Mail Order Bride Leah: A Sweet Western Historical Romance (Montana Mail Order Brides Series Book 1) (7 page)

“My grandmother did tatting,” Mrs. Gibson admitted. “She made doilies. I was never interested in it when I was growing up but I would dearly love to learn now.”

“Perhaps on Mondays I could have a sort of learning circle. I could teach Becky to embroider and show you a bit of tatting.”

“I believe that we carry shuttles at the shop,” Delia put in.

“Put one back for me, dear. I’ll be in to pick it up before Monday’s class. Ten in the morning?” Mrs. Gibson said. Leah nodded, excited at the prospect of doing something useful and applying her instructional skills to help the women of the town.

The next day, Becky came to Mrs. Hostleman’s and learned the satin stitch from Leah. By the end of the hour, Becky could make a creditable tight and smooth petal or leaf, and was quite proud of herself. She intended to go right to the dry goods shop and get some embroidery thread to add leaves to her tablecloth straightaway. As Becky departed, Delia Wilford stopped by the boarding house.

“I was wondering if you had some more samples of your stitchery I could see,” Delia asked.

Leah retrieved a few handkerchiefs she had worked with flowers and initials, as well as a set of napkins with a larkspur design. Impetuously, she grabbed the nightdress she had been working on; she was stitching a chain of blooms in white thread on the white fabric for a delicate and feminine texture without the boldness of color. Delia fingered the fancywork with admiration and nodded.

“I spoke with Mr. Wilford about your talent and we wondered if you might like to do some embroidery for us to stock in the shop. We will pay you a fee to decorate pillowcases and table linens and supply all the silks."

“Oh, I would love that! I am accustomed to working for a living, you see, and I am not used to having so much idle time. I would be delighted to have a refined employment and earn some money at it. Thank you, Mrs. Wilford,” Leah enthused.

“Please, call me Delia, dear. For your first assignment, I’d like you to embroider a design of pansies in pale lilac on a set of pillowcases for myself. I’ve always been partial to pansies,” Delia said cheerfully. “Stop in at the store later to pick up the linens and any thread you need.”

They shook hands, and Leah fairly danced back to her room. She spent the rest of the week doing fancy work for the dry goods shop. It kept her hands and mind occupied while Henry was busy with his inn and stable. It also kept her from fretting over the progress of their relationship as the week passed and she saw but little of him since their Monday drive.

* * *

Henry sat on Wilford’s back porch listening to the man talk about how his wife had asked Leah to do embroidery for the shop.

Wilford was Henry’s closest friend in Billings, and he always went to the older man for advice when he was needful. In return, he’d trained a pair of handsome bays and given his friend a good price on them the year before. Outside of Dionysius himself there was not another such example of horseflesh in the entire territory, and Wilford was suitably proud of his acquisition.

“Quite a girl you have there, it seems. Della’s taken with her needlework. I’ve got to have flowers on all our linens now, and done by none other than your intended.” Wilford chuckled over his pipe.

“I wouldn’t call her my intended just yet. We’re not formally betrothed,” Henry said.

“Then get your courage up and ask her, boy. By all accounts from the reverend’s wife and mine, she’s as fine and patient a woman as you’ll find. And you want patience in a wife, I can tell you. Don’t delay, or some other buck will snap her up.

I believe when I convinced you to post that advertisement that you understood there are not such a lot of women to be had out West. Yet here you are sitting on the porch with me instead of courting your sweetheart.”

“I want to make the right choice.”

“You always have been a thinker, Rogers. Time to stop thinking, I say, and act. There’s nothing better than having a good wife to come home to every evening. Have a nice supper, talk over the day’s events, raise a family.” He elbowed Henry.

“I know. I didn’t come here for counsel. I came to find out the date your cousins are coming to visit so I’ll have rooms set aside for them at the inn.”

“The nineteenth, and it’s glad I am you have an inn; otherwise they’d be staying with us, and that would be unpleasant, considering my cousin’s personality and his obnoxious wife. There’s a woman will send you screaming into that schoolteacher’s arms!” Wilford chuckled again.

“I do want a wife, but you know what happened—“

“With Melody? I’m probably one of the few who does know. She was a fast little piece and you’re better off without her. This is a different girl, a different situation. Stop dallying,” Wilford said.

Henry got up off his chair and walked the few blocks home. Instead of going into his empty rooms, he headed for the stable to take Dionysius for a long bareback ride out into the foothills. Maybe a ride would clear his mind.

BILLINGS, MONTANA, 1884

He picked her up for church on Sunday, and she found herself stealing glances at him, trying to discern his feelings, his interest in her. After services she talked with Becky for a few minutes before joining him for another buggy ride. She flushed at the memory of their kiss but found him oddly silent on the long drive. They went further out toward the mountains than they had driven before, and she made a few remarks about the scenery that were met with quiet nods. She played with her mother’s locket, wishing her mother were alive to give her advice on how to put him at ease.

Henry reached into his pocket for perhaps the thirtieth time that day to feel the box the pearl ring was in. He had ordered the engagement ring from the mercantile before she even arrived in Montana Territory. The ring was silver and set with a creamy white pearl. It was perfect. He just had to work up the nerve to give it to her and ask for her hand in marriage. He drove further than he’d intended to, trying to get his courage up. He resolved to stop for the horses to drink from the stream up ahead, and shifted in his seat nervously.

“Stand and deliver!” A gruff voice came, and a figure seized the bridle of one of his bays.

Pulling the reins up short, Henry narrowed his eyes. Highwaymen in broad daylight besetting them on a Sunday afternoon! It angered him, and his fists clenched.

“Here now, we have nothing worth stealing save the horses, and if I loose them you’ll never catch them,” Henry said lightly.

Leah clutched at his arm as one of the highwaymen dragged her from the buggy. She screamed and kicked, struggling against the bandit, and the man slapped her face. Henry leapt from the buggy and dragged the bandit to the ground, striking him with powerful blows. Leah backed away from them, terrified, as the second highwayman attacked Henry. She watched as Henry turned and subdued the bandit with a single blow. Shaking the first bandit, the one who had struck her in the face, Henry took him by the throat and shoved him back like rubbish.

“Run,” he said coldly, and the men scrambled to their feet and fled.

Henry rushed to Leah’s side where she crouched in the weeds, teeth chattering with fear. He knelt beside her and she clutched at his arm, gripping his sleeve in her fingers. Wide frightened eyes met his as he took her in his arms, stroking her hair and letting her weep on his coat.

“Are you hurt?” he asked solicitously.

Leah shook her head, her hand going to her throat as fresh tears sprang to her eyes. “My locket. My mother’s—” she said, her voice breaking.

“Did they take it?” he demanded. She shook her head.

“I—I don’t think so. I think it came off in the struggle.”

“Wait here. I’ll see if it can be found.” He returned to the buggy where his bays stood obediently, and searched the surrounding road and weeds, but there was no glimmer of her lost locket. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I couldn’t find it.”

Leah stood and brushed the dust off her dress dejectedly.

“Thank you for saving me,” she said softly. “I don’t know what I would’ve done without you.”

“I hate that the bandits attacked us, but I liked protecting you, Leah,” he said. “I know I can’t bring back your mother’s locket. I’m sorry it was lost, but maybe, perhaps in time you’ll grow to treasure this as much,” he continued, producing the ring from his pocket.

Kneeling down, he held the silver circlet between his calloused thumb and forefinger, and held it out to her like a knight with a tribute for his lady fair.

Tears glinted in Leah’s eyes as she touched the pearl reverently with her fingertip.

“You got this for me?” she breathed.

“Yes, I ordered it the same day I mailed your train ticket.”

“It seems like such a long time ago,” she mused.

“May I, then?” Henry took her hand and slid the ring on her finger. He kissed her hand softly.

“We’re to be married,” she said with a smile almost of disbelief.

“Yes. At the risk of arrogance, I secured a license already. The Reverend Mr. Gibson can read the banns on Sunday next, and we could be wed within a fortnight if it suits you.”

“It does. It does suit me, Henry!” she said, clasping her hands with joy.

He helped her into the buggy and set his arm about her shoulders, hugging her against his side as he directed the bays back toward town.

“Ought I to write to your brother to ask for your hand? Would you be more comfortable if I waited for his blessing?”

“No. My father’s blessing would have been meaningful to me, but there is no chance of his understanding the situation now. As for Walter, he has disowned me entirely. I didn’t tell you when I arrived because it gave me such grief in my heart, but my brother objected to my traveling to Montana to marry you. I had refused to let him read the letters we exchanged,” she said shyly, almost ashamed to admit it.

“Then I will be your family, Leah,” he said with pride.

Henry kissed the top of her head fondly. Perhaps she was sincere after all, if she had given up her kin to come out West and be with him. That sacrifice might prove her loyalty, he hoped. He would make certain she never regretted it.

Dipping his head, he kissed her lightly on the lips, a sweetheart’s pledge. Leah rested her head on his shoulder for the remainder of the ride. She felt overjoyed, happy and secure. Despite the day’s ordeal with bandits, she knew in her heart that Henry would always protect her. She need not be alone any longer.

BILLINGS, MONTANA, 1884

The whispers at church had turned to hearty congratulations when the banns were read, and it was a whirlwind pair of weeks as Leah prepared to be wed. At the quilting circle, she’d been presented with the beautiful quilt on which she’d first embroidered vines after her arrival. Della Wilford had gifted her a pair of silk stockings and a set of fine bed linens ready to embroider—Leah had stayed up nights making tiny yellow blossoms along the edges of the pillowcases, joyously contemplating the new life ahead of her. Mrs. Gibson had bestowed upon her a new family Bible in which to record their marriage and the births of their future children. Leah had wept over it all and written ecstatically to Jane.

The day had arrived at last.

Leah gazed lovingly at her mother’s wedding gown, which had traveled in her hope chest, wrapped carefully in paper. It was an old-fashioned thing with a full ruffled skirt and puffed sleeves, pale apricot in color. The hue would have suited her mother’s golden-haired beauty flawlessly, while her own brown hair and eyes would look just as drab as ever, but she wanted to take her vows in the same dress her mother had worn as a bride. She wound a length of apricot ribbon from the dry goods store around the crown of her straw bonnet, thinking excitedly of the morrow when she would be married. Mrs. Henry Rogers. Leah Rogers. It sounded good indeed.

Henry came to fetch her just as she was curling her fringe.

Mrs. Gibson heard him come in the door. “He insisted on coming for you himself. Men can be so stubborn. I told him it was the bridesmaid’s office to deliver the bride but perhaps he worried you might change your mind.” Mrs. Gibson teased, linking arms with Leah.

Leah settled the bonnet on her hair and hurried to meet him. He waited in the front hall in his Sunday suit, smelling of bay rum, with a small nosegay of wildflowers in his hand. He presented them to her.

“Happy wedding day, Leah,” he said solemnly.

“Thank you. Happy wedding day to you, too,” she said bashfully, a blush creeping up her happy face.

She took his arm and they walked to the church, where they took their vows in a sweet, simple ceremony with Mrs. Gibson standing up as bridesmatron for Leah and Mr. Wilford as groomsman. At Mrs. Hostleman’s, Henry loaded Leah’s belongings into the wheelbarrow and bore them to his rooms behind the inn.

There were more wildflowers in a jug on the table when she entered, and she admired them as Henry built a cheerful fire in the hearth to ward off the evening chill. Leah hung her shawl and bonnet on the peg beside his coat and hat, thinking how wonderful it was to have her own peg in this cozy home with this man whom she loved so dearly.

While Henry went to the stable to check on things, Leah left off her unpacking. She wanted to surprise him with a wedding supper. Finding a slab of bacon in the larder and some potatoes in the bin, she set a frying pan on the cook stove and stoked the flames. She cut the potatoes, finding it difficult to get the slices even in thickness, and dropped them in the hot skillet while she sawed at the bacon. It proved even harder to cut and was slimy to the touch. Grimacing, she chopped off a few hunks of bacon and put it in the skillet, poking at it with a fork. She was terrified of the spattering grease and backed away from the pan, hoping it would be done in a few minutes.

When fetid black smoke began to gather, she tried to dislodge the burnt potatoes stuck to the bottom of the pan, only to be splattered with searing hot grease from the bacon. With a scream, she jumped back, wondering how she would get the hot skillet off the burner without calling for help. Screwing up her courage for the fight, she seized a hankie from her pocket and used it to grasp the handle long enough to pull it away from the flame.