Page 70 of I Do, I Do, I Do
“That’s not funny,” Juliette said in the prissy voice that by now annoyed even her. She turned the envelope over and studied the initials stamped in red sealing wax.BJD.
“Ben sent it?” Clara fanned her face. “Well, knock me over. Who would have guessed?”
Zoe rolled around laughing. “So what does he say?”
“That is none of your business.” But she couldn’t resist reading it aloud. “Mr. Benjamin Dare requests the pleasure of Miss Juliette March’s company at dinner on December eighteenth at seven o’clock. Twelve Main Street.” She blinked. “He’s inviting me to dinner. What shall I do?”
“More to the point, what will you wear?” Zoe sat up. “You can’t wear the same clothes you’ve been wearing on the trail.”
Clara nodded. “We’ll have to rummage through the crates and find her other clothes.” She narrowed her eyes at Juliette. “The ash and grease helped, but your face is still red and chapped. We have about twenty-four hours to work on you. Lard. There’s nothing better than lard for softening skin.”
“I’ll grind some rice and make powder. And I can make a lemon rinse for her hair out of the citrus tablets.”
“Miss March?” Luc was still out there. “I was instructed to request a reply.”
“Just a minute, please.” Flying up, she tore through her small overnight valise, digging for stationery. Frowning, she glanced at Zoe and Clara. “Do you think I should accept?”
They stared as if she had lost her senses, then continued discussing how she should dress her hair for the occasion.
Different rules, she reminded herself. There was no harm in having dinner with Ben. No one cared. After she found her pen and bottle of ink, she wrote: Miss Juliette March accepts with pleasure Mr. Benjamin Dare’s kind invitation to dinner on December the eighteenth at seven o’clock.
My, how she had missed the small civilities of mannerly conduct. Receiving and responding to a proper invitation spread a satisfying warmth through her body. After she’d handed her reply through the tent flap, she sat back on her cot, half listening to Clara and Zoe, and she wondered where a prospector had learned to compose a proper invitation. She would have said that she knew Ben’s character well, but there were gaps in her knowledge.
“Is number twelve Main Street the address of the hotel?” she asked, worried. Hoping that Bear had been mistaken, she had ventured a look. The hotel was worse than Bear had suggested. An out-of-tune piano assaulted the ears in the saloon on the ground floor. She had gathered her courage, stuck her head inside, and noticed gaps in the ceiling through which she could see cot legs. Knowing hotel guests could look between their shoes and see down into the noisy saloon was almost as disgusting as the overpowering stink of stale beer and tobacco juice. She couldn’t imagine having dinner in such primitive surroundings.
“Who knows? None of the buildings are numbered,” Clara said, going back to her discussion with Zoe about what had to be done to pull Juliette together for her evening.
Juliette gazed at them with sudden startling affection. On her own, she might well have talked herself out of accepting Ben’s invitation. It surprised her how much their approval meant, and how it settled her mind and affected her decisions.
Drawing a deep breath, she moved to sit on Zoe’s cot. “Well, what would you two advise? Shall I wear my brilliants?”
Two hours later, while Zoe was giving her a manicure and they were nearing a consensus on her ensemble, Juliette realized how much she missed having sisters. And she hadn’t even known it.
Luc called for her at a quarter to seven, assisted her into her snowshoes, and carried her small bag containing evening slippers, a second handkerchief, an evening fan, and various toiletries. An argument had ensued after she’d inspected the toiletries that Clara and Zoe had assembled.
“What is this?” she’d asked curiously, examining a pink ribbon attached to a ring-shaped collapsible object.
Zoe and Clara glanced at each other and then Clara whispered, “It’s a pessary.”
Shock made her drop the object and then stare at it with wide horrified eyes. Occasionally married women on the cusp of respectability whispered about such items, but decent women weren’t supposed to know about contraception. “Where did you get this?”
“Mrs. Eddington helped.” When Clara saw Juliette’s face, she spread her hands. “Mrs. Eddington thinks it’s for me.”
“How dare you!” Anger and mortification made her hands shake. She sputtered. “I have no need of this, none at all!”
Zoe touched her arm. “Very likely you’re correct,” she agreed soothingly. “But just in case…”
“There is no ‘just in case.’ Mr. Dare and I are having dinner together, and that is all!” Fire blazed in her cheeks and throat. “How could you believe that I…What kind of a woman do you think I am?”
“Despite what you’d like to believe, you’re not a saint,” Clara said briskly, tucking the pessary back into Juliette’s bag. “None of us are.”
Zoe’s face turned almost as red as Juliette’s. “If, and all I’m saying isif, things should, ah, move in a, say, direction you don’t now anticipate, then you should—” She cast a helpless look at Clara.
“You should protect yourself,” Clara finished firmly.
Zoe nodded. “I’m sure many a woman wishes she’d had the foresight to protect herself before circumstance placed her in a position that…that…” She pressed her palms against burning cheeks. “You know.”
Juliette stared and understood positively that Zoe and Tom had been together. Clara also knew her suspicions had just become a certainty. Confirmation confused everything. If someone Juliette respected and considered an honorable woman could be with a man outside marriage, then…
