Mail Order Devastation (Montana Mail Order Brides, Book 4) (14 page)

Footsteps approached the door, then the key clicked as she turned it in the keyhole.  The door opened. 

“I’m so glad you’re home!” she sighed, seeming a bit out of breath.  “I’ve missed you.”

“
I’ve missed you, too,” he said stiffly, bending to receive her kiss.  He could see that she was still in the same clothing she’d worn when he left that morning.  And she hadn’t been fixing her hair, because he could see a few wisps that had come loose from her bun.  Her eyes were tired, almost puffy-looking, and the brief smile she flashed his way wasn’t any more sincere than the few smiles he’d gotten from her in the last few days. 

“
I hope you’re hungry,” she said, sweeping past him and walking toward the kitchen.  “I’ve made enough for an army.  I swear, I’ll never get used to cooking for one.  My family may have been smaller than most, back home, but it’s still strange cooking for half as many people.”

“
Mollie…”

“
I made a cherry cobbler with some of the cherry preserves I bought at the mercantile last week,” she said as she walked over to peek into the oven.

“
Mollie…”

“
I really think you’ll like it.  It’s a new recipe that I got from Madeline Porter when I ran into her at the mercantile, and she swears by it.”

“
Mollie!”

She turned, startled. 
“Yes?”

“
What is going on?”

“
I don’t know what you mean.”

“
Why do I keep finding you locked away in our bedroom every day when I come home?”

“
I…I was just laying down, taking a rest.”  She averted her eyes and turned to pick up a wooden spoon, stirring the soup that simmered on the stove.

“
With the door locked?”

“
Well…you know in Boston, we always locked our doors.  It wasn’t a bad neighborhood, by any means, but being in such a big city, it wasn’t immune to crime.”

“
The front door was unlocked.”

“
Was it?  I suppose I should be making sure it’s locked, shouldn’t I?”  She kept stirring, without turning to look at him. 

“
Mollie, I feel as if you’re trying to hide something from me.  What’s wrong?  Have I upset you somehow?  If I have, you can tell me.”

She turned, flashing him a brilliant smile, which didn
’t quite reach her eyes.  “Of course not.  You haven’t done a thing.”

He hesitated, unsure if he should bring up his mother
’s observations.  But her evasiveness left him no choice.  “Mother said she’s noticed that you’ve been returning from your morning excursions later and later each afternoon.”

She sighed, tilting her head back slightly, and he knew she was rolling her eyes at the ceiling. 
“Did she, now?”

“
Where are you going every day?”

She turned then, hands on her hips. 
“Am I to give you an account every time I go to the store, or visit a friend?  Can I not take a walk to get some fresh air, or relive my boredom?  I’m home alone all day, Noah.  You have your customers and your mother to talk with everyday.  I have no one.  And I don’t appreciate being given the third degree just because your mother has nothing better to do in the afternoons than to stare out the window and make note of my comings and goings.  You don’t see me interrogating you about where you go on your lunch breaks each day, do you?”

He bristled at her snide comment toward his mother. 
“No, but you don’t see me sneaking off during my lunch breaks, or locking myself in our bedroom all the time.”

“
Sneaking off?  Is that what you call it when a woman comes and goes from her own house in broad daylight?  I didn’t know that your mother was my keeper.  Perhaps now I know why you bought a house right next to her—so she could mark down the daily activities of your wife, and find fault with them!”

“
I never said she found fault with you or your activities.”

“
Well, clearly
you
do!”

“
I do not.  I’d merely like to know what my wife does during the day.  If you’re so bored, perhaps you should come to the store and work there in the mornings.”

“
Why, so you and your mother can keep track of what I do all morning, as well as all afternoon?  No, thank you.”

“
Well, there’s apparently not enough to keep you busy at home—at least, the way you behave.  Although I can’t help but wonder—how is it that you have all this free time to gallivanting all over Helena, while putting dinner on the table later and later every day, and falling farther behind in the laundry?”

“
How dare you?  I am
not
behind in the laundry.  I simply chose to do it on a different day this week.  You haven’t run out of clean clothes yet, have you?”

“
Yet
is the operative word,” he muttered.

“
My, my, the list of my faults seems to be endless!  Well, then, if I’m such a terrible wife, why don’t you serve up dinner yourself, while I go lounge around in my bedroom, avoiding my duties—since that seems to be what you think of me!”  She thrust the lid down on the pot, and stormed out of the room.  Seconds later, the bedroom door slammed hard enough to reverberate throughout the house…followed by the snick of the bedroom lock.

Noah ripped his hat off his head and threw it down on the table
—which had yet to be set for dinner.  That wasn’t how he’d planned the conversation to go.  He didn’t want to accuse Mollie of anything, or make her feel like he was being watched.  But clearly something was going on, and though the sub-par housekeeping of late had irked him, the idea that his wife might be hiding something from him was far more bothersome.

He
’d botched the whole thing, and was no closer to finding the truth.  Perhaps her activities were nothing to be concerned about—maybe she really was just lonely or bored.  But his gut told him there was something more going on. 

And he was determined to discover what it was.

Chapter 1
9

Monday, March 2, 1891

Mollie peered around the hedge, watching the house.  She had grown tired of watching the house from afar, witnessing the servants coming and going each day, and seeing very little of Nell.  Once she’d been inside the house, seen and touched Nell’s things, it made her yearn even more to see her daughter up close. 

The fact that Noah was watching her closer
—coming home earlier or leaving later in an obvious coordinated effort with his mother, in order to find out where she was going—made things even harder.  She could only spend half the time she wanted to observing the Deming home.  The urge to do something rash was becoming overwhelming.

To make matters worse, Noah was talking about having a telephone installed in the house.  The shop
’s new telephone line had been installed last week, and he had mentioned several times how “nice” it would be to be able to “check in” with her once in a while. 

She couldn
’t let that happen.

The crunch of footsteps in the distance startled Mollie, and she shrank back into her niche between the wall and the hedge.  Fortunately, the servants almost always came down the alley from the opposite direction, making it nearly impossible for them to discover her.  She heard the footsteps stop at the back gate to the Deming property, and the squeak of the gate opening.  Then it clanged shut, and the footsteps crunched across the yard.  It was the cook returning from his morning break, to begin the midday dinner. 

Mollie watched him cross the backyard, and wondered for the hundredth time why she tortured herself this way.  What could come of skulking around the Deming home?  They clearly weren’t about to give Nell up, or even let her see her.  What was the point?

She remembered the tense weekend she and Noah had endured.  She barely spoke to him until Saturday morning, and his irritation with her didn
’t seem to pass until Saturday night.  By Sunday, they were talking again, though the conversation was stilted and awkward.  She was risking her marriage to steal out every day and keep her vigil in the niche.  Then she would return home to spend half the afternoon locked away in her bedroom, curled up in a ball on the bed, clutching Nell’s sweater and weeping.  Something had to change.  Things couldn’t go on like that for long, she knew, without terrible consequences.  But she couldn’t stop herself.

Once the cook was inside the house, Mollie was able to relax a little bit. 
Why am I doing this?  What is the plan?
She didn’t know. 
Or maybe I don’t want to admit it to myself.
 

If she was honest, she
’d have to admit to herself that the idea of snatching Nell and fleeing with her had crossed her mind more than once.  But mostly, she just had the vague idea that if she watched and waited long enough, she’d come up with some way of convincing the Demings that Nell belonged with her, and that giving her up was the right thing to do.

The servant
’s entry door opened again, and Jefferson emerged.  He strode across the yard and left via the gate.  Mollie held her breath, then let it out when she realized he’d turned right and gone down the other end of the alley, as usual.  After a few tense minutes, she looked back up at the house.

All seemed quiet.

The urge to see Nell was overwhelming.  She knew the cook would stay at his duties in the kitchen.  Mr. and Mrs. Deming had left by carriage not long ago. 

I know which room she plays in when she
’s downstairs.  Maybe she’s there now.
The thought curled around the edge of her mind, taking root and blossoming into a plan before she could stop it.

It wouldn
’t be hard to figure out which window belonged to the conservatory where Nell played.  It was on the opposite side of the house from the driveway, and was shielded by a dense row of juniper trees planted along that side of the house, forming a narrow corridor of privacy between the trees and the house. 

I could slip in there without being seen by a neighbor.  Just one quick peek.  That
’s all I need. 

Scanning the alley and then the yard, she saw that all was clear.  She pushed through the narrow gap between the back wall and the tall hedges, and stole across the yard.  Her feet crunched through the hardened shell of snow that covered a thin layer of snow underneath.  She arrived at the side of the house in moments, slipping between the trees and the house.  She ducked under the window of what she thought might be the butler
’s pantry, and then approached the tall wide windows just ahead.  They had to be for the conservatory. 

Mollie removed her bonnet, wanting to keep as low of a profile in the window as possible.  Then she peered just beyond the outer frame of the closest window.  Inside, she could see the brunette that she had seen holding Nell the day they got into the carriage.  She was sitting on the edge of the settee, leaning forward.  In front of her, on the floor, was Nell.

There was no doubt this was her child.  Though she’d changed quite a bit from the newborn she’d once been, she still had the same color hair—a bit of red from Mollie, and a lot of blonde, from her father.  Her skin was fair and clear as yet—no trace of freckles.  But everything else about her was all Mollie.  Her mother had often commented—in an almost disappointed tone—that Nell looked almost exactly like Mollie did as a babe.  Big blue eyes, pale cream skin, and a tiny little nose.  Nell’s looks were all very much the same, except that she was older—more little girl than infant.  Her grin seemed wider and her arms and face were chubbier.  And she was big.  Oh, so big!

Mollie
’s heart seized in her chest at the sight of her little girl.  She sat on the rug, with dolls scattered around her.  She reached forward, clutching a doll to her chest, holding it as if it was a baby.

“
She wants me,” a voice said from somewhere inside the room.  It was muffled, but it came from somewhere other than where the nanny sat.

“
No, she doesn’t.”  The nanny waved off the speaker.  “She’s just playing with her dolls.  Imitating.”

“
No, she’s telling me she’s hungry.”  Another woman came into view.  It was the blonde woman Mollie had seen walking alongside the nanny on the way to the carriage one time.  The blonde sat down beside the nanny, then lifted Nell into her arms and laid her across her lap.  With the swiftness of a practiced hand, she unbuttoned her shirtwaist and put Nell to her breast, pulling a nearby blanket over Nell’s head.

The pain in Mollie
’s gut swelled as she watched another woman—not even the adoptive mother—nursing her baby.  She remembered the agony of her overfull breasts, which she endured for over a week after Nell had been taken from her, until at last her mother had told her to stuff cabbage leaves in her undergarments to stem the supply of milk that went unused.

It was all Mollie could do not to pound on the window and demand that the stern blonde woman unhand her child.

“She’s not a newborn anymore, Eugenia,” said the nanny.  “You just fed her not twenty minutes ago.”

“
If she needs me, then she needs me,” snapped the blonde—Eugenia. 

“
You know Mrs. Deming wants her weaned.  She said a year is all a child needs for nursing, and she’s almost that, already.”

“
You mind your job, I’ll mind mine.”

“
I’m only doing what Mrs. Deming told me to do.”

“
As am I.”

The nanny muttered something that Mollie couldn
’t hear, as she got up and began picking up some of the stray toys.  After a minute or so, Nell began to struggle under the blanket, obviously pushing away, uninterested in feeding.  Eugenia clutched her tighter, and Mollie felt as if a scream was about to tear loose, uncontrolled, from her throat, when the nanny stepped in.

“
That’s enough.  She wants to play.”

“
You’re distracting her.”  Eugenia stared up at her in defiance. 

Nell struggled more, and Mollie thought she heard a
whimper.  Mollie reached out, her fingertips brushing the glass.

The brunette stuck her fists on her hips, annoyed. 
“Let her go, now, or I go to Mr. Deming.”

“
Fine, Daphne.  Have it your way.”  She released Nell, who sat up, pushing the blanket off her head. 

Daphne removed the blanket and hugged Nell
close, while Eugenia stalked from the room, casting a bitter glance back over her shoulder.  Daphne began to sing a song in what sounded like French, as she carried Nell over to a basket of toys near the fireplace. 

Mollie turned away from the window, sick to her stomach from the scene.  The blonde named Eugenia must be the wet nurse.  She hadn
’t expected it.

Of course they had a wet nurse.  She had been a newborn
—still nursing—when she was taken.  They could have had a special infant formula made up by a doctor, but a rich family like that could probably procure a wet nurse easily. 

The idea that a stranger
—a
servant
—was nursing her daughter, instead of Mollie herself, unsettled her to the core.  It was such an intimate, loving exchange between a mother and child.  Though she was glad that her child was had gotten the nutrition she needed as a young babe, it tore her apart to witness the spectacle.  And the way the nurse had been so forceful with Nell!  She had to cover her mouth to hold back the sobs.

She wanted to stay longer, to watch Nell play, but she was so rattled, she knew she had to leave, before she alerted someone to her presence.  She crept along the house, and waited until she was sure all was clear.  Then she darted quietly across the yard.  Once in her little hidden spot, she wept silent tears, mourning the months of her daughter
’s life that had been stolen from her. 

It became harder and harder to tear herself away each day, but she knew after Friday
’s row with Noah that she needed to be more careful.  Though it seemed hopeless, she still dared to dream that somehow, some way, she would be able to have her daughter again…that she and Nell and Noah could somehow be a family. 

She brushed off the pine needles that had embedded themselves into her coat as she passed through the hedge, and checked the alley before stepping out to walk toward home. 

It was strange—mere weeks had passed since arriving in Helena, and whenever she imagined a future with Nell, Noah was always a part of it.  Not just because she needed him, but more and more, it was because she couldn’t imagine her life without him any more than she could imagine it without Nell. 

I only hope that I never have to choose between a future with one, or a future with the other.