The Christmas Will (O'Brian Brothers Book 1) Read online

  Instinctively her hand flew from her neck to protect her face. In the next instant the man had yanked the chain from her neck. The metal bit into her flesh before breaking free.

  A small cry escaped her as the man turned and headed back the way he had come. With her mother’s ring still clutched in his fist.

  “That was very stupid of you. You risked lives over a piece of jewelry,” the man across from her chastised.

  It was more than a piece of jewelry. It was the only thing she had left of any sentimental value. All those robbers saw was the money the ring would bring them. They would not see the hard life lived by a loving mother. Or the sacrifices her mother made for her every day of her life. Other than her small amount of coins in her coin purse, the rest of her money was safely tucked away in the trunks secured in the baggage hold. That money would see her through until she got her inheritance.

  Silently she sent up a prayer asking God to see her through so that she may create a life in Boston that would make her mother proud.

  Chapter 3

  Boston, August 1860

  Ester walked around the table and observed the girls seated at the long wooden table. The table was long enough to seat six more girls, and she hoped to have those other six chairs filled one day. All her hard work since arriving in Boston was paying off. Applications were coming in the mail daily. She needed to go through them and issue acceptance letters, but she was looking for just the right students. The girls who would benefit the most from what Woods Academy of Proper Young Ladies had to offer them.

  "Now, ladies, take your napkins and place them neatly over your laps," Ester told them. She continued to walk around them as they moved to do as they were told. "Ladies, backs straight." Two girls straightened their backs. These four girls came from decent middle-class families. Their manners were adequate, but they lacked the refinement one would see in a true proper lady. That is where she came in—it was her job to refine them into ladies.

  "Now, take up your spoon and hold it just like this. " She indicated how the spoon should be held. “You will then scoop up your soup, moving the spoon away from your body. Slide the bottom across the rim of the bowl and then bring the spoon to your mouth." She watched as each girl ate a spoonful of soup. "Remember not to lean toward your bowl. Always remain straight and bring it to you. Sip from the side of the spoon, like this." She demonstrated how to sip from the side using her empty spoon. "The point of the spoon must never go into your mouth, ladies. Try again."

  "Excuse me, Miss," Mary Magill said as she came into the room. Ester was grateful that the woman had agreed to accompany her to Boston this past February. "You have a caller. I showed him to your office."

  "Thank you, Mary. Would you mind working with the girls while I am gone?" Ester left the girls in Mary's capable hands and headed to her office. She wished Mary would have at least told her who was waiting for her. When she stepped into her office, she saw that the caller was her fiancé, Charles Chesterfield. He sat behind her desk looking at some papers. He jumped and dropped them when he heard her come in.

  "I am sorry, I didn't mean to startle you." She quickened her pace to him and kissed his cheek. He returned the simple gesture of affection. "What do I owe this surprise?"

  "I came by to see if you would honor me the pleasure of having dinner with Mother and I this evening." He let his hand run down her arm.

  "I would be delighted to have dinner with you tonight." She kept her thoughts of his controlling mother to herself. She knew how much he doted on his mother and for his sake, she tried hard, desperately hard to get along with her future mother-in-law.

  "Perfect, it is settled then. I will pick you up around seven." With that, he turned and left her standing in the office alone. She moved to pick up the papers from the floor that he dropped. They were the applications that she had been thinking of going through. Why was Charles looking at applications sent to her school? She straightened the papers and placed them back on the desk. He must have just been bored while he waited for her to join him. Of course, that had to be it. After all, he had no other reason to be looking at them.

  True to his word, Charles arrived to pick her up on time. She stepped out and took his offered arm as he escorted her to the awaiting carriage. Her mother had a carriage when she was alive but nothing this fancy.

  Growing up, Ester had eagerly awaited those special moments when her mother would take her for a carriage ride around the park. They never stopped and walked around the park like so many others did. Instead they always stayed inside the carriage and made one circle around the park before heading home. When she was very young she did not understand why they could not stroll through the park like the other mothers and their children. She would beg her mother tirelessly to get out of the carriage and walk. Always her mother would refuse. As she got older she understood why they never ventured out of the safety of the carriage. None the less Ester enjoyed the brief rides through the park.

  Smiling, she allowed Charles to help her up. She settled on the seat as Charles helped Mary into the carriage. Once both women were settled, he climbed in and settled across from them. The driver shut the door and within a few minutes, they were moving through Boston toward Charles' home.

  When the carriage came to a stop, the driver opened the door to allow Charles to exit. Reaching his hand up, he helped her alight the carriage. Standing on the sidewalk, she looked past him at the two-story Victorian-style home where he lived with his mother. No matter how many times she has visited here, the sheer size of the home amazed her.

  She was a fraud and didn't belong here. No matter how wealthy her father had been, she was still the bastard child born to a whore in a whorehouse. No matter how proper she behaved, she feared the day would come that someone would see beneath the façade and deem her unworthy.

  In the dining room, Charles’s mother took up the head of the table with Ester to her right and Charles to her left. Even though Charles’ father died twenty years ago, when Charles was just three years old, his mother continued to wear black in mourning. Ester assumed the woman must have loved her husband something fierce to remain a widow and in mourning for so long. Charles and Ester had a genuine affection for each other, just nowhere near the deep kind of love his parents must have shared. In time, though, she knew deep love would come. The dining room maid entered the room and placed a salad plate in front of each of them. When finished, she moved back from the table and stood slightly to the right of Mrs. Chesterfield.

  "That will be all, Olivia," Mrs. Chesterfield said.

  "Yes, my lady," Olivia responded to the dismissal before leaving the room.

  Picking up her fork, Ester took a small bite of her salad. She was used to the silence that accompanied dinners at the Chesterfield house. No one ever spoke until Mrs. Chesterfield started the conversation. Ester much preferred the ease of dining in her private quarters with Mary. However, Mary was sent to dine with the servants whenever they were at the Chesterfield’s home. She had asked the first time she was invited to dinner here with Charles and his mother and was quickly told that although Mary was her lady companion and chaperone, she was still hired help.

  Putting a small forkful of salad into her mouth again, she wondered when Mrs. Chesterfield would break the imposed silence. Usually, the older woman would talk about the goings on of Boston society. Occasionally, she would speak of the rising tensions within the nation. Mrs. Chesterfield believed that people who were poor or of loose morals were to blame. Charles, she learned, agreed with his mother on every subject. Her disdain for the poor kept Ester on edge. Definitely a conversation topic she much preferred to avoid whenever possible.

  As the wedding drew near, she also dominated the dinners with talk about the wedding. She afforded Ester very little say in the matter. It didn’t take long to realize that this was Mrs. Chesterfield's wedding, not hers. Instead, she was merely a prop in her own wedding.

  "Do you still only have the four students?" Mrs. Chesterfi
eld asked, finally breaking the silence.

  "Yes, ma’am. I do have a lot of applications that need to be looked over. With the girls’ dorm finished, we can now take on more students," Ester responded. A small sense of pride swelled in her. The Lord truly was blessing her.

  "That is good news. You need to dismiss the ones you have. Focus on girls of good breeding, like the daughters of Boston's society," Mrs. Chesterfield said before placing a small bite of salad into her mouth.

  "I want the school to focus on girls who can benefit from proper schooling," Ester said.

  "Ester, dear, those girls will not benefit from any training. They will never be proper ladies," Mrs. Chesterfield countered. "No matter. Once the two of you are married, you can focus on training proper ladies to be proper ladies."

  "Mrs. Chesterfield, I have no issue with taking students from Boston society’s families. Though, I do want to keep helping those girls who need it." She wished she could get Mrs. Chesterfield to see the importance of helping these girls. She feared though that the older woman would never understand what it was that Ester was doing and trying to accomplish.

  "Ester, be realistic. If you allow those kinds of girls to be at the school, well-bred families will not send their daughters there," Charles injected. "I saw one application today was sent in for a colored girl."

  "A colored girl?" Mrs. Chesterfield gasped. "Ester, you can't seriously be thinking about allowing a colored girl to attend."

  "This is not the South. They are not slaves, so why wouldn't I consider her application?"

  "No, this is not the South, and we are not talking about slaves or non-slaves. A colored, no matter how much schooling or training, will still be a colored. There is no lady to be had there," Charles said.

  “Ester, I spoke with a friend of mine just the other day. She is looking for a school for her granddaughter.” Mrs. Chesterfield sat her fork on top of the remains of her salad. “I cannot in good conscience recommend your school if you are taking in all sorts of immoral girls.”

  “These are not immoral girls, Mrs. Chesterfield. They are good girls who need the training that we provide.”

  "Charles, you deal with this. She is your fiancée—your wife in training." Mrs. Chesterfield pushed back from the table and left them.

  "I am sorry, Charles. I did not mean to upset her." Ester placed her hands in her lap and cast her eyes down. The situation had clearly gotten out of hand. She truly had not meant to upset his mother. It was just that she couldn’t sit and say nothing while they spoke harshly against young girls who had done nothing wrong. They were judging these girls based on their birth or color. The same way she herself had been judged harshly as a child.

  "No worries, my dear. Mother will be fine. I must admit, I do agree with her. I can't have my fiancée running a school for proper young ladies and accept colored girls into it to learn right next to proper Christian white girls." He offered her a smile that one would expect from a parent patronizing a child.

  “What next, Ester? Will you start accepting those . . . Indians? I can just see those savages running around the school.”

  They finished the rest of dinner in silence. Charles escorted her and Mary by carriage back to the school where he bid her a good night. A simple peck on her cheek, and he waited for her to slip inside. Heading toward her private quarters, Ester replayed the conversation from dinner. She knew Charles and his mother were social climbers, but the snobbery tonight was more than usual. This level of snobbery, as her mother use to put it, burned her biscuits. Inside her private quarters, Mary began to help her dress for bed.

  "How did the dinner go?" Mary asked as she unlaced Ester's corset.

  “I upset Mrs. Chesterfield and she left the table during the salad course." A very unladylike giggle escaped past her lips. Her hand flew to her mouth and she struggled to gain her composure.

  "Olivia mentioned in the kitchen that Mrs. Chesterfield was absent during the rest of dinner. That woman has her corset on too tight if you ask me," Mary said with no hint of humor in her voice.

  "Charles adores his mother. Most times I can get along with her. However, tonight, she was just so snobbish."

  Mary nodded and continued in silence to help Ester into her nightgown. Once in her nightgown, she sat and allowed Mary to brush out her hair. About twenty minutes later, Mary excused herself to head for bed.

  Ester crawled into her bed and not for the first time, wished she had longer to find a husband. She knew she was rushing into things faster than one should, and there was so much she still did not know about Charles. She missed her mother so much. What would her mother think about a man like Charles? Surely, her mother would approve since he was a man of society and a polite gentleman.

  Chapter 4

  Chicago, August 1860

  William Warner walked into Harrington House gentlemen’s club. He saw a few of Chicago’s elite gentlemen sitting in high-backed chairs smoking expensive cigars, the smoke swirling up from the cherry-red tips. Here away from the ladies, a man could smoke and drink in peace. Tonight, he was not here for a good port or cigar. No, he was here for the games. Tonight, was his night to hit it big—he felt it in his bones.

  Approaching the card table, he saw an empty seat. “Room for one more?” he asked as he nodded a greeting to the four gentlemen seated. When they nodded, he slipped into the seat and waited for the dealer to shuffle the deck.

  “I was sorry to hear about your father, Mr. Warner,” a portly balding man said.

  “Thank you. He will be truly missed.” He looked at his cards and placed three face down. He slid them back to the dealer.

  “I agree, he will be missed. He was a fine man,” another man at the table said.

  William waited until the dealer finished dealing new cards and grabbed up the three dealt to him. Looking at his hand, he tried to maintain his best poker face. In his hand he held two aces, a pair of threes, and a queen. Not the best hand, but not the worst he has ever had, either. Luck was with him tonight, so his mediocre hand could still be a winner. Games had been won with less before.

  When the bidding finished, the five men laid their cards face up. The portly balding man reached out and pulled the money toward him. William looked and saw the man’s hand held three kings. Oh well, the night was still young, and tonight was his night.

  “James, that is just not fair. It is the fifth hand you have won tonight. If I didn’t know better, I would say you were cheating!” the man next to William exclaimed.

  “Oh, Thomas, you are just jealous that you ain’t as good as I am.” James laughed as he straightened his winnings on the table in front of him.

  A scantily dressed woman carrying a wooden tray came up to the table and sat a glass of whiskey next to each man. William picked his up and with a slight salute at the woman, he took a sip. A blush crept up her cheeks and he couldn’t help but laugh.

  A couple of hours later, William rose from the table and bid the men goodnight. His mood was sour as he stepped into the night. His driver was waiting with the carriage out front and rushed to open the door when he saw him coming. Stepping up into the carriage, he looked back at the Harrington House and let out a string of curses. He had been so sure that tonight was his night. How could it have all gone so very wrong? How could he have lost so much? On the ride home, he thought of his mother. The disappointment she would have in him if she ever knew what he had done.

  Chapter 5

  John O'Brian sat at his desk penning a letter when a man in a three-piece suit walked in and took a seat opposite him. Looking up from the letter, he held the pen and gave the man a cursory glance before he went back to the writing his letter. Nothing bothered him more than an arrogant bastard who walked into his office like he owned it. The man’s facial expression and posture screamed smug confidence. That smug confidence that screamed how much superior he thought himself to be. Well, John had news for him—here in this office, John was the superior one.

  "Mr. O'Brian, corr
ect?" the man asked, his voice laced with impatience.

  Looking up from his letter, he gave the man another once-over. Well, at least the man knew his name. "Yes."

  "I was told you were the one I needed to see. I have a delicate situation that I need taken care of." He crossed his ankle across his knee and sat twiddling his thumbs.

  "Look, mister, I have a lot to do, so just get to it." He drummed his fingers against the desk. His uninvited guest was not the only impatient man in the room. He had learned that the when a person started with the term delicate situation, they spent a lot of time talking in circles. He hated having his time wasted like that.

  "Mr. Warner. William Warner. A couple of months ago, a young woman came to see my father. No one knew what the meeting was about, but my father seemed upset after she left. A month later, my father passed away. I noticed then that his shares of the steel conglomerate were missing. I have looked everywhere, but I am unable to find them. I found out she stole them some time after meeting with him and his passing. I need you to find her." He stopped twiddling his thumbs but kept his fingers laced.