Page 23 of Mail-Order Lady

“You lied to me.” The words came out clipped and precise, each one its own accusation. “Both of you. You stood in that parlor and told me a deliberate untruth, and I will not⁠—”

She had to stop this. “Mama.”

Both of them turned.

Clara stepped into the doorway and gripped the frame. Her wrapper was still on, her hair loose from sleep, and she must look… Undressed, unhurried, as though she had just risen from a night spent in her husband’s arms.

Let her mother draw whatever conclusions she wanted.

Her mother’s gaze swept over her once. Then she locked her hard eyes with Clara’s. “You need to get dressed. We’re leaving on the afternoon boat.”

The words came out so matter-of-fact. So inevitable. As though Clara were still sixteen and had misplaced her gloves.

Something hardened in her middle. Not anger exactly—she’d spent too many years pressing anger down—but something near it. Something that felt, for once, like it might hold.

She lifted her chin. “I’m not leaving. I’m married, Mother. This is my husband. I’m not going with you.”

Her mother’s mouth tightened at the corners. “Clara⁠—”

“No.” She spit the word out, like a door slamming shut. “I mean it.”

Her mother looked like she was about to object again, or maybe try a different tactic.

Clara had to act. She stepped out of her doorway and moved to Robert’s side. She slipped her hand around his arm, just above his elbow, then leaned in close enough that her shoulder pressed against his.

He went motionless beside her. Not pulling away. Just still, the way he got when he was paying close attention to something.

She kept her hand there.

Then his free hand came to rest over hers where it curved around his arm. Just the warm weight of his fingers settling over her knuckles, steady as everything else about him.

Her mother gaped at their joined hands.

Something moved across her face—not the calculation Clara had learned to watch for, not the warmth she’d learned not to trust, but something rawer than either. Almost like grief before it sealed itself away again.

“You’re making a mistake.” Her voice had dropped. The fury had gone somewhere underneath, and what was left sounded almost like a plea. “You don’t know these people, Clara. You don’t know this country. You came here on a whim, on some foolish romantic notion, and now you’ve bound yourself to a stranger in a frontier town, and you think that means⁠—”

“He isn’t a stranger.” She spoke quietly, but those words were truer, perhaps, than anything else she’d said in days. “He sat beside my bed for three weeks when I was ill. He’s my friend. He—” Her throat tightened, and she pressed past it. “He is not a stranger to me.”

Her mother remained silent another moment. Her gaze moved to Robert again with that measuring stare, as though she were revising a calculation.

“I see.” Margaret’s voice cooled by degrees. “And do you intend to deny what I’ve just learned, Clara? About the date of this marriage of yours?”

“No.” She gave a single shake of her head. “I don’t deny it.”

A flicker crossed her mother’s face. She’d expected denial. The lie made fresh would have given her something to push against. Clara’s plain admission gave her nothing.

“So you confess to the deception.”

“I confess that the marriage took place yesterday.” She forced her voice to stay level. “I don’t confess to a deception. The marriage is real. The date doesn’t change that.”

“Oh, but it does, Clara.” Her mother’s smile sharpened, and her tone turned lethal again. “It changes a great deal. It changes the matter from a fait accompli to a hasty arrangement contrived to evade a contract entered into in good faith. Any solicitor in this country will tell you⁠—”

“Mrs. McKinney.” Robert’s voice cut across her mother’s. Not loud. Not sharp. But with an edge to it that made Clara’s fingers tighten against his sleeve.

“You’re welcome to consult any solicitor you choose. The marriage license was filed with the territory yesterday afternoon. The record exists. Whatever the date, whatever the sequence of events that led to it, Clara is my wife. That is not a hasty arrangement. That is a legal fact.”

Her mother’s chin lifted. “A legal fact obtained under false pretenses.”