His Brother's Bride

by Nancy M Bell

  His Brother’s Bride

  Canadian Historical Brides – Book 2

  By Nancy M Bell

  Digital ISBNs

  Kindle 9781772993004

  EPUB 978-1-77299-498-8

  WEB 978-1-77299-499-5

  Amazon Print 978-1-77299-497-1

  Print ISBN 978-1-77299-302-8

  Copyright 2017 Nancy M Bell

  Series Copyright 2017 Books We Love Ltd.

  Cover art by Michelle Lee

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.

  Dedication

  Books We Love Ltd. dedicates the Canadian Historical Brides series to the immigrants, male and female who left their homes and families, crossed oceans and endured unimaginable hardships in order to settle the Canadian wilderness and build new lives in a rough and untamed country.

  For those who lost their lives in the Great War and for those who survived without them.

  Lest We Forget

  Acknowledgement

  Books We Love acknowledges the Government of Canada and the Canada Book Fund for its financial support in creating the Canadian Historical Brides series.

  Chapter One

  Annie Baldwin pushed the wide brimmed bonnet up off her forehead and wiped the moisture with a fold of her long skirt. Haying was better than digging potatoes in the fall or hoeing rows in the garden, she supposed. But why was it always so hot and humid when it was time to mow the field?

  “Annie, get a move on!” Her older brother, Steve, waved at her impatiently.

  Not bothering to waste the energy to answer, she dug the three tined fork into the windrow and added the long stalks to the stook she’d already half finished. If the weather held and the hay dried well, tomorrow one of her brothers would drive the big hay wagon to collect the stooks.

  Methodically, the hay crew worked its way along the wavy lines of the windrows. The rhythmic clacking of the mower reached her from two fields away where Father walked behind Benny and Bessie, the big patient workhorses who pulled the mower. It was a blessing that field wouldn’t require her attention until after it was raked in a day or two.

  “Land sakes, haying does seem to take forever,” Annie muttered, stabbing the pale green hump of partially dried grasses.

  “Water, Miss Baldwin?”

  “Oh my Lord!” Annie dropped the hayfork and put a hand to her chest. “George, you scared the life out of me.” She bent to pick up the discarded tool and to avoid looking at the young man smiling at her.

  “Would you like some water?” He held a wooden bucket with a ladle in it. “It’s some hot today.” George’s English accent was different to her ear than Father and Mother’s Irish inflections.

  “Yes, I do believe I could do with some water, George. Thank you.” Annie dipped the metal ladle into the warm water and drank, allowing some of the fluid to overflow and run down her neck into her bodice. She glanced out from under the brim of her bonnet and met his grey-eyed gaze. Offering him a faint smile she replaced the ladle in the bucket.

  George touched his cap with a finger and then trudged down the row where Annie’s older sisters were also tying bundles to build into stooks. She let her gaze linger on the boy. Father borrowed him from the Millers who farmed closer to Eganville. Her ears still blistered from Mother’s lecture last evening. Annie shook her head and returned to the task-at-hand, letting her thoughts wander as her body methodically went through the motions. She was at a loss to understand why Mother was so upset over Annie exchanging a few words with the English boy at the end of work yesterday. Heavens they’d known each other for years, attended the same one room school. Why should Mother suddenly get such a bee in her bonnet over an innocent conversation?

  Why should it matter if he was basically nothing more than an indentured servant? He was nice enough and worked hard, harder than most of her brothers, and certainly George did more work than her sisters. Annie reached the end of her row and stepped across to work her way along the next windrow back the way she had come. In the distance the waters of the Bonnechere River glittered in the afternoon sun, trees lining its borders stood motionless in the muggy June afternoon.

  “I’d give my eye teeth to go jump in the river right about now,” she muttered. Not much chance of that happening. Annie paused to stretch her back, straightening up she glanced across the field to gauge how close they were to finishing this field. If they kept at it, they’d be done by dusk, she calculated. With any luck, her sister Rotha would have milked the cows and fed the pigs and chickens. She always managed to knock off before the rest of them and head back to the house on some frail excuse or another. If those chores weren’t done, it would fall to Annie as the youngest, to make sure they got done. She sighed, there was no telling when the woman would decide to pull her ‘lady of the manner’ act and decide such chores were beneath her.

  The red ball of sun in the hazy sky was just brushing the tips of the trees lining the river when Father stopped the mower by the gate. Annie stood the last bundle into her stook and trudged toward him. The two-acre field was dotted with upright cones of hay placed in wavering lines across the shorn grasses. She caught up to Steve and Evan, falling into step with her brothers. George joined them and they came to a halt where Father sat on the metal seat of the mower. Benny and Bessie stood hip-shot, eyes half-closed, tails swishing at the ever-present flies. It was odd how her father preferred to walk with the horses rather than ride, finding it easier on the body when the iron wheels hit gopher and rabbit holes perhaps.

  “Time to call it a day,” Father declared. He clucked to the team and slapped the lines lightly on their rumps. With a jingle of harness and machinery the mower bumped down the grassy lane.

  Steve and Evan outpaced Annie with their long limbed hill walker’s gait. Too tired to attempt to keep up, she let them draw ahead of her. She glanced up at George as he matched his stride to hers. He swung the empty water bucket in his hand. The uneven ground and tired muscles conspired to throw her off balance and she took a misstep, lurching a bit and bumping against him. Heat and electricity flared through Annie, she drew back as if she’d bumped into the pot belly of the wood stove. George caught her elbow and steadied her, his face colouring more than the heat and sunburn could account for.

  “I’m so sorry,” she managed to say.

  He shook his head and released her arm, avoiding her eyes. “Think nothing of it.”

  When they reached the bank barn, Father handed George the lines with instructions to unhitch the team and make them comfortable for the night. A pang of sympathy lanced through Annie at the realization he would still have the mower to clean and oil before he would see any supper. Her eyes followed his progress to the barn, one hand resting on Bessie’s broad shoulder as he paced beside the big horses. Even though his shoulders hunched with exhaustion and his gait uneven, somehow he seemed happy.

  “Annabelle!” Father growled. “Quit lallygagging about and go help with supper.”

  She spun around and hurried to the house to change and wash. Please don’t let Father mention to Mother I was looking at George. I don’t think I can stomach another lecture right now. My belly is touching my backbone I’m so hungry. Annie hurried to the room she shared with two of her sisters and shucked her work clothes, taking them outside to shake the chaff and seed heads out of the long skirts and underskirts once she’d dressed appropriately for supper. Folding them neatly she left them on the clothes press by th
e wall. Tomorrow was another day.

  * * *

  Supper was a quiet affair, with everyone too tired to do more than eat. Mother sat primly at the opposite end of the table from Father looking like she was presiding over high tea. She appeared fresh as a daisy in spite of the fact she’d been adding rennet to the current batch of cheese for most of the afternoon. Annie rose when the men wandered off to take their leisure. In no time flat she had the table cleared. Piling them in the dry sink, she took the bucket from under the wooden frame and went toward the back door heading for the well in the yard.

  “Annabelle!”

  She stopped short at Mother’s summons and turned. A tin bucket covered with a square of cloth was thrust into her hands.

  “Since you’ve got to go out anyway, take this out to the workers bunked in the barn. Mind you don’t dawdle and don’t be fraternizing with that orphan boy. You’re better than that, child. Heavens, the boy’s an orphan and came over as a Doctor Barnardo boy, who knows what he picked up on the streets of Liverpool. Or on the ship.” Mother shuddered genteelly and gave her daughter a push. “Get along with you, girl. Mind you stay away from the younger brother as well. You hear me?”

  “Yes, Mother.” Annie hooked the water bucket over her arm and held the pail with the workers’ bait against her side. Might as well deliver the food first, she reasoned. The three hired men must be hungry. Thank the good Lord the others who lived nearer went home at night. Dusk deepened to a darker twilight, a warm spread of buttery yellow spilled out the part-open door of the barn.

  “Hello!” Annie hesitated, not wanting to walk in on something she shouldn’t be seeing. “I’ve brought supper.”

  Amos’ grizzled face peered around the door before he swung it open. “C’min, c’min, lass.” The stocky Irishman grinned at her and waved her into the dim interior. “There’s a crate over to the wall where you can put that there bucket.”

  She moved carefully over the straw and hay strewn floor. The rich summer scent of fresh cut hay hung in the close air. It was slightly cooler now the sun was down, but the heat lingered in the sultry night. Annie set the tin pail on the crate and turned to go.

  Her breath caught in her throat when her gaze fell on the long lean muscles of George’s back as he sluiced water over his head. The moisture gleamed in the lamplight, the waistband of his trousers black where the water soaked them. He raised his head, eyes wide like a startled deer. Snatching a ragged towel from a nail in the beam beside him, he held it to his chest like a shield.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Baldwin. I had no idea you were here. Please don’t mind me.” The Adam’s apple bobbled in his throat.

  “Of course,” she managed to stutter, tearing her gaze from his wiry frame. His ribs were visible; it was painfully obvious he could use more meat on his bones. Why Father feeds his dogs better. A wave of shame washed over her, although she had no say in how anyone was fed. “I brought supper.” She waved an awkward hand toward the cloth covered pail. “I must…I must go…” Without lingering further, she hurried into the night.

  The pale light of the half-moon allowed her to pick her way to the well without too much trouble. She drew the oak bucket up by the windlass and dumped the contents into her own bucket. Letting the empty bucket slip from her fingers she waited to hear it hit the water below with a hollow thump. Her achy muscles complained when she hefted the full bucket and lugged it into the kitchen.

  “What took you so long, Annie?” Her older sister Hetty demanded, hands firmly planted on her hips. “You weren’t out there sparking with that orphan English boy were you?”

  “No, of course not!” She turned her back and heaved the water bucket onto the flat side of the dry sink.

  “There’s no future in it. He doesn’t have a row to hoe except what belongs to someone else. You’ll never get a man to ask for your hand if you ruin your reputation by taking up with the likes of him,” Hetty declared.

  “I just took the food out like I was told,” Annie muttered ladling water into the sink. She added soap flakes when it was full enough and started in on the supper dishes, fully expecting her sister to pick up a dishtowel to dry them, it being her turn to do so.

  Instead, Hetty sailed out of the kitchen. “Father has things he needs me to attend to,” she called over her shoulder.

  Her actions were nothing new, but the ease with which her sister escaped chores still scalded Annie. No sense appealing to Mother, Father’s word was law. No need asking where Rotha was either. She sighed.

  Chapter Two

  The sun was still high in the western sky when Steve forked the last of the hay into the open doors of the loft. A fine sprinkling of hayseeds and dust danced in the golden slanted rays of the afternoon light. Annie pushed the bonnet back on her head and wiped the back of her hand across her forehead. Bits of chaff clung to her damp lashes and cheeks and itched terribly inside the confines of her bodice. Shaking the dust from her long skirts, Annie turned toward the house intending to slip behind the hen house and into the green shady bush of the shed hill. There was time before supper if she hurried and the Bonnechere River only required a short hike along a trail she knew.

  Just a few minutes in the shallow pool under the willows by the bank would take care of the dust coating her everywhere and the infernal itching of hay chaff that seemed to have found its way into impossible nooks and crannies. Hay fork in hand, she got as far as the barn doors.

  “Annabelle! Where do you think you’re going?” Hetty called. Her sister strode across the rough pasture between barn and main house, not a hair out of place.

  It was unchristian to think ill of a family member so Annie repressed the surge of anger and the names she wouldn’t ever dare say out loud. Hetty was the apple of Father’s eye and could do no wrong. Even if she did do something she shouldn’t, somehow it was Annie who bore the brunt of Father’s anger. Mother never spoke up in her defence, even though she knew the truth. Ella Baldwin would never say a word to contradict her husband.

  “I’m just putting the fork up,” Annie replied schooling her features into a pleasant mask. Drat, drat, drat! I swear she does it on purpose, just to vex me.

  “Well, do it then. I need to speak with Father.” Hetty swept on like a ship in full sail toward the now empty hay wagon.

  Annie returned the hayfork to the barn and hesitated in the shadow of the door, her heart twisting a bit in her chest. George had his head tipped toward Hetty who was plainly flirting with him. Annie shook her head and stepped into the sunlight. If he only knew what Hetty really thought about him or said about him in private. To her surprise, George frowned and shook his head before he took a step back from her sister and touched a finger to his cap before moving to tend to the horses.

  She moved out of the way as the wagon rattled toward her, George on the far side of the horses as they passed. Annie entertained the thought of helping unharness the team, she did so love the horses and Benny was her favourite. Now that the possibility of a swim was out of the question, spending a few minutes with the horses would be a kind of reward. She might have known, like most of her wishes, it would come to naught.

  “Annabelle!” Father waved an imperious hand at her.

  “Coming, Father.” Gritting her teeth and forcing a semblance of a smile, she made her way back to the cluster of men, and Hetty. The woman in question was looking particularly smug, which usually boded ill for Annie. “Yes, Father?” She halted a few feet from him, tipping her head so the brim of her hat partially blocked the sunlight streaming over the tall man’s shoulders.

  “Don’t be running off, girl. I need you to take the buggy to town and pick up the mail. I’m expecting an important letter.”

  “But, Father—” She started to protest it was Rotha’s turn to get the mail.

  “None of your impertinence, girl. Do as you’re told. I’ll hear no more about it.”

  “Yes, Father,” she replied and turned on her heel, seething inside but not daring to let it show
.

  “Annabelle!”

  She stopped and turned back, clenched fists hidden in the dusty folds of her skirts. “Yes, Father?”

  “Be sure to take George Richardson with you and drop him at the Millers on your way past. No reason to go down the lane, just drop the boy at the foot. I’ll see that Miller gets his wages by week end. Oh, and take his brother too, drop him at Munroe’s.” He turned his back in dismissal.

  “Yes, Father,” she repeated and turned back toward the barn. It didn’t seem fair that poor George and Peter did all the hard labour, but Annie’d bet her best dress the boys would never see a penny of the wages. Still the Millers weren’t the worst, at least they kept him sort of fed and clothed by the look of him. The younger brother’s clothes were clean but patched and his bony wrists showed below the sleeves of the too small shirt. If anything, he seemed thinner than his brother. Annie sighed, the Munroes could barely keep themselves, little wonder they were hiring out the young orphan boy they’d taken in. At least the brothers ended up fairly close to each other, they were luckier than most.

  She entered the shadowy barn and stopped to let her eyes adjust to the dim light. Long beams of sunlight shot through the gaps in the wall. The boys would have to patch things before the snow flew, she mused.

  “Mister Richardson? Oh, there you are.”

  The English boy stepped out from behind Bessie, a dandy brush in hand. “Hallo, Miss Baldwin. What is it I can help you with?”

  “Father has asked me to drive into Eganville to fetch the mail. He wants me to drop you at the Millers, and your brother at Monroe’s on the way.” She ducked her head when his expression brightened. “Would you be so kind as to catch Molly from the pasture and hitch her to the buggy? Oh, where is your brother, by the way?”