by Lucy Evanson
The Replacement Wife
Lucy Evanson
Smashwords Edition
Copyright © 2015 Lucy Evanson. All rights reserved.
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Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Author's Note
Also Available
LoveBlessed
Chapter 1
Portsmouth, New Hampshire
1859
“I’ve got good news.”
Amy looked across the table at her uncle. Reginald’s eyes were narrowed and a lopsided grin had curled one side of his mouth, as if he’d finally found the solution to a problem that had been eating away at him for some time. It was an expression that immediately set Amy’s nerves on edge. The last time she’d seen that look on her uncle’s face, her aunt and uncle had moved her out of her room so that the boys would no longer have to share. Ever since then, she’d been staying in the cold, drafty servants’ quarters out back, as if she were an employee rather than a relative. A tremor ran through Amy’s stomach and she could feel goose pimples forming on her arms.
“What news is that, dear?” Hilda hadn’t bothered to look up from her plate when answering her husband; she was clearly more interested in her dinner. The squeak of her knife on the china only added to the shivers that Amy felt running up and down her spine.
“I had a long conversation with David Jordan today,” Reginald said.
“That’s nice, dear.”
“Turns out he’s having a bit of trouble finding a wife for his son Adam.”
That caught Hilda’s attention, and she finally looked up from the slice of beef she’d been dissecting on her plate. “Really?” She threw a glance toward Amy, then back to her husband, though not so quickly that Amy missed the gleam that had appeared in her aunt’s eyes. “Why is that?”
Amy couldn’t hold in a snort of laughter. The Jordan family had been over for dinner a few months earlier, and over the course of those two hours Amy had identified a number of possible reasons Adam wasn’t married yet. It might have been his drinking. It could have been his crude, mean sense of humor. Or it might have been the odor that had enveloped him: it had been a curious cologne of stale tobacco and fresh sweat, and just the memory made Amy shudder. Yes, there were probably many reasons Adam wasn’t married yet.
Her uncle ignored her. “I couldn’t say why. I didn’t ask.”
“What did you tell him?” Hilda asked.
Reginald’s grin now spread over his entire face. “What do you think I told him? I said that Amy would be happy to marry the boy.”
“What?!” It was a moment before Amy realized that she had unconsciously leaped to her feet as the word had shot out of her mouth, and another moment before she noticed that she was clutching her fork like a weapon. She slowly lowered her hand and let it fall to the table with a heavy thunk.
Reginald’s smile hadn’t changed a bit; he seemed to have been expecting her outburst. His eyes were unusually bright, as if he were truly enjoying seeing her so agitated. “I said,” he repeated, speaking slowly to savor the words, “that you’d be happy to marry Adam. Congratulations. You’re engaged.”
Amy reached for the back of her chair to steady herself. It suddenly seemed warm—too warm, actually—in the room, and she could practically feel her blood rushing through her body. She tried to speak but found that her voice had abandoned her, only returning after she took a sip of water. “You can’t seriously expect me to marry him,” she said, trying to force her voice to sound stronger than she felt. “He was a boor.”
“Oh, I’m sure he was just nervous. In any case, there’ll be plenty of time to sort things out before the wedding,” Reginald said, waving his hand as if to shoo away her concerns. “It’s not for three weeks.”
“Three weeks?!” Amy and Hilda echoed each other, though not with the same tone. Amy’s voice was shrill—unbalanced, almost—while the words had floated off of Hilda’s tongue like a song.
“Reg, I almost can’t believe it,” Hilda said, reaching across the table to take her husband’s hand. “Say you’re not joking.”
“It’s no joke. Amy’s going to be a married woman almost before we know it,” he said. “Time for this birdie to fly the nest.” He turned his gaze to Amy and smiled broadly. “Exciting news, isn’t it?”
She laughed sharply. “Almost as exciting as the news that I’m not doing it.”
The light in Reginald’s eyes dimmed, turning his smile into a grimace. “You know, I would have expected a little appreciation out of you. You’re already nineteen and you’ve got no other prospects,” he said. “I actually did you a favor.”
“Really? Matching me up with Adam Jordan? What kind of favor is that?”
“His family’s well-off and he’ll be able to provide a comfortable life for you. I would say that beats the alternative,” Reginald said. His eyes narrowed and wrinkles appeared in his forehead as his expression turned thoughtful. “It’s not as if you didn’t know this day was coming.”
Amy let out a long breath and collapsed into her chair. Her uncle was right. She had been expecting a day like this for....well, forever. She passed her hand over her brow, lightly massaging to ease the anguish she felt. It was times like this that she wished more than ever that her parents were there to help her. This isn’t right, she thought. None of this is fair. But then, she also knew that while life was a lot of things, fair wasn’t one of them.
She glanced across the table to her uncle. Reginald met her gaze coolly, as if he knew that the battle was already won. Amy turned to her aunt.
“Hilda, do you really think this is what my mother would have wanted?”
Hilda’s face quickly hardened, like it had been overtaken by frost. “I couldn’t say. Not everybody gets what they want,” she said. “Do you think that I wanted to spend my life raising somebody else’s child?”
Amy felt herself flush. It didn’t matter how many times she had heard it; every time Reginald and Hilda reminded her that she had been an unexpected burden, it never failed to make her burn with shame.
Reginald cleared his throat. “You’re a grown woman now. Time for you to get out and live your own life. Time for a husband to support you,” he said as his eyes dropped to the food on Amy’s plate. “For a change.”
“I also want a husband someday, believe me. Just not Adam Jordan. He’s so...unpleasant.” But then, unpleasant could be the least of my worries, she thought. Amy had friends who were already married—some happily, some not. She had heard stories about husbands who liked to drink, just like Adam. She’d also heard stories about husbands who liked to hit. Amy shivered.
“Nobody’s perfect, Amy,” her uncle said. “Not even you. He probably has his own worries about taking a wife, just so you know.”
“Well, I’m not going to marry him. It’s as simple as that.”
Reginald shot to his feet, wiped the napkin roughly across his mouth and threw it onto the table. “We’re finished talking about this,” he said. “We’ve done everything for you for nearly twenty years, without asking anything in return. It’s time for you to go now. I want you out of this h
ouse in three weeks. Whether that’s with Adam or not, I don’t much care.” He strode out of the room and down the hall.
“Aunt Hilda,” Amy started, but Hilda’s gaze had again returned to her plate. She quickly stabbed a last shred of beef and thrust it into her mouth while she pushed her chair back.
“Remember, it’s Monday night. Scrub the kitchen floor after you do the dishes.”
“Hilda, wait,” Amy said, but her aunt had already turned and was headed down the hall after Reginald. In a moment there was the sound of the parlor doors closing and the hum of muffled voices.
Amy stared down at her food. She hadn’t eaten much, but now she no longer had any appetite at all; she instead took a deep breath to steady herself, then brought the dirty plates into the kitchen. As usual, the place was a mess. The cook was fond of pointing out that she was employed to make the meals, not to clean up afterwards. Cleaning up was what Amy was there for.
She felt numb as she went through the motions, scraping the remains into the scrap bucket and stacking the dishes to be washed, just as she’d done thousands of times before. It was almost funny how some things could change so drastically and so quickly in life, yet other things remained the same. Almost funny, but not quite.
Married in three weeks. I’m only nineteen and my life as I know it is nearly over already. The thought sent a flood of ice water through her veins, and Amy gripped the edge of the sink so as not to entirely collapse onto the floor. Her heart was about to burst through her chest when a tiny voice called to her from the deepest recesses of her mind.
There’s always Westward Hearts. Amy sucked in a quick breath. She had almost forgotten about the little marriage agency down near the market. She had passed by there nearly every day and, from time to time, had stopped to read the notices posted in the window. The agency owner had even come out to talk to her, trying to gauge her interest, and Amy had always been able to truthfully answer that she’d been just curious. So many men anxious to marry, so many men willing to bind themselves to people they’d never even met. It had all seemed very strange.
She had never thought of herself as the kind of girl who would consider leaving the life that she knew here in Portsmouth to go marry some fellow out West—until today. She glanced over at the clock. It was not yet seven; if she hurried, she might make it to Westward Hearts before they closed. She took a last look at the pots and pans stacked high near the sink, then removed her apron and tossed it onto the kitchen table. Cleaning up after Reginald and Hilda could wait.
~ ~ ~
“Miss Chase, I’m not sure that you understand how this works.” Virginia Broder’s brow had furrowed and her eyes were narrowed to little more than slits as she studied the girl sitting across from her. She was used to dealing with somewhat sheltered, innocent young women, but she’d never before had a client who seemed to be so ignorant of what she was getting herself into. “You’re telling me that you want to get out of marrying a man you never met by...marrying a different man you’ve never met?”
Amy felt her cheeks grow warm. “I know it must sound silly. But like I said, I really don’t have a choice.”
“Why don’t you simply refuse to marry the boy? It’s not like they can force you into the church and down the aisle.”
“If I do that, they’ll throw me out.”
“Surely not. You’re a blood relative.”
Amy couldn’t conceal the bitterness in the laugh that leaped out of her throat. “Not everyone thinks of family the same way,” she said, her hand going unconsciously to the small locket that hung around her throat. “If I don’t marry him, Reginald will put me out on the street. There’s no doubt about it.”
The woman’s brow furrowed as she considered what Amy had told her.
“You have to understand, I’m out of options,” Amy continued. “I have nowhere to go. I have nobody who can help me. If they kick me out, I’ll end up like one of…those girls. You know those girls down by the docks, don’t you?”
“God forbid,” Miss Broder said. She put a weak smile on her face, though the concern in her eyes gave away her true feelings. “I’d love to help you, Miss Chase. I really would.”
Amy let out a laugh that surely sounded more nervous than she’d intended. “It almost sounds like you’re about to explain why you can’t.”
“Well, the truth is that right now I don’t have much help to offer. You see, the way this works is that my sister runs an office just like this out West,” she said. “We’ve been doing this for years, following the frontier as it spreads across the land. She makes sure that the husbands are upstanding and reputable. I do the same regarding the wives. When you put them together, you can get some wonderful results.”
“That’s a clever arrangement.”
“Business has been good, I have to admit,” she said. “But one thing about the frontier is that it’s always in motion. Once things settle down and an area becomes more civilized, it’s easier to attract women there—and harder for us to drum up business.”
“So what are you saying?”
“Well, to be honest, my sister is closing our office in Wisconsin. There just isn’t enough business left for us there, so she’s moving on,” she said. “Basically, we’re out of men right now. I’m sorry.” She reached for Amy’s wrist and squeezed.
Ordinarily Amy would have appreciated the gesture, but at the moment she barely noticed. It felt like she was crumbling on the inside, and she slumped in the chair. It’s over, she thought. She could practically feel Adam’s sweaty hands on her already.
“But I do have one last gentleman.”
“You do? Why didn’t you say that before?”
“I’m just not sure that he’d be a good match for you, my dear,” Miss Broder said, standing and going to the desk. She unwound the twine from a portfolio and pulled out an envelope. “My sister didn’t know quite what to make of this one. On the one hand, he’s very well-off. He’s a businessman with a large home; I’m sure you would have a comfortable life. You wouldn’t want for a thing.”
“On the other hand…”
Miss Broder nodded. “There are some things you should know. First of all, he’s a widower.”
Amy took a sharp breath. How sad, she thought. It certainly complicated things. A man who’d already been married might have a whole set of expectations for a second wife. Perhaps I wouldn’t live up to that. But then again, perhaps he has a heart that needs to heal, and I could help him. It would be challenging, but surely less difficult than being married to Adam Jordan. “I don’t think that will be a problem,” she said.
“Also, he’s….serious.”
“What do you mean?”
“According to my sister, he didn’t seem to have much of a sense of humor.”
“Oh…well…I guess that’s not the most important thing—“
“And he’s older.”
“How much older?”
Miss Broder withdrew the letter from the envelope and quickly scanned it. “He refused to say. My sister just wrote that he’s older.”
An older, humorless widower. It didn’t sound good when you put it like that, but for all she knew, the man was just very serious about his search for a wife. An experienced man, earnestly trying to find a new love. That sounded better already. It sounded like a man who might begin by respecting her, and who would later come to love her.
“What’s his name?”
Miss Broder’s gaze flickered down to the letter. “Joseph. Joseph Peterson.”
“Would you please let Mr. Peterson know that I’d happily take his hand in marriage?”
It would have been hard to imagine Miss Broder looking more surprised than she did at that moment. “You know, Amy, it’s traditional to exchange letters,” she finally managed to say. “You need to take a little time to get to know him first.”
“I know. Unfortunately, time’s a luxury I can’t afford.” The thought of those three weeks slipping by, every minute taking her closer and cl
oser to Adam’s side, made her feel like she was being slowly constricted and unable to breathe freely. “Soon I’ll either end up out in the street, or forced to marry another man with no say in the matter at all. It feels like…well, I couldn’t say what it feels like.” She fell quiet and, from far away, she heard the bell of a buoy in the river. Yes, that’s it. “It feels like I’m drowning, and this is the last rope thrown my way.”
Miss Broder gave her another sweet, sad smile. “Amy, I’ve been doing this for quite a while, and I’m going to let you in on a little secret,” she said. “There are plenty of girls who get along just fine with the men they marry. Some even better than fine—there are girls who really grow to love their husbands. But there are plenty of others who end up just barely getting along—or worse.”
“I’m sure.”
“Well, I just want you to think about this before you make any rash decisions,” she said. “This might be the start of a wonderful adventure...or you might find yourself married to a man you can barely tolerate. What’s that saying—better the devil you know than the devil you don’t?”
“I understand what you’re saying, but I’m going to take a chance,” she said. “For as long as I can remember, I’ve lived under my uncle’s rules. But I’m not going to spend the rest of my life in a loveless marriage just because he said so. It’s time I stood up for myself.”
Miss Broder nodded slowly, as if she finally understood just what Amy was facing. “I’ll send a telegram first thing in the morning,” she said. “Assuming Mr. Peterson agrees, we’ll have you on your way as soon as we can. And remember, if you run into any problems out there, my sister Ruth can help.”
Amy leaned back in the chair and took a deep breath for once. So that’s that, she thought. Problem solved. For now, anyway.
Chapter 2
Joe pulled back on the reins as they crested the ridge that overlooked the large, fenced-in field. The pony nickered softly as the carriage rolled to a stop beneath the branches of the oak that towered over the road. The wind set the tree’s leaves to rustling and Joe turned up his collar against the breeze; it was getting to be that time of year when the mornings were crisp, and as he looked out across the fields he could see the faintest hint of gold among the trees. Fall had not yet arrived, but as he took a deep breath of the chilly air he could almost smell it coming.
