“Rita must be keeping your secret, too,” Chuck pointed out. “You couldn’t be doing any of this with the servants running to the master with tales of your exploits.”
“Oh, she is keeping it,” Violet replied. “She does a marvelous job of helping me make up the fake accounts to show him what we didn’t spend on food and supplies.”
“It’s the same with Pete Kershaw and Wade Jackson,” Iris added. “They help me convince Cornell the ranch is running the way he wants it to run. They don’t tell him about the decisions I make, and they help cover up the results so he doesn’t find out.”
“Not that you have much to worry about with him finding out,” Rose remarked. “He barely sets foot outside the house, much less ride out onto the range to see for himself. He takes Pete’s word for what’s going on, how many head are in which pastures, how many calves the cows gave birth to, and everything else. You don’t have anywhere near as hard a time as Violet has, covering her tracks around the house.”
“And that tale you told us up at the Fort House about mending his clothes when he’s not looking,” Mick recalled. “Now that was impressive. I don’t think I’ve ever met a woman who would try that and get away with it. Your mending skills must be as good as any professional tailor.”
Violet blushed. “I’m okay.”
“Okay?” Iris scoffed. “She can mend Cornell’s suit jackets so well, a professional tailor would have trouble finding the repair. She makes all our dresses so Cornell can’t tell the difference between her work and dresses bought from shops in Butte or even mail-ordered from Denver. He would pay for it, and she’s good enough to make him think we did. That’s how good she is.”
“And she made our wedding dresses, too. Do you know what she did?” Rose laughed at the memory. “She got Wade’s sister to drive out here from Butte with her sewing basket and measuring tape. Then she went through a big charade, pretending to measure us up for our wedding dresses.”
“Did Cornell watch?” Jake asked,
“You better believe he did!” Violet exclaimed. “I almost fainted in fear that he would figure out what we were doing. He sat through the whole measuring operation and watched and asked questions about every detail. It was a very thorough fitting session, I can tell you!”
“I don’t think Betty ever measured anyone for anything before in her life,” Iris reported. “But she sure put on a convincing show.”
“We told Cornell she worked for a high-end dressmaker out of San Francisco,” Violet continued. “We said we were ordering our wedding dresses from them, and they would ship the dresses out on the stage. When Betty left, I walked her out to her buggy and she gave me the paper with all the measurements. Two weeks ago, we drove down to Butte and pretended to pick up the dresses. We even got some big boxes to not carry them into the house.”
“That’s a lot of trouble to go through to make your own wedding dresses,” Jake pointed out.
“It was a lot of trouble,” Violet admitted. “But can you imagine what it would have cost to get our dresses made in San Francisco and sent up here? And when you think about the ranch not doing so well, I just couldn’t live with it—not when I can do just as good a job myself.”
“Cornell will never know the difference,” Rose assured her.
“He probably won’t even attend the wedding,” Violet replied. “From the way he’s been acting, I wouldn’t be surprised if he boycotts it.”
“Do you really think he will?” Rose asked. “I thought he considered it his duty as our guardian to attend, even if he doesn’t approve.”
“Like I told you before,” Violet told her. “He thinks he’ll convince us to call it off.”
Rose opened her mouth to ask her something, but Mick interrupted. “I suppose you ladies have the festivities for Friday all planned out. I suppose you have a big cake and flowers and the whole nine yards. Do ya?”
“Nothing like that,” Violet told him. “Rita will make a cake, but it won’t be big. After all, there’s just the six of us and Cornell.”
“Pete and Wade might come up,” Iris put in.”
“What?” Violet exclaimed. “Don’t they have work to do?”
“There’s always work to do,” Iris replied. “But I told them they could come up if they wanted to. I told them they could take half the day off.”
“That’s a bit out of the ordinary, don’t you think?” Violet asked. “After all, they’re our employees. They aren’t exactly family, that they should attend our wedding.”
“They might not be family to you, Violet,” Iris shot back. “But they are to me. They might be employees, but they’ve been running this ranch almost alone ever since Daddy died. And they ran it with him for fifteen years before that. We have Pete and Wade to thank for this ranch as much as anyone else.”
“But still…”Violet began.
“I invited them, and they’re coming—if they want to,” Iris declared. “They’re more family than Cornell, if you ask me.”
The company shifted in their seats, and Violet jumped in to change the subject.
“To answer your question, Mick,” she continued. “We don’t have fancy decorations, either. The three of us have our wedding dresses, but the service will take place in the back parlor. We can all stand witness for one another. But we don’t have anything very ostentatious planned. You’ll be relieved at that, I suppose.”
“It just makes practical sense to me,” Mick replied. “As you say, there’s just the six of us, and I guess your man Cornell will be there, too, so there’s no point in going all out with the decorations. The whole shootin’ match’ll be over in a couple of hours. Then it’ll be back to business.”
“You’ll be happy when it is, won’t you?” Jake asked him.
Mick shrugged one shoulder. “I never went in for all that elaborate flowers and organ music and party favors and whatnot. We’re getting married, not puttin’ on a carnival. What’s the point of putting up all those decorations when you’re just gonna take ‘em down in an hour or two. Makes no sense to me. Just get up in front of the minister, say the mumbo-jumbo, and get on with the rest of your life. The end.”
“That’s you,” Chuck chimed in. “Mr. Romantic.”
Iris flushed and let out a shocked little gasp.
Mick glanced to his right and to his left and shifted in his chair again. “Nothin’ to do with romantic. Just plain foolishness, if you ask me.”
“Your bride might think differently,” Violet pointed out.
Mick shot Iris a sidelong look. “If she wants to do it, I sure won’t stand in the way. But unless I miss my guess, she doesn’t care much one way or the other.” He caught Iris’s eye, and the two exchanged a smile. Then Iris reached over and squeezed his hand.
So they were doing it, too. Violet breathed a sigh of relief that she wasn’t getting ahead of her sisters.
Chapter 20