A BRIDE FOR ESAU
The Proxy Brides
By: Parker J. Cole
COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
Copyright © 2020 Parker J. Cole
Cover Art by Black Widow Books
All rights reserved.
First Edition: August 2020
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The author holds exclusive rights to this work. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited.
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the authors.
Scriptures quoted from Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011
CONTENTS
COPYRIGHT INFORMATION
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
EPILOGUE
AUTHOR’S NOTE
About the Author
Join Parker’s Bodacious Readers
Works by Parker J. Cole
CHAPTER ONE
Montana Territory
January 1870
“You’re gonna have to get rid of that kid.”
Esau Caldwell’s back muscles tightened at the sound of his twin brother’s sleep-ridden drawl.
Pivoting on one foot, he met Jacob’s bleary-eyed dark brown gaze as he groaned and pushed himself upright on his elbows on the narrow bed. “I can’t keep livin’ like this.”
Esau squinted. “We aren’t living any kind of way. I am.”
Jacob shoved the gray woolen blankets away and swung his feet to the unvarnished wooden floor. He stood and let out a huge yawn. Rolling his shoulders after his stretch, he sneered. “Do you want me to help take care of that brat for you?”
Esau pinched the bridge of his nose with his free hand, trying his best to keep his temper under control. “He’s not a—”
The baby’s screams pierced the cabin. If Esau weren’t seeing it for himself, he wouldn’t have believed that such a tiny babe could make this much noise. Would the windows shatter from the intensity?
Esau bobbed the boy up and down with uncertain hands, although his face reddened under his tanned skin. Little tears eked from under the thin eyelids covered by dark, spidery veins and trickled down his chubby cheeks.
What more could he do? The boy had been fed the goat’s milk he’d procured from one of the neighbors. Indeed, the flattened, tea kettle-shaped bottle lay on its side empty. The odious task of changing his nappy was completed. He was clothed appropriately.
So what was wrong with the baby? Why wouldn’t he stop crying?
Esau glanced around as if searching for something, although there was nothing…or no one there to gather answers from.
A strange hush settled in the room, heavy and full of tension.
“I don’t know what else to do.” He’d never felt quite so helpless in his life.
“It is a conundrum,” Jacob remarked, light and airily as if he hadn’t a care in the world. He reached into his pocket and retrieved a small tin of chewing tobacco. Taking a pinch and stuffing it in his mouth, he ambled over to where Esau sat. Together, they looked down at the boy who had come into their lives four days ago.
Today was the first day Esau took full responsibility for the infant’s care.
A thought he hadn’t considered made itself known as he took in the flushed face of the squalling child. He lifted his eyes to Jacob and whispered, “Do you think he knows?”
Jacob shrugged. “I don’t know. Mebbe.”
Esau rocked back and forth in another attempt to soothe the boy. With each sway of his body, his teeth ground together. His jawline twitched. Angry words beat against the barrier, desperate to spill out of his mouth.
How like his younger brother to create a problem and leave him to deal with it.
No, no, that wasn’t fair. In this one instance of Jacob’s life, he’d not created a problem from inherent recklessness but from a rare act of kindness.
Esau winced as the child’s cries reached a crescendo. Any moment now his eardrum would split into two. Rising from the seat at the wooden table, he paced around the cabin trying to quiet the tyke down. On the third time around, he asked over his shoulder, “Do you think I should sing a lullaby?”
Jacob threw his head back and guffawed. “And have every wolf and coyote howling to the moon?”
Esau sighed. Why did he ever think his brother would support him? “Something has to work.”
Like fading thunder, the child’s screeches lessened to low screams. In between hiccups, the babe’s body relaxed and then tightened repeatedly. Each period of rest lasted longer than the first.
“Looks like he’s ‘bout to fall to sleep.” Jacob sauntered over to the metal spittoon in the corner of the cabin. A string of brown tobacco juice arced from his lips and pinged in the container. “Finally!”
Esau lifted the sleeping baby to his shoulder. He placed a hand over his back for added support.
“Just take the kid into town tomorrow, leave him on somebody’s doorstep, and we won’t have to deal with it anymore.”
Esau stopped in his tracks. “Jacob, you’re the one who brought the child to me. Now, you want to hand off the babe to someone else?”
Jacob squinted. “Ain’t no need to take that kinda tone with me, Esau. I was tryin’ to do my Christian duty by bein’ a help an’ all.” He sniffed. “I didn’t think that kid was gonna be that much trouble.”
Esau drew in slow, steadying breaths. Yelling at Jacob wouldn’t do any good. “Didn’t you think about that four days ago when you brought the child here? You do these things, and then, when you are no longer concerned about it or it overwhelms you, you want to shove it off to someone else.”
“Was I just supposed to leave—”
“No, of course not,” Esau hastened to clarify. “Look, you did the right thing, just not in the right way.”
“If you feel that way about the whole mess, why don’ you jest go on into town like I said?”
“That’s not an option.”
Jacob spat. “But it is, Esau. You’re a fool for not takin’ it. You don’t owe nobody nothin’. Much less takin’ care of somebody else’s brat. Look, we did our part tryin’ to help. The rest is up to God now.”
Without being conscious of it, Esau rubbed the babe’s back in a firm, circular motion. “All you care about is yourself. Can’t you see that we are the only ones who can do this?”
Jacob’s eyebrows perched into his hairline. “We?”
“Me, then,” Esau amended, continuing to walk around the room. “I have to take care of him.” He kept his voice low, terrified if he spoke louder than that, the babe would be screaming again.
“Darn it, Esau, that kid needs a mother, not you.”
“I am aware of that.”
A loud, boisterous knock cracked against the door and they jumped. The babe lurched in sudden movement, a tiny cry erupting from his mouth. Esau’s heart suspended in his throat as he froze in place. Would the child start to cry again?
Jacob lunged and yanked open the weather-beaten door. A howling wind whirled snowflakes around a bundled-up figure. A barely heard voice said, “What are you starin’ at me for? Aren’t you goin’ to let me in?”
“Come in,” Jacob hooked a hand around their visitor’s arm and yanked them into the house.
The bundled-up figure stomped their feet hard on the colorful braided rug. “Well
, well, well,” the visitor said loudly, “If it isn’t the—”
“Shut up all that yellin’!” Jacob hissed as he eased the door shut. “We just got that brat quiet.”
“Brat?” The man unwrapped the scarf from around his throat. “What brat?”
Jacob nodded in Esau’s direction, who had been holding his breath as the babe stirred several times, gave a whimper and a myriad of other signs showing he was going to wake up again.
Lord, please let the child sleep. He’s had enough to deal with in such a short time.
The tall, stocky man’s blue eyes widened like saucers as he went completely still.
Esau’s breath lodged in his throat, waiting to see if the child would fall back to sleep.
The crackling of the fire punctuated the tense silence. It popped and hissed as it gobbled up the logs. Esau darted a glance over to the flames. He wanted to put them out but that wasn’t the way to go.
Was it?
Just as his lungs almost burst, the child slumped back into sleep, his tiny fist pressed against his mouth. Esau’s chest caved and he greedily gulped in air. Both Jacob and their visitor let out shaky laughs.
“Never thought we’d see the day when a babe can have three grown men holdin’ their breaths like that.” Jacob gave a self-deprecating shake of his head.
Tom rubbed the back of his neck. “That was scarier then walking by a sleeping bear.”
Esau moved gingerly to the makeshift crib that Jacob had made. Carefully, oh so carefully, he bent and laid the child down, covering him with small white blankets.
When he straightened, the tightness eased away from the center of his chest. He turned back to the other men in the room.
“Evenin’. What can we do for you, Tom?” Esau grabbed a chair and sat at the table, waving a hand to invite the other man to do the same.
Tom straddled the proffered chair. “Before I get into all that, you gotta tell me. What’s going on here, Reverend? What are you doing with a baby?”
Without any inflection, Esau revealed what had transpired in the last few days, leaving nothing out. Tom’s face had altered from wonder to fury before ending on bleakness.
“Here I thought I had problems,” he muttered. “What are you going to do?”
“What I have to.”
Jacob spat another string of tobacco juice into the nearby spittoon. “I keep tellin’ him to get rid of that kid,”.
Tom snapped his fingers. “Maybe you can do something else.”
Esau frowned. “What do you mean?”
“It’s part of the reason why I came over here.” Tom rubbed his hands together like a miser. He reached into the small square pocket of his plaid shirt and brought out a folded newspaper. He handed it over to Esau. “This is what I wanted to share with you.”
Unfolding the paper, he read the part circled with a pencil. Glancing up at the man, he asked, “Is this something you wanted to do?”
“I do, Reverend.” Ruddy color slashed Tom’s cheekbones. “A man can only take so much loneliness before it becomes too much.”
“What is that?” Jacob swiped the paper from Esau’s fingers. His brown eyes scanned the circled portion. “A mail-order bride. You can’t be serious ‘bout this, Tom.”
“Why not?” Esau gave a hunch of his shoulders. “It sounds like the perfect answer if you ask me.”
“You and I know good and well, ain’t none of that nonsense gonna happen.”
“We don’t know that,” Tom refuted. “This may be the answer you need, Reverend.”
“Ain’t no women gonna up and come here and give up their lives to men like us.”
Esau stiffened while Tom rubbed the back of his neck. Jacob’s blunt words clung to the silence in the room like cobwebs hugging the corners of the ceiling rafters. Esau couldn’t fault his brother for his logic. No woman in her right mind would ever marry men like them. They needed to face facts.
Tom’s lip firmed into a straight line. “Maybe we can have the woman already…tied to you.”
“Tied to me?” Esau had no clue what the man was talking about.
Tom’s finger shook like a school mistress scolding a child. “We can have them marry you before they travel out here.”
“You must be jokin’,” Jacob scoffed.
“Consider this. I’m going to Philadelphia to meet my bride.”
Esau’s eyebrows lifted. “You already have one? You didn’t mention that.”
“I hadn’t had time to say anything, Reverend. That’s why I wanted to come to you for prayer. Will you pray for me?”
“Of course.”
“I was going to meet her here, but this changes everything.”
“How so?”
“You can submit an advertisement to the newspaper. I can go in your stead.”
He shook his head. “I’m not in favor of deceit.”
Tom’s blue eyes held his. “Reverend, after what you told me, are you going to go back on your promise?”
“Surely not.”
“Then this is the option for you. It’s impossible to raise a child alone.”
“Nothing is impossible with the Lord, Tom.”
“I’m aware of that, Reverend. But it doesn’t mean you have to do this alone.”
Esau’s gaze drifted over to the crib where the sleeping child lay. Could he raise the boy on his own? Would that be what was best? Children needed a mother and a father. He had the duty to give the babe the best he could for his well-being.
Wearily, Esau rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger.
“Let me pray about this, Tom. Can you come back tomorrow? I’m sure I’ll have an answer for you by then.”
“All right. I’ll be back sometime tomorrow afternoon.”
Tom stood and put on his outer garments to head back into the wintry weather.
Jacob shut the door after Tom left and leaned against it.
“Don’t do it, Esau. You’re gonna make the biggest mistake of yer life if you do.”
“That may be,” his brother answered. “But it’s mine to make.”
***
Magdalen Society of Philadelphia
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
February 1870
“That is outrageous, Mr. North,” Delilah’s calm, sure voice hid the rampant trembling of her insides.
“Not at all, Miss Hampton,” Mr. Simon North drawled, licking his teeth as if savoring her name on his tongue. The implication made her skin crawl. Delilah had no desire for this man to think of her in a licentious manner…in any manner at all.
“I have paid the loan in full, sir. I demand you provide the receipt showing this detail.”
“Miss Hampton, I’ve told you quite clearly that you haven’t.”
“You’re a liar.” With slow, deliberate movements, she clasped her hands together on her lap. “I’ve not missed any of the payments to you.”
Delilah’s stomach quivered even more. How had she ended up in this predicament? Going into this arrangement, she had known most moneylenders were unscrupulous. With that in mind, she’d completed a thorough back study of Mr. Simon North before she undertook it upon herself to reach out to him for a loan for Heather’s care.
Or so she thought.
Their first meeting a year ago went without a hitch. He’d gone over the papers thoroughly, making sure she understood the terms of the repayment.
Now, a year later, at what she expected to be the last time they’d meet, Mr. North attempted to sway her to the preposterous idea that the repayment period was longer than what the original terms had stipulated.
The moneylender learned forward, a smarmy smile creasing his face. Something within her recoiled at the sight.
“Miss Hampton, this is all quite simple to solve. Simply show me the receipts to prove your payments haven’t been missed.”
Her face burned. “I already told you that the receipts were stolen from my friend’s boarding room last week.”
“So you say,�
� Mr. North added.
“It’s the truth.”
“Let’s face facts, Miss Hampton. Women aren’t known for being as smart as men.”
Her lips thinned at the insult. Why would this man say something so heinous? “It’s not a matter of intelligence, Mr. North, just a matter of organization.”
“I highly doubt you’ve kept concise records, Miss Hampton.”
“I did, Mr. North. I even had you sign the receipts so that you and I both acknowledged the payments.” Leaning forward, she asked, “Don’t you remember, Mr. North?”
He gave an insolent wave of his hand. “I am an important man, Miss Hampton. Many people want my signature on many things. If, as you say, I did sign these receipts.”
She went completely still, staring at the man who she once thought was an answer to prayer. Where was this stemming from? Simon North was behaving like another man entirely.
Despite her every effort her voice shook as she asked, “Why are you doing this?”
The slick smile on the moneylender’s face dropped away. A hard, chiseled mask lined with a heretofore unseen cruelty took its place. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
A cold shiver arced up the middle of her spine. Even his voice had changed, the drawl deepening to something much darker and disturbing.
Delilah swallowed the bubble that formed in her throat and pressed on. “Mr. North, I paid you back the funds you lent me at the interest rate you set. Why are you pretending I haven’t fulfilled my obligation to you?”
The man leaned back; his swollen belly pressed against the strained buttons of his vest. His fingers twiddled idly with a pencil. “No one ever is to be free of me, Miss Hampton.”
Her brow creased. “I don’t understand.”
“Do you think I’d just let you pay off a debt? That’s not how it works, Miss Hampton. I don’t know how you seemed to slip through the cracks, but I’m not in this business out of the kindness of my heart.”
“You…you stole the receipts from Heather’s boarding room.” The blood drained from her body, leaving her shaking as if she were sitting in the middle of a blizzard.
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