A Highwayman's Mail Order Bride

by Blythe Carver

  Mark smiled a bit shyly. “I can’t tell you how much I admire your courage. From what I’ve heard, those bandits were a tough sort, indeed.”

  “That they were.” The less she spoke of them, the better. She folded her hands to keep them from shaking and willed herself not to cast too many looks outside the buggy, to where Jed rode.

  “It speaks well to the way you’ll manage ranch life,” he continued. “My greatest concern was that my wife be suited to the land, the busyness, and occasional hardship. That she be able to fend for herself when I’m out with the men.”

  “I’m glad to know you’re pleased with me.” That would be a tremendous first, knowing she impressed and pleased a man. She certainly never had before.

  “Now that we’re somewhat more alone,” he murmured, “I must say I’m pleased to find how pretty you are, too.”

  Her cheeks flushed. “Thank you. I don’t feel that way at the moment.”

  “Some ladies are just pretty no matter the state they’re in. You can smear dirt on them and dress them in rags—or, as in your case, a man’s shirt and trousers—and they’re lovely.”

  He ought to have seen her during her girlhood, as that had been her normal state.

  She searched for something else to speak about. He was to be her husband, after all, and she ought to get used to making conversation with him. “I heard from the gentleman in the stagecoach office that you stayed in town for two weeks. Is that so?”

  “It is.”

  “How did you manage? When you wrote to me, you spoke of how busy ranch life is.”

  He nodded. “True, which is why two of my hands came out to visit me every day in order to keep me up-to-date on ranch business. They would leave in the afternoon, while two more would come in the evening if need be. So on and so forth until you arrived.”

  “You did all of that for me?”

  He smiled that sweet, shy smile again. “How could I remain at the ranch, so far from town, when I didn’t know where you were? I had to do everything in my power to locate you. I was not aware of your escort, naturally.”

  “Naturally,” she whispered, blushing again but not for the same reason as before.

  She ventured a look outside. Just one, just to check on him. Jed rode beside them, keeping to himself rather than speaking to the pair of ranch hands who flanked him. What was he thinking?

  “If it pleases you, we can hold the wedding tomorrow morning,” Mark offered.

  “That will do nicely.” She hardly heard the words coming from her mouth over the racing of her heart. She was so close to having everything she’d prayed for.

  How cruel, then, that she had no desire for the decent, hardworking man who’d spent two weeks striving to locate her. And she still had no choice but to lie.

  In Boston, she’d never imagined there being other types of misery than her own. Poverty, starvation, abuse—she had suffered them while imagining there could be nothing worse.

  She’d never known the suffering of taking advantage of a good man—and her suffering had only begun. She’d known Mark for an entire thirty minutes, and already she longed to apologize.

  It was easy to allow him to do the talking as they rolled along the dusty road. While he was not a braggart, his pride was evident. “My father bought the land years ago, when I was but a baby in my mother’s arms.”

  “Where did you come from?”

  “St. Louis. My father was in business out there, and some of his firm’s clients owned land out here and in Texas. He got the itch, I suppose you might say. Fell in love with the notion of no longer working for a boss, behind a desk, in the cramped city. Stories about the wide, open spaces and blue sky as far as the eye could see.” There was more than a little wryness in the way he chuckled at this.

  “Is that not the truth of it, then?”

  “You tell me, Melissa. You’re the one who just made a harrowing journey on horseback from—where was it they took you? North Texas?”

  “Somewhere near there, yes. And I see what you mean. He was unprepared for the harshness of it.”

  He nodded. “You’re perceptive. Yes. That’s why I was certain to be honest with you when I wrote. I would not wish to mislead you on the way life is out here.”

  “Was your father unhappy with his decision?”

  “Oh, not at all—he simply took time to adjust his expectations. This land is certainly a heaven sometimes, but it’s much more a hell at others.” He cast a worried look her way. “Pardon my language.”

  She barely stopped herself from laughing. “I have heard much worse.” Had she ever. The word “hell” was the very least of them and something her husband had screamed on a daily basis.

  It was the memory of him and of what he would have done to her baby that kept Melissa in the buggy, silently riding beside her intended. When she reconsidered the situation with John Carter in mind, her lies seemed less important with every turn of the big wheels.

  “Our nearest neighbors are twenty miles from the house,” Mark informed her with an apologetic smile. “Though they are good friends, and I’m certain you’ll get along well with Lena Belton.”

  “Is she the rancher’s wife?”

  “Sister,” he explained. “Ryan and Lena lost their parents several years back. Ryan has been like a brother to me—rode out to town several times these past two weeks, checking on your situation. I know they’ll be anxious to meet you tomorrow.”

  Tomorrow. It would all be settled, everything put to rest. She would have nothing more to fear. Once she was married—really, truly married, married without question or doubt—she might breathe more easily.

  Suddenly, she found herself gasping for air. Panic? She thought not, as she knew panic too well to mistake it for anything else.

  “Are you well? Should we stop?”

  So attentive, so eager to please her. Never had a man treated her this way.

  Except for Jed.

  She shook her head. “No, please. I am eager to see the ranch, and I’m sure you would like to arrive. I’m somewhat overwhelmed, is all.”

  He took the liberty of patting her hand. “You need not be overwhelmed. Just be yourself, as you have so charmingly done so far. As for the ranch?” His smile widened. “We’re already here.”

  She blinked hard, looking about herself. There was nothing as far as the eye could see but grass and flat land. There were foothills in the distance, taller peaks somewhat further off. Blue sky, billowing clouds.

  “We’re on the ranch?” she asked, feeling immensely stupid.

  “We are. Everything you see here, to the foothills in the east, is ours. Furnish land.” For one brief, heartbreaking moment, she thought he might take her hand. He did not, but again she sensed his desire to extend further intimacy.

  Could it be that her absence created a deeper feeling in him than there should have been? He’d spent two weeks waiting, worrying, asking others to help find her. Perhaps this had endeared her to him.

  She hoped it was nothing more than imagination causing her to think along these lines.

  Once the house came into view, there was nothing to do but admire its beauty. “That’s the house?” she gasped, sitting forward on the leather seat, straining for a better look over the tops of the horses’ heads. It was a mansion, plain and simple, the most elegant one she’d ever seen. Even more impressive than the fine houses she’d admired in Boston—the houses she knew she would never step foot inside.

  This house would be hers. All four floors of it, white brick, the fourth-floor windows jutting out from a gray slate-tiled roof which rose high and sloped downward. A deep porch wrapped around the first floor, shaded by sycamore trees.

  “I had it built three years ago in the latest style,” he explained. “With a wife in mind, you see. It’s always been important for me to find a wife and have children to pass the ranch down to. I didn’t think a lady would want to live in the smaller, rather knockabout place that used to pass as the main house. I’ve sinc
e handed that home off to my overseer.”

  He pointed to the left, beyond the white fence which surrounded the great house, to a smaller house Melissa would have been delighted to call her own. A modest two floors rather than four, wooden shingles covering the walls and roof, a porch with a flower garden in front.

  It spoke to her heart in a way the larger house did not.

  Even so, this was not what her intended would wish to hear. “I’m greatly impressed,” she admitted with a soft laugh. “I’m afraid I might become lost in such a grand house!”

  “You’ll have plenty of help.” He pulled the buggy to a stop and set the brake before alighting, hurrying to her side that he might help her down. Memories of Mr. Lang and his pocket watch flashed before her, but that was all it was. A memory. Something she’d once lived through.

  This was her new life.

  “Come on inside,” Mark beckoned, waving for Jed to join them. “You’ll want to freshen up, I reckon.”

  Jed dismounted, handing the reins off to one of the ranch hands who led the horses to the stable. He looked up at the house, tipping back the brim of his hat to take in the entire sight.

  “Quite a place,” he observed, then caught Melissa’s eye. “Quite a place.”

  And there he was in his dirty clothing, his ragged boots. He could never give her something like the mansion which stood before them.

  She could never tell him she didn’t want it or anything like it, that she never had.

  20

  This was precisely what he didn’t need.

  Dinner in the home of the man whose money he planned to take.

  God truly had to possess a sense of humor, of that Jed was certain as he bathed in a metal washtub brought specially to his room and filled just for him.

  His room. The man had offered him a room. And not with the ranch hands, in one of the small bunkhouses they lived on along the outskirts of Furnish land. In the big house.

  He had never been so embarrassed by another man’s generosity before, and it was nobody’s fault but his. Mark Furnish merely wished to extend kindness to the man he believed had saved his fiancée’s life. If Jed had been in his place, he’d have done the same.

  For nothing was too good when it came to Melissa.

  If she were his, he’d have showered her savior with gold and promises of anything he wanted in the world short of his very life.

  The woman was that special. Her safety was that precious.

  He sank low in the tub, briefly considering going under and never coming up. She belonged to another man. She would never be his. He could never offer her half of what Furnish could. And she deserved this, all of it and more. After what she’d been through, she deserved the world.

  He’d give it to her if he could. He’d spend the rest of his life trying to, for damn sure.

  “What a fool,” he muttered, staring up at the plaster ceiling. There were no cracks. It was that new. There had never been a mistress there. She would be the first.

  He imagined them having guests, using the house’s many bedrooms to entertain friends and important people coming through Carson City. Melissa might not have been schooled in the finer arts, the things great ladies were supposed to be schooled in when he was growing up, but she could learn.

  The woman had taught herself to read, and he imagined it was sometimes with one eye swollen shut.

  Yes, she could learn anything, and she’d be a dazzling sight to see once she took her place in Carson City society. He imagined the sort of gowns her husband could buy for her, the jewels at her throat and ears, wrists and fingers.

  None of it would be as dazzling as the woman herself, with that tinkling laugh of hers, that sharp wit. Many would be the man who’d fall in love with her.

  He knew how easy it was to do, after all. Too well.

  A knock at the door told him his clothing had been dropped off after washing and drying—the blazing sun had done wonders, he noted when he opened the door to find them neatly folded on a chair just outside. The Furnish household ran smoothly, even without a woman to oversee things.

  Within a single day, that woman would be Melissa.

  He closed the door again and leaned against it, forehead on his arm, eyes closed. How was he supposed to get her out of his head and his heart?

  There was no choice but to leave after supper, was all. Furnish’s insistence that he stay was too much to refuse, but he’d make it clear to the man that he had things to do once the meal was finished. It was time to move on, away from her and the sight of her dancing eyes, her soft lips, the curve of her cheek, the dimples when she smiled.

  He could not see her on her wedding day. He was a strong man, God knew, but there were limits to any man’s control.

  Once he’d shaved and dressed—clean clothes had never felt so good, and it had been ages since he’d rested in a real bathtub—he traced the steps he’d taken upon entering the house, walking down a carpeted hall and down a wide set of stairs which left him in the entry hall.

  To the right of the front door was a drawing room, to the left was a study. Everything still felt fresh, new. Unlived in. Like the owner had waited for his wife before he started living in the place.

  There was something strangely touching about the whole thing, really.

  He wished it wasn’t so, since hating the man would’ve made things a hell of a lot easier.

  As if he heard Jed’s thoughts about him, Mark stepped out of the study. “Jed.” He nodded. “Are you a whiskey man?”

  “I grew up in Texas.”

  Mark’s laugh rang through the hall. “I’ll take that as a yes. Come. Join me for a drink—a celebration, if you will.”

  Damn it, why did he have to be so generous and likable? “Thank you, sir. It’s been a long time since I had a good glass of whiskey.”

  “Please, don’t call me sir. It’s Mark. And I only buy the best.”

  Jed followed him into the handsome room, its walls paneled in the same fine, shining oak as the floor. Books lined the wall opposite the windows, and the desk was a clutter of ledger books and purchase orders.

  A pair of high-backed chairs sat facing each other in front of a fireplace decorated in marble. Between them was a small table holding a decanter and two glasses. “Please. Take a load off,” Mark invited, taking one of the chairs for himself.

  Jed looked around, whistling through his teeth. “Yours is surely the most impressive ranch I’ve ever seen, Mark. And the most impressive house by far.”

  “You’ve seen a lot of ranches, then?” Mark poured a healthy glug of amber liquid into two glasses, passing one to Jed before raising his own in a silent toast.

  “Oh, sure. I grew up on one, in fact. Spent the first sixteen years of my life there.”

  “You don’t say.”

  Jed nodded, his eyes widening at the smooth whiskey when it hit his lips. A man could get used to this sort of life. “Ours was a modest outfit, nothing like this. Twenty-thousand acres, roughly five-hundred head.”

  “Still sizable,” Mark allowed. Men in his position could afford to be generous that way. They could afford a great many things, such as the finest whiskey Jed had ever tasted.

  “I was always rather proud of it,” Jed admitted, looking down into the glass. “Of course, I was a boy who only thought he was a man.”

  “Much as all of us were at that age, I reckon.”

  “I reckon so.”

  “Did you have many responsibilities there, on the ranch?”

  “Sure. My pa groomed me to take over.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “I did not.”

  Mark pursed his lips. “It isn’t fair of me to pry, of course.”

  Jed shifted in the chair, stretching his legs. “There was an accident, and my father and I had a falling out over it. The war came. By the time I got up the nerve to write home, both of my parents were dead, and the ranch split up, sold off.”

  “I’m very sorry to hear that—for you
, and for what your father built. It’s never easy, seeing the things somebody worked hard for just slip away. I could have faced that very reality here, to be honest with you.”

  Jed frowned. “Pardon my saying, but the Furnish name has been a big damn deal since I was old enough to know what made boys and girls so different.”

  Mark laughed as he poured himself another drink. “I don’t normally drink this much so early in the evening, but this is a celebration. And to address your observation, the name is indeed well-known and even respected. But things might have easily gone south when my father passed on. He groomed me, too, but he didn’t plan on succumbing so soon—doctor always told him to learn to cool his temper, said it would be the death of him one day. And it was, I’m sorry to say.”

  “You didn’t expect to take over when you did.”

  “That’s the long and short of it. I scrambled for a long while but managed to stay afloat and continue to grow the name and the ranch. My foreman was a great help, but he’s getting on in years and wishes to rest for the rest of his years. It’s quite a problem, though he taught me a great deal about the business side of the operation.” He shrugged. “I always cared more for the roping and riding, myself.”

  “Being on the land,” Jed agreed, remembering how it felt to be out among the cattle.

  “We are of the same mind.” They raised their glasses to each other before draining them.

  A knock at the open door, which both men turned at the sound of. Thanks to the whiskey, Jed was feeling better than he had in a long time. It was almost possible to forget the only woman he’d ever loved was upstairs, getting ready for supper the night before her wedding.

  Almost.

  “Pardon me, Mark.” A ranch hand stood in the doorway, nodding mute acknowledgment of their guest.

  “Yes, Davey?”

  “There’s a man outside, saying he needs to speak to you. Saying it’s real important, that he wants to come in. Some of the others managed to hold him off, but he’s pretty serious about getting to you.”

  “What’s this about?” Mark stood, buttoned his waistcoat. “I’ll come with you outside rather than allowing him in.”