Tears suddenly filled her eyes and Macie blinked them back hurriedly. Was something wrong with her? Most people were able to mourn loved ones for awhile before letting the pain gently ease until it was no more than a twinge. But Macie’s grief was still fresh, half a decade later.
She missed her ma and pa and Teddy keenly. Every night before bed, Macie would squeeze her eyes closed and remember their rough, wooden house. She’d sit down at the supper table and imagine the simple meal she and Ma would have prepared or she’d walk through the pasture, trying to recall each sight and smell. She’d do her best to remember all the details of life with her family.
It wasn’t that life had been idyllic for the Sheldons. Her parents had started the small cattle ranch outside of Elmswood, Texas, when Macie was five and Teddy little more than a baby. They’d built the house themselves and worked long hours as they tried to create a thriving ranch. Macie had gone to school only sporadically as her parents often couldn’t spare her from her extensive chores. Instead, Ma had tutored her nightly after all the day’s work was finished.
There had been drought, cattle rustlers, and bad prices on beef to deal with. But the Sheldons had persisted. By the time Macie was eighteen, their ranch was most definitely a success. It was one of the smaller ones in the area, but her pa had hired on a pair of cowhands and they were turning a small profit.
And then smallpox had swept through. Teddy had fallen ill first after a day spent with his nearby Mexican friends. That evening, Pa had ridden back over to warn the Montoyas that Teddy was sick, only to find that the entire family had fallen ill. Ma and Pa had returned to nurse their neighbors, leaving Macie to watch over Teddy. But by morning, the entire Montoya family had passed away.
Macie started feeling sick that night and couldn’t remember the next few days. It was all a haze of fever and pain. When she finally swam back to consciousness, she found herself being nursed by Mrs. Martin, another neighbor. And there, in the middle of the room stood three pine coffins. Regretfully, Mrs. Martin had told Macie that her family was gone. It was a miracle that the eighteen-year-old had survived, though she’d always bear the marks of the illness on her face.
A telegram was sent back to Ma’s only living relative, Aunt Jane, who’d swept down and insisted Macie return to Hartford, Connecticut, to stay. Too sick and grieved to think things through well, Macie had simply gone along with her aunt’s plans. It was only later that she began to wonder if she’d made the right choice.
Ever since she’d left Texas, something had been calling Macie back. It was like an itch she couldn’t quite scratch. She wondered if maybe, just maybe, the reason she wasn’t able to move on with her life was because she hadn’t been able to say a proper good-bye. She’d been on a train heading north within an hour of the funeral.
Would seeing the ranch one more time soothe the ache in her heart? Would walking through Elmswood let her say goodbye to the memories that constantly called to her? Macie wondered. Surely it couldn’t matter that much, and yet why else was she unable to stop thinking about it?
Cup drained, she sighed and returned it to another footman holding a tray. She snapped open her emerald green fan and fluttered it just at her chin on the left side. Her green-brown eyes analyzed the room. Macie was well aware of her strengths and had been schooled by her aunt in how to use them to help snare a husband.
Yes, Macie was tall for a woman, at nine inches over five feet. However, she had a very nice figure. Her sandy blonde hair had been cut short when she’d been sick and now just reached her shoulders. Luckily, false hairpieces were all the rage and her insufficient locks were supplemented well before being twisted and curled and pinned into place.
She raised a thin, arched brow and smiled shyly across the room at Benedict March. He had professed admiration for her before and Macie knew him to be kind and safe. He knew about her scars and lack of dowry and still never failed to ask her to dance. Benedict wouldn’t make an offer of marriage to her, but that was fine with Macie. She’d begun to let go of the hope of finding a husband among Hartford’s high society. It was more for Aunt Jane’s sake that she even bothered to pretend.
Benedict elbowed his way over and grinned at her. “Good evening, Miss Sheldon. You look lovely tonight. I believe the next dance is the polka. Would you care to join me?”
Macie took his arm gladly and the two spent the next half hour moving through the steps and chatting amicably. Once the music ended, Benedict bowed over her hand and went off in search of his next partner. Macie knew he needed to use the evening to advance his marriage prospects. Still, she was sorry to see a friend go.
A broad youth was smiling toothily at her elbow. He was introduced to her by his mother who was a friend of Aunt Jane’s. Apparently, this Rupert Somers had been away working in New York and had just returned to Hartford for the holidays.
Macie knew that the Somers family was in the same straits as Aunt Jane; any fortune that had come down through the family tree was fast waning. Only an old name kept them from being blacklisted from these sorts of events. Rupert Somers was not the eligible match Aunt Jane was hoping for. But as Aunt Jane had married into her “old name,” Macie wondered what she hoped to accomplish. Macie’s mother had been every bit as middle class as Jane had been back before she married.
The dancing continued for another hour. Macie went from one partner to the next; never dancing with the same man twice, lest people think there was more between them than there actually was. She was well aware that young men danced with her in order to show off their prowess on the dance floor in the hopes that more eligible girls might notice. Macie was pretty enough to instill jealousy without being a real threat.
It had been hard to learn that lesson. More than once, she’d thought some bachelor or another had set his cap for her, only to find that she’d been little more than a pawn in a plot to catch a better fish. At first, she’d been disappointed and embarrassed.
She was a willing girl who wanted to make people happy. And nothing would make Aunt Jane happier than marriage to a wealthy man. However, it had become apparent over the years that she was unlikely to make such a match. Though she was sorry for Aunt Jane’s sake, she was secretly relieved. This life was fine, but it wasn’t a good fit for her. How she would ever tell her aunt, though, Macie couldn’t imagine.
After suffering through a waltz with Mr. Somers, she was introduced to tall, dashing Alexander Van Dusen who said perfectly respectable things all the while eying her too familiarly. A headache was blooming as Macie’s brain scrambled to think of a way to extricate herself from this scallywag.
“Excuse me,” a delicate voice interrupted. “I must borrow my cousin.”
Macie looked over to see her cousin Lorna at her side. The petite brunette smiled winningly at Mr. Van Dusen before tugging Macie away.
“Thank you!” Macie hissed in Lorna’s ear. “How did you know I needed rescuing?”
Lorna shot a dark look back over her shoulder. “I had to dance a waltz with him earlier. He kept looking at me as though he was a boa constrictor ready to swallow me whole.”
Macie giggled and followed her cousin through the crowd and out onto the veranda where she took as deep a breath as her corset would allow. The sounds and smells of the ball were diminished here. Macie closed her eyes and leaned against the railing, enjoying the frosty air and lack of pretense.
Next to her, Lorna echoed Macie’s relief with a deep sigh of her own.
Chapter 4
Next to her, Lorna sighed deeply as well. “I was beginning to think I’d lose my mind if I had to stay in there another moment. Why do all of the eligible bachelors have nothing interesting to say? Do they really think that bragging about their money will convince a girl to marry them?”
“I hate to say it, but yes,” Macie observed. “These balls are little more than a chance for unmarried people to meet while under the supervision of their mothers.”
“Mama would be disappointed to hear it, but I
couldn’t care less how much money a fellow has. I’m not even sure I care how handsome he is or what his family line is like. Do you think I’m crazy to want to marry someone I actually like? Someone who can carry on a conversation about the world? Never mind being in love, I’d settle for having an amicable marriage.” Lorna wrapped her arms around herself and watched the dancers through the windows, frowning.
“Before I came to Hartford, I never knew that marriage could be such a strange business,” Macie confessed.
Lorna looked up and her expression relaxed into a rueful grin. “Is it so very different on the frontier?”
The taller girl’s head tipped as she considered this. “Yes and no. I mean to say, it isn’t always possible to wait for an ideal candidate for matrimony. There are far more men than women and most boys grab the first girl who will say yes. All of these other things don’t matter so much.”
“Hmmm…” Lorna mused, her eyes twinkling. “A long family lineage is nowhere near as important as hard work and strong hands out in the wilderness. I suppose I could settle for a man of no fortune if he was tall and could wrestle a bear.” The petite brunette waggled her eyebrows.
Macie caught her cousin’s teasing. She laughed, “Not all cowboys are strong and handsome, Lorna. We had a cowhand who swore that it wasn’t healthy to take more than two baths a year. He was missing half his teeth and two fingers on his left hand. He was bow-legged and bald.”
Lorna’s mouth puckered as she considered the picture Macie was painting. “Still, he sounds like a better catch than Marmaduke Mason.”
“Is he the short one with the thin mustache?” Macie asked delicately.
“That’s the one. He also spits a little whenever he talks. And his hands are always damp. I could feel it through my gloves when we danced!” Lorna shuddered.
The two enjoyed a giggle together.
“We should go back in,” Macie suggested dutifully. “Your mother will want to know where we are.”
But rather than moving towards the doors, her cousin announced, “Oh, I don’t care about Mama anymore. She’s had eight years to try and find me a match. No one has taken the bait and I’m about to take matters into my own hands.”
Macie’s eyebrows shot up. “What do you mean? Lorna, you aren’t going to do something desperate, are you?”
Her cousin looked around as though expecting to find an eavesdropper out there on the veranda. She took a step closer and whispered, “I’m going west to get married.”
It was the last thing Macie could have imagined her cousin saying. Lorna was fun-loving and lighthearted, but she was also practical. She might dream up a way to dress as boys and sneak into the stables for a gallop through the town square, but she would never actually do it.
“Who are you marrying?” was all Macie could think to ask.
“I don’t know yet,” Lorna admitted. “But I’m going to do it. I’ve made up my mind.”
Macie was feeling the need for secrecy too, now. She peered through the window, making sure that no one was heading their way.
“Tell me all,” she begged.
“Have you ever heard of mail-order brides?” Lorna’s voice was louder now, her excitement overcoming her caution.
The tall blonde shook her head, intrigued.
“You said it yourself; there are more men in the west than women and they often have trouble finding a bride. These men write advertisements and put them in magazines and newspapers back east. I’ve started reading them.”
Macie’s eyes were huge. “What do the advertisements say?”
Lorna shrugged, “They’re often similar. ‘Rancher, 32, seeks willing wife to come to California.’ That sort of thing.”
“You can’t truly be considering answering one of those,” Macie scoffed.
“Why ever not?”
Macie spluttered, “You’d have no idea what sort of man you were marrying! What if he was cruel or drank or had a nasty temper or, or… smelled bad? You’d be far away from everyone you know and under his thumb. I can’t think of a worse idea!”
Lorna looked away, sulkily. “I know it sounds odd. I used to think it was too big a risk, too. However, marrying one of these men is a risk.” She gestured at the black-suited gentlemen whirling around the ballroom. “Any of them might be hiding terrible vices. We’ve heard whispers of respectable men who do all sorts of awful things. Mama tries to keep me from hearing, but everyone talks. If I agreed to marry one of them, I’d enter the marriage knowing very little about my husband. Sure, I’d know who his ancestors were and how much money he makes, but I wouldn’t truly know what sort of a man he was until it was too late.”
It was a fair point. Macie herself had come to the realization that she wasn’t interested in the sort of men of whom her aunt would approve. The grinning, shiny options in that ballroom were as different from her father and brother as they could be.
Besides, marrying one of these men would mean that Macie would be doomed to a lifetime of balls and parties and gossiping about the people around her. She could hardly bear another hour of it, let alone the next sixty years. She’d known good, honest, hard-working fellows back in Texas. Was it possible that those boys were looking for brides?
“How would you go about choosing a husband?” she wondered.
Sensing that she was winning her cousin to her side, Lorna perked up. “I figure that I’ll start by reading dozens of ads. Then, if any catch my eye, I’ll send a letter of introduction. From there, I hope to write a few times so that I can get a feel for what sort of man he is.”
Macie found that she was nodding along and quickly stopped. She was loath to admit it, but Lorna’s plan wasn’t as cockamamie as she’d first thought. It wouldn’t hurt to write letters, would it? If she changed her mind, she could just write and end the correspondence kindly.
An idea sparked and Macie’s heart took off at a gallop. “Are there many advertisements from Texas?” she asked in a would-be casual tone.
But Lorna knew her too well. “Why, Macie Sheldon, are you thinking about becoming a mail-order bride?”
Despite the cold, Macie’s cheeks heated. “Of course not. I just wondered. We really should get back inside before we freeze.”
Without waiting for a reply, she hurried to the French doors and tugged on the handle. For a moment, she’d stepped too close to a dangerous precipice. Macie reassured herself that the right option was to return to the ball and continue with the path her aunt had set her on. Aunt Jane knew what was best, didn’t she?
Yet, a dance with Edwin Merritt did nothing to put the tickling notion from her mind. Macie tried to attend to Carl Hayworth’s long description of his latest hunting trip, but her imagination wandered continually. And on the ride home in the darkness of the carriage, she could no longer keep herself from facing the truth: Macie was considering becoming a mail-order bride.
“I was pleased with the number of partners you had, Macie,” Aunt Jane crowed. “Lorna, you sat out too many dances. I happen to know for a fact that Marmaduke Mason was looking for you.”
The only response to this was a derisive snort. Macie could picture her aunt’s round face taking on that look she reserved for her remaining unmarried daughter.
“He comes from a good family,” Aunt Jane began.
“Mama,” Lorna moaned. “Please, don’t list his good points. They hardly make up for his bad ones. A good family name does not negate constantly sweating hands. It was bad enough with two pairs of gloves between his palm and mine. I can’t imagine his hands on my bare skin!”
“Lorna!” Aunt Jane admonished, shocked at her daughter’s daring.
“Oh, Mama, I’m not a little girl any more. I am aware that married men don’t always wear gloves when they touch their wives’ bare hands,” Lorna responded drily.
The Scars of a Pure Heart Page 3
