The Bartered Bride (The Brides Book 3)

by Lena Goldfinch

  It would be better—for his peace of mind—if he didn’t.

  * * *

  After her late breakfast, Annie heard Jem calling down the stairs for her to come up. The sense of urgency about him sent her scurrying from the kitchen and up the stairs.

  She spied him disappearing into her room and followed him inside.

  He pointed to a beautiful midnight blue trunk with brass fittings sitting on the rug at the foot of her bed.

  She looked at him, trying to recapture even just a tiny bit of that moment when they’d shared that oddly stirring gaze out back behind the house. The one where she’d felt they’d shared souls.

  Though she wanted nothing more than to experience that same sense of closeness again, she read no signs of openness in Jem’s face now.

  It was like losing something.

  “Take anything you like.” There was pain in his voice. “It’s yours now.”

  But Ben, she thought, tugging at her trouser leg and putting on a scowl like Ben’s.

  Jem actually smiled, what she could see through his full beard. His eyes lit with a wry flash of humor.

  “I’ll take care of Ben,” he promised. “He won’t like it, but it’ll do him good to shake him up a bit.”

  Annie wondered if Jem realized what he’d said and how it could as easily apply to him. She’d married a man clearly still grieving for his dead wife. He’d loved Lorelei. He still loved her.

  Annie chewed thoughtfully at the inside of her bottom lip, pondering the situation she’d gotten caught up in.

  Jem tugged on the brim of an imaginary hat, then seemed surprised that he wasn’t wearing one. He left quickly, apparently wanting to get away from Lorelei’s trunk of clothing as quickly as he could.

  Annie opened the lid and took out dress after dress and laid them on her bed. They all looked far too pretty to alter, but one glance told her she’d definitely have to cut them up. She didn’t even have to hold them up against her shoulders to know they were too long for her. Lorelei had been much taller. Her figure had been fuller. More womanly. Annie was quite aware of her own distressingly juvenile stature and slight build, so that wasn’t saying much.

  Upon reaching the bottom of the trunk, she lifted out an unframed photograph of a young lady.

  A wedding photo, likely.

  The paper was thick in her hands, glossy and smooth. The rusty brown tones of the daguerreotype were almost as lovely as a watercolor painting. They invited the imagination to paint in other colors: a powdery blue backdrop, pretty rose-colored ribbons, lots of airy white lawn and lace, more powdery blue and white in the oval cameo at her neck...

  Lorelei.

  It had to be her. Her dark hair curled in rings like Mae’s, except hers were upswept in a decidedly more womanly fashion. Her expression was dreamy and very romantic, but a spark of intelligence lit her eyes. A rather mysterious smile curved her lips. She looked happy. Young. Like she was looking forward to a new life.

  Annie set the photo on her side table, all too aware that she’d never had an image like that taken of her. And what would be the point of it? She didn’t look like that and never would.

  That was a picture to give to a man in love.

  Lorelei stared up at her, so alive. Annie flipped the image facedown and turned resolutely to the dresses.

  She ran her hands down the length of each full skirt. What wonderful fabrics. So colorful. So feminine. Many decorated in flowers. One midnight blue cotton frock—a color Lorelei must have favored—was liberally spotted with fanciful daisies and bees. And—Annie caught her breath—one very striking red day dress.

  But no.

  She should take the least pretty one. This brown skirt paired with that simple white lawn shirtwaist would do. They were obviously meant for working on a ranch. Plain, serviceable. The sheer lawn fabric cool enough for summer. Nothing special.

  Annie tested the fabric of the skirt between her fingertips. It was heavy with quality, a tight weave. Worn from many washings, but only so much as to make it more comfortably soft.

  Brown.

  So as to disappear into the world.

  Become nothing.

  Tempting in its own way. That was what she always did. It made life simpler—felt right.

  So why did she keep looking over at the red dress? The one that was a rich dark cherry red with cheerful buttercups sprinkled all over it. A dress to be seen in. To feel pretty in.

  Lorelei must’ve been real pretty.

  Her picture had told Annie that.

  But then, pictures could only say so much. Lorelei’s clothes said more.

  She had enjoyed life, enjoyed pretty things. She’d lived. She’d loved. She’d had a full life.

  You could have a full life too, Lorelei seemed to whisper from her own past. Take it, take life. You only get one.

  Heaven was a gift for later.

  Life was a gift for now.

  But she should be grateful for what she had, shouldn’t she? She had breath now to live her life. Their situations might not be ideal—hers and Jem’s—but she did “have” Jem and Mae now. The family that had once been Lorelei’s.

  It seemed logical that taking anything more from Lorelei would be wrong. That made the most sense. She’d already taken so much.

  And yet...

  And yet Annie had the strangest prompting within her to choose the pretty cherry red dress. It seemed right.

  Whatever dresses she didn’t use would just go right back in a trunk. They’d be shut up again for who knew how long. Maybe until Mae was a young woman.

  Annie scooped up the red dress, held it up before her. She crossed to the corner, padding over the rug’s cushiony softness in her bare feet, and looked at herself in the mirror. The same tall mirror that had distressed her so much earlier. Now it welcomed her. When had her hair turned that rich warm brown color? It seemed the light from the window skipped off it, bringing out a brighter sheen of gold.

  Or maybe it was the buttercups bringing out a golden tone?

  She felt a movement behind her—felt eyes on her—and turned.

  There was Mae, just inside the door.

  “Pretty,” Mae said, staring at her with eyes as wide as buttons.

  Annie nodded and smoothed the waistband against her. Yes, it’s a pretty dress.

  “Put it on.”

  Annie nodded again. I think I will. She paused and made a cutting motion with her fingers. But I have to cut it down first.

  Mae wrinkled up her nose, apparently displeased with her silent answer.

  “Now,” she demanded. To some, her tone might’ve seemed disrespectful, but Annie could see a little dimple showing in Mae’s rounded cheek. And the little girl’s eyes twinkled in a playful way.

  All right. Annie spun her finger, indicating that Mae should turn around. Then, as quick as that, Annie changed into the dress and tossed the boy’s clothes behind her bed. The cool surprisingly airy fabric fell around her like a dream. Annie had many, many years of sewing and alterations behind her from working for the Ruskins. Her practiced eye told her the dress needed quite a lot of work before it fit properly on her smaller frame. This was going to require more than a bit of tucking here and there. Annie quickly catalogued what needed doing: shortening the waist, a significant hemming, and other possibly ambitious things, like reshaping the long sleeves into a shorter cupped sleeve—but it was lovely nonetheless.

  In the meantime, she supposed she could simply cinch the waist in with a length of wide ribbon... Lorelei had owned plenty of that. Lots of colors to choose from. Lots of pretty stockings too.

  What she lacked was a single pair of outdoor shoes or boots.

  There were none in the trunk, only one pair of pink ladies’ house shoes that swam on Annie’s feet. For now they’d have to do. For inside anyway.

  Had Jem not saved any of Lorelei’s shoes? Or perhaps there was another trunk in the attic?

  Annie couldn’t very well produce the words to ask him. Ev
en if she could, she doubted she’d feel comfortable asking for more. It had obviously been very difficult for Jem to retrieve this one trunk and give it to her. She’d simply have to brush off her old boots so she’d have something to wear outdoors.

  Her thoughts were arrested when she noticed Mae standing beside her. She took Annie’s elbow in hand and led her over to the stool before the mirror.

  “Sit,” Mae said, tugging until Annie obediently sat down, giggling at the little girl’s imperious tone. There was a certain sweet innocence about it all that she found so endearing and adorable.

  Had she been as confident as Mae at that age? Never.

  Had she ever been that confident in her life?

  Truth be told, she still wasn’t. Maybe someday she’d feel brave enough to act in such a way. It seemed very far off.

  Mae gently lifted Annie’s braid into her hands, for a moment appearing very much like a proper lady’s maid—or what Annie envisioned a proper lady’s maid must look like.

  She waited mystified as Mae untied the ribbon holding her braid together, then threaded her tiny fingers through her hair, loosening each strand until the full weight of it hung free, wavy and full over Annie’s shoulder. Mae then scooped it up in her hands and splayed it out across Annie’s back.

  “Pretty,” she pronounced with some satisfaction, as if she’d been planning this event for quite some time. She smoothed her hands down Annie’s hair at first, then bounced it up into her cupped palms, playing with its texture and fullness. “Soft,” she said approvingly.

  Annie looked at herself in the mirror, trying to see herself as Mae saw her, a full-grown woman. Was her hair pretty? In a child’s eyes, perhaps it was. To her, all she saw was her face jutting out. It looked too bare, too exposed. Uncomfortable.

  She never wore her hair back like this. It felt...wrong.

  It would be like walking around with nothing on at all.

  And why? She paused to ask herself. Back home in Tennessee, Ruth Ann and Coralie had often worn their hair pulled back, and she’d thought nothing of it. Except they’d looked so pretty with theirs tied back in a simple ribbon.

  She hadn’t thought their faces were too exposed. She hadn’t thought them naked or improper.

  But she felt that about herself.

  Here, just with Mae, it was fine, but she didn’t want Jem to see her face. Or Ben. Or Ray. She didn’t want anyone to see her. She’d been this way since she was little. She’d worn her same old braid—the same old way—for as long as she could remember. Mrs. Ruskin had tried a time or two to get her to wear it a different way. She’d ironed curls into Annie’s straight hair and pinned it up, but Annie had always laughed nervously and put it back the way it should be.

  She did the same now, quickly pulling her hair forward and beginning to braid it.

  “No,” Mae said, almost frantically, her hands fluttering, grabbing for Annie’s hands. “No.”

  Annie grunted in protest as the little girl pushed her hands out of the way and again arranged Annie’s hair the way she liked it, hanging loose and free down her back.

  Annie shook her head at her, wishing she could tell Mae that it wasn’t proper for a young lady to wear her hair down to her waist when there were men in the house. Perhaps Mae knew more than she imagined, for the little girl picked up the ribbon, gathered all Annie’s hair in her arms, and tried—very awkwardly, dropping pieces in the process—to tie it back at her nape.

  Annie grew utterly still.

  It wasn’t just the way Mae was doing her hair, but how Annie could see her working away at it in the mirror. How she saw her own face. How distressed she looked over such a small thing.

  Then it was like she became a new Annie, looking at herself through different eyes. Why was she so upset? Why did she feel so strongly that she couldn’t give up her braid?

  It felt like death. Like she’d die if she had to go downstairs with her hair like this, with her hair pulled back, her face exposed. Why?

  I don’t want to be seen.

  The answer came so insistently, so like someone else speaking to her—almost as if she were two entirely different people: the one who knew better, and a much smaller child on the inside who was terribly, terribly afraid.

  The woman side of her heard that voice very clearly, was surprised by the answer.

  The child inside her was near tears.

  She couldn’t—couldn’t—let them see her.

  And if no one ever sees you, a small quiet voice spoke to her, perhaps her own, how do you ever expect them to “hear” you? To love you?

  The question shook her to the core.

  She couldn’t have both.

  It didn’t work that way.

  She’d have to choose: hide or be seen.

  How could she?

  Yet she’d looked at Jem earlier, hadn’t she? She still felt the warmth of his gaze. That hadn’t been so terrible, had it?

  And she wanted so much to be heard—not by using her voice, which was impossible, but by any means. It was the thing she wanted the most, wasn’t it? The desire to be heard and listened to burned like a hot fire in her belly.

  If she wanted to be loved, if she wanted to belong—and she did, desperately—then there was one thing she needed to do: she must lay her fears down and step outside. She had to step out into the open, with her chin lifted, and allow herself to be seen.

  Annie balled her fists under the cover of her skirts. She’d sooner fall off the ox road into that rocky ravine.

  And yet...wouldn’t she want Mae to be brave if she was the grown woman sitting on this stool and not her?

  I’m scared, Father, Annie prayed silently, with a sudden fierceness that startled her. I’m scared and I can’t do it. I can’t. I can’t do it without you. Would you do it for me?

  She suspected the answer to that was a resounding no. God didn’t move people around like string puppets.

  But he cared. She’d learned that from the Bible and from every sermon she’d ever heard:

  God cares.

  He loves you.

  He wants what’s best for you.

  “God moves in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform.”

  Would you help me find my way? Annie whispered silently. Would you do something mysterious and wonderful in me?

  Was it even possible?

  She took a breath, forcing herself to sit straighter, put her shoulders back, lift her chin.

  She didn’t have the courage.

  She couldn’t do it.

  It wasn’t possible, but she was going to do it anyway. For Mae, partly, but mostly for the girl she’d always wanted to be. For the woman she suspected God had always intended her to be.

  Her stomach flipped nearly upside down at the thought of taking the stairs one at a time down to the kitchen, of walking in with her new hair. Could she?

  She gently took the ribbon from Mae’s fumbling fingers and, with a gentle smile, finished tying her hair back. It hung in a thick mass down her back, leaving her face bare.

  After that one small but terrifying leap, it was a matter of a full afternoon to transform the dress as well. As she worked, Annie noticed how Mae kept stroking the blue dress with the whimsical bees and daisies. She quickly tucked that observation away, her thoughts touching briefly on birthdays and dolls. Mostly, she wondered what the men would think when they saw her. And, even more so, what Jem would think.

  SEVENTEEN

  Annie walked into the kitchen that evening wearing something red.

  Jem had to blink a few times, because he didn’t recognize her.

  He barely recognized the dress, though it must’ve been Lorelei’s. He had a tantalizing memory of a dark red dress with yellow flowers...and something more. What was it? It hung just out of reach.

  Annie had obviously done something to it, cut it down to something completely different. Somehow stitched it up to fit her smaller frame.

  And, land’s sake, did it fit.

  He’d ha
d no idea.

  He saw Ben gawking at her too, and felt the sudden urge to stand and step between them to block the younger man’s view.

  As if Ben would look at her with any sort of interest. As if he—Jem—truly had any feelings for the woman himself. Despite that one confusing moment they’d shared out back. Where she’d touched his hand so innocently, as if she’d never touched a man’s hand before and wanted to see what it was like, but in a way that had deeply affected him. Despite that, the truth was he hadn’t even known she existed two days ago.

  He’d married her, but she was hardly his wife in any sort of real way.

  Still. He didn’t like Ben looking at her if for no other reason than he shouldn’t be gawking at a married woman that way.

  Jem cleared his throat meaningfully, and Ben gave a start. His face immediately flushed red, and he looked down at his plate and utensils as if they suddenly required all his attention. Good.

  Looking her over again, Jem couldn’t say there was anything indecent about her. She was covered up in all the ways she should’ve been. She was just—not the way she’d been before. Not dingy in the least, for one. Not a street urchin. Why, some might even say she was pretty.

  And what had she done with her hair? Her braid was no longer blocking half her face and he could make out the pleasing shape of her face. She had delicate features, a small nose and chin. Nothing like Lorelei’s fuller, more striking beauty, but a nice face. Nothing she needed to hide.

  “Annie,” he murmured by way of greeting.

  “Why, Miss Annie,” Ray said, catching sight of her as he turned, holding a cloth-lined basket filled with fragrant yeast rolls in one hand. “Don’t you look pretty?”

  There was no sign of turmoil in his expression, none that Jem noticed. So something had evidently transpired since Ray’s accusations of this morning, for he was looking at Annie with much more favor than he had previously. Jem could only conclude that he believed the story about Creed. He had obviously also determined to be more pleasant to Annie. Whether his change in attitude had anything to do with her new style of dress and her hair, Jem rather doubted, although perhaps it seemed that way to Annie.

  She stood frozen in place just inside the doorway to the kitchen, her bottom lip nipped between her teeth in a way that suggested she was mortified by the sudden attention.