Annie: A Bride For The Farmhand - A Clean Historical Western Romance (Stewart House Brides Book 3)

by Charity Phillips

  Rolling the idea over in her head, she dismissed it quickly. There was one large problem that hampered the possibility, even if she were to consider it.

  “Uncle Robert will want this wedding to come to pass as quickly as possible.” She was half-surprised she hadn’t woken up to the pastor awaiting her in the parlor to speak her vows that morning.

  “So, my dear, you will simply have to convince him to put it off long enough for you to get yourself a proposal from one of these young men,” she said with the mischievous light returning to her eyes.

  It was possible…if she could find some way to delay her uncle. And his one weakness may be just the thing. If she could convince him an elaborate wedding behooved his social standing, it wouldn’t be difficult to convince him that the intricacies of planning a wedding were significant and time-consuming.

  She glanced at the newspaper in front of her, realizing just then that the paper had been conveniently folded to present the matrimonial ads right there for her perusal. She scanned through the ads:

  “A respectable bachelor, fifty-five years of age, desires to immediately marry a charming young lady between sixteen and twenty-one years of age with skin like alabaster and eyes the color of the ocean..."

  She rolled her eyes and moved onto the next.

  “Refined, healthy man of 45 years wishes to correspond with an attractive and domesticated young lady with a view of matrimony…”

  Scanning through the ads, the small ember of hope was squelched quickly. Every man was in search of a pretty, young girl, less than half his age—no doubt docile and brainless, too. She’d always been told she was pretty, but she was anything but docile, and suddenly, she felt like an old maid at twenty-three years of age.

  She sighed. “Margaret, I’m afraid none of these gentlemen offer much more promise than Mr. Wendell.”

  “Just one, Miss Mary. This one.” She pointed to an advertisement further down the page.

  “A young man, twenty-eight years of age, in search of an intelligent and amiable woman with whom to share a quiet and happy life. What I lack in fortune, I make up for aplenty with a warm heart…”

  “You are an intelligent and amiable woman, if ever there was one, Miss Mary. And even though this one won’t be able to provide for you as well as your Mr. Wendell, I’ve never known you to be a woman obsessed with riches.”

  She read over the brief advertisement again, and then again. Was it possible this man was the solution to her problem? Margaret was right; wealth had never compelled her to consider one suitor over another, despite the obligations her uncle felt she had to the Kenleigh name. But to leave Boston, travel across the country and tie herself to a man she’d never met?

  Perhaps it was crazy enough that it just might work.

  And with that thought, the cooling embers of her shredded hope reignited. While it was natural to fear the unknown, in this case, it was difficult to imagine the unknown being worse than the certainty of the bleak future with Mr. Wendell.

  Now, all she had to do was convince the man in the advertisement to choose her above any other young lady who responded to his advertisement. The truth of her situation was hardly the stuff that would make a gentleman leap to an offer of marriage. No, if she was going to go through with this, she’d have to present herself in the most appealing light possible. Her father used to tell her the most outrageous and silly stories when she was a child; how difficult could it be to concoct one of her own?

  “Margaret, I believe I have a letter to write,” she stated resolutely before she changed her mind. “And,” she added as Margaret nodded and started toward the door with her mischievous smile firmly in place, “may I be assured of your discretion in this matter?”

  “Of course, Miss Mary. I’ll deliver your letters myself.”

  All that was left was writing the letter, filling it with enough fable to win an offer of matrimony.

  “Dear Sir,” she began.

  “I am writing to you in response to your advertisement in the matrimonial news section of the Boston newspaper. I was most pleased to discover a gentleman in search of an intelligent and affable young lady, and I look forward to meeting such a unique and respectable character.

  My name is Tessa Jenkins. I am a librarian in the city of Boston, where I’ve spent my entire life amid a warm and loving family. But I fear it is not in Boston where I was destined to find a match. You see, as captivating as the city may be, I have always longed for a quieter existence…”

  On and on, she continued, filling one page and then another. From her name and occupation to the current state of her familial relations, so many of the things she had written were blatant lies, but it couldn’t be helped. Not if she hoped to escape her current situation.

  She re-read the letter to herself, folded it carefully and slipped it into the envelope Margaret had provided. As if the woman was born with a sixth sense, she returned to collect the letter mere seconds after Mary had placed it on the tray on her lap.

  “I’ll see that this letter gets on its way this very mornin’, Miss Mary.” She paused briefly as a flicker of doubt passed through her amber-colored eyes. “That is, if you’re certain…”

  “I can assure you, Margaret, that I am positively uncertain about this, which is why I need you to take this letter and deliver it now before I change my mind.”

  She offered a tremulous smile—it was the best she could muster at the moment. Lying to a man she’d never met in order to obtain a proposal of marriage was surely something no young woman would feel certain about. It was devious and selfish—the most selfish thing she’d ever done, in fact—but it was the only way to escape the inevitable misery that would accompany a marriage to Mr. Wendell. Once safely out of the reach of his heavy hand, she would find a way to make amends for the wrong she was about to commit.

  ****

  Alone in her uncle’s library, Mary read the man’s reply.

  “Dear Miss Jenkins,” she whispered the words aloud.

  Several weeks had passed since Margaret had delivered the deceitful letter on her behalf, and she had all but given up hope of a response. With a nervous flutter in her stomach, she continued to read.

  “I was genuinely pleased to receive your letter. I imagine, as a librarian, you possess an avid interest in books, and I thoroughly share that same affection for the written word.

  I am familiar with the excitement the city has to offer, having grown up in Portland, Maine, but I must confess, it pales in comparison to the serene tranquility and the unpainted landscape of the west…”

  Perhaps Margaret’s idea hadn’t been so bad. The man was eloquent, shared her love for reading and he painted a compelling picture of life out west. She continued to read, and the moment she finished the letter, she sat down to write her reply while a combination of relief and anxiousness mingled in her veins. It was a relief that the man had taken interest in her, but it may still be for naught. Her uncle had agreed to a late-August wedding, but with the time it took for her correspondence to reach the frontiersman, and for his to reach her in return, she worried she would not garner a marriage proposal in time. Still, she had to try.

  But what was she to write? Should she tell Caleb Knight how very accustomed she was to hard labor? That she’d toiled relentlessly, day and night, for nearly three years in the Fairfax Street Hospital? That since her parents had died, she’d been more of a prisoner in her uncle’s home than a lady of leisure?

  No, she shouldn’t tell him any of it. There was too much risk he’d be repulsed by her work as a nurse during the war, and she’d already told him hers was a happy and loving family. It was better to stick to the neat and tidy life she imagined belonging to a librarian.

  Closing her eyes and praying that, one day, she might find a way to be forgiven for her transgression, she allowed her pen to float across the blank page in front of her, filling it with more of the same lies and deceptions she’d written in the first.

  She didn’t read it o
ver when she was finished; she was painfully aware of every fib and falsehood she’d written. Stuffing the letter into an envelope, she went off to find Margaret once again before she could change her mind.

  The pattern continued, waiting anxiously for Mr. Knight’s responses and then guiltily scrawling whatever stories would speed him toward the end she sought. First one exchange, and then another, and then one more. Each letter she wrote made her feel worse than the one before it. Caleb Knight was kind and courteous with a gentle nature and a sense of humor; at least, that was what she’d come to learn from his letters.

  She was doing what she had to do to survive; she knew that, but every word became more difficult to write, her conscience slowing her hand more and more.

  The last lie she’d written had been the most difficult. She’d been in the middle of an enthusiastic sentence, writing that she was very much looking forward to bettering their acquaintance, when her conscience had nearly stopped her hand entirely. It was one thing to lie on paper, but quite another to imagine coming face to face with the man, pretending to be the woman she’d concocted.

  But she’d already started down this path; she wouldn’t turn back now.

  ***

  Time flew by more quickly than it ever had before, and every minute that passed tightened the knot in her stomach a little more. With just two weeks remaining until her impending wedding, Mary waited anxiously for Mr. Knight’s latest response, both hoping for and dreading a proposal at the same time.

  And then it came.

  Margaret handed her the envelope, the woman’s own hands shaking. They were both well aware there would be no time for more correspondence. If there was no proposal written in the letter in her hand, her marriage to Mr. Wendell would be inevitable.

  “Aren’t you goin’ to open it, Miss Mary?” Margaret prodded anxiously.

  Always before, Margaret had delivered the letters from Mr. Knight and then proceeded to leave her alone to read the correspondence in private. This time, Margaret fidgeted nervously beside her, her eyes transfixed on the envelope as if she could see through it, or influence the words written on the page if she stared at it long enough.

  Taking a deep breath, Mary opened the envelope carefully, painfully aware that the thin slip of paper inside would decide the course of her future.

  “Dear Tessa,” he began more informally than he had addressed her before.

  She scanned through the brief paragraph of courtesies and trivial conversation. Though she couldn’t help but smile at his quick wit, her heart sunk a little more with every sentence.

  But there, in the last paragraph on the page:

  “I hope you don’t find it too forward of me, but we began our correspondence with a mutual interest in a matrimonial end. Through your letters, I have learned that you are a quiet and gentle woman; a woman I believe would be happy here with me. I hope you have come to see the potential for a favorable match as well. It is my pleasure then to ask you, Tessa Jenkins, if you would do me the great honor of consenting to be my wife…”

  The letter fell from her fingertips and fluttered to the floor.

  Someone wanted her for her, not for the dowry she could bring them, the lineage of peers from which she descended, or the attractiveness of her features. Caleb wanted to marry her.

  Except…Caleb Knight didn’t want Mary Kenleigh. He knew absolutely nothing about Mary.

  Caleb wanted Tessa Jenkins…the woman she’d concocted from thin air, and the woman she would have to become to escape John Wendell.

  Margaret’s gaze darted back and forth between Mary and the paper on the floor, and tears welled in the woman’s eyes. “I’m so sorry, Miss Mary. I should never have suggested this route…If I’d just kept my mouth shut…”

  “He proposed, Margaret,” she whispered.

  “Oh child, that’s wonderful!” Margaret hugged her tightly while Mary’s arms remained frozen at her sides. “But, then, why do you seem so distraught?” She pulled back and looked at her intently.

  Margaret had no idea what Mary had written in those letters; that she hadn’t written an ounce of truth in all their correspondence. “I suppose it’s all just so overwhelming.” It wasn’t a complete lie.

  “Are you havin’ second thoughts, Miss Mary? You don’t have to go through with this.”

  Yes, she did. She’d made up her mind before she’d written a single word to Caleb Knight. “Of course I’m not having second thoughts. This is exactly what I’ve been hoping for. I just…” she hesitated, swallowing against a lump in her throat. “I just know this means I won’t have you there with me.”

  It wasn’t untrue. It was a fact she’d been deliberately avoiding since Margaret had proposed the idea. She would be leaving behind the only person who had been a staple in her life; the only person in the world who cared about her. But from what she’d heard, Mr. Wendell treated his house staff no better than he treated the women in his company. She was doing Margaret a favor by not making the woman choose that sort of life in order to stay close to her.

  She bent to retrieve the letter on the floor, and then stood, straightening her shoulders, knowing this was the best course of action for the both of them.

  “It’s all right, Miss Mary. You’ll see. God willin’, we’ll be reunited again,” Margaret crooned soothingly. “You get yourself settled there with your new husband, and maybe I’ll come join you. This old woman could use a little adventure, don’t you think?”

  Mary smiled. Whether the woman spoke the truth or not, she had to believe it was so. It would make what she had to do that much easier to bear.

  Returning the letter to the envelope, her fingers touched upon something inside, something she hadn’t noticed before. But she saw it there now—the passage to her future.

  On the hope that she—Tessa Jenkins—would accept his proposal, Caleb had included the ticket that would bring her to him. It wasn't a ticket for a train, which could require multiple stops and a long and uncomfortable wagon ride to her destination.

  Caleb Knight had paid for her passage from Boston to California by clipper, the fastest sailing ship she'd ever heard of. With the ticket was a note explaining that a single ship would sail her from Boston, around Cape Horn and directly to San Francisco, where he would be waiting for her when she arrived. He’d gone to the trouble—and no doubt, the great expense—of making the trip as comfortable as possible for her.

  But one more piece of information stood out to her: the date she was to sail. It glared at her from the page and made her stomach knot painfully.

  Her wedding day.

  The ship was scheduled to leave the same day she was expected at the altar.

  She couldn’t possibly do it. She’d be a fool to try. How on earth could she set sail for a new life in California at the exact same time she was to be married to John Wendell?

  “Margaret…” Her voice was barely a whisper, “the ship sails rather close to my impending wedding,” she forced the words out, holding back just how close it was.

  “Oh.”

  That was it? All Margaret had to say was ‘oh’? It seemed anti-climactic in comparison to the crushing defeat roiling within her.

  “I suppose you’ll just have to make a quick getaway, won’t you, dear? Just imagine the look on Mr. Wendell’s attractive face when he realizes he’s been left by his bride so close to the wedding.”

  An image of the arrogant Mr. Wendell appeared in her mind, a look of stunned outrage marring his handsome features while he stood at the altar alone. A bubble of laughter rose from within, and Mary pressed a hand against her lips to contain it. Perhaps it was the rise and fall of too many emotions in the past several weeks, because there should be nothing humorous about the situation. If she didn’t make a clean escape, she had no doubt Mr. Wendell would make her pay dearly for the indignation she’ll have caused him.

  So, she would just have to make sure her escape was flawless, nary a telltale sign to lead them on her trail. Margaret already
knew far too much, and she felt guilt for putting the woman in a position that required her to lie, but she couldn’t undo that now. All she could do was ensure Margaret had no more information that could force her further into that uncomfortable position. It would also be helpful when there was a modicum of truth in her words when she told Mr. Wendell and her uncle that she had no idea Mary would go running off the morning of her wedding.

  Chapter 2

  This was a mistake. Caleb knew he’d made a terrible mistake. What had he been thinking? Tessa Jenkins sounded lovely, but he wasn’t interested in lovely. In fact, he would prefer her to be stern and humorless, or young and brainless.

  No, that wasn’t true. He couldn’t stand the thought of a foolish woman wandering about his home.

  But he’d rather she didn’t share his love of reading or his quest for a quiet life far away from inquisitive eyes. In her letters, she’d seemed kind and compassionate with a hidden strength he couldn’t quite put his finger on. It was nothing she said in particular, but rather the tone of her words. It was a characteristic he found admirable in a woman, so often brought up to consider herself the weaker sex.

  But what he thought of Tessa didn’t matter. He needed a nanny, not a wife. Unfortunately, there was no hope of finding the former. He’d tried, but without the promise of matrimony, it seemed there was no woman of decent character willing to make the trek out west. And since there was no way he could ensure Adam’s safety and his own back east, out west was where he had to stay.

  He stood at the docks, watching the smooth-sailing clipper pulling into the port. It would have been better if he’d come alone. He would have had the entire length of the ride back to his house to break the news to her gently. But there was no one he was comfortable leaving Adam with, and so this particular surprise would have to be thrust upon the young woman rather abruptly.

  At least it was rather unlikely she’d turn around and re-board the clipper; it wasn’t sailing back to New England anytime soon. In fact, it was bound for a month and a half-long trek to Hong Kong before it would return. He’d scheduled the trip carefully, making sure she’d be forced to give him a chance. Well, he didn’t care one way or another if she gave him a chance, but the two weeks before the next vessel would set sail for New England should be more than enough time for a young woman to fall helplessly in love with Adam.