by Cassie Hayes
Mrs. Blue eyed her eldest daughter for a moment before shaking her head. "I don't think that's a good idea. I don't trust you girls not to let her out."
"But…you can't think to keep us apart for as long as it takes to plan a wedding! That's ridiculous." Libby couldn't believe her mother would even think of doing such a thing.
Bonnie reached over and squeezed Libby’s hand, her way of signaling that she had an idea.
Mrs. Blue sighed. "I don't know what we'll do. I just know I'm not going to fight with my husband about the punishment you girls have been given. I'm done protecting you from him. After today, I'm done helping you at all. You all shamed me today."
Libby shook her head. "No, Mama. Only Gwen shamed you. We were good."
Mrs. Blue was startled by that for a moment. "Oh, you were. It was only Gwen, wasn't it?"
"I think we'll go up to our room now." Bonnie got to her feet and looked at Libby, letting her know without a word that they had some serious talking to do.
Gwen had always had her own room because she was too bossy to share with her sisters. They liked their room more orderly than she did, and her response was always, "Clean up my stuff yourself then." It worked out better for everyone.
As soon as they reached their room, Bonnie closed the door. She got something out of her dresser drawer and sat down on the bed. Once Libby was sitting in front of her, she handed her the letter she'd gotten.
Libby looked down at the letter. "What’s this?"
Bonnie shrugged. "Libby, we both know I have no future in Beckham. Next to you and Gwen, I’m the ugly duckling. Goodness, everyone calls me ‘Scrawny Bonnie’ behind my back, don’t pretend they don’t. I’ve never had a single suitor, while you both have had plenty of men interested in you — and I’m the oldest! I’m twenty-three and an old maid.”
Libby started to protest but Bonnie interrupted her. “I’ve come to terms with it, Libby. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to marry. Unlike you and Gwen, though, I don’t subscribe to the fantasy that I will only marry for love. A business arrangement would suit me just fine, so I spoke to Elizabeth Miller, the lady who runs the mail order bride agency.”
Libby gasped at that. “Did you get a proposal? Are you leaving us?!”
“Read the letter,” Bonnie murmured.
Libby read it and looked up and her sister, confused. "But this letter is looking for three women, not one."
Bonnie nodded. “I was going to talk to a couple of other unattached friends my age but… Libby, we need to leave town as soon as possible. Did you see the look in Papa’s eyes? He’s really going to marry us off, and I suspect it’s to that trio of creepy old deacons from church he’s been speaking with every Sunday. I couldn’t stand that humiliation.
"No! Not them! He wouldn’t dare! I’m only eighteen! Mother wouldn’t let him.”
“Didn’t you hear her? She won’t protect you and Gwen anymore, Libby. I know that’s hard to hear since she’s spoiled you two so much, but I can tell you from experience, that when she gives up on you, it’s forever.”
Libby had a pained look on her face as if she was trying to figure out a puzzle. Bonnie knew to just wait. Sometimes it took her beautiful sister a little bit longer to catch on, but she always did…eventually.
“So instead of marrying those old lechers, we run away to Texas and marry strangers?”
“At least they’re young strangers, Libby. We can start completely from scratch without anyone knowing about this ridiculous scandal. Even if Papa doesn’t force us to marry his friends, no one else will want us for a very long time, if ever.”
Libby gave Bonnie a sly look. “Do we have to take Gwen?”
Bonnie smiled. “She may be annoying, but she’s our sister. She probably needs this more than either of us. Let’s rescue her from herself, Libby. What do you say?”
After a moment Libby nodded. "Let's make it happen."
Chapter 1
North Texas — October, 1888
Bonnie Blue was not normally the fidgety sort but, after ten days of listening to her younger sisters bicker nonstop as a train hurtled them headlong toward an uncertain future, her nerves were frayed. She needed one of her long, quiet walks but the cramped and constantly shaking train car offered little chance for one.
“I just don’t understand why you couldn’t have brought my cornflower dress,” Gwen, her spoiled and utterly beautiful sister, whined. “It matches my eyes so perfectly.”
Libby, the youngest of the three and no less pretty, rolled her eyes. “We didn’t really have time to carefully select your wardrobe, Gwen. We had to sneak out under the cover of night because of your scandal.”
“It wasn’t my fault,” Gwen insisted. “That horrible Gertie Landry spread all those wicked rumors about me…about us!”
“But you’re the reason she spread those rumors, Gwen. If you hadn’t kissed her fiancé—“
“He kissed me!” Gwen interrupted, but Libby paid no mind.
“—Gertie wouldn’t have told everyone you were…” Libby looked around to make sure no one was eavesdropping. “With child, and that Bonnie and I had also kissed the same boy.”
Bonnie couldn’t sit there anymore. They’d rehashed their sudden and secret departure from their hometown of Beckham, Massachusetts a hundred times already and she didn’t want to listen to it all again. Hauling her slight frame from her hard wooden seat and holding on for dear life, she shuffled her way up the jostling car’s narrow aisle.
The second-class car they were traveling in was relatively clean, if sparsely decorated, with a small stove in the center. Unfortunately, the smoke from the engine several cars up — not to mention the dozens of exhausted passengers who hadn’t seen a basin of fresh water in days — did nothing for the smell in the cabin. Throwing all her weight against the door at the back end of the car, she managed to open it far enough to slip out onto the platform between cars.
If she’d been making this journey just a year or two earlier, she wouldn’t have dared to step outside her car. The platform, if you could call it that, would not have been enclosed — it would have had only a flimsy chain on either side to prevent her from falling between cars. She’d read many news articles about passengers being burned by red hot cinders flying back from the steam engine, or even being thrown from the open platform. But passenger trains were quickly adopting the Pullman Car Works enclosed vestibule design, allowing for safe passage.
The odor of the engine’s exhaust was no better outside than in, but even in the dark enclosure of the vestibule, the thundering of the wheels on the track was deafening, drowning out every other sound in the world. It was so loud that it quieted her brain nearly as well as a long solitary walk.
Out here, she could think. Out here, she felt almost at peace. Almost.
Nothing would settle her anxiety about becoming a stranger’s bride. Even though she’d sought out Elizabeth Miller, the lovely woman who owned the mail order bride agency in Beckham, she still wondered if she was doing the right thing.
After years spent watching every man in town — young and old — fawn over first Gwen and then Libby, but none paying any attention to her at all, she understood down to her toes that her path would be different. Her mother told her as much on her eighteenth birthday.
“Your gift this year, my dear, are domestic lessons from Mrs. Butterfield.” She looked pleased as punch and seemed to expect Bonnie to be thrilled with the idea. But more than anything, she was confused. She knew how to cook, clean and sew as well as the next girl. She even could plink out some songs on their old, out-of-tune piano.
“I don’t understand, Mama.” She remembered blinking in confusion. It was a strange thing to remember so clearly, but it was such a strange situation that every movement stood out. “Not to sound vain, but I’m a far more competent cook than Gwen, and Libby isn’t showing much inclination in that direction either.”
Libby was only thirteen at the time, but her days were typically s
pent singing to herself and dancing around empty rooms as if a man were leading her. Or staring out the windows. She did that a lot. Her teacher called her a flibbertigibbet and Bonnie thought the term suited her baby sister perfectly.
“Yes,” her mother agreed, “but your sisters have other…attributes that will make them desirable wives. Attributes which you sadly lack.”
Mama might as well have slapped her in the face and called her ugly. She was humiliated and it took all her willpower not to shed a tear at her mother’s hurtful words. But she was determined not to reveal her pain.
As a petite girl with rather plain features, mousy reddish-brown hair, pale skin — except the parts covered by freckles — and no figure to speak of, she’d certainly heard worse growing up with a school full of cruel children. But to hear her own mother essentially call her ‘Scrawny Bonnie’, too, was almost too much to bear.
She’d always thought she was safe with her family, especially her parents. Now she knew better. Right in that moment, as her mother was prattling away about Mrs. Butterfield’s profound skill at homemaking, Bonnie vowed to never let another person get close enough to hurt her. It was another brick in the wall she built to protect herself, since no one else seemed inclined to do so.
She accepted that she was an ugly duckling compared to her two sisters’ swan-like beauty. But she had something neither of them did: Wits. Not only was she smarter than her sisters and all their friends, but she was smarter than most of the boys in town, too.
One day, a particularly doltish boy name Chester shouted after her, “Scrawny Bonnie, Scrawny Bonnie, why don’t you eat some honey?!”
Ever so slowly, she turned on her heel and looked him in the eye, a sad expression on her face and concern oozing from her words. “Was that supposed to rhyme, Chester? Poor, poor Chester can’t rhyme. Can you even read?” She gasped as if she just realized the truth of her statement. “Oh, I’m so sorry, Chester! Would you like me to tutor you after school? It wouldn’t be seemly for a banker’s son to be illiterate, so I’m happy to help you.”
Chester’s face grew redder and redder as she continued, scanning the faces of the other children on the playground to see if they believed her. It was obvious they did. “I can read! I can!”
Bonnie nodded and smiled, “Of course you can, dear. Please tell your father that I’m available for tutoring, just in case.” Then she tipped him a wink and flounced away, the very image of confidence. But inside, another brick was laid.
By the time Libby had turned eighteen, it was obvious that Bonnie would become an old maid if she stayed in Beckham. Her looks combined with her quick wit — and occasionally sharp tongue — had driven every boy her age into the arms of other girls. She’d never even had an older widower show any interest.
So she approached Elizabeth, who had promptly told her about three triplet brothers in Texas. The idea of moving to Texas, far from her family, was appealing. She wouldn’t have to compete with her beautiful sisters, for one thing. Of course, she would miss them terribly because, despite everything, she loved them. She would also miss her three handsome brothers, but she rather liked the idea of finally leaving her parents’ nest.
She took the letter, intending to talk to two other friends her age who were still unmarried, but before she could, scandal had fallen on their house. Gwen’s most bitter rival, Gertie Landry, had spread terrible lies about all three sisters, and everyone in town had believed her.
Honestly, it wasn’t a far leap to believe flirtatious Gwen had perhaps gone too far with a boy and suffered the consequences. But to suggest that young Libby and, of all people, Bonnie herself had kissed the very same boy? That should have set off warning bells to anyone hearing the filth spouting from Gertie’s mouth. Unfortunately, the good townspeople of Beckham apparently would rather believe the worst, and the family was suddenly embroiled in the scandal of the year.
When Papa threatened to marry off all three to avoid any more talk, Bonnie could tell he wasn’t bluffing. Her sisters were used to getting their way, especially Gwen. All she had to do was muster up a few tears and bat her eyelashes at Papa and he would cave. On the rare occasions that didn’t work, Mama could always change his mind. But Bonnie knew firsthand what a hard man he could be, and she understood he meant business this time.
It only took a few minutes for her to figure out the men he had in mind for his daughters — three elderly deacons from church who had always made her feel uncomfortable. It was the way they eagerly greeted all the young ladies of the congregation, and the fact they were confirmed bachelors, meaning no women had ever wanted to marry them. Instinctively, she knew that marrying any one of them would lead to a life of misery.
She’d noticed Papa talking with them more frequently of late, and she suspected that he’d originally been trying to find a husband who would be willing to take her. But once this scandal broke, he saw his chance to be rid of all three of them in one fell swoop.
As frustrating as her sisters were, and as much as she hated to live in their shadow, Bonnie could not stand by and watch them married off in such a way to men who clearly did not deserve them. And she refused to be humiliated in such a manner herself. She’d spent her entire life in a constant state of humiliation, she wouldn’t willingly enter into an arrangement that could only bring her more of the same.
Their parents had locked Gwen in her room until Papa could find someone willing to marry her, so Bonnie and Libby conspired to get them out of town as soon as possible. While Bonnie reported to Elizabeth that she and her sisters would happily marry the three rancher brothers in Texas, as long as they could leave as soon as possible, Libby squirreled away all the money they had. Train tickets wouldn’t be an issue because the prospective grooms paid for those, but they would need traveling money, as well as ‘just in case’ money.
Libby looked at Bonnie funny the first time she mentioned it. “Just in case what?”
Bonnie smiled at her sweet, silly sister’s innocence. “Just in case we decide the ranchers are worse than the old, lecherous deacons, of course.”
Libby gasped at the very notion, but immediately set out to scrape together anything she could — without stealing, of course. She also packed a single trunk with the most basic necessities for all three of them. Three trunks and piles of missing clothes would have been noticed, most likely by their nosey brother Hank, but they were using a single trunk that had been tucked in the corner of their room for years. It was all but invisible.
For a moment, Bonnie considered enlisting their brothers for help in escaping, but she quickly discarded the idea. Benedict was too busy helping Papa at the mercantile and, even though she was a year older than him, she knew he’d side with their parents. Hank would help, if only to get under Ben’s skin, but he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from crowing to Ben. And Percy…well, Perfect Percy would tattle because there was nothing he loved more than to follow the rules. No, the boys would have to find out about their defection at the same time their parents did — after the train pulled out of the station.
~ * ~ * ~
The days dragged by as they waited for the ranchers’ reply. Gwen was only allowed out of her room to use the watercloset, and neither Bonnie nor Libby could get near her. But they didn’t try very hard — just enough to seem believable to their parents.
All the while, Bonnie was watching and planning. She couldn’t risk sneaking into Gwen’s room until moments before they left the house for good. Judging by Gwen’s miserable expression every time Mama escorted her to the W.C., she would readily agree to running away.
But would she agree to marrying a stranger? Considering Gwen’s spoiled and willful nature, Bonnie was doubtful, so she worked up a story that they were going to visit an old friend who now lived in Wiggieville, Texas. As much as she hated to lie to Gwen, it was the only way to be sure she would get on the train. If she learned the truth, she might refuse out of spite, and then the entire plan would be ruined. They’d be forced to m
arry the old men.
When Papa came in one Sunday afternoon smiling from ear to ear, Bonnie knew their time was growing short. “Deacons Smith, Bellafonte and Jackson have agreed to marry you girls,” he announced at the dinner table. “It took some sweet talking and the promise of a few favors, but they finally agreed.”
Libby paled and Bonnie worried her sister might faint dead away right there in the mashed potatoes. But a not-so-gentle kick to the girl’s shin brought a flush to her cheeks. “Oh-oh, th-thank you, Papa,” she managed to choke out before hiding her horror behind her glass of water.
“Yes, thank you for watching out for us, Papa,” Bonnie added, much more convincingly. “While I wouldn’t say this episode has been a blessing, exactly, it has at least brought with it a blessing. I will finally have my chance to become a married woman. What a relief!”
She beamed at her father who, at first, looked slightly puzzled, then broke into a grin. “That’s my smart girl! You know I’m only trying to do what’s best for you and your sisters. Now if only Gwen understood that.”
“She’ll come around, Papa,” Bonnie soothed.
But the sound of Gwen’s screams and then wails kept the entire house awake most of that night. She cried for two days straight, refusing all meals and resorting to using a chamber pot rather than showing her face outside her room. Her fast broke on the third day, but she remained hidden in her room, forcing their mother to empty her pot.
Papa wanted the weddings to happen immediately, but Bonnie convinced him that it would be unseemly if they didn’t wait at least a month. “By then, it will be obvious that Gwen is not…in a family way. It will appear to be a more joyful occasion, don’t you think?”
Papa’s brows knit together in thought, but eventually he nodded his big bushy head. “Good thinking, Bonnie. You’ve got a good head on your shoulders. Mr. Smith will be well-pleased with his new wife, even if he picked the short straw.”
