As she approached the dais where the minister was stationed, she saw her husband-to-be, William smiling at her. She saw nothing but cruelty beyond the smile, and was continuously reminded of the violence he had shown her. She thought, somewhat morosely, that she was probably the only one in the room at this time who knew that dark streak that this man had. He had been so good at covering it up. She thought with satisfaction how smooth he would look once Jacob had dealt with him.
The minister said a few words before getting into the nuts and bolts of the service. After he had asked if there was anyone in the room thought they should not get married, he asked to see the rings. The rings were brought forth and they each took turns putting it on each others’ fingers. Her ring was truly magnificent. It sparkled as only a twenty-four karat gold ring adorned with perfect diamonds could. And his ring was very nice as well. Finally, they kissed, and the room erupted in applause.
Next came the post-ceremony celebrations. They retreated to the pavilion to have a seat and enjoy some amazing food. The weather could not have been more perfect. It was a bright, sunny, warm afternoon. The band played marvellously and there was even quite a bit of dancing amongst the guests. William, however, did not dance. He just remained in his seat, looking at Tina as if she were his trophy or something, and accepted continuous congratulations by friends and colleagues who came up to him to shake his hand and offer commendations. Dorothy and Henry were dancing together, big smiles on both of their faces. Then Henry came up to Tina and said, “Tina! Don’t look so glum. This is the happiest day of your life! Come, at least have a dance with your old man.”
So Tina arose and walked over to the middle of the dance floor. The crowd parted as she gracefully entered the center of the pavilion. Henry reached out and held her hand. They came together and moved to the sounds of the music, rhythmically swaying back and forth. He led her very well, and Tina had to admit, at that point, that she was having a good deal of fun. She looked over and saw Eric and Kate dancing together as well. This wedding is all a charade. She knew it. But still managed to enjoy herself somewhat.
Many hours later, as the festivities were wrapping up, William approached Tina with the intention of taking her back to his bedroom. Luckily for Tina, he looked quite intoxicated. She had lucked out. He seemed too drunk to perform. So she came back with him to his house – a beautiful mansion on the edge of town – and they both promptly fell asleep in his large bed.
The days passed by slowly. Tina’s luck in the bedroom continued, as William always seemed too busy to make love to her. It turned out he worked all the time. Work was his obsession and his life. This was just fine by Tina, who thought that the less she saw of him, the better. One afternoon, while William was away on business, and Tina was sitting in her bedroom, she heard a small pebble hit the outside of her window. She walked over and opened the window, looking down below to see none other than Jacob on the ground below. “One moment!” cried Tina, who was thoroughly happy to see the man of her dreams. Her heart raced, as she raced down the stairs and through the foyer and antechamber, opening the large front doors and running to the yard. She leapt into his arms and they shared a long, drawn out kiss. “Come inside,” she said. “William is away on business and we have the house to ourselves. Although we shouldn’t probably dally.”
They raced up the stairs, hand-in-hand, and jumped onto her big feather bed, still kissing. That afternoon they made love for the first time. It was Tina’s first time, and she could not have asked for a more memorable occasion.
“I know where he keeps his money,” said Tina finally, after having caught her breath. “Let’s load up a satchel full of cash and you can bring it back to your house and put it in your safe. We’ll smuggle a little out each day until the end of the week when we will have enough to run away and start our new life together. I’ll tell William at the end of the week that you are the new man in my life. He will likely get very angry with me, but he will also have no choice but to confront you and challenge you to a duel. You will of course win, and I will be yours!”
So they went into William’s study and opened his safe. They started filling a large leather satchel with bills and gold bullion until it was almost too heavy to carry. She closed the safe and headed back down to the front yard and helped Jacob load the satchel onto his horse. One goodbye kiss later and he was headed off into the sunset.
The week passed by quickly and finally at the end, over dinner, Tina broke the news to William. “I have been seeing a lover,” she said. William paused for a moment as though he were waiting to hear more. When she said nothing more, he put down his fork and said in a quiet, calm, manner, “You will see no more of this man. Are we clear?”
Tina replied, “I am in love with him. He is mine and I am his. I no longer love you. I have never loved you. And I am planning on eloping with this man.”
“Who is he?” asked William.
“His name is Jacob Farraway. We have made love, and I hope I am with his child.”
William un-holstered his pistol that was on his hip and set the gun d0wn heavily on the table next to his applesauce. “This man is dead,” said he solemnly, and rose and walked over to his study.
Tina believed him. She believed that William had every intention of killing her lover and that he was probably a pretty good shot too. But love had to win. It had to. They would prove victorious.
That evening, after William had gone to bed, another pebble was at her window. She opened it and looked down. There was Jacob, looking confidant and smiling up at her. “Come down!” he whispered loudly. “I have news.”
Tina crept down the main stairs and out the front door, still in her night gown. They hugged, and kissed, and Jacob filled her in on what had happened. Apparently a messenger had left a note for Jacob saying that William had challenged him to a duel, to commence the following morning at dusk in the town square. Already the newspapers were getting ready to report on the event and through word of mouth, many were starting to amass. Tina said she would be there, gave Jacob another kiss on the mouth, and then crept back into the house and into her bed.
At the duel, there was indeed a large crowd that had assembled. William was on one side of the long main road the dissected the town in half. Jacob was on the other. It was how many duels of the day had gone down, and this was nothing new to Jacob. As it turned out, it was nothing new to William either. But as both shots were fired, only one of them connected, and only one of the bodies hit the floor. And that body was that of William J. Hornhill. Jacob had won. And in his victory, Tina had won too. They kissed and saddled up, making their way through the town and to her parents. She said her goodbyes to Dorothy and Henry, and then to Kate and Eric. To Kate and Eric she extended an invitation that they could visit whenever they wanted. And of course Kate and Eric said that they would be happy to have Jacob and Tina over whenever they wanted.
It was a happy time. And the first of a long life of happiness for the new couple. They got married again, eventually, and set up a nice life for themselves running a ranch. Tina, who had gotten pregnant from that first night that they had together, soon became a very happy mother. She produced even more children and pretty soon they had a large, happy family. Jacob never had to use his weapon again, but kept it on hand just in case he needed to defend his land or his family. And luckily for Tina, her passion for cowboys, had been sated thoroughly.
*** THE END ***
Rich Love
By: Stephanie Hunt
Chapter One:
“I thought I asked you to plant those last week.”
Aiden listened to his mother’s voice transition from pleasant to a dangerous drawl that really brought out her Charleston accent. He couldn’t see her; she was in the front room and he was in the library, but he could imagine her face. The same one he’d seen when his grades weren’t A’s or when he’d let his tie hang a little askew. He straightened it reflexively as the gardener spoke.
“Yes ma’am,” he said. �
��You did. And I told you that this soil won’t take them and that, even if it did, the sun and heat would kill them.”
“The Parker family has a whole bed of them.”
His mother sounded triumphant now, as if the gardener had been put so firmly in his place that no response was possible. Aiden heard her begin to walk away, her heels sharp on the hardwood.
“In a raised bed, with special soil, in the shadiest corner of the yard. They won’t grow where you want them, in full sun in that side yard.”
Aiden felt his eyebrows shoot up. Patrick Gilmore’s voice had remained respectful, but it had also been very firm. The staccato stab of the high heels stopped.
“Maybe I’ll find a gardener who can,” Savannah Cross snapped.
“That’s up to you, ma’am.” The low voice was still respectful. “But the most you’ll find is a gardener willing to give you a bed of dead flowers.”
A long silence stretched out. Aiden bit his lower lip as a sudden desire to laugh rose in his throat.
“Fine,” his mother said, biting off the word. “Then get something else in that bed. Right now!” She walked away, sighing loudly as if she’d wasted her time.
“How hard can it be?”
Aiden turned away from the window with a start. He’d forgotten that Victoria was there. Gorgeous Victoria Caine. She’d hardly looked away from the screen of her cell phone, where she was texting busily, no doubt arranging a night out with her bevy of friends. Everyone loved Victoria. She was spoiled by her father, careless with her money, and pretty enough to draw a crowd.
He looked at her as she smirked at him, laughing at the gardener. He forced his mouth to tip into a smile as he walked over and sat down beside her. Her golden blonde head didn’t even reach his shoulder. In addition to being pretty, she was perfectly shaped, a petite hourglass. Men stopped and stared at her whenever they were out together. He thought briefly that he really couldn’t stand her.
They’d been seeing each other for a few months, ever since his mother had introduced them at a charity event she’d been overseeing. Aiden thought back, but he really couldn’t remember what charity the event had been for. He doubted that his parents did either. It had been a flurry of catering and harassed maids for weeks up until the event and when it was over, his mother hadn’t even known how much money they’d raised.
His father had, but all he’d said was that they’d spent twice that and that he hoped to God it could all be written off on their taxes.
Aiden looked around the room. It was huge. Floor to ceiling bookshelves looked back at him, hundreds of volumes that no one ever touched except when the maids dusted. The big bay window let in the sunlight that poured over the beautiful garden that no one bothered to look at unless there was a party being hosted there. The whole house was like that. A pool no one swam in, a home gym no one touched, rooms and rooms of collectibles and art that no one even looked at.
“What?” he asked, realizing that Victoria had spoken.
She tossed her blonde hair over her shoulders and said, “Maybe I should just go home if you’re not going to pay attention to me.”
The way you’ve been paying attention to me? With your eyes glued to your phone? He didn’t bother to speak up in his defense. Instead he tightened his arm around her and said, “I’m sorry, Victoria. I was in my own little world.”
“I asked if you’d like to go out with me tonight,” she said, her tone still a little chilly. “But if you’d rather be in your own little world, maybe I’ll take someone else.”
Aiden wasn’t stupid. His parents hadn’t had to spell out the reasons for their enthusiastic support of Victoria Caine. She could have been a known arsonist and they would have loved her just as much. The dollar signs dancing around her and her father were all they needed.
The Cross family fortune had dwindled so much that fortune really wasn’t the right word for it. William Cross, Aiden’s father, had made a lot of investments that hadn’t really paid off, failing to realize that this wasn’t his father’s world anymore. He hadn’t wanted to invest in any of that “newfangled technology” or “wave of the future” stuff. His stubbornness had cost him millions. Which wouldn’t have been too painful if they weren’t spending those millions regularly in a desperate attempt to make people think they were still as wealthy as they’d been before.
In other words, if this didn’t work out his parents might just murder him and claim the insurance money.
Aiden turned on his most charming smile. He knew he was good looking and he looked rich and confident.
“Come on, Victoria,” he said, letting his Charleston drawl come through. “You know I don’t want to sit around this place when I could be with you.”
Mollified, she smiled back at him. “All right.”
He put his fingers under her chin and tilted her lovely heart shaped face up, kissing her gently.
She returned the kiss, but only for a moment. She pushed him back, giving him a coy smile. “You’ll mess up my lipstick.”
He doubted it. That probably took some form of passion. Their kisses were chaste and brief enough for a church service greeting. He smiled again.
“I’ll walk you out.”
He couldn’t think of anything he wanted less than to spend an evening with her friends and their significant others, but what could he have done? His mother beamed at him as he walked Victoria to the door where their car was waiting to take her home. At least he was making someone happy.
Chapter Two:
Saige Gilmore looked up at the huge house. It was tall, white, and almost blindingly bright under the summer sun. There were two porches, one ground level and one on the upper level. Both were furnished with impeccable elegance. She glanced around for her father, but didn’t see him.
He’d said he’d be waiting out front. She chewed her thumbnail, wondering if she should just go in. There was an iron gate with a fancy scrolled C at the top. The Cross family, she remembered. Her father had taken this job right before she’d headed off to college and, now that she was celebrating her graduation, she realized he’d been there for 4 years. He hadn’t really told her much about the place, or the people.
She took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. The gate was open. Her father wasn’t where he’d said he’d be. The hot June sun was on the verge of baking her brain. She went in.
She was promptly nearly run down by an approaching car. It beeped at her and she put her hands into the pockets of her shorts to keep from making a rude gesture. She didn’t want to endanger her dad’s job by flipping the jerk of a driver off.
Saige jogged toward the huge front steps and then realized that she was following the car. It parked at the steps and she skirted the bumper to go in as the driver got out. She’d just raised her hand to knock when the big red door opened. She nearly hit the man in the chest.
“Sorry!” she said quickly, looking up, and up, at him.
He was so tall! She wasn’t a short girl, but he had to be a foot taller than she was. He made the woman he was with look like a child. A particularly lovely child. The man wasn’t bad himself. His brown hair was just long enough to suggest that he needed a haircut, but his jaw line was closely shaved. His eyes were dark blue, like an ocean just before a storm, and there was a cleft in his chin. All in all, a pretty good looking guy.
“It’s okay,” he said after a moment. “What can I do for you?”
He had no idea who she was, and for a second he hadn’t cared. The woman on his porch was dressed casually, in shorts and a white cotton tee shirt. Her brown hair was pulled back into a ponytail and she wasn’t wearing any makeup. Her build was athletic, like a swimmer or a runner and those legs went on for miles. Her smile had been slightly embarrassed but totally genuine.
“I’m Patrick’s daughter,” she said brightly, putting her hand out. “Saige. It’s nice to meet you...” she trailed off so that he could fill in his name.
“Aiden,” he said, shaking her hand. He wondere
d who Patrick was. Aiden felt dazed, off balance.
“The gardener’s daughter?” His mother’s voice asked from the hallway just behind him.
“That’s right,” Saige said, stepping over so that she could see the speaker. “Do you know where he is?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea.”
Aiden glanced at his mother’s face. She didn’t look pleased.
“I assume he’s working,” she went on. “He hasn’t done much of that lately.”
Saige frowned slightly. “Has he been sick?”
Savannah smiled sarcastically. “Not that I’m aware of.”
Victoria giggled. Aiden knew that there was only one way to get Saige out of the situation without his mother and his girlfriend ripping her to figurative shreds. He’d been an idiotic to look even mildly interested in her.
Feigning indifference, he said, “I’m sure he’s around in the side yard, Mother. You did tell him he needed to get something done there today.” He pointed carelessly. “It’s over there. I’d show you, but I’ve got to get Victoria to her car.”
Saige glanced over her shoulder at the gleaming Lexus sitting at the foot of the steps. “Yeah,” she said. “Looks like she’d never find it on her own. Thanks for your help.”
She turned on her heel and left before any of them could speak again.
“Imagine,” Savannah said. “Just coming in like she belonged here.”
Victoria shook her head. “Honestly, like we don’t have more important things to talk about than the gardener.”
No Choice but to Marry: A Historical Mail Order Bride Romance Page 10