Wilderness Courtship

by Valerie Hansen

  “I don’t much cotton to that idea. He’s gonna be fightin’ mad if it’s true.”

  “Still, he’s paid us plenty. He has to be informed, even if the news is bad.”

  “Oh, sure. And what’re you gonna be doin’ while he takes it out on me for bein’ the messenger?”

  “Getting even for our lost friends. Ashton’s wife trusts me now. I’ll stay close to her and her kin, wherever they go, and finish what we came for, one way or another.”

  “You sure you don’t need my help?”

  He shook his head, his thick jowls jiggling. “No. I can handle it. Even if I don’t get another chance till they’re on the trail, it’ll be fine. All I’ll have to do then is hang back and pick them off one at a time, starting with the brat.”

  The taller man winced. “I never did like that part of the job. Doesn’t seem fair to kill him when we could just snatch him and maybe sell him, instead.”

  “That kind of thinking is clear stupid. Which is why I’m sending you home and handling things here by myself. When you talk to our boss, make sure you tell him straight out that I’m the one with the stomach for this job or you’ll have to answer to me when I get back.”

  “If you get back.”

  His laugh was derisive. “Oh, I’ll be back. And I’ll expect to find a big bonus waiting for me when I show up in New York with the proof that I was successful.”

  “Proof? How’re you gonna do that?”

  The laugh deepened and took on a more sinister tone. “Same way the Indians do. I’ll bring Ashton their scalps.”

  Chapter Four

  Charity didn’t know what to do. On the one hand she wanted to stay safely at home in San Francisco with her beloved papa. On the other hand, he had as much as told her she was no longer needed or wanted.

  And what about poor little Jacob? He did need her and she did care about him. Why, oh why, did life have to be so complicated?

  Standing in the middle of her sparsely furnished room she pivoted slowly as she took in the accommodations. There was a bed with a feather mattress atop tightly stretched ropes, a dressing table and mirror, a washstand with a pitcher and ewer, a small trunk containing most of her clothing, and pegs on the wall next to it where she could hang her few dresses and petticoats. The place wasn’t lavish by any stretch of the imagination, yet it suited her. She didn’t need much, nor did she deserve luxuries, although she had once thought otherwise.

  Looking back, it was painful to envision how spoiled and selfish she had once been, not to mention the difficulties she’d caused her long-suffering sister, Faith, while they were crossing the prairie together.

  Charity shivered and wrapped her arms around herself. Would she never be able to banish those horrible memories?

  In the past, she had clung to them as if their presence was necessary to keep her humble. Now that she was being offered a chance to do something extraordinary for the benefit of an innocent child, perhaps that would be enough to cleanse her soul and give her the peace she had lost.

  Verbal prayer was impossible with her mind whirling and her heart so torn and broken, but her unspoken thoughts reached out to God just the same. Was this what He wanted her to do? Was He giving her the second chance she’d so often prayed for? Or was she about to listen to her own confused feelings and become a victim of emotion and foolishness once again?

  She pressed her fingertips to her lips and sank onto the edge of her bed. The tears she had begun to shed when her father had announced his forthcoming marriage were gone, leaving only a sense of emptiness. Of loss. Everyone she loved had left her; first Mama when the tornado had taken her life, then Faith when she’d married Connell and now Papa. It wasn’t fair. She had given them as much devotion as she could muster, yet they were all gone now. Even Papa.

  Bereft, she tilted her head back, closed her eyes and spoke to her Heavenly Father from the depths of her soul. “Please, tell me what to do? Please?”

  She felt a soft tug on her skirt and opened her eyes. There at her feet stood the little boy whose well-being was at the heart of her concerns. She blinked. Smiled. Opened her arms, leaned forward and embraced him.

  As she lifted Jacob onto her lap she sensed another presence and glanced toward the open door. Thorne was watching, silent and grave, clearly expecting her to speak.

  Charity cleared her throat and smiled slightly before she said, “You really know how to influence me, don’t you?”

  “I hope so. Will you come with us?”

  Sighing, she nodded and did the only thing that seemed right. She capitulated. “Yes.”

  Thorne was astonished that the slightly built young woman had agreed so easily. Now that she had, he was having second thoughts. Was he doing the right thing by including her in their traveling party? He knew having a female companion was best for Naomi and the boy but he wondered how much more trouble it was going to be looking after an extra woman, especially if the journey was as arduous as he feared it might be.

  Then again, anyone who had crossed the great plains in a wagon and was now tolerating the constant earth tremors in San Francisco had to be made of sterner stuff than the average person. He didn’t think he’d ever get used to all the shaking in that city, although its citizens seemed to take it in stride.

  He huffed as he turned and headed back downstairs. They’d be safe enough in a hotel this substantial unless another big shake started more fires like the ones the citizenry had experienced several years back. Volunteer fire companies had been organized to handle small blazes but it was easy for fires in multiple locations to get away from them no matter how often they trained or how diligently they worked to douse the flames.

  Once the city water system was completed that would help. So would rebuilding in brick as many had lately, he told himself, but there was still plenty of flammable material around, especially in the poorer sections of town.

  Suddenly uneasy, Thorne paused at the base of the stairs and stood stock-still, his hand on the newel post. It hadn’t been his imagination. The ground was trembling. Again. He could tolerate the pitching of a ship’s deck in a storm at sea much easier than he could the unsteady shore. At least on board his ships he could predict oncoming swells and brace to ride them out. Here on land the shaking always took him by surprise.

  He was still standing at the base of the stairs, waiting for further tremors, when Charity joined him.

  He glanced past her. “Where’s Jacob?”

  “He fell asleep on my bed so I covered him, shut the door and left him there. He’s exhausted, as well you can imagine.”

  “We all are,” Thorne said with a sigh. “I must apologize for putting you in such an untenable position. If you don’t wish to accompany my party, you don’t have to.”

  “Yes, I do,” she replied. “I knew that as soon as I looked into that poor little boy’s eyes.”

  “You’re very kind.”

  “No, I’m not. I have a lot of mistakes to make up for and helping you fulfill your obligation to your brother will start to pay that debt.”

  “I can’t imagine what you could possibly have done that would call for such penance.”

  “It’s not only what I did, it’s what I didn’t do when my sister needed me. It’s only by the grace of God that she survived and we were reunited.”

  “Then you and I have even more in common than I thought,” Thorne said with empathy. “I have often wondered why God continually spared my life during my years at sea.”

  “Really? Perhaps we were destined to work together for the common good.”

  His eyebrows arched. “Perhaps.”

  “Where’s Naomi?” Charity asked. “Not gone off again, I hope.”

  “No. Mrs. Montgomery and your father are looking after her for the present.”

  “Good.” Charity stepped down and led the way to the parlor as she continued to speak. “My life began on a small farm in Trumbull County, Ohio. I thought I understood what hard work and deprivation were but until
I crossed the prairie in a wagon train I had no true picture. That was the worst experience I have ever had.”

  Thorne stood until she had seated herself on the settee, then chose a nearby armchair. “Then you shouldn’t go with us to the territories. It will be much more primitive up there than it is here.”

  “It wasn’t the lack of amenities that bothered me. It was being married to evil personified, himself.”

  “You were married?”

  “Yes. I thought my father had told you.”

  Thorne hoped he was successfully hiding his initial shock. “No. All he said was that you had undergone some terrible experiences during your journey. He never mentioned marriage.”

  “Hmm. I see.” Lacing her fingers together in her lap, she paused for a moment before she went on. “I suppose you should know more particulars about my past before you actually hire me.”

  “That’s not necessary.”

  “I think it is,” she said, stiffening her spine, raising her chin and staring at the opposite side of the room as if she were gazing into the past. “I was very young. Just sixteen. We were halfway to California when my sister, Faith, was kidnapped by men we thought were Indians. I feared I’d never see her again.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Oh, there’s more,” she said with resignation as her eyes met Thorne’s. “I didn’t know it at the time but the wagon boss, Ramsey Tucker, was not only responsible for Faith’s disappearance, he got rid of her because he had designs on my father’s gold-mining claim and she was too smart for him. She saw his true character while I was blind to it.”

  Thorne waited patiently for her to continue, aware that she was struggling to find the proper words and assuming she was trying to explain without exceeding the bounds of propriety.

  Finally, Charity said, “Without my sister I was all alone, single and unescorted, and therefore in a terrible predicament, as you can imagine. I was so overwrought and afraid that I took the easy way out. I misjudged that horrid man and let him talk me into marrying him in order to continue the journey and find Papa again.”

  “Are you still married?” Thorne asked quietly.

  Charity’s eyes widened. “No! Nor was I legally wed in the first place, as it turned out, which makes everything even worse. Before he was killed, my so-called husband confessed that he was already married and had therefore led me, and countless other women, astray for his own disreputable gains.”

  She lowered her gaze to her clasped hands and Thorne noted that her knuckles were white from the pressure of her tight grasp.

  “Surely, none of that was your fault,” he said kindly.

  “Wasn’t it? I try to think about those awful days as little as possible. No one here knows much about my past. Not even Mrs. Montgomery.”

  “Yet you just told me. Why?”

  “Because I could be considered a loose woman, especially if we were to encounter any of the other folks who crossed the plains on the same wagon train or were present in the gold camp when my…husband…was killed.”

  Thorne had to smile. He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees, clasping his own hands. “Perhaps it will help if you know how I came to be called Blackwell while my brother is an Ashton.”

  “That isn’t necessary,” Charity said.

  “Still, I think hearing this will make you feel less alone and help you understand why we all fear and loathe my stepfather the way we do. My mother began married life as Pearl Blackwell, then…”

  As he concluded an abbreviated version his mother’s tale he noted the concern in Charity’s blue eyes. “Do you think Louis Ashton actually got rid of your real father so he could marry your mother, the way King David did to Uriah the Hittite in the Bible?”

  “That was the way Mother told the story. She has come to that conclusion by piecing together the facts over the course of many years. As you did with your husband, she misjudged the kind of man Louis Ashton was and has been paying for her mistake ever since.”

  “Oh, poor Pearl. Can’t you free her somehow?”

  “Not as long as she chooses to remain in his house as Louis’s wife. I’ve offered to support her for the rest of her days if she will leave him but she always tells me she considers her marriage vows sacred and won’t break them. Not even now.”

  “How awful.” Charity paled. “I suppose I should be more thankful that Ramsey Tucker is dead and gone.”

  “We have no control over things like that,” Thorne said with resignation. “At least we shouldn’t. For your sake, I’m glad he’s no longer around to menace you.”

  To Thorne’s relief he saw a slight smile beginning to lift the corners of Charity’s lips.

  “Menace is the perfect word to describe that man’s behavior,” she said. “I wasn’t joking a bit when I referred to him as evil personified.”

  “I think I prefer to reserve that term for my stepfather.”

  “There really are a lot of evil people in this world, aren’t there?”

  “Yes. But you’ve been delivered from one of them and now it’s time for the two of us to rescue Naomi and Jacob from another. Are you up to it?”

  “Oh, yes,” Charity said. “I’ll be packed and ready to travel as soon as you say the word.”

  “You’re sure? You’re not afraid?”

  She laughed lightly, her pink cheeks revealing a touch of embarrassment. “What does fear have to do with making this trip? As long as I believe—and I certainly do—that the Good Lord wants me to help you, why would I hesitate just because I happen to be scared witless?”

  Thorne stood. “Good for you, Miss Beal. Forgive me for being so bold but I think you are one of the strongest, most worthy women I have ever had the pleasure to know.”

  “Let’s hope your opinion has not changed by the time we reach Naomi’s parents.”

  Nodding and politely taking his leave, Thorne kept his negative thoughts to himself. He was familiar with the upcoming sea voyage as far as the part of Poverty Bay now called Puget Sound. He’d even been to Admiralty Inlet, north of there, but that was as far as he’d traveled. Once they left the coast and started inland he’d be as lost as a sailor adrift in a lifeboat without compass or sextant.

  Was this a fool’s errand? he wondered. Perhaps. But he knew he must undertake it all the same. Even if his brother had not survived the sinking of the El Dorado there was still danger looming over Naomi and little Jacob.

  Thorne could not, would not, abandon them to Louis’s perfidy.

  Pearl Ashton, red-eyed and clutching a lace-edged handkerchief, heard her husband opening the front door of their uptown mansion. She had been pacing the foyer and waiting for what seemed like hours.

  Although her earlier tears had dried, the sight of Louis, so pompous and so handsomely clad in a gray cutaway coat, perfectly tailored pants and embroidered pearl satin vest brought fresh moisture to her eyes.

  She dabbed the sparse tears away as she hurried toward him, the train from her bustle silently brushing the polished marble floor. “Where have you been?”

  “I told you we were having another meeting of the Merchants’ Society about that greensward we’ve been planning. We’re going to call it Central Park if I have my way, and I believe I shall.”

  He scowled and peered past her as he removed his hat. “What is the matter with you, woman? And where in blazes are all the servants?”

  “I sent them away.”

  Louis slapped his kid gloves into his overturned bowler. “What? Why on earth did you do that? I don’t pay them to lollygag, you know.”

  “I wanted to be alone with you when I showed you this,” Pearl said, reaching into the pocket of her skirt and producing a crumpled piece of yellow paper. Her hand was shaking as she thrust it at Louis.

  Instead of accepting the paper, he strode past her toward the parlor as if she were far less important than the absent servants. “Just tell me what it says and be done with it, woman. I don’t have time for your childish games.” />
  “Childish?” Pearl’s voice was strident enough that her husband hesitated. She knew she was already overstepping the limits of his volatile temper but at that moment she didn’t care. She waved the paper. “What have you done?”

  “I have no idea what you mean.”

  “No, of course you don’t,” Pearl said, nearly screaming at him. “First you drive away my eldest son and now this! How can you be so cruel?”

  “What are you babbling about?” Louis grabbed the yellow telegram from her. As he scanned it, Pearl saw the color rise in his bearded cheeks.

  “Is it true?” she demanded.

  “What if it is? It’s certainly no concern of yours.”

  “You’ve killed him!” she wailed. “You’ve killed my baby!”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. You’re getting hysterical for no reason. All this says is that Aaron and some of my acquaintances are on their way back from Los Angeles.”

  “On the El Dorado.” Pearl was sobbing as she raced to her favorite chair near the hearth, grabbed up the New York Gazette and returned to shove it in her husband’s face. “Look, Louis. See for yourself.”

  She watched as the high color left him. He staggered back against the divan, his face pasty, his usually hawklike eyes growing rheumy.

  “It sank!” Pearl screeched, beginning to beat on his chest and shoulders with her fists. “You couldn’t let him go and now he’s dead. I hate you. I hate you, do you hear? Of all the things you’ve done to ruin my life, this is the worst.”

  Louis regained enough self-control to grab her thin wrists and stop her assault. “What do you mean, all the things I’ve done? What have I done except give you a life of luxury and treat you like a queen.”

  “A queen in a dungeon,” Pearl countered. “You’ve deprived me of the love of both my sons.”

  “I’ve lost, too,” Louis reminded her, thrusting her aside. “I loved Aaron as much as you did.”

  “But not Thorne. Never Thorne.”

  “Of course not. He wasn’t my son.”

  Pearl crumpled on the velvet cushions of the divan and sobbed uncontrollably. Her heart was so badly broken she no longer feared for her own safety. If Louis chose to beat her for her outburst, or for what she was about to add, she believed she would welcome the pain, the eventual oblivion. Without her dear boys, life was not worth living.