by Nerys Leigh
“What if Jesse’s not here?” Louisa said. “What if he’s changed his mind?”
“Wouldn’t surprise me,” Jo muttered, and immediately regretted it.
Lizzy shot her a reproving look she deserved and wrapped her arm around Louisa. “He absolutely wouldn’t. He must be hidden behind the others or maybe he’s been delayed or something. He’ll be here, I know it. No man in possession of all his faculties would pass up the chance to marry you. You’re one of the nicest people I know, and so pretty. Isn’t that right, Jo?”
If only men didn’t break their promises. “He’d have to be an idiot all right.” The train jolted to a halt and her stomach lurched with it. Swallowing her nerves, she rose from the seat. “Might as well get this over with.”
Passengers milled around the packed earth platform outside, stretching their legs while they had the chance. Jo paid them little attention. She could see the group of men they’d been watching from inside the train through the crowd, but she didn’t pay them much attention either. Instead, she took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, repeating the action three times, standing straighter with each breath.
Just another performance. She’d done it thousands of times before, this was no different. She was pretty. She could make anyone believe anything she said.
Breathe.
Josephine Carter, pure and innocent mail order bride, here to marry Gabriel Silversmith.
Breathe.
She was excited to meet her intended and start her new life in California.
Breathe.
She was ready.
Pasting a smile onto her face, she weaved her way through the crowd to the small group of men. Lizzy and Louisa followed, and after them, Amy and Sara. Jo was glad they were all there together. It made her feel a little less alone.
There were two older men in the waiting group. The much shorter and slightly rounder of the two walked forward, smiling. “Ladies, welcome to Green Hill Creek. I’m Pastor Jones and this is my wife, Irene.”
Jo remembered something about the pastor of the local church being instrumental in matching brides with the women-starved men of the west, although she hadn’t been too bothered with the specifics. All she’d needed was the whole process to be fast, and it had been. Two letters exchanged with Gabriel, hop on a train, a week to get here. Less than a month in total. It was close, but she should be able to pull it off, as long as Gabriel wasn’t too knowledgeable about the development of babies.
Mrs. Jones smiled. “We’re so thrilled to welcome you all. I’m sure you will be happy in our little town.”
Jo stifled a sigh, keeping her smile more or less in place. It was time to face the rest of her life.
As the pastor explained how he would introduce each of them to their future husbands, with the weddings following in the church, Jo studied each of the waiting men. One of them was obviously Lizzy’s Richard, with his blond hair. Two of the dark haired men were tall, clean-shaven, and very, very handsome. Sadly, they also looked too young to be the man she’d come to marry. They must have been Sara’s Daniel and Amy’s Adam. Jo was happy for them, she truly was, but that left just one man.
Gabriel Silversmith was not a great deal taller than Jo. His dark hair was slicked back and he might have been handsome, in a rugged sort of way, but it was hard to tell beneath the beard. Jo was not fond of beards. At least it wasn’t overly bushy. In Jo’s opinion, the bushier the beard, the less appealing the man. She’d have to persuade him to shave it, or at least give it a thorough trim. She didn’t think she could live with all that hair scratching her face whenever he kissed her.
Lizzy was the first to be introduced, and she greeted Richard with her usual enthusiasm. Next, Pastor Jones introduced Louisa to the other older man in the group, explaining that he was Jesse’s father and would be taking her to meet him. Sara met Daniel next, and just about melted onto the platform when he took her hand. Jo hoped he didn’t disappoint her. Sara hadn’t stopped talking about him for the entire journey.
And then Pastor Jones said, “Josephine Carter?”
This was it.
“Miss Carter, this is Gabriel Silversmith.”
Gabriel stepped forward and smiled. “Pleasure to meet you, Miss Carter.”
Time to begin a performance that might last the rest of her life. It was an exhausting thought.
Jo offered her hand, bobbing a curtsey when he took it. “The pleasure is mine, Gabriel.” Then she winked.
The forwardness of the move seemed to throw him for a moment, which was her intention, and then his smile widened. So he wasn’t intimidated by a strong woman. Not ideal, but she could adjust her plans accordingly. There wasn’t a man alive who couldn’t be manipulated, once she worked out how they thought.
It wouldn’t be so bad. She could make it work.
Chapter 2
The wedding went without a hitch, other than Amy pretending to faint on the walk to the church. The fake swoon wasn’t bad, for an amateur, although she went down in an awkward way that must have hurt her arm. The first rule of the feigned collapse was to do it where there was either somewhere soft to land or a convenient man to catch you. If neither were possible, there were ways to fall without hurting oneself. It convinced everyone else, however, the result being that she and Adam went to his house so she could rest.
Jo couldn’t help being curious as to why Amy didn’t want to get married immediately after coming all the way from New York, but she didn’t say anything. Confidence game etiquette dictated you never interfered with another person’s swindle. Unless it interfered with yours, of course.
So only three couples were married in the church. Jo and Gabriel were first, and she even tried out a kiss on Gabriel after Pastor Jones pronounced them husband and wife, immediately regretting it when the chewing tobacco on his breath washed over her. For a moment she thought she might be sick right there in the church, but thankfully it passed.
On the way out of town on Gabriel’s buckboard they were stopped by an older couple who he introduced as Mr. and Mrs. Goodwin. Mrs. Goodwin gave them a covered serving dish that seemed to make Gabriel exceedingly happy, if the look on his face and the profuse thanks he gave her was anything to go by. Jo wondered what kind of food could inspire such joy, although the dish did smell delicious. Strong odours often nauseated her nowadays, but this one made her mouth water. At least it gave her something to look forward to.
The journey to Jo’s new home managed to feel as if it lasted for days and minutes at the same time, although in reality it was just over an hour. Gabriel’s buckboard was bumpy and uncomfortable, and after a while downright torture, given her developing need to relieve herself what felt like every few minutes. She’d been told this was normal during pregnancy. Jo didn’t like it.
Gabriel, she quickly came to realise, was not much of a conversationalist. He answered her questions but rarely asked any of his own, and after a while they settled into an uncomfortable silence. Since she hadn’t been overly detailed in the two letters she’d written to him, she’d expected at least a little bit of interest. Maybe he was just shy, although he didn’t seem so. Just quiet.
So she watched the scenery pass by and hoped she could hold out until they arrived at their destination. A thought came to her, did they have privies here? Or would she just find a hole in the ground? The idea made her shudder. Maybe staying in New York and risking destitution and starvation would have been the better option.
The road out of town became a track through farmland to a bridge over the river. The track ran out when they reached the foothills, becoming a set of ruts over the open ground. It was all very pretty, but it did little to calm her nerves about what she would find once they arrived.
Eventually they rounded an outcrop of rock and came within sight of their destination. Jo knew it was such because Gabriel said, “There she is,” meaning, she assumed, the house. Although house was far too generous a word for it. Shack, hut, hovel or shed would all have been suitable,
and more accurate, alternatives. This was the home of a man who had described himself in his advertisement as ‘the owner of a productive gold mine’? Maybe he had another house somewhere else, one that didn’t look like a pig would be insulted at being asked to live there.
“It’s... lovely,” she said, her practised skills of deception strained almost to breaking by even those two words.
He brought the buckboard to a halt in front of what she assumed was a barn. Or maybe it was the house. She looked between it and the other building across the earth yard. If she was going just on attractiveness, it could have gone either way, but a sagging clothesline was strung between the corner of the other building and a post so she assumed that must be the house. You’d never dry clothes by a barn. Would you?
“You can take your bag inside,” Gabriel said, nodding at what was probably the house before climbing down. “I’ll bring your trunk in when I’ve unhitched Fred. I reckon you’ll need to find space for your things, but you can move whatever you want. Don’t bother me what you do.”
She waited for him to come around the buckboard to help her down but instead he began unhitching the horse. Sighing, she climbed down and heaved her valise from behind the seat.
She cast a glare at his back and headed for the house, stopping halfway there when the biggest dog she’d ever seen plodded around the side of the building and paused to stare at her. After a few seconds, he seemed to realise he was meant to be doing something about the intruder and gave a half-hearted woof.
Jo glanced back at Gabriel. “Um, the dog...”
“That’s Brutus. Don’t mind him, he’s harmless.”
Brutus?
She couldn’t help wondering if her new marriage was going to come to a sudden, bloody end as she resumed her walk to the house, mauled by Brutus while Gabriel unhitched the horse, oblivious. The massive dog sauntered to meet her at the door, gave her a sniff while her heart pounded out of her chest, apparently decided she was acceptable, wagged his tail once, and sauntered off towards Gabriel.
Jo watched him go, shrugged, and turned back to the door. She put her luggage down to push it open, unsurprised to find it unlocked. Who would try to steal anything from this place? Especially with a bear-sized dog guarding it. Squinting into the gloom, she walked inside and looked around, which didn’t take long.
The entire building was perhaps twelve feet by fifteen feet. A cupboard, some shelves, a stove, and a table and four chairs indicated the kitchen area in one corner. No sink, but what was she expecting? A bed sat against the wall at the far end, clothing hanging from hooks beside it. A couple of bookcases held various items but no books. There was a washstand, a chest of drawers, two upholstered chairs and a few sundry other items of furniture. And that was it.
Jo turned in a slow circle, wondering if she’d missed anything. She hadn’t. Her stomach dropped at the thought of having to undress and do her ablutions with no privacy whatsoever, before she remembered that after tonight she wouldn’t have to worry about that anyway. A wave of nausea swept over her, from her condition or the thought of being intimate with her new husband, she wasn’t sure. Her bladder also chose that moment to reassert its needs.
Leaving her valise in the place she would now be calling home, if she could ever bring herself to call it that, she walked back outside. Brutus had evidently returned to wherever he came from and was nowhere in sight. Gabriel was still by the buckboard.
“Where is the...” she waved her hands ineffectually before giving up and resigning herself to her lowly surroundings, “privy?”
Gabriel looked up from disconnecting the harness from the horse. “Round back, ’cross the field.”
“Thank you.”
The privy, which turned out to be a three foot square rickety looking building across an expanse of scrubby grass behind the house, contained a plank of wood with a hole in it. She didn’t want to know what was underneath.
After relieving herself, she returned to the house. Gabriel was still taking care of the horse, who apparently warranted more attention than his new wife, so she hoisted her valise onto the bed and began to unpack.
She shook out a skirt and looked around for somewhere to hang it. All the hooks on the walls were taken, so she slumped onto the bed and dropped her head into her hands.
What was she doing here? She should have stayed in New York instead of coming to this shack in the middle of nowhere. What had she been thinking? She’d been thinking that she had no way to support herself once her pregnancy started to show, even less when she actually had the baby.
Heaving a sigh, she stood back up. She was doing what she had to, for her child. And if that meant becoming a mail order bride, marrying a man she had no feelings for and living in the wilderness, she would do it.
She’d moved Gabriel’s clothing from a few hooks and unpacked most of her belongings by the time he came into the house. She thought he might object as he looked at the clothes, but he simply took the serving dish he carried to the stove and set it on the top.
“I’ll get this heated up then we can eat. Mrs. Goodwin’s beef stew is the best for miles. You should ask her for the recipe.”
A recipe alone wasn’t going to fix her non-existent cooking skills. “Uh, yes. Good idea.”
Silence reigned while she finished unpacking her things and he got the stove going. Was this how it was always going to be, with her wishing the baby would hurry up and be born so she at least had someone to talk to?
When her valise was empty she pushed it under the bed and went to sit at the table. “Have you lived here all your life?”
Gabriel glanced back at her. “Nope. Lived over in Texas before I heard there was still gold to be had in California, if a man knew where to look. Reckoned it was worth a try. Been here ’bout two years.”
“And how is it going?” She meant his search for gold, but she wasn’t going to come right out and say it.
He shrugged. “Fair. Town’s pleasant enough. Found some gold at my claim. Not enough to retire yet, but it’ll come.”
She hoped so. She didn’t want to entertain the thought of having to live here for the rest of her life. “I’m sure it will. How do you find the gold? You said you do placer mining, but I don’t know what that is.”
Having placed Mrs. Goodwin’s serving dish into the stove, he sat opposite Jo at the table and pulled a small pouch from his pocket. “The gold gets washed down from the mountains in the stream and I find it. Sometimes it’s in the dirt too, but I haven’t found any like that. I started with a pan, but I’ve got a rocker now.” He took a wad of chewing tobacco from the pouch and stuffed it into his cheek, leaning back in his chair. “Mining’s real man’s work, but maybe one day I’ll take you up there and show you.”
“I’d like that.” She wanted to see where the gold came from. She liked gold. Or at least, the idea of gold.
He nodded, his eyes travelling down to her chest and back up again.
It was okay, she told herself, even as she suppressed a shudder. He was her husband and he was allowed to look at her. To want her. Besides, that was her plan. Marry now, allow him to... do what husbands did, and seven months later either hope he wasn’t too good at counting or convince him the birth was early. Simple. She’d done the first part, now she just had to do the second.
He leaned forward.
“Would you show me around?” she blurted out. “It would be good for me to know where everything is.” The second part could wait until after supper, at least.
He stared at her before sitting back. “Sure.”
The tour didn’t take long, despite Jo’s attempts to stretch it out. There wasn’t much to see. Two barns, an enclosure for the chickens, another for the goat and two horses, and that was it.
“I’ll leave Fred with you when I’m away at my claim,” he said, “case you need to get into town.”
Fred and Jed, the two bay geldings, looked identical to Jo, but she assumed he knew which was which.
“
How long will you be gone?”
“It takes me more ’n an hour to get up there. I’ve got me a cabin with a bed there, but I can’t leave the animals, what with them needing feeding and looking after, but now you’re here I can stay away for longer. I figured I’d spend four days there and three here every week.”
She’d get four days by herself. She wasn’t yet sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
He gave her a smile that approached a smirk. “’Less you think you can’t go that long without me.”
She fought the urge to roll her eyes. “I’m sure I’ll keep busy.”
When they returned to the house, the most delicious smell Jo had ever experienced filled the room. The compulsion to close her eyes and fill her lungs with the aroma was irresistible.
“Mrs. Goodwin’s cooking,” Gabriel said, going to the stove. “There ain’t nothing better, believe me.”
Jo would have called her first bite of the beef stew heavenly, but the word wouldn’t have come close to doing it justice. It was, quite simply, the most mouth-wateringly delicious thing she’d ever tasted. She chewed slowly, savouring the rich flavour to its fullest extent before swallowing.
“That’s...” She tried in vain to think of a word adequate to describing what she’d just eaten. “I’ve never tasted anything like that.”
A woman who created food like that could rule the world. Maybe Mrs. Goodwin would teach Jo how to cook, if she asked.
“Would’ve taken Mrs. Goodwin for my wife, if she hadn’t already been married,” Gabriel said around a mouthful of food, no hint of jest in his voice.
Did Mrs. Goodwin have children? Was Jo too old to be adopted? “Um, just to warn you, I can’t cook like this.”
He shovelled another forkful into his mouth. “Long as it’s edible.”
Edible. She could probably do edible.