Mail Order Bride- Twenty-Two Brides Mega Boxed Set

by Emily Woods

  Ellen sank down further into the warm water and began to cry. “You’re right,” she confessed to her maid. “You are right, Hilda. I haven’t truly forgiven him. I am still so angry and hurt by what he did to that poor woman, and I haven’t set my heart right.”

  Hilda smiled kindly at Ellen. “You are just a woman, Miss Ellen,” she replied sweetly. “Just a human! An imperfect, flawed human. Just bury yourself in the Word and in prayer, and you will find the heart to forgive Henry. You know that it is what the Lord desires, and I know that you are a Godly woman. Just trust Him to set your heart right, and He will, Miss Ellen.”

  A few hours later, after an afternoon in the garden with her Bible, Ellen Davenport felt an immense sense of peace and relief. It had been a long, hot day, but amidst the flowers and plants outside, she had truly felt as though she had given up her anger and frustration toward Henry. “Thank you, Lord,” Ellen murmured as she walked inside the main house. “Thank you for putting my heart at Peace. Please forgive me for refusing to grant my forgiveness to my husband for far too long!”

  As Ellen mounted the grand staircase in the middle of the entryway, she heard a loud crash from upstairs. “Henry? Girls? Mother Davenport?” Ellen called out as she quickened her pace. “Are you all alright?”

  “Mama!” Ellen heard Bella scream.

  Ellen gathered her skirts and sprinted toward the sound of her daughter wailing. “Bella? Melly? What is going on?”

  Ellen burst into the girls’ bedchamber to find her daughters both wide-eyed, a stranger standing before them with a knife in his hands. “What are you doing?” Ellen shouted as she threw herself at the strange man, who turned around in surprise.

  “Mama!” Melly wept as the man tossed Ellen onto the wooden floor. “Mama, that man bad!”

  Ellen scrambled up from the floor and stood between the man and her daughters. She glanced over and yelped as she saw her mother-in-law tied up in the corner, a stocking stuffed sloppily into Mrs. Davenport’s mouth. “What have you done to my mother-in-law? Who are you? Why are you here?”

  The strange man stared at Ellen. He was short, with dark, greasy hair, and a pot-belly that shook as he moved toward Ellen. He bared his teeth, growling at Ellen and the girls, and she felt a shiver run down her spine as she stared at his sharp, sinister knife.

  “You rich folks,” the man sneered as he waved his knife in front of Ellen’s face. “You rich folks bounced back from the war without a problem. We all ain’t so lucky. My family was killed in the war, and all I have left is a bad leg and a mountain of debt.”

  Ellen pushed the girls further behind her and folded her hands in front of her body to hide their trembling. “I’m sorry to hear that,” Ellen softly told the man. “The war was very difficult for all of us. I lost my first husband and our home, and it is only by the grace of God that I met my second husband and was able to begin another life.”

  The man narrowed his eyes at Ellen, and her stomach sank as she heard her daughters crying. “You don’t know what I been through,” the man hissed at Ellen as he took a step toward her. “You rich folks ain’t got a clue.”

  Ellen shoved the girls to the size of the room where Mrs. Davenport was tied up. “Girls,” Ellen ordered. “Go find your papa. Now.”

  The stranger laughed in Ellen’s face, and she could smell his sour breath. The girls were both frozen in fear, unable to move. “Their Papa? Their Papa won’t be able to save them,” he chuckled. “You all will be done for soon, and I will ride out of this fancy place with all of the gold and jewels I could ever need to pay off my debts and start my life over. This ain’t something I want to do, missy, but it’s something I gotta do. You rich folks got everything y’all ever needed and didn’t share with us poor folks after the war. This is what you get, lady.”

  Ellen dropped to her knees. “Please,” she begged the stranger as he raised an eyebrow at her. “Please, sir. Please spare my daughters and mother-in-law. Please. They are innocent, just as I am, and they don’t deserve to die. None of us do! The war was a struggle, and times have been hard, but please, let us do the Christian thing! We will help you! We can send you on your way with money and goods! We can give you whatever you’d like. Please, sir! Please let us do that, and spare our lives.”

  The stranger frowned as he considered Ellen’s request. “I don’t know,” he grumbled. “I’m real mad at you rich folks, and everyone ‘round here knows that the Davenport family didn’t help the poor during the war.”

  Ellen shook her head. “I wasn’t a Davenport before the war,” she explained gently. “Neither were my daughters! And my mother-in-law? She’s a Davenport by marriage! Please, sir! We are all innocent, Godly women! Please don’t do something you’ll regret. Please don’t perpetuate the sins of the war with more killing. You are better than that! I know you are!”

  The stranger cackled as he knelt down to stare at Ellen in her dark eyes. “You don’t know me,” he whispered. “You don’t know what I lost. You don’t know that I’ll regret killing you, or your rich mother-in-law, or those whiny little girls of yours. I lost everything in the war, and now, it’s time someone else knows what it is like to lose it all!”

  The stranger raised his dagger above Ellen’s neck, and she closed her eyes, preparing for the blinding pain of the cut that she expected would end her life. Instead, she heard the scuffle of footsteps across the wood floor.

  “Don’t you hurt my Mama!” Bella screamed as she leapt toward the strange man.

  “Bella!” Ellen cried out as Bella kicked the man in the groin. “Bella, run! Run, Melly! Run, Bella!”

  The man cried out, holding himself as he wept in pain. “You! You little brat!”

  Ellen rose to her feet and ushered the girls out of the room. “Get out of here, girls,” she screamed as she pushed the girls toward the staircase. “Your papa went into town to do some business. Bella, go! Take your sister and go fetch your papa, now!”

  Bella nodded and took Melly’s hand, leading her younger sister down the stairs. Ellen ran back to the bedchamber to free her mother-in-law, but as she stepped across the threshold, she was grabbed by the neck. “You,” howled the stranger. “Your little brats just made the biggest mistake of their lives! You are going to pay for what that girl just did to me, and then, I am going to take everything in this house, and then burn it to the ground!”

  Ellen struggled as the man’s grip grew tighter and tighter around her delicate neck. She could hardly breathe, and her vision was growing cloudy. “Please,” she grunted as she shifted back and forth. “Please, let me go! Let us go, and we will pretend like this never happened!”

  The man grinned maniacally as he brought his face closer to Ellen’s. She could see his jagged, yellow teeth as he sneered, and she tried to fill her lungs as he kept squeezing her throat.

  “Get off of her!”

  The stranger dropped his hands and turned around as Mrs. Davenport dashed to him. She had spat the stocking out of her mother and loosened the binds around her legs, and she pushed her body into his. “Get off of my daughter-in-law!”

  The stranger pulled his arm back and plunged the knife into Mrs. Davenport’s side. Ellen screamed, but Mrs. Davenport did not flinch. “You forgot that ladies wear corsets!” Mrs. Davenport screamed. “You scoundrel! Your knife was stopped by the underthings!”

  The stranger flailed his legs about to kick Mrs. Davenport, but before he could strike her, Ellen rushed toward him, tackling him to the floor and snatching the knife from his hands. “That is enough!” Ellen declared as she held the knife above the stranger’s face. “Your terror in this house is finished!”

  “What is going on here?” Henry yelled as he rushed into the bedchamber, Bella and Melly running in behind him. “Ellen! Mother! Who is this fellow? What is going on here?”

  Henry pulled out a gun from his belt and aimed it at the stranger’s head. Ellen dropped the knife to the side and rushed to her daughters. “Girls!” Ellen cried out as she kiss
ed Bella and Melly on the head. “Girls, you were so brave! You found your papa!”

  Mrs. Davenport clumsily walked to Ellen and the girls. “Come, girls,” Mrs. Davenport commanded. “Let’s go downstairs and leave Henry to deal with this scoundrel! Girls, you are safe now!”

  Ellen heard her husband growl as she ushered the girls out of the bedchamber. “How dare you break into my home and threaten my family?” Henry roared as Ellen picked up Bella and Melly. “This is the last you will see of your freedom, sir! The sheriff and his men are on their way, and you will never break into another house or threaten innocent women again!”

  10

  “It was terrifying,” Ellen sobbed into Henry’s chest as they lay together in their bed the night of the attack. “I thought I would never see your face again, my love, and there is so much I wanted to say to you…”

  Henry gathered his wife in his arms and breathed in her familiar scent. He kissed her swollen neck with tenderness, slowly moving up her throat until he was kissing her hard on the mouth.

  “I’m so sorry, Henry,” Ellen wept as Henry ran a hand through her hair. “I am sorry that I did not forgive you right away about what happened in Indiana. I held onto my grudge, and I did not act like a Godly wife in those moments. Please forgive me!”

  Henry stared into his wife’s dark eyes. “Ellen,” he whispered as he placed a hand on her waist. “Ellen, when the girls found me and told me that a stranger had threatened your safety, I saw my entire world flash before my eyes.”

  Henry felt tears fall from Ellen’s eyes as he continued. “The girls told me what happened, and I raced home to find you in danger! I could not believe what was happening in my own household. My own wife and mother were unsafe, and because of my prior actions, my wife could have died thinking I was a terrible man!”

  Ellen shook her head. “No,” she protested. “No! You are a wonderful man, Henry Davenport! You are a wonderful man, and a wonderful father, and I am blessed to have you. I was stubborn and angry when I refused to forgive you, and I deeply regret my harsh words and coldness. Please, Henry, please! Forgive me.”

  Henry took his wife’s hands in his and squeezed them, placing them on his heart. “I forgive you,” he murmured as Ellen felt the fast, hard thumps of his heartbeat. “I forgive you, but I want you to hear me when I say this, Ellen. When I went to Indiana to win back Katie May, I was a broken man. Now, I have the Lord, Ellen! I have the Lord, and I have you. I have everything I could ever dream of, and I am so far away from the lost, confused, scared little boy I was when I went searching for my own satisfaction. Ellen, this life of ours is exactly what I needed.”

  Ellen brought a finger to Henry’s lips. “No,” she said softly. “This life of ours is exactly what we needed.”

  Before Henry could respond, Ellen pressed her body against her husband’s, fluttering her eyelashes as she heard him groan.

  “You are what I always wanted,” Henry whispered into Ellen’s ear before he took her face in his hands and gave her a long, hard kiss. “You are what I always wanted, and now, I want you more than ever.”

  Ellen giggled as Henry kissed her mouth, and then her nose, and then her forehead. “My husband,” she murmured as Henry pulled her closer to him. “It’s as if this were all just meant to be.”

  “It is,” Henry agreed as he drew Ellen to his chest. “It is.”

  Hilda Finds True Love

  Civil War Brides, Book 3

  1

  “I can’t take it anymore,” Hilda lamented to Polly, her older sister, as she wiped the sweat from her forehead. “It’s nearly one hundred degrees outside, and they have us out here scrubbing the laundry! It just isn’t right.”

  Polly shook her head at Hilda. “Hilda,” Polly said sternly as Hilda’s green eyes danced with frustration. “Hilda, we are lucky to have jobs with the Davenport family. No, we are blessed, Hilda! After the war between the North and the South, this town was in ruins. If the Davenport family had not returned and restored this plantation, I don’t know what we would be doing. Practically everyone else in this town had to leave after the war, and we are blessed to stay and make good money for our trouble! You should really count your blessings, Hilda.”

  Hilda pushed back her long, straight, strawberry blonde hair and sighed. She knew her sister was right; the war had nearly destroyed their hometown, and had it not been for the fabulously wealthy Davenport family and their magnificent plantation, Hilda and her family would have had to leave their home and start over somewhere else. Hilda was grateful that she had a job, and that her role as a maid in the Davenport household gave her access to more food and comforts than most had after the war. Still, as she bent over a pair of soiled trousers, the sun beating down on her pale face, Hilda felt more annoyed than ever and wished that she were anywhere but the Davenport Plantation.

  “Anyway, as I was saying before you started complaining,” Polly continued, her own strawberry hair tied up neatly. “That new carpenter is a handsome fellow! What do you think about him, Hilda? From what I spotted, he does not have a ring on his finger. Perhaps he is eligible!”

  Hilda shook her head. “Polly,” Hilda groaned. “That new carpenter looks to be our father’s age! I could never marry someone that old.”

  Polly shook her head. “Hilda, I think you need to open your mind and your heart to what the Lord is bringing you,” Polly lectured as she wrung out a pair of socks from the bucket of water between her knees. “The war took the young men away from us, and most of them either passed away, or are injured beyond comprehension! There are no young eligible men left in the county, sister, and I don’t want you to miss out on being a wife and a mother because your head is in the clouds. You must settle for someone, Hilda! You’re nearly twenty-five years old. It’s time for you to settle down.”

  Hilda narrowed her green eyes at her older sister. “That’s easy for you to say,” Hilda muttered beneath her breath as she turned to pin a woolen dress onto the laundry line.

  “What did you say?” Polly inquired.

  Hilda sighed. “You have no idea what it is like for me,” she explained to her sister. “You were courted and were married before the war, back when this town wasn’t falling apart, and back when the men weren’t few and far between.”

  Polly raised an eyebrow. “I don’t see what that has to do with your sour disposition regarding the eligible men around now.”

  Hilda’s eyes widened. “That is exactly it,” she explained to her older sister. “The men who are around now! Back when you were young and beautiful looking for a husband, there were all sorts of good, handsome, Christian fellows around who wanted to court you! For me, there is no one, Polly. Like you said, all of the young, handsome, eligible bachelors were killed in the war. I don’t know if my heart can simply settle on someone just so I can marry.”

  Polly clenched her teeth and stared into Hilda’s eyes. “You don’t understand,” she said with annoyance. “The longer you stay unmarried, the longer that our mama and our papa are responsible for putting food on your plate. You are nearly twenty-five years old, Hilda. Our parents should not have to worry about you, especially now! Times are hard, even with the war being over, and you are a burden on our family. I have my husband to take care of me. You need someone to take care of you so that our parents don’t have to fret about providing for you.”

  Hilda gasped as the color drained from her face. She knew that following the war, her parents had struggled to make end’s meet. Her father’s leg had been injured in battle, and he could not return to his work as a blacksmith. He was fortunate to find a job at the Davenport Plantation, just as his daughters had, but the pay was not impressive, and Hilda knew he and her mother were tormented by their financial situation.

  “I’m their daughter, Polly,” Hilda whispered as Polly turned away. “They love me.”

  Polly bit her bottom lip. “They love you,” she told Hilda. “But you are a grown woman. They don’t deserve to have to decide between fe
eding you and feeding themselves.”

  “Don’t you do that one more time, Francis!” Michael Copper yelled to his five-year old son as Francis beat his fists on his little chest. “That is not how we behave in this house!”

  Francis stuck out his tongue at Michael, his brown eyes filled with trouble as he picked up a plate from the dinner table and smashed it on the floor. “Bye, bye, plate!”

  Michael groaned. “I’ve told you, Francis! At the dinner table, we use our manners!”

  Kristina, Michael’s ten-year old daughter, shook her head. “Manners are silly, Papa! We don’t need manners in our house.” Michael’s eyes widened as Kristina reached for her own dinner plate and lifted it from the table. “Bye, bye, plate!”

  Michael’s heart beat furiously as his daughter intentionally dropped her plate on the floor. “Kristina! Why would you do that? You know that is not how we behave in this house! What have I taught you? What would your Sunday school teacher say about this kind of behavior?”

  Kristina rolled her eyes at her father and adjusted her apron as she sat back down at the table, daintily wiping her little mouth with her handkerchief. “I don’t care, Papa,” she informed her father as she tossed her long, straight brown braids behind her shoulders.

  Michael ran a hand through his wavy brown hair and narrowed his caramel colored eyes at his daughter. He clenched his fists, but released them; Michael knew his children were ill-behaved, but he tried to be patient with them. He knew that they were still mourning the unexpected loss of their mother last winter, and Michael wanted his children to feel comfortable and loved in the home. He was frustrated with their horrible behavior, though. His two sons destroyed furniture and broke rules without abandon, and his only daughter had turned into quite the little stuck-up princess.