5. Matchmakers Attempt a Match
CHAPTER 5
MATCHMAKERS ATTEMPT A MATCH
M eanwhile, inside Montgomery Dry Goods
Ella Mae rolled her eyes when she realized Sergeant had jumped down from the counter and was probably no longer in the store. He had no doubt followed Mr. O’Connor out at the same moment Mrs. Beatrice Sumner and Mrs. Alice Watkins had entered.
The two were probably concerned about her running the store alone, given her parents were out of town. “Morning, ladies,” she said brightly.
“Good morning to you,” Beatrice replied, waggling her eyebrows. “I take it our plan worked?” she asked with excitement, her gloved hands balled into fists as she shook them on either side of her shoulders.
Ella Mae blinked. “Plan?” she repeated.
Alice joined them at the counter. “Well, did he ask you?”
Befuddled, Ella Mae’s attention darted between the two women. “Ask me what?”
“If he could escort you,” they said in unison.
“Escort me… where?”
The two huffed. “To the masquerade ball, of course,” Alice replied, sounding exasperated.
“Or at least to reserve two dances on your card for him,” Beatrice put in.
Ella Mae lifted a shoulder. “No, and… no,” she replied before her face screwed into a grimace. “What have you done?” She was sure she was displaying several shades of red at learning they had said something to the poor groom. Had John O’Connor come into the shop and bought the bridles simply because the older women had encouraged him to seek some dances with her?
The two matrons exchanged quick glances. “Well, apparently nothing of note,” Alice said with a huff.
“Did my mother put you up to this?” Ella Mae asked, suspicion evident in her voice. Despite their age difference—Beatrice was at least a decade older than her mother—Beatrice and Emma Montgomery had been friends since Emma’s arrival in Galena.
“She had nothing to do with this,” Beatrice assured her. “This is entirely your fa?—”
“ Our doing,” Alice interrupted.
Ella Mae’s gaze darted between the two women. “To what end?” she gingerly asked.
“Well, courtship, of course,” Beatrice replied. “John O’Connor is of an age to be married, as are you, and now that he’s in charge of the stable, he has steady employment.”
“And he won’t be going off to fight in the war,” Alice chimed in.
The reminder of war had Ella Mae wincing. The year before, it seemed as if half of Galena’s unattached male population had left town to don the Union uniform and fight for the North. Many others who sided with the South had also left with the intent to wear the gray uniform.
But she knew as well as the two matrons that the real reason John O’Connor hadn’t gone off to war was because of his eye.
Or perhaps he had, and he’d been injured in one of the early battles. Perhaps that’s why Ella Mae hadn’t seen him about town since their days in the schoolroom had ended.
“I appreciate your efforts, I really do,” Ella Mae said. “But I rather doubt Mr. O’Connor will be attending the masquerade ball.”
The two matrons exchanged looks of frustration before Beatrice pulled a list from her pocket. “Oh, all right,” she said in resignation. “If you could see to it this order is ready by four o’clock, I’ll have Mr. Sumner pick it up.” She left a basket on the counter. “He should be done with deliveries from the train by then.”
Ella Mae read the list and nodded. “I’ll have these items pulled and ready before then,” she promised.
She bade the two a good day and went about filling the order. As she did so, bits of her conversation with John O’Connor flashed before her mind’s eye.
He had so rarely spoken whilst they were in school, she had been surprised upon hearing his first words that morning. She had detected a hint of an Irish brogue in his voice, his manner of speech so much like her father’s. That would explain his dark, nearly black hair and those sapphire blue eyes.
“Black Irish,” she murmured, barely aware she said the words out loud. “Too handsome for his own good. No wonder the horses like him.” She rolled her eyes when she realized she was talking to herself, but she didn’t wish to stop thinking of Mr. O’Connor and his rugged appearance. The eye patch merely added a hint of mystery.
Like most men in town, he had no qualms about showing his forearms, for his sleeves had been rolled up past his elbows. The flannel work shirt had done nothing to hide the width of his shoulders or the breadth of his chest or the circumference of his upper arms. Upon her first sight of him, she had noticed how his muscles bulged beneath the fabric, as if they were attempting to escape.
He could probably lift her with one arm. Lift her up against a wall and hold her there whilst he had his way with her.
She couldn’t recall another man in Galena having such a physique. At least not among those who worked on Main Street. “Probably from working with horses. Lifting saddles, and bales of hay, and you’re talking to yourself again.” She rolled her eyes. One of the side effects of being alone in the shop, she supposed.
She tried to concentrate on the next item on the scrap of paper she held, Mrs. Sumner’s list neatly printed in black ink.
Gauze strips .
A shiver ran down Ella Mae’s spine at the thought of Mr. O’Connor stripping her bare. Of how his hands would feel skimming over her warm skin. Of how his palm would feel holding one of her breasts, his thumb caressing a nipple until it was tight with need.
Need of what , she wasn’t quite sure, but if she kept this up, she would be in need of a new pair of drawers. She had grown damp at at the apex of her thighs, all because she couldn’t get her mind off of John O’Connor.
Think of Mother , she thought. Think of what she’d had to do to be the best potter in town.
Her gaze darted to one of the vases Emma Avalon Montgomery had made the week before in her small studio at their house on Prospect Street. Her kiln, moved from her original house in Galena, was now in the back garden. Every week, her newest creations were fired, usually three times, before they appeared on the display shelves at Montgomery Dry Goods.
Ella Mae’s grandfather, Edward Avalon, had been a master at creating beautiful stoneware, an expert at shaping clay on a potters’ wheel, a scientist when it came to firing the earthenware, and an artist with the tiny brushes needed to create idyllic country scenes on the sides of pots and the petals of English roses on vases.
Everything Ella Mae’s mother knew about pottery she had learned from her father. Everything she had owned prior to marrying Robert Montgomery had been due to what he had created.
Well, and because Great Aunt Adeline had been generous in her last will and testament. She had seen to it that Emma inherited what she hadn’t spent on her worldly travels and extensive wardrobe. That meant Ella Mae’s parents’ initial few years of marriage hadn’t required they live in poverty as so many other newlyweds in Galena were forced to do. They had been able to build a house in Prospect Street. Furnish it with fine furniture from St. Louis. Hire a cook and housekeeper, and later a nanny to see to the children.
Ella Mae knew she had led a privileged life, for the girls with whom she had attended school were frequently daughters of the lead miners or those who worked on the canal or in the shipping industry. As for the boys, they were much the same, many dropping out of school before they had reached the last grade in order to work or to help in their families’ businesses.
John O’Connor had been one of those boys. Quiet and apparently shy, he had always sat in the last row in the classroom. “Son of a laborer who’s digging the canal,” one of her friends had commented, when they noticed how he always headed straight for home when school was done for the day.
She hadn’t seen him since her days in a schoolroom had ended.
So where had he been?
With a sudden rush of customers, Ella Mae was forced to concentrate on business for the rest of the day. Even so, thoughts of John had her wishing he might return to the store, sooner rather than later.