“Do you make this journey often, Mr. Austin?”
“As often as I can so as to provide for my family.” He paused. “Miss Bolen, under the circumstances, please call me Sam.”
May nodded. “As you wish. And I suppose it wouldn’t be improper to use May now that we are …” She couldn’t say it. Not yet.
“Friends?” he supplied.
“Yes,” she said on an exhale of breath. “I believe I would like to be your friend.”
A short while later, Sam helped her down from the buggy and escorted her inside her father’s home. “Might I offer tea?” she asked.
“Thank you but I need to get back. There’s much still left to do to prepare for the trip, but perhaps another time.”
She nodded, and an invitation left atop the stack on the table in the hallway caught her eye. “I wonder,” she said slowly, “would you consider a favor if I asked nicely and agreed to allow you to not answer the last three questions on the list?”
“It depends on the favor.”
“I have a stack of invitations to events and I have not accepted a single one. Perhaps you could attend something with me—a ball or lecture perhaps—just to see if we were a good fit. What do you think?”
“Knock off the last five questions and let me pick which event and we have a deal.”
She reached out her hand to shake. “Deal. Go ahead and choose so I will know which hostess to send my acceptance.”
Sam picked up the invitations and sorted through them. “You’re a popular woman,” he said as he discarded three and went back to his search.
“Not really. My guess is New Orleans hostesses are curious as to what I might be like. They knew the father but do not know the daughter. That sort of thing. But if they realized I could be penniless by next month, I doubt there would be invitations at all.”
He leveled an even gaze. “You won’t be penniless.”
“Because I will marry?”
“Because you will marry me.” He halted his search and lifted a card from the pile. “Madame Gallier’s costume ball is my choice. I will call on you three days hence. Should you decide to marry me in the meantime, do save the news until then.”
“Very well,” she said with a chuckle. “But I would like to review your responses to my questions before then. Perhaps you can send them by messenger.” She paused. “Or deliver them. Your choice, of course.”
“Of course. My choice.” He stepped out the door and then paused to look back at her. “Allow two days for my responses.”
Two days later, the butler delivered Sam’s answers on a silver platter. “Is he here?” May asked as she retrieved the folded document.
“Mr. Austin sends his regrets and asks that you accept his apology for not paying you a proper visit.”
“I see.” She dismissed the butler and then crossed the room to settle on a settee beside the fireplace to read Sam’s responses.
In response to a question about his childhood, Sam had written about the loss of his mother, Maribelle, and his baby sister at a young age to yellow fever. When asked about his favorite toy, he told her about the pony cart he and his brother had fashioned from discarded lumber and wagon parts and had used as their means of transportation when they sold eggs to neighbors to help their father make ends meet.
The list went on, each answer more honest and touching than the next. By the time she reached the last one, or rather the sixth from the end, May was in tears. The picture of a man whose life and work ethic were so foreign to hers had emerged. She placed the pages beside her as she swiped at tears.
Collecting them once again, the whole stack slid onto the floor. When she retrieved the pages, she realized Sam had gone on to answer one more question—the last one.
Why should I marry you?
“‘Because I am the man your father chose for you,’” she read aloud.
May was still contemplating the meaning of those words when Sam arrived to collect her for the costume ball. She smiled when she saw his choice of costume.
“A pirate,” she said. “How fitting.”
“I thought so.” He gave her a sweeping glance, his eyes seeming to take note of every detail of the mourning dress she’d chosen to wear. “Interesting costume. What are you?”
“Forgiving my father,” she said as she allowed Sam to lead her out into the evening air.
“Interesting,” was his only comment.
“Freeing, actually,” she said. “Mrs. Gallier was right.”
Sam helped her up into the buggy and then walked around to join her. If he had any questions about her sanity or her choice of costume, he kept them to himself. At the door to the ball, each of them were handed masks, white for May and black for Sam, and instructed not to divulge their names until the proper time in the evening.
A few minutes later, May discovered that despite his rather antisocial lifestyle, Sam Austin III was quite a good dancer. Though he was careful not to monopolize her on the dance floor, he did play the attentive escort and kept watch over her while she danced with others.
The few times she found him in the ballroom with another dancer, May felt an odd pang of jealousy. She barely knew this man. Why should she be jealous of a nameless dancer in a mask?
And yet after reading his sometimes brutally honest responses to her questions, May felt as if she did know him quite well.
She moved toward the table where refreshments were being served only to find Sam waiting for her there. He handed her a glass of punch and then escorted her away from the ballroom and toward the doors leading to the balcony.
Compared to the ballroom, it was quiet here, quieter still when Sam led her out the doors and onto the balcony. She took a sip of punch, grateful for something to quench her thirst.
“Are you enjoying yourself?” he asked as he set his punch aside and turned to face her.
“I am. Are you?”
“I am,” was his soft reply.
Moonlight slanted over his features, giving credence to his look as a pirate. May took another sip of punch and allowed the sound of the fountain splashing in the courtyard below to punctuate the comfortable silence between them.
“Sam,” she finally said. “Your responses to my questions were …” She paused. “Well, they caught me off guard.”
He moved slightly closer. “Too much honesty?”
“Not at all. You told me you were an honest man, and I can see that you are.” She paused to look up into his eyes. “But there’s one thing I do not understand. How do you know that you are the one my father chose for me?”
“Because he told me. Indirectly, of course,” Sam added.
“Through his will?” At his nod, she continued. “I forgave him for not caring enough for me to provide for me in his will.” May looked down at her dress then back up at Sam. “That’s what this is about.”
“You didn’t have to explain,” he said. “And I disagree. Your father did provide for you in his will.”
She shook her head. “How so? By appointing a stranger to control who I marry? I fail to see …” May took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I’m sorry. It’s not worth getting upset over. It’s my father’s choice how he distributes his estate, and we are left to honor that choice.”
“May,” Sam whispered as he moved closer again, this time to catch May’s tears with the back of his hand. “Much as the truth sets us free, so honor binds me to what I can tell you. Please know your father loved you enough to provide more than just money to secure your future. Perhaps someday I can tell you exactly how he managed it, but for now I cannot.”
More tears threatened. “Someday will you tell me, then?”
His thumb traced her jawline. “Someday. I promise.”
“So Sam,” she said softly, “when might we wed?”
He flashed her that pirate smile once again. “So you’re beyond just considering it then?”
“I am merely asking,” was her quick reply.
“We do have
a time limit of approximately two weeks by my count,” he said. “So should you accept my offer, we would need to make arrangements as soon as possible.” His hand wrapped around the back of May’s neck and drew her closer. “Have my answers to your questions done anything to sway you?”
Once again, she blinked back tears. “They have. But there’s just one more mystery that remains.”
“A question I failed to answer?” he said.
“Of a sort,” she replied as she lifted up on tiptoe. “Will you kiss me, Sam?”
“Honestly,” he replied. “I will.”
And so he did.
“May,” Sam whispered against her ear when the kiss ended. “I have two questions, and I want honest answers.”
“All right,” she managed though she found breathing most difficult.
“First, will you marry me?”
“I am still considering it,” she said. “Perhaps we could go and see Mr. Breaux tomorrow and discuss it further.”
“Fair enough. And second,” he added. “Do you want me to kiss you again?”
“Yes, very much.”
The next morning, Sam pulled the buggy to a stop in front of Mr. Breaux’s building. “I doubt he will mind that we do not have an appointment when he hears what we have to tell him,” Sam said as he helped her down.
“I have not agreed to your proposal,” she said, stopping just short of the building’s front doors.
“Then I will be sure to inform Mr. Breaux of that.” He reached out to grasp her hand then stopped short and stole a quick kiss. “Consider this an informational visit. You cannot make an informed decision if you do not know all the facts.”
May allowed Sam to lead her back up to Mr. Breaux’s office door. Before Mr. Austin could reach up to knock, the sound of laughter, both masculine and feminine, drifted toward them.
Her companion looked down at May and then knocked. A moment later, the door swung open and Mr. Breaux appeared. “Well, look who we have here,” he declared as he stepped back to reveal he had guests in his office.
“Mama?” May said a moment before Mr. Austin said, “Father?”
“Do come in,” Mr. Breaux urged. “We were actually just talking about you two.”
“Why are you here, Mama? The better question is how did you get here?”
Her mother spared only the briefest smile. “The usual way, darling. By ship.”
“Yes but …”
Mama waved away any further questions with a sweep of her bejeweled hand. “Truly, May, I am here now and that is what matters. I understand there’s been a few developments with your father’s will that you had not yet written to me about.”
Mr. Breaux gave May a sheepish look. “What I was not able to tell you at our first meeting is that there were also letters sent out to certain parties before your arrival here. Those letters went to Mrs. Bolen and Mr. Austin.”
At the sound of his name, the elder Austin rose to offer his hand. Cut from the same cloth as his son, Samuel Austin Jr. was tall with broad shoulders and a military man’s posture. His grip was firm, and his eyes seemed to study her with a mixture of amusement and curiosity.
“She’s pretty like you, Rebecca.” He turned to Mama. “Good thing. I feared she might turn out favoring her daddy. Now wouldn’t that have been a shame?”
Mama giggled, and May could only gape. Never once in all her twenty-two years had she ever heard her mother giggle.
“Would any of you like to enlighten us as to the contents of these letters?” Sam asked. “And as to why you are gathered here in this office?”
“T’ain’t none of your business, son,” his father said.
“Samuel,” Mama said. “You were always so hard on the boy. Don’t you think these two young people deserve to know about the plotting that has happened on their behalf?”
“And you were always far too softhearted for your own good.” He paused and then shrugged. “But if you want to spill the beans on what’s been going on, then you go right ahead. Me, I prefer to stay out of such things.”
“Since when?” Mama and Sam said together.
“Point taken,” he said, though his gaze was aimed at Mama. “But I’m still going to sit here quietly and let you tell the story.”
“All right then,” Mama said as she focused on May. “It all started almost two years ago when your father learned he was very ill. He spent his remaining time making things right.”
“Well, it would have been nice for him to make things right with me,” she snapped. “I received no letter, nor did he bother to see me.”
“He wanted to see you,” Mama said as she rose to draw May close. “In person. But, well, he misinterpreted how ill he truly was, and he never got to take that voyage to New York that he had Mrs. Gallier book for him.”
“I’m not sure I believe you.”
Mama looked over at Mr. Breaux and nodded. The lawyer went to his desk and produced a small envelope tucked into a leather Bible and handed them both to May.
“Open it,” Mama said as she gestured to the Bible. There Proverbs 21:14 had been underlined.
“‘A gift in secret pacifieth anger,’” May read aloud.
Inside the envelope were three tickets to New York aboard a vessel set to leave just a week before he died. “Why three?”
“He intended to bring Sam and his father.”
Sam shook his head. “Why wasn’t I told about this?”
“Because you’re stubborn as I am,” the elder Austin said. “Thomas and I thought it best once we patched up our feud that we keep quiet until the time was right. Sadly, that day never came.” He paused. “But we planned to introduce the two of you. Thomas even had that painting commissioned in the hopes that it would be your wedding gift.”
“It still can be,” Mama said.
“Sure can,” Sam’s father said. “See, we both agreed that ever since you were little tykes you were meant to be together. Why, you marked him up good, Miss May. He still bears the scar of the time you poked him with a stick when you were playing pirates.”
“I poked him with a stick?”
Sam came up behind her to envelop her in an embrace. “It seems she still has trouble with that.”
“Oh stop,” she said although she was laughing.
Sam shook his head. “Let me get this straight. All of this was done just to see that May and I were married?”
“All of what?” May asked.
“It’s a long story, and I cannot tell you until after we’re properly wed. However, I want it known to everyone in this room that Mr. Breaux will be drawing up papers to show that a certain wedding gift is given to my wife upon our marriage. Not a gift in secret like Mr. Bolen noted in the Bible, but a very public gift of Bolen Shipping to my wife, May.”
Mr. Breaux grinned. “Mr. Bolen anticipated this and had me draw something up. It does give the company to Miss Bolen but stipulates a certain person to be in charge of the business as long as he lives.”
“No,” Sam said. “I want no part of Bolen Shipping. I will take care of my wife and any children we might have with my own two hands.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Austin,” the lawyer said. “You are not the man Mr. Bolen suggested to run Bolen Shipping.”
“Oh,” he said. “Then who is?”
“Your father, Samuel Austin Jr.” He shrugged. “Although he does suggest a change of company name to Austin-Bolen Shipping.”
“I like that very much,” May said as she turned to whisper in Sam’s ear. “And I find I like you very much. If the offer still stands, then my answer is yes. I will marry you.”
Epilogue
And that is the story of how your mama and your papa came to fall in love,” Sam said as he smoothed back the hair of their youngest daughter, an exact copy of her mother. The twins had fallen asleep once the story turned from adventure aboard the Vengeance to the deep bond of love that had developed between him and May over the years.
While his sons much preferred st
ories of Sam’s sails to the Orient—all taken before May became his wife because he found he just couldn’t leave her once they wed—little Maribelle wanted all the details of the love story that had surprised both him and May.
“Tell us the story again, Papa. Start at the beginning, and don’t forget the part about how Mama poked that man under the sails with a stick.”
May left her post in the hall where, as always, she had been eavesdropping on Sam’s nightly bedtime ritual with the children and stepped into the nursery. “That is quite enough storytelling for tonight,” she told them in the mock-serious voice she attempted each evening. “Tomorrow is a big day and I want your papa well rested. He’s taking me dancing, you know.”
Maribelle scooted over to make room for her mama on the bed and then climbed into her lap with her favorite toy. “Does this mean Papa is going to have a new story to tell me tomorrow night?”
“This means you are up far too late, my dumpling, and you are to close your eyes right now.”
May kissed their daughter on the top of the head and held her tight as Sam’s heart squeezed. Painfully aware he had done nothing to deserve the life God had given him, he gave thanks right then and there for it anyway.
Minutes later, Maribelle was sound asleep, her little arms cuddling the black sheep May had made from that wonderful and awful mourning dress she’d been wearing when Sam first kissed her. The boys had matching sheep, and to May’s count, there was plenty of fabric for an army of Austin children to each have his or her own.
What Sam did not yet know was that there would soon be a need to place an order with the seamstress for one more little sheep. Or perhaps, should she get another surprise set of twins as she had with the boys, two sheep.
Sam lifted Maribelle from her mother’s arms and settled the five-year-old beneath her covers. Taking May’s hand, they walked toward the door. As always, May stopped to turn around and take one last look at the children before she closed the nursery door for the night.
“Can you believe they’re ours?” she murmured against his ear.
“I cannot believe you are mine, May Austin,” he said as he gathered her to him and lifted her chin to look into her eyes. The boys had her eyes while Maribelle had his. It was a fair trade, for if their daughter had been possessed of all this woman’s traits, there would be no man safe once she reached marriageable age.
Of Rags and Riches Romance Collection Page 20