Chapter Four
The next morning after breakfast, Natalie had changed into her
new church dress in her bedroom. Since the hem was a little too
long, the maid was currently tucking the hem in for her. The maid
was an older woman, probably in her early forties, and, in addition
to tidying up around the house, she had gotten Natalie ready that
morning. She’d not only helped Natalie into the dress, but she’d
fixed her hair and fastened the small buttons on her boots. Never
in her life had Natalie felt so pampered. She was almost
embarrassed to have the maid do so much for her.
Mark came into the bedroom and sat at the
vanity. “I see I was a bit off on your height. I had to estimate
your measurements.”
“You did a surprisingly good job in your
estimates,” Natalie replied from where she stood on the stool. “The
dress fits perfectly otherwise.”
He smiled, seeming pleased by her comment. “I
try to be good about details. It’s served me well so far in
business.”
“I’m sure the fact that you’re a nice person
has something to do with how good you are at business, too.”
He offered a nonchalant shrug. “I try to do
the right thing whenever I can.”
She hid her amusement as the maid scooted
around to hem another part of her dress. The thing was a beautiful
blue color, and the fabric was soft to the touch. Back home, she
could only have fantasized about being in something like this. It
seemed like a dress fit for a princess.
There was a knock at the door.
“I’ll get it,” Mark told the maid as he stood
up. He crossed the room to the door and opened it.
Natalie saw the butler, and she thought she
heard something about Tony wanting to talk to Mark.
Mark said something in reply then closed the
door and went over to Natalie. “My brother wishes to have a word
with me.” He took her hand and kissed it. “I’ll miss you while I’m
gone.”
She giggled at his playfulness. “I’ll miss
you, too.”
He gave her hand a gentle squeeze and left
the room, shutting the door behind him.
The maid chuckled. “I didn’t think I’d ever
see that boy fall in love. He had so many young women stopping by
to talk to him, but he never cared for any of them.”
“Really?” Natalie asked, though she really
shouldn’t be surprised. She could understand why women were
attracted to him. He was charming, kind, and good looking. He had
all of the traits any woman would want in a husband.
“Most were after his money. Now, I know he’s
attractive and he certainly has a way with winning people over, but
it’s his money that appealed to most of them. He was smart enough
to figure that out, which is good. Not all men are that
intelligent.” The maid looked up at her and smiled. “He did well in
choosing you, Mrs. Larson. You’re one of the sweetest women I’ve
ever met.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Durham.”
“You should call me Carol. I’m the maid,
after all.”
“But you called me Mrs. Larson, and you’re
older than me. Shouldn’t I show you respect?”
“You’re very kind, but you’re the mistress of
this house. You can refer to me by my first name. I must refer to
you as Mrs. Larson. That’s the order of things.”
“Oh, alright.” Since this was the way things
were done, then she would do well to abide by them.
Carol finished hemming the last part of the
dress and stood up. “I think that’ll do it. Why don’t you come on
down and take a spin? Let me see if everything’s right.”
Natalie got down from the stool and did as
Carol wished.
“Perfect!” Carol collected her sewing
supplies. “You’re ready for church. I just know you’ll be the
prettiest woman there.”
“You don’t have to say that.”
“Oh, but I mean it. You’re a very pretty
woman. Mark knew what he was doing when he chose you.”
Natalie’s face warmed in pleasure. She
thanked Carol and then left the bedroom. She went down the hall and
then bounded down the stairs, eager to say hello to Tony and ask
how he and Velma were doing.
But as she reached the formal parlor, she
realized Tony wasn’t happy. In fact, he sounded upset. Her steps
slowed as she reached the door.
Mark was sitting on the couch, his back to
her, while he bit into a pastry. Tony, however, was standing, his
face red with anger, clenching his hat in his right hand.
Tony scowled at him. “You will go to any
lengths to claim you’re innocent. You’re turning this all around so
that I sound like a madman.”
“Tony,” Mark began, his tone calm, “you need
to listen to reason instead of running with your emotions. You’re
only seeing what’s on the surface. You’re not taking the time to
see things as they really are.”
“If you are so certain of your view of
things, then why did you bolt out of the church as quickly as you
did?” Tony asked. “Why didn’t you stay around and explain yourself?
Why didn’t you tell the family why you made Velma think she was
marrying you?”
Natalie gasped. Had she heard right? Had Mark
really done such a thing?
The two brothers turned in her direction.
Mark’s eyes grew wide, and he hurried to put the pastry and the cup
down before rushing over to her, a flicker of worry on his
face.
“It’s not the way it sounds,” Mark told
her.
“You didn’t tell Natalie?” Tony asked.
Mark glanced at Tony, a warning in his gaze,
and she knew at once that he didn’t want her to find out about
their conversation. “I’ll go out to your place and explain
everything,” he told Tony. Then he offered her a smile that did
little to hide the panic in his eyes. “It’s nothing, sweetheart.
Just a personal argument my brother and I have to work out. Why
don’t you go to the carriage? I’ll be there in a moment.” He took
her arm and practically dragged her to the front door.
“Yes,” Tony called out after them, “go on to
the carriage while Mark explains why he made Velma believe she was
marrying him.”
Had Mark really done that? Natalie dug her
heels into the rug and jerked her arm away from him. Heart pounding
in her ears, she headed back into the parlor, hoping it wasn’t the
way it sounded, though, deep down, she knew it was. It was like the
time she’d watched her brother cut off the head of a chicken. She
hadn’t wanted to look, but something compelled her to. And now she
had to find out that her husband had lied to her about Velma
agreeing to marry Tony.
“The entire church was in an uproar about the
whole thing,” Tony told her as she reached him. “I’m surprised no
one came over to tell you.”
“Well, your father came over, but he spoke
with Mark in private,” Natalie replied. “I assumed he wanted to
wish us good luck.”
“My father wasn’t any more pleased about
Mark’s deception than the rest of us were, but I can understand why
Mark gave you that story. Otherwise, this puts him in an awkward
situation.”
Now that she thought about it, Mark hadn’t
told her why his father had stopped by. He had managed to avoid the
subject by talking about couples who chose not to share bedrooms.
At the time, she didn’t think anything of it, but now she suspected
he’d changed the conversation in order to make her forget about his
father’s visit.
Mark hurried over to them. “This isn’t a big
deal. Velma wanted to marry Tony.”
“No, she didn’t,” Natalie told Mark. “We were
arguing over which one of us would marry you. But on Friday when
you proposed to me, you said that since you wanted to marry me, she
agreed to marry Tony.”
Mark held his hand up. “No. I said that my
brother wanted to marry Velma, and when I talked to her, she agreed
to a wedding. I never told her she would be marrying me.”
“He let her think it,” Tony added. “Which is
lying.”
“Lying isn’t the right word,” Mark said.
“I disagree,” Natalie interrupted, frowning
at Mark. “It’s exactly the right word for what you did. She thought
she was going to marry you, and you made her think that. I thought
it was strange that she wasn’t upset with me. We’ve been arguing
over who would marry you for the past month. I should have known
something was wrong when she seemed to readily accept it.”
And maybe if she hadn’t been so excited to
marry Mark, she would have.
Tony rolled his eyes then directed his gaze
to Natalie. “Well, now you know the truth.” He marched to the front
door and plopped his hat on his head. “Congratulations, Mark. You
ruined things for everyone around you. I hope you’re happy.”
The butler rushed to open the door for him.
He jerked as if he hadn’t expected the butler to do that. Without
another word, he stormed out of the house.
Mark waited until the butler shut the door
before he turned his attention back to Natalie, a contrite smile on
his face. “I only did what I needed to. I love you, and you love
me. We should be together.”
“But Velma didn’t want to marry Tony. She
wanted to marry you.”
“She thinks she wanted to marry me, but she
didn’t.”
“Yes, she did. We argued about this for
weeks.”
“I’m not saying you two didn’t argue about
it, but I understand people, even when they don’t understand
themselves. She didn’t want me. She only wanted my money.”
“That’s no excuse for making her think you
were going to marry her.”
“I know it’s not, but I did what I had to
do,” he replied.
Natalie shook her head and marched around
him. “I’m too upset to talk to you right now.”
“What? Why?” he asked as he followed her.
She spun around to face him, and he stopped
just before he ran into her. Placing her hands on her hips, she
said, “If you’re so good at figuring people out, then you know the
answer to that question.” She pointed at him. “I don’t want you
following me. I have to see Velma, and I don’t want you with me
when I do. You’ve made enough of a mess already. I don’t need you
to make things worse.”
She turned away from him and proceeded up the
stairs to her bedroom, relieved when he didn’t pursue her. Without
calling on the maid to help her, she wiggled out of her new dress
and put on one of her old dresses. The last thing she wanted to do
was show up at Velma’s with a new dress on. Velma was upset
already. She didn’t need to feel like Natalie was rubbing her
marriage in Velma’s face.
Once she was ready, she found the butler and
asked him if she could ride a horse. The butler insisted she have
the coachman take her in a carriage instead, saying that “Mr.
Larson” would want his wife to be comfortable during the ride out
of town. Despite her annoyance that the butler was determined to do
things Mark’s way, she consented to taking the carriage.
As she waited at the front door, Mark left
the formal parlor and went over to her. “You’re not leaving me, are
you?”
She glared at him. “I made my vows for better
and worse, so no, I’m not leaving. I’ll be back after I talk to
Velma.” Noting the way he relaxed, she added, “When I made those
vows, I didn’t realize worse was going to come so soon.”
“Natalie, sweetheart, I really was only doing
what I thought was best.”
He put his hand on the small of her back, and
though she wished it wasn’t so, her skin warmed at his touch. She
gritted her teeth. It was just her luck that she got weak whenever
he was around.
“I’ll make it up to you,” he continued. “I
promise.”
“There’s nothing you can do to make it up to
me. You should be making it up to your brother and Velma.”
“I was helping them yesterday,” he insisted.
“In time, they’ll realize that.”
“They didn’t want your help yesterday. Tony
was angry with you just now. Don’t you understand that?”
“Of course, I do. But there’s nothing I can
do about that except stay out of his and Velma’s way. Look,
everything will be fine. They’ll work through this.”
The carriage pulled up to the front of the
house.
“I’m going out there alone,” she told
Mark.
“Can I kiss you good-bye?” he asked with a
smile that was probably meant to soften her up.
But she was in no mood for it. The last thing
she wanted to do was kiss him. He was lucky she didn’t whack him on
the head for all the trouble he caused. Who knew if Velma was going
to even talk to her today?
Without a word, she marched out of the house
and ran down the steps.
“I hope you have a good visit,” Mark called
out.
She didn’t know if he said that for the
coachman’s benefit or if he thought she was going to forget this
whole thing by the time she returned, but she chose not to answer
him. The coachman opened the carriage door, and she got in. After
the coachman shut the door, she peeked out the window and saw Mark,
who was still standing in the doorway. Mark waved at her.
Did he really not understand how serious this
situation was? Did he think making a woman believe she was marrying
the wrong twin was a minor transgression? She sat back in the seat
and turned from the window. She didn’t know what she was going to
do about him. But before she could even think that far, she had to
work things out with Velma. At the very least, she had to let Velma
know that she didn’t realize Mark had lied to her.
The carriage moved forward, and Natalie began
to think of what she’d say when she got to Velma’s home.