The Bartered Bride (The Brides Book 3)

by Lena Goldfinch

  The bath was as deliciously warm as it looked. Ray’s doing, she suspected. He’d left her a bar of soap and two towels, which was nice of him. She soaped herself up five times and washed her filthy hair about as many times. Much as she hated being so dirty—and hated making such a poor impression on everyone she’d met here—she couldn’t regret her efforts to keep Danny away.

  At a certain point the bath water went tepid. It had turned murky from all her dirt, and her fingertips had started to wrinkle. She caught a whiff of beef stew or something equally hearty, reminding her she hadn’t eaten much in the past few weeks.

  Annie quickly dried off, wrapped one of the towels around herself and another around her wet hair, and went looking for a dress to change into.

  She hadn’t taken much interest in the clothes on the bed until now. All her attention had been focused on getting out of her dirty clothes and slipping into that welcoming tub.

  Ben must have brought the clothes, as Ray had asked him to do. She’d gathered that Ben was Jem’s younger brother-in-law. And Jem’s wife had been called Lorelei, a pretty name. It sounded like she’d passed on not that long ago. Not gone a year. Annie had learned quite a lot in the foyer. She also knew that Ben didn’t like her. Not one bit. From the moment he’d laid eyes on her he’d practically smoldered with hostility toward her.

  She’d have to go carefully with him.

  Annie went through the stack of clothes he’d left, and it became even clearer that he didn’t want her here. Instead of bringing her some of Lorelei’s old clothes, which was what Ray had said he should do, Ben had left a stack of boy’s things. And not a single dress among them. There were no underthings either, nothing besides an undershirt, thin as a whisper it had been washed so many times. Ben’s old things maybe.

  Annie spread them all out on the big double bed, taking inventory: one pair of dirt-brown trousers. An over-sized button-down cotton work shirt. A long man’s white nightshirt. One pair of socks.

  She held up the trousers to her waist, then clutched the waistband into a ball, her hands shaking. She couldn’t wear these. Why, it would be indecent to wear trousers around a bunch of men. Never in her life had she worn trousers around anyone.

  What was she supposed to wear to the dinner table? A man’s nightshirt? Surely not. It might’ve been as long as a dress, but it was too sheer to be decent, and she didn’t even have a shift to wear under it.

  He knew. Ben knew she couldn’t wear these things. Or thought he did.

  He hadn’t counted on someone like her. She knew what it was like for people to point and make fun of her. She knew worse than that. This was nothing, she told herself firmly.

  In the end, Annie wore everything: the trousers, the undershirt, and the nightshirt, which fell down nearly to her ankles. She rolled up the bottoms of the pants, just high enough so she could walk. She wore the socks as slippers too, since she didn’t have any shoes. Lastly, she drew on the pale blue work shirt. It hung shapelessly to her knees. She supposed—checking her reflection in a full-length oval mirror in one corner of the room—she was decent enough. But she didn’t much like the way it made her look like...well not good.

  She thought of Ben seeing her like this and snickering. He wanted to shame her for whatever wrong he thought she’d done.

  He’s sad, a small voice inside her whispered. He lost his sister. Poor thing.

  Annie took some small pleasure in thinking how he’d hate being called that. He looked about twenty. Old enough to want to be seen as a man and not a “poor thing.” Not that she planned on shaming him or seeking retribution. Oh no. She’d win Ben over, somehow. He was family already, being Jem’s brother-in-law. Just like Ray was family. What did blood matter?

  Maybe nobody wanted her for a family, but she wanted a family. And she just might have to fight for it.

  Annie squared up her shoulders.

  Winning Jem was probably going to be her biggest challenge. He’d saved her—that was true. But she had the impression he couldn’t help himself when it came to helping someone in trouble. At the church tent, he could’ve walked away. She hadn’t precisely kept count, but two men had bartered for her, others had watched on, and a whole crowd of folks could’ve stepped closer to find out what was going on. But none of them had. All the other men had walked away. And one man had outright bought her. Annie shuddered at the memory of his cold eyes.

  But then Jem had stepped in. He’d handed over twice the money the other man had paid. More than she’d ever seen in one place. He’d bought her a ticket for the train. He’d fed her.

  Not unlike the dog.

  The realization brought Annie up short.

  She tapped her fingernail against her front tooth, thinking.

  To be fair, he’d saved the puppy too. Seeing it jerked around on that chain had woken him up—not unlike poking a sleeping bear.

  She smiled at the image. Outside, Jem did rather look a bit like a bear with all that hair on his face, but inside—and inside was all that mattered—he was a protector of helpless dogs and people in trouble. The problem was he’d gone right back to sleeping. He’d pulled his hat over his eyes and sunk back to sleep. The kind where you drifted away from the whole world.

  How did she break through?

  Well, certainly “break” was the wrong word. You might get hurt trying to “break” into a man like Jem’s world. She’d need to go about it more subtle or he’d slam all his doors and windows shut. Fair enough.

  He’d said he wanted her to watch out for Mae while he worked the ranch. She could do that. She wanted to do that. And for now, she guessed she’d simply watch him. Learn all she could. Sort of secret-like so he wouldn’t even notice. And then, well, she didn’t know what.

  Annie straightened her spine, fixed what she hoped was a warm, natural smile in place, and marched out.

  ELEVEN

  It was hard to describe what she was wearing.

  Jem came in the kitchen through the back door, took one look at Annie, and immediately turned on Ben.

  “What is that?” he demanded, not liking how Annie was hovering in the doorway between the foyer and the kitchen, like she’d just come from upstairs and didn’t know whether she should come all the way into the room or not.

  “I don’t know what you mean.” Ben’s lips curled in a sort of sneer that Jem didn’t care for in the least. Nor did he like how Ben was leaning back against the far wall near the back door, his expression watchful. Spectating.

  “Ray told you to get her some of Lorelei’s old things,” Jem said. He didn’t ever remember Ben being so mean-spirited. Not the Ben he used to know, the twelve-year-old boy who’d followed him around everywhere, eating up every word he said. That Ben would’ve given up the best of Lorelei’s things. He might look like a man now, strong and capable, but he was acting like a snot-nosed boy.

  “Why don’t you get them yourself?” Ben retorted.

  Jem held onto his patience, but just barely. The tantalizing scent of beef stew tickled his nose, and he saw Ray at the cook stove stirring a pot, looking over at them with a carefully unconcerned expression. Whatever he had going in that pot smelled delicious. Stick-to-your-ribs kind of food. Man food. He also smelled the heady aroma of toasted bread, and his stomach clenched with hunger.

  Jem noticed how Ray’s eyes flicked to Annie and widened. Evidently, he’d just caught sight of her. Maybe because the kitchen was so dimly lit. It was nearly full dark out now, but Ray had a couple of lanterns lit, one near the stove and another in the center of the long pine farm table, just bright enough to eat by.

  Jem saw Mae near one end of the table, fast asleep, an empty bowl before her. She’d obviously eaten already, thankfully, because there were streaks of stew on the inside of her bowl and messy fingerprints on the outside. The puppy slept under Mae’s chair, splayed out on its side. Mae held a dirty spoon in one hand, her cheek pressed solidly into the table, and her curls fanned out across the surface. She certainly looked swee
t asleep.

  I wish Ben was asleep like that, Jem thought, with a wry inward smile.

  “I don’t know where her things are, Ben,” Jem said, trying to keep his tone even and reasonable. Pretty sure he failed at that.

  “Then I guess you’ll have to find them.”

  Jem turned away from him and slammed his hat onto one of the pegs by the door. He held onto it for a moment, waiting for the anger to seep out of him.

  “I guess I will,” he said without looking back, suddenly bone-weary. He was tired of it all: traveling, moving. He needed sleep. And food. He definitely wanted food. Now.

  He took a seat at Mae’s end of the table. Figuring Annie was feeling too skittish to sit up close to him, he inclined his head her way, then pointed out a chair, the one furthest away from him. After she sat down at the table, he could still barely see her face. The lamplight flickered over her features, but her hair was pulled forward over her shoulder in a thick braid, covering near half of her face. Not that it mattered much what she looked like. At least she was clean now. That was some bit of hospitality they could offer the poor girl.

  She’d need a dress, of course, but the very thought of opening Lorelei’s trunks—looking through her things—brought a knife-sharp pain to his chest. When he wasn’t so weary, perhaps then he could manage it.

  “The clothes will have to wait until morning, I’m afraid,” he told her.

  She nodded stiffly, and he thought maybe he’d scared her.

  He rubbed the back of his neck. His hair was getting long. Scratched through his beard. It was getting long too.

  He couldn’t remember the last time he’d shaved. Maybe the week before Lorelei’s surgery? What was that—eleven months now?

  “You gonna shave that thing?” Ben asked.

  “Why? Don’t you like beards?”

  “You can’t see your face.”

  “Do you want to see my face?” Jem asked, amused despite himself.

  “No,” Ben answered a little too quickly.

  Jem smirked behind his beard. “Ray,” he said, “that smells good enough to eat.”

  “It’s a comin’, it’s a comin’.”

  “Need any help?”

  “Do I need any help?” Ray coughed into his shoulder, laughing. He somehow managed to keep a grip on the two bowls he held—in one hand—and ladle stew into both at the same time. “Like I haven’t been serving ten men for the past thirty years.”

  Same old Ray, Jem thought, relieved there was at least one thing he could count on.

  Ben spun around one of the chairs in the middle of the table and straddled it, neatly dividing the long table in two, with Jem and Mae at one end and Annie way down at the other.

  “So, she don’t talk, is that right?” Ben nodded at Annie.

  Jem froze, his first spoonful of stew an inch from his mouth. He looked over at Annie and saw her similarly frozen, the spoon right at her lips. He took his bite and savored the warmth of delicious stew, then went back to scoop another bite.

  “She doesn’t speak, no.”

  “Then how’s she supposed to teach Mae?”

  Jem glanced at Annie again. She’d bent low over her bowl and was eating steadily, but he sensed her ear was fully on the conversation. Her attention was too firmly focused on her food for her to be doing anything other than listening to every word.

  “She’ll do just fine, I expect,” Jem said, gritting his teeth. “They get along, and a girl as young as Mae, well, she just needs someone to be close by at this age.”

  “And when she gets older?”

  “Then I guess we’ll have you to help us out then, won’t we?” Jem bit the words off.

  “Don’t count on it.” Ben pushed back from the table, cast a hard look at Jem then Annie, and strode out the back, slamming the door behind him.

  “Where’s he off to?” Jem asked, taking a thick slice of buttered toast from Ray.

  “Don’t mind him,” Ray said, giving Annie a slice too and taking his own chair finally.

  He was moving a bit slower these days, Jem saw, noticing the little grunt of relief Ray let out when his weight was off his feet. Another worrying sign of age creeping up on him.

  “He’s gone through a rough spell,” Ray continued. “What with his pa dying and losing Lorelei. Hasn’t been easy, let’s say. But he’ll be back soon enough. He likes his bed too much to stay out all night.”

  Jem nodded at that and finished his bowl of stew. Ray reached for it to fill it again, but Jem waved him away and got seconds for himself. Taking note of Annie’s ravenous appetite, he filled hers up again and went back to his spot. They finished the rest of their food in silence.

  Jem pushed his bowl away and sat back with a sigh. Good food. Always had a way of making the worst situations more bearable. Without even fully realizing he was doing it, he reached out and fingered a strand of Mae’s hair lying on the table near his hand. It was so much longer now, but still baby fine and silky soft.

  “You know where Lorelei’s things are?” he asked Ray, looking up to find his old friend regarding him with a serious expression.

  “Up in the attic, I ’spect.”

  Jem nodded.

  “You want me to get them down for you?” Ray offered. “Might be hard for you...going through her things.”

  And hard for you to lug down a heavy trunk with that arthritis. Jem kept the thought to himself to save Ray’s pride.

  “No, you’ve got enough to do,” he said aloud.

  “No truer words spoken.” Ray chuckled. “I’ll get one of the boys to fetch it down.”

  It was tempting, but the coward’s way out. Besides, the ranch hands had real ranch work to do. Scouring the attic for a pair of Lorelei’s trunks wasn’t exactly in their job description. Not that they’d likely mind the job, but when they did find her trunks, they wouldn’t know which one to bring down. Jem didn’t much like the idea of some young man he didn’t know pawing through Lorelei’s dresses and petticoats. And other things. And it wasn’t like they needed both trunks brought down, not at this point.

  “No, I’ll do it. I’ll take a look in the morning.” Jem cast a glance at the ceiling, effectively piercing through the second floor, up into the attic. He could almost picture Lorelei’s trunks sitting on the floor under the eaves. His fingers closed tightly around his spoon handle, and he had to close his eyes briefly before he returned to his stew.

  TWELVE

  The next morning, Annie stared in the full-length oval mirror in her new bedroom. The sun streamed in through the windows, lighting her up like a singer on a stage. More like a fool.

  She couldn’t go downstairs like this.

  She’d been awake for a good long time, dressed in those same awful clothes from Ben. Fully prepared to face the day and win over her new family. However that was going to happen. But she found herself wavering. It had been one thing to go down last night, when the shadows of the kitchen had partially hidden her. Now it was bright daylight. She looked like a fool and beyond improper. And her socks were missing. Vanished.

  Where had they gotten to?

  She could have sworn she left them balled up in the lap of that high-back armchair in the corner. She even remembered sitting in that same chair last night when she was getting ready for bed. She’d marveled at the brocade upholstery and carved wood frame. The cushions had been surprisingly deep and comfortable for a chair sitting in the corner of what had been Ben’s old room growing up. The Ruskins back home had favored stiff straight-back chairs and utilitarian stools. That sort of thing.

  A big old oval mirror like this, in any room, would’ve been unheard of.

  Her reflection stared back at her.

  A fool in boy’s britches.

  Granted, her old dress was worn out and ugly, but at least it was decent and long enough to brush the floor. Why, she didn’t even have Ben’s old pair of socks now to cover her skin. She might as well go down with nothing on at all. To bare her feet.

 
She tugged down on the man’s nightshirt, but it was no use. It didn’t go down far enough.

  Her cheeks burned to think of Jem seeing her this way.

  To go down in this.

  He probably already thought the worst of her. He’d probably heard what Daniel had said about her—being raised in a “bawdy house”—and that only partially true.

  It was true about her mother being a prostitute, about her being born in a house of ill repute. She’d lived there as a little girl—a girl maybe Mae’s age. But then she had left. She’d gone first to the mission church—what little she remembered of it. Like many bawdy house infants she’d started there. After a spell, they’d moved her to the orphanage. She’d grown up there until she was ten, at which point she’d worked at the Good County Poor House. She’d been trained there until she was nearly thirteen—for all anybody knew how old she was. And that was when the Ruskins had taken her on, and Mrs. Ruskin had taught her to read.

  Annie hadn’t been family to them exactly, but they’d treated her kindly and she’d worked hard.

  If hard work could have won their love, then they must have loved her at least a little.

  She sank to the foot of the bed and brought her feet up under her.

  Her stomach rumbled and seemed to twist inside out, it was so empty. But still she sat, prepared to stay put for as long as need be. Perhaps even until the shadows of night returned.

  It wasn’t precisely brave, she realized. She was giving into fear. A coward’s path.

  Which went against all the grand plans she’d made.

  But her heart simply refused to budge.

  * * *

  Jem let himself into the main house by the back. He held the screen door as it shut, so it hit the jamb easy-like, making a soft thud behind him. He stepped into the kitchen and immediately the warm, slightly nutty scent of toasted oat bread hit his nose. His stomach rumbled. He’d gulped down two cups of strong coffee and a plateful of fried eggs and bacon at sunrise, but that was hours ago. Since then, he’d checked on Flora’s hoof, which was concerning, examined one of Ben’s pregnant mares, and ridden out with a couple of the ranch hands to look over the property with fresh eyes. A lot had changed. They’d put in new fencing, set up several new paddocks, and brought on more stock horses than he would have imagined.