Four Brothers Each Ordered Mail-Order Brides — The Women Arrived Were All Sisters Seeking for Love

Chapter 6

Cecilia had been quiet and pale throughout the ordeal, sitting by the fire with her hands twisting a piece of cloth in her lap. She looked over at their mother’s old quilting basket — a worn, wicker thing she had insisted on bringing all the way from Boston, filled with scraps of fabric, spools of thread, and her art supplies.

Suddenly, her eyes widened.

“The quilt?” she whispered.

“What is it, Cecilia?” Margaret rushed to her side.

“Mother’s memory quilt,” Cecilia said, her voice trembling with a dawning realization. “She was making it for Father before… before he was taken. She was so angry. So heartbroken. She said she was sewing his truth into the very fabric of it.” Her voice cracked. “I never understood what she meant.”

She scrambled to the basket and pulled out a large, unfinished quilt. It was a beautiful but somber piece, made of dark blues and grays. But as Cecilia turned it over, she pointed to the backing cloth.

Along the edges, sewn with impossibly small stitches in a thread that was nearly the same color as the fabric, was writing.

The others crowded around. It was not just writing. It was a coded message — page numbers, dates, and cryptic phrases.

“It’s a key,” Silas breathed, his mind racing. “It’s not the ledger itself, but a guide to it. She must have known the original would be found.” He traced the tiny stitches with a trembling finger. “This refers to a second hidden copy.”

“But where?” Bridget demanded. “A copy of what?”

“Father’s invention journals,” Margaret said, her heart pounding. “He kept duplicate copies of everything. He was meticulous. He stored them with his solicitor, Mr. Colgrave, for safekeeping.”

The message on the quilt contained references that only someone familiar with the journals would understand. It was a cipher. But the journals were in Boston, and Voss was on their doorstep.

It was Cade, the gambler, who saw the opening.

“We don’t need the journals,” he said, a slow, cunning smile spreading across his face. “We just need Voss to think we have them.”

He looked toward the window, toward the road where Detective Rowan had ridden away earlier that day.

“That detective — he’s not Voss’s man. He’s a Pinkerton. They have a reputation. They value facts, not just whoever’s paying them.” Cade’s eyes glittered. “We need to play a different game.”