“Ferrara?” Her heart raced. Her father had answered her. “I’ll be right down.”
“No need. I’ll bring it up. I’ll just be a—”
“Hurry!”
He chuckled.
She whipped away from the window and began pacing back and forth across the room. What was it? What had her father sent?
She’d never spoken much about her father to Drew…or anyone, for that matter. At first, it was because she didn’t want to be found. Her father’s name was well-known enough that a decent detective could track her back to her estate in Italy.
Once she’d met Drew and he’d proposed, she knew her father couldn’t command her any longer. He couldn’t summon her home to marry the man of his choice, because she already had a husband.
But she didn’t want any questions at the wedding. She didn’t want her friends asking why her family hadn’t come. So she’d let them believe she was an orphan.
Afterward, it had haunted her that she hadn’t told her father about any of it. He might be a domineering, demanding man who thought his daughter was a prize to be used for political gain.
But he was generally good. He’d given her food and shelter, taught her right from wrong, and spoiled her with the comforts of nobility. He deserved to know the truth.
She chewed at her lip. When was Drew going to get here? She rushed to the window again. He was still down there with the package, chatting with Mr. Parker.
“Drew!” she yelled.
“On my way.”
He gave a tip of his hat to Mr. Parker and then loped toward the house.
She turned her back to the window and began wringing her hands. What had her letter said? She closed here eyes, trying to remember.
She’d apologized for leaving in such haste, of course. But she hadn’t apologized for leaving. She’d told him she couldn’t marry the man of his choice and was following her dreams. That much was true.
But the crux of the letter, she was ashamed to admit, was intentionally misleading.
She’d told her father she was getting married to the grandson of a great lord in California.
It wasn’t exactly untrue. Drew’s father had been the headman of his people, the Konkow.
What she’d omitted, however, was the fact that the Konkow were a small tribe of natives who lived in stick houses, wore doeskin skirts, and subsisted largely on acorns and deer.
She was sure her father would never approve.
She gulped. What if he was coming to visit? What if he showed up and had the marriage annulled, stripped off her wedding ring, and dragged her back to Ferrara?
The breath caught in her chest.
Then she heard steps on the stairs.
She rushed to the door, opening it before Drew had even reached for the doorknob, and snatched away the package.
“Greedy girl.” He laughed and clucked his tongue. “I’d hate to see what you’re like at Christmas.”
She dropped the package on the bed and took the scissors out of her apron pocket to cut loose the strings.
“It is from my father,” she explained to Drew.
“Your father?”
Her fingers were trembling. It was ridiculous, she knew. Even if the package contained something bad—a document disowning her or an official demand for her to return to Italy—it no longer had any legal effect on her. She was now the citizen of a new country.
Still, she held her breath as she unwrapped the paper and opened the box.
“What is it?” Drew whispered.
There was a note on top. She read the first sentence and lowered herself on shaky legs to the bed.
“Is everything all right?” Drew asked.
“I am not…” She read the rest quickly and then lowered the note to her lap.
“Xongqot, Cat, what does it say?”
She translated it for Drew. “To my daughter Catalina, to say I am displeased does not begin to describe my emotions. When I discovered you had run away, my heart was broken. Your dear mother, with her dying breath, demanded I find you a good husband. To my sorrow, you left before I could fulfill her wishes. I am sorry you found life here so unbearable. But now that you have found a husband, I hope you find pleasure in your new country. I am pleased that you have found your way and married a person of noble blood who will—”
“Wait. What? Noble blood? Where did he get that idea?”
She shrugged. “I may have told him your grandfather was a lord.”
He winced at her lie and then reconsidered. “Well, that is true…sorta.”
She scanned the letter, looking for where she left off. “…a person of noble blood who will provide for you and give you many children.”
“Many?” Drew asked. “How many?”
She ignored him and kept translating. “But what I am most displeased about is that I was not invited to the wedding.” Her voice caught on the touching words.
Drew put his arm around her, and she felt her eyes filling with tears. She didn’t know why, but lately she got teary all the time.
She cleared her throat, sniffed, and continued. “I hope I am not too late to give you a wedding gift, a gift so you will never forget your home. One day I will come to California. I hope I will be welcome at your husband’s estate. With loving regards…”
“Estate?”
That did make her laugh just a little through her tears.
Drew let out a low whistle. “I’m gonna have to work a lot harder if I’m gonna have that estate built by the time he comes to visit.”
Catalina grinned up at him. He winked back. She didn’t need an estate, and he knew it.
“What’s in the package?” he asked.
She removed a crumpled wad of papers, noting with amusement that they were pages from her old fashion magazines. Then she looked at the bundle below, wrapped in parchment and tied with twine. She snipped the string and peeled back the parchment.
Beneath it was a bundle of gauze.
She gasped. She knew what it was.
Carefully, she loosened the parchment to uncover at least a dozen black lumps the size of a baby’s fist.
“Coal?” Drew guessed.
“Tartufi!” she cried.
She burst into tears then—ridiculous, howling sobs of joy that startled Drew and made her wonder at her own sanity.
Of course, her weeping was about more than the tartufi. It was about making peace with her father, keeping her ties with the place of her birth while finding a new home in a new country.
Drew folded her in his arms, catching her sobs and letting her drench his shirt with her tears. She wept also for being blessed with an incredible husband who had given her a baby and bought her a beautiful sewing machine so she could do what she loved best.
When she ran out of tears, she pulled away to wipe her face with her hands. Sniffling, she told Drew, “You must try one.”
“I don’t know. The way you’re carryin’ on,” he said with a wink, “I’m beginnin’ to think they might be as dangerous as opium.”
She smiled. “You have a knife?”
He pulled out his Bowie knife and handed it to her, handle first.
She picked up one of the black lumps and carried it on a piece of parchment to the marble-top dresser. Then she carefully cut two slices no thicker than a coin.
“You sure about this?” he asked as he took the slice, eyeing it as if it might contain poison.
“I will go first,” she told him.
She took a small nibble, rolling her eyes as she savored the musky, garlicky flavor on her tongue. “Mmmm.” It tasted like…home. “Now you.”
She watched with amusement as he took a tiny bite. Seeing as it didn’t poison him, he took another. His forehead creased as he considered the taste. Finally, he took a generous bite, chewing and frowning with the concentration of her father’s wine-taster.
“Well?” she asked.
“Not bad. Better than I expected.”
Her brows shot up. Not ba
d? She took another heavenly nibble. How could he not taste the forests of Ferrara in every bite?
But then she realized that was part of it. For her, it was more than a taste. It was an experience and a memory.
“Tartufi reminds me of home, of my childhood,” she said. “What was your favorite food when you were a boy?”
“Mmm, k’itust-dediwilliq’.”
“And this is…?”
“Acorn bread.”
“Then I must try your acorn bread,” she decided.
“That’s a promise,” he said. “O’ course, my mother makes the best. She learned from the other women o’ the—”
There was a knock on the door.
“Miss Catalina?” It was Mr. Parker.
She opened the door, tartufo in hand.
He nodded a greeting and extended an envelope. “It looks like a letter came for you today.”
“Oh.” Two letters in one day?
Mr. Parker gave the tartufo a skeptical glance.
“Would you like to try the tartufo?” she offered. “It is a delicacy from my country.”
“No, thanks, ma’am. I’m more of a steak and potatoes man.”
She shrugged. But as she took the letter with thanks, she couldn’t help but wonder how steak and potatoes would be with little shavings of tartufo on top.
The letter was from Sacramento. She used Drew’s knife to slice it open.
“It’s from Jenny!” she cried when she saw the name.
“Jenny? Our little runaway Jenny?”
“Si. I will read it.” It was good for Catalina to practice reading English. “My dearest Catalina, I cannot thank you enog…”
“Enough?”
“I cannot thank you enough for helping me to escape my woo-reh-ch…woo-reh-ch…”
“May I?” Drew asked.
She showed him the word.
“Wretched.”
“For helping me to escape my wretched kirkum-, circumstances, and I want you to know your gen-, generosity has not been in vain. I am delig-…”
“Delighted?” he guessed.
She nodded. “Delighted to tell you that I have found myself a kind and upstanding gentleman, and I am now…” She gasped in wonder. “Married!”
She grinned up at Drew.
“Go on,” he said.
“Because you were such a freen-…friend to me, I wish to repay your kindness. My new husband is in the retail bus-, bus-…”
He glanced at the page. “Business.”
She blinked and shook her head. These Americans had very strange ways of spelling words.
“Retail business with a Mr. Wine-, Ween-, Weinstock?”
Drew shrugged. “No tellin’.”
“They would be very interested to see your clothing desi-…” She broke off, racing ahead to silently read the rest.
“Designs?”
She nodded, barely able to contain her excitement. “They want to see my designs. It says they want to carry clothings made to order.”
She stared up at him, stunned.
“Well, that’s good news, right?” he asked.
“It is wonderful news!”
He gave her a big hug. But of course, her mind was already hundreds of miles away, planning.
“I’ll send them what I have so far,” she said. She had several designs drawn up.
She pulled out of Drew’s embrace and went to rummage through her portfolio of designs.
Behind her, Drew unbuttoned his shirt.
“Sacramento is a very big city, yes?” she asked, as she pulled out a few of her papers and turned to him.
He shuffled out of his shirt, hanging it over the chair. “Yeah, pretty big.”
Her forehead wrinkled with worry. “I wonder how many orders they will get.”
“Hard to say.” He sat on the bed and kicked off his boots.
She tapped on the papers in her hands. “What if I cannot fill all the orders?”
Drew began unbuttoning his trousers.
She sat on the edge of the bed, worrying her lip under her teeth.
“I wouldn’t worry,” Drew told her. “Things have a way o’ workin’ out.”
That was easy for him to say. He wasn’t responsible for filling the orders.
He pulled off his trousers, first one leg, then the other. “Look at the way things worked out for you at The Parlor. You wouldn’t have dreamed o’ workin’ at a place like that. But if you hadn’t, we would never have met. And if it weren’t for Miss Hattie—”
She inhaled sharply, interrupting him. Of course, she thought.
“Miss Hattie,” she said. “She said she wanted to get rid of The Parlor.”
“Yeah?” Drew yanked off his socks and dropped them onto the floor.
Catalina’s mind was working as fast as her treadle machine. “But she didn’t want to put all the girls on the street.”
Drew pulled off his undershirt. “What’s that got to do with—”
“I can teach the ladies to sew,” Catalina realized. “If I move my sewing machine back to The Parlor, I can have three shifts of ladies sewing, all day and all night.”
Drew gazed at her, his eyes full of wonder and admiration. “Huh. That’s pretty clever.” He smiled. “You never cease to amaze me.”
He made her blush, but her heart raced at the possibilities.
“If there are many, many orders, I can buy a second machine, and a third, and so on.”
“You could transform The Parlor into a dressmaker’s shop,” Drew realized.
“Exactly!” She couldn’t wait to break the happy news to Miss Hattie. She could already envision it. “The rooms upstairs can be for sewing, and the ladies can come for fittings in the salon below. I can display gowns all around the room. And behind the bar, I can stock gloves, hats, parasols, and reticules to match. Oh. And I can even serve tea and coffee to the ladies while they are waiting for alterations.”
She beamed at Drew in triumph. It was only then she noticed that he was mostly undressed.
“What happened to your clothings, Drew?”
He gave her a sultry grin. “You may have been right about the tartufo makin’ a person amorous.”
She didn’t believe the stories about tartufi. But even after all these weeks, Drew could make her heart flutter with just a glance.
She dipped her eyelids and then skewered him with a steamy stare. “You know I ate more than you did.”
“That’s true.” He came close, letting his smoldering black gaze trace her lips and throat, settling on her cleavage. “So why are you still dressed?”
THE END
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More Books by Glynnis Campbell
The Warrior Maids of Rivenloch
The Shipwreck (novella)
Lady Danger
Captive Heart
Knight’s Prize
The Knights of de Ware
The Handfasting (novella)
My Champion
My Warrior
My Hero
Medieval Outlaws
Danger’s Kiss
Passion’s Exile
The Scottish Lasses
The Outcast (novella)
MacFarland’s Lass
MacAdam’s Lass
MacKenzie’s Lass
The California Legends
Native Gold
Native Wolf
Native Hawk
About Glynnis Campbell
I’m a USA Today bestselling author of swashbuckling action-adventure historical romances, mostly set in Scotland, with over a dozen award-winning books published in six languages.
But before my role as a medieval matchmaker, I sang in The Pinups, an all-girl band on CBS Records, and provided voices for the MTV animated series The Maxx, Blizzard’s Diablo and Starcraft video games, and Star Wars audiobooks.
I’m the wife of a rock star (if you want to know which one, contact me) and the mother of two young adults. I do my best writing on cruise ships, in Scottish castles, on my husband’s tour bus, and at home in my sunny southern California garden.
I love transporting readers to a place where the bold heroes have endearing flaws, the women are stronger than they look, the land is lush and untamed, and chivalry is alive and well!
I’m always delighted to hear from my readers, so please feel free to email me at [email protected]. And if you’re a super-fan who would like to join my inner circle, sign up to be part of Glynnis Campbell’s Readers Clan on Facebook, where you’ll get glimpses behind the scenes, sneak peeks of works-in-progress, and extra special surprises!
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From the Jewels of Historical Romance
~ A sparkling collection of gems ~
Native Hawk (California Legends Book 3) Page 24
