Accidental Mail Order Bride: A Clean Western Romance Read online

  Accidental

  Mail Order Bride

  By

  Sarah Turner

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 1

  Samuel Ellis paced along the stagecoach platform, shooting dark glances to the east. Despite the winter air, he had taken his hat off his head and was twisting it between his hands. He didn’t want to admit it, but he was nervous. Every time the stagecoach came and went without his bride, he became a little more sure that she wasn’t coming at all.

  She should have been here a month ago. In truth, he should have given up already, and yet every Monday he left his herds unattended and came to wait at the stagecoach platform, eyes fixed on the eastern horizon. And every Monday, there was neither a woman nor a letter explaining her absence.

  She had clearly thought better of the entire deal. He supposed he wouldn’t blame her for that. Life in Nebraska was rough and difficult, and if he found an unmatched beauty in the clear blue skies and the rippling prairie gasses, well, he hadn’t even tried to explain that to any of the city girls who wrote. It was too poetic for him—embarrassing, really—and he had a romantic notion that he would like her to step off the stagecoach and remark on such things herself, so that he could agree gruffly instead of bringing it up. When he pictured the moment, he always stilled his tongue and did not mention the month’s delay, and his bride saw that he would be kind, and she forgot whatever worry had led her to delay her trip, and they reached a silent understanding.

  He thought they’d had an understanding, however. In her letters, Ruth Jorgens seemed an eminently practical woman, writing in a small, neat hand about what she required of him and what he might expect of her. She warned him that she was not beautiful, and that she didn’t care to adorn herself with frippery, and he’d been honest that this suited him just fine. He’d spent years in the cities, surrounded by beautiful women in fancy dresses, and he’d far prefer a woman who could chop wood and set a fire and birth calves, no matter what she looked like. He had a well-built cabin, he assured her—indeed, well built enough that the rest of the homesteaders mocked him for his care, but it kept out the endless prairie wind and it was solid in a storm—and healthy herds, and he was never in his cups.

  They did not mention, by silent agreement, the idea that they might both be in want of a companion. Samuel had chosen his path when he came west, and he would not now admit aloud that sometimes in the dark of the evening, he looked up from his whittling and wished there were someone there to talk to him. He did not say that he polished his rough manners and kept the house neat so that she would feel at home there, or that he’d taken payment in cloth and strawberry wine for one job so she might have things to sew with, and a small piece of comfort.

  He bowed his head now. She was not coming. Ruth, the woman he had thought was practical, had evidently decided in all practicality that she could do better than a Nebraska farmer with a one-room cabin and a herd of cows. She’d married some city man, and she hadn’t had the common decency to write to Samuel of her decision. He shook his head and made for the stairs. He should return to his herds; he’d been a fool to wait for so long.

  And then he saw it: the puff of dust from the stagecoach, and he paused with his cap still in his hands. It would only be a few minutes now, and she might be there. She might. Ignoring the practical voice that told him to leave now, Samuel straightened his shoulders and waited for the coach to arrive. As the horses pulled up alongside the platform and the driver hopped down, Samuel called out.

  “Any letters?”

  “No, sir!” The driver tipped his hat and pulled open the door.

  And there she was. Samuel’s mouth fell open. He had never seen a woman this beautiful in his whole life, and he could not even see her face. She was turned away, watching as the driver pulled a black carpetbag down from the top of the stagecoach, but she was already beautiful. She stood tall, taller than some men he knew, but she did not slouch as some women might. She stood tall and elegant, regal in her bearing. If her dress was finer than he had expected, well, it was still plain and unadorned, and he could see from her stillness that she was not a woman easily moved to fretting; she could make a new dress shortly. And she held herself like a queen. He saw pride and self-possession in her, and he dared to hope that they would make a good match of it, not just a tolerable one. That he would find a kindred spirit who might listen when he talked of the sky and the wind, and offer her own observations.

  That was the only thing he had time to think, because when she turned, he forgot entirely how to breathe. Her chin was pointed, her face a perfect oval, her nose small and straight. Hair of the darkest red he had ever seen was piled neatly under her hat, and her eyes were even bluer than his own. She looked at him, and he had time to fear that she would be disappointed by him, in his work clothes and with his weathered skin. Instead, she nodded politely and concluded her business with the stagecoach driver before picking up her bag and crossing the platform.

  That would never do. He hurried to her side and took the bag from her, ducking his head almost shyly.

  “Thank you.” Her voice was clear and light, but direct.

  “The cart is this way.” He looked away from her so that he wouldn’t stare like a schoolboy. “It’s rough, but—”

  “There is no need to explain.” She smiled at him, actually smiled. “I was well aware of the conditions in Adams County before I came.” She looked around. “It’s warmer than I expected,” she admitted.

  “It’s been a mild winter.” He ushered her over the dirt path, feeling shame to see her fine boots on the rough earth, but she did not so much as glance at the ground. She was looking around herself at the building and the horizon, and peering into the distance to the rough smudge of the town.

  “I do hope you will forgive me for the late hour,” she told him. “The stagecoach was delayed. I apologize that you had to wait so long on the platform.”

  “It’s no matter.” She really did have fine manners, and he was all of a sudden ashamed of his own. He cleared his throat.

  “You’ll have missed your dinner,” she insisted. “And I’ll arrive too late to meet the children, I’m sure.”

  He paused in the act of putting her carpetbag in the cart. “Children?”

  “Eloise and Belle,” she told him. Her brow furrowed delicately, and then she swallowed. “Has there…has there been an illness, an accident? Oh, no. I should not go, if so—I would not want Mrs. Herman to feel any further grief.”

  “Mrs. Herman?” He stared at her. Eloise? Belle? He’d told her in his letters that there were no children. Now he tried to figure out how he might determine—politely, of course—if she were mad.

  She also seemed adrift. She hesitated. “You are Mr. Herman’s servant, are you not? Jeffrey Herman? He works with the railroad—”

  “You thought I worked for Mr. Herman?” Now he knew what she was talking about, and his anger came in a burst. So high and mighty that man was, insisting on a big church for Sundays and then taking liberties with his maids. Everyone knew it. And that Mrs. Herman, no better, taking a whip to the servants and dressing her girls in lace and frills. “I would never stoop to work for that family. Never.”

  “Then…” She clearly wanted to yell at him, but good manners won out. “Then why were you taking me with you?”

  “I thought you were my wife!”

  “Yo
ur wife?”

  He knew she was merely surprised, but all the same, it touched him on the raw. “I placed an advertisement in the papers in New York. I’m in need of a wife. I thought you were her.”

  “Oh.” Understanding returned and she took a deep breath. “Well, I do apologize, Mister…”

  “Ellis,” he said shortly.

  “Mister Ellis. I do apologize, but I am not here to become your wife. If you will return my possessions, I will wait for Mr. Herman’s servant to arrive.”

  “You’ll be waiting a long time, then.”

  “And why is that?”

  “The Hermans left.” They’d scarcely gotten their grand house built before one or another of them decided this town wasn’t grand enough, and off they traipsed to…where had they gone? “I think I heard they went further west.”

  “They left?” She shook her head. “No, that’s impossible. Mr. Herman would have told me to join them at the new location. Surely he would have sent word.”

  “That one thinks of nothing but himself,” Samuel told her. “Yer better off not working for him, if you take my meaning.”

  “I do not, and I will not discuss my employer’s character.” She looked lost for a moment, and then she held out her hand. “My belongings, please.”

  “What are you going to do?” Samuel looked around himself. “There’s no one here, and no one’s coming to get you. It’ll get colder once night falls.”

  “By then, I hope to be in town,” she said simply.

  “You’re planning to walk into town?”

  “Yes.”

  “In those shoes?”

  “Yes. My bag, please, Mr. Ellis.”

  “Now, here’s a thought…” he said slowly. Could he say it? Did he dare? She looked at him expectantly, and he took his courage in both hands. “You’re a practical woman, clearly. Your employer left no way for you to contact him, and my bride should have been here a month since.”

  She only tilted her head slightly, not taking his meaning.

  “Well, you could be my wife.” He circled around the horses to take her hand. “It’s not a bad life here, and I’d treat you well, I promise I would, and—”

  She yanked her hand out of his, her cheeks flaming. “Marry a man I never met? What do you take me for, a common—”

  “No, no! I simply thought.”

  “Well, think again. I do not intend to become anyone’s wife.” Her voice was flat. “Ever.” She strode around the horses and pulled the carpetbag down herself, hauling it determinedly into the prairie grasses as she forged toward the town.

  “Wait.”

  “Mr. Ellis, thank you for your assistance.”

  “The boarding house…” He came up alongside her, and when she shrank away from him, he held his hands palm out to assure her he meant no harm. “It’s not for the likes of you. Trust me.”

  “Then I shall find other accommodations.”

  “There aren’t any,” he told her simply. “You should come with me.”

  “I will not—”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, I won’t take liberties!” He realized he was shouting and calmed himself, took a deep breath. “Miss, the boarding house is for doxies, and the apartments near town are all…well, they’re men you don’t want to meet. I can give you shelter until you leave. On my honor, just shelter.”

  She stared at him for a long moment, and he was ready for her to puff up in her pride and fling his offer back in his face. Then she nodded.

  “Very well.”

  “What?”

  “I will take shelter with you. I clearly have no other options.” She lifted her chin. “And I assume your offer was sincere.”

  “Yes’m.” He took the bag. Hesitated. “You’ll have to do some work around the place. Feed chickens and milk goats.”

  “Very well.” She did not hesitate.

  “D’you know how to do that?”

  “No, but I assume you will teach me.”

  Heaven help him.

  “I don’t know your name,” he said, as he readied the horses.

  She paused only for a moment. “Cora,” she said finally. “Cora Jameson.”

  Cora. He thought it suited her. Then he remembered he’d best not think of her at all. She didn’t care much for him, clearly. But he couldn’t just leave her here. He hadn’t spoken to God in years, but he offered up an oath as he put the bag back in the cart and helped her up to her seat. What had he gotten himself into?

  Chapter 2

  The cart jostled and Cora steadied herself, taking the opportunity to steal a glance at Mr. Ellis. It was absurd, of course, but the moment she’d seen him waiting, she had felt a sort of kinship with the man. Thinking him to be Mr. Herman’s groom, perhaps, or a groundskeeper, she had supposed that they might share a friendship—nothing improper, of course, simply the camaraderie of one servant to another.

  Part of it was that she could see pride in the set of his shoulders and the way he looked over the platform at her. Pride was ever her own downfall. Her mother and her aunts had said it often enough, and of course they’d been correct. Still, some secret, rebellious part of her often wondered just why pride was supposed to be so terrible. It seemed a fine thing to her, to be proud of her bearing and her place on God’s earth, when God had, after all, made her this way.

  That would be the pride again, and no doubt a deep wickedness in her acceptance of Mr. Ellis’s offer. She offered a silent prayer of apology to God for suggesting that he was to blame for her failings.

  But curiosity got the better of her again, and she stole another glance. She shouldn’t be here. Whatever he said about the boarding house, surely she might have knocked on the vicar’s door, or appealed to one of the town’s matrons for lodging. Then she remembered Mr. Herman’s letters: It is a rough place, I am afraid, which is why I so desperately need a moderating influence on my daughters. There are few ladies in this town, and most are on the farthest homesteads, and no fit company for either my wife or my daughters.

  Still, anything would be better than taking shelter with an unknown single man. A man who—the gall!—had assumed she might be willing to marry him on sight. He wouldn’t be a bad match, of course, for a woman who knew how to spin wool and keep chickens. He seemed well made, and when he said he would be kind, she had instinctively believed him. He would be a good companion, she thought, no matter—

  No. This was ridiculous. Cora squared her shoulders and considered her options. She would take shelter here tonight, noting any coats or boots or supplies she would need in order to flee, and in the morning, she would insist that he take her into town so she could make the acquaintance of someone more proper to offer her shelter. If word ever got to Mr. Herman…

  Her reputation was already ruined, she reminded herself. Out of habit—and that infernal pride—she felt herself straighten up, and raise her chin. There was nothing for it but to brazen this out and see what would come of it. She felt a twist of something like grief, and shoved it away from her.

  She saw the cabin from a distance, a dark shape against the height of the barn, and as the day faded, she saw the glimmer of light within that told he’d left a lantern burning for his return with his bride. It was a kind gesture, as was the smoke she saw emerging from the chimney. He’d want the house to be warm and snug for his bride. She would have been a lucky woman, to have such gestures from a homesteader. Cora accepted his hand down from the cart, and he gestured for her to go inside while he stabled the horses.

  The cabin was smaller than any room she’d graced in her youth, but larger than many she’d made do with since her fall from grace. It had been made from thick logs with mud and grass between them, keeping the drafts out. She laid her hand on the wall and felt not even the slightest tremor; the logs that made the frame of the house must be driven deep. Everything about the build of it suggested a man who made goods to be proud of, and who finished the tasks he set himself. She liked that.

  The rest of the cabin was ju
st as well made. An iron stove sat in the corner with two rocking chairs drawn up next to it. One was clearly Mr. Ellis’s, large and almost roughly made, and the other had been carved with flowers and leaves. Had he made it himself? She could only wonder, and she suspected he would be rather too proud to admit to it if he had.

  From the table to the bright curtains to the bed with its patchwork quilt, everything in this cabin had been well used and well-made. After years in New York, she supposed she should be repulsed by glazed clay plates and mugs, but the truth was that everything here was enchanting.

  The door banged open, nearly hitting her, and she jumped out of the way.

  “Pardon.” Mr. Ellis nodded to her. “We’ll be needing water for Jessa—that’s the mare—and for us.” He pointed to the bucket by the door.

  It took no divination to know his meaning, and the gleam in his eyes said that he expected her to refuse. But if drawing water was the worst thing he could think of to demean her, he had a surprise coming. Cora stooped to pick up the bucket and lifted her chin. “Of course, Mr. Ellis. Where is the well?”

  “Out past the barn.” He considered. “You should take the lantern.”

  “You don’t need it?”

  “I can shift hay in the dark.” He shrugged.

  “Very well, then. I thank you.”

  She had soon repented of the choice. The wind whipping across the plains was brutally cold, and her fingers stiffened on the handle of the bucket. When she attached it to the rope, she very nearly dropped it into the well, and she shivered as she cranked the handle down.

  It took five buckets of water until Mr. Ellis was satisfied that his horse was ready, and she drew one more for the two of them, stumbling back in the dark as she tried not to slop any of the water out of the bucket. Mr. Ellis, absorbed with fixing some piece of the horse’s harness, merely gestured to the small set of shelves with their offering of dried beans and flour and a few sad vegetables.

  Boiled potatoes and a rough biscuit were the best she could do, and to his credit, Mr. Ellis made no complaint over the food. She cleaned the dishes in what was left of the water and replaced them, now bone weary. She was standing, listening to the wind whistle outside, when he said gruffly,