“I’m not sure it’s a secret anymore,” Elena said slowly, thinking of the odd looks she’d gotten around town recently. “I couldn’t help the way I reacted when I saw…his wedding ring in the box. Widow Wallace must have wagged her tongue to everyone the moment I exited the post office.”
Elena had gone over every possible outcome but it all came back to two choices: marry Mace Thorne or marry a stranger. Marrying a stranger had a better outcome than the former.
She got up and wandered about the room. The cackling of the fireplace did little to soothe her as it matched the rhythm of her chaotic thoughts, popping and bursting like the small sparks of flame.
A bitter resentment rose up in her. Why did she have to be placed in this predicament? Her mouth flattened into a thin line. Bo’s irresponsibility had put her in an intolerable situation and there wasn’t really anything she could do about it.
“Why do men lack honor, Victoria?” Elena twisted a finger around a black ringlet which fell from the chignon atop her head. “What’s so wrong with being a man of honor? Why is that a state so hard to obtain from men?”
“Egads, Lena. You’re looking at a woman who discovered—”
The words cut off but Elena could already fill them in. Victoria’s husband had deceived everyone in Silverpines in his position as Mayor. So many had trusted him and if they were to discover that trust was misplaced... Victoria had confided in her because Elena knew what it was to keep a dark secret to herself.
No one knew about the harsh family life she lived under, the drunken and gambling habits of her father. Her mother, heiress to a fortune from descendants from across the Atlantic, had married a man who only wanted the comforts of life without having to work for them. Many times she’d heard her father and mother arguing behind the closed doors of the study.
Bo had followed in her father’s footsteps, bitten by the beast of the game of chance, wagering their family fortune on the tables, and losing. Always losing. Always thinking it would get better. Always wrong. And always, always wanting someone to clean up the mess of his mistakes.
Elena hugged herself tighter. She could hear the taunt of Mace Thorne’s voice on that horrible night that changed her life.
“Why have you done this?” she asked, her stomach rolling in fear.
“Man ought to pay his debts, don’t you think so, Miss Somersville?” He placed the cheroot in his mouth. With a nod to his right, one of his minions came forward and lit it for him. “See,” he blew out a puff of smoke, “When I play a nice, fair game of poker, I expect my opponents to know I want my money.”
“You cheated,” her brother spurted out of busted lips.
A man moved threateningly toward Bo and she threw herself over him. “Over my dead body! You’ll have to go through me.”
She didn’t know how she’d be able to take on one man much less three but she’d do her best to figure it out!
“Leave him alone, Vern,” Mace ordered in that same drawl, his eyes squinting at her through the smoke. “I don’t want Miss Somersville’s dead body a’tall.”
The way he said ‘dead’ along with the suggestive gleam made her ill.
“Lena,” Bo coughed.
She scrambled around and gingerly touched his face. Tears blurred her vision at the sight of his mangled body. “Bo, I told you to not play anymore.”
“Couldn’t help it.”
The thing was she knew he couldn’t. When he wagered, nothing else mattered. The fever got in his eyes and obscured everything else.
“How much does he owe you?”
“Two thousand dollars.”
Elena jumped to her feet, her heavy skirts swishing around her legs. “Two thousand dollars!”
“Double or nothing, wasn’t it, Bo?”
Her brother groaned and her heart fell to her feet. “Oh, Bo,” she whispered.
“It is my understanding if a man is willing to play for such high stakes, then it must be because he has money. So, when I very politely asked your brother for my winnings, he did a very ungentlemanly thing and tried to run away. I couldn’t have that, could I?’
“No,” Elena’s fists shook. “You couldn’t.”
Smoke curled around his figure. “Now you understand why we had to have this discussion.”
A coughing fit took over Bo and she bent toward him again. “Bo!”
“I’m wondering if you would be so kind as to let me know if you have funds available to pay my winnings that I won fair and square.”
Elena retrieved a handkerchief from her pocket and wiped at Bo’s wounds. “You know we don’t.”
“How unfortunate.”
Why did that faintly mocking tone sound like a warning?
The silence reigned over the small group behind the saloon while all around them were the sounds of debauchery. Elena swore that day she’d never step within a mile of a place like this ever again.
“Well, perhaps the alternative solution your brother presented to me will suffice.”
Now she twisted around to look Mace in the eyes. “Alternative solution?”
“Yes. While we were discussing things, your brother made mention that in lieu of payment, we could make some other sort of arrangement.”
Goosebumps pimpled on her arms. “Some other arrangement?”
“Your brother suggested you settle our debt for us.”
Fury unlike anything she’d ever known burned inside of her. How could this monster even think she’d give herself in order to pay for Bo’s debts!
“I’ll not give myself to you in order—”
“Now, Miss Somersville,” the gunslinger interjected in a placating tone, “You have to understand that I’m trying to maintain your brother’s honor. See, either I get my winnings in cash, or I will have to get satisfaction.”
All pretense of gentlemanly manner was gone. A potent, tangible dark air gathered around Mace Thorne.
“Please understand, Miss Somersville. No one’s suggesting impropriety here. I respect you as a woman of breeding and education as Bo was so kind to tell us. Also, you are not soiled by a lascivious lifestyle.”
“So, what exactly are you saying? That I become your—”
“No, Miss Somersville,” he interrupted before she could say the word. “Something much more binding than that. I am extending an honorable offer of marriage to you.”
Elena gulped, her throat dry as sand. “Marriage?”
“Yes. Marry me.” He finished the cheroot and crushed it under his booted feet. “I’ll forgive your brother’s debt.”
“Elena, don’t do it,” her brother begged. “Not for me. I’m not worth it.”
“Then why did you do this?” she hissed, her cheeks aflame with humiliation. How could her brother even suggest this atrocity!
“Not worth it?” Mace laughed, a scaly sound which slithered along her back. “It’s Miss Somersville’s decision to determine if my offer for marriage is worthy of your life.”
Mace Thorne wouldn’t just beat Bo if she refused his offer.
“But why me? I’m sure there are other women who would fit your lifestyle better than I.”
Some women may be attracted to the aura of danger the gunslinger carried about him along with the handsome face and manicured features. For herself, she found this dishonorable man hideous.
Mace shrugged. “It’s true. I had no intention of pursuing domesticity. But one look at you, Miss Somersville and any man is likely to change his mind.”
"Lena, no!” Bo pleaded in a rasp, “The saloon women run when he comes into town.”
“Not for long,” Mace nodded, making no attempt to hide the fact of his cruelty. “I always catch them.”
Just like he had her—caught between a rock and a hard place. Her brother’s life…or her life. Did she really have a choice?
If Bo had not spoken up then, what would she have said? But just as she went to answer the gunslinger, Bo yelled, “Thorne, wait! What if you give me time? Time to pay you the m
oney?”
“Bo!” She whirled around.
In a motion of slow agony, her brother pushed himself off the ground and wobbled unsteadily on his feet.
Mace’s eyes narrowed. “How much time?”
“Five years.”
“You should know better than that, Bo Somersville. Five years is too long a wait for my money. Especially when the prize of one Miss Elena Somersville sweetens every minute.” His assessing blue-eyed gazed roamed over her body in a languid, insolent way. She turned her head away.
“Two years, then,” Bo bargained. “She’ll be nineteen. If I don’t have the money, then you can have my sister as your wife.”
Mace circled them. The air of danger intensified. When he stopped in front of her, the pulse at the base of her neck leapt. She tried to still the trembling of her body but from the knowing look in his eyes, it hadn’t escaped his notice.
His head bent forward, smoky breath blowing along the sensitive ridge of her ear. “Fear looks delightful on you, Miss Somersville. It matches that porcelain innocence of yours I could just taste like a scoop of vanilla ice cream.” His words, spoken low, were for her ears only.
Bo’s voice broke through. “Please Thorne, give me two years to repay you.”
Mace fingered a curl of hair lying on her shoulder. She longed to snatch her hair away but an instinct warned her he was expecting her to do so. “Your hair’s like midnight, Miss Somersville. So very dark against that pale skin of yours.”
When she got home, she’d cut every last strand.
“You know Bo,” Mace breathed in an unsteady voice. Illicit, lewd hunger emanated from his eyes. “I don’t think I want to give you two years.”
“Lena!”
Elena started violently and came back to the present. She gazed about the room and then met the bewildered gaze of her friend.
“You were lost deep in your thoughts, Lena.” Victoria got up and walked over to her. “Where were you?”
“The night my brother sold me to pay off his wager.”
“Lena,” Victoria breathed out, her brown eyes full of worry.
“I know Bo is dead and can no longer keep his promise to protect me from the clutches of the likes of Mace Thorne. Do you know I visited the bank in Astoria a few days ago? My brother has only saved up eight hundred dollars of the two thousand dollars owed.”
A sheen of tears blurred her vision and Elena wiped them away. “He lied about that, too. A few days before the quakes, he told me he had fifteen hundred of the two thousand in the bank. He just needed a few more months and then he’d have the rest so I wouldn’t have to give myself…”
“Lena, surely your brother’s debt is not yours.”
A shaky, harsh laugh escaped her lips. “Do you really think if I refuse to marry Mace Thorne that he will simply shrug his shoulders and leave Silverpines once he arrives?”
Her words hung in the air between them like a condemned prisoner. No one, not even Victoria, knew about the letter that accompanied the ring. In it, her future husband spelled out clearly that he expected her to do her duty and become the bride she swore she’d be in the event of her brother’s untimely demise.
He’d made it clear she had little choice to do anything else.
The only way to escape was to send for a stranger. A man who she hoped would have some honor.
“This is the only way, Victoria.” She patted her friend’s hand and then thrust her shoulders back, walking over to the small desk.
Victoria came to stand beside her and together they stared at the blank piece of paper. “How does one advertise for a husband?”
Elena pulled the ends of her hair into her mouth and chewed. What should she say? She couldn’t mention she was already betrothed to another man, much less to an outlaw like Mace Thorne. The prospective candidate also had to be a blacksmith in order to fire up her brother’s forge. In addition, he had to be able to defend her.
Why not write for the mythical pot of gold at the end of the rainbow?
After she spent a few moments staring into the fire, she dipped the pen in the inkwell and started to write: Eighteen-year-old woman in Oregon seeks a marriage of convenience with a man of honor. Must have experience as a blacksmith. Between the ages of twenty and thirty-five. If interested respond to The Grooms Gazette #45852
But the question remained, would a man of honor answer?
Tobias wondered if he would ever throw the empty laudanum bottle away. It rested in the palm of his hand, glinting in the sunlight which filtered through the open doorway of the shed where he stood cleaning his gun over an upturned barrel. The gun lay in pieces about, the cloth he used blackened with grit.
Fifteen years ago, he’d cleaned the bottle out himself. He washed it thoroughly, so much so that a babe could use it without fear of tasting any of the laudanum which had once filled it. Two years later, he bore a hole through its neck and threaded a leather cord so that it hung around his throat.
It had been there ever since.
“Silverpines.”
Tobias sighed at the intrusion and tucked the bottle back under his shirt just in time. Luther Garrison strolled through the opening.
“What’s that?” Tobias asked.
Although the man’s arm was out of the sling, he still favored it some. Luther threw a rolled-up newspaper to him which he caught deftly.
Nodding toward the paper, Luther said, “Take a look.”
Tobias glanced down and read a small article about two earthquakes which had destroyed a small town not too far from Astoria called Silverpines.
“Unfortunate.” He folded up the paper. “But what’s your point?”
“That’s the place where Mace will collect his wife.”
New interest burned through him.
“Look at this,” Luther handed him a circular.
“Groom’s Gazette?” Tobias’s eyebrows arched far into his hairline.
A twinkle appeared in Luther’s eyes. “Seems a number of women are advertising for husbands.” He spit into a nearby bale of hay. “It makes you wonder if their beauty leaves much to be desired.”
Tobias glanced through some of the advertisements. “Some of these are from Silverpines. Maybe they’re looking for men since the article said most of the miners and the timber men had been killed.”
“Although I’m suspicious of the machinations behind the advertisements, I figure, you can answer one. Once you arrive in Silverpines, you can settle your score with Mace Thorne.”
Tobias made a noncommittal sound while his thoughts whirled. If he answered one of the mail order groom ads, then he’d be able to scout out Mace’s bride.
“Maybe I will be answering one of these advertisements.”
Luther’s eyes widened. “Really? Well, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle.”
“I can use my talents to help rebuild the town.”
His aunt Patricia and his uncle Bernard had made sure he knew how to do a variety of trade work after his parents died. Tobias possessed a wide range of skills from carpentry to blacksmithing. Based on the number of advertisements that were from Silverpines, the women who placed them were looking for husbands who had a specific skill.
An offer of marriage in exchange for rebuilding a town.
Tobias gave a derisive snort. How typical.
“Do you know which one you’re going to respond to?”
He continued to read through them until one in particular caught his eye. "Eighteen-year-old woman in Oregon seeks a marriage of convenience with a man of honor. Must have experience as a blacksmith. Between the ages of twenty and thirty-five. If interested respond to The Grooms Gazette #45852".
A marriage of convenience. That suited him just fine. The last thing he wanted to do was to hogtie himself to a female who would think she’d be able to control him through her feminine wiles.
Visions of his parents rose in his head and his jaw tightened, the words blurring before him. His father, Otis Clayborne, had been a mountain of a man�
��broad and burly with a soft twinkle in his eyes. His mother, Eustacia, had been a delicate, tiny woman, adorned with straight blonde hair and periwinkle eyes which could swell with tears at the drop of a dime.
Tobias had often wondered how a big, strong man such as his father could be led so unwaveringly by his mother. How often had his father done everything his mother required? To what avail? None. His father had allowed the love he held for his mother, and Tobias wasn’t sure if he could call it that, to overwhelm his good judgement until it was too late for both of them.
He gave a mental shake of his head and got back to the matter at hand.
‘A man of honor’.
Why would this mystery woman be so particular to say such a thing? In all his experience, women were the ones who lacked honor. They took everything a man had and when they were through, they hooked their pale little claws into next one.
Though Tobias knew women could not be trusted in any capacity, curiosity about this ad piqued his interest. What kind of woman would ask for a man like this? Had she been hurt by another or was it her own fault for causing strife?
It didn’t matter, he told himself viciously. Getting his revenge for Henry and Cora came first. If he answered this ad, he could spend a little bit of time in the town scouting out Mace Thorne’s wife. He couldn’t openly ask for her, but through this subterfuge of the mail order groom, he’d be able to see when she came and went.
Once he had her identity, he’d capture her like the worm she was and use her to lure her husband into his trap.
Then he’d kill him.
CHAPTER FOUR
Elena closed the door to the house and gathered the black woolen shawl around her shoulders. Though her home was a massive place, the walls over the past few days had started to close in on her. Elena knew why.
Ever since she placed the ad in the Groom’s Gazette, she oscillated between dread and curiosity. Dread because if she agreed to marry a man who answered her ad, she’d be beholden to him. Despite the fact she put the words, “man of honor”, she had no illusions. Men didn’t possess the attribute. Her father and brother taught her that.
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