Mail Order Match Maker

by Kirsten Osbourne

  There was laughter from the group gathered for the occasion as he took his seat in the front row. Max looked down at her for a moment with his eyebrow raised but her eyes were dancing with amusement and emotion, as she squeezed his hand in hers.

  The vows were simple and the ceremony was short. Twenty minutes later, the preacher pronounced them man and wife and they were introduced to the congregation as Mr. and Mrs. Maxwell Farmer. They turned to face everyone, and Harriett realized for the first time just how many people had come out for her wedding to Max. The church was standing room only, and there was very little room to stand. She took a deep breath, trying to calm her raging heart. She told herself it was Max over and over in her head, having to remind herself that this wasn’t a man who would mistreat her.

  For a moment when she heard her new name, Harriett felt overwhelmed with panic. What if he was just like Arthur? What if Higgins wasn’t there to save her this time?

  Higgins met her eyes and slowly his lips turned up in a smile, as if to say he knew what she was thinking and it would all be okay. She breathed deeply a few times, and rested her head for a moment against Max’s shoulder. He was a good man, she told herself for the fiftieth time since she’d arrived in Seattle. Everything was going to be fine, because he was a good man.

  They walked to the back of the church and she was introduced to more people than she could count. At the very end of the line, she met his sister, Mary. Harriett accepted the other woman’s embrace and thanked her for taking care of the wedding plans. “I don’t know how I could have done it without your help,” she told her with a smile, kissing the older woman’s cheek.

  Mary, a rotund woman with red cheeks and a booming laugh, just smiled at her. “You’d have gotten married at a justice of the peace and been done with it.” She squeezed Harriett’s hands, obviously thrilled to have a sister-in-law. “I was thrilled to be able to help.”

  Harriett nodded. “I’m sure I would have.” She was amazed at how quickly and easily the other woman accepted her. She could tell this was going to be easy for her.

  “I’ve planned a small wedding lunch at my house. Just you and Max, Fred, and the girls and me.” Mary didn’t ask if they wanted to attend. It was obvious that when she made plans, she was used to the people around her falling in line and doing what they were told.

  “Is Fred your husband?” Max hadn’t mentioned Mary’s husband’s name when he mentioned coming to Seattle with them.

  Mary nodded. “Yes, poor Fred is the father of eight girls who he has no idea what to do with.” Mary’s voice sounded filled with love as she spoke of her large family.

  Harriett laughed softly. “I’m sure he’ll figure it out eventually.” She walked with Max toward his buggy.

  “We’ll follow you over, Mary.” Max helped her into the buggy and climbed up beside her. In Harriett’s ear he whispered, “I didn’t know about the wedding lunch. I was hoping to take you home and have a private lunch.” He sounded extremely put out that he was going to have to go spend more time around people when all he really wanted was to be alone with his wife.

  Harriett blushed, knowing he had more on his mind than just a meal. She leaned her head against his shoulder and sat quietly beside him. She was looking forward to marital relations with Max, but she was happy for the reprieve as well. No matter how much she cared for him, there was still that small amount of fear in the back of her mind that he would hurt her.

  Max stopped the buggy in front of a large two story home made entirely of wood. He helped her down and slipped his arm around her waist as he walked toward the front door. “I certainly hope they don’t expect us to stay all day,” he told her. He frowned at the door in front of him, as if it was the house that was keeping them from being alone together on their wedding day.

  Harriett smiled up at him, brushing a kiss against his clean shaven cheek. “It won’t be forever, and then we can go home and be alone.” She couldn’t believe that part of her was truly looking forward to being alone with her husband. She really did feel good about Max.

  “I can’t wait.” He said nothing else as Fred opened the door for them, and they stepped into the huge house.

  Harriett was surprised by all the noise going on around her. She felt as if she’d stepped into chaos by going into the house. There seemed to be girls everywhere. She didn’t recognize any of the girls as having been at the wedding. There was a girl in spectacles lying on the floor in the parlor that was off to the right of the entryway with her nose stuck in a book. Another girl had tied her skirts at her waist and was obviously wearing pants underneath the skirt. She was running through the house at breakneck speed, whooping like an Indian. Another girl was sitting on the sofa looking into a hand mirror, making strange faces. What kind of family had she married into?

  Max just shook his head. “Don’t worry, insanity doesn’t run in the family.” His lips were quirked at the corners, as if to tell her all was as normal as things got there.

  At the sound of his voice, the girl on the floor reading jumped up and squealed, running into his arms. “Uncle Max!” She left her book lying open on the floor, and Harriett wanted to run and move it out of the way in case the whooping Indian girl were to trip over it.

  He ruffled her hair. “This is my favorite niece, Amaryllis,” he told Harriett with a grin.

  From the other room the girl making the faces in the mirror called out, “Last week you said I was your favorite, Uncle Max!” She frowned into the mirror and immediately changed her face to a smile.

  “Haven’t you figured out yet that you’re all my favorites, Rose?” Max smiled over at the girl on the sofa.

  Rose walked over and eyed Harriett. “Are you our new aunt?” She looked Harriett up and down as if trying to decide if she was good enough to be her aunt.

  Harriett nodded. She hadn’t considered that she was becoming an instant aunt to eight girls. “I guess I am.” She returned Rose’s inspection of her with a smile.

  Rose studied her for another moment before finally seeming to decide she’d do. “What should we call you?”

  Harriett had rarely been around children but desperately wanted some of her own. She shrugged, unsure how to answer that question. The few children she’d known had simply called her, “Mrs. Long,” but that wasn’t her name any longer.

  Max rescued her by saying, “Aunt Harriett will do fine.”

  Rose nodded. “I’m the oldest. We’re all flowers.”

  Harriett wasn’t sure what that meant so she nodded. “I like flowers.” What else could she say?

  Amaryllis sighed. “What Rose means is we all have flower names. She’s never very precise in what she says. I think precision of speech is very important, don’t you, Aunt Harriett?” Amaryllis enunciated each word carefully as if fearful someone would misunderstand her otherwise.

  “Umm, of course.” Harriett wasn’t sure why she was having this conversation, but she went with it.

  “I’m Rose and I’m sixteen. I’m the oldest.” She indicated the girl with the pants on under her skirt. “That’s Lily. She’s fourteen and ought to have outgrown wearing pants by now.”

  “Fourteen and a half!” yelled Lily as she continued to run through the house ,dodging the people around her.

  “I’m thirteen,” Amaryllis told her.

  Harriett found herself hoping she wouldn’t be quizzed on this later, because she knew it would take her at least a month to get all their names straight. She couldn’t even think of any of them as “the girl with the flower name” because they all had flower names.

  Amaryllis pointed to a young girl Harriett hadn’t noticed until that moment who was standing in the corner of the parlor, absolutely quiet. “That’s Daisy. She’s eleven and a half.”

  Harriett felt a special affinity toward the quiet girl, but had no idea why. She held up her hand to wave. “Hi Daisy.”

  Daisy just lifted a hand slightly in what could pass for a wave if someone was feeling very imaginative.
She said nothing.

  Behind Daisy stood a little girl, who gave a quick tug on Daisy’s braid before running off, obviously hoping her sister would chase her.

  Amaryllis rolled her eyes. “That was Jasmine. She’s ten and she likes to play tricks on people. Always watch where you’re sitting if Jasmine’s around.” Amaryllis shook her head as if to say she was above the kind of antics her sisters played.Harriett felt her smile growing as she watched how the girls interacted with each other. A sixth girl who Harriett hadn’t yet seen walked through the room, staring at the ceiling, not even seeming to notice there was someone new there. She walked right on through without stopping and immediately tripped over the book Amaryllis had left in the middle of the floor.

  “Ouch!” The girl on the floor looked around for whatever had caused her fall.

  Harriett looked to Amaryllis. “Oh, that was just Hyacinth. She’s eight and a half,” Amaryllis told her.

  Hyacinth picked up the book and glared at Amaryllis, obviously knowing who had left the offending object to be tripped over.

  Harriett mentally counted the girls she’d met so far. There were two more. “Where are the others?” she asked.

  “Violet’s up in her room painting. She’s seven.” Amaryllis looked around. “Iris found a hurt squirrel earlier. I think she’s trying to fix his leg.” She shrugged. “She’s always trying to heal some animal or other.”

  “How old is Iris?” Harriett asked.

  “She’s five and a half.”

  Harriett shook her head. “I may have to have one of you write down all the names and ages so I can keep you straight.” She hoped to God no one would quiz her, because now that she’d heard all the names, she knew she’d never keep them all straight.

  Amaryllis tilted her head to the side. “That’s not a bad idea. Violet could even paint pictures of us all to help. She’s really good at that kind of thing.”

  “That would be wonderful!” Harriett was only half joking. She turned to look at Max who was engrossed in conversation with Fred. She hadn’t even realized Fred was still in the room.

  Fred seemed like a jovial man who was happy with his life and his family, though, which was nice to see.

  Mary came bustling in then. “Lunch is ready.” She grabbed Lily, who was running through the room by her arm. “Stop running and go get your sisters for lunch.”

  Lily stopped running and yelled, “Lunch time!”

  Mary shook her head. “I could have done that, Lily. I asked you to go get your sisters.” Her look was clearly exasperated as she stared at her second oldest child.

  Lily shrugged sheepishly and ran off down the hall.

  Max took Harriett’s hand and tugged her in the direction Lily had run. “Now do you see why I married you before introducing you to my family?” He looked down at her with a grin on his face.

  “I may have to see about getting an annulment.” Her eyes danced with merriment, telling him that she wasn’t too bothered by her strange nieces.

  He laughed. “Too late. I’m whisking you away to my den later, and an annulment will not be possible.” He waggled his brows at her to be certain she didn’t miss his meaning.

  Harriett sat next to Max and across from Rose during the meal. Rose still had her hand mirror and kept making faces into it. Harriett was afraid to ask what she was doing as she applied herself to her meal.

  After a moment, Mary noticed her daughter. “Rose, how many times do I have to tell you, no mirrors at the table!”

  Rose sighed and put the mirror down. “How will I know if my chewing is pretty, then? I can’t eat in front of my suitors, because Lily said that I look like a cow chewing its cud when I eat. So I have to practice!” Rose looked perfectly serious as she made her argument to her mother, but Mary just ignored her.

  Harriett began wondering at that moment if she’d entered a circus. She said little as she watched the children. The youngest kept looking down at her lap, and after a few minutes, Harriett realized she must have the squirrel in her lap, because she was deliberately dropping pieces of food.

  Fred eyed Iris with a grin. “Is the squirrel getting enough to eat, or should we go get some pecans from the kitchen?” Fred obviously had no problem with his youngest bringing a rodent to the table.

  Iris’s eyes were dancing. “I think he’s getting enough.” She did her best to hide her giggle from Mary.

  Mary glared. “Iris Jane, if you have that squirrel at my table, so help me...” she trailed off, obviously having no idea what to say that would be a sufficient threat.

  Iris held up the baby squirrel with one hand. “He was hungry, Mama. What could I do?” She had blond ringlets and blue eyes, and Harriett found her sweet look captivating.

  “Put him back in his cage.” Mary waited for a moment while her daughter stared at her before adding, “Now!”

  Iris jumped up from the table, cradling the squirrel in her arms, hurrying to put him in his box.

  Mary looked at Harriett. “I’m very sorry. It’s not always a zoo at our house.” Her eyes apologized as they met Harriett’s.

  Fred shook his head. “She’s lying, Harriett. It is always a zoo here, but we like it that way.” Fred was a tall, thin man who was the opposite of his wife in appearance. Mary was short and dark while Fred had blond hair and blue eyes. The girls ranged in coloring from blonds to redheads to brunettes.

  Mary sighed sadly and nodded. “He’s right. I just don’t want to scare you off right away.” She shrugged. “I do my best, but there are eight of them, you know.”

  Harriett started giggling and put her hand over her mouth. Her shoulders were shaking she was laughing so hard. She’d been so nervous about meeting Max’s family and the reality of them was so different from what she’d been afraid of. This mass of confusion was just what she needed.

  Max looked at Harriett’s red face and shrugged. “I don’t think she minds too terribly much, Mary.”

  Mary looked at her new sister-in-law with a grin. “No, she doesn’t seem to.”

  Harriett was laughing so hard she was unable to speak. She simply put her head down on the table next to her plate. Max patted her back understandingly.

  Amaryllis looked at her new aunt and then looked at her mother with a baffled expression. “Is Aunt Harriett okay?”

  “She’s just happy to have such an interesting new family,” Mary responded as she took another bite of her roast.

  *****

  Harriett was still chuckling when she and Max left his sister’s house an hour later. “How can you be around them and not just laugh?” she finally asked. She still couldn’t believe the antics she’d seen from the girls. They were going to be a fun addition to her life.

  Max shrugged. “I really wanted to be married for at least a month before you saw them in all their glory. I don’t know what Mary was thinking...” He sighed heavily.

  “Your nieces are absolutely delightful. I can’t wait to get to know them all better.” Harriett hadn’t had that much fun in years. She felt like she’d spent the last ten years of her life floating through life, but not really living. Coming to Seattle was what she’d needed.

  “I hope you still think so the first time Jasmine hides your gloves. Or the first time Lily knocks you down because she hasn’t learned the difference between walking and running.” Max pulled back on the reins in front of a large house. “This is home.” He watched her face as she looked at the house for the first time. He assumed it was smaller than the house she’d lived in back in Beckham, but he hoped she wouldn’t be disappointed.

  He jumped down and hurried around the buggy to help her down, immediately stepping back so she could look up at her new home. “I only have a cook and a maid. I hope that’s enough.”

  Harriett smiled. “I’d have been happy with just Higgins. I don’t need much.” She had always had servants, but she’d learned long ago that she could take care of herself if she needed to.

  He frowned at her mention of Higgins, but le
d her to the door. “I want to give you the tour of the house later.”

  She frowned at him. “Later? Why not now?” She really wanted to see the new house.

  They reached the front door then and he picked her up in his arms. “Because right now, I’m taking my new wife to bed.” He nodded to the door which she opened for him.

  “But it’s the middle of the day! It’s still light out.” He couldn’t possibly be thinking of consummating their marriage in the daylight, could he?

  He strode through the house to a room on the first floor at the very end of the hall. He carried her in and kicked the door closed behind him. “I don’t care what time of day it is. I’ve been watching you all day, and I can’t think of anything but making love with you.”

  He set her on her feet carefully and she stood staring up at him. “But…we can’t make love during the day!” Arthur had always waited until it was dark and then he’d made her turn her head away anyway. She’d never understood why she was allowed to feel him against her but not look at his body.

  He carefully unpinned her hat, set it on the dresser and turned back to her. “I don’t know why not.” He cupped her face in his hands and lowered his mouth to hers, kissing her passionately.

  She felt a frisson of fire shoot through her as his lips traveled to her ear and he tugged her lobe between his teeth. “The servants will know.”

  He laughed. “I gave them the day off. I’ve been thinking about today for two years.” He pushed her back until she was sitting on the side of the bed, and he dropped to his knees to remove her shoes and then rolled her stockings down her legs.

  She swallowed hard as she watched him kneeling in front of her. He was being as gentle as she’d imagined a man could be. Once her stockings were off, he stood back up, and taking her hand, pulled her to her feet. He stepped behind her and unbuttoned her dress all the way down her back. His lips brushed against the side of her neck as his fingers trailed over the skin he uncovered.

  Slowly he pushed her dress off her shoulders, leaving her standing before him in her corset and petticoat. He trailed one finger along the curve of her breast pushing high above the corset. “You’re so beautiful.” His voice was husky with passion, making her feel powerful.