BEGINNINGS: Suffragettes Mail-Order Bride (Choice Brides Agency #1)

by Kate Cambridge

  Picky? Elizabeth thought. This woman was arranging marriages which would last for her clients’ entire lives, and she called Elizabeth ‘picky’.

  “I think you’re right,” Elizabeth replied, standing up and brushing off her dress. “Thank you very much for your time.”

  Aunt Dashwood did not see her out. Elizabeth walked through the outer office with her head held high, ignoring the clerk’s lingering looks, and walked gratefully out into the fresh air and sunlight.

  Captain Sharpe was waiting for her. “Alright, Miss Elizabeth?”

  “Fine, Captain,” she said. She wondered if he could see how angry she was. “Are all agencies like that one?” she asked, jerking her head in the direction of the offices she’d just left.

  “Some,” the captain replied. “Not all, but some.”

  “It’s awful,” she said. “What self-respecting woman would agree to such nonsense?”

  Captain Sharpe shuffled his feet and gave her a meaningful look. “Sometimes necessity takes precedence over self-respect,” he said.

  Elizabeth felt suitably chastised as Captain Sharpe hailed a cab for her. She knew that she was in a position where she could afford to be ‘picky’ about choosing a husband. There were other women who did not have that privilege – and they were the ones who, probably desperate for some form of stability – would wind up victims of women like Aunt Dashwood. She wondered what Aunt Dashwood charged. They hadn’t even discussed fees. Did she charge the women or the men? It seemed like the sort of business which would charge a finder’s fee to the men and perhaps an administrative fee for the women. That’s what Elizabeth would have done if she were running such an establishment, although she would certainly take the women’s financial situation into account. And she would certainly implement some kind of screening process for the men.

  She was still pondering all of this when Captain Sharpe finished hailing the cab and offered her his hand to climb into it. She took it without thinking, feeling callouses on his palm and a warm heat coming off of him. She blushed when she remembered calling herself Elizabeth Sharpe, and avoided his eyes as she climbed into the cab.

  “Where to now, Miss Elizabeth?” he asked.

  “Home, Captain Sharpe,” she replied, a little flustered and trying to hide it. “I have some things to think about.”

  Chapter 5

  It took Elizabeth several weeks to sort out the details of her plan. She told no one, not even her friends. Thankfully, Lydia hadn’t mentioned Mail-Order Brides during their meetings – though she was disturbingly quiet whenever the conversation turned to their marriage prospects. Susan had been introduced to three separate business associates of her father’s by the time Elizabeth was ready to unveil her plan, and apparently her father had only grown more determined with each man she’d rebuffed. Margaret insisted that she was no longer in danger of an asylum, though that was likely to change when the next election came up.

  Captain Sharpe had noticed her distraction. She could tell by the way his eyes would linger over her at dinner and the way he would come up with new reasons for her to get out of the house and away from the ledgers she was obsessing over. If she’d known him less, she would have thought that he was just looking for excuses to get out of the library and into the sunshine. But she’d seen him endure books and silence without complaint, and she knew that this sudden desire for her to get out of the house was entirely for her benefit. She thought that he might have co-opted Christopher into his schemes: the old man would come and trouble her for the slightest troubles with groceries and quibbles among the maids, as though he’d completely forgotten how he was supposed to conduct his duties when the lady of the house was otherwise occupied.

  But Elizabeth would not be deterred. She’d realized that she had the power to help her friends, and other women like them, and she was determined to make it work.

  Elizabeth had planned everything meticulously before presenting her idea to her father. She would need a financial backer to begin, and she believed that her father would support her even if he didn’t quite understand her. At the very least, she thought as she knocked hesitantly on his door three weeks after her visit to Brides Across Borders, he would take her new-found interest in marriage as a good sign.

  “Father?” she said, poking her head into the office and finding him up to his elbows in loose papers.

  He had been glaring at a sum in front of him, but his frown melted when he saw her. “Come in, Lizzie – is it lunchtime?”

  “Not yet,” she said, entering the office and closing the door behind her. She was nervous, but she was also wonderfully excited. If he agreed to help her, then Elizabeth could only imagine where these ideas would lead her. “I was wondering if you have a moment?”

  “For you? Anything.”

  Elizabeth clutched her ledger to her chest and sat down in the chair across from him. “This may come as a shock, Father – but I… I want to start my own business.”

  He blinked at her. Sunlight streamed through the open window and glanced off of his bald head. “A business?” he repeated, leaning back in his chair and looking over his steepled fingers at her with a deep frown. Then he smiled. “I think you’d do quite well in business,” he said.

  Elizabeth let herself smile at the compliment. “Thank you,” she said.

  “What sort of business?” he asked.

  “A Mail-Order Bride business,” she said, steeling herself for his reaction.

  Her father coughed and raised an eyebrow at her. “I beg your pardon?” he asked.

  “Surely you’ve heard of them?” she said.

  “Captain Sharpe told you,” her father sighed. He seemed almost resigned. Perhaps even a little bit nervous. She couldn’t fathom what she had to be nervous about.

  “Yes, he explained how they work,” she said slowly. “It’s where I got the idea. You see, Father – I’ve visited a Mail-Order Bride agency and while I can understand the demand for such places, I realized that they do not seem to have the women’s best interests at heart. So what I propose is a Mail-Order Bride agency which matches people according to the tastes of both parties: the man and the woman. Both have a choice.”

  She paused for a moment to gage his reaction. His eyes were narrowed and he was watching her wearily as though he expected her to say something awful. Expected – which meant that until this point she hadn’t said anything awful. Or at least nothing to make him think that she was mad.

  Elizabeth offered him the ledger. “What I plan to offer is a full service,” she said as he took the ledger from her. Once he had it, he seemed to revert back to his business-man model – opening the folder and scanning the pages with a critical eye. “Comprehensive interviews of both the men and the women so that they both get a say in what they want from the relationship. I would then arrange for a thirty-day trial period where the women are sent out to live with or near their prospective husbands and get to know them.”

  “Who will absorb the costs?” her father asked, frowning at some of her budgeting on the third page.

  “The prospective husband will pay for the bride to travel to meet him,” Elizabeth said. “And I would pay for her to return if either party does not like the arrangement. It will give myself and my future employees more incentive to ensure a good match. Both must sign an exclusive with me.”

  “And how will you conduct the interviews?” her father asked. He looked up from the ledger to observe her shrewdly. “You cannot be everywhere at once, my dear.”

  “Well, I would travel to a remote town – probably in Montana –” He raised his eyebrows when she named a state such a long way away. “According to my research, there is a lot of business for Mail-Order Brides there, so the pool of prospective husbands would make it worth the trip.” He nodded along with her. “I would conduct the first interviews myself to streamline the process and establish an effective method so that, when I return to Boston, I can take steps to hire employees who can travel out and do these intervi
ews for me, or possibly have one on location there.” She took a deep breath, encouraged as he kept nodding along. “The eventual goal would be to have several employees strategically placed to conduct interviews in states where there is a demand for Mail-Order Brides.”

  “Don’t forget the returned soldiers,” he said, again fixing her with a shrewd gaze.

  “I do not plan to target soldiers specifically,” she said slowly. “Not at first, at least. Soldiers just returned from service may be at a loose end – like Captain Sharpe was – and will not know what they want in a wife or even whether they plan to settle down.” She’d assumed that Captain Sharpe had refused the services of Mail-Order Bride agencies for that reason, though she’d never actually asked him. She knew that he did not approve of their treatment of women and that was an encouraging thought. Hopefully there were more returned soldiers like him. “I think it would be more useful to target retired servicemen and men who have been invalided home. They would need to be cared for and their pensions would provide a stable income for the women.”

  Her father nodded along, although there was a hint of something in his eyes that made Elizabeth pause. Finally, he looked back down at the ledger and said: “It appears that you plan to start straight away.”

  Elizabeth nodded again. “I don’t want to begin recruiting potential brides until I’m certain of the efficacy of my interviewing methods – so I will need to go to Montana and identify potential husbands to add to a register.”

  “I see.”

  She could see the wheels turning in his head. Elizabeth held her breath. She had her heart set on performing the interviews herself – how else would she know that they had been conducted properly? How else could she ensure they were set up properly? She couldn’t think of anyone she trusted enough to do the deed in her place. In truth, she was largely thinking of Lydia, Susan, Margaret and Lucy. She knew that in order to identify a man who was worthy of those extraordinary women, she would need to sit him down and look him in the eye. She would trust no one else with her friends’ hearts and futures.

  She hadn’t mentioned it to them. During their weekly sessions, no matter how close the conversation veered towards the topic of Mail-Order Brides, she’d kept her mouth shut. Elizabeth would never forgive herself if they’d gotten their hopes up for an agency which would address their needs only to have it all dashed if her father refused his support.

  He read through the ledger again, tapping the pages as he went. Elizabeth sat on the very edge of her chair and watched him.

  He set the ledger down. “So you like Captain Sharpe, then?” he said.

  That was such an abrupt change in topic that Elizabeth had to take a moment to gather herself. “I’m sorry? Well, he’s tolerable.”

  Elizabeth had barely given any thought to Captain Sharpe – she’d been too intent on her own schemes. She had entered the library unannounced to find him curled up in the chair with a book in his lap and his eyebrows furrowed. She couldn’t know what he had been dreaming of, but she’d gotten the impression that it was not an entirely pleasant dream and the thought made her terribly sad. She thought that a man as handsome as he was should never be bothered with unpleasant dreams.

  “Tolerable?” her father repeated with half a smile. “Just tolerable?”

  “You hired him to be my bodyguard, Father – not my friend,” she said irritably. “I barely know the man and, frankly, I think this whole thing has been an absolute horror for him. Imagine coming home from an exciting war only to find yourself escorting a lady to tea parties and spending your days in the library while she sees to the housekeeper. The poor man must be bored silly.”

  Her father smiled wryly. “He tells me that he’s quite content here,” he replied.

  “He’s content?” Elizabeth asked. “‘Content’ is a terribly bland word, don’t you think? For someone who’s used to a war –”

  “Wars are not always the sorts of things one remembers fondly,” her father replied, pulling her up short. “After the war, I would say blandness and tea parties are probably just what he needs. In any case, he’s never complained.”

  “To the man who signs his paychecks?” Elizabeth replied. “Why on earth would he do that?”

  He chuckled and rang the bell for Christopher, who was at the door almost immediately. “Fetch Captain Sharpe, will you?” her father asked. Christopher nodded silently and turned away. “Lizzie, I think you’ve got a good idea here,” her father continued, jabbing at the ledger for emphasis. “Choice Mail-Order Brides Agency, huh?”

  Elizabeth felt a glow of pride. “Yes, Father, and I’m glad you think so. I wanted a name that reflects both the choice both women and men have, and one that also gives the impression that we are more than the average Mail-Order Bride agency,” she replied, a smile tugging at the corners of her lips. It was beginning to feel real.

  “I wouldn’t expect anything less than the best from you, Elizabeth. I’m happy to help you with it – I’ll even approve of you traveling to Montana.”

  “Oh, thank you –”

  “Assuming Captain Sharpe is willing to make the trip with you.”

  Elizabeth froze. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Well, he might not be willing – he’s done a lot of traveling in his time and it’s my understanding that some of his injuries can flare up on long journeys.”

  “Absolutely not! I will go on my own.” Elizabeth declared. “I had planned on traveling to Montana alone, and I certainly don’t need a guard!”

  His eyes narrowed dangerously. “Lizzie, if you thought for one second that I would agree to that, then you’re not the girl I raised.”

  Elizabeth had hoped for it, certainly. She imagined being stuck in a coach with Captain Sharpe – because of course he would ride with her as a fellow traveller, even if he was technically staff – for hours and hours at a time. What would they talk of? She wondered if he would feel compelled to share stories of his adventures in China and immediately chided herself. She’d worked so hard to drive him off, suppressing her own desires and interests in order to appear as boring as possible, and now – right when all that effort would pay off – her father insisted that she take him along on what would probably be the most interesting and exciting journey of her life.

  Captain Sharpe could prove to be a distraction, she thought. He seemed to have set himself the task of keeping her away from her planning over the last several weeks – how bad would he be if he decided that he did not approve of her plans? Or thought that she needed to take a break from them?

  He was a handsome man, as well, and although Elizabeth was rarely affected by a handsome face, she had found it difficult to contend with Captain Sharpe’s. His emerald eyes would fix on her and she would find herself entranced, forgetting whatever it was she had been saying and feeling pinned down like a butterfly in a collection. Looking at Captain Sharpe was like looking at a work of art that got more interesting the longer she looked at it, and she’d hoped that a solo journey would allow her some time to distance herself from the strange, hypnotic affect his eyes and features could have. She thought about trying to explain that particular conundrum to her father and the heat rose in her cheeks.

  The man himself entered the room, trailing after Christopher with a look of pleasant curiosity on his face. Her father dismissed Christopher and explained Elizabeth’s plan to Captain Sharpe, apparently deciding to treat the Captain’s accompanying her as a forgone conclusion which depended only on his consent.

  That set her teeth on edge. To think that her father didn’t even trust her to manage the simple task of getting into a coach and traveling to a pre-determined destination. Something women did frequently. Did he think her incapable? Did he think that the coach would be set upon by bandits? Those sorts of things only happened in books. This was just typical of him – to make a decision which would affect her without even consulting her – this was exactly why women’s suffrage was so important – she ought to be allowed to make decis
ions for herself –

  “Lizzie?” her father said, breaking her out of her reverie.

  She looked up and realised that he had asked her a question. Captain Sharpe’s expression hadn’t changed. He looked curious and unaffected.

  “I beg your pardon, Father – could you repeat that?”

  “I said, you plan to travel to Montana first, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” she replied.

  Her father looked at Captain Sharpe expectantly. After a moment, Captain Sharpe nodded. “I think I could manage that distance,” he said slowly. “It was certainly harder to get back to Boston from China.”

  “I will not begrudge you if you don’t think you can make the journey, Captain Sharpe,” Elizabeth said, in a tone which – she was not proud to admit it – was a touch haughtier than the tone she usually used with her servants. “Honestly, I’m quite capable of taking care of myself.”

  Her father shook his head at her. “But it would ease my mind to know that you were not alone.”

  “You realize that I am not a child?” she demanded. “I have been running this household since George was in diapers and I’ve managed it quite well without the help of Captain Sharpe – or any other man for that matter.”

  It was a low blow. Her father’s eyes hardened but Elizabeth swallowed her guilt. Instead, she jutted out her chin as though daring him to contradict her.

  He hissed through his teeth and leaned back in his chair. “Either Captain Sharpe accompanies you, or you do not go,” he said simply. “You may be able to defy my orders and leave without permission, I have no way of really stopping you, but you cannot leave without money. My money.”

  Elizabeth wanted to scream at the injustice of it, but she knew that there was no way around her father’s pronouncement. With some judicious saving, she might have been able to save enough for a trip to Montana. But by that time one of her friends might have been forced to make a terribly permanent decision. She needed to act soon while the idea was still fresh in her mind and her friends, and women of the Boston branch were relatively safe.