Bittersweet Bride

by Denise Hunter

  “You’re really part of the royal family?” Beth asked.

  “Well, I’m a descendant of Queen Elizabeth, as is my mother.” She flitted a glance at Clay. “I’m said to have inherited her intelligence.” She smiled coyly.

  “Do you have any jewels from the royal family?” Beth asked, wide-eyed.

  “Beth, that’s rude,” Clay said.

  “Mother does,” Mara said, unable to resist answering the question. “She has an emerald necklace Queen Elizabeth wore in a portrait. I’ll show it to you sometime.”

  “Is that how your family got to be”—she paused as if trying to remember the right words—“dirty rich?”

  “Beth!” Clay threw his napkin on the table and scowled at his sister.

  Mara tried to stifle a giggle.

  Clay cringed, suddenly remembering where she’d heard the phrase.

  “But, Clay,” Beth said, “that’s what you said to Aunt—”

  “That’ll be enough now!” he said.

  “That’s all right, Beth.” She smiled at Clay. “The term is ‘filthy rich,’ though I’m not certain why anyone put those two words together.”

  Clay finished his meal in silence, sure that a flush had risen from the collar of his shirt.

  ❧

  Mara got ready for bed that night at eight o’clock feeling more weary than she ever had before. How did all those rancher wives do it every day? She would find out soon, if this kept up. She was glad Sadie was doing all the cooking! Why, she had sat down only for meals today, without a moment of rest all day!

  Tomorrow she would wear her lavender gown. The color made her skin look flawless, and the deep-cut neckline displayed one of her finest attributes, if she did say so herself. Dread curdled in her stomach at the thought of wearing all those heavy layers. She would perspire all day.

  But no way was she going to change her manner of dress simply because Clay had told her to do so. What audacity! As if he had any say in the matter.

  He had touched a nerve with his bossy attitude, but Mara admitted, if only to herself, this was one of his more appealing traits. He was a strong leader, a challenge. It both attracted and repelled her. That mix of emotions excited her. He was no boy like Daniel. He was all man.

  She fell asleep with a smile on her face, right after her head hit her feather pillow.

  Six

  Mara groaned as she got out of bed the next morning. Every muscle protested the movement. Her arms ached, and, oh, her back! She limped over to her armoire and opened the drawers, each muscle aching with the movement. It even hurt to breathe!

  “Sadie—!”

  She sat on the bed and waited for the woman to come and help her. How would she get through the day if every movement signaled pain?

  “Sadie—!”

  The door opened. “Mara, hush, Child! Your parents are still abed,” Sadie said, closing the door behind her. “What’s the matter?”

  “My whole body feels as if it’s been run over by a stagecoach—that’s what’s the matter!” She stifled a whimper.

  “You need to get yourself moving. You’ll feel lots better after you—”

  “I can’t move! It hurts too much.” She put out her hands, still pink and now sporting a blister from sweeping the floors. “And look at my hands! They’re ruined!”

  “Now, Child, buck up.” Sadie patted her shoulder. “Nothing good comes easy. You have a fine little girl waiting over there for you and a whole mess of fixin’s cooking in the kitchen. “Here, I’ll get your frock.” She opened the armoire and reached in.

  “But I can’t even move!”

  Sadie stopped and nodded her head, pursing her lips. “Well, I s’pose I was right then.” She sighed. “I told Mrs. Stedman you wouldn’t make it a week.” She shut the cabinet and started to leave the room. “I guess Clay will just have to manage without—”

  “You said what?”

  “I told her you weren’t capable of hard work like that. I don’t know what Mr. Stedman was thinking, giving you the job—”

  Mara stood, ignoring the ache in her limbs. “I can too do the work!”

  Sadie turned in the doorway. “Well, then, Missy, you’d best get ready.” She left then, shutting the door behind her.

  ❧

  One week and three blisters later, Mara showed up at the Stedman house to find Beth sick in bed.

  “She feels hot, and she’s got a cough,” Clay said before starting to eat the fried eggs with the rest of the men.

  Mara hoped she wouldn’t come down with it too. She checked on Beth while the others ate. She was sleeping, her body curled in a ball. The hair framing her face clung damply to her cheeks and forehead. She looked small and helpless. Mara had never nursed anyone, but her mother had always cared for Mara when she was sick, so she knew a little of what to do.

  Poor child. She had no mother at all. Mara felt the girl’s forehead, surprised that she didn’t stir. Her skin burned against Mara’s hand. A wet cloth would be just the thing.

  After wetting a cloth, she sat on the side of the bed and dabbed the girl’s face and neck. Beth stirred a little and opened her eyes. “I don’t feel good.”

  Mara laid the cloth across her forehead. “I know, Darling. You just stay here and rest. I’ll check on you often, all right?”

  The girl nodded then closed her eyes and seemed to fall asleep.

  It was a good thing Beth had helped her last week, or she wouldn’t know how to do the chores. By the time she returned to the kitchen, the men had left for the day. She was clearing the table and had picked up the empty bacon platter when she remembered.

  The hogs. Beth hadn’t been able to feed them this morning. And she would need to collect the eggs. The weight of her tasks hit her heavily, and for a moment Mara imagined herself buried beneath the load of chores that awaited her. The dishes, the laundry, the mending, the cleaning. The work went on endlessly. Would there ever be a moment when she felt she was finished? As soon as she completed one task, another rose up in its place. How did these women bear it?

  Filling the basin with water, she decided the dishes would have to wait until she’d collected the eggs and fed the hogs. She picked up the basket and set about gathering the eggs. Except for one hen that tried to hoard her eggs, the task went well. Feeling a tinge of accomplishment, Mara set the eggs on the table and went to check on Beth.

  The cloth on her forehead felt hot, so Mara took it to the kitchen pump and doused it with cold water. Back in the room, she eased her weight on the bed and dabbed at Beth’s flushed face. The child flinched at the cold cloth, stirred, and opened her eyes. Mara noted that a glaze of fever shone in her eyes.

  Beth snuggled up to Mara, laying her head in her lap. Mara’s heart caught at the innocence and vulnerability of the movement. She lifted her hand and began to stroke the child’s hair away from her face. Then she laid the cloth over her forehead and cradled Beth in her lap.

  Beth turned toward her, burying her face in Mara’s gown. She mumbled something.

  Mara struggled to hear. “What, Beth?”

  The girl shifted, her body burrowing against Mara. “You smell just like Ma,” she whispered then heaved a big sigh.

  Mara’s heart lurched then softened. She looked at the child’s angelic face. Her tiny pug nose. Her long lashes, now sweeping the tops of her cheeks in sleep. Beth’s breathing leveled out, and Mara knew she was once again asleep. For the first time in her life she had tender feelings for a child. For the first time she could imagine what it would feel like to have a child of her own. To be protective, to put that child ahead of her own desires.

  For a long time she sat cradling Beth, enjoying the slight weight on her lap. Only when Beth shifted away in sleep and burrowed once again in her pillow did Mara stand. After rewetting the cloth, she turned her attention to her next chore.

  The hogs. Ugh! She dreaded going out to feed those filthy beasts. She looked down at her shiny black shoes and sighed. They would be ruined. And s
he never should have worn her petticoats.

  She had watched Beth feed them only once, and it looked simple enough. She filled the pail with the grain and carried it out to the pen. Most of the hogs lay fat and lazy in the slop, apparently not caring that breakfast had been delayed. But a few stood near the gate and seemed to be protesting the late arrival of breakfast.

  Arriving at the fence she saw the pigs had nudged the trough into the center of the pen. So much for dumping it over the sides. Now she would have to walk through that muck.

  Mara unlatched the gate and tried to force it open, pushing against one of the sows. “Move!” The hog snorted, its face covered with dry mud, but it remained rooted to the spot. No doubt held in place by the thick layer of muck.

  She pushed against the gate, leaning into it with all her weight. “Move, you big, ugly beast!”

  Several of the other hogs wandered over to the gate. “No, back! Shoo!” She leaned heavily into the gate, and this time Mudface budged a bit. Mara took advantage of the momentum, pushing with all her might.

  There! She was through the gate, and she paused to catch her breath. Now if these other oafs would just move—“Get back! Shoo, shoo!” She made her way through the throng, trying to step only in the drier spots. Finally she reached the feeder and dumped the bucket of grain. The hogs gathered and began eating noisily, as if they were famished.

  “Ugh! Filthy beasts.” She tried not to breathe in the heavy odor.

  She turned to walk away but was caught before she had taken two steps. She looked back and saw, to her horror, that one of the hogs was standing on her gown! She cried out with indignation and kicked at the hoof. The sow didn’t move. “Move! Shoo, shoo!” She kicked again, loathe to touch the dirty beast.

  The big pig wasn’t budging. It was too busy stuffing its fat belly.

  She gathered her skirt and pulled gently, hoping to ease it out. When that didn’t work, she kicked at the hoof again. “Get—off—my—gown!”

  She gave a final yank, leaning back for leverage. At the same time the sow decided to shift closer to the food.

  With the weight suddenly gone from her skirt, Mara fell back into the muck. The mud splattered up, and she felt herself sinking into the wet, slimy earth.

  “Aauughh!” she howled and then opened her eyes to survey the mess. Before she could take stock, she heard something.

  Laughter.

  She looked around the paddocks and barns. Her gaze slid by then came back to rest on the figure perched not fifteen feet away on the fence. Clay was clutching his stomach with uncontained mirth.

  Anger boiled inside her. She struggled to stand up and realized her skirts had risen to her knees revealing her frilled bloomers beneath them. “Aauughh!” she howled again and flung the sodden skirts back down around her ankles before trying to stand again.

  Clay continued to display unbridled mirth.

  “Of all the”—her hand slipped in the mud—“nerve!” She turned over on her knees, knowing she would ruin her gown but not caring anymore. “Instead of standing there laughing like a”—she pushed to her feet, aware that her backside was sticking up in the air—“a complete nincompoop!”

  “Hold on there, Fancy Pants, and I’ll—”

  She sucked in a breath of foul air. “Well!” She rose to her full height, albeit unsteadily. “You, Sir, are no gentleman! How dare you mention my—my—unmentionables!”

  “No offense, Ma’am. I’ve never seen such fancy duds—”

  “Will you stop speaking of them!”

  He stepped near her and reached for her arm to steady her.

  She swatted his hand away, her face flushing again at the mention of her undergarment. “And what were you doing spying on me?” She planted her muddy fists on her hips. “Your behavior has been most rude!”

  “I was just—”

  “And how dare you speak to me that way! A gentleman would have turned away—”

  “I never said anything about being a—”

  “A gentleman would certainly not have mentioned what he had seen.”

  His lips twitched, and she knew he was stifling another round of his insufferable laughter.

  She whirled and started toward the house, her angry stride hampered by the mud that sucked at her feet.

  “Now, Fancy Pants, I—”

  “Ohh!” She turned and shot him a look, silencing him. Reaching the gate she finally broke free of the mud and welcomed the hard-packed ground. Her gait quickened, but her sodden skirts clung to her legs.

  The last sound she heard before entering the house was the unrestrained laughter of Clay Stedman.

  Seven

  Mara removed a chocolate from the box and popped it in her mouth, settling back onto her pillows. After the day she’d had, she deserved a treat. It had taken a long, warm bath to soothe away the trials and remove the layer of filth that clung to her skin. And candies from France were just the thing to take her mind off that impossible Clay Stedman.

  What had ever made her think of him as a possible suitor? He was a brute! A cad! She pictured in her mind’s eye the way she must have looked, sprawled in the mud, her skirts gathered around her knees, the bottoms of her bloomers exposed. Her face grew hot. Had she ever been so humiliated?

  She recalled the way Clay had guffawed. The way he’d called her Fancy Pants. She clenched her teeth then roared with anger, throwing her pillow across the room. It hit the wall with a thud.

  What an insufferable man! He had all the manners of one of those hogs she had been feeding.

  So what if he did look like Adonis? So what if he did exude strength like no one she had met? He was unmannerly, frustrating, and entirely too stubborn. After she’d washed up as best she could, he had insisted on explaining his presence at the barn that morning. He’d followed her into the house and insisted he came back simply to make sure the hogs were fed.

  So he did have an excuse for being present, but that certainly didn’t negate the fact that he was unbearably rude. She’d nearly quit right there.

  But then she heard Beth call feebly from the other room. When she checked on the girl, she found her still hot, her eyes shiny like glass. Mara remembered then how Beth had clung to her only an hour before and told her she smelled like her mother.

  All fight went out of Mara. How could she leave now, when Beth needed her? Not just to nurse her back to health but to fill a void in her life. The child needed a mother, a woman to nurture her. Mara had never once considered herself the nurturing kind, but something in Beth drew her. Her innocent sweetness and vulnerability softened a place in her heart, and she knew she couldn’t leave. At least, not until her aunt returned.

  Mara placed another chocolate in her mouth and surveyed her hands. They were rough with calluses. She sighed. How careful she had been all these years to keep her hands smooth and supple, and they’d been ruined in the space of weeks.

  She set the candy aside and walked over to her cheval glass. She turned her face this way and that, peering closely at her skin. Her gaze narrowed on a faint dot on her nose. She sucked in a breath. A freckle! Her eyes adjusted to the room’s dimness, and she found another dot, then another. Three of them!

  Dismay spread through her innermost being. Her flawless skin, ruined! Oh, why hadn’t she been more careful to wear a hat?

  “Mara—!” Her father called from somewhere downstairs, and she could hear anger steeped in the one word.

  “Coming!” She stepped away from the mirror, admitting that at least her figure was still as perfect as ever.

  She hastened from her room and down the stairs, anxious to see what had upset her father. She found him in his office. Her mother was sitting near him twisting her hands nervously in her lap.

  Her father wasted no time. “Your mother informs me we have been paying Sadie to do your work over at the Stedman ranch. Is that so?”

  Mara glanced at her mother. “Well, yes, Father, but only the—”

  Clyde Lawton slammed his fis
t on the desk. “I cannot believe the two of you have conspired in this without my permission!”

  “Darling, I—”

  “That’s enough, Letitia! I had thought to shelter the two of you from this, but it seems I was wrong in doing so. It’s good you’re both here, for I have something to tell you. I’ll tell William when he returns.”

  Mara tried to read her father’s gaze, to see past the anger. It was unlike him to interrupt his wife.

  “Things are going to be different,” her father continued. “There’s been a–a change in our financial condition.” His gaze fixed on the papers in front of him.

  Mara exchanged a confused look with her mother.

  “Some investments have fallen through—some rather large investments.” Her father seemed to wither before her.

  “What are you saying, Clyde?”

  He sighed and tilted his chin upward. “We’ve lost money, Letitia—lots of money.” His jaw twitched.

  Her mother gave a brittle laugh. “Well, how much? It can’t be that bad. Daddy’s inheritance is still—”

  “I’ve lost it! I’ve lost all of it! I’d thought to make a fortune, but instead I’ve lost one.”

  “You can’t mean—it’s gone? All of it?”

  At her father’s nod Mara sank into the chair behind her. What did it mean? They still had money. They owned the Carriage Works. They were the wealthiest family in the district.

  “It would have been bad enough,” Mr. Lawton continued, “if it had been only the nest egg from your father. But the business is not doing well either. With the crop failure last year we’ve lost a number of families. Business is down everywhere.”

  Mara cleared her throat. “What does this mean, Daddy?” Her heart sat in her chest like a brick.

  Clyde Lawton looked at his daughter. “It means no more Sadie. It means no more dresses from France. No more fine furniture or frills or fancy chocolates.”

  Her father went on, but Mara stopped listening. No more dresses? No more Sadie?

  “Really, Clyde. You can’t be serious! We can’t let Sadie go. Why, how would we feed ourselves? You’re just being dramatic. It can’t be that bad.”