Wildblossom (30 page)

"Luck?" Maddie repeated, smiling at her sister. "I need luck to bring my children home for Christmas... and to keep you with us, too. I always wish you would not go back to the agency."

"Fireblossom, I only came at all because Fox wrote me of the loneliness
you
were not telling me about." The mild remonstrance was softened by her use of the name Maddie had been given by the Sioux, in honor of her glorious hair. "But I cannot stay here until Christmas—I have a husband and three children waiting for me at home! Besides, I have another plan I am working on for my life."

Maddie joined her on the piano bench and lightly fingered the keys. "You've been visiting a week and you haven't told me yet? What is it?"

"I am going to college. We are moving to Yankton, where Running Elk is going to work among the Yankton Sioux, and I am going to attend college there." She was radiant.

"That's wonderful! I'm envious." Maddie felt a rush of memories as she looked at her sister who had traveled a long road since the summer of 1876 when they met at Bear Butte. Sun Smile had been wracked by grief then, mute, dirty, and hostile. Now, remarried and in her early forties, she was a handsome mixture of Sioux and Anglo-Saxon: tan-skinned, black-haired, gray-eyed, and both humorous and dignified. Her turbulent, often tragic past had shaped her into a woman of pure character.

"What are you envious of?" She appeared to be puzzled.

"Your... sense of direction. Fox thinks that I need a project of my own, beyond my work in the gardens, our marriage, and caring for the home and Gran Annie..." Maddie sighed. "So many of the people who helped make my life full and rich are gone now."

"I have always thought Fox was a very wise man," Sun Smile replied warmly. "What new colors would you like to add to the fabric of your life?"

Maddie glanced around the music room with its rose moiré wallpaper, an imported marble fireplace made more splendid by a crackling fire, and the eighteenth century piano and harp. "I mean to write a book for children... about two sisters, one of whom is from the East and very fancy, and the other of whom is a beautiful Sioux girl." Shyly, she met Sun Smile's wide eyes, eyes that were exactly like their father's. "I think I have talent. I've been making a plan for the story, and I'm going to start writing when I'm alone again."

"I know that your book will be wonderful, my sister, and that you will discover that there are many more stories waiting in your heart to be told."

The moment was broken by the sudden appearance of Annie Sunday Matthews. She burst from the paneled serving area that connected the front of the house with the dining room, and their newly adopted black kitten came scrambling in her wake. "Madeleine! I was peeling potatoes in the kitchen when I saw Fox driving straight up our icy, perpendicular hill in that ridiculous automobile of his. It's a wonder he didn't slide straight back down and kill everyone! They were waving and honking the horn, and—"

Before Annie could finish, there was a clamor on the front porch, followed by the sound of the front door being thrown open. Sensing that longed-for excitement was here, Maddie hurried into the entry hall just in time to be swept by a flurry of snowflakes. Fox came next, clad in warm tweeds and driving goggles. The moment he saw his wife, he exclaimed, "Darling—look what the storm has blown in!"

Shelby popped through the door next, laughing, all bundled up and looking quite grown-up. Over her daughter's head Maddie could see Ben, who would always be her little brother even though he was at least as tall as Fox. The sight of her family, flushed and laughing and framed by lacy snowflakes, brought tears to Maddie's eyes.

"Oh, Mama, I swear that you are more beautiful every time I come home!" Shelby plunged into her arms just as she had since she was big enough to crawl. "I didn't realize how homesick I've been until just now."

Maddie closed her eyes, soaking up all that was familiar and dear about her daughter. "It's so good to have you home, sweetheart." Still hugging Shelby, she heard the front door close and opened her eyes to discover a complete stranger standing next to Benjamin. The pale, wide-eyed girl wore an old coat buttoned to her chin and hugged herself with both arms. Was it possible that her brother had... married?

"Benjamin, aren't you going to introduce your young lady?"

He rolled his eyes and the girl looked even more uncomfortable. "Maddie, this is Vivian Croll, and she's Shel's friend, not mine. Oh—wait, I didn't mean that the way it sounded." Ben screwed up his face, pained. " 'Course we're
friends
,
but not what you thought."

Holding her mother's hand and reaching for her grandmother's, too, Shelby drew them over to the spot where her Vivian was cowering against the door. "Gran Annie and Mama, Vivian has been my one female comrade out in the country. She's a very dear person and I know you'll make her welcome."

"Naturally!" Annie Sunday wore a smile that was comfortingly no-nonsense. "It appears that a hot, nourishing meal is in order. If you'll excuse me, I'll go and see what we have on hand."

Maddie was greeting Vivian and gently insisting that the girls take off their coats when Sun Smile quietly came out of the music room. Shelby's mouth dropped open.

"Auntie, I didn't know you were visiting! It's wonderful to see you!"

Sun Smile's eyes were warm with affection as they embraced. "I have missed you, little Wildblossom," she said, using the pet name she had bestowed on her niece when she was learning to walk. From the beginning, Maddie's sister had recognized Shelby's nature.

"And my cousins? Are they here?"

"No, they are at the agency school. Your mother needed someone to hold her hand now that all her children have flown the nest," Sun Smile said as she smiled wryly and patted her niece's cheek. "She doesn't seem to understand that you were much farther away when you were at college in Massachusetts."

"That was different," Fox rejoined, slipping his arms around Maddie's waist. "Ben was here then, and he's always given Maddie plenty of mothering to do!"

"Hey!" Ben cried. "No insults!"

It was a joyous scene: the family reunited in the beautiful mansion, where fires danced in every fireplace while snowflakes fluttered past the windows. Maddie felt nearly overcome as she took it all in.

"I can't describe how happy I am!" She reached for her daughter's hand. "And how pretty you look, Shelby. I'm glad you've passed through that outrageous cowgirl phase." She paused then to bestow an extra smile on the starry-eyed Vivian. "To have you all here with weeks to spare before the holiday... this will be the best Christmas we've had in years! Only Byron's absence will keep it from being perfect. Shelby, you'll never know what it means to me that you came so far to be with your family for Christmas."

Shelby's own smile faded. She looked at her father, than at Ben, but neither of them offered any assistance. "Uh, Mama... I guess there's only one way to break this to you. We can't stay for Christmas. We have to be in New York by December fifteenth...."

"But—
New York
? What on earth could be taking you to New York?" Then she looked faintly hopeful. "Are you engaged?"

Fox tightened his arms around his wife and gave Shelby a pointed look. "You'd better get it all on the table, honey. The details can be sorted out later."

As if sensing the building drama, Gran Annie's face appeared around the corner of the dining room. Sun Smile was calmly attentive, Maddie looked distraught, and Shelby now wore a sickly smile as she surveyed her audience.

"Well... you see, I haven't
quite
passed through the cowgirl phase, Mama. Colonel Cody has asked me to take Annie Oakley's place as the female sharpshooter with the Wild West Show, and I've accepted. From New York, we sail to England!"

* * *

Never in her life had Vivian enjoyed such a luxurious bath. The Matthews mansion featured four splendid bathrooms upstairs, and the one adjoining Shelby's girlhood room was especially pretty. There was a mosaic floor, a marble sink, a modern water closet with an oak tank, and, best of all, the huge tub that now held an awestruck Vivian. Shelby had even added something to the water that made drifts of froth, and had given her friend some scented French shampoo paste to wash her hair, which had never felt silkier or smelled sweeter.

Scrubbed and relaxed, Vivian lay back in the bathtub and closed her eyes. Through the door which was slightly ajar, she could hear Shelby talking with her mother. They were sitting together on Shelby's brass bed, and she thought it would be nice to let them finish their conversation before she reentered the room.

"I must admit," Maddie murmured, "your Geoffrey Weston does sound like a wonderful man. Never in my wildest dreams would I have expected you to fall in love with even a gentleman, much less a nobleman—but perhaps it's a case of opposites attracting. That's rather what happened with your father and me, and no two people could have shared a happier marriage than ours."

"But Mama, you do understand that Geoff is betrothed to someone else. Just because I'm going to England, and perhaps will meet him again when I am there, doesn't mean he'll change his mind." Shelby sighed. "He's duty-bound, you might say."

"Well, of course—if he is a
duke
,
he was born to a life of both great privilege and great obligation. Oh, darling, it makes me giddy just to think that there is even a tiny chance that you could one day be a
duchess!"

"Geoff is an marquess," Shelby corrected. "His father is the Duke of Aylesbury, so I suppose he will one day inherit, but I don't think he cares about his title—beyond feeling that he must, in the end, do the honorable thing."

"And you two discussed this? Whether or not there was a way you could be together?"

"Not exactly..." Shelby went back over the events that had led up to Geoff's departure for England. "I truly was beginning to dream that, in spite of everything, he might stay in Wyoming with me. I could see his feelings for me in his eyes. Perhaps if he'd been able to stay the whole year, he might never have gone back..."

"That was rather unrealistic... but perhaps he was hoping you would offer to live in
his
world?" Maddie suggested softly.

"Well, in the end, I had a talk with his manservant and I realized that I had to let him go as gracefully as possible. This is such a hard time for Geoff and there is too much I don't understand about the demands of his existence." She paused. "And of course, he never offered to break his engagement to Lady Clementine or asked me to come with him."

"But you did indicate that you loved him and would be willing to make the necessary compromises?"

Shelby flushed. "I was starting to get around to that when that telegram came. Anyway, Mama, I can't go back and change the past. I'm going to London now, that's the best I can do..."

"What a lot of drama you've managed to stir up since you left here! I still cannot believe that you could have been so foolish as to bet your father's ranch in a poker game." Maddie shook her head. "Will you never learn to think before you act?"

"Great-Gramma Susan used to say that I was just like her mother! Meagan Hampshire was practically legendary, Mama, so I can't be all bad." Shelby paused. "Geoff deeded the ranch back, so it's all fixed. You won't tell Daddy—at least not yet?"

"No, of course not." Maddie leaned closer and slipped an arm around her daughter who was wearing the lace-trimmed flannel nightgown she'd received for her sixteenth birthday. "You're wonderful and delightful... but now you are venturing into a very crucial chapter in your life, and you must try to take care. Your Geoffrey moves in
royal
circles, and he has much more to consider than the desires of his heart." She thought for a moment then, finally lamenting, "Oh, Shelby,
must
you make your entrance in London as a sharpshooter in the Wild West Show?"

"Yes, Mama. I would never have gotten up the courage to go at all if Colonel Cody hadn't convinced me, and I won't go back on my word. With Annie Oakley hurt, he genuinely needs me." A winsome smile lit her face. "Besides, I am what I am, and since I can't compete with Lady Clementine Beech on her own terms, I may as well come in with a bang of my own!"

Vivian came out of the bathroom then, wearing another of Shelby's old nightgowns and toweling her fine blond hair. "I hope I'm not intruding."

"I was just leaving. I know you girls are tired, so I'll let you get to bed." Maddie kissed Shelby, then rose to embrace Vivian. "We're awfully glad you're going with our daughter to England, my dear. I know you'll look after her."

When her mother had gone, Shelby went into the bathroom to clean her teeth. Vivian, meanwhile, got into bed and stared at the elegant snow-white monogrammed bed linens. Her pillow was the deepest and softest she'd ever seen, and there were enough quilts on the bed so that there was no chance of feeling chilled in the middle of the night.

She called to Shelby: "I hope I didn't look too shocked when I saw your aunt Sun Smile! You never told me that you have an Indian aunt!"

"I've known her all my life, so she's not unusual to me," Shelby replied as she padded back into the room.

"I like her very much! It's just that... I had always heard that Indians were... heathens."

"Well, now you know better!" Shelby parried cheerfully. Putting out the light, she got in on the other side of the bed. "Viv, I hope you don't mind sleeping in here with me. I never even asked if you'd prefer a room of your own."