If Wishes Were Kisses: Six Beloved Americana Romances, a Collection (Small Town Swains)

by Pamela Morsi

  "So no one knows," Mikolai said. "And no one knows that you know."

  "Well," Claire said evenly, "Prudence and George know."

  "What!"

  "Well, it wasn't like they didn't know already," Claire defended. "I just let them know that I knew."

  "Oh, my heavens." Gertrude felt the tears of shame begin to stream down her cheeks. She had never meant to hurt anyone. She had never meant to scandalize anyone. Now her whole family was aware of what she had done. They were probably all as angry as Claire. She pictured George, helpless and horrified as he determinedly put a brave face on the latest Barkley scandal. And Prudence, her sad eyes welling with tears, as she assumed that somehow this was her fault. They loved her and would stand by her through the latest, most serious of her indiscretions. All the while writhing in shame. Suddenly Gertrude couldn't bear it.

  "I'm sorry I—"

  Tearfully clutching her handkerchief, she ran out of the house. She didn't have any inkling as to where she intended to go. The morning sun glimmered on the shiny red brick as she reached the porch, realizing that there was nowhere to run. She had played a very serious game with her life and with her reputation. And she had lost. Now, not only would she pay dearly for it, but her family would, too. She hadn't anticipated that. She hadn't anticipated being found out. She had thought only of her love for a man whom she could never truly have. A man whom she had wanted for so very, very long.

  "Zona," the soft word came from behind her. Mikolai wrapped his arms around her and pulled her backward, holding her tightly against his chest.

  She closed her eyes and allowed him just to hold her for long, wonderful moments before she tried to speak. She should shy away from him, begin at that moment to end their illicit affair. But she could not. It felt too wonderful to be in his arms. And even caught she was loath to give it up.

  "I am so ashamed," she choked out through her tears.

  He pressed a tiny kiss against her hair. "Are you ashamed because you love me?" he asked her.

  She stroked the strong arms that sheltered her as she shook her head. "You know it's not that," she answered. "I'm ashamed because I've dishonored my family. Because I've hurt them with my own selfishness."

  "We have hurt them. With our selfishness," he corrected her quietly.

  She didn't bother to argue. "Poor George has struggled so hard to overcome the stain on his reputation," she said. "And I've never helped. Never. I've always done just what I wanted. Selfishly. Inconsiderately. I always just allowed myself to please myself. And now, see how it has all come to a bad end."

  "You could never be selfish or inconsiderate, my zona," he told her quietly. "You have only looked for some happiness in your life. That is not a bad thing. It is what you deserve."

  He hugged her tightly. She could feel the pounding of his heart against her. It was as if it were in harmony with her own. As if, like the dance, they moved in the same natural cadence.

  "And this love of ours, Gertrude. It doesn't have to be a bad end," he whispered.

  "What?" she asked. "How can it not?"

  Mikolai turned her in his arms. With one knuckle he raised her chin slightly so that he could look directly into her eyes. His expression was warm and familiar and dear.

  "It doesn't have to be a bad end," he repeated. "Because we can marry."

  Gertrude's eyes widened. She stared at him in stunned disbelief. "You would marry me?" she asked in an incredulous whisper.

  "We can take the Packard across the border to Arkansas and be wed this very morning," he said. "If only the family knows, they won't say a word. We will be together and we will make it up to them."

  She continued to stare at him mutely as he pushed a stray curl away from her face.

  "But you vowed never to remarry," she told him. "You said a wife would expect more than you are prepared to offer."

  "That was because I was never able to offer my heart," he admitted. "But you have stolen my heart already."

  "Not stolen, surely."

  "I know that you had not wanted to marry. I know that your work is more important to you than belonging to some man. But I belong to you, Gertrude. I cannot go on without you."

  "Mikolai, my love."

  He dropped to his knee then in front of her. He clasped her hands tightly in his own and gazed up at her.

  "I am no longer a young man, Gertrude. But you make me feel young again. I feel young enough to take a wife."

  "Of course you are young enough to take a wife," she said. "But, Mikolai, please get up. I ... I am your mistress." She breathed volumes of meaning into the word. "Men do not marry their mistresses."

  He let his lips caress the sweet familiar flesh of her fingers. "They do if they love them, Zona," he answered.

  The touch was nearly as unsettling as his words. She stuttered for an appropriate reply.

  "B-b-b-but I never ... I wouldn't have ... I had no intention of trapping you into anything," she said.

  'Trapping me?" He chuckled lightly, as if she had made a very good joke. "A hare taking shelter in his burrow does not think himself trapped," he told her. "Though the space in the burrow be the same as in a cage, he is home and safe and content, and so will I be."

  "But, Mikolai, it seems so unfair," she said. "You wanted only a little pleasure."

  "And I found more than a little with you," he said. "So much, in fact, that I am loath to give it up. Truly I know you had not planned to wed, but the idea appeals to me more as each minute passes by. Tell me you are not repulsed at the thought?"

  "No, no, I—"

  "I would not hinder your work, my zona, not ever. You have penned two novels," he said. "And I hope that for you there will be many more. I would never stop you from that. I want you to continue your writing. I would never try to keep you from it."

  It was a reassurance that she knew was true, yet she needed to hear it. Still, she hesitated. He deserved so much more.

  "Mikolai, I know so little about being a housewife," she confessed. "I've let Pru do all the dinner preparation. I am barely competent to boil my own water for tea."

  Mikolai actually grinned at her obvious distress. "Had I wanted a woman chained to a cookstove, I could have married a dozen times over," he answered. "I do not want merely a wife. I want Gertrude Barkley."

  She laid a hand upon her heart as if to still the wild pounding inside her.

  "I didn't even dare to dream of this," she admitted. "I was afraid to dream of it."

  "We are a good couple, Gertrude, a good match," Mikolai insisted. "We are two people who love each other and we are a bit too old for making foolish mistakes."

  "If we're too old for foolish mistakes," she asked him, "how is it that we find ourselves in this situation?" She made a gesture toward the doorway where they both knew the young people waited inside.

  Mikolai shrugged. "I didn't say it wasn't a mistake," he told her, his tone was light and teasing as he gazed once more into her tear-stained eyes, now suddenly bright with anxious animation. "I just said that it wasn't a foolish one."

  She smiled at him and shook her head.

  "Marry me, Gertrude, my zonal" he asked. "Will you marry me today?"

  "Yes," she answered quietly, though her thoughts were screaming out the words. "I will marry you, Mikolai Stefanski."

  He rose to his feet then and kissed her. A sweet, brief kiss. It was not a touch to incite the fires of passion, but a gesture of affection. The kind of kiss a husband bestows on a wife.

  "I love you, Gertrude," he said, smiling down into her eyes. "And I will kiss you better later. When we are man and wife."

  The thrill of hearing his words had her trembling and she started crying again. With a crisp clean handkerchief, he wiped her eyes.

  "I've heard that brides often cry on their wedding nights," he said, teasing. "But I never knew of one to cry at her marriage proposal."

  His teasing had her smiling up at him through her tears. He bent forward slightly to plant a tiny kiss o
n the end of her nose.

  "Come along, my sweet zona" he said. "I think we need to make some assurances to some very moral and upright young people."

  Teddy and Claire were whispering nervously together when they returned to the front parlor. Claire's chin was still obstinate and angry. Teddy looked rather unsure.

  "Please, let us sit back down again," Mikolai said.

  He seated Gertrude upon the divan and sat down beside her. He did not for a moment relinquish her hand and held it possessively upon his knee as if making a statement to the young people before him.

  "We are very sorry if you two have been in any way hurt by what Gertrude and I have done," he said. "We certainly did not set out to hurt anyone and we are very distressed that we obviously have hurt you two."

  The young people continued to stare at him stonily and he glanced over at Gertrude for courage.

  "We want you to know that we do not take lightly the bonds of holy matrimony. And we would never wish for you to do so either. We admit that what we have done is wrong, but we now have decided to make it right."

  'To make it right?" Claire asked. "How do you intend to make it right?"

  "Gertrude has consented to be my wife," he said. "We will drive to Eureka Springs this morning and be wed."

  There was silence within the front parlor. The morning light at that very moment reached the correct angle and streamed in through the east windows, illuminating the tableau of two couples, one young, one not so young, facing each other in moral dilemma.

  "How will that solve anything?" Claire asked finally.

  Mikolai glanced at Gertrude, puzzled; she shrugged and then looked back at Claire.

  "Why, it should solve everything," she said to her.

  Claire's jaw hardened and her voice came out angry. "What about your child? Do you never give a thought to your child?"

  "Child?" The word was spoken in unison and in astonishment.

  Mikolai looked at Gertrude in shocked expectation. She shook her head with absolute certainty.

  "There is no child," she answered him. She repeated it for Claire and Teddy. "There is no child."

  "What about me?" Claire cried plaintively.

  "You?" Mikolai gazed at her in wonder.

  Claire looked at her aunt accusingly. "You didn't tell him about me, Aunt Gertrude."

  'Tell him what about you?"

  "That I'm his daughter!"

  "Daughter!"

  Mikolai raised his hands in innocence; his tone was of a man completely mystified. "By God, I swear, I hardly know Prudence Barkley!"

  "What is the meaning of this?" Gertrude asked.

  "You shouldn't have lied to us, Father," Teddy said.

  "I'm owed an explanation," Claire insisted.

  Everyone began talking at once.

  The tower of Babylon could not have been noisier than the front parlor of the Stefanski manse that morning. Louder and louder the commotion grew as each speaker tried to be heard over every other. Finally Mikolai came to his feet.

  "Hush!" he ordered, in a voice of authority well known to his employees, business associates, and competitors.

  Silence descended.

  He nodded gratefully at each now-quieted person within the room.

  "Now, Claire," he said as he took his seat again. "Please tell us, slowly, carefully, why you think that you are my daughter."

  The young woman raised her chin high. She was still very unhappy and it was clear she blamed it on the two adults.

  "I found Aunt Gertrude's diary," she said sharply. "I found her diary and it's all written there."

  Mikolai turned to Gertrude and his eyebrow raised in surprise. "You wrote in your diary that I was the father of Pru's child?"

  "Not Pru's child!" Claire interrupted angrily. "Aunt Gertrude's child."

  Mikolai, his mouth open, looked first at Claire and then back at Gertrude.

  "I never had a child," Gertrude said, shocked at the suggestion and honestly nonplussed at her niece's accusation. "And I've never had a diary."

  "What?" Claire stared at her in stunned disbelief.

  "Uh-oh," Teddy said quietly.

  Chapter Forty

  GERTRUDE AND CLAIRE entered the Barkley house quietly. Gertrude's brow was furrowed and her expression worried. Claire was uncharacteristically quiet.

  "I just don't know what I will say to them," she whispered to her aunt.

  "I don't know how you could be so brave just a few hours ago and have no courage at all now," Gertrude answered.

  Claire sighed. "That was before I figured out what an idiot I can be."

  She glanced up the stairs and then looked toward her aunt, her expression woeful. "Do I really have to do this?"

  "I think that you should," Gertrude said. "Your parents need to hear you say that you love them. And you, Claire, you may need to hear it yourself."

  She nodded. "All right, Aunt Gertrude," she said. "But this is really terrific, and I mean that in the true and old-fashioned sense of the word." She sighed. "You get them in here and I'll talk."

  Gertrude agreed.

  As she watched her aunt walk away, confusion still fluttered through her young heart. Claire had thought the journal to be a fact. She had rearranged her whole way of thinking based on it. Her mother had always said that she was too quick to jump to conclusions. This time her mother's opinion had proved to be very true.

  She had listened with growing mortification and surprise to her aunt's explanation of the journal.

  "It was my very first attempt at writing fiction," Gertrude had told them. "I used the names and characters of people that I knew, because I hadn't figured out yet how to create my own characters."

  "Then you and Mr. Stefanski . . . you never . . ."

  Aunt Gertrude's face had been vivid red with embarrassment. "Mr. Stefanski and I hardly knew each other at the time," she admitted. "I . . ." Her aunt hesitated. "I found him to be very attractive and occasionally dreamed up stories about him. It was rather simple, really, to go from dreaming about him to writing about him."

  Claire watched Mr. Stefanski's face as he looked at Aunt Gertrude. How totally humiliating to have to admit to having had a crush on a man!

  Of course, she wasn't alone in her humiliation. Now that Teddy wasn't her brother, he knew that she had planned to marry him. Surely he wouldn't continue to believe that she was still interested in him.

  Her brow wrinkled thoughtfully. That really was, however, the consolation prize of not being his sister. It would be perfectly natural for them to marry one day.

  She had no time for further rumination as her father stepped into the room. He was big and frowning and looking as grouchy as an old bear.

  "Gertrude said you wanted to talk to me," he snarled.

  "Sit down, Daddy," she said.

  "This better be important," he snapped. "I'm a busy man and I don't have time to waste."

  'Talking to your daughter should never be thought of as a waste of time."

  The words, spoken by Prudence Barkley from the doorway, were sharp and to the point. They seemed to make an impression upon her husband. He took them to heart enough to seat himself rather quickly.

  "You sit, too, Mama," Claire said. "I need to talk to both of you."

  When Pru was properly perched upon the edge of her chair, her back as straight as a washboard, Claire, too, sat down.

  "I want to talk to you about the scandal," she said.

  Prudence Barkley drew a sharp intake of breath as if she had been wounded by a knife. George rose to his feet, his expression a thundercloud.

  "I won't sit still for this foolishness and certainly not from you, young lady!"

  Claire took a deep breath and willed herself courage.

  "Mama, don't cry," she ordered. "And, Daddy, please don't get mad. We need to talk about this."

  "It's ancient history," her father declared.

  "Not for me," she answered. "I just found out. And I just wanted to tell you . . ."
<
br />   She hesitated, groping for the right words. "I just wanted to tell you that I love you both and I'm glad that I'm your daughter."

  Her words seemed to deflate George. He sat down wearily and stared into nothingness.

  Prudence hid her face in her hands.

  "I know," Claire said, "that you never intended for me to find out. But I misunderstood some things and I had to be told."

  The silence in the room lingered. Claire wasn't sure what else to say. She glanced hopefully toward the doorway, but Aunt Gertrude was not there. And she knew that she wouldn't be. This was something between her parents and herself. Aunt Gertrude, sweet, wonderful Aunt Gertrude had no part in it.

  "I don't need to know the details," Claire continued. "I don't think that it is any of my business. And I promise that after today I will never again speak about this with you or anyone else," she said.

  Pru was very quiet, but Claire could tell by the trembling in her shoulders that she was weeping.

  Her hands trembling as she smoothed the material of her skirt, Claire bravely attempted to look her parents in the eye. It was not an easy task.

  It was bad enough to know that your parents even did that. To imagine that they did that on purpose, and when they weren't even married, was almost more than her adolescent mind could contemplate. She certainly didn't want to talk about it. She didn't want to even think about it.

  "I just want you to know that I love you and that I understand how such a thing might have happened," she said.

  "You don't understand anything!" George Barkley growled fiercely.

  Claire was momentarily taken aback by her father's vehemence.

  "George, don't yell at the child," Pru scolded.

  "I'm not yelling!" he hollered.

  Then, receiving a scathing look from his wife, George moderated his tone.

  "You youngsters today," he said, "you think you know everything. But there are things you don't know. Things you can't know, no one can know, until you've faced them."

  Claire nodded vaguely.

  "You think I married your mother because she had a baby on the way and it was the honorable thing to do. That's what you think, isn't it?"

  Claire's expression grew worried. After what she'd been through today a new revelation wouldn't have surprised her.