Clara's Mail Order Joy (Home for Christmas Book 5)

by Natalie Dean

  Despite these gestures, Hazel still felt as though she were married to a stranger. He was a man who was gentle but rather silent during intimate moments, who had never told her that he loved her or seemed to care whether she loved him or not. He praised her appearance and encouraged her to have new clothes made. He approved of her choice of hats. But did she love him? How could she love a man she didn’t know?

  Hazel watched as Clara, her cheeks flushed from her husband’s praise and a heady glass of wine, seemed to blossom into a lush and exotic flower in his presence. They were strangers, too, Clara and Peter and yet, between them, there was a sharing. Hazel didn’t know what it was or what inspired it, but she sensed that it was present in their young marriage and lacking in hers.

  When the eating was over and the guests, sensitive to the fact that their presence was not required or even wanted at this point, took their leave, Clara’s sisters enveloped her with hugs; Minnie’s were reassuring, Hazel’s hopeful. Then they were gone and the newlyweds were alone. Peter closed the door and turned to his wife, his eyes bright with affection.

  “And now,” he said solemnly, “I’m going to do something I’ve been wanting to do from the moment I first set my eyes on you.”

  “Yes?” she asked. Her sisters had cleaned up the kitchen for her, washing the dishes and putting them away, and the little doll house that she and her husband would live in was restored to order, albeit fragrant with the pleasant aroma of cooked food.

  She surveyed him as he came closer to her. She was not tall, but he was noticeably taller.

  “Yes,” he said softly. He removed the pins from her hat and put it aside. Clara felt as if she were trapped within a gilded cage of anticipatory suspense; Peter’s nearness, his warmth, the intoxicating presence, all made her feel as if she were delirious.

  Then, slowly, as if there were no rush and time was entirely theirs to command, he began to remove, one by one, the hairpins that kept her hair in place. As he removed each pin, thick locks came loose, falling to the shoulders of her cream-hued dress and branding it with the flame of her hair. By the time he had removed every hairpin and her tresses were completely unbound, Clara felt as though her heart was pounding so fast that she surely would swoon. Her corset felt much too tight, as if she could not possibly take another breath without removing the undergarment.

  Peter tilted her chin up. “There’s something else I’ve been wanting to do since I saw you,” he said.

  “Peter, I can’t breathe,” she said. “Help me take off my dress.”

  His eyebrows rose. “I’ve been wanting to do that, too, since I first laid eyes on you, but I didn’t expect you to feel the same way.”

  “I really can’t breathe, my corset . . . it’s too tight.”

  He saw that she was serious and immediately unfastened the back of her dress, then loosened her corset so that she was no longer confined within the garment. As she drew in deep breaths, Peter watched in fascination.

  “Clara,” he said.

  “Yes?”

  “Can you breathe now?”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  “Make sure,” he said as he raised her in his arms and began the ascent up the staircase, “because I want to get back to kissing and I don’t want you fainting on me.”

  She didn’t faint. Peter’s lips were smooth and warm. “Kissing you isn’t at all like being kissed by Everett Bodkin,” she murmured as she leaned in closer to his embrace.

  “Who?” he asked. Could a man be drunk on a woman’s beauty, he wondered as strands of her brilliant auburn tinted hair swirled around him. Her skin was so soft and supple; he had never thought that a woman so perfect would ever welcome his touch with the same ardor that he felt for her.

  “Everett Bodkin,” she murmured, wrapping her arms around his neck. “His lips were wet and he smelled of spirits.”

  “And what were you doing kissing him?” Peter demanded, amused by her dismissal of this Bodkin’s amorous advances.

  “I wasn’t kissing him, he was kissing me,” she said. “There is a difference, you know.”

  “I hadn’t thought about it,” Peter said. He sat down on the bed. “Maybe I’d better make sure that everything is going right.” He crooked a finger in her direction. “Why don’t you come here and kiss me?”

  “We’re kissing each other,” she protested.

  She didn’t know how desirable she looked, her corset discarded and her lovely dress unfastened. There were, he reckoned, a lot of things she didn’t know and things that she’d never learned from Everett Bodkin, whoever he might have been.

  He waved his finger in her direction. “Kiss me,” he commanded in a low, husky voice in which lust and humor managed to find equal representation.

  She bent down, her lush hair tumbling all around him, falling upon his face like scented silk. Hesitantly, she put her lips to his. “Like this?”

  “For starters,” he said.

  Her mouth lifted in a grin against his lips. Her fingers traveled through the mane of his reddish-brown hair, tousling it. His beard tickled her skin. Everett Bodkin hadn’t had a beard.

  “Aren’t you going to kiss me back?” she queried as he sat there.

  “I don’t want to make any of the mistakes that Everett Bodkin made,” he answered.

  She laughed softly; he felt as if the sound would tear away every ounce of his self-control. “Peter Edwards,” she said, “you are nothing like Everett Bodkin.”

  “You’ll tell me if I ever kiss like him?”

  “Oh, yes,” she breathed. “Oh, yes, I’ll tell you.”

  Chapter 6

  Marriage, Clara decided, was quite to her liking. They spent the afternoon as newlyweds, discovering one another with the eagerness of explorers in uncharted territory and then, as evening came on, they went downstairs to eat cold meat and vegetables and cake. They were about to return to the bedroom when Clara realized that she had not seen that much of her house, in particular, the room . . .

  “The room?” her husband, who instead of getting dressed had pulled the comforter over his body and looked like a tribal chieftain, didn’t understand. “You’ve seen all there is. It’s not very big, I know, but it’s just the two of us and we’ve got what we need.”

  Clara shook her head urgently, her tousled brunette hair a brilliant spill of color down her shoulders. She had opted for some decorum, donning the robe that she had brought with her from Boston. Because she took very good care of her wardrobe, the rich green satin wrapper almost looked new, but it was not the condition of the garment which captured her husband’s attention. She looked like a mythological being, he thought, calyxed in green all around her like vines grown together, with her abundant locks unleashed around her.

  “Peter,” she said, “I need . . . “

  “What do you need, honey?” he asked.

  “I need to use the facilities,” she said with dignity. A woman, even a wife, should not be obliged to refer to private functions to her husband. Surely Mother and Father maintained their dignity regarding these things.

  Understanding dawned. “Ohh, you mean the privy,” he said. “I meant to show you. There’s not a finer one in all this part of Colorado, I’ll wager. Come along I’ll show you.”

  “Where are we going?” she asked when he went to the front door.

  “To the privy,” he said with a laugh. “You wouldn’t expect to find it in here now, would you?”

  If he expected praise from his wife when she returned to the house, her hands dripping wet from the water she had pumped from the well in a fury of temper, he was destined to be disappointed. There was no effort now for her to prevent lines from forming on her face; her visage was a scowl.

  “What do you think?” he asked proudly. “Your sisters put lavender inside so that it would smell good. I got two catalogs to use. And there’s two holes, I reckon that’ll come in handy when we have young’uns. Folks here, they’re mighty taken with it.”

  “In Boston,
” she said, her voice shaking with the timbre of her outrage, “we had rooms inside for those purposes, and water piped in. We did not go outside.”

  “Oh, well that’s a mighty fine thing to have,” Peter nodded approvingly. “I reckon it’ll take awhile before Colorado has such a fancy setup. All our water is from the well, but it stays in the ground unless we bring it up. There’s a creek by the mine, but—"

  “We cannot have a room inside?”

  “Oh, we could have a room if that’s what your heart is set on,” he said. “But it couldn’t house any more than a chamber pot.”

  “A chamber pot?”

  “Sure, don’t you know about chamber pots? They’re what people use in the cold weather now, mostly at night, so they don’t have to go outside and use the outhouse. I’ll see that we have one before it gets too cold. I had one when I lived in the mining camp, but it’s different for a fellow, we just—"

  He stopped. Clara’s eyes were fixed upon him as if he had suddenly begun to babble in a language that was unknown to her.

  “Maybe you’d rather use leaves?” he suggested. “I can pull plenty of those from the trees.”

  An outhouse. A catalog. Leaves. She had never thought that leaving Boston would take her to the very boundaries of barbarism. Clara closed her eyes so that she could shut out the thought of her future, when she would be required to leave her house in order to satisfy the calls of nature which no human being, however fastidious or clean, could deny.

  “Peter,” she said, turning to face him. “This is a lovely house and I know that it must have taken a great deal of time and work for you to build. I am very happy that we have such a home. It reminds me of the houses in Massachusetts and I did not think to see such familiar sights when I came here.”

  Pete smiled happily. “I’m glad you like it,” he said, opening the comforter so that it covered the two of them. “I knew that you gave up a lot to come this far and I can’t pretend that I’m the sort of fellow you’d have expected to marry, a fine lady like you. I’m grateful to you for marrying me and I mean to make you happy that you did. I reckon it’ll take some getting used to, being married to an ordinary sort of man like I am. But I meant what I said today when we had our wedding lunch. I plan to be worthy of you.”

  Within Clara, there was a war taking place. Her disgust at the rudimentary conditions that Colorado offered for a woman of her upbringing battled with the sincere adoration on Peter’s handsome face. Sighing, she leaned against his bare chest and he held her to him.

  “Maybe more lavender,” he suggested. “That might make it better.”

  There were some remarks which were better for not receiving a response. Clara was not typically sensitive to such moments, but this was one of those times. She leaned against him, his strong, faithful heart beating against her ear, his lean, muscled arms holding her close, and thought of her future. Peter would strike the vein where the silver was waiting to be uncovered. When he did, they would find a way to bring water in from outside so that they need not use the outdoor facility again. If they were the only residents of Colorado who had such a structure, they would have it. If they had to seek engineers from Boston to build it, they would find them. It did not matter how, they would do it, because there were some aspects of life which could not fall back to such primitive ways.

  On the following morning, Peter rose early and dressed, ran his fingers through his hair which already seemed shaggy despite the trimming he’d gotten from the barber in Newton, kissed his wife on her cheek, then her bare shoulder and then her lips, and told her that he was going to work. As he was only traveling a short distance to the mine, Clara did not regard this as significant.

  “Aren’t you going to eat something for breakfast?” she asked.

  “I’ll catch something from yesterday’s lunch before it goes bad,” he said. “I reckon we’ve got a day or two remaining.”

  “But what about eggs, bacon, toast?” she sat up, her blankets modestly cocooned around her, and the magnificence of her hair such a sight that Pete was sorely tempted to postpone his start to the day for just a bit longer.

  But no. It was for him to find the vein that would yield the silver that would allow him to shower her with all the treasures she deserved.

  “I suppose we could get a hen,” he said. He had some credit at the general store, but that wouldn’t help in buying a chicken, and the price of eggs was too dear to make the purchase an economical one. A chicken would be better. “Gavin has chickens,” he said. “I’ll buy one off him and then we’ll have eggs.”

  “I was not proposing to gather eggs so that we can have breakfast,” she said as if she needed to explain this to him.

  “There’s no other way for it,” Peter said cheerfully. “Unless you want to ride into town every morning for breakfast at the hotel. That’ll cost more money than I have just now.”

  “Nor was I proposing to go to a hotel to eat breakfast.”

  “We’ll figure something out,” he said. “I’ll be back around lunchtime. Likely, you’ll hear me coming; my belly will be growling so loud you’re going to think there’s an avalanche coming down the mountain.”

  “But—"

  She was speaking to the air. Peter went down the stairs, not dressed in his wedding suit nor in the comforter that he had covered himself with yesterday when they ate in the evening, but with coarse, worn trousers, a plain blue shirt, a hat on his head and sturdy boots on his feet, and a jacket.

  Then it struck her. She had married a miner. Miners did not wear fine suits or polished shoes. They wore clothes that could stand up to whatever sort of conditions were in the mine. She knew nothing about mines or mining. She was not sure she wanted to know. The man she was married to, the man upon she depended for shelter and food and everything she needed, would go into the mine, deep into the caverns of the earth, to dig into the ground itself to try to uncover the silver that would make them rich. He might be underneath the house at this very moment. While she was above the ground, where the warmth of the sun could be felt, he was below the ground.

  Below the ground.

  Inside the earth, like some creature of lore, with his axe and his tools, and his determination to strike silver.

  Clara was not particularly reverent in her religious beliefs. Church was a part of her life and she regarded herself as a faithful Episcopalian who attended worship services in the magnificent Boston cathedral where the other worthies of Boston communed with one another and their God. She prayed the prayers of her childhood and was certain that God heard her, even if He had, of late, been remiss in answering them.

  But now she found herself praying in a rush of hope and fear. Heavenly Father, keep Peter safe. He is my husband and he is a good man. I do not know if I love him yet, but we are married and I will know him better when we have been together longer. Keep him safe down in the earth and let him come back to the surface every day.

  She dressed carefully and attentively, as if she were still in Boston and her appearance mattered, lacing her corset herself, as tightly as she could manage it while still being able to breath. She styled her hair on top of her head and held the mass of locks in place with pins. Just because she was a Colorado wife instead of a Bostonian debutante did not mean that she was going to ease the standards by which she had been raised. A woman might not have access to the most refined amenities which were common in the better cities of the world, but if she had been born a lady, as Clara most assuredly had, she would maintain the highest level of propriety in all things.

  When Peter emerged from the mine around lunchtime, blinking in the bright sun, he saw Clara standing there at the opening of the mine, peering anxiously as he came out.

  “Oh, Peter!” she ran to him. “I was afraid . . . “

  He held her off, but with a smile. “I’m a mite grubby, sweetheart,” he said, “and you don’t want to dirty up that fine dress. I’ll go wash at the pump and then come inside to eat. My, but you’re a welcome sight a
fter being down in the mine all morning,” he told her. “I swear that you just get prettier every minute. I don’t know how you do it, Clara, but I’ll keep looking at you just to see it happen.”

  His praise was so heartfelt and outspoken that Clara, a woman quite accustomed to being the recipient of extravagant compliments, did not know what to say.

  “I have lunch ready,” she said simply and returned to the house while Peter Edwards, his intention to wash forestalled for the moment by the sheer pleasure of watching her shapely figure ascend the steps, grinned happily. There was no need to go right back into the mine after lunch, he thought. She was so pretty . . .

  Chapter 7

  By the end of her first week of marriage, Clara had developed a certain routine. She arose before Peter did so that she could make fresh coffee for the two of them. He was not accustomed to sitting in the morning to eat breakfast, but he could not resist when Clara had taken the time to make bread and toast it and put it in front of him to eat with his coffee. She looked so pretty in that green slippery robe that she wore that he couldn’t help but wrap his arms around her while she stood before the fire, enjoying the way her body felt to his touch without that infernal corset boxing her in underneath her dresses.

  There were eggs now; Gavin had brought over some chickens and a rooster for them. Clara didn’t particularly like the chickens, they were noisy and they got in the way, but she liked having eggs to cook with and to eat, and when she and Peter went into town, Clara had a list of what they needed. Peter, before he’d gotten married, had bought his meals from one of the mining camp women and hadn’t given a thought to cooking. But Clara wanted flour and sugar and oats and molasses and honey and yeast and potatoes, and then she wanted bacon and ham. She also bought fabric; Peter needed more shirts and trousers. Harley had brought salted beef for the couple on their wedding day, and the garden that Pete had planted in the back yard behind the house was producing vegetables in abundance. Down in the cellar, where it was cool, the food could be kept fresh, even as the weather turned warmer with summer coming on.