by Zina Abbott
We need to accept the hand we were dealt and make the best of it.
Part of the hand life had dealt Nathan had been having Herbert as his stepbrother. He still struggled to make the best of it.
Fortunately, life had also dealt him Dahlia, the woman he would love forever.
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Thank you for reading
Nathan’s Nurse
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Sweethearts of Jubilee Springs
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Dahlia came to Jubilee Springs with another mail order bride, Kate Flanagan. If you enjoyed reading Nathan’s Nurse, you may also enjoy Two Sisters and the Christmas Groom, Book 18. Here is the start of Two Sisters and the Christmas Groom:
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Chapter 1
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Lower Manhattan, New York ~ October, 1881
A t the sound of her parents’ bedroom door opening, Annie Flanagan turned to offer her father a cheerful greeting. As soon as she caught sight of his bleary eyes and stooped shoulders, she thought better of it. Tippled too much again, did he? She kept her facial expression pleasant and her tone of voice soft. “Good morning, Da. I’ve your coffee ready, and your potatoes about fried.”
She watched as her father jerked his chair away from the end of the table and dropped into it. From the scowl on his face as he glanced her way, she knew he still blamed her for the loss of her position working as a maid in the Hamilton home.
“Nothing good about it, now is there? I’m supposing there’s no breakfast meat with the potatoes?” He peered at the contents of his cup with disdain. “I’ll be needing some Irish coffee to kill this pounding in my head.”
“Plain coffee is what we have, Da, and lucky we are to be having that.” Annie cringed as her father roared his displeasure in response.
“And whose fault would that be, if not yours, with you not working, not bringing in your fair share? It’s a blight on the family, you are. Shame on you for misbehaving at the Blakewell’s to the point herself was not giving you a good reference. Whatever you were doing wrong, Mrs. Blakewell is black-listing you among her society friends, now isn’t she? You’ll not be finding it easy to get a job in service amongst those who’ll be paying good wages.”
Annie turned her back on her father and bit her tongue to keep from responding to his false allegations. She had never told anyone but her mother the reason she quit working for the Blakewell family. Mrs. Blakewell, besides her belittling attitude towards Annie, had increasingly bullied her into performing acts that Annie found dishonest and unconscionable. Annie felt the worst about the time she had yielded to her employer’s badgering and stolen their daughter’s private letter to bring to her. It had caused Annie considerable grief and feelings of remorse that even confession and performing the penitence the priest had given her had not resolved. It had only been after she explained to Delphinia Blakewell why she had taken her letter and begged her forgiveness she had felt relieved of the guilt. Delphinia forgave her and acknowledged it was her mother’s doing more than Annie’s. Not only had Delphinia given her some cast-off clothing to take home to her family to either wear or sell, but she had accepted Annie’s help to get her and her belongings out of New York and on a train to Colorado where she had prospects of marriage waiting.
Then there was the issue of Delphinia’s fiancé the family forced on her. More than once, the bounder caught Annie alone while performing her duties and tried to have his way with her. She had needed to get away from him, as well as Mrs. Blakewell.
Although Annie could not read or write, she trusted the letter of recommendation Delphinia left for her spoke of her work in positive terms. She immediately offered her resignation in the Blakewell home and, using Delphinia’s letter, secured a position in the Hamilton home. Unfortunately, Mrs. Blakewell, already thwarted by her daughter’s disappearance from the house and her unavailability for the arranged marriage, would not allow Annie to escape the household unscathed. She personally called on Mrs. Hamilton, accused Annie of theft—the so-called theft being the clothes Delphinia gave her days before she left home—and advised Mrs. Hamilton to fire Annie immediately.
With no job, and no letter of recommendation that would be acceptable to the social elite of New York City, work prospects for Annie looked bleak until the day Mr. Blakewell showed up on her doorstep. In the middle of the day like it had been, her father, older brother, Patrick, who chose to go by his formal name to avoid confusion with his father who was known as Paddy, and sister, Kate, were off to work, and her younger siblings off to school before the girls left for part-time work. Only she and her ma, Fiona, were home.
At first, when Mr. Blakewell appeared at their door, Fiona assumed a defensive attitude.
Annie held no grudges against Mr. Blakewell. Her former employer had treated her with a reasonable degree of courtesy and sufficient respect one in service could expect from an employer. At least, he had never trapped her in a secluded corner and tried to force himself on her like Andrew Sopworth had.
Annie welcomed him into their apartment, even though her face had flamed with embarrassment because of their mean living quarters. Fortunately, even though her mother pursed her lips, uncertain of the wisdom of allowing Annie’s former employer to visit, she also greeted him. However, Mr. Blakewell did not seem to notice, or mind, their apartment. The request and offer he gave her that day filled her spirit with light and confidence in a bright future, instead of the dreary cloud of failure and despair that had engulfed her since being falsely accused and dismissed by Mrs. Hamilton’s housekeeper.
Delphinia wanted her. She now lived in Colorado and had married—not to one of the miners with whom she had been corresponding, but to a man who owned a furniture store. He came from an Albany, New York, family similar in station to the Blakewell’s. Her father, after realizing his daughter’s former fiancé was the scoundrel both Delphinia and Annie knew him to be, decided to release half her dowry to his new son-in-law. Actually, to Delphinia, he admitted. since her husband assured him she would be better suited to handle the investments than he would be.
However, her new husband did not have servants. For a wedding gift, she asked Mr. Blakewell to contact Annie and request—beg, he assured with a smile—she to come to Jubilee Springs to work there as her maid. With the scarcity of women in the high mountain mining town, Delphinia had no prospects of finding someone there to work for her. She had complete confidence in Annie’s ability and honesty. He assured Annie that Delphinia promised, if for any reason Annie did not like Colorado or working for her, she would give Annie a generous severance pay, a train ticket back to New York, and another letter of recommendation.
Mr. Blakewell had to explain the meaning of severance pay to Annie. All she knew was, when people in service were dismissed, they were lucky if they received the full wages owed to them before they were cast out to find other work the best they could. Delphinia’s offer to pay her in addition to any wages she earned, and a ticket back home if she did not like Colorado, left her stunned. Mr. Blakewell did not allow her much time to muse
over it as he continued talking. All she could think about was, Delphinia wanted her.
“My daughter recognizes that, with the shortage of marriageable women in the region, she might not have you long before some young man claims your attention and affection and offers you marriage. She needs you to teach her how to cook and clean.”
That comment stunned Annie. There were men in this wild place out West who would wish to know her better and quickly marry her? No, she’d be loyal to Delphinia and not allow a man to turn her head and persuade her to walk away from her job. “Pleased I am to be accepting the work, Mr. Blakewell….” Annie hesitated, and then offered him a sheepish expression. “I’m sorry, sir. Being home like I’ve been, I’ve slipped back into the speech of the Irish.” She sighed in relief as he waved his hand to brush away her concern.
“I doubt your Irish accent will matter in Colorado, Miss Flanagan. From what my daughter said, there are several Irish working as miners in the Prosperity Mine up there. In fact, she mentioned that, at the harvest dance she attended before her marriage, the mine owner announced that one of the company houses would be awarded to a young Irish fellow as soon as he found a wife through a marriage broker with whom the mine owners have contracted.”
Annie had smiled in response. She did not offer the information that her sister, Kate, had contacted this same marriage broker, Mrs. Lizett Millard, at the Colorado Bridal Agency. Kate had started a correspondence with the Irish miner, Michael O’Hare. Instead, she listened as Mr. Blakewell continued speaking.
“It was at this same dance where one of my former business associates who is working up there recognized my daughter. Using a rather roundabout method, he passed along word to me she was safe and well. It took some doing for me and some of my men to puzzle it out, but I figured out who sent the message, which told me where she went. I arrived right after she married. At least, I was able to meet my new son-in-law and take them out for a wedding supper.”
“Then, she’s happy with him, is she?”
“Yes. In fact, she already has a vision of the role she would like to play in helping his business grow in ways they both want, but which will allow him to concentrate on what he truly loves to do—work with wood. He designs and builds beautiful, high-quality furniture. It is too bad you are no longer working for us. I’m still waiting for it to arrive, but I purchased an entire room arrangement from Mr. Nighy—well, from Delphinia, since she is the one who pitched it to me. Then again, if you choose to go out there, you will see all the beautiful pieces this man creates.”
Mr. Blakewell had focused his gaze on Annie and grown more serious. “That is why she needs you, Annie. She can sell furniture, she can manage investments and businesses, she can host social events, but she does not have the skills you do to maintain a home. She barely knows how to boil water for tea.”
Her da’s grunt as he ate his fried potatoes and drank his black coffee she had set before him brought her back to the present. In spite of her father’s grumpiness, Annie’s spirits refused to be dampened as she thought once more of Mr. Blakewell’s visit and job offer. That day, he had insisted on giving her severance pay—at Delphinia’s specific request, he had assured her—and promised to return with a train ticket and instructions a few days later. Annie had gratefully thanked him. Her only request to him was that he allow her to meet him elsewhere or come in the middle of a working day when most of her family were gone from home. Although he did not say anything, she guessed he suspected the reason behind her request.
As soon as he left, she had turned to her mother. “Ma, there’s no need for Da to be knowing about this money. I’m taking it now, and I’ll be putting it against what we owe at the dry goods, green grocer, and butcher. Please, don’t be telling Da about my leaving for Colorado. I’ll be sending money home, but I’ll not be giving it to you where you’ll be obligated to put it in Da’s hands to support his drinking. I’m twenty-one and of age, Ma. I’m not beholden to turn my pay over to Da. I’ll be getting accounts in my own name at the stores and making arrangements to be sending payments directly to where you’ll be shopping for food. I’ll tell them to be allowing you to charge against it, but not Da. And, no spirits, Ma, no matter how he begs and threatens. No tobacco, either. Most of his wages go to that instead of supporting this family, and that’s enough.”
Fortunately, her mother, tears in her eyes, agreed to Annie’s plan. Annie recalled speaking of it to Kate after swearing her to secrecy. Only Kate, her mother, and she knew within the week she would board the train to start a new life in Colorado.
The night before Annie planned to depart, she had managed to get Kate alone for a few minutes after her sister returned from her job as a scullery maid with the Van Cleet family. “You’re still writing to the miner in Jubilee Springs, Katie? You think you like him well enough you can see being married to him—maybe falling in love with him?”
Katie shrugged. “I’m liking him, but we haven’t been writing long enough for me to be knowing if he’ll be my choice, now have I? I received another letter from a man in Central City, Colorado. It’s not far west of Denver, but I’m not knowing if it’s on the same train line that would be going to Jubilee Springs. I must be admitting, I’m having good thoughts about his letter. Either way, I’ll not be living so far from you as here in New York, now will I?”
Annie forced her expression not to reflect her concern that the bridal agency had sent her sister a letter from a prospective husband who did not live in Jubilee Springs. One of the things she had counted on when she agreed to move to Colorado to work for Delphinia was that her sister would soon join her.
“You’ll need to be deciding what’s best for you, Katie. Please be keeping in mind, I’ll be living in Jubilee Springs. It’ll be hard on me moving so far from Ma and the family. But, you and I, we’ve always been close, now haven’t we? It’s heartbroken I’ll be if we end up not living close enough to each other to be visiting often.”
Both of them, with tears in their eyes, hugged before Annie once again studied Kate’s face. “You’ll be writing to me, won’t you, Katie? Delphinia—Mrs. Nighy, I suppose I need be calling her—she can be reading your letters to me. I’m sure herself or someone else will be helping me write back to you.”
“Certain it is, Annie. I’ll let you know what’s happening with the family. I’m just hoping Da won’t be taking it too bad when he learns you’ve left us. I’ll be sneaking off the same way.”
“We’ll still be family, no matter what. Besides, Ma is wanting us both to be going, getting out of the Irish sector here, now isn’t she?”
To read the book description and find the purchase link for
Two Sisters and the Christmas Groom,
please CLICK HERE.
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Acknowledgements
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This is part of the Sweethearts of Jubilee Springs series, earlier books written by some of the authors who blogged for the Sweet Americana Sweethearts blog. I wish to thank the other authors in the series for their insight, suggestions and support as we worked together.
I also wish to thank Linda Carroll-Bradd of Lustre Editing for copy editing this book to help it be as error-free as possible. Any errors you find are those of the author. I appreciate receiving a private message regarding any grammatical, punctuation, or spelling errors so that I may correct them. My contact information is at the end of the book.
My thanks to Dr. Keith Souter who writes historical westerns as Clay More. His non-fiction book, The Doctor’s Bag – Medicine & Surgery of Yesteryear, proved to be a valuable resource to allow me to better understand all involved in how head injuries were treated in the past. I also learned some interesting facts on the uses of leeches, which I included in the book.
Cover © Robyn Echols
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My books that are part of a Sweet Americana Sweethearts multi
-author series:
~o0o~
Grandma’s Wedding Quilts:
2.Kizzie's Kisses
Running from hostile Indians attacking Salina, Kansas in 1862, feisty Kizzie Atwell runs into freighter Leander Jones traveling the Smoky Hill Trail.
(Also Book 2 in my Atwell Kin series.)
~o0o~
Sweethearts of Jubilee Springs:
3. Aaron’s Annulment Bride
Believing she’s unworthy to be any man’s wife, Andrea Dalton marries Aaron Brinks so he can get title to a mining company house. But now she wants an annulment. Can he convince her to stay?
6. Cat’s Meow
Catherine Everett loves tall, lanky miner, Harold Calloway. She wants to marry him, but there is one “meowly” little problem.
7. Bargain Bessie
Bessie Carlson, a confirmed spinster, meets Zeb Jacobson, a successful Monarch Bend rancher who is NOT pushing forty.
11.Dead-Set Delphinia
Delphinia is dead set on being married within a week before her father can track her down. Bennett is dead set on continuing to muddle through life on his own.
15.Evasive Eddie Joe
Cowboy vs. the miners – who will marry the bride?
18.Two Sisters and the Christmas Groom
Annie comes to Jubilee Springs to work as a maid. Kate comes as a mail order bride to marry a local miner, Michael. What could go wrong?
19.Nathan’s Nurse
(Coming December 2019)
~o0o~
Zina Abbott’s Independence Day 1881
