ROMANCE: Holiday Romance: Her Christmas Surprise (Sweet Clean Holiday Romance) (Holiday Bride Book 1)

by Mercy Levy

  Cassy entered first, hugging and kissing the woman who greeted her on the cheeks. There was only one was to describe this woman: she was round. Her dress was non-descript and her hair was coming out of her bun. A pair of spectacles hung from her neck and a measuring tape was wrapped around her arm. She called for Ella from the back door and greeted Madam Olivia and Moon Lai warmly.

  The seamstress presented shades of white, blue, pink and purple in every material imaginable: satin, lace, velvet, crinkle, chiffon. Moon Lai could only stare at the sheer lushness of the fabric in awe. Cassy excitedly modelled fabric by fabric against Moon Lai’s figure. She made cooing sounds when she liked a material in particular. “This looks lovely on you!” “I love this color. It’s like the sky.” “This one seems better to me. No this one.” Sigh. “I cannot make up my mind. Moon Lai what do you like?”

  “Everything is beautiful.” She replied feeling submerged in her emotions.

  “Mother! What do you think?”

  For a while Madam Olivia said nothing, then “I think we should send her back to the jungle she came from. I cannot accept her into my family. I assumed he was not serious when he said he was paying for a bride from the East but this has gone too far. I will not allow Robert to go along with this any further, not under my watch.”

  There was a pin drop silence.

  Nobody said anything for a minute or two. The sound of Madam Olivia’s clacking heels as she walked out of the store broke the silence spell. Moon Lai crumbled in on herself and sobs overtook her. Cassy cried, “Oh Moon Lai!” She covered Moon Lai’s shaking frame with her body and kept repeating “I’m so sorry!” “I’m so sorry!” over and over again.

  Cassy and Moon Lai had returned home after a few hours. Frederick informed that Madam Olivia had returned home in the afternoon and had not come out of her room since. When Robert arrived home in the evening, Cassy related the events of the day to her brother. A furious Robert stormed out towards her mother’s chambers. Cassy brought Moon Lai to the kitchen to keep her mind distracted while she and Frederick made dinner. Moon Lai helped peel and cut the vegetables all the while the scene from the morning kept coming back in front of her eyes like a stuck reel.

  When the time to eat came, Moon Lai informed Frederick to tell Cassy that she was not feeling well and that she would like to retire to her room.

  Lying on the bed with no appetite and a headache hammering inside her brain, she felt miserable. She missed her home. She missed Ha Su and Sa Ya. She even missed her father.

  A knock on the door sounded and Robert’s voice saying “May I come in?” When she did not reply, he asked again. “I do not wish to talk,” she replied barely able to hold back her tears. She did not want him to see her like this.

  “I am coming in any way. I need to speak to you.”

  He entered and she sat up in bed. He came over and kneeled at her bed side. “I am terribly sorry for my mother’s actions. I did not know she held such resentment towards you. I have spoken to her and I have told her that it is not her decision to make,” he said, with worried eyes.

  A tear leaked through her eyes. “I do not want to stay here anymore. I wish to go home. I wish to go back to my family. I do not…,” she broke off as fresh tears consumed her.

  He shushed her and sat beside her up on the bed. He ran his thumb to rub away the tears. His voice almost pleading said, “You cannot think we do not want you here, Moon Lai. Cassy and Frederick love you here. I-I love you. Forget what my mother thinks. I want to marry you, Moon Lai.”

  Startled, Moon Lai could not utter a word. “Say you accept. Say you will agree to marry me. I promise to keep you happy. I promise to forever love you and protect you. Say yes!”

  Cassy and Frederick burst through the doors with a trolley piled with dishes from dinner, chanting “Say Yes, Moon Lai, say yes” “Say Yes, Madam, say yes”

  Robert chuckled and Moon Lai hid her face behind a pillow, her cheeks flaming.

  Cassy made an innocent face, “We only came here to bring Moon Lai food. We did not harbor any ulterior motives, we promise! Right Frederick?” she elbowed the butler who with a stoic face shook his head.

  Moon Lai could feel that the snooping party and the groom-to-be were anxious for her answer; she nodded her head shyly, keeping her eyes down.

  Cassy screamed and tackled her on the bed. Frederick congratulated the happy couple. After the merriment settled, Robert stayed with Moon Lai until she had eaten and fallen asleep.

  Robert tucked the blanket around her sleeping form. She looked peaceful in her sleep. He wondered what she dreamed about.

  He started to walk towards the door, when he heard her whisper. He turned back and a caught a whispered, “Su-ya!”

  ……………..

  Robert and Moon Lai’s wedding took place in the following week. The event was personally organized by Cassy. Frederick and she had personally seen everything to perfection from the dress to the flowers to the food to the guests to the music and even to the sour-faced presence of Madam Olivia who drank her champagne with a scowl on her face but otherwise remain seated in her chair throughout the ceremony.

  Robert led Moon Lai patiently through the stumbling steps of her first ever ballroom dance. She stepped on his feet then apologized, then stepped on his feet again and apologized till he placed a finger on her lips and hugged her to his chest and swayed them to the slow rhythm of the music.

  People danced and chattered. They ate and left when the evening came.

  Night came and Moon Lai was in her room. The dashing man with the mesmerizing blue eyes who, she still failed to believe, was her husband came in, swept her off her feet and both of them stumbled onto the bed.

  Moon Lai came to believe that night that she was free to dream, free to love and free to live. She had been blessed with these amazing people who loved her and cared for her.

  She deserved a happy life and she was going to live one now.

  …………

  The briny wind from the harbor swept her hair back. Moon Lai covered her eyes. Beside her a Cassy scolded a hyper energetic Jamie who kept running around them in circles. Robert had walked away after telling them to stay here. He would not say anything when she asked him where they were going or why they were here. Now it had been fifteen minutes since he had left. She huffed and sat down on the nearest bench and started swinging her legs to ease her anxiety. Cassy sat down next to her with Jamie in her lap.

  After another ten minutes, a pair of muddy leather boots stopped next to her wedged heels. She looked up.

  Time seemed to slow down as her eyes landed on the suntanned face and those brown eyes. His features had matured into that of a young man’s and when she stood up with shaky legs and Cassy’s hand on her arm, she noticed he had grown taller too.

  She started crying and Ha Su wrapped his arms around his sister.

  When the pair would not stop crying, Cassy started crying too and hugged them both. Then Jamie’s wails filled the air.

  When Robert had calmed everyone down, Frederick arrived with the car and ushered them out of the harbor.

  Moon Lai slipped her hand into her husband’s and he glanced at her. She looked at him as someone would look at the stars, the sun, the moon.

  A tear slipped down her cheek as she looked at him with love. He wrapped his arms around her and she rested her head over his chest where she could always hear his heartbeat. She whispered a ‘Thank You’ to whoever was up there to listen.

  THE END

  Margaret’s New Beginning

  1.

  Meg bit her lip. The ground was sheeted with ice and her thin shawl was not nearly warm enough to keep her from shivering, making walking all the more treacherous. Her aunt glanced over at her, a thoughtful look on her face.

  “Sorry dearest Margaret, I should’ve realized my brother would have forgotten all about how much colder it is here, than down in Baton Rouge.” Margaret smiled painfully, through her quickly bluing lips.

>   “Mother made me double up, and Father sent more than enough money for all new clothes, Aunt Bea. We tried, but couldn’t get warm fabric in time to have them made before I left. I’ll be fine for a few more minutes.”

  Beatrice sighed heavily, but nodded. It had been a spur of the moment idea to bring Margaret up to Connecticut for the winter social season. But, when she and Meg’s cousin, Alma, had made their annual Spring visit, it had struck them both how lovely Margaret had become, and how mature she was for her age. It seemed to make sense to them both, to introduce her to a life outside of the bayou folk and plantation owners that seemed to be her only marriage pool. After all, Meg was Alma’s favorite cousin. She often teased her parents, gently, that the girl should have been her sister, not her cousin. But, although Dewey was a constant thorn in his sister’s side, Beatrice knew she would never wish her older brother gone.

  The older woman sighed again. Dewey had finally left home to make his own fortune, and Alma needed someone around. Meg was such enjoyable company, and so in need of experience off her father’s plantation, that Bea had jumped at the excuse to finally bring her north to see more of the world. She took her own shawl off and wrapped it around Meg’s thin shoulders, rubbing the girl’s arms to warm her.

  “I am sure your father had good intentions, but it has obviously been far too long since he has been here, if he thought even a short wait for a cab was acceptable in that thin cotton. Don’t you worry about me,” She cut her niece off when she tried to argue. “One of us is wearing wool under her dress, and a wool dress, and a wool jacket. This nice warm wool shawl was just to keep these old joints moving well.” She raised a hand to her husband, who was leaning out of a cab door a few steps away. He jumped down and helped the cab driver lift the trunk into the baggage sling, and the ladies climbed inside to wait in the warm space with Alma.

  “I am so glad to see you!” Margaret stuttered through her chattering teeth. Her jaw ached from clenching it tight, and now that she was getting warm, it seemed her teeth only wanted to clack together even more. Alma chuckled sympathetically and patted her hand.

  “Oh, poor, sweet Meg. This is your very first winter, isn’t it?” Meg nodded, or at least tried to, if they could see it for the shivering she did not know.

  “Father said he had left the north for a reason, and no one or nothing would get him to come back. I finally realized what he was talking about.” Uncle Daschle heard the last as he climbed into the cab. He sat next to his wife and rubbed his gloved hands together.

  “Yes, your father has informed us on many an occasion, that he will be burying us in his family plot in Baton Rouge.” He laughed. “Apparently, he wanted to turn you into an icicle for the ride home.” Meg giggled. Her teeth had finally decided they could stand still, and she was quite comfortable now, except for the burnt feeling on the tops of her thighs as they warmed up. She scrubbed her hands over her skirt to rub out the chill, and peered out the window at the buildings as they passed. The architecture was different here, and the frosted windows and snowy rooftops lent the city an air of mystery to her view. The roads, however, were full of dirty, grey snow and the sidewalks covered in a low sheen she’d already learned, the hard way, meant they were slick with ice. She was grateful her aunt had caught her by the arm before she’d bruised her backside.

  Alma pulled the curtain away from the window a little on her side of the carriage and poked Meg. She pointed at a beautiful tall brownstone rising up in the dusk, right behind a flickering gas streetlamp.

  “That’s home, Meg-dear. I can’t wait for you to see your room and get unpacked. We’ll get a fire going and Liza will make us tea, and we’ll get you warm in no time.” The older girl squeezed Margaret’s hand and grinned. “And I requested roast beef and Yorkshire puddings for your first supper in Hartford.” Meg squeezed back and answered Alma’s smile with one of her own. It was terribly exciting to be in such a strange new place, even if her first experience with snow had been a little more like her father’s stories than she had hoped.

  While the men handled the trunk and her bags, Meg’s aunt and cousin ushered her quickly into the house and up the stairs to warm her up and change her clothes. Liza, the housekeeper, made chiding noises at her cold fingers and promptly told the kitchen girl to put the tea on. Liza’s husband, Charles, brought extra wood into Meg’s room and stoked up the fire that was already burning.

  Meg turned down a bath to help her warm up, insisting she was too excited to put off a tour of her cousin’s home one more minute. Aunt Bea reminded the girls to meet her in the parlor for tea in a few minutes, and Alma pulled Meg out of the room by the hand.

  Alma’s room was exactly as Meg imagined it, messy, a scholar’s room, tall four post bed a writer’s desk, table by the fire and a comfortable chair, with books on every available surface and even piled on the floor. There was a large quilt folded on the rug by the fire, just out of range of sparks, and another pile of books on the corner of that. Alma’s love of books was one of the best things she and Meg had in common. Alma’s parents let her read books that Meg’s father would never allow in the house, so their summer visits had always held the promise of D.H. Lawrence, or Jules Verne snuck into her bedroom in one of Alma’s suitcases.

  The realization struck Margaret like a gong. She could read anything and everything until Spring, and her return to Baton Rouge. The thought thrilled her, raising gooseflesh on her arms and the color to her cheeks.

  “Oh Meg, my love, you have rose in your cheeks again!” Her cousin exclaimed. “You must be feeling better!” Margaret nodded and asked if there were any books she could borrow from Alma while she was in Hartford. “Well, all of them, darling, of course. Oh! I just remembered, I have a new D.H. Lawrence for you to read, ‘Women in Love’. I promise, it’s utterly sinful.” Meg laughed.

  “If it’s coming from you, I expect nothing less.” Alma clutched her cousin’s arm.

  “Let’s join Mother for tea, before she sends Liza after us. Oh, Meg, we have so much to show you! When we are through, you will want to stay with us forever!” The intense chill that had seeped into Meg’s bones was all but forgotten in the wave of Alma’s enthusiasm. Hartford was a winter wonderland, and Margaret couldn’t wait to see everything the north had to offer.

  2.

  The next few days were a whirlwind for Margaret and Alma as the older girl showed Meg the sites of Hartford, introduced her to all her society friends, and planned a dinner at their home to help announce the young southern belle to the cream of the east coast elite. While the dressmakers made her several day dresses and a few more for parties, Margaret dressed in Alma’s clothes of the last season. They were new to Meg, so she had no complaint in wearing the hand-me-downs, and Liza stayed up for two evenings tailoring the dresses and changing them enough that no one would be mistaken and believe Meg to be a poor relative.

  Meg assured the kind woman that she was not concerned at all of the opinions of others, but her modesty and good nature only made Liza more intent on making her stay that much more comfortable.

  “They are simply a good bunch, the lot of them,” Liza confided in the kitchen girls while she helped them dress Cornish hens for supper. “I have had employers who I was better off without, but if you girls know what’s best for you, you’ll do right by the missus, and she will do right by you.” The young women rolled their eyes behind Liza’s back, but they too, had friends whose appointments left much to be desired, and they redoubled their efforts to create a meal that was a masterpiece.

  Christmas morning was the most luxurious that Meg had ever witnessed, and as excited as she was with the gifts she’d brought with her from Louisiana, and the additional purchases she had made her last week in Hartford, she was still astonished at the sheer quantity of trinkets, dresses, and accoutrements she received from her family.

  “I did not expect such an outpouring of generosity, above what you have already shown me!” She exclaimed as she opened one last box from Alma, a
long, lariat necklace of silver and fresh water pearls, after the fashion of the flappers.

  “You came all this way, by yourself, just to see us.” Alma replied. The gifts your family sent are lovely, and I cannot say how much I adore my gift from you. You certainly don’t have to feel that your gifts are not appreciated. We are just so happy you are here with us!” Gruff uncle Daschle coughed discreetly into his handkerchief and nodded, and aunt Bea wiped at a stray tear that had tried to escape her lashes.

  “With your uncle Daschle ill these last few days, it has brightened the mood for all of us to have you here.” She confirmed. “We are happy to have you in Hartford with us, and we cannot wait to show you the best part.” Meg looked around the room, eyebrows raised. It got better than this? She was certain her aunt couldn’t procure and novelty, or entrance to any show, which would surpass the warmth of the hearth, the fragrant tea that Liza had brewed for them, and the crisp, cold whiteness of the untouched, new-fallen snow that gathered on the window panes.

  After they had opened presents and Liza had tidied up the ribbons and paper that lay in piles almost as tall as the snow drifts outside, the family sat to a feast of sweet pastries and fruit, with hot cider in addition to tea, and coffee, and thick smoked cuts of meat and fresh baked bread. Uncle Daschle gave the entire staff the remainder of the day off, and warned the girls that they must fend for themselves, for he was going back to bed, with the hope of ridding himself of the persistent cough that had plagued him since just after Meg had arrived. Aunt Bea waited until her husband had dragged his tired body back upstairs to their suite, and reminded Charles that it would be helpful to make sure that fire was good and hot before taking the day off. Charles assured her that he and Liza were staying close and would be able to tend to the sick man’s every need.

  Gratefully, aunt Bea patted her Butler’s hand and nodded. Alma confided in Meg as they dressed upstairs, that her mother and father had already asked her to sneak a thick envelope in to their living quarters. She’d done the same thing every Christmas, long as she could remember. She admitted to Meg that she had no idea how much money was in the packet, but she had never stopped being curious about it.