Six Little Sunflowers: Historical Romance Novella (American State Flower) (7 page)

“The first gown I tried on is fine,” Félicie said, but Rena had already left the showroom. The workroom was next to the kitchen, and since Rena had missed dinner too, the likelihood she would return immediately was small. Non-existent, really.

“That one wasn’t yellow,” muttered Carpenter.

“It is fi—”

Mama squeezed Félicie’s arm, silencing her, and then stepped around to stand next to Carpenter. “Carp, help me understand. You want a happier version of”—she moved her hand up and down in front of Félicie—“this?”

“He doesn’t know what he wants.”

Carpenter gave Félicie an odd look. A look making her skin prickle with awareness. A look telling her he knew
exactly
what he wanted. A look making her stiffen and tingle and want...and wish...and...

She didn’t know. Heaven help her, she didn’t know what she wished for, but she could feel the pull, the ache. It hurt. The intensity of it—

Félicie focused on the dress, smoothing the beads as she blinked rapidly to stop the tears from forming. She hated crying. She hated staring at the door and waiting for it to open. Doors closed. People left and didn’t return no matter how much they said they loved you. Love made people run. Love made people die. She knew that. She knew that as much as she knew that whatever it was Carpenter Yeary wanted, it wasn’t her. They had an understanding. They had an incompatible list.

He didn’t want her.

She didn’t want him.

Félicie moistened her lips. She looked to Mama for help filling the silence, but Mama was walking to the service counter. She didn’t dare look at Carpenter.

Except she did.

His gaze fixed on hers, and it took every ounce of fortitude for her not to speak. To ask him why he was looking at her that way. No, not at her.

His attention was solely on her lips. As if he wanted to kiss—

Her breath caught. Not once in the last eighty-seven days had he kissed her. Not her hand. Not her cheek. Not her lips. He’d been a gentleman through and through.

His hand, moved toward her face...

Carpenter plucked the red feather from her hair. “Can’t have people calling you Félicie
Navidad
.”

Mama chuckled.

He cocked his head to the side and boasted, “I should have been a man-dressmaker. That’s what I should have been.”

Félicie gave her head a little shake. A man-dressmaker? At that moment all she could do was imagine him with measuring tapes draped around his neck and pins pinched between his lips.
Cowhide
, he would mutter,
is the newest thing in outerwear. It’s all the rage in Topeka
. The laugh started as a bubble in her chest and... She pinched her own lips tight, but that sent air through her nose and she snorted. The more she tried not to laugh, the more tears welled in her eyes. Her chest hurt. And... and she couldn’t breathe. She was going to cry. Right her. In front of Carpenter and Mama and...

She breathed deeply to control the spasms in her chest. Her throat tightened. She rubbed her forehead to keep Carpenter from seeing her eyes.

Mama grabbed her sketchbook from the counter. “Carp dear, let’s have a seat and you can describe what you are envisioning.”

“Since you two...uhh, I’ll go.” Félicie whirled around and walked as steadily as she could to the fitting room.

“She’s crying.”

She heard Mama’s soft words as she stepped through the curtains. Félicie reached behind to hold the curtains closed, to stop someone from entering. She hadn’t realized she was crying but now that she knew...

Her chin trembled.

She pinched her eyes closed to stop the tears. It hurt. She hurt. Every muscle in her face hurt.

She couldn’t do this anymore. She couldn’t keep lying. She couldn’t keep allowing the circle of friends to plan a wedding that wasn’t wanted. She couldn’t keep pretending it was real. Nothing about this was real. Every enjoyable moment with him was a façade. She wanted real. She wanted love. She wanted to be treasured. And she couldn’t have that until the make-believe world with him ended.

“Félicie,” came Carpenter’s soft voice.

Sniff.
Félicie schooled her face and breathed deep. She released the curtain. While wiping the tears off her cheeks, she blurted, “Stay out. I am changing.” She hurried into the room and began searching for the button hook. Where was it? She jerked the lime-colored ribbon off her shoulder. Where had Mama Helaine put the button hook?

He stepped through the curtains.

“Go away. Please,” she added to be polite. She tossed the ribbon onto the vanity. “It is not appropriate for you to be in here.”

He didn’t move. “I’m your fiancé.”

“Not a real one.”

“Real enough.” He gave her a look daring her to argue.

“Go.” She pointed to the curtain. “You win, Carpenter. It is impossible for me to be more insufferable than you are.”

“Of course. You’re too kindhearted and pragmatic to do anything that would actually make me dislike you.”

“How can you say that? You know I’ve made your life miserable at times.”

“You
think
you have,” he said with sigh. “Truth is, Félicie, you don’t have a mean bone in your body. You inform everyone I have to eat more vegetables to help with my constipation issues. You give my housekeepers a list of foods I can and can’t eat because of those imaginary issues. A horrible person would put something in my food to actually make me constipated. Being a nice person isn’t a flaw.”

Félicie held her hands up in defeat. “Fine. The engagement is over. Done. Finished.”

He looked over his shoulder at the curtains. Then back at her, his head shaking in—in what? Disappointment? Frustration? Or maybe it was in annoyance that Mama Helaine and Rena were behind the curtain listening. She would not put it past them.

He crossed his arms. “You can’t end it yet.”

“Why not?” Félicie bit off.

“Do you realize how much money has already been spent on our engagement ball?” His voice held none of the silliness from earlier. His tone, like his expression, was serious. “You—we have to give them this ball. It’s good form.”

Félicie reached up and rubbed the side of her neck. Every muscle in her body seemed to ache. She sighed. That’s what her life had come to—one continual sigh.

He must have taken the slow wag of her head to mean no because he said, “Hear me out. I’ll leave the shop in a huff. Anyone who sees me will think I’m upset. If we avoid each other, the gossips will do the dirty work for us. You arrive late for the ball. We give the appearance of trying to be cordial to one another despite our irritations, and on Saturday, I’ll neglect to show at the kaffeeklatsch. In the natural gossip that will follow, word will spread that the engagement is over. A mutual decision.” He held up his hands, as if in surrender. “No harm, no foul to either of us.”

“More lying,” she muttered.

His gaze hardened. “Everyone lies.”

“And that makes it all right?”

“No,” he answered in an unusually snippy tone. “I’m saying everyone lies. To other people, to God, to ourselves. Especially ourselves. We tell ourselves we’re happy and content with our lives. We insist we have no regrets over choices we’ve made. We say we like ourselves, we have no fears, and we don’t need anyone’s help. Truth is…we are lying. We are putting on a show because we are afraid if we don’t and people knew all our flaws and secrets, then no one would like us. Everyone lies.”

“You agree—no more pretending to be happily engaged, no more pretending to be in love, no more pretending to want to get married?”

He gave a curt nod of acknowledgement. “We follow my plan.”

She scowled. “Why does it always have to be your plan?”

“What do you propose we do?” he burst out.

“After the ball,
you
,” she said with considerable emphasis, “inform Mrs. Grbic and her circle of friends that you have reached the conclusion that we will not suit. You apologize for the inconvenience and you thank the ladies for everything.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

His arms crossed.

And she could hear his silent, “
A gentleman’s reputation is no less important than a lady’s.”

Félicie’s heart pounded in her chest, her breath quickening. “I am tired,” she said, “of you using
your
reputation as an excuse for why you can’t do the right thing. You had no problem with anyone thinking badly of you for posing in the nude. And don’t tell me again how you are only doing this so I have food to eat and strong relationships that will last after you exit my life. I had enough food and friends before you came along. I didn’t need you to rescue me. I don’t need rescuing.”

He stared at her, his jaw hard. Then—

“They were art students.”

Of everything she said,
that
was what he focused on?

“How many
female
art students saw you naked?” she asked.

“Why does that matter?”

“Because if your reputation truly mattered to you, you wouldn’t have done that.”

His face reddened. “Wear whatever dress you want! I don’t care.” He jabbed a finger in her direction, emphasizing his words with each jab. “I’ll see you at the ball. You’d better be late.” He turned and left, the curtains swishing behind him.

Mama didn’t enter.

Neither did Rena.

Félicie turned to the vanity. She picked up the lime ribbon and coughed out a laugh. At least now she had one less lie on her conscience. She didn’t have to pretend she was angry with him, because she actually was. As long as she avoided Carpenter for two days—quite an easy task considering her had no desire to ever see him again—and arrived late to the engagement ball, people would believe they’d had a falling out. The gossips would end the engagement for them.

His plan had merit, she couldn’t argue there. Or could she?

Everyone likes Carp.

Everyone did. Unknown girl arrives from the shadows to ensnare their beloved fireman into marriage. She would be blamed. No matter how it ended, she would bear the blame.

Not him.

Her.

What type of lady proposes to a man? Not a reputable one, for sure.

Félicie sank onto the vanity chair. She looped the ribbon around her head then tied it in a bow. Elbows on the table, she leaned forward and rested her head in her palms. Follow his plan? Every bad idea thus far had been his or Rena’s or Mama’s. Look where that left her—still stuck in the same mire.

What if she’d been going about this all wrong?

She gave this some thought. She’d been trying to set fires. Carpenter Yeary would never run from a fire. It was time she followed her own bad idea—well, not bad per se.

Good…she would follow her own good idea.

A fire, once ignited, was tended with care, and a tribe, when travelling through a country, carried with them a piece of burning or smoldering bark, which they blew into a flame to kindle a fire at their various halting places…

~
The Chemistry of Fire and Fire Prevention

Friday evening – May 29th

Carey Hotel ballroom

H
E SHOULD HAVE NEVER SAID YES
.

Carp checked the time on his wristwatch. “She’s late.”

Joe patted Carp’s shoulder as the orchestra began a new piece. “Relax. She’ll be here before the clock strikes midnight.” He tucked his dark, shoulder-length hair behind his ears, then tugged on the sleeves of his tuxedo. “Now stop scowling. You’re scaring the ladies away.”

Carp grit his teeth. From where he and Joe stood at the perimeter of the ballroom, fifty feet from the entrance, he could see the cheerful faces, all thrilled to be celebrating his and Félicie’s engagement. Everyone in Wichita knew how he and Félicie adhered to punctuality. By her lateness, they’d aptly conclude something was amiss. He should be happy she was late.

He
was
happy. Everything was proceeding as planned.

“Don’t forget,” Carp said, forcing on a smile, “we’re fishing tomorrow at nine.”

Joe grimaced. “Sure you want to skip Mrs. Kleg’s kaffeeklatsch?”

“Absolutely.”

Once he missed attending the kaffeeklatsch with Félicie, then when he failed to escort her to church, the gossips would spread word of a falling-out. By Monday, he would be a free man. He ought to be thankful Félicie had finally revealed her true, judgmental colors, for it made their falling out easier. He could have told Félicie that he felt no shame for posing in the nude. Mrs. Melton and her art students had been so thankful to finally have a live model. Instead of ogling as he’d expected, each lady had studied him as though considering a lake or a hawk or a field of sunflowers. During most the time he posed, he’d worn a discrete covering.

He could have explained that to Félicie. He didn’t care if he disappointed or offended anyone. It didn’t matter what she thought. It shouldn’t matter.

Except it did.

In the time they’d spent together, her feelings and opinions had come to matter.

He didn’t need a woman living in his conscience. This was why their engagement needed to end.

“Gotta adhere to the plan,” he muttered.

Joe shook his head. “I can’t believe you’re giving up the best
bienenstich
in Wichita for smelly fish.”

“And your company.”

“This is what I get for saving your life—perpetual friendship.” Joe released a dramatic sigh. “I was an eleven-year-old chump. A handsome one, mind you, but still a chump.”

Carp laughed. “You also get fish.”

“I’d rather have
bienenstich
served to me by Mrs. Kleg’s pretty, little maid.”

“Without Mrs. Kleg around.”

“Exactly.”

At that, they turned their attention back to the entrance where the Laurents now stood without Félicie. Both looked jubilant. The green-beaded frock emphasized Rena’s hourglass curves, more than it had Félicie’s. Carp turned his head a fraction to get a better look at his first and closest friend. He’d wager the man’s intense (almost angry) gaze was fixated on one thing and one alone—Rena Laurent. More aptly, Rena Laurent’s abundant chest. Since the Christmas masquerade, except after Joe saved her from the fire, Carp hadn’t seen them exchange a word.

The moment Rena started to look their way, Joe turned to Carp. “I need a drink. You want one?”

“I’m”—Joe walked off before Carp finished saying—“good.”

Several attendees looked Carp’s way.

He nodded to acknowledge them then checked his wristwatch. Where was she? All she had to do was go from one floor of the hotel to the other. He should have clarified that “late” meant five to ten minutes. Twenty minutes was inexcusable.

He tugged his sleeve over his watch and let out an irritated exhale.

She was planning something.

He knew it because he knew her.

From the moment he’d left Mama Helaine’s shop, he knew Félicie wasn’t going to surrender without a fight. As sure as he was breathing, he knew she was plotting this very moment on how to maneuver
him
into breaking their engagement. It would involve kittens. Miss Sadie and Miss Cora had mentioned their nephew’s neighbor had a litter needing to be adopted. Sure enough when he got home, there on his sofa would be newly-weened, mewing felines.

All females too.

Carp groaned. Félicie was making him paranoid.

How could he not be?

In the last three months, every time he returned home from the engine house, her carnation-and-vanilla-scented perfume testified she’d visited his home and enlisted his housekeepers into conspiring against him. What had she moved? She always moved something, even when—no,
especially when
—he specified he liked where it was. There was a reason why a library should be on the main floor. There was a reason books should be arranged by the author’s last name. Not according to genre and then sub-divided by century written and then sub-divide again by author’s last name. He’d wasted hours staring at paintings because he couldn’t remember if that’s where they had originally hung or if she had moved them. Weeks after starting Edgar Allan Poe’s
Fall of the House of Usher,
he was still on chapter two because each time he tried to read, he’d hear her voice telling him how she’d discussed his choice of reading material with Dr. Trumble who agreed due to the “stress on his heart” from managing fires, he should be reading less tense and more tranquil fiction. Thus the stack of books on his bedside table that kept returning no matter how many times he moved them.

He would read
Pride and Prejudice
as soon as Jane Austen added dead bodies.

Carp tapped his thigh. Félicie had changed his plan—there could be no other explanation for her excessive tardiness. His lips pressed into a firm line. This was not what they’d planned. When you made a plan, you stuck with it, and you certainly didn’t change it without informing your partner. Whether she liked it or not, he
was
her partner. They were a team. Until they were no longer a team, they were still a team.

Mama Helaine and Rena stopped in front of him.

“Carp dear. I am so pleased you are joining our family.” Mama Helaine stood on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek. “You look handsome as always.”

“Oh, Mother,” Rena said, with a roll of her eyes that was so like Félicie. “He has enough people singing his praises.” Smiling, he gave his arm a sisterly pat. “You don’t have to fret. Félicie is on her way.”

Carp tensed. “I’m not fretting.”

“You’re not?” Rena fluttered a hand at nothing in particular. “Clearly I imagined your scowling, watch-checking fretfulness. My mistake.”

Mama Helaine wrapped Rena’s arm around hers. “If you will excuse us, I see Mrs. Grbic.”

“Enjoy your non-fretting,” Rena called out before walking off with her mother.

Joe, who’d been heading in Carp’s direction, turned abruptly in a direction that took him opposite where the Laurents were going.

Carp turned his attention to the Chamber Orchestra of Topeka, hired because Mrs. Lester and Mrs. Topping raved about its “energetic, expressive” sound. Having its own personal sound was exactly what a great orchestra shouldn’t have. It should adapt to the style of Haydn or Beethoven or Debussy and thus reflect the sound of the composer. This orchestra had taken Brahms’s gently curved phrases and turned them into the Rocky Mountains, each one higher than the last.

A clarinet squeaked. Faulty instrument? Old reed? Inexperienced musician?

The night had only begun and his ears wanted to leave. He’d need a good two hours playing his French horn to purge the sound of this orchestra from his mind.

A quick glance to the entrance.

No Félicie.

He winced at the sudden vibrato in the piece’s closing stanza. One string player was wiggling the fingers of his left hand on the strings. Why? Now another. A third. Someone needed to explain to the conductor the difference between exaggerated sentimentality and real feelings, especially in eighteenth-century music.

The Klegs stepped to the middle of the ball room. Other couples followed, including Joe and Mrs. Topping’s youngest daughter. Rena was with a man Carp didn’t know. The music for the opening waltz began, and dancing commenced.

The songs changed and partners switched.

Carp played his part to perfection, looking the aloof fiancé determined not to dance with anyone save his lady love. She had to show. She had to. Doing so was only good form. She simply could not miss their engagement ball and offend Mrs. Grbic and her friends.

He strolled to the other side of the ballroom. He shook hands and muttered his gratitude, and explained how Félicie had to attend to her—at this point he motioned in a circle around his head. Smiles, handshakes, and “congratulations!” continued as he circled the room, ending up where he’d started. For someone who didn’t like lying, she had no problem with putting him in a situation where he had to lie for her. He motioned to a server who immediately walked over. He grabbed a glass of punch from the tray.

He was on his second glass when—

Mrs. Grbic looked his way, giving him a sad smile as if she knew something but was going to do her best to keep up appearances.

Carp placed his cup on the tray of a server passing by. He fiddled with his cufflinks. He then tugged on his tuxedo lapels. He checked his watch again. Fifty-eight minutes.

“Miss me?”

He should have run.

The moment he turned, he knew he should have run.

He should have announced “the engagement is over,” turned on his heels, and fled the ballroom. He should have. He couldn’t move. There she was, looking beautiful and, as always, smelling of carnations and vanilla. One curl of her silky dark hair rested along the side of her neck, grazing her collar bone. The yellow dress with its shocking pink drape, wispy sleeves, and metal lace bodice drew a man’s attention to the one place only her husband should be looking. And he was looking. He couldn’t stop looking and thinking and imagining how warm and soft and touchable she was.

He wanted her.

No sense lying to himself. His attraction to Félicie had been ever-present since they first met. In the last two days of not seeing her, the intense bodily longing—

He cleared his throat. “You’re late,” he bit off.

She stepped closer. Her white-gloved hand rested on his chest, where she had to feel the pounding. “Oh, Carpenter.” With that came a tiny smile. “I can see you are still angry. Mama says for a relationship to succeed, each party must be able to see the other’s perspective.” She clasped her hands together. “You were right, and I was wrong.”

He opened his mouth to respond but no words came. What had he been right about? Everything, of course, but what specific thing had he been right about? Her rosy lips parted. She was saying something about dresses and dinner, and about regarding his actions as being pestilence—no, pestilent. Either word he didn’t care. He couldn’t look away from the sweet curve of her bottom lip. What was making it so shiny? So pink. So kissable.

He brushed his thumb along her lip, without thinking, before considering the appropriateness of the action.

She flinched. “What was that for?”

He opened his mouth to answer, but she touched her lips then licked them. His mind went blank. Other parts of him—

“Carpenter Yeary, are you listening to me?”

“Of course,” he groused then adjusted the pink mosquito netting so it hid the flesh her bodice failed to cover. This was something his wife wore in the privacy of their bedroom, not at a public ball. Not where other men could see and notice and desire. And if he was seeing, noticing, and desiring, then he knew other men in the room were, too. “Where did this come from?”

“Mama.” She ran her fingers along the glittering lace under the bodice. “It is what you asked for.”

Carp felt his own mouth go slack with shock.

She glanced down at the hem. “Embroidered flowers on the skirt to look like a garden growing.” She touched the filmy fabric. “Three-day-old yellow mosquito netting with a pink accents. By the way, it’s chiffon and tulle. How is this not what you described?”

He growled under his breath. “You don’t need to be half-dressed for men to recognize how ravishing you are.”

She gave him an odd look.

“Evening, Carp.”

Carp turned with Félicie to look at Seth Beaufoy.

“Miss Richmond,” he said, stretching out his hand, “might I have this dance?”

“Her first dance is promised,” Carp answered. Until Félicie wasn’t his fiancée anymore, she was his fiancée. His fiancée did not dance with Seth Beaufoy. Ever.