by Emily Woods
“Work?” her father nearly shouted. “What do you know about work? You have never lifted a finger to do any kind of work for your entire life.”
“Because you have not allowed it,” she replied calmly, but with deference. “And I appreciate how hard you have worked for this family, but I will not marry that man.” The note of steel in her voice let her parents know she would not be dissuaded. Once Elizabetta made her mind to do something, there was no changing it.
Defeated, her parents accepted her plan, and she proceeded to write a letter to her cousin thousands of miles away, explaining her situation and seeking asylum in their home.
“Please God,” she murmured under her breath. “Soften their hearts so that they will accept me into their home. Provide a way for me, I pray.”
She sealed the envelope and brought it to the postmaster herself. She was taking no chances with the letter. It was too important.
“Well! I never!” Marge exclaimed with a look of wonder. “Kate! You need to read this!”
Marge brought the letter to her niece who was lying in bed, weakened by another bout of nausea.
“What is it?” she asked faintly, propping herself up on one elbow and reaching for the letter. When she saw the postmark, her face brightened. “It's from Elizabetta!” Quickly, she scanned the letter and found herself smiling. “Well, that's good news, isn't it? An answer to prayer.”
“I'll say so! I can't believe she’s a midwife! She'll be able to take care of you and even deliver the baby. Oh, praise the Lord!”
At that moment, the back door swung open and allowed a number of men to enter.
“Well, hello, Missus Marge!” Thomas greeted with enthusiasm. “Can’t say I’ve ever been so glad to see you!”
The men had returned from the cattle drive and were happy to be there. “Nothing like your cooking anywhere in the state!” He looked around the kitchen. “Roast beef?” he asked hopefully.
“You and your stomach, Thomas,” Marge scolded, but without any heat. “Everything go well?” she asked, directing her comment to John, who was already talking to Luke.
“Yes, ma’am,” he replied respectfully. “Got the price we were hoping for and then some.”
“Well, praise the Lord! I’ll be able to feed these men for another season! Now, have a seat, and I'll tell you all the news at the same time.”
Kate's husband Luke, along with the other men, sat at the long table and looked up at Marge curiously. “Well, don't keep us in suspense,” Luke joked. “What is it?”
After taking a moment to draw out the drama, Marge announced, “Kate's cousin is coming to live with us! She's traveling all the way from Italy to help with the baby!”
Thomas frowned. “Won't it be born before then? Doesn't it take months and months to travel?”
Marge shook her head. “Not at all. According to Elizabetta, it only takes eight days to travel from Genoa to New York by steamship and then another week or so by train from New York to here! She could be here in a less than three weeks!”
At first the men didn't react, but then Thomas asked, “How old is she?”
Marge frowned and looked over to Kate's bedroom. The door was wide open so that Kate could feel she was a part of the household even though she was forced to lie in bed due to complications in her early pregnancy.
“She is twenty-one,” Kate called out weakly. “I remember because her birthday is three days before mine, but she's six years younger.”
Kate's daughter Maddie spoke up for the first time. “Who's six, Mama?”
Marge laughed a little and went over to the girl who had been reading quietly in the corner. “Not six years old, dear. Six years younger than your mama.”
“Oh, I thought maybe someone my age was coming to live with us. This baby's not going to be any fun for years and years,” she grumbled and went back to her book.
The men laughed a little at the comment. “Ah, but she wouldn't be your age, now would she?” Luke asked, going over to where Maddie was sitting and squatting down a little to look his stepdaughter in the eye. “You're going to be eight on your next birthday. What would you want with a six-year-old?”
“Better than a baby,” she maintained, her lower lip protruding slightly. Luke ran a hand over her head and grinned.
“That baby will be lots of fun. Just you wait and see.”
Maddie shrugged and held the book up a little. She was clearly still put out.
The men had started talking among themselves, their faces lighting up with interest at the idea of a young, single woman coming to live with them.
“She's not coming here for you all to gawk at and fawn over,” Marge warned them.
Kate gave a little laugh. “Neither did I, Aunt Marge. And look at me now!” Placing her hands on her protruding belly, she looked around at the men. “No one knows what will happen except God alone.”
Her comment restored the hope to the faces of the ranch hands, but only temporarily.
“Aw, she won't want the likes of you,” Marge remarked with a shake of her head. “I gather she's a woman of culture and some wealth. Seems like she's coming here on a bit of lark, possibly before settling down with some man she's been betrothed to for ages and ages.”
Once again, their faces drooped, but then Thomas, ever hopeful, cheered them up. “But you never know! When she comes out here, she might find us charming and never want to leave!”
The men took turns clapping Thomas on the back, and he beamed with satisfaction. Marge merely shook her head. “I give up. We'll see when she gets here, won't we?”
John took in all the information without reacting. He had no objection to the cousin coming out to help Kate with her baby. In fact, he was more than glad of it. The doctor had issued dire warnings that if she wanted to deliver the baby, she would have to stay in bed for much of the time. He hadn't asked for details, but he figured there was some kind of complications. However, he did worry that this woman’s arrival would upset the men. A little competition in certain areas was healthy among them, but a woman was a different story. She could break up friendships and ruin a man.
Not that he'd been ruined, he added internally, but another man could be. At least, that was what he told himself.
“How long will she stay for, did she say?” he asked Marge as they started dinner. The older woman turned to answer him.
“She didn’t, but I'll be happy to have her as long as she likes. She'd liven up this place and be some company for Kate.”
“I have you,” Kate declared stoutly. “You're the best company a girl could hope for.”
John smiled a bit. When Kate had first come here, Luke had ideas about getting the two of them together. However, he'd never held out too much hope for that because he saw the way Luke and Kate had looked at each other. Still, he highly esteemed her and appreciated how much she'd contributed to the well-being of the ranch, both in her sweet disposition and the property she brought after her parents' estate had been settled a few months back.
But he had some reservations about this woman coming from Italy. What exactly was she going to do? Be a companion for Kate while she waited out the rest of her pregnancy? He certainly hoped she didn't expect to be waited on by anyone. From the little bits of what he’d heard, she was coming from a well-to-do family.
It was a kind of snobbery, he knew, but he bore a bit of a grudge against those with extreme wealth. It didn't seem fair to him that some people should have so much and others should have so little. He didn't count himself in the second category anymore, but he'd seen enough poverty to know what he was talking about.
Later in the evening, he and Luke got to talking on the front porch after the ranch hands had gone off to play cards in the bunkhouse.
“You seem a bit...well, put off about Kate’s cousin coming,” Luke observed, leaving the question off, but implying one nonetheless.
John sat down in one of the chairs and sighed, folding his hands over his midsection and looking out
at the setting sun. He liked this time of year when the sun started setting later and later. It made him feel like a day had more than twenty-four hours in it.
“Put off is not exactly right,” he murmured. “It's more like concerned. What if she's one of those women who can't live without the attention of a man? She'd love it here with four men at her beck and call.”
“Just five, huh?” Luke said with a grin. “You don't count yourself among them.”
“Nah, I'm past all that. With Patricia, I thought there might be a chance for marriage and a family, but now...I haven’t the energy to even think about it.”
“Aw, come on, man. You talk like you're eighty or ninety. Many men your age have still gotten hitched. Look at me!”
John gave him a half-smile. “You're younger.”
“By a year!” Luke was leaning so far forward in his chair that John worried he might fall off.
“Just in years,” he joked. “But seriously, I'm not interested, especially in some girl half my age.”
Now Luke fell back in his chair with a laugh. “I guess that makes you forty-two. You've had six birthdays that I don't know about?”
Despite his mood, John grinned a little. “I guess I just feel that way. But seriously, are you sure about all this? It doesn't sound like she'll fit in here.”
Looking across the range at the sun setting behind the mountain peak, Luke exhaled through his nose. “I don't know, but what can I say? This place is partly mine, and then only because Marge forced it on me. I was happy enough to be foreman until she told me that I didn’t have a choice in the matter.” John knew how Luke had helped turn the ranch from nearly bankruptcy to the thriving place it was now. “I don't think I really have any say in the matter, but if I did, I'd still want her to come. Did you see how happy the women were, Kate especially?”
John's eyes scanned the horizon as though searching for something. He was trying to find another way to put doubt in Luke’s mind, but there didn’t seem to be much else to say. “So, they're cousins though their mothers? But she lives in Italy. Can she even speak English? Won't it be hard for her, living here and not knowing the language?”
He knew he was just trying to find any excuse, but once again, Luke shot him down.
“She and her siblings had an English governess. Her father wanted his children to learn the language.” He shot him a funny look. “How do you think she and Kate have been writing back and forth?”
With a little shake of his head and a shrug, John stood up and began pacing the length of the porch.
“I can't explain it, Luke, but I have a bad feeling about all this. Maybe I'm just sore about Patricia, maybe I'm just being a foolish old man, but something just seems off.” It was ridiculous really, and he had no reason to feel this way. It just seemed odd to him that a woman would leave behind her whole family, culture, and country to come help a near stranger, albeit a blood relative, in a foreign land.
Luke stood and put his hand on John's shoulder. “I trust your instincts in almost anything, my friend, but I think you have to accept that this is going to happen. That's all we can do. Instead of worrying or fretting like an old woman, let’s pray about it instead.”
John acknowledged the truth of that statement with a small nod and proceeded to do just that.
Chapter 3
On the morning of her departure, Elizabetta began to have serious doubts about her plan. Not only had she exaggerated her qualifications when it came to babies, but it occurred to her that she might never see her parents again. The thought was intolerable, but being married to the son of Salvatore would be infinitely worse. At least this way, she might have some kind of life. She’d seen the wives of the DeLuca men. They were not happy.
Her parents understood, but that didn't stop tears from streaming down their faces as she climbed into the carriage Salvatore had sent for her. She supposed that he wanted to ensure she actually got on the ship to America and wasn't trying to trick him. He was smarter than she’d given him credit for.
Elizabetta extended her hand out the window to link fingers with her mother one more time.
“Ti amo, Mama, Papa,” she whispered as her own eyes filled with moisture. “We'll meet again.” She didn't voice the very real possibility that it would be in Heaven, but tried to communicate all the love she felt for them both with her eyes. “I'll write as often as I can.”
The cost of sending letters wouldn't be cheap, but her father had given her a bundle of bills that she'd sewn into the hem of the dress she was wearing. If worse came to worst, she would be able to make it on her own for quite some time before having to take on some sort of occupation. What she was suited for, she couldn't say, but perhaps someone had need of an educated governess or some such.
Alfonso Moretti sat silently beside her in the coach. He was one of Salvatore's henchmen, although he would protest the use of that particular word. He considered himself a valued employee, she suspected. For the entire five-hour journey from Milan to Genoa, he said no more than ten words to her, most of which were monosyllables in response to questions that she asked.
“We're here,” he announced needlessly when they arrived at the port.
“There's no need for you to see me to the ship,” she replied rather petulantly.
He didn't reply but merely stepped out and grunted, motioning for her to follow. After calling a porter over to manage her large trunk, he followed them to the ship, pressing a hand to the small of her back, more as a propelling force than a gesture of protection.
“There's no need to touch me,” she said coldly. “I highly doubt Salvatore's son would appreciate you manhandling his future bride.” Immediately, he dropped his hand and scowled, but continued close on her heels as though trying to thwart a last-minute escape.
“Your cabin is on the top deck, madam,” a steward said politely after viewing her ticket. “I will show you the way.”
Alfonso would have followed her on board, but the steward stopped him. “I'm afraid you'll need to say your good-byes here, sir.”
His scowl increased, but he simply nodded once and returned to the dock. Elizabetta turned briefly, but he had disappeared into the crowd. A heavy weight lifted from her chest, and momentarily, she considered fleeing, but then caught sight of the hulking man staring at her from down below. In response, she lifted her chin and followed the steward on board and toward her new life.
The trip to America was not unpleasant, mostly because she was in first class the entire way. This again was Salvatore's doing, but had he not paid, she was quite certain her father would have seen to it. Her family didn't possess the same wealth as the DeLuca family, but they were far from impoverished.
By the time they'd reached New York, she'd made a few friends, one of whom was a matronly woman named Mrs. Galiano. The kindly lady insisted on taking care of her since she was traveling unchaperoned. Initially, she'd raged at Elizabetta's parent for allowing such a thing to happen, but when she understood the circumstances, she was somewhat mollified and became a surrogate mother to the young woman.
When the harbor came into sight, she told Elizabetta that she would do well to adopt an English version of her name.
“The Americans tend to slaughter the melodious names of our people, so perhaps you would like to be Eliza, Elise, Liz or Beth?”
“Not Betta?” she enquired.
Mrs. Galiano frowned. “Better not risk it. A simple name is better. Beth would be a good substitute.”
After careful consideration, she finally settled on Elise because it was totally different. Any other name might remind her too much of her home.
Their entry at Ellis Island went smoothly because of their status, but Elise, as she now thought of herself, felt a wave of pity for those who were in steerage, many of whom were being turned away for one reason or another.
“Is there nothing we can do for them?” she asked her guardian.
The elderly woman shook her head. “I'm afraid not, dear. If we get
involved, we risk our own position. Come now, let's find a porter to take our bags to the hotel. Once we settle in, you can send a telegram to your relatives and let them know you've arrived.
“I was thinking to board the train to Great Falls today.” She figured that the sooner she arrived, the better. It didn't sit well with her to spend any of her funds on needless things such as an overnight stay in what was sure to be a grand hotel.
“Nonsense! You've only just arrived and need your rest! Come, you will stay with me in my suite at the Waldorf-Astoria. I have plenty of room for you.”
Elise blinked a few times and gave in. Where she was going, she would be lucky to have an indoor bathroom, whereas at the Waldorf-Astoria, she would be able to luxuriate in a large bath and rid herself of the grime and weariness that had settled over her during the eight-day voyage.
“Grazie, Signora Galiano. I will gratefully accept your offer for one night, and then I really must be on my way. My family in the West is expecting me.”
The other woman seemed as though she wanted to press her into staying longer, but she observed the determination on her face and merely nodded. “Very well then, but what a night we shall have! I will talk to the concierge about tickets to the opera, although I must warn you that it pales in comparison to what you would hear back home.”
Elise shook her head, but kept a smile on her face. “I would be happy to retire to your fine rooms and stay indoors, if you don't mind. I'm so tired and am very much looking forward to a long bath and a good sleep.”
Again a look of displeasure crossed the other woman's face and Elise worried she'd offended her, but then Mrs. Galiano patted her arm and smiled. “Then that is what we shall do. The finest meal available will be delivered to the suite and we shall lounge about and talk until we are too weary to continue. Order whatever your heart desires, my dear. We shall feast like kings!”
The woman was a widow and childless as well and only had her lady's maid as company, so she delighted in doting on Elise. Part of her longed to stay with this woman and possibly be her companion instead of traveling west, as the great lady had hinted at, but her cousin was expecting her and she wouldn't let her down. If things did not work out well for her there, perhaps she could revisit the idea.