Read Six Little Sunflowers: Historical Romance Novella (American State Flower) Online
Authors: Gina Welborn
Six Little Sunflowers: Historical Romance Novella (American State Flower) (10 page)
Félicie just stared out the window.
Pedestrians were watching them pass.
She should say something. What was she supposed to say? Thank you? I’m glad I made you wonder that?
She turned to him.
He was watching her. She could tell he was thinking.
“I want you to be happy.” She swallowed to ease the tightness in her throat. “I want you to find a girl who loves you, and never let her get away.”
“I found her—no, that’s not right. She found—” His voice caught. “She found me and then she left me standing at the altar. I love you, Félicie. I am not letting you get away. And I know you love me, too, or else you wouldn’t have jilted me.”
Her heart slammed in her chest, and she let out a little gasp in pain. She dare not say that she didn’t love him. She’d been lying to herself long enough.
Carpenter knelt in front of her. “Félicie Richmond, will you marry me?
She opened her mouth and tried to speak. She wanted to believe his words and the love shining in his eyes. She wanted to, but…but…but why was she fighting so hard? Why was she allowing her fears to hold her back from love and from being loved? He could die tomorrow. She could. She refused to go to her grave with her feelings still inside of her. She refused to die with regrets.
“I love you,” he repeated.
“I heard.” And she felt the smile taking root in her heart. “I love you, too.”
He took her hand, their fingers entwining. “If you are so inclined, I’ve booked a church, secured a license, and hired a preacher.”
“I am so inclined, but first…” She flicked her gaze to the empty spot next to her. She took the little bouquet he offered. Before she could say any more, he swept her into his arms and kissed her properly…and a little improperly.
Carpenter drew back. He grinned. “I say a wedding is in order.”
Félicie rolled her eyes, yet couldn’t help but smile. “All because you made me succumb to your flirtation.”
“I hope so.” And then he leaned out of the carriage window. “To the church…and make haste!”
A leap year is
a year with 366 days, instead of the usual 365.
Because seasons and astronomical events do not repeat in a whole number of days, calendars with the same number of days in each year, over time, drift with respect to the event that the year is supposed to track. By inserting an additional day or month into the year, the drift can be corrected. O
ne exception to the leap year rule involved century years, like the year 1900. Since the year is slightly less than 365.25 days long, adding an extra day every four years results in about three extra days being added over a period of 400 years. For this reason, only one out of every four century years is considered as a leap year.
Leap Year Day used to be recognized in everyday things, in advertising and games and books. People were aware of it. Almanacs would mark it, tell people to prepare for the extra day.
As recently as the early 1900s, concerts and balls were held throughout the leap years.
According to tradition, in fifth-century Ireland,
Bridget of Kildare convinced St. Patrick that since Leap Year Day existed to fix a problem in the calendar, it could also be used to fix an old and unjust custom that only let men propose marriage.
A law in 1288 by Queen Margaret of Scotland required fines be levied if a marriage proposal was refused by the man; compensation was deemed to be a pair of leather gloves, a single , £1, and a kiss. Women looking to take advantage of the opportunity to propose were expected to wear a scarlet petticoat—
to give men the opportunity to run the other way. Queen Victoria sanctioned the “right” of women to propose marriage to a man, or at least ask him to dance. If the man declined to marry, there was at least a consolation prize—he was supposed to provide a silk dress and a kiss on the cheek.
In Finland, if a man refuses a woman's Leap Year Day proposal, he should buy her the fabrics for a skirt.
Today Anthony, Texas is known as the Leap Year Capital of the World. The festival draws about a thousand tourists for its once-in-four-years celebration, including as many as seventy Leap Year Day babies plus friends, family and “leapophiles” for a weekend-long festival featuring a golf tournament, nature hike, a 5K run, a barbecue at a local pecan farm, wine tasting, a chuck wagon breakfast, balloon rides, and a parade.
BOOKS BY GINA WELBORN
LASSOED BY MARRIAGE ROMANCE COLLECTION
JOYFUL ROMANCES: A FORGET ME NOT COLLECTION
THE MOST ELIGIBLE BACHELOR ROMANCE COLLECTION
Multi-Author Digital Collections
FORGET ME NOT ROMANCES SAMPLER: VOLUME 2
For more great Forget Me Not titles, visit
www.forgetmenotromances.com
CAMILLA’S SMILE by Debra Lynn Collins
MAINE’S WHITE PINE CONE CONSPIRACY by Sadie & Sophie Cuffe
SWEET APPLE BLOSSOM by Cynthia Hickey
WILD PRAIRIE by Teresa Ives Lilly
Because the very first Christmas began in a small town…
THE CHRISTMAS STAMP by Cynthia Hickey
AN ANGEL FOR MISTLETOE by Teresa Lilly
THE SUBSTITUTE BRIDE by Carrie Fancett Pagels
SILENT STARS OF BETHLEHEM by Laura Hodges Poole
SEARCHING FOR JOY by Linda Baten Johnson
LETTERS FROM SANTA by Becca Whitham
DESERT DUET Duet by Debra E. Marvin
Coming this Fall!
O’ Little Town of Christmas boxed set featuring three new titles
NATIVITY GONE WILD by Jennifer AlLee
CHRISTMAS CITY CHARM Charm by Amber Stockton
HOPES & FEARS by Gina Welborn
By Gina Welborn
Chapter 1
Do not take away my soul along with sinners, my life with those who are bloodthirsty, in whose hands are wicked schemes, whose right hands are full of bribes. I lead a blameless life; deliver me and be merciful to me.
–Psalms 26:9-11
Certainly what one is, is of far greater importance than what one appears to be.
—Emily Price Post,
Etiquette
Thirty-Third Street and Park Avenue
Manhattan Island
Tuesday, April 9, 1901
S
HE’D FOUND THE
man she wanted, but if she wasn’t careful—
“I will not lose this one. Not this time,” Malia Vaccarelli said to no one but herself. She leveled her chin, keeping her gaze high despite the giddy tumble in her stomach as if she were a schoolgirl and not a mature woman of twenty-five.
Look confident. Be confident.
With her beaded pochette in one white-gloved hand, she used the other to raise the hem of her white lace gown as she wove between people milling about the bricked path. No more looking down in subordination to those more esteemed than her. No more trusting people not to steal. This time she would restrain her exuberance over “the find.” This time she would be clever and sly to outwit the deep pocketbooks of her competitors.
This time she would take first prize.
Malia stopped at the steps leading up to the veranda surrounding the interior courtyard. She squared her shoulders then faced the bustling courtyard to regard Pieter Joossens, her chosen artist, at the opposite corner. The immigrant from Flanders was two decades older than any other artist at the exhibit. He spoke little English, smelled of
rookworst
and sketched in the unpopular medium of charcoals; thus, to her delight, most of her fellow patrons avoided him in lieu of the painters and sculptors.
While graphite boasted a greater attention to detail, charcoal provided an unmatchable depth that Malia loved to see, loved to feel under her fingers. With the right patron—with her as his sponsor—Pieter Joossens could become the next Paul Gauguin.
“Hij is mijn,”
muttered Malia in Dutch, a language as comfortable on her tongue as Italian and English.
Never had she been more appreciative of her ability to converse in the language of her mother’s New Amsterdam ancestors. Papà and Nonno had insisted that Malia and her brother be named after Vaccarelli ancestors instead of DeWitts, so Mamma insisted on teaching her children Dutch. In secret, of course, because one did not defy Papà openly. Because of her mother’s rebellious spirit, Pieter Joossens would be Malia’s greatest find.
To relieve the tension twisting her insides, she breathed in the clean air shielded by the Park Avenue Hotel’s seven-story walls. The string quartet’s music resonated off the iron and white brick facade. Divine sounds on an equally divine spring morning. Her day could not improve.
“Miss Vaccarelli?”
She looked to the left, but the wide brim of her feathered hat shielded all but the speaker’s navy trousers and polished shoes. The waiter descended to the stairs’ bottom riser. As had every other hotel employee she’d encountered this morning, he knew who she was. The staff had probably been given a binder with names, photographs and a biographical summary of the Best Society attendees.
He motioned to his sterling tray, and she claimed a juice-filled champagne flute from him.
“Thank you.”
His gaze lowered respectfully, and he continued on.
Malia sipped her juice and glanced about. Amid the blooming and fragrant flora in the courtyard garden and on the surrounding veranda, twenty artists displayed their work in an attempt to hook one of Manhattan’s millionaires who had been invited to the private showing by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. At 9 a.m., a little more than thirty minutes from now, the room would be opened to the public. By then, at least one artist’s world would be turned upside down. A life would be changed because a socialite with more money than what she—or he—knew what to do with gave it away in the name of supporting the arts.
Until then, Malia would watch her chosen artist to ensure no one else pounced.
She continued to sip the orange juice as if she had not a care in the world, as if she were waiting on someone to join her. She wasn’t—waiting for friend, that is. As the only granddaughter of land and coal baron Gulian DeWitt, and niece to the Countess of Balwick, she knew the names of her fellow patrons and collectors, socialized with them, attended the finest schools with their daughters. Yet because of her paternal heritage, none had ever invited her into their brownstone mansions for tea, or holidays at their summer homes on Staten Island.
All that would change if her sponsorship of Pieter Joossens catapulted him to fame.
She swallowed the juice, which was sweet yet tart—just like her circumstances. Though welcomed at exclusive art shows such as this one, she wasn’t “blue” enough to be accepted or welcomed in High Society. She could always marry into it. Marry up to get “in,” as her defiant mother had married down to get out, or so Grandfather DeWitt regularly accused.
No, Da, I married for love, as Malia will do.
She smiled. How stubborn, hopeful yet romantic her mother had been.
“Ah, Miss Vaccarelli, you must tell me what amuses you.”
Malia turned and managed to retain her smile despite the sourness on her tongue. Mr. Edwin Daly, Esq., was standing close. His ungloved fingers cradled her elbow as if he were her suitor, not her chief competitor responsible for wooing away the last three artists she’d offered to sponsor. Not that she faulted the artists for choosing him. A third-generation, Fifth Avenue Daly made a more prestigious patron.
“Good morning, Mr. Daly. Late, are we?” She prayed he hadn’t seen her give her calling card to Pieter Joossens.
“Late?” Mr. Daly smiled, showing off his perfectly aligned teeth. He even tilted his chin to the sun-brightened blue sky so they sparkled. “Ah, my darling Miss Vaccarelli, I had to attend to business before pleasure.” His fingers gave a supercilious twirl to the edge of his neatly trimmed mustache.
What he intended to come across as flirtatious always struck her as slimy, an impression compounded by the way he grew the left side of his hair long and plastered it over his shiny dome. Hopefully today the assistant district attorney would mind his manners and keep his hands to himself.
Malia handed him her empty flute. “Would you mind retrieving me another?”
His fingers curled about the glass, yet he didn’t make a move to replace her drink. His dark eyes settled on hers, his breath warm and liquor-tinged. “Let’s take a cruise to Newport. This weekend.”
Malia raised her brows as though considering a proposal from a man whose woodsy cologne smelled out of place. The closest he’d ever come to a forest had to be pine floorboards under his feet. “For what reason should we go to Newport, may I ask?”
“So we may have time to get to know each other better.”
“Would this cruise be aboard your yacht?”
“A cruiser is the perfect place for intimate conversation.”
“I doubt conversation is what interests you.”
He laughed. “Touché, my dear Malia. Your lack of pretense enchants me.” His smile died, his tone growing serious. “What if I got down on my knee and proposed marriage? Here? Now?”
His question—uttered a handful of times over the past year—stirred nothing in her heart. Rumor had it he was courting a Newport heiress.
Malia sighed. “Please don’t. You know what I would answer.”
“Give me a chance to prove my feelings are sincere.” He raised her hand to his lips. Despite the dozens of people in the courtyard who could notice them, and with impertinence natural to him, he brushed a kiss across her knuckles. “Someday we
will
take the first of many intimate cruises.”
Malia’s face warmed.
Before she could counter, he dropped her hand and hurried up the stairs toward the brunch tables still brimming with fruit and pastries. She looked about the courtyard. Those who had been watching them turned back to their private conversations. Every artist spoke to someone—except Pieter Joossens. Her chosen one stood quietly and looked to be listening to an unfamiliar man in an ebony pin-striped suit as finely crafted as the one Mr. Daly wore. The handsome stranger had to be speaking Dutch because Mr. Joossens understood little English.
Malia worried her bottom lip, nerves tightening her insides. She should intervene, or at least move closer to hear what the man was saying over the other conversations and music in the bustling courtyard.
Yes, go now.
Before she could move, J. P. Morgan’s daughter, Anne, walked to the stranger and greeted him with an exuberant smile. Whoever he was, he and Anne were more than casual acquaintances. They spoke a bit. Laughed. Nodded while smiling.
Anne abruptly raised a hand and motioned to her left, causing the man’s gaze to shift to—
Malia froze.
He stared. At her. As if they were the only two people in the courtyard.
The right corner of his mouth eased up, and Malia couldn’t breathe. Her heart beat erratically. She’d seen better-looking men, not to say he wasn’t quite appealing on his own merit. His blond brows were darker than his unoiled wheat-colored hair; his jaw, sharply angled, made his face almost heart-shaped. His light blue eyes were inquisitive—no, more than that. Probing. Studious. As if he was memorizing what he saw. Even the sounds around them silenced.
Her toes itched to walk forward, to walk to him.
Then he looked past her, smiled and tipped his head.
Malia glanced over her shoulder.
George and Edith Gould descended the staircase, waving, not acknowledging her presence at all. It wasn’t a direct cut, though. Like most of those in Society, the Goulds were indifferent to everything and everyone outside their personal concern. Miss Malia Vaccarelli wasn’t significant enough to be noticed.
The stranger noticed her.
He
saw her, didn’t he? She certainly hadn’t imagined the connection.
She sought his gaze again, but his attention was on the talkative Anne Morgan as they walked without a backward glance—he with a slight limp to his left leg—toward a watercolor artist. Malia gave her head a little shake. How silly to think he had any interest in her. To think, even for the briefest moment, she wasn’t alone amid a crowd. She would always be on the outside looking in, as one did at the glorious department store window displays, wishing she was as perfect and desirable as the products behind the glass.
Malia raised her chin, straightened her shoulders. No. She wasn’t going to be that girl anymore. She was going to be confident and acquire a good standing of her own.
“Miss Vaccarelli?”
She turned to the grave voice and face of the hotel’s concierge. “Yes?”
“Mr. Giovanni Vaccarelli phoned and asked that a message be delivered to you.” With a we-guard-your-privacy look, he handed her a folded sheet of paper. “I secured a hansom cab. It’s waiting at the main entrance.”
He bowed ever so slightly and walked off before she could respond.
Malia pinched her lips tight to contain her frustration. A cab waiting? In other words, she was expected to leave immediately. If Giovanni had come home last night, she would have reminded him how busy she was this morning. Not that her schedule ever mattered to him. When her brother wanted something, no one—not even family—argued. He expected everyone to be at his beck and call.
No wonder he had yet to find a wife.
With a shake of her head, she tucked her clutch under her arm. She unfolded the paper, her gaze searching each end of the courtyard and veranda for the handsome stranger.
He wasn’t anywhere to be found.
Malia turned her focus to the sheet of ivory hotel stationery. She blinked. Her mouth fell open, the words blurring except two…
In jail.
Giovanni arrested?
Her pulse began to race. Nonno had warned for years that the Metropolitans couldn’t be trusted. Her brother was an upstanding member of the community, unlike the police, who were known for their corruption. Malia folded the paper and stuffed it back into the envelope. She hurried up the staircase, heart pounding against her chest as she wove through the crowd on the veranda. She needed to contact the family lawyers. She had to cancel her lunch meeting with Irene at Delmonico’s. She had to hurry, had to—
Hands gripped her arms, stopping her on the lobby threshold. “What’s wrong?”
She looked into the face of Mr. Daly and blinked repeatedly as her eyes adjusted from the brightness of the morning sky to the electric lights dimly lighting the lobby. What had he asked? What was wrong?
Nothing. Everything.
“I…uh, I have to go.”
“Darling, you’re as white as your dress,” he said with such concern that she actually believed his endearment. “I’m going with you.”
To the police department? What little opening she had in Society would be closed should it become known her brother had been arrested.