Mail Order Devastation (Montana Mail Order Brides, Book 4)

by Julianna Blake

  He thought for a moment. “Alright. Cletus is back there anyway, keeping an eye on a belligerent cowboy who’s causing trouble in one of the men’s cells, so he can keep an eye on you too. Not that I think you’ll cause trouble, of course, but I have to look out for the women’s welfare.”

  “Of course.”

  “Follow me.”

  The officer led him to the back, down a hall to the left. As they passed the four men’s cells, Noah tried not to pay attention to the sneers of the dirty, sinister-looking men. One man called out, slurring obscenities at him, while an officer sitting in a chair across from the cell told him to pipe down. Once they passed through a door marked LADIES’ CELL, he held his breath.

  Inside the cell, there were two cots—one at each end of the cell. On the cot closest to the door, two women sprawled, in the manner of drunken men. They wore tight dresses that hung about their shoulders, revealing more cleavage than he’d ever seen on a woman, besides his own wife. He averted his glance quickly, and the women tittered, whispering to each other. One whistled, in a way he’d only ever heard an unmannered man whistle at a woman.

  He ignored it—his gaze was riveted upon his wife. She sat on the opposite cot, shoulders slumped, her hands clasped in her lap. A woman was sitting close to her, grabbing her shoulder.

  “Get your filthy hands off my wife!” He lunged, grabbing the bars, wishing he could pry them open and throw the woman away from Mollie.

  The woman looked up, startled, then flashed him a disdainful frown. “I ain’t hurtin’ her none.”

  “Back down, Mr. Jamison, or I’ll remove you,” warned the officer. “Now Hannah, you know the rules. No physical contact with other inmates, or you get an extra day in that cell.”

  “I said I ain’t hurtin’ her. Am I?” She turned to Mollie, who had looked up in surprise at Noah’s abrupt entrance.

  She shook her head in response to the woman’s question, then her eyes widened they met Noah’s. “I asked them not to contact you.”

  “And I told you I had to, Mrs. Jamison,” said the officer. “You don’t want to stay here, do you?” He turned to Noah. “I’ll be back in a few minutes. Keep your hands away from the bars.”

  He turned to leave, keeping the door propped open and leaning over to whisper to the officer on guard duty before returning to the front room.

  “Mollie, what on earth is going on?” Noah demanded.

  She stood and walked over to the bars, but kept her eyes down. “I’m so sorry, Noah,” she whispered. “I never thought it would come to this.”

  “Come to what? Tell me what happened. Did you do what they said you did—trespass on a rich man’s property?”

  Mollie nodded, tears slipping down her cheeks.

  “Why?”

  “Can we talk about it at home?”

  “No! I want to know now. What connection do you have to that Deming fellow? The officer said he was from Boston. Surely that’s no coincidence.”

  She bit her lip, but said nothing.

  “Mollie! I need to know. Was he…did he…and you…?”

  Her eyes flew up to meet his. “What? No! Of course not! How could you even think that?”

  “I don’t know what to think! I only know my wife has been arrested for harassing a man that she apparently knew from Boston.”

  The harlot in the worn, red satin dress—Hannah—jumped up and stalked over to Mollie, putting a hand on her shoulder.

  “Leave my wife alone!” Noah snapped.

  “No,” she retorted, “you leave her alone. She’s been through enough. Stop being so hard on her.”

  “Who are you to tell me how to talk to my wife?”

  “I’m the girl who’s gonna reach through these bars and smack that pretty face of yours if you don’t show a little compassion!”

  “Hannah!” The warning tone came from Cletus, through the open door. “Settle down. I mean it.”

  “Fine, fine,” she muttered, pushing a loose strand of blonde hair back from her face. She pointed at Noah silently, accompanied by a stern glare, then returned to the bunk.

  “What’s she talking about?” Noah whispered.

  “Please,” Mollie begged, her eyes red from crying, “can we talk about it at home? I promise, I’ll tell you all of it. I’ll answer any question you have.”

  Noah pushed back from the bars, pacing the tiny aisle like a caged lion. He whipped off his hat, scrubbing a hand through his hair. He sighed, replaced the hat, and faced her with his arms crossed. “Fine. We’ll discuss it at home. But you’d better have a darn good excuse for all this. Do you know what this could do to my reputation? A good reputation is all a shopkeeper has! There are new stores opening every month in Helena, and all the new shopkeepers need is a good rumor to decimate his competition with.”

  “This blowhard doesn’t even know what he has,” Hannah mumbled to her companions, who nodded in agreement. “If my mother had cared half so much about me, maybe I wouldn’t’ve ended up here. I coulda made something of myself, maybe.”

  Her companions nodded again, glaring at Noah with their smeared, painted faces.

  What are they talking about? And what does Hannah’s mother have to do with any of it?

  “Hannah,” Mollie murmured, “please, he just doesn’t understand. Don’t say any more.”

  “Whatever you say.” Hannah shrugged.

  “I’m all set,” came a voice down the hall. “Let Mrs. Jamison out, Cletus.”

  The guard came in and unlocked the cell, letting Mollie step out before re-locking it.

  “Hey, Mollie,” Hannah called from her place on the cot. “If you end up without anyone to count on,” she said, shooting Noah a sour look, “you just come call on me. You can find me at the Castle, just east of State and Joliet. I’ll help you figure things out.”

  Mollie gave a tight smile. “Thank you, for the thought.”

  “Mrs. Jamison,” murmured Cletus. “You do know that the Castle is a…uh…” he bit his lip, at a loss for the right word to use with a lady.

  “A brothel,” she whispered. “Yes, she told me.”

  Cletus let out a relieved sigh. “Just wanted to make sure you didn’t misunderstand her, or that she didn't mislead you.”

  “I didn’t. And she was very kind—though I won’t be taking up her offer, of course.” She gave Cletus a grim smile, then followed him through the door.

  As they walked past the men’s cell, Noah shielded Mollie with his body as the drunks and criminals whistled and howled at her. He shot them a long, icy glare, and put his arm around his wife.

  He thanked the officer for his compassion, and before they left, he peeked out into the street to make sure no one he knew was walking by. Then he led Mollie out into the street.

  They drove back to the watch shop in tense silence. Mollie waited in the buggy while he went inside to tell his mother the barest of details about what had happened. Fortunately no customers were in the shop at the time. She agreed to stay until closing time and lock up, if he didn’t make it back.

  “If you need to stay, please telephone Clay Porter to ask if he or Herman Kirschner could escort you home, since it will be getting dark.”

  “I will,” she agreed, her face grim.

  He returned to the buggy, taking his seat beside Mollie. Neither of them spoke the entire way home.

  One thing is for sure—I’m going to get to the bottom of this.

  Chapter 22

  When they reached the house, Noah put the horse and buggy up while Mollie went in to make them both some hot tea. The humiliation burned inside her. She could barely look her husband in the eye. How could she explain it all to him now?

  She rehearsed in her head over and over while she waited, but it never sounded right. Every way she could think to say it, she came off as sounding like a selfish, deceitful woman of loose virtue.

  Which I am, she thought. I should have told him the truth from the start. Or at the very least, before the wedding took plac
e. He’s a good man. He probably would have married me anyway. Or if not, he’d have had compassion on me, and helped me somehow. It was disheartening to realize that she didn’t even know how good of a man she had, back then…and now she had probably ruined any chance of a future with him.

  I’ve already lost Nell—the Demings are probably packing for Boston as I sit here. And now I’ve humiliated Noah. He’ll never forgive me. I’ve lost him, too.

  Maybe she should have given up on Nell long ago, and just have been grateful for the good husband she’d been given. It was the sensible thing to do. But she knew that if given the choice again, she’d still never have given up on reuniting with Nell. For as long as she took breath, she would always hope to see her daughter again.

  At the sound of Noah coming in the back door, Mollie looked up from her place at the table. “I made you some tea.”

  “Thank you,” he said, giving her a curt nod before he turned to hang up his coat and hat on pegs near the back door. Then he sat at the table with a sigh. “Why, Mollie? Why would you do this? Does it have anything to do with all the secrecy, the sneaking around, the locking yourself away in the bedroom? Are you in love with Deming? Are you locked in there, reading letters from him?”

  “No! None of that,” she said. “Well, some of that is true.” She watched as his face fell. “No, not that part—I’m not in love with him! There are no love letters. But yes, it has to do with the secrecy, and the sneaking off every day.”

  He sighed, clenching his hands together on the table. “Fine. Then tell me.”

  She took a shaky breath, and began the story that might end her marriage. “When I lived in Boston and worked as a kitchen maid, I had a beau. He was the first boy who ever courted me, and I thought I was in love. He treated me so well, was very respectful and proper. He wasn’t Catholic, and wasn’t much of a churchgoer, but he wasn’t rowdy, and had a respectable job, helping his father run their livery business. It was an excellent match for someone like me. I liked him, we got along well. But then, things changed. He started…pressuring me.”

  Noah’s eyes pinned her in his gaze. She could see the apprehension, the tension in his expression. She hated that she was going to hurt him even more…and that she might never again see a look of love in those handsome eyes.

  Mollie took a deep breath, and went on. “I…I thought he was going to marry me, and…well…after a while, I wasn’t very careful about making sure someone else was around to act as a chaperone when we were together. I suppose I let myself get carried away, and…one night…”

  “I’ve heard enough,” Noah said, shifting his eyes away and blinking back tears. “Get on with it.”

  “I…I became with child.”

  Noah’s mouth fell open. He stared, then snapped his mouth shut. “But where is…? You…you didn’t resort to…?”

  “No, no, of course not! I gave birth to the baby. The father…as soon as he found out, he left me. I don’t know if he ever intended to marry me, but after…it happened…I told him I would only see him with a chaperone. He came around less and less often. Once he learned I was expecting, he stopped coming ’round altogether. I felt foolish and betrayed.”

  Noah rubbed a hand over his face and looked away. He wouldn’t meet her gaze.

  After many weeks of feeling better about herself, the horrible feelings that she had lived with for months—the shame and humiliation and regret that she had felt every time a Boston neighbor scowled at her with disdain—surged up once more. He would never look at her the same way again.

  If he could look at her at all.

  She rushed to finish—she might as well get it over with. “My mother never let me forget my mistake. I was berated every day of my pregnancy. And I worked just as hard every day at my kitchen job, then I came home and did even more work than I had before at home, because my mother said I owed it to her, for costing the family more in food, and for the humiliation they suffered. Then when my condition became obvious, I was let go from my position. From then on, I was trapped at home, and given even more work to do, right up until I gave birth. And I was expected to continue the housework from the day after Nell was born.”

  “Nell?”

  “Yes.” Mollie couldn’t help but smile at her daughter’s name. “It was a girl. I named her Nell.” She looked down, remembering how it had felt when she’d held her daughter in her arms.

  When she looked up at Noah’s miserable expression, the happy memory faded, and she continued. “My mother never let up on me for my mistake, but I found solace in Nell, and in my prayers. I knew I’d made a grievous error, and I had immediately confessed my sin the same week I had committed it. God knew my heart, and I was sure of His forgiveness. But there were some at my church—and around the neighborhood—who couldn’t forgive such a public sin. I had stopped going to Mass not long after I’d lost my job.”

  “You told me you were a devout Catholic.”

  “And I am. But attending Mass became impossible. I observed Sunday at home, with my missal and Bible. Maybe it wasn’t the right choice, but I couldn’t face the stares and the comments. I think I would have lost my faith, had I kept going. It felt as if my whole life was a shambles. But once I had Nell, it was better. I loved her dearly. Sometimes I felt like she was all I had. I loved my family, of course, but it often felt like that love was one-sided. When I looked in Nell’s eyes, it was the first time in my life that I felt pure, unconditional love. Looking into her eyes was like Heaven—pure love. She was everything to me. I knew raising her on my own would be hard, but I was determined to do it, despite my mother’s urging that I put Nell up for adoption.”

  “Wait…you didn’t put her up for adoption?”

  “No. I couldn’t. You have to understand…I just couldn’t do that to her. I couldn’t live with it.”

  “But didn’t you want a better life for her?” His face was a mask of confusion. “How did you expect to work and raise her?”

  “I had hoped that my mother would help. She works from home as a lacemaker, so I thought she could help at least temporarily. I know everyone thinks I should have given her up, but I just couldn’t. I couldn’t let her feel the pain of abandonment that I had felt.”

  Noah’s eyebrows shot up. “You never said you were adopted.”

  “I wasn’t. But…my father, John Quinn, had abandoned me when I was only five years old. I didn’t know it then. He had been gone a week or two, and my mother never really explained why he wasn’t there. Then my mother told me he had died—hit by a runaway carriage. It wasn’t until years later that my mother—in a fit of anger with me—told me the full truth. Yet another way to hurt me. She told me my father had left her for another woman, just two weeks before he died in that accident.”

  “Why would she keep it a secret for so many years, and then suddenly decide to tell you?”

  “I think she resented me for being a part of him, and being a daily reminder of his betrayal. She was never a particularly loving mother, but she really changed after my father had left. She became hard…cold…mean. Even more so after she married again, two years later, to Felix McCammar, who was a marketman just like my father. Maybe she was afraid he’d leave her too. Maybe she was taking her frustrations out on me…I don’t know. But Felix was faithful, and a decent husband, even though she didn’t always treat him well. They had Chloe not long after that, when I was eight, and my mother was thrilled, because she had thought she was barren after having me. They doted on Chloe, spoiled her, and all but ignored me, unless there was work to be done around the house. Felix isn’t a bad fellow, but he does what my mother tells him, so he let her run roughshod over me, and rarely tried to stop her.”

  Noah’s expression softened. “That’s terrible.”

  Mollie was the one to look away, then. “I managed. You get used to it.”

  “You shouldn’t have to.”

  “No. No one should. No little girl should have to live with the burden of knowing her father ab
andoned her, or her mother wished that she’d never had her. That’s why I couldn’t leave Nell. I know there are good homes out there, and most girls who give up their babies are making the sacrifice for their babies. But after spending the last few years feeling so unwanted after learning that my father had abandoned us…I just couldn’t leave Nell. Even if it was really for the best. I couldn’t spend the rest of my life wondering if my daughter hated me for abandoning her, or if she hated herself, thinking that there must be something wrong with her if I didn’t want her.”

  “But that’s not the case—you would have been doing it for her sake.”

  “I know that, but would she? You can come up with all kinds of notions as a child, and unless there’s someone loving and kind in your life to dispel the self-deprecating notions, they can become a part of who you are.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me any of this? Why hide the truth about your real father? And if you kept your daughter, where is she? Is she back in Boston?”

  And there it was…the question she had feared the most.

  Her answer—and his reaction to it—could change the course of their future.

  Chapter 23

  Noah watched as Mollie pushed back from the table, standing to pace across the kitchen. He could sense the anxiety welling up within her—part of him was pulled to go to her, put an arm around her, and tell her everything was alright. The other part of him was frozen in fear—waiting for the other shoe, which he knew was coming, to drop.

  She related the story of the day she came home to find her child missing. The idea that Mollie’s mother would steal her own grandchild away from her daughter, and dump her in an orphan asylum, was completely shocking. His own mother’s character was entirely opposite that of Mollie’s mother.

  When she recounted her frantic search for her daughter, and her discovery that the adoptive family had left the state, he nearly reached out to her, wanting to hold her close and comfort her, despite all that had happened.

  But something stopped him. He sensed it before she said the words.