by Amelia Rose
“You should naw have walked all this way,” Gretchen began, still having to remind herself to drop the “my lady” from address. It felt odd and unnatural, but she knew there was no time like now to adjust their relationship into a friendship, especially as she was considering staying in Ireland.
“Oh, the walk did us good, I know it. How have you been getting along?” Moira asked. She set the basket that had carried both Matthew and some baked items on the table, then handed the loaves of spiced cake to Gretchen to put on her shelf.
“Tolerably. There’s so much to do, isn’t there? I can hardly believe it. I’m ever so glad that I did naw have time to plan when we came here in the first place. It’s too much to put my head around!”
Moira laughed, remembering the haste with which they’d snuck away in the early morning, only a bag between them and Moira’s small pile of thrown together trunks to be stowed in the ship’s hold. She’d been too afraid of being found out to pack anything more, and then it had all turned out to be fairly useless for life on the prairie. She made a note to retrieve the trunks from the barn and to share the gowns with Gretchen and Katia now that they would be traveling in fashion.
They planned their journey, but once again, Katia furrowed her brow at the mention of returning to Russia. Moira’s head swum from speaking in French to Katia, then turning to Gretchen in English. More than once, she had to revert to Irish on the off-chance Katia could understand her.
“Do you not think it odd that she keeps dodging the discussion of Russia?” Moira asked in Irish, speaking in lower tones while feigning a smile. Gretchen nodded, looking away so Katia would not know she was the topic of their conversation.
Before Gretchen could answer, a knock on the door caused them all to look up. “Oh, I’d wager my annual income that’s Mr. Russell come to fetch Miss Noryeva,” Moira said with a hearty laugh. It was good to see the constant reminders of true love, the very emotion that had begun this whole expensive and drawn out journey. They were doing it for Nathaniel and Katia, she reminded herself.
Mr. Russell dropped his head shyly when Gretchen opened the door and he found himself face-to-face with three ladies, and not a man about the farm.
“I’ve come to collect Miss Katia for a ride into town if she’s willing to go,” he began. Gretchen and Moira looked at Katia, who seemed none indifferent to their conversation. “You, Katia? Ride with me?” he asked, pantomiming. He held up the letters that he’d retrieved from Pryor’s cabin on his way over. She nodded when she understood, but looked to Gretchen for confirmation.
“Oh, I can naw go, I’ve far too much to do if we’ll be leaving,” Gretchen began. “Do you think ‘twould be all right if I kept little Matthew here with me, and you went as their guide?”
“Of course,” Moira said, nodding. “It’ll do me good to get into New Hope. I just wish I knew if Pryor needed anything at Jorgenson’s shop. Oh well, I’m sure he’d have said so if there was a need. Let me grab my hat and we’ll be off.”
Nathaniel went to hitch the wagon from the barn behind the cabin, using his horse and the one he’d led for Katia as the team. In no time at all, the three of them were piled in the wagon and heading off, calling their goodbyes to Gretchen on the porch. She waved little Matthew’s hand comically in goodbye.
So this is what it will look for Pryor when we leave him at the depot, Moira thought sourly, chastising herself for the hundredth time in a day and a half for being the one to propose this trip. Anything to keep our respective families’ land, I know.
The trip to New Hope was uneventful, for Moira at least, but surely meant the world to Nathaniel and Katia. She rode beside him on the wagon seat, nodding and listening to her beau prattle on endearingly, the two of them pointing at this and that along the way. She occasionally called over her shoulder to Moira to explain a concept or translate a troublesome word, but Moira was largely left to her own thoughts and fears about the trip.
The long hours of the ride were behind them as the climbed out of the wagon in town. They were stopped from entering Jorgenson’s store by a loud sound coming from further up the line of small clapboard buildings, the unmistakable pop of a gunshot. The old man saw them through the shop window just as the sound reverberated around them, and he quickly threw open his door, ushered them inside, and closed and locked the door behind them, going so far as to pull down the window shades and plunging them into near darkness.
“My Lord, man, what was that about? Who’s firing on us?” Nathaniel demanded, peeking out on of the windows by flicking the edge of the blind with his fingertip. Jorgenson slapped his hand away and pulled the three of them away from the windows.
“No one, near as I can tell,” he answered, the tremble in his voice causing him to stutter slightly. “There’s only the one shot so far, so the ruffian must have hit his target the first time. Come on, it doesn’t due to be standing in the middle of the room like this. All of you, let’s get in the back now and I’ll fix us some tea.”
Confused, they followed the shopkeeper to his inner rooms and sat at the small table he indicated. He puttered around at an old wood stove for a moment, looking so lost and flustered that Moira finally rose and joined him. She took the delicate cups from his hands and filled them with the loose black twigs of tea, then took the pot of hot water from him, lest he scald himself with his shaking. She brought the cups to the table and passed them out to the others before bringing over a small pitcher of milk and a tin of dark brown sugar.
“What in tarnation is going on around this town?” Nathaniel finally asked, actually expecting an answer this time.
“It’s that new tavern, there’s fighting and loud music at all hours of the day and night. More folks are coming into town than ever before, and those folks don’t always see eye to eye on things. I don’t know what to make of it, but it’s only a matter of time before something really awful happens,” Jorgenson explained, shaking his head sadly.
“And there is still no lawman?” Moira asked, remembering some of Pryor’s first words to her when she stepped off the train, how the town was lacking in even the most basic things that most civilized people would consider vital.
“No, and I have a bad feeling the tavern owner likes it that way. Anyone who did come around flashing a gun and some authority would have a heck of a time on his hands making the others see things his way.”
The conversation slowly shifted to the matter at hand, namely the upcoming voyage and the important letters that the group carried with them. It was Jorgenson who suggested a different way.
“Instead of waiting for the train to carry your post, why don’t you ride down to the fort and send it by telegraph? They can get word to London, and the dispatch there can send the telegram to your brother. He’ll have it in a matter of days, instead of weeks, you know.”
“Sure, Mrs. Russell!” Nathaniel said, beside himself that he didn’t think of it sooner what with all the excitement over their upcoming travels. “Don’t you remember? I rode down to Barnett myself and sent one to the agency back in the city, didn’t take too long at all!”
“But did you say ‘twas only a matter of days? Surely that’s not possible! ‘Tis weeks to cross the country, then a solid month to cross the Atlantic!” Moira said in breathless disbelief. “How can we possibly trust this telegraph to send an accurate message when it takes so little care and effort?”
“Oh, it’s quite safe. I’ve seen it at work myself. And remember, it was your husband who first told me about it. He rode to the fort before your arrival to send back his documents. I believe he’s even sent documents on behalf of his claim.”
“Pryor? But…” she began but stopped herself before she could disclose anything of her husband’s lack of letters. “Tell me how this telegraph works.”
Jorgenson explained what he’d only heard of the process, the way in which the sender dictated a letter to the operator, who then sent the message via a series of codes across cables. She nodded as she listened
, finally understanding that for a man who could not read or write, the telegraph would suit his needs perfectly. It still bemused her why he would not suggest it for her to letter to her brother, but decided it must have to do with the two-day ride to the fort to send it.
“Would it be possible to send you to the fort, Mr. Russell? It would be a great inconvenience to you, I understand.” He was shaking his head before Moira even finished.
“It’s no trouble at all! After all you’ve done to help me and to help Katia, it’s the least we can do. Besides, if it makes our trip go faster, I’d walk there on my own two feet!”
“I should think we’d all be better off if you take your horse,” Moira laughed. Jorgenson chuckled lightly, too, and she was glad to see his good humor returning after the fright of the gunfire earlier. Katia looked from face to face and was relieved to see that the earlier tension seemed to have been lifted.
“Moira, I’ve been meaning to ask you something,” Katia began in French, looking to the two gentlemen to make sure they weren’t put out by being excluded from their talk. “But why do you keep talking about ships and Russia? Are you planning to travel?”
“Why, Katia, we’re all going! I’ve explained it all. We will go with you to Russia to reunite you with your son.”
“But that is what I don’t understand… my son isn’t in Russia.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“I don’t understand,” Moira whispered. “You told us he’s with your mother. We’re preparing to go all the way to the other side of the world to reunite the two of you!”
“And for that I am humbled and grateful, but he is not there. I told you the truth, he is with my mother. But she is in New York.”
“What? I was certain you said she and your sisters were preparing to go back to Russia to find work!”
“They were. But when I agreed to marry Mr. Russell, the price was enough to keep them in our room in the city for several more months, long enough for them to find positions. I am sorry if my language didn’t make me explain it plainly. Are you unhappy with me?”
“Oh, Katia, this is incredible news! You have no idea how happy I am that you haven’t kept up with your French studies!” They laughed excitedly over this turn of events, but when Moira dabbed at the tears of happiness in the corners of her eyes—the joy that came from knowing it would be weeks that she and Matthew were gone from home, and not months—alarmed the men who sat idly by, not understanding a word. She quickly explained.
“Mr. Russell, it is now very important that you ride to the fort and telegraph my brother if only to tell him that we wish to have him in our home this summer!”
“This summer? But you’ll be…” he began, but Moira shook her head.
“I’ll be right here in Montana, where I belong!” she cried. Moira explained the good news to Nathaniel while Mr. Jorgenson beamed happily. Nathaniel sat speechless, dazed by this new information. He fell back into his chair, weakened from the spectrum of emotions that overcame him all at once.
“Why then, that means… we can be married this summer?” he asked hopefully, but Katia only smiled before looking to Moira for an explanation. “Oh, never mind trying to tell her what I said. She understands me, even if she doesn’t know what I’m saying. It’s like my grandma from the old country used to tell us, ‘Das Herz weiß, was sie will.’” He smiled for only a moment as he recalled the childhood memory, but was pulled from his reverie by a startling pain that traveled up his arm from the spot where Katia gripped his elbow tightly, her eyes boring into his pleadingly as her breath failed her for a moment from the sheer hope she felt.
“Sprechen Sie Deutsch?”
***
The train pulled into the massive station and rolled to a stop amid a cloud of steam that billowed up over the windows, blocking Gretchen’s view of New York. It was almost as she remembered from over a year before, but that trip had been brief and unpleasant. This time, they were there to reunite a family and to rekindle the fondness between brother and sister.
The porter eventually came around to their private carriage and helped them down to the platform, promising them their trunks were already loaded in a cab. But instead of being taken to the cab from the train, Lord Brennan was waiting with a few of his employees, standing on his toes and craning his neck to find his sister in the sea of people.
“Ronan!” Moira cried out before running to him, darting this way and that to get through the groups of passengers milling about the platform. She dove into his outstretched arms and said, “Ronan, you’re here!”
“Aye, of course, I’m here! Where else should I be when I learn my darling baby sister is to travel to this horrid city alone?” he teased, kissing her on both cheeks and pulling her into another tight hug. “And where is my nephew? I demand to see him at once and to know why he was not named after me!”
Moira colored slightly but laughed along with her brother. Ronan knew good and well that Matthew was the name of the brother they’d lost in childhood, the one who would have bridged the wide gap in their ages. Instead, a boating accident had taken him from them and left a gap in their family that never quite was filled.
“Here he is!” Moira said, reaching and taking the baby from Gretchen’s arms and passing him to her brother. Ronan hefted the child appraisingly but was instantly taken with the child and insisted on carrying him to the waiting carriage. Ronan’s eyebrows knit slightly when Moira held out her hand for Gretchen to ride in the carriage with them instead of in the cab behind that carried Ronan’s manservants, but didn’t say anything.
They rode through the city’s traffic, the sights and sounds—and dare say, the smells—startling them anew. Ronan gave the driver the address for Katia’s family, but upon learning from the driver that it was in an unsavory section of the city, he refused to let the ladies travel there. Instead, he ordered the driver to take them to his hotel, and then sent the carriage after the family members.
“I’ve secured rooms for your mother and sisters,” he told Katia in French. “And I’m sure you’ll want to stay in their rooms and have a nice long visit before returning to Montana. We’ll leave you to your privacy so you can all catch-up.”
She thanked him but was unable to hold back the tears of gratitude and anticipation at the thought of seeing her elderly mother and her son again.
“I still don’t understand how you could leave,” Moira said, trying to remain polite but still getting to the bottom of a woman leaving behind an infant son. It only caused her more hurt and confusion to look across them and see her brother bouncing Matthew on his knee. How could a mother leave a child behind?
“I promised my papa I would take care of them until he came for us. He hasn’t come, so my promise has not come to an end. It is what I had to do to make sure there was food enough, and heat in the small room through the winter. My heart has broken so many times, I tried to tell myself that one more heartbreak wouldn’t matter. I was wrong, though.”
“And now you have Mr. Russell…”
“Yes, a wonderfully dear man. I can only hope that he is the man to put the pieces of my heart back in place!”
The carriage rolled up outside the Astor House hotel, and Katia gawked at the splendor. Although it had only been a short time since Moira had seen such magnificence—and Gretchen too, who’d spent her entire life in Brennan Castle—Katia had only ever known an existence centered on pulling together and getting by. Her breath caught in her throat at the sight of the gleaming hotel, its gold leaf entryway beckoning to her with its warmth.
“We shall be seen to our rooms, and then my men here will fetch your family,” Ronan continued. His servants helped them out of the carriage and then led the way to their rooms, ignoring the prying eyes of the New York elite who lounged in the overstuffed velvet chairs scattered around the marble lobby. Moira walked with her hand on her brother’s arm, followed by Gretchen, who carried Matthew, and by Katia, who did her best not to stare open-mouthed at the finest rooms sh
e’d ever seen.
In Moira’s suite that she would share with Gretchen and her son, the ladies collapsed on the goose-down bed, giggling with the excitement of finally being here. It was a pivotal moment for all three: Katia would see her family again, or what was left of it, Moira would spend the next many days with her dear older brother, and Gretchen would have a decision to make. She could return to Montana and finish her days as a shop girl for Mr. Jorgenson, or she could return to Brennan with his lordship’s servants and return to a life of service in his household.
One route offered freedom, but isolation. The other path stripped away the hard-earned freedom she’d carved out for herself in the wilderness but exchanged it for companionship. But she was no closer to a decision than she’d been when she first stepped on the train.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“Oh, my friends! Look!” Katia said in a tearful whisper, clutching Moira’s arm on one side and Gretchen’s hand on the other. Two of Ronan’s men held open the great doors of the hotel, and a small cluster of women entered, their expressions a combination of awe and wonder, with a slight sheen of fear. The old woman stood in front of her two daughters as if to protect them from whatever may lie inside the lobby, clutching a little boy to her ample chest. Katia released her grip and ran to them, oblivious to the questioning looks from the guests who were too genteel to run anywhere, let alone in public.
Ronan approached Moira and said quietly in her ear, “Let’s take them somewhere more private for their happy reunion, shall we?” She smiled and nodded happily. She knew what her brother meant, and it had nothing at all to do with the impression their group gave the other guests. Instead, he was thinking only of Katia’s dignity and that of her family, and Moira loved her brother for it. His was always a unique ability to think of others first, despite his aristocratic and privileged upbringing. Remembering this about him made her think to ask about Gretchen.