Charlotte waited for him to climb up to the wagon and drive off. Then she hurried with careful steps along the muddy street to read the poster. It was a notice of a forthcoming auction. On August 31 Thomas would sell his farm.
It took no time for Charlotte to locate Gus Junior on the steps of the mercantile where he was sitting in the shade of the boardwalk canopy, writing out copies of the Informer on a wooden board balanced across his knees.
“The bank will foreclose on his farm in September,” Gus Junior informed her. “Mr. Greenwood is going to try and sell the place before then. If he can make more money than he owes to the bank, he gets to keep the difference. It will give him a grubstake.”
Gus Junior’s voice seemed to have settled in its new, mature pitch, which he obviously enjoyed demonstrating, for he kept on talking. “Mr. Greenwood just picked up a letter that came from Michigan. I guess it’s from his folks. Maybe instead of prospecting for gold he is planning to go back home.” He ran a hand across his chin in a gesture that imitated rubbing the stubble of a beard. “I’m surprised he didn’t read the letter right away. He never had a letter from Michigan before.” His expression brightened. “Maybe he’s ordered another bride.”
“How many brides does one man need?” Charlotte muttered.
“There’s a letter for you, too.” Gus Junior jerked his thumb in the direction of the open entrance of the mercantile behind him. “From Boston.”
Charlotte nodded her thanks to Gus Junior and darted inside. The envelope was addressed to Mrs. Maude Greenwood. Gus Osborn mentioned post office regulations, and mumbled something about identification, but in the end he gave the letter to her. Charlotte hurried back to the schoolhouse and sat at a desk to read the message.
The letter wasn’t from Miranda. It was from Annabel.
Dear Charlotte,
I have to write a letter, although I know it will take too long to arrive. I have no way of sending a telegram. I am a prisoner in the house and I have no money. I hope the servants will post this.
Miranda is on her way out to you. She will most likely arrive before this letter. Like you, she is traveling without funds. If she hasn’t arrived, she may have been arrested for fare-dodging, or whatever is the correct term for someone caught traveling without a ticket.
Cousin Gareth became beastly to both of us after he brought home the body of that unknown lady and had it buried in the graveyard with great ceremony, claiming it was you. Of course we knew it wasn’t you. You’ll be glad to know we cried buckets anyway.
We knew it wasn’t you right from the start, even before we got your Emily Bickerstaff letter. You see, after Cousin Gareth had reported you missing, a telegram came from the constables. He tossed it into the fireplace and took off with great haste, but the fire was not lit and we were able to retrieve the crumpled-up telegram.
It said the body was a female in her early twenties, around five and a half feet tall, weighing one hundred and thirty pounds, and she had straight light brown hair.
See? We knew it couldn’t be you. But Cousin Gareth brought her home anyway and pretended. At first, we thought it was a good thing you were declared dead, that you’d be safe for a bit, but then Cousin Gareth got the lawyers to name Miranda as the heiress to Papa’s fortune, and he became beastly, as I already mentioned above.
Miranda wanted to shoot him, but Cousin Gareth must have guessed because he hid all Papa’s muskets and pistols. In the end Miranda had no choice but to run away, just as you did. She left at night, because I couldn’t create enough of a diversion on my own to allow her to escape during the day.
Now I get to the most difficult part.
I think Cousin Gareth followed Miranda. I saw Miranda’s shadow slide across the lawn, and then another shadow went after her, and the next day Cousin Gareth was gone but all the servants were still here. That’s why I’m able to write this letter. Once I seal the envelope the servants won’t open it, and Gareth isn’t here.
I don’t know if Miranda knows she is being followed, or if she managed to shake Cousin Gareth off, or if Gareth has guessed that you are in fact Miss Maude Jackson. He probably has, and he knows you are in Gold Crossing, Arizona Territory.
It may not matter, now that the lawyers have named Miranda as the heiress. Or maybe it does. If Cousin Gareth gets his claws into Miranda and marries her, he may try to kill you, because otherwise he will have married the wrong sister. Am I making sense?
You must be careful. Please send money so I can come, too. I’m not brave enough to travel without a ticket.
Your loving sister,
Annabel
Charlotte folded the letter. A cold, sick feeling settled in the pit of her stomach. Miranda was stranded somewhere between Boston and Gold Crossing, maybe languishing in a jail or in the clutches of Cousin Gareth. Annabel was alone and frightened at Merlin’s Leap. Thomas hated her and was about to lose his land. Cousin Gareth might be on his way to Gold Crossing, perhaps to kill her or, if he had failed to force Miranda into marriage, to make another attempt at forcing her.
There was only one thing to do.
She had to marry and claim her inheritance.
Slowly, with an odd sense of calm flowing through her, Charlotte made her way to the Imperial Hotel. The sun was shining bright in the sky again, the heat scorching. The ground had stopped steaming. The drying mud had cracked to form pretty patterns, like the scales on alligator skin.
Her eyes took a moment to adjust as she stepped out of the sunshine into the shadowed lobby where the shutters were closed against the heat. Gus Junior was standing behind his newspaper stall. The latest headline on his banner said Schoolteacher Dismissed in Disgrace. He was also still displaying the special issue with Gunshots and Mayhem—the Shock of Schoolteacher’s Hidden Identity.
The next headline to which she would give rise flashed through Charlotte’s mind as she walked up to Art Langley. Disgraced Schoolteacher’s Surprise Wedding.
“I need to talk to you.” She glanced back to Gus Junior, who was shamelessly craning his neck to hear every word. “In private,” she added.
Art scooped up his cards, stacked them on the counter and jerked his head toward the back. Charlotte followed him into his private quarters. The living room was a surprise, with large, colorful oil paintings of Western landscapes hanging on the walls, and Native artifacts displayed in glass cabinets.
The furniture was elegant, feminine. It crossed her mind that Art Langley might once have had a wife. Charlotte wondered how he’d feel about getting another one. She sat down across him in a padded, bowlegged chair and said, “I have a business proposition for you.”
Chapter Seventeen
Thomas sat at the kitchen table and stared at the letter that had arrived from Michigan. He recognized his mother’s handwriting on the envelope. He’d been sitting there, hat propped on his head, mud caked on his boots, his coat still buttoned up, ever since he returned from taking Charlotte back into town.
All his life, he’d wanted to know.
And now he was afraid to open the letter.
A horse cantered up outside, hoof beats drumming. It was becoming quite a traffic junction, his isolated homestead. Thomas felt his stomach clench as he waited for someone to burst in through the door with some further calamity. Instead, he heard a polite, calm knock.
“Mr. Greenwood?”
He recognized the new, masculine voice of Gus Junior. “Come in.”
Gus Junior entered. He was starting to look quite grown-up. Short and squat like his father, his shoulders had padded out and his arms thickened with muscle.
“Mr. Langley sent this for you. Says it’s very urgent.” Gus Junior handed him a folded piece of paper.
Thomas took it. The letter was not sealed. It appeared to be a page hastily torn from a pad of hotel receipts. He unfol
ded the paper, scanned the few words scrawled on it and lifted his gaze to Gus Junior. “Did you read it?”
A smile drifted across the boy’s face, rueful and amused at the same time. “I’m a newspaper man. Can’t let a scoop pass by.”
“Will you print it?”
Gus Junior hesitated. His expression softened in an oddly understanding look for someone so young. “I’ll only print it if you turn up. Otherwise I’ll just write up something about the wedding. Mr. Langley is inviting everyone in town for a reception at the hotel. The newspaper is supposed to comment on what kind of dresses the ladies wear and what kind of food is served. And to say that the bride looked radiant.”
Thomas nodded. His mind filled with the image of Charlotte, how she had looked when she stood beside him on the porch of the Imperial Hotel, her body trembling with fear, her eyes wide with terror as she spoke her wedding vows in front of the preacher. She’d been beautiful then. The most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
He gave Gus Junior a drink of water, helped the boy to draw a bucketful of water from the well for his mustang. Such a beautiful horse, Thomas thought as he watched the animal bend its head and drink. Charlotte would like something similar. It would be good for her to have a horse of her own.
When the thud of hooves had faded after the departing messenger, Thomas sat back down at the table. His eyes lingered on Art Langley’s note.
Charlotte Fairfax needs a husband. I’ve agreed to a marriage of convenience. Strictly a business arrangement. If you want to claim your bride, come to the church at one o’clock tomorrow afternoon.
In his mind, Thomas listed every objection.
Charlotte was all wrong. Small and fragile and unused to hard work.
No, his heart shouted. She is learning. She’d made friends with the chickens. She’d even milked the cow. She had helped him tend the crops. She could produce edible meals. No one was born to a role in life. Everyone had to learn and adapt.
Charlotte would suffocate in the heat. She’d get lonely and bored. She’d grow old before her time with hard toil and childbirth. She’d lose her health and her will to live, and die of exhaustion.
No reason for it to happen, his heart protested. The doc’s wife was small, and she liked living in an isolated desert town. Dottie Timmerman had borne six children and it had caused her no harm. She’d worked hard all her life, not just as a mother, but as a nurse. During the boomtown days, she’d helped the doc set broken bones and take out bullets and patch up bodies bloodied in saloon fights and mine accidents.
Charlotte would be dissatisfied with him. He’d have no home to offer her. He’d have to take to the road, find a job. She’d learn to hate him. Hate was his destiny. He was born from hate and would carry the burden of it until he died.
Thomas found no strength in his heart to dispute the final argument. He reached for the letter on the table. He weighed the envelope in his hand, lifted it to his face. He recognized the scent of rose water, preserved in the thick paper, even after a week in the mail satchel. His heart seemed to cease beating as he tore open the flap.
There were two sheets, crammed with writing. The first page had a greeting on top.
Dear Thomas
Was it the first time those words had been addressed to him? His eyes skimmed the lines of text. Family news. Weddings. Children born. It was signed off “Your mother Evelyn.”
The second sheet had no greeting. The ink was faded, as if the words had been written long ago. He guessed his mother had written the first page, had shown it to her husband and then slipped the second page in before sealing the envelope.
Your father was from Russia. His name was Grigory. I never knew his last name. He came one day, asked to sleep in the barn. He stayed for two weeks, working in the fields against his keep. Then he moved on. I told him to leave. I was too afraid to let him stay.
You were born nine months later. When your father returned from the goldfields you were already knee-high. It was clear that you couldn’t be his son. Not just the timing, but the way you looked. We are both small, with dark hair and brown eyes. You were big for your age even then, and you had fair hair and blue eyes. When you got older, your eyes became more gray than blue.
My husband was furious to find you in the house. I feared for my life. So I lied. I lied that I had been taken by force one night by the Russian after he got drunk and caught me on my way across the yard in the darkness. I said that was the reason he’d gone away, for fear of being hanged for his crime.
I had not allowed for my husband’s dark, brooding temper. He would not let the matter be. He spoke to people who’d known Grigory, got them to describe him in detail, and he went off looking for him. He was away for two months. When he came back, he seemed calmer, and he let me keep you.
I believe he killed your father. Because I was a coward, too afraid to tell the truth, an innocent man was killed. The man I loved. For I loved your father. I loved him from the moment I first saw him. And he died because of me.
The guilt has consumed me ever since. I love you, Thomas, my son, my child. I know that I’ve never shown you my love. Partly it is because I could never look at you without being reminded of my guilt. Partly it is because I was afraid of my husband’s rage if I showed you any affection.
He knew, Thomas. He knew that I’d lied. And yet he took his revenge out on Grigory. He wanted to punish me, not just for my adultery, but for the feelings I had for another man. He might have wielded the knife, but I was the murderer. I killed your father by loving him and then not admitting to the truth.
I hope that one day you will forgive me.
I hope that one day you will be loved.
For you deserve so much love, Thomas. You deserve all the love I left you without by making you into an outcast in our family. For my own protection I pretended that you were an unwanted child, born of violence and hatred, not a true child of mine, not a true brother to your brothers, worthy of being loved.
But you are, Thomas. You are worthy of being loved.
And I love you, my son. I love you more than I can put into words.
There was no signature. The paper had two small dark circles on it Thomas took as marks from teardrops. He blinked, added a few similar marks of his own. He folded the faded letter, went to the bookshelf in the corner of the room and slipped the single sheet inside his Bible.
A child had to take what was given to him.
A grown man could make his own decisions.
If he had the courage, he could choose to love.
And hope and pray that he’d be loved in return.
* * *
A crowd had gathered outside the church. Orphans were kicking pebbles along the dusty ground. Adults stood talking in clusters. Charlotte avoided meeting anyone’s eyes as she walked past them on Art Langley’s arm. He’d come by the schoolhouse to fetch her. She wore what she always wore out in public on important occasions—her green skirt and her white blouse, but today both were freshly laundered.
Someone had decorated the church with colored streamers. Doc Timmerman, tall and elegant in a gray suit, sat in the front pew beside his wife. Dottie wore a lemon yellow gown and a straw hat which appeared to have a bird’s nest complete with eggs perched upon it.
Behind the altar, Reverend Eldridge was leafing through the parish register and looking puzzled. When he saw her approach with Art, the preacher stepped forward. Unlike her first wedding, when he’d worn denim trousers, he was dressed all in black. Or mostly in black, for his feet were encased in thick red socks. Charlotte peeked past him. She could see no sign of the missing shoes.
“Would you like to invite the people inside?” Art asked her.
She shook her head. “I’d rather keep it private while we speak our vows.” She gestured at Dottie and her husband. “Expect, of course, the witnesses.”<
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The preacher picked up his prayer book and adjusted his spectacles. They took their positions, and the preacher launched into a long sermon in a sonorous voice. How different her first wedding had been! She’d been full of fear, facing an unknown future with a stranger. Now a single-minded purpose ruled her thoughts.
Reverend Eldridge lowered his book. He studied her, a benign smile on his wrinkled face. “You remind me of another bride I wedded recently.” Appearing flustered, he searched for something in his pockets. “I seem to have lost the card with your details.”
Art Langley cleared his throat. “My mistake. I forgot to bring the card.” He leaned closer to the reverend. “Would you have a blank one?”
The preacher shuffled in his red socks around the altar, searched beneath cloth and came back with a blank card. He lifted it to Art’s face and ran his finger along the empty lines. “You write the bride’s name here, and the groom’s name here.”
Art glanced back at the Timmermans. “Anyone have a pencil?”
A knot formed in Charlotte’s stomach. She recalled observing her father deal with business associates. Those kind of delaying tactics usually meant one intended to renegotiate the terms.
Art strode off to the entrance. “Anyone have a pencil?”
Gentlemen searched in their pockets. Ladies peered into their reticules. Eventually, Timothy Perkins was dispatched to fetch one from Gus Osborn at the mercantile. Gus had refused to leave the telegraph unmanned during office hours. Only one or two telegrams came to Gold Crossing each week, but he took his duties seriously.
Timothy returned with a pencil. Art took his time filling in the card.
The reverend took the completed card and smiled at Charlotte. “You resemble another bride I wedded recently.” He studied the card. “Do you, Arthur Langley—”
Art burst into a racking cough. “It’s the dust,” he wheezed. “I need air.” He hurried back to the entrance, coughed looked around and coughed again. Finally he came back. There was a worried frown on his face.
His Mail-Order Bride Page 22