by Cassie Hayes
“I’m sorry, Dermot, but…this isn’t what I thought it would be. It’s my fault for not truly believing Miss Hazel’s explanation of the situation. My father will be happy to reimburse the cost of my train ticket, as well as the annulment, but I think…” She paused, then turned abruptly toward the door. “I think you should take me back to Moose Lick now.”
Panic flared in Dermot’s chest. He tried to convince himself it was because he knew he’d get them lost in the quickly descending darkness, but deep down, he knew he was fooling himself. If living in the Yukon had taught him anything, it was that life was too hard and too short to lie to yourself. Sometimes those lies were hard to acknowledge, but this one was easy to see. He didn’t want her to leave.
At the same time, he was frustrated she didn’t want to stay. If he’d have thought about ordering a mail-order bride before Jonathan had broached the subject, he could have had his pick from dozens of doting admirers in his hometown who would have gnawed off their own right arms for the chance to join him in the vast wilderness of the frozen north. But this one could barely wait to get away from him. He’d never been more insulted in his life — and he’d been insulted plenty!
“Can’t take you back till next week,” he said with an exasperated huff, as he shrugged out of his red serge coat and hung it on a peg next to the door. “I’m back on duty and only have permission to leave for our weekly meetings or an emergency. And your wanting to run back to mummy and daddy doesn’t qualify.”
Isabelle gaped at him. “You’re joking.”
Dermot leaned one shoulder against the doorframe, crossed his arms, and hooked one black boot in front of the other. “‘Fraid not, darlin’. I hate to tell you this, but you’re just going to have to suffer with living with me till then.”
Her lips pressed into a thin, angry line. If her annoyance didn’t tickle him so much, he might have felt guilty for giving her such a hard time.
“Well, I never!” she snapped as she looked around, no doubt wondering where she would sleep. “I still can’t believe you don’t have a maid.”
Dermot pushed off the door frame and brushed so close past Isabelle that she stiffened in response. Good thing she couldn’t see his satisfied smirk.
“If I had a maid, I wouldn’t need a wife.”
She gasped, and the heavy silence that followed pebbled his skin, but he ignored it and stoked the stove. When she spoke, her tone was so icy, the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end.
“Don’t expect either from me.”
Chapter 4
Isabelle sat on the porch step the next morning, wondering what she should do. After their argument the night before, Dermot had wordlessly heated up a can of baked beans for himself and left her to her own devices. He’d acted like she wasn’t even there, going so far as to start undressing in front of her without warning. She’d gasped and shut her eyes tight until the rustling of the covers had quieted.
He was behaving like a petulant child, but in hindsight, she could hardly blame him because she had too. He’d thought he was getting a dutiful wife who would cook and clean for him, but he’d received a pampered socialite who barely knew how to use a can opener. Thankfully, Maryanne had shown her during their stay at Miss Hazel’s, so she’d been able to heat up her own can of baked beans after Dermot fell asleep.
She could still taste the sickly sweet goop coating her mouth and throat as she choked it down. The thought of eating another bowl of the stuff sickened her, but what choice did she have? It wasn’t as if she’d ever find her way back to Moose Lick on her own — and she probably wouldn’t survive if she tried.
After a fitful night’s sleep on a pallet made from pile of Dermot’s cleanest looking clothes, she’d woken to him tromping around the small cabin, but she’d pretended to be asleep. Only after the door had slammed shut behind him, had she snooped around the place, looking for something — anything — else to eat. All she’d found were eggs. If Isabelle hated one food in the world more than canned baked beans, it was eggs.
A vision of a gnarled, arthritic hand gently cradling hers, teaching her the correct movements to beat eggs, flashed in her memory. Nanny Biggs had always encouraged Isabelle’s insatiable curiosity, so when six-year-old Izzy — Nanny’s nickname for her young charge — asked how eggs got scrambled, the older woman had taken her straight to the kitchens and shown her. Isabelle hadn’t eaten eggs since that day.
An hour after giving up on breakfast, her stomach grumbled, begging to be filled, but she ignored its pleas. She had more important things to think about right now than her empty belly — mainly how she’d ever face her parents again after causing such a stir with her announcement she was marrying a Mountie she’d never laid eyes on before. Running home with her tail between her legs would be even more humiliating than being thrown over for a barmaid. But what other choice did she have?
Following through on this bad idea was obviously out of the question. Dermot didn’t want a wife — not the kind of high-society wife she’d always envisioned herself to be, anyway. She should have listened to her own doubts — not to mention her mother’s — before leaving Ottawa. Because she’d ignored them, she was stranded in the middle of nowhere with no friends, no food, and no way to leave.
As self-pity rolled over her like a thunderhead, a young Indian woman sprinted across what passed for Dermot’s front yard, hot on the heels of a small, brown blur. The woman stopped and fired a small bow in one fast, fluid movement. The arrow hit its target with such precision, the rabbit fell dead immediately.
Isabelle had suffered through a so-called Wild West show once with a suitor, and none of it compared to this woman’s feat, as far as Isabelle was concerned. But when she started applauding to show her appreciation, the woman looked confused.
“Why you do that?” she asked as she tugged her arrow from the rabbit. The gruesome sound and sight didn’t faze the woman, but Isabelle was grateful she hadn’t eaten.
“I-I was complimenting you,” Isabelle said around the hand covering her mouth.
“What that mean?”
The woman, who looked to be about Isabelle’s age, pulled a knife from a pocket hidden in her skirts and began cleaning her catch. With quick, practiced movements, she skinned and cleaned the little rabbit before Isabelle could answer.
“I just think you did very well.” Isabelle watched her every move, fascinated and nauseated at the same time. “I’ve never seen anyone hunt with a bow and arrow before. Is it hard?”
The woman shrugged as she approached Isabelle, the rabbit carcass disappearing into a burlap bag. “Not too hard. You try.”
She thrust the bow at Isabelle, who waved a hand and shook her head. “No, I couldn’t possibly.”
The woman’s tidy braids shifted as she tilted her head. “Why not?”
“B-because I’m a lady, and ladies let their men do the hunting.”
As the words left her mouth — long before the Indian woman frowned in puzzlement — Isabelle wondered for the first time in her life why that had to be the case. She’d never thought to question it before, but now that she had, the world seemed to open up for her.
“I am lady,” the woman replied. “I hunt. See?”
She held up the bag, heavy with rabbits. Isabelle admired her. Not only did she have skills most of the ladies Isabelle grew up with would never dream possible, but she could clearly survive on her own, if necessary.
Excitement bubbled in Isabelle’s stomach. If she were as independent as this woman, maybe she wouldn’t have to return to Ottawa after all. She could survive in this wilderness until she figured out what she was going to do.
An image of Dermot smiling down at her and praising her for a fine dinner of game she’d caught and prepared flashed in her head. Where did that come from? She shook the thought away and returned her attention to the Indian woman.
“My name is Isabelle. What’s yours?”
“Janey.”
Isabelle laughed, delighted
at the woman’s sense of humor, then sobered quickly when the woman frowned. “Oh. Really? I thought it would be more…Indian.”
Janey’s frown eased a little. “My Kaska name sacred. You call me Janey.”
“All right. Janey. I think I’d like to try shooting your bow, if you wouldn’t mind teaching me.”
Janey’s dark round face broke into a brilliant smile. For the next half-hour or so, she showed Isabelle how to brace her feet, hold the bow, notch the arrow and release. There was almost too much to remember, but near the end, Isabelle cried out with joy when her arrow buried itself in a tree trunk. It didn’t bother her in the slightest that it wasn’t the tree she’d been aiming at.
“Did you see that, Janey? I did it!”
She clapped her hands with glee and purposely ignored Janey’s amused smirk as she retrieved the latest wayward arrow. A short time before, Isabelle had felt lost and powerless, but this short lesson had reminded her she could do whatever she set her mind to. She’d forgotten that about herself. Nanny Biggs had told her the same thing every day, but it had been a long time since she’d heard it.
“Janey, would you mind teaching me how to hunt?”
Janey gave her a wary glance. “Maybe we start with snares, not arrows.”
“Ooh, what are snares?” Suddenly, Isabelle wanted to know everything about hunting.
Janey shook her braids and smiled, then started walking back the way she’d come. “Okay, tomorrow morning. Same time, yes?”
“Yes, please!” Isabelle called after her.
She’d rather hoped Janey would spend the rest of the day teaching her, but obviously she had other things to do. So did Isabelle, for that matter, and the first item on the list was figuring out how to feed herself.
She couldn’t help wondering what Dermot’s reaction would be when he came home that night to a steaming hot meal and discovered she’d learned how to shoot a bow and arrow. He’d probably laugh at her.
Isabelle kicked herself for ever thinking he might be different. No, last night he’d proven himself to be just as much of a selfish cad as any man she’d ever known — including her father, and that was saying a lot.
She couldn’t quash the flare of disappointment that swelled in her chest, but better to know now than to labor under a misapprehension. That would only lead to heartache, and the good Lord above knew she’d suffered enough of that in her life.
As she thought about it, discovering Dermot’s true character was actually liberating. She was free to do whatever she wanted. And what she wanted was to eat, and if that meant she had to choke down another can of beans, so be it. After that, she’d call on all of Miss Hazel’s cooking lessons — the one’s she’d barely paid attention to and had required constant help with — to prepare a feast for herself, and only herself.
That’ll show him!
“You may have a terrible sense of direction, Dermot, but you have quite a knack for negotiations,” Jonathan said, as Elaine poured Dermot a cup of piping hot tea.
Dermot sat at the small table in Jonathan’s — no, make that Jonathan and Elaine’s cabin. His friend had always been the more tidy of the two Mounties, but the place had never been so clean before. After only one day of marriage! Dermot had no doubt his cabin would look exactly as he’d left it that morning.
Sighing in resignation at his poor luck in wives, he scribbled his signature on the report he’d helped Jonathan with, detailing yet another dust-up between the Kaska and a small group of Russian fur trappers. The Russians had claimed the Indians had tripped their traps, and it might have come to blows had Dermot not stepped in to mediate the argument.
“Were you terribly frightened?” Elaine asked as she stirred a lunchtime stew that smelled so good, his mouth watered.
“No, not really. Things hadn’t turned violent yet. I just needed to point out to the Russians that if they continue setting their traps on Kaska land, they’ll continue losing them. We got out a map and found an area the Russians could work without fear of losing their gear. Simple, really.”
Elaine returned his smile, but not in a flirty way. She had eyes for no one but Jonathan, and that actually made Dermot jealous — an unnatural sensation for him. Not because he wanted Elaine for himself, but he’d assumed his new wife would look at him the way Elaine gazed at Jonathan. Instead, he got a wife who couldn’t wait to leave him. His ego had never taken such a harsh blow.
“How are you adjusting, Elaine?” he asked, blowing on his tea to cool it. “How does the Yukon compare to Ottawa?”
“It’s beautiful, in its own way. Not as cold as I expected, though.”
Dermot smiled. “Just you wait. It’s coming, and soon. But even in the grips of winter, it’s still beautiful.”
“I’m looking forward to it,” she said, blushing slightly.
Dermot wondered what that was about, but chalked it up to her being an actual blushing bride. Unlike his bride, who simply turned red with rage. He still couldn’t figure out what Isabelle had expected.
She probably didn’t expect a pig sty, whispered a voice in the deepest recesses of his brain. In comparing Jonathan’s cabin — even before Elaine made it sparkle — to his own, Dermot could see how a young lady might be overwhelmed at his slovenly ways. The spoiled part of him wanted to argue that it wasn’t his fault, he’d never had to clean up after himself, but the ‘deep down’ voice didn’t need to speak up for him to know how pathetic that argument was.
It was Dermot’s turn for his cheeks to pink up…in shame. He probably owed Isabelle an apology. Most likely it wouldn’t change anything, but it was the least he could do. If she still wanted to leave the following Monday, he wouldn’t put up a fuss — even though the idea ushered inexplicable sadness into his heart.
“How’s Isabelle doing?” Elaine asked, settling in across from him. Jonathan pulled up an old apple crate to join them. “It’s only been a day and I already miss her.”
Dermot blinked in surprise that a warm, caring woman such as Elaine considered a snob like Isabelle a friend. “Really?”
Elaine’s brow knitted together. “Of course! She’s wonderful. I confess, her talents don’t lie in the kitchen, really, but she has the most loving and generous heart.”
Dermot gaped at her, then Jonathan, then back to Elaine. “You’re talking about Isabelle? Isabelle Rochester?”
Elaine’s gaze grew dark, and her tone held an unspoken warning. “Yes. Your wife, Isabelle Strickland.”
Dermot knew when to hold his tongue, so he smiled at her again, but his charms failed him. Again. Maybe he’d been away from the female species for so long, he’d lost his former talents. Or maybe these Ottawan women were simply immune to them. Whatever the case, he decided to take his hide elsewhere before Elaine could rid him of it.
Jonathan chuckled from his perch on the apple crate as Dermot quickly thanked Elaine for her hospitality and all but ran out the door. Once outside, he shuddered at the close call, then mounted Star and headed for home.
Elaine’s loyalty to Isabelle not only surprised him, but it impressed him. His understanding was that the four brides had lived together for some time at Miss Hazel’s house. His curiosity was piqued that at least one of the other women had seen a side of Isabelle she kept well hidden — at least from him.
His nose twitched with shame. He hadn’t really given her a fair chance, after all. He’d just assumed his new bride was prepared for life in the Yukon, yet he’d been just as shocked as Isabelle when he’d first arrived in Moose Lick. He’d thought that was bad enough, until he’d caught sight of his cabin.
What kind of man wouldn’t allow his new wife some time to adjust? Instead, Dermot had expected her to snap to and get to work. Then he’d had the audacity to laugh at her. No wonder she’d lit into him.
“I really stepped in it this time, Star,” he muttered to his horse and patted her neck.
As he rounded a bend that would lead him home, Dermot found himself riding into a small meadow he’
d never visited before. Grasses and plants of varying shades of yellow, orange and red were scattered in and around the surrounding pine trees, leaving a large, colorful open space that nearly took his breath away. Mountains loomed tall and purple into the brilliant sky, and he wondered — not for the first time — if a more stunning place existed on earth.
Dermot remembered how beautiful Vancouver had been when he was a child. Hardly any people, mostly trees, but he’d watched it build up as the lumber industry boomed, giving his father an empire. Dermot had certainly taken advantage of that wealth, but he’d always felt a twinge of grief over the beauty that was lost. He hoped this place would remain relatively untouched, but the effects of westward expansion could already be seen in the decimation of several fur-bearing species.
Breathing the clean, crisp air deep into his lungs, Dermot looked around, wondering how he’d found himself lost yet again. Thankfully, it was still the middle of the day, so he was easily able to backtrack to where he’d wandered off the trail. It didn’t take long before he found himself in front of his cabin. Smoke billowed out of the little chimney in the roof, and he couldn’t help wonder what Isabelle was up to inside.
As he took his time putting away Star, Dermot practiced his apology for his rude behavior. “Isabelle, about last night… No, no. Isabelle, I want to say how sorry I am… Eh, that’s not bad. Think she’ll accept, Star?”
The horse munched on her feed, stubbornly refusing to give him hope. “I suppose there’s only one way to find out.”
The walk from the tiny stable to cabin normally only took a few seconds, but Dermot stretched it out much longer. Steeling his nerves, he yanked the hat off his head and held it to his chest in the international gesture of respect. Plastering a fake smile on his face, he threw open the door and opened his mouth to issue his apology. It hung there, gaping, as he tried to make sense of what lay before him.
