“That is unfortunate,” Melissa said genuinely feeling bad as she knew this would be the case, “But I can't go against my heart.” Turner laughed out loud again and shook his head. He took his hat off and wiped his brow; he was very uncomfortable in the afternoon sun. He looked to Roger and said, “You two are welcome to one another cowpoke,” and with that he stormed back off to the hotel to get into the shade. Melissa and Roger watched him walk away and she couldn’t believe that it was all over, just like that.
“That went much better than I would have thought,” she said to Roger.
“I think the heat was getting to him,” he replied, “I won't be too surprised if he comes looking for you this evening when it is cooler to have another go at persuading you to go back with him.”
“Well, you know that I’m not going to be leaving,” she said and he nodded.
It so happened that the hotel Turner was in was the only hotel in town so Melissa also had to take a room there. It would not have been proper for her to stay in her new home until she and Roger were married. It was not ideal to be sharing a roof with Turner but there was no avoiding it.
“You go and settle in and rest for a while and I’ll come by to see you this evening to show you around the town,” Roger said when Melissa was all booked in.
“Thank you, a little wash and a nap might be in order after the day I’ve had so far,” she smiled. They said goodbye and she went to her room.
A couple of hours later, but earlier than she had expected, there was a knock on the door and the porter told her that Roger was waiting for her in a carriage outside the hotel. Melissa checked herself in the looking glass and then went downstairs. There was a carriage out on the street but to her surprise, Roger was not standing by it waiting to help her in. She walked out and looked inside. Just as she did the door opened and a hand came out and pulled her inside. The carriage was moving before she was able to right herself. When she finally was able to pull herself up onto the seats, she turned and saw that it was Turner who was in the carriage.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“No more talking, no more nonsense, we are going home,” he said back to her.
“You can’t kidnap me!” she shouted at him. glancing outside she could see that the horses were moving too fast for her have any hope of jumping out; she would seriously hurt herself.
“I’m not kidnapping you, I’m rescuing you from yourself,” he smiled wickedly.
Chapter 8
Roger arrived at the hotel and asked the porter to go up and let Ms. Thomas know that he was here.
“But, she already left with a man called Roger,” the porter said looking very confused.
“What are you talking about?” Roger asked.
“I went up to tell her Roger was waiting in a carriage outside and she came down and got into the carriage; actually got in is being generous, he was very rough with her, he practically yanked her off her feet and into the back with him,” the porter answered.
“What did he look like?”
“A tall man, in his fifties, very gruff.” Roger knew immediately that this was Turner and he had tricked Melissa to the carriage and then forcibly taken her away. He ran outside leaving the porter even more bewildered than ever and pulled the trap from his horse and then jumped up on its back. The horse enjoying not pulling anything behind it flew off the direction Roger directed. He knew that Turner would be taking her to the nearest town with a train station. That would take them overnight to get there and he had the advantage of being one man on an otherwise unencumbered horse. It was growing dim out but the sky was clear and he was sure the light of the moon would let him see the carriage even at a distance.
At last, the dust trail was perceptible in the distance and Roger knew it was only a matter of minutes before he caught up with them now. He fought the urge to spur his horse on; he was sure she was tired enough already without adding to her troubles.
He got alongside the carriage but he couldn’t see inside so he rode up to the driver and shouted at him to stop the horses.
“I’m under orders not to stop until I get to the train station,” the driver said.
“What’s going on out there?” Turner’s angry voice came from the window. “You!” he said when he saw Roger bouncing on his horses back.
“Roger?” Melissa’s voice called out but she could not see him.
“I’m here Melissa, don’t worry, we’ll get you sorted soon,” Roger called back to her.
“Driver, make sure you don’t stop this carriage for anything or it will be your head!” Turner shouted.
Roger looked at the driver and saw that he was going to do as he was told. This left Roger with no choice. He got closer to the carriage and then leapt across so that he was clinging to the side of it as his horse ran off free, still keeping pace with the carriage.
“Get off there!” Turner shouted and he swung his heavy fists outside to try to knock Roger off. Roger evaded his blows and clambered up onto the roof. He lay there on his chest for a moment and considered what to do. He gripped onto the bar that ran along the side of the roof and with a heft let himself swing down and he came feet first through the window. Turner had been leaning out the other window at the time and by chance, Roger caught him square in the buttocks with both feet. The pressure made the door fall open and Turner tumbled out and onto the rapidly passing ground. The driver turned in shock and seeing the man rolling he pulled up the horses.
Roger and Melissa jumped out and ran to Turner. He was a little dazed, completely covered in dust, but apart from that, he seemed to be fine. Roger helped him to his feet but Turner pushed his hand away,
“Get away from me,” he said visibly shaken by his ordeal, “You two are as crazy as each other and as far as I am concerned you are welcome to each other!” He stormed back to the carriage and got in and shouted at the driver to continue on to the station.
Melissa and Roger never saw Turner again, and in time, after the wedding her parents came to visit and all was forgiven. They liked Roger and the loved the new place Melissa lived. A year after the wedding Melissa fell pregnant and they had twins, one boy and one girl. Roger had well finished the housing improvements by this time and Melissa had never been happier or more content in her life. Years later she would still always remember the day she found that newspaper, the paper that led her to meet her husband. How strange and wonderful fate could be.
THE END.
Butler Love
Mail Order Bride
CHRISTIAN MICHAEL
Chapter 1 – It’s Duty
“Thank you, Brahms, that will be all.”
Charles Brahms bowed and closed the door behind him. He had finally reached the top of the line. He was the butler in his own mansion. Well, in his master’s mansion. He was the butler for one of the wealthiest families in the countryside, and it felt great.
Most of the time, anyway. There were still times when Charlie felt as though there were other things in life he would rather have. Today he helped Sir Hanes to dress for his wedding ceremony. Charles had been friends with Sir Hanes as a boy, and now they were both grown, and Sir Hanes was getting married.
Charlie liked the girl his friend and employer was marrying. She was kind, pretty, and new how to handle herself well. She was just the kind of girl Charles hoped to marry himself. But of course someone that was going to marry Sir Hanes was not the kind of girl that was going to marry a servant.
Sir Hanes was the heir to a great mansion. He had more money than anyone else in the entire region, and he had the favor of countless more. Sir Hanes was attractive, wealthy, and charming.
Brahms, on the other hand, was charming. Only charming. Some might say that he was also attractive, but any of his good looks faded out when he donned his butler apparel. Though he was as kind as his friend, and as charming as any of the fine young men in the countryside, he was constantly looked over because of his occupation in life.
The best he could
hope for was that a kind young woman would gain her own employment in the house, and that he might fall in love with her, and she with him. The only trouble was, he wasn’t around the new recruits. When there was someone new in the house, it fell to the maids to train them.
Even the young men that started were trained and instructed under the women, after all, he was the butler, and as such it was his duty to mind the mansion and the family that lived in it, and not be hindered by the servants and their petty jobs.
“Ah, I say there, Brahms! Is Sir Hanes ready?”
Charles stopped to speak with Gregory. He was Sir Hanes’ uncle, and the only one standing in between Hanes and his fortune. Sir Hanes got along with his uncle well enough, but Gregory wasn’t pleased with Hanes choice of a bride. He wanted his nephew to marry a young woman with a fortune of her own, not a young woman that could take his fortune from him.
Charles didn’t care for Gregory. He thought Gregory was greedy, and two faced. He feared that there would be issues with Gregory once Hanes had a son, but as the butler Brahms knew it wasn’t his place to say such things, even though Sir Hanes was his friend. He smiled and nodded, then retired to the back room.
Charles watched the proceedings of the wedding out the window. The bride looked beautiful, and his friend looked pleased to see her walk up the aisle to him. Charles thought they made a smart match, and was genuinely happy to hear them announced as husband and wife, but he felt a pang of solitude as he motioned for the maids to make the reception hall ready.
There was something missing in his life, and he knew what it was. He wanted a wife. He wanted someone that he could love and hold and cherish, but that wasn’t going to happen here. He was a butler, and he was destined to stay a butler for all of his days. Charles glanced back out the window before he placed all of his attention back to the reception hall.
Outside, he could see his friend Sir Hanes holding his new bride, and talking to her. Though Charles couldn’t hear anything anyway, he knew that nobody outside could hear what they were saying. He wanted that, too.
Here, he had to share what he was thinking with most. Here, he had to follow rules and ensure that others did, too. Here, he wasn’t going to get a bride. Here, he was doomed to the life he thought he wanted. And right now, he was afraid he was going to be stuck in that life for good.
And he would be.
Unless something changed.
Suddenly, Charles stopped. Did he really think what he thought he was thinking? Was it possible he wanted to leave here and go out into the world to find his own way in life? Should he really take the chance of working his own home with his own wife and his own responsibilities?
“Sir Brahms! The bride is going to come in here soon, we must make ready the cake!”
One of the maids hurriedly pushed the doors of the kitchen open, then disappeared back behind them as quickly as she had been there. Charles snapped back to work. He could let his thoughts wander later on, right now he had his duty to attend to.
After all, brides weren’t something that he should be worried about. Right now, he was at the top of his world. A butler in a fine house, and now he was in charge of the wedding reception for his master. If he were to ever have his own wedding, it was going to have to wait. Right now his mind was on one thing, and one thing only, and that was his duty.
Chapter 2 – It’s Made for a Maid
“Don’t be silly, you are going to wear pink! It goes perfectly with my sash.”
Fanny sighed and held out her arms, while Miss Jasmine piled the dresses high on top of her. They were gathering the dresses for the bride’s maids, and Fanny was given the role as the most important.
It wasn’t a surprise to her, she had been a favorite of Miss Jasmine’s since she had started working for her father, and she had accompanied Miss Jasmine on many of these shopping trips. Fanny often wondered what it would be like. Not just having such money to spend on anything, but to be loved by a man, and know that you were going to spend your whole life with him.
Miss Jasmine never said much about love, she only talked about the trips she and her new husband were going to take, and the parties they were going to have, and the people they were going to impress. There were times when Fanny wondered if Miss Jasmine even loved the man she was marrying, or if she was in love with the rich life.
Miss Jasmine had chosen an elaborate gown, with a soft pink sash about the waist. It was her dream to be attended by a group of girls that were all dressed to match her own, and she felt she had found just the dresses.
The two girls had been all over town this morning, in and out of various stores, discussing various dresses with various tailors. Miss Jasmine was trying to find the perfect set of dresses, but it seemed that nobody had what she wanted. Until they had come into this store.
Fanny didn’t mind shopping with Miss Jasmine. She liked to see all of the different things that were for sale on the racks, but today it was getting old. They had been in and out of so many stores, and Fanny had seen so many things she wished she might be able to buy but knew she couldn’t.
Yet here they were in this next store, and Miss Jasmine was pulling out fancier and fancier dresses.
Fanny, on the other hand, wasn’t so sure she wanted to be up there with Miss Jasmine. Miss Jasmine liked everything to be perfect, and she wasn’t good at making everything perfect. Fanny had turned to the service part of work when she failed at being a seamstress as well as a waitress.
It had been her last resort at a job, and now she was feeling even less enthused about it. All she really wanted was to get married herself, yet here she was attending another girl’s wedding, in a dress she didn’t like.
“I would think you should be thrilled to get to wear something this nice. They don’t often make dresses this nice for maids.”
Fanny looked up at Miss Jasmine in surprise. It was almost as though she had the ability to read Fanny’s thoughts. Jasmine was too busy rifling through another rack to take note of Fanny, however, so Fanny turned her attention back to the other things in the store.
Suddenly, something caught her eye. A newspaper on the counter had blown open when a customer opened the door, and the page it opened to had an interesting title printed at the top.
Wanted: Mail Order Brides
The dark print was all she could read from where she stood, so she leaned over to try to read further.
“What are you doing? I can’t reach you when you are on the other side of the store. Pay attention!”
Fanny turned her attention back to the task at hand, embarrassed that Miss Jasmine had snapped at her in the middle of this store. She was paid to be her attendant, but there were times when Fanny felt Miss Jasmine took that privilege too far.
“I’m sorry Miss. I was just looking over at what they had in the glass over there. I thought there might be a brooch or necklace that would go with your dress or something.”
Fanny adjusted the weight of the dresses in her arms, and nodded in the direction of the counter. She wasn’t surprised that Miss Jasmine loved the idea, and she was glad Miss Jasmine took no note of the paper that lay open on top of the glass display. Instead, she pushed past Fanny and hurried over to see for herself whether there were any pieces she wanted, and Fanny struggled to follow.
Fanny was glad her companion took a long time with the jewelry, it gave her plenty of time to skim over the ads that were in the paper. She hadn’t thought of this before, and it surprised her. Of all the things she had done, why hadn’t this come to mind?
Fanny quickly skimmed a few of the ads, hoping one would jump out at her. Her thoughts were interrupted once more by her friend, who was asking her which brooch she ought to purchase. Fanny snapped her attention back to the jewelry in the case, and pointed out a pink rose that was on display.
“That was just the one I was thinking, too!” Miss Jasmine called the clerk over, and promptly instructed him to get her the brooch. Fanny sighed and shook her head, slightly relieved
that she wasn’t the only one Miss Jasmine treated that way. Her heart suddenly skipped a beat as Miss Jasmine picked up the paper.
“Would you be so kind as to wrap it in here? I don’t want to lose it on our way home.”
The clerk sighed but obeyed, and Fanny smiled. She had been wondering how she was going to get that paper back to where she could look at it further, and now that was solved for her. She gladly placed the dresses on the counter next, and promptly picked up the wrapped brooch.
“Let me handle this for you, Miss. I don’t want you to lose it.”
“You are so sweet! Thank you, Fanny!”
With that, Miss Jasmine turned on her heel, leaving Fanny to carry all of the packages as she struggled to keep up. This time Fanny didn’t mind, however, because this time she knew she had her ticket out of this and onto something better.
Chapter 3 – The Ad in the Paper
Fanny lay on her stomach on her bed, grateful she finally had the chance to sit down for a few minutes. She pulled the paper out of the pocket in her skirt. When she and Miss Jasmine had gotten back home, Jasmine eagerly tore the paper off of the brooch and ran upstairs to show her father. Fanny had picked up all of the torn pieces of the paper and saved them in her pocket for later.
Fanny knew she would have a few minutes bow before Abigail range the dinner bell, and she was going to make the most of these few minutes. All she really needed to know was whether or not there was a man out there she could see herself marrying.
Fanny had let go of the idea of meeting a man romantically in an orchard and falling in love before he swept her off her feet. Those were the things that happened in those love stories she read, not what was going to happen in real life.
After all, I am a maid. Nobody wants to marry a maid. They all want the woman that has the maids. I wish I was that woman.
[2016] Alone and Pregnant Page 8
