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Portia almost dropped the gown. That close! Recovering, she replied as disinterestedly as she could manage, “I had no idea.”
Regan shrugged and took one last primping look in the mirror. “I suppose because he’s family of sorts. Are you choosing that gown or not?”
“No.” She put it back and took down one that was dove gray and had a high neck trimmed in lace. Something inside her deemed the gown safer.
“That one’s lovely, too, but not as nice as the other.”
“One of Uncle Rhine’s associates may have a business question and I want their eyes on my face, not my neckline.”
“You really aren’t any fun, sister,” Regan replied, smiling.
“You have enough fun for the both of us.”
“I wish that were true.”
Portia chuckled. “We need to find you a husband. Maybe you should answer one of those mail-order-bride advertisements in the newspapers.”
“That’s not a bad idea.”
Portia was appalled that her sister appeared to be mulling it over. “I was just pulling your leg, Regan. I wasn’t serious.”
“But just think, somewhere there might be a man who needs a wife to help him work his homestead and have his children. He’d be strapping, strong, and handsome. We’d fall madly in love. It would be an adventure and you know how much I crave adventure.”
Portia walked over and placed her palm against Regan’s forehead. “I think you’re coming down with something. You may need to see Doc Finney.”
Regan laughed and moved the hand away. “That would be something, wouldn’t it?”
“What, your coming down with a brain fever?”
“No, silly. My becoming a mail-order bride.”
“As I said, it was a joke. Don’t even consider doing something so harebrained.”
“Women become mail-order brides all the time and besides, everyone thought my wanting to deliver the mail was harebrained, too.”
“Some of us still do.” Portia sat on the vanity’s purple tufted bench and pulled on her stockings then anchored them with the frilly green garters Regan had talked her into buying last fall.
“Delivering the mail is another form of adventure. I enjoy getting to see new places and people.”
The sisters were very different in that respect. Portia was content to sit at her desk, poring over ledgers and contracts while Regan always wanted to see what was over the next hill. “I don’t like the idea of your being robbed or losing a wheel or being attacked by a puma or a bear, or Apaches. You’re a pest sometimes but you’re my pest and I love you.”
“I appreciate your concern and I love you, too, but I can shoot just as well as you, and besides, everyone knows I only deliver letters and packages. Uncle Rhine won’t let me carry gold or payrolls and neither will the mine owners.”
“And that’s a good thing.”
“I know. I may be unconventional but I’m not irrational. Carrying gold dust can be extremely dangerous.”
A few months ago, there’d been a gang preying on mail carriers. They were finally apprehended and jailed but not before they’d shot a man to death for the mine payroll he’d had on his wagon. Portia brushed out her hair and pinned it low on her neck. After removing her lightweight wrapper, she stepped into her gown and pulled it up over her flowered corset and shift. Once Regan helped fasten the line of small buttons on the back, Portia slipped silver hoops in her ear lobes and assessed herself in the mirror. “I’ll do, I suppose.”
“You’ll more than do, sister mine. We Carmichael women are beauties, and when I find my mail-order husband, I’ll ask if he has a brother.”
Laughing, Portia playfully pushed her towards the door. “Let’s go you silly goose.”
They were still laughing when they stepped into the hallway, but then fell silent when Kent Randolph stepped out of his door at the same time.
“Ladies,” he said.
Regan, never shy, walked up and said, “Hello. I’m Regan Carmichael. Are you Kent?”
