The Convenient Bride Collection: 9 Romances Grow from Marriage Partnerships Formed Out of Necessity
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Well, after putting it so flatly, how could she agree without hurting his feelings? It was the first gift he’d ever brought her. “You tried.”
“Hmmm.” He rubbed the back of his neck, looking like an awkward schoolboy wondering why a girl didn’t appreciate finding his pet toad in her desk.
But then, it was sort of awkward. He didn’t know her at all. Not really. There was only one thing that could’ve been worse. “You might want to make a note not to bring me strawberries. They give me hives.”
He pulled out a kitchen chair and melted into it. “I suppose I should’ve talked to you first before I wasted money.”
She smiled at his “waste.” Her sister spent more on hats every week, and God and everyone knew Margaret didn’t need any more of those. “My nephew loves peanut brittle—he’ll enjoy it.”
“Mr. Yates told me he and your brother-in-law were in my office this morning … wanting to finalize the details on the Orchard Street property you’re selling them, but couldn’t, since neither you nor I were there. I’m surprised at the price you quoted them.”
Oh, why hadn’t she taken a bigger whiff of those daisies so she could avoid this conversation by hiding in that massive bed with her itchy eyes? Why couldn’t he have cloistered himself up in his study after walking through the door like he usually did? She had prayed her deal with Jeffrey would go through unnoticed. Neil was selling a lot of property right now to simplify his business for her, so why did Mr. Yates have to bring that one up? Her family had already rescheduled and met with Neil’s secretary an hour ago.
What if, with her first foray into making a business deal—an admittedly bad one—in a vain effort to win her sister’s elusive regard, she lost Neil’s? “I … I admit I was too hasty in letting them think I could quote them a price.”
“No, you’ve got full authority to quote a price.”
“Well, you shouldn’t have given me that authority.”
“Why’s that?” He was squinting at her as if he were measuring her expression. Could he see well enough to see how stupid she felt?
She turned her head to look out the window. Thankfully her sniffing could be blamed on the daisies. Making a mistake was a dumb reason to get teary, but she had captured so little of Neil’s regard, and a man who chose only the best workers, workers who’d take a pay cut before they entered into a bad deal on their boss’s behalf, couldn’t be happy with her rash decision. “Because I can’t be trusted. You picked the wrong business partner.”
“I wouldn’t have married you if I couldn’t trust you. And—”
“Well, I can’t be trusted to make good decisions where my family is concerned then.”
“Why’s that?”
She blew out a breath, not daring to look at him. “Because I stupidly think that one day I can gain their … their admiration. Someday they’re bound to think of me as more than an inconvenient relative.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Not sure why I care anymore anyway.”
“If they haven’t realized what a help you were to them by now, then they never will. People don’t change.”
“I can’t believe that. If so, what hope is there for me? What hope is there for …”
Us.
If something didn’t change soon, marrying Neil would become nothing more than jumping from one household that only tolerated her to another. And if she’d ruined Neil’s trust in her because of a stupid need to prove herself worthy of Margaret’s esteem, then she was every bit the fool Margaret thought her to be. “Jeffrey’s made mistakes in the past, but how can I believe he’ll never be a better man? If no one gives him a chance to prove himself, then how can he?”
“It’s not good intentions, but good character that determines the future.”
“And you’ve never had good intentions go awry?”
That seemed to shut him up. He sighed and glanced over at the peanut brittle. “I suppose I’ve done that today.” He crossed his arms. “But there’s a difference between praying for people to change and trusting them before they do.”
“Well then, you’ve made a bad decision with me.” She blinked against the warm threatening tears, thankful that Neil’s vision would keep him from seeing how ugly she could be when she tried not to cry.
“Now, Helen—”
“If Mr. Yates made the same deal with Jeffrey as I did, would you keep him on?”
Neil shrugged. “Depends on how often he’d made poor decisions. Too many times, and then the mistake becomes mine for keeping him on.”
“See—”
“But he’s my secretary, you’re my wife.”
She shrugged. “Not much difference.”
“I’m afraid you’re right about that.”
Well, she hadn’t expected him to agree so easily. Her heart sank to her knees.
“But I don’t want it to stay that way.”
Oh yes, the bed. She took a step back. “Maybe things should just stay as they are.” How could she be that close to a man who viewed her as nothing but a helper through his infirmity? Whom she would surely disappoint many times over, though he couldn’t fire her like he could Mr. Yates?
She’d never won her mother or sister’s affection, so how could she have possibly thought she’d win over a man who’d never formed much of an attachment to anyone—who for the first time in his life had messed up by taking her on as a business partner?
How had she ever thought to make him happy? “I’m … I’m tired. I need to rest.” Praying he wouldn’t follow her, she slunk into her room, stared out the window, and tried not to think about how all she’d ever been was a perpetual disappointment.
Chapter 6
Oh, how he rued keeping his mouth shut yesterday when Helen declared their marriage should remain as it was and disappeared into her room for the evening. Granted, he was exhausted, and for a small space of time, he’d let himself believe his natural reticence was a good excuse for not barging into her room immediately to straighten things out.
But after a second day of talking with Professor Larson about women, relationships, and God’s expectations of him, he’d come home planning to talk about something easy, like starting a new hobby together, not dealing with a woman’s emotions. But he’d been wrong not doing the hard thing that needed to be done.
Why had he told her people didn’t change? What a dolt he was.
Though he still didn’t trust Jeffrey, he couldn’t begrudge Helen wanting to give her nephew a second chance. So what he needed to do was help the young man want to change—just as he now desired to do for Helen’s sake.
He drew up his shoulders as Don and Margaret Abernathy’s house came into view. He was grateful Mr. Ferguson had known where his wife ran off to this morning. Why did Helen care to impress her sister’s family anyway? They treated her poorly—more so than he had last night. He sighed and slumped in his seat.
“So I take it the flowers didn’t work last night?”
He started at Mr. Ferguson’s inquiry. Had the man ever initiated a conversation with him before? Was he so prickly no one dared? “No, unfortunately the wife is allergic.”
Mr. Ferguson clicked his tongue. “Sorry for the bad advice.”
“Not bad advice. You couldn’t have known, but I should have.”
His driver stopped the team, and Neil slid down from the buggy, careful to feel for the curb he couldn’t quite see.
“Good luck,” his driver called, but then all of a sudden Mr. Ferguson was at his side, grasping his elbow.
Neil sighed. “I suppose I was kidding myself to think I could do this without my cane. I don’t mean to make more work for you.”
“Nothing to be ashamed of, sir.” Once Neil made the sidewalk, Mr. Ferguson let go. “Better to accept help with dignity than fight off a friend.”
A friend? Did Mr. Ferguson consider them friends? Maybe he did, considering how many years the man had worked for him. “And if anyone needs help, it’s me.”
“Do you need me to e
scort you all the way to the door then?” Mr. Ferguson stepped nearer.
Neil chuckled. “No, I was talking about needing help with the wife.”
“Don’t we all?” He tipped his hat. “As I said, good luck.”
Neil squeezed his driver’s shoulder then made his way up the sidewalk, sliding his feet in case there were uneven cracks to trip him. At the door, the housekeeper answered and escorted him down a dark hall toward the clinking of silverware.
“Neil?” Helen’s voice sounded from his left.
He turned to look, but the chairs where her voice had come from were in front of a row of windows letting in the rays of the afternoon sun.
He squinted and moved forward, hoping to catch a chair’s back to aid him in walking toward her. “I hope it’s not too much of an inconvenience for me to join you for lunch. I missed you.”
“None, Mr. Oliver.” Margaret answered from somewhere to his right, a bit of perturbance in her voice despite the answer. “Mrs. Wall can put out another place setting. We’ve just hired a cook. I hope she’ll impress us all.”
Neil nodded across the table after locating redheaded Margaret sitting in a bright green dress. “Obliged.”
Helen stood up on his left and pulled out a chair. “You can sit here.”
“Thanks.” He reached for her hand resting on the back of the chair and squeezed it before she moved away to sit.
“Pleasure to have you with us, Mr. Oliver.” The deep male voice on the far right was languid and a bit gravelly, most likely the elder Mr. Abernathy.
“Thanks for letting me barge in. I heard from my secretary, Mr. Yates, that Helen gave you a deal on the property young Mr. Abernathy sold to me years ago.” Actually, Mr. Yates had told him Helen had tried to figure a way out of selling it at her verbally stated price but hadn’t succeeded. “Half off is a great price.”
With his eyes now adjusted to the bright room, he could tell young Jeffrey wasn’t at the table as he’d hoped. “I’m hoping Jeffrey isn’t intending to turn around and sell the property for the profit his aunt could have made herself. I hope he’ll honor her trust in him by living up to the potential she sees.”
“Well, I’d just—” Helen’s wobbly voice stopped, and she cleared her throat.
Mr. Abernathy set down his paper. “I don’t believe there were stipulations on what he could do with the property to get that price.”
“No, but I trust no one in this family would purposely take advantage of my wife, considering I’d never have business dealings with the family or anyone associated with them again if they did so.”
Silence from the end of the table was likely Helen’s brother-in-law calculating how many of his clients dealt directly with businesses under the Oliver name.
“I also came to offer Jeffrey any guidance with the property he might desire. It’s in much better shape now than when I bought it from him and will make him a good return if it’s handled correctly.”
“Then why did you sell it?” Margaret asked.
“With my failing eyesight, I thought it best to trim down my holdings. Make them easier for Helen to handle.”
“I’m surprised you’re giving my sister-in-law so much say.” Mr. Abernathy grunted when Margaret handed him the plate of rolls.
“Why would I marry a woman I didn’t trust to speak for me?”
“Yes, why would a man marry a woman he didn’t trust with anything beyond pin money?” Margaret’s biting tone turned the table silent again.
Neil accepted the plate of rolls and hoped he could butter one without making a mess. But since he couldn’t see any butter on the table, he’d rather live without it than embarrass himself by asking for something that was likely right in front of him. He might have to become more vulnerable for his wife’s sake, but looking weak in front of the Abernathys wouldn’t be wise at the moment. “Do you have enough pin money, Helen? I do hope you allocated yourself some when I asked you to talk the budget over with Mr. Yates. I forgot women had such a thing.”
“I didn’t bother. Mr. Yates showed me the overly generous percentage you allocated for my wardrobe and entertainment, which is essentially the same thing.”
“Oh.” He thanked the person who set down his plate of roasted meat and searched for his fork but couldn’t find it.
Helen handed him silverware rolled up in a napkin of the same color as the tablecloth.
“So, Mr. Abernathy, I’ve been working on my conversational skills for my lovely wife’s benefit and found out my driver used to ice skate, and his son collects bugs. Do you have any interesting hobbies to help keep our conversation from veering back to business, which will likely bore us all? And since Helen’s the only one who’s ever shown an interest in my love of theology, I don’t want to bore you with that, either.”
The heavenly smell of the pork made him want to forget dinner conversation altogether, but he’d force himself to keep up the conversation and try to mention how lucky he was to steal Helen from them as often as possible—even if his meal grew cold to do so.
Helen closed the door to her sister’s house and smiled at Neil standing on the front step rubbing the sides of his head. For hours the man had not only kept up congenial conversation, but he’d praised her more throughout lunch than she’d ever heard Don praise Margaret. Last night she’d skulked off to her room thinking she’d never be more to him than a glorified assistant, but the shy smile he’d directed her way as he talked about her this afternoon made her believe he actually did feel something for her, though he likely couldn’t voice it.
The poor man had a hard enough time talking about the weather, how had she believed he’d be able to talk about feelings when they were so much more intimate and complicated than sunshine and rain?
“I think I got a headache from talking too much.” Neil moved his mouth back and forth as if stretching his face. “My jaw’s even sore.”
She rolled her eyes and took a step toward him, put her hands on each side of his stubbly jaw and gave him a kiss on both cheeks. “Better?”
“No.” He looked over his shoulder to where Mr. Ferguson waited for them at the carriage, but pulled her closer anyway. “More might help though. But in the direction of my lips.”
She stepped back before their driver noticed them, and threw her glance to the ground. He might not be able to talk about what went on inside him, but it seemed a kiss or two did wonders for his boldness. Could Mr. Ferguson see the blush crawling up her neck from that far away? “I don’t think kissing in front of the driver is entirely appropriate behavior.”
“You started it.” Neil winked then waved a dismissive hand at Mr. Ferguson. “We’ll walk home.”
She frowned at him. “It’s at least twenty blocks.”
“That’s all right.” He held out his hand to her as their ride drove away. “You can keep me from stumbling.”
She gave him her arm and watched the buggy disappear around the corner.
“And we can talk.”
She turned to frown at him again. “I thought your jaw was sore.”
“It is, but I don’t mind making it sorer if you’ll promise to try to make it feel better again when we get home. The more it hurts, the more kissing required.”
The blush indeed filled her face this time. Maybe it was a good thing Mr. Ferguson had left if Neil was going to tease her over the kisses she’d impulsively given him.
She’d never heard him tease anyone before, and marveled that he’d even consider wasting words to do so.
Of course, with the look he was giving her right now, perhaps there was absolutely no teasing going on at all.
Swallowing hard, she started guiding them forward so she could look elsewhere and avoid melting into a pool of blush. “What more could you possibly want to talk about? You’ve already discussed the weather, the church’s fall picnic, and my sister’s need for new curtains in the parlor.”
He put his free hand to his brow. “Ah yes, I definitely earned another kiss and m
aybe a neck massage for having to discuss your sister’s curtains.”
“You didn’t have to discuss anything. You technically weren’t invited.” She waved at a lady from church walking on the other side of the road. “I never would have thought you’d want to dine with them anyway.”
“If you’re going to eat there, I want to be with you.” His free hand came over to softly rub the back of her hand, dancing shivers up her arm. “Mr. Yates informed me this morning that you had tried to use me as an excuse to get out of the deal you gave Jeffrey. I don’t want you to do anything to make them think I don’t trust you to handle my business. Because I do trust you.”
She exhaled. As much as she wanted him to think her capable, she needed to let him know she wasn’t. “Did you see the newspaper I was looking at after dinner?”
“I saw you with a paper, but I wouldn’t attempt to read anything without my magnifying glass.”
She hadn’t meant to bring up his visual problems. “Well, I found the paper Don showed Jeffrey two days ago with the advertisement for the property I sold them.” She sighed. “It’s a five-week-old paper.”
“And that’s significant because?”
Oh, if only she wasn’t about to kill his trust in her completely. Trying to memorize the feeling of his arm around hers, she forced herself to keep speaking. “They pretended as if they’d just seen the paper when they brought up the property with me, but my brother-in-law reads his paper every day. He’d not bother to read an old one. They staged the whole thing.” She kept her eyes forward so she wouldn’t see the moment Neil realized she’d been taken. “You were right yesterday. It’s not intentions, but character that decides the future. I’m afraid I sold that property to someone who’s going to ruin it. And now you’ll have even more reason to be disappointed in me for practically giving that property away.”
“I’m not disappointed in you, Helen. Your heart’s still the same, though maybe wiser. And I was wrong about people being unable to change. Look at me. We’re walking down the street talking about something other than theology after I just forced myself to discuss the most boring things for an hour already.”