Story Description
Boston, Massachusetts – 1869
“I have spoken to your uncle, and with his blessing, I would like for you to become my wife.”
This was not how Mary Kenleigh envisioned receiving a marriage proposal. No words of love. Of course there weren’t; she and Mr. Wendell were barely more than acquaintances. To him, she was nothing more than a pretty face with a sizable dowry. What more could she expect from a man contracted by her despicably-selfish uncle?
Since returning to her uncle’s home after volunteering as a nurse during the Civil War, Mary had rejected numerous suitors, but finally, she was given an ultimatum: she would either marry Mr. Wendell–the infamous rake–or find herself homeless and without a penny to her name.
Brave and quick-thinking, Mary decides to respond to an advertisement for a mail order bride, but surely, no sensible gentleman would care to wed an already-betrothed woman. Out of sheer desperation, Mary is forced to concoct an entirely different persona for herself through her letters to Caleb Knight.
But how long can Mary keep up her pretenses before the truth finds its way to the surface?
Prologue
Portsmouth, New Hampshire - 1865
“No! You can’t do this,” Caleb hollered as he writhed against the four hands that bit like vices into his arms.
He was a soldier, strong and able, but he’d been set upon unsuspectingly, asleep in his bed, and there was nothing he could do to escape.
“Let me go, you swine,” he spat at the man who stood in front of him, looking on with cold, unfeeling eyes. After all the battles he’d fought these past eight months, this is how it would end?
“Lieutenant…Caleb…my dear friend, there’s no sense in struggling.” There wasn’t a speck of guilt in the undercurrent of the man’s tone. His back straight, his shoulders squared; he was completely without conscience. If Caleb had been in any doubt, the Beaumont–Adams revolver the man held in his steady hand banished any hope of it.
The man was an evil savage, and Caleb had been none the wiser this whole time. Nay, not only unwise, but almost entirely fooled by the snake. Almost. The inkling of suspicion had prickled the hairs at the back of his neck every time the man came near, and the unsightly scene he’d walked in on the day before finally confirmed his intuition. But he’d fought next to the man and had been forced to trust him with his life on more than one occasion. And now he would pay the price for his ignorance.
He could have accepted death at the hand of the enemy on the battlefield; he would even have welcomed it if he could have taken the grayback scoundrel with him as he went. But not like this.
“You’ll never get away with this,” Caleb seethed, though he knew it was in vain. The cold ice in the man’s eyes told him he was impermeable to reason.
“Whatever do you mean, Caleb? You have committed a heinous crime and I only seek to set right your wrong.”
Crime? “What crime have I committed?”
“Why, I saw you with my own eyes; such unbecoming behavior of an officer.”
“You lie. You saw nothing.”
“It is your word against mine, dear friend, and I fear you have no one to vouch for you. I, on the other hand, have an ironclad alibi.”
“The girl, she’ll vouch for me and lay blame where it is due.”
“Pity, but I’m afraid that won’t be possible,” the man replied without pause, which could mean only one thing.
Caleb ceased his struggle against the hulkish brutes that held him. He was an intelligent man, intelligent enough to know when he’d been bested. He would not cower and beg for his life.
From the moment he had left for the war, he’d known he may never see his home again. He just never imagined it would end like this. No doubt, his name would be smeared irreparably, but there was nothing he could do about that now.
He closed his eyes, bringing to mind an image of home; the house where he’d grown up; the young wife he’d left behind when he went off to war. There had been no love match there, but even still, he harbored so many regrets.
Chapter 1
Boston, Massachusetts - 1869
Mary sat in the parlor of her uncle’s home, her back stiff and her hands clasped in her lap to hide the tremble she’d been unable to still. She felt just as out of place as she had the first day she’d arrived, and equally as unwelcome.
It did not matter that she’d lived there since she was fourteen years old; she would never come to see it as home. It was just as well. If she’d ever sought to view it as such, no doubt Uncle Robert would have welcomed the opportunity to put her in her place.
The two men who sat across from her looked perfectly at ease, chatting amicably while they sipped their steaming hot cups of tea. Hers sat untouched on the low table in front of her.
“I can’t imagine any young woman rushing off to immerse herself in so much brutality. You have an overly strong constitution it seems, Miss Kenleigh,” Mr. Wendell commented to her with a disapproving glare, drawing her back into the conversation that went on around her.
She opened her mouth to respond to the man’s observation, but was promptly interrupted.
“Nonsense,” Uncle Robert exclaimed on her behalf, though not for her benefit. “My dear niece was merely roused to compassion for our brave soldiers. I doubt the gore and brutality of the situation ever crossed her mind. She is too quick to act at times, I confess, but I’m certain it is just a plight of youth.”
“That is good to hear,” the man replied and then posed another question to her uncle, something about her penchant for irrational action since she’d come home.
Mary ceased to listen, knowing that even though she appeared to be the topic of conversation, her presence was not necessary.
And yet, her presence was very necessary, at least as far as her uncle was concerned. He’d taken her aside the morning prior and informed her of what was to come. He’d told her the fine—and wealthy—Mr. John Wendell would be coming to visit on the morrow and with a specific purpose in mind: he intended to propose marriage to her, and her uncle demanded in no uncertain terms that she accept the man’s proposal.
She’d turned down the previous suitors who had sought to shackle her to them in the year since her return from the Fairfax Street Hospital in Virginia. She would have thought that knowing a woman had been up to her neck in blood for months on end would have dissuaded the regal gentlemen of Boston, but that seemed not to be the case.
And now, her uncle would have no more of it. He wanted her wed and out of his house, reminding her yet again how he had never wanted her there to begin with. Well, that made two of them, but exchanging one overbearing brute of a man for another was not what she considered an acceptable solution. She remembered the love in her father’s eyes when he would look at her mother, and she’d never intended to settle for anything less.
Unfortunately, she had no choice. Uncle Robert had threatened to put her out of his house if she didn’t accept the proposal of Mr. John Wendell, a heavy-handed cad, if the plethora of gossip around the city was to be believed.
She’d railed at her uncle, despite her better judgment, but it had all been for naught. The ultimatum still stood: she was to marry Mr. Wendell, or find herself homeless and penniless within the same hour of his proposal.
And so she sat across from him now, waiting for the wretched words to spew forth from his lips.
Mr. Wendell was an attractive man, for sure—tall and strong with chiseled features. His wavy, golden blonde hair could deceive one into thinking he was little more than a boy, despite his thirty-one years.
“The weather is unusually warm for this time of year, Miss Kenleigh,” Mr. Wendell commented, his attention returning to settle directly on her.
“Indeed, it is.” Did he think she was incapable of discussing a topic more intelligent than the state of the weather?
“Would you care to take a walk through your uncle’s garden with me?”
Tension knotted in the pit of
her stomach. She searched the room for some plausible excuse—any excuse.
“I daresay the garden is not so large that we will ever be out of your uncle’s watchful gaze,” he supplied quickly, presuming her hesitancy arose from the impropriety of their being alone together.
“As you wish, Mr. Wendell.” She heaved a heavy sigh. There was no excuse or escape to be found, and therefore, no sense in prolonging the inevitable. She’d wracked her brain since she’d stormed away from her uncle yesterday morning, each time coming back to the same conclusion: he had her trapped.
But this wasn’t so difficult, was it? She’d spent three years caring for the injured, the maimed, the ill and the dying. Certainly, she could force herself to endure this. She wouldn’t worry about what came next; how the next few moments would tie her irrevocably to a man she barely knew and couldn’t help but despise.
She would only focus on these next few moments, forcing herself to put one foot in front of the other, and when the time came, forcing the wretched words of acceptance past her lips.
She rose and Mr. Wendell was there, wrapping her arm around his, leading them to the foyer and outside.
He didn’t say a word as they walked around the property to the vast spread of gardens behind the house, and a flicker of hope flitted through her mind. Perhaps he wanted nothing more than to stretch his legs. Even a few minutes trapped in the same room as her uncle left her feeling caged like an animal, in need of escape. Mr. Wendell may have been no more immune to her uncle’s cloistering presence than she was.
A moment passed, and then another, and her hopes rose higher. Uncle Robert had completely misinterpreted Mr. Wendell’s intentions; what a relief!
“Miss Kenleigh,” he startled her from her inner thoughts. “There is something I would very much like to ask you.”
Drat! She’d been foolish to hope, to cling to the inane possibility that her uncle had been wrong.
She forced her gaze to meet his as he came to a halt next to the pink-shell azaleas. Though little more than buds so early in the spring, in just a few weeks, the trusses of pink and white flowers would be in full bloom. Would she be there to see them, or would her uncle insist on speeding her to the altar?
“I have spoken to your uncle, and with his blessing, I would like for you to become my wife.”
No words of love. Of course there weren’t; she and Mr. Wendell were barely more than acquaintances. She was nothing more than a pretty face with a sizeable dowry—a rarity in these modern times—and a lineage replete with English peers.
Her throat was dry, so much that when she opened her mouth, no words came out. But this was what she needed to do to survive. She’d never been a coward before, and she would not let her uncle reduce her to such pathetic behavior. “Yes, I will marry you, Mr. Wendell.”
“Excellent!” His eyes roamed over her while revulsion rose high in her throat.
All her hopes and dreams were dashed on the rocks in a single moment. She would never know the kind of love her mother and father had shared. It was all gone.
****
Mary awoke swiftly, the frightening images of her nightmare following her out of slumber. The same images had haunted her from her first day at the hospital in Virginia. So much pain and suffering, and no matter how she tried, she could not relieve it all.
She drew in a deep breath as she wiped the sweat from her brow. Her friends had thought her foolish, volunteering as a nurse when they’d all hidden away from what was going on around them.
She’d felt inclined to agree with them that first day. Walking into the triage area amid a group of new nurses, so much of her had been tempted to turn around and run all the way home. But a young man had caught her attention as she’d stood there trying to recall the merits of her decision to volunteer as a nurse.
“Help me,” he’d called. “Help me, please,” he’d cried again, staring directly into her eyes.
And that was precisely what she’d done, springing to action and doing what she could to bring down the man’s raging fever. He’d lost an arm on the battlefield the day prior, and fever had already begun to rage in his body.
Not once did she question her decision again after that, not even two days later when the young man succumbed to his fever. Three years later, she could still remember his face so clearly, etched in her mind along with the face of every other soldier she’d cared for in her three years at the hospital.
A sudden knock at her door made her jump, pulling her away from her nightmare, though she knew it wouldn’t be far away for long. It would be there to greet her again that night, just like it had almost every night since she’d returned to her uncle’s home.
“Good morning, Miss.” The bright and cheery middle-aged woman smiled to her as she entered the room, expertly balancing a heavy tray.
“Good morning, Margaret,” she greeted in return, banishing her memories to the back of her mind where she kept them most of the time.
The pungent aroma of coffee wafted through the room and served to expel the final remnants of sleep. She always did prefer coffee to her uncle’s tea, though it was rather unladylike of her, in his opinion.
“Your uncle’s bustlin’ about this mornin’, so I thought you might like your breakfast here,” Margaret informed her, though it wasn’t necessary. Mary ate breakfast in her room most days, preferring the quiet solitude to her uncle’s company.
She pulled herself upright in bed as the woman settled the tray on her lap. Breakfast looked the same as it did most mornings and she ignored it for the moment, turning her attention to sweeten the coffee, and then downing a hefty swallow of the strong brew.
Unlike most mornings, there was a newspaper folded on the tray and she peered at it curiously. Of course she could read, but ever since the war, she’d had no interest in the goings-on of society. Bad news tended to fill the pages of the local papers, and she had no use for any more of that than was necessary. So, it was rather unlike Margaret to include a crisp, fresh copy of the newspaper with her breakfast.
“I won’t be needing this, Margaret, but I thank you for the breakfast.”
“You never know what good news might be waitin’ for you, Miss Mary,” the woman replied with a mischievous grin.
Mary couldn’t help but smile back, despite having no idea what Margaret was up to. “And how can you be so certain of that, may I ask?”
Margaret’s face turned solemn, all traces of mischief gone from her expression in an instant. “I can’t deny that I overheard you talkin’ with your uncle the other mornin’, and I saw you and Mr. Wendell in the garden yesterday afternoon. If I’m not mistaken, that uncle of yours has left you in a mighty…uncomfortable situation.”
Margaret was silent then, either waiting for confirmation, or for Mary to tell her it was none of her business. But Mary couldn’t do that. Though not family, Margaret had been there since Mary’s birth, hired by her parents as Mary’s nurse, and the woman had stayed with her all these years.
Since the death of her parents, she was grateful for Margaret’s presence in her life. While her uncle was cruel and devious, Margaret was kind and sincere. Mary had always been able to turn to her for comfort and compassion when her uncle was at his worst. She would have already told Margaret about her uncle’s ultimatum and the resultant betrothal, but she hadn’t wanted to speak the words aloud yet. As if somehow by saying nothing, some small part of her could delay the reality of her situation.
“You aren’t mistaken, Margaret. I’m afraid it is as you say.”
Margaret was quiet for another moment, the expression on her face one of grave contemplation as if she were trying to deduce the lesser of two evils.
“You know I’ve only ever wanted what’s best for you; that I’ve never acted against your best interests.”
“I know that, and I’ve been absolutely blessed to have you here with me, Margaret.” While true, what in heavens did that have to do with a newspaper?
“The newspaper…it
has advertisements in it that I thought might be of interest to you.”
Mary raised an eyebrow, curious about the woman’s meaning.
“Marriage ads,” Margaret filled in quickly.
Marriage ads? She’d heard of them, matrimonial advertisements from men out west looking for brides back east. But Mary’s problem wasn’t that she couldn’t find a husband—she didn’t want one.
“You do realize, Margaret, that I’ve been saddled with a fiancé already? What need have I for another?”
Margaret shifted uncomfortably, and Mary could see her mind working, trying to choose her words carefully. Suddenly, her expression changed, and Mary watched as all pretenses fell away.
“Mary, I’ve loved you like you were my own child, and I can’t stand the idea of my dear child bein’ married to that evil rake.”
“Margaret!” Had the woman ever spoken so harshly in her life?
“I’m sorry, but it’s true. Gossip isn’t always right, I know that, but I know in my heart that this Mr. Wendell is a scoundrel of the worst kind.”
Mary would protest, but she felt the same way. She was quite certain John Wendell didn’t have an honorable bone in his body. “And how do you suppose…”
She closed her mouth suddenly, realizing what Margaret was up to. Margaret was trying to provide her with a way to escape both her uncle and Mr. Wendell. All she had to do was marry a man she’d never met in the west. Of course, that also entailed leaving Boston and Margaret behind, and there was no way to know if what she would find out west would be any better than the future that awaited her here.
“You can’t possibly be serious, Margaret.”
“I’ve given it a lot of thought, and I am. I am certain you have a much greater chance of findin’ happiness there than you do here.”
While she’d never consider the idea on her own, it seemed Margaret felt there was great merit to it. Was it possible these marriage ads were the answer to her prayers?
Annie: A Bride For The Farmhand - A Clean Historical Western Romance (Stewart House Brides Book 3) Page 28