the moment her father crept out of their stateroom one night and disappeared.

A crewman saw someone climb the back rail of the ship and stand looking down at the water. Before he could yell out, the young Herr Luxe quietly jumped to his death in the sea. He had waited until the lights of New York were in sight.

“My dear Nathalie: Please forgive me,” read her father’s final note. “I find I have no appetite for life in a new world without my true love, your departed mother. One day I hope you find a love such as mine; but let it never break your heart.”

He left the note along with her mother’s pearl necklace in a box next to her bed. Nathalie was gifted them by the captain as he handed her over to her grandfather the next day.

“Don’t think badly of him, little
Fraulein
,” the captain said. “Leave that to me—I’d like to ring his neck myself for this cowardly act. But I know something of love, and despair. See to it that you strengthen your heart. Your father’s kind doesn’t stand a chance against the fates.”

Herr Luxe had been shocked but resigned to hear of his son’s unseemly demise. He counted it a blessing that no one in his circles in New York had met the man; all the better to concoct a different story to keep the scandal from tarnishing his business interests.

“Now Nathalie, you will feel better tomorrow, for nothing dries sooner than tears,” he had told her with a grim face but a gentle voice. “We’ll speak of him in private if you like, but what’s done is done. You’ll find plenty of playmates to keep you company at school, and you can come visit me in the store any time.”

The image of her father’s dark, sad eyes morphed into the twinkling blue eyes of her grandfather in her mind. It occurred to her that she was sad enough at her grandfather’s passing that she could cry; she just didn’t remember how.

She reached next to her bed, pulled the cord for tea, and sunk back down covering her head with the fine linen sheet.

In a few minutes, Gadsen came in carrying a tray. “Good morning,
Fraulein
,” he said. He set the tray on the table at the end of her bed and went to open the curtains at her window. “I’m sorry Mrs. Porter isn’t here to bring your breakfast. Seems some of the staff have taken a holiday.”

Gadsen’s dry observation belied the truth, and he haltingly told her the news. Mr. Jacobson had come by that morning and laid off the staff, including him. But Delphineus Gadsen wasn’t going anywhere; indeed, he had nowhere to go. His duty to the family was stronger than a temporary layoff with no pay; it would all get straightened out when Nathalie had a chance to meet with Mr. Jacobson.

Nathalie sat bolt upright in bed, her hazel eyes flashing. She held the sheet and coverlet close to her neck, but her long blond hair lay tousled across her forearms and down to her lap.

“Laid off? By what right does Mr. Jacobson have to come here and speak to Grandfather’s—um, my—employees, much less lay them off?” Nathalie’s sense of justice, once sparked, was like a slow burning fire that could only be dowsed when the wrong was corrected.

“I’ll just see about that,” she said and started to scramble out of bed. “Whoops! Gadsen!”

Speaking with averted eyes was a natural skill of Gadsen’s, honed from years of studied ignorance of Herr Luxe’s excesses and improprieties. But seeing the new mistress of the house about to jump out of bed in her nightgown was too much even for him.

“Excuse me,
Fraulein
, pardon me,” he said, bowing with eyes near closed as he fumbled for the door handle. “I’ll just be leaving now…”

Her lilting laughter followed him into the hallway, where he stood to catch his breath as he leaned against the closed door.
First thing to do is see about getting Mrs. Porter back
, Gadsen thought as he lumbered away to the kitchen.

The crisis at hand cleared Nathalie’s mind completely from her earlier foray into sentimental memories. Yet the kind words of her
Oma
Dwiger kept flashing through her mind.
In this life, you will have trials, my child. The only thing that can defeat you is loss of will. Take courage and never give up!
She sat at the dressing table to brush her hair, and wondered again if she looked like her mother. She expertly parted it into sections, and soon had a neat braid going halfway down her back. She wound it into a halo around her head, pinned it in place, quickly tied on her bonnet and slipped on her shoes.

She bolted down the stairs, through the empty house and out the door onto the street. With Mr. Jacobson’s card in her hand, she hailed a passing driver and climbed into the carriage for the ride downtown.

S. Jacobson, Esq.
, read the sign outside the building, and Nathalie marched in to her appointment with her grandfather’s lawyer.

“Right on time, I see,” said the sniveling man. “Come in, come in.” Shoving some papers off a leather chair in front of his imposing desk, Silas Jacobson shuffled around to his chair and put his hands atop his desk, looking at her over top of his glasses.

“Mr. Jacobson, sir, I’ve come to enquire how it is that you laid off my grandfather’s household staff this morning. Am I not to be informed of these affairs?”

“I’m very sorry to have not told you in advance,” he said, not looking sorry at all. “I’ll put this to you as plainly as I can. Your grandfather and I were business partners for some 40 years, and now that he is gone, I’m selling the business. You are his only heir, and you will receive a fair price for the assets. But the funds to continue the store operations and the household staff were terminated as of your grandfather’s death. I have it all right here, signed and proper.”

“But—that can’t be! Grandfather has trained me to take his place,” Nathalie said, her hand flying up to her neck in her embarrassment at being kept in the dark.

“He may have done so, but it’s my right to continue the association or not. And I have chosen not to. I have other investments in mind for the money. Here, you can review the papers I have prepared, and you will see everything is in order. You are receiving 50% of the proceeds, minus a small administrative fee for my services, of course.” The thought of the administrative fee gave the old lawyer a greedy pleasure that he could not hide from his face.

Nathalie looked through the papers he shoved across the desk toward her. The sale of the store had brought in a large sum, but with Silas Jacobson’s “fee,” a good less than half was to be hers. It surely would not be enough to live on and keep the household going for more than six months. A wild idea came to her and without restraint, she blurted it out:

“I will buy your half, sir, rather than take my share,” she said. “I know how to run the business and will gladly sign for the debt.”

A cackling laugh escaped Silas Jacobson’s lips, so dry and harsh that Nathalie sat back in shock.

“I don’t want your money, or your pledge, young
Fraulein
Luxe,” Mr. Jacobson hissed. “For forty years I worked for the day I could be rid of my association with the Luxe family. But don’t worry; from the goodness of my heart, I’ve included a few investment recommendations in your paperwork. I’m sure one of them will work out for you.”

With that, he turned his chair away from Nathalie and began reading through other papers on his desk. Nathalie’s face grew red with anger, but she knew when to hold her tongue. This was not the time to speak out; she needed a chance to look through the paperwork and make sure everything was correct.

“I will review the papers and return them to you, signed or unsigned,” Nathalie said as she rose to leave. “If I find anything amiss, they will be returned to you by the fraud investigator.”

“Who do you mean, Jack Rust? Yes, yes, a friend of mine. Well, good day,
Fraulein
Luxe.”

Nathalie’s mouth dropped open at the brazen rudeness of the shriveled man before her. She turned without saying a word and left with the sheaf of papers shaking in her hands.

Out on the street, Nathalie blindly made her way back toward Luxe’s Department Store. Tears stung at her eyes over Mr. Jacobson’s rude treatment, her previously unknown peril and how her grandfather could have left her without the income from the store she had helped him build.

Out of the blue, a distant memory of her maternal grandmother’s words of farewell came to her mind, spoken lovingly to her before her father brought her to America. The words confused Nathalie at the time but she had mulled them over in times of trouble ever since: “You must study and work hard,
Meine Liebe
. Be accomplished at something,”
Oma
Dwiger had said. “In this way, even if you remain single or are left widowed young as I was, you will never be dependent on anyone.”

Nathalie remembered her grandmother smoothing the hair away from her face as she continued: “Learn what you can from your
Opa
Luxe and you will never go hungry or be forced to depend on kindness. Whether from family or strangers, it is wearying to the soul.”

I have studied, and worked hard,
Nathalie thought, and sure enough, her tears began to dry as anger took over. Not wanting to look so distressed when she reached the store, she veered off the street into a small cafe to read the papers and gather her thoughts.

An hour later, her tea gone cold in its pot, Nathalie looked out the window, chin in hands and her elbows propped on the table. Everything for the sale of the store was in order; Silas had been right about that. He was rude and horrible, but apparently not a thief. All she had to do to receive her share of the proceeds was to go to the bank and show them the signed papers. The store’s new owners were waiting to take over.

“Nathalie, thank goodness I found you!” She looked up to see Sylvia Johnson standing near her table. “I’m sorry to have left work early, but you see, a man came in and said our services were no longer needed. Oh Nathalie, is it true?”