Would some other woman fit so well in his rustic cabin? Would some other woman try as hard as she had? Would he...? That nasty feeling in her belly flexed its claws. Would Thomas like some other woman better than he had liked her?
It would be ill advised for Thomas to rush ahead and marry some other mail-order bride without her help, Charlotte decided. It was nothing personal. It was simply that he deserved better than a woman chosen at random from a catalog.
A wonderful idea struck her. “I know, Thomas. Why get a bride in a bag, so to speak, when you can have the benefit of a wider selection? When it’s safe for me to return home, you must come to Boston with me. We’ll put an advertisement in the newspaper and interview the applicants in person.”
There. That sounded much better now. She could veto any bride until she had made sure they had found a suitable one. And the prospect of returning home to Merlin’s Leap seemed far more tempting if she pictured Thomas by her side.
Thomas’s arm went rigid beneath her fingers that rested in the crook of his elbow. “I think I’ll do better selecting a wife without your help.” He glanced down at her from his towering height. “The kind of wife I need. A farmer’s wife. A strong, capable woman. Someone who knows how to cook and clean and doesn’t tell lies to her husband or run away and get lost in the desert.”
The Timmerman residence was the last house in the row that made up the town. They’d been walking away, toward the desert. Now Charlotte came to an abrupt halt, as if her feet had been nailed to the rough gravel ground.
So, he truly did think she’d been useless as a wife.
She’d helped with the irrigation. She had tamed the chickens so that they let her pet them, at least Polk and Tyler did, but Thomas didn’t give her any credit for it. All he would remember after she was gone was the porridge dumpling.
“I think we’ve walked far enough,” she told him curtly. “My legs are still sore from when I got lost in the desert.” She tried to turn back, tugging at his arm, but Thomas stood on the spot, rooted as firmly as one of those giant redwood trees they had in California.
“Wait.” He dipped a hand in his coat pocket. “A letter came for you.”
He held out a small white envelope. Charlotte took it from him, saw it had been opened. She studied the writing. It was addressed to Maude Greenwood. She looked up at him, accusation in her eyes. “You’ve...you’ve opened it.”
He nodded, a quick, angry dip of his chin. “I didn’t know if it was for you or for the woman who died on the train. I opened it, in case it was meant for her.”
“Yes...yes, of course.” Charlotte peeked inside the envelope and pulled out the single sheet. It was in Miranda’s handwriting.
Dear Mrs. Greenwood.
I hope you don’t mind that I take the liberty to reply to your letter addressed to my sister Charlotte. I am very sorry to inform you that Charlotte has passed away. She was traveling to meet relatives when she suffered some kind of food poisoning on the train. She is buried in the small cemetery here at Merlin’s Leap.
A teaching post in the territories sounds like a wonderful adventure, however, as I am now the oldest, I have inherited Charlotte’s responsibilities. As much as I might enjoy seeing more of this fine continent of America I am not free to travel out to the West.
I believe that the best way for you to secure a competent teacher is to send funds for someone to cover the cost of their trip.
Best of luck in your search for a suitable teacher.
Yours truly,
Miranda Fairfax
“They think I’m dead.” Charlotte lowered the letter and spoke in a stunned whisper. “Not Miranda and Annabel. They know I’m really Miss Jackson, but somehow Miss Jackson has been mistaken for me. Officially, I’m dead.”
The enormity of the news rendered her mind numb, and then thoughts broke through, filling her with horror. Could it be...could it be that for a while, until they saw her Emily Bickerstaff letter, even her sisters might have believed she was dead?
Charlotte imagined their anguish at such news. In her mind she could hear their wails of grief, could see them slumped in mourning. How must they have felt, not knowing for certain, wondering how she might have met her end?
And Cousin Gareth...? Her brows drew into a frown. Did Gareth know the truth? Had it been a genuine mistake, or had he somehow contrived to have her declared dead? And if it was part of his intrigue, why might he have done it?
Charlotte’s fingers fisted around the letter as the full horror of the situation became clear to her. Despite the hot sun overhead, a chill ran through her. “I’m safe now.” She spoke in a low voice, her throat tight with fear. “But Cousin Gareth might go after Miranda. He might do to her what he was trying to do to me.”
Lifting the letter, Charlotte reread the last sentence.
I believe that the best way for you to secure a competent teacher is to send funds for someone to cover the cost of their trip.
Of course. The message was clear. Miranda was asking for funds. Charlotte took a deep breath and released it on a shaky sigh. “If only I had some money to send to her, it might help her escape.”
Beside her, Thomas said something, but Charlotte was too distraught to pay attention to his words. Guilt racked her, guilt and remorse. “It’s my fault. All my fault. I was wrong to impersonate Miss Jackson. Terribly wrong. I hurt you, and now Miranda is in danger. The only good thing that came out of it is that poor Miss Jackson is buried at Merlin’s Leap where my sisters will mourn for her and her unborn child.”
Charlotte raised her gaze to Thomas, tears brimming in her eyes. Why didn’t he bundle her into his arms? That had been the safest place she’d ever known, being warm and snug in his embrace. Now she longed to lean against his strength. But he just stood there, staring past her, a strained expression on his face.
Behind Charlotte came the crunch of approaching footsteps. Thomas nodded and touched the brim of his hat. Charlotte spun around. The two halves of the female population of Gold Crossing were marching toward them, parasols raised, determination stamped on their features as they embraced their chaperone duty.
“Go away. Shoo,” Charlotte muttered under her breath.
But of course, they didn’t. The pair of them took up positions a few yards behind her and Thomas, making it impossible for her to discuss the situation with him. And, even more annoyingly, the presence of the chaperones prevented any possibility that she might seek comfort in his arms.
To his credit, Thomas tried to keep up the small talk as they strolled along. He mentioned the weather, how hot it was. He said he had irrigated the crops last night, and told her how long it had taken him on his own. Then he slid his fingers beneath his collar, tugged at it and said how hot it was. He snatched down his hat, beat it against his thigh and said July and August were always the hottest months of the year.
Then he said his goodbyes and made his escape.
Charlotte watched him go and scowled at the chaperones.
There was such a thing as taking one’s duty too far.
* * *
Thomas drove the wagon back from Flagstaff. The trip had taken two days. Gus Osborn in Gold Crossing operated savings accounts where you could deposit and withdraw cash or gold, and you could buy and send money orders, but you couldn’t apply for a loan. To borrow money, Thomas had needed to go to the bank in Flagstaff.
When he arrived home in the early evening, he took care of Trooper and unloaded his purchases from the wagon. He milked Rosamund, fed the chickens, collected the eggs and took a walk around his fields.
Once the chores were done, loneliness closed in around him. He’d gotten used to Charlotte’s laughter rippling through the cottonwood trees. He’d gotten used to her chasing the chickens around the yard and prattling to them. He’d gotten used to her merrily leaping over the rows
of cabbages and beets. He’d gotten used to those sea shanties she sang as they worked together, irrigating the fields.
She is gone, Thomas told himself. Charlotte had never truly been his, would never be his. He didn’t have a wife. Perhaps he never would. So, why had he toured the stores in Flagstaff and wasted money on lace curtains and china teacups with a rose pattern on them?
In the cabin, the silence sounded too loud in his ears.
He went out, saddled Shadow and headed into town.
He’d call on Charlotte. He could tell her how Polk had followed him around as he searched for the eggs, and how he’d found Harrison hiding one in an old boot in the corner of the barn. He’d tell her how much longer it took him to irrigate the crops without her help.
But first, he stopped by the mercantile.
Gus Osborn was a short, stocky man in his forties. He had thick dark hair, as untamed as a wire brush, and a face that no woman would ever call handsome. He tried to cover up his bulbous nose and his thick lips with a bushy beard.
“What can I do for you?” Gus said. He put down the book he’d been reading and rose from the stool he’d been perched upon. Despite his rough features, Gus Osborn seemed an educated man, polite and well mannered.
“I’d like to send a money order,” Thomas replied.
Gus Junior drifted out from between the shelves of merchandise, munching on an apple. At fourteen, the boy was on the cusp of turning into a man. He resembled his father, but on him the shine of youth softened the features that looked too harsh on his father.
Gus Osborn took the slip of paper Thomas handed out to him.
“Sorry to hear your mail-order bride didn’t work out, Mr. Greenwood,” Gus Junior said. His voice broke on a funny croak. His face flushed scarlet. An angry rash covered the skin on his jaw. Thomas assumed it was evidence of his first attempt at shaving.
“That’s two hundred and twenty dollars,” Gus Osborn said.
Thomas counted out the money. The eleven double eagles clinked on the counter, each sound twisting in his gut. He’d borrowed too much money from the bank. He was risking losing his farm, something he’d sworn never to do.
Gus Junior edged closer. “Sending for another bride, Mr. Greenwood?”
Thomas gritted his teeth. It was none of their business. He glanced at the boy and said, “You think a man should give up trying if he fails the first time?”
Gus Osborn frowned at his son. “Of course not. I’ll send this at once.”
“You do that.” Thomas spun around and strode off.
“Mr. Greenwood!” Gus Junior called after him.
Thomas whirled back. What was it now? The boy was a pest. The only reason Gus Junior got away with his gossiping was that his father had instilled in him such polite manners that people were mollified by them. And of course there was the fact there was no one else in Gold Crossing to ride out with messages.
“If you are looking for Mrs. Greenwood...err... Miss Jackson—I don’t rightly know what she’s called now—she is no longer at the doc’s house. The doc came back from Desperation Hill yesterday. He declared she’s all fine and dandy. She is at the Imperial Hotel now. Mr. Langley expects you to pay her bill.”
Thomas nodded, grunted something in response. He hurried out to the Imperial Hotel, his footsteps thudding on the boardwalk as he jumped from porch to porch in his haste to see Charlotte. He pulled the double doors open and stormed through, as impatient as on that first day, when he’d come to collect his bride.
Two heads bent together at one of the oak tables in the lounge. An elegant, jet-black upsweep, huddled next to a masculine cut in dishwater brown. In front of Thomas’s stunned eyes, Art Langley appeared to be drooling over Charlotte Fairfax, and Charlotte was swooning beside the richest man in Gold Crossing, as if she were already a free woman.
A new sensation, an altogether unpleasant one, surged within Thomas. He’d felt faint stirrings of something similar as a boy, when he’d watched his parents dote on his brothers the way they never doted on him, but those were pale imitations compared to the claws of jealousy that now sank into his gut.
Thomas strode up to the pair. Where were the chaperones when you needed them? He’d been looking forward to telling Charlotte that he’d sent for her sister, but now the information remained locked up inside him. If people in town thought he’d ordered himself another bride, it might help salvage a shred of his pride.
Charlotte jumped up. Her eyes were sparkling and her cheeks dimpling. Excitement shone in every inch of her lovely features.
“Thomas,” she cried out. “Where have you been?”
“Went to Flagstaff.”
“Please, sit down.” She gestured at the chair opposite her, where Art Langley was already rising, his lanky frame unfolding like a puppet on a string. “Art was just about to get back to work,” she added.
Thomas took the seat. He bounced his hat against his thigh. Art Langley winked—yes, winked—at Charlotte before returning to stand behind the counter. He picked up a deck of cards, shuffled them, spread a selection over the counter. Thomas gave an indignant huff. Art was just about to get back to work, Charlotte had said. Was playing solitaire now called work?
“Tell me about your trip,” Charlotte prompted him.
Thomas stopped scowling at Art Langley and groped in his mind for something to tell her about Flagstaff. He mentioned the patches of snow that glittered at the top of the mountain. He told her it was one of the biggest towns on the railroad west. Of course, the Gold Crossing spur came on a different line, from the south, out of Phoenix Junction.
Then he ran out of things to say.
They couldn’t have been talking more than five minutes when Miss Gladys Hayes appeared. She lowered her ample frame into a chair at the next table. Once she had settled there, she pulled out a half-finished sweater from her small carpet bag and soon had the knitting needles clicking. Every few seconds, she cast a beady eye at them, all fired up to do her chaperone duty.
Thomas let his gaze shuttle to Art Langley, who was flipping over his cards, and then he slid it back again to Miss Hayes. He was about to ask the grouchy spinster why she’d failed to interfere when Art had been as good as devouring Charlotte in public, but then the woman piped up, as if she could read his mind. Thomas shuddered at the thought.
“Mr. Langley works here. He has a reason to be here. A reason other than romantic aspirations.”
Romantic aspirations?
The words made Thomas feel as uncomfortable as a worm on a hook. He supposed it was true. Somewhere in the hidden corners of his mind he still held on to his dreams of a wife and children of his own.
It occurred to him that this public scrutiny was what a man had to put up with when courting a woman. Only, most men who suffered through this torture of supervised small talk could expect to gain a wife at the end of it. He was losing one.
Chapter Eleven
It had been a joy to see Thomas again. Charlotte could tell his anger at her was fading. She would have liked to enjoy a longer visit with him, but Miss Gladys Hayes was a more effective deterrent against impropriety than any enraged papa with a fully loaded shotgun might have been.
When the sound of Thomas’s departing footsteps had died away, Art Langley rejoined her and continued his amazing revelation.
His big secret, the one Thomas said he’d been guarding like a squirrel hoarding nuts, was a plan to revive Gold Crossing. Art had entered into a contract with a Widows and Orphans Association in San Francisco, to bring out sickly children who would benefit from a spell in the dry desert climate.
He would convert the Imperial Hotel into an orphanage, and he was offering her an opportunity to run a school—not part of his original plan, but now that a qualified teacher had become stranded in Gold Crossing, it might be an added benefit to e
ncourage the association to send out more children.
According to Art’s thinking, widows would accompany the orphans. Prospectors starved of female company would marry the widows and, as if by miracle, Gold Crossing would have an influx of new families. That would mean increased business for the mercantile, and the growth would snowball from there.
Having seen some of the prospectors, Charlotte had her doubts the widows would want to marry them, but one never knew. The important thing was that Art’s proposal offered her a place to stay until May the following year, when it would be safe for her to return home to Merlin’s Leap.
She launched herself into a business negotiation. “Ten dollars a week.”
“Five,” Art countered.
“Ten. Where else can you get a competent teacher?”
“Seven. No school on Saturdays.”
Charlotte pursed her lips. No school on Saturdays. That meant she could visit Thomas on his farm. On Sundays, her position would require her to attend a church service, assuming that from now on there would be one held each week.
She was just about to nod her agreement when Art spoke again.
“All right. Ten dollars a week. If you sleep in the schoolhouse.”
“But it’s only one room.” She’d seen the tiny cabin, situated just past the church, a short distance apart from the row of buildings that formed the single thoroughfare of the town.
“There’s space for a cot behind the teacher’s desk. The potbellied stove has a flat top you can cook on. I’ll give you an extra blanket that you can hang up from the ceiling to separate the cot from the schoolroom.”
“Done,” Charlotte said.
They shook hands on the deal, and she hurried out to the schoolhouse to begin her preparations. She wouldn’t be forced to set out into the world after all, seeking a new safe harbor to hide in. She could remain right here in Gold Crossing. Close to Thomas. That last thought rippled through her mind, bright and sparkling. Everything suddenly seemed better. Even the ramshackle buildings along the street seemed to stand straighter.
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