Free Poppy: Bride of Alaska (American Mail-Order Bride 49) by Cassie Hayes Page B

there.
    “You see many things, pretty lady.” Vinchenko didn’t try to hide his admiration for Poppy. And why should he? She did see many things, much too clearly for his comfort, but she couldn’t be blamed for that.
    “Do you know what happened, Mr. Vinchenko? You knew Matthew’s father, didn’t you?”
    Vinchenko huffed.  
    “For many years. Since we were young men. He come to Sitka to buy furs for Hudson Bay and I trapped them.”
    Matthew spun around.  
    “My father worked for the Hudson Bay Trading Company? I…never knew that.”
    Vinchenko nodded vigorously.  
    “ Da . Caleb was good man, very smart, but he no like travel.”
    How had his father never told him this? It seemed like the kind of adventure a man would tell his sons. “I thought he’d always worked in shipping.”
    “Mostly. Investments, too. Sometimes gambling. Too much gambling.” Sadness settled on Vinchenko like a grey cloud. “Hudson Bay let him go for it. But he was smart. He wrote soon after last visit. Met pretty girl, got job at shipping company, life was good.”
    The pretty girl was obviously his mother. He and his brothers came along, Father eventually took over the company, and they became pillars of Boston society. Of course, old money families snubbed them as nouveau riche , which had always driven his father crazy. From Matthew’s perspective, the ‘newly rich’ would become ‘old money’ given a little time, so what did it matter?
    “So you stayed in touch with him over the years?” Poppy asked.  
    Matthew was still too stunned to ask questions. Thank goodness she tagged along.
    “Oh, da. Caleb invite me to invest with him. I no have much money then, but I send him everything. Over many investments and many years, we make good money.”
    “Did you live here all that time?”
    Vinchenko shrugged noncommittally.  
    “Yes and no, pretty lady. My brother own dis store since Sitka was Russian territory. When America took over, we did not leave with our Russian brothers and sisters. Became American citizens. He stayed, married Tlingit. I…roamed. Saw world with money made with Caleb. But I always come home.”
    “If you were such close friends with my father, then why did he say you embezzled all our money?”  
    He couldn’t stand beating around the bush any longer. He needed answers. Vinchenko’s lips drew into a grim frown.  
    “Hard to tell your son you did bad thing. He knew I never speak to him again. Easy to blame me.”
    “Why?” Poppy asked. “Why would you never speak to him again?”
    The man sniffled, as if he were holding back tears. This dug into Matthew’s soul more than any words ever could. His father had done something so egregious, so terrible, that it made a fierce Russian cry. Matthew almost didn’t want to hear the answer but his legs didn’t seem inclined to obey his brain’s command to walk out of the room.
    “Our last investment. We always decide together. If one of us no like investment, we look for different one. But Caleb desperate. He start gambling again. Lost all his money, except investment fund.”
    The air nearly shimmered with tension. His parents had always been devout Methodists, and wouldn’t allow so much as a pair of dice in their home. To hear that his father was a degenerate gambler flipped Matthew’s world upside down.
    “It was solid investment, he tell me. Sure thing. But it smell funny to me, so I say ‘Nyet, find something else.’ Then my brother die, and I must return from traveling California to take over store and raise Alexander.”
    At Poppy’s muffled gasp, Vinchenko smiled, patting her knee.  
    “Very sad, but my brother was much older. He had good life. Three pretty wives. Last one, young Tlingit, died in childbirth. Yury raise boy well, as you see.”
    He waved a hand in the direction his nephew had run, his smile broadening with love.  
    “Was last I hear from Caleb for one year. Then letter come dis summer. He say he invested anyway