An Unwanted Bride for Christmas Read online

  AN UNWANTED BRIDE FOR CHRISTMAS

  SPINSTER MAIL-ORDER BRIDES

  (BOOK 27)

  Margaret Tanner

  Contents:

  BLURB

  Copyright © 2019 Margaret Tanner

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine.

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Epilogue

  Author Links

  About the Author:

  Other Books by Margaret

  BLURB

  Vicious, unfounded rumors force Briony Ashton to leave home.

  In desperation, she answers reclusive rancher Martin Kavanagh’s, advertisement for a

  Mail-Order Bride.

  After exchanging a few letters, why does Martin decide Briony is not the woman he wants?

  Too late, she is already on her way.

  Is a marriage between them possible, after their bitter exchange when they first meet?

  Copyright © 2019 Margaret Tanner

  Thank you for purchasing this book. It remains the copyrighted property of the author and may not be reproduced, scanned, or distributed for any commercial or non-commercial use without permission from the author and publisher. Quotes used in reviews are the exception. No alteration of content is allowed. If you enjoy this book, then please encourage your friends to purchase their own copy.

  This story is a work of fiction, and to enhance the story, some literary license has been taken regarding setting. All characters are a figment of the author’s imagination.

  Acknowledgements: Many thanks to my author friends, Susan Horsnell and Cheryl Wright, for all their help and support.

  Cover Artist: Virginia McKevitt

  Chapter One

  Fir Ridge, Wyoming 1876

  “Now look here, Marty, things can’t go on the way they are.” Phyllis Kavanagh stood with her hands planted on her hips, staring her brother down. Even though his health and spirit had been broken by the war, cleaned up he was still a handsome man.

  “Don’t badger me, Phil. I told you a dozen times over. I can cope here on my own.”

  “You cannot. Look at you, unshaven with blood shot eyes sunken into your head, shaking hands; do you need me to go on? You’ll end up killing yourself. Is that what you want?”

  “It would put me out of my misery.”

  “Don’t talk like that. You’re only thirty-four years old. Marriage to the right woman would help you.”

  “And who would want to marry a wreck of a man like me?” He glared at her through bleary eyes. “Besides, I don’t want a wife, particularly not a mail-order bride. Some desperate old maid no other man wants.”

  “If that’s your final word, I’m going to write to Jarrod and break off our betrothal. I’ll tell him I can’t leave you on your own.” She rubbed a wayward tear off her cheek. She loved Jarrod, wanted to go to him in Denver, but would never leave her brother on his own. She owed him too much.

  “Don’t be foolish. It was an opportunity of a lifetime for Jarrod, getting a position as headmaster at that school.” He stared intently at her. “Especially as they are prepared to let you teach, as well.”

  “I’m not going unless you place an advertisement in the Matrimonial Gazette and get yourself a wife.”

  “All right. All right.” He threw his hands up in surrender. “You write an advertisement out for me.”

  “We can write it together.”

  “I don’t want some young woman with foolish, romantic notions in her head.”

  “I agree. An older woman would be better, but not so old she couldn’t give you children.”

  “The marriage will be in name only. I want that to be made clear. No emotional involvement. I only want a live-in housekeeper.”

  “All right.” Phyllis decided not to push her luck. Marty had made a small concession in that he had agreed to advertise for a mail-order bride. All they had to do was place an advertisement in the Gazette and hope they found a woman who was suitable.

  She hated herself for blackmailing him into doing this. She had been betrothed to Jarrod for two years now. It was unfair to keep him dangling any longer, not with this headmaster position at stake. It was a dream come true for him, and she would never let him give it up because of her. Having fought in the war and been wounded himself, Jarrod understood what Marty was going through, but it was unfair. She either went to Denver and became his wife or let him go, and that would break her heart.

  “You write something out first and then I can check it for you.” She went over to the dresser drawer and took out writing materials and placed them before him. She wanted him to write something out before he changed his mind.

  He took up a pen and stared at it like he had no idea what to do with it. She pushed a sheet of writing paper at him.

  Wife urgently needed for a man in his mid-thirties living on isolated ranch. Marriage of convenience only. Must be aged between thirty and forty, clean, with good cooking and housekeeping skills. Respectable, Christian women only need apply. Please reply to Martin Kavanagh c/- Mercantile, Fir Ridge.

  “You can’t say that.”

  “Why not? I am being honest and stated my needs. No point getting some woman here on false pretenses and then have to send her away.”

  “But, Marty, you’ll probably get some ugly, desperate hag of a woman.”

  “I don’t care, as long as she can cook and housekeep. What I write is what I need, no more, no less.”

  “Well, don’t put your name on it. Say Rancher c/- Mercantile - Fir Ridge.”

  “Okay, good idea. I don’t want everyone knowing my private business. Are you sure there is no woman from town who will come out here?”

  “There’s not. Let’s face it, you aren’t known for being particularly friendly.”

  “I don’t like mixing with people. Anyway, so many new people have moved into town, I don’t even know them.”

  ***

  Briony Ashton wandered around the ranch house for the last time. Devoid of furniture, it somehow looked sad and unloved. Just like me. A twenty-nine-year old spinster, homeless, and with little money to her name.

  “How could you do this to me?” she cried out in anguish, her words echoing hollowly around the empty rooms.

  The ranch will be yours when I pass over, her father had repeatedly told her over the years. Why did he never put it in writing? She was his daughter, his blood flowed in her veins, yet she received nothing from his estate. It all went to his widow and legitimate daughter, who made sure she received nothing.

  The pair of them hated her, always had, because pa favored her. Probably because she loved the ranch as much as he did, whereas her mother Lucille and sister Hannah detested it. As a child, she could never understand why her mother made her call her Lucille, or why she lavished so much love on Hannah and not her. She had thought perhaps it was because she had suffered several miscarriages before Hannah’s eventual birth.

  It was during one of her parents’ numerous quarrels that the truth came to light. Lucille had screamed about Briony being the illegitimate brat of his mistress.

  Her birth mother’s name was never mentioned. All Briony knew was that she had died a couple of days after her birth and her father had taken her in and everyone assumed Lucille was her mother. Pa had spoiled and cosseted her, even as his wife despised her once Hannah was born. While Hannah was small, she used to happily come up to the ranch with them, once she got to about ten years of age, she refused, insisting she wanted to say wit
h her mother. In retrospect, Briony realized that as Hannah got older, Lucille poisoned her against them, and it had broken her father’s heart. He had been so proud of his two girls. As he and Hannah drifted apart, she and pa became closer, yet he would never tell her about her mother, and used to get so upset she gave up asking him.

  She could never find any papers regarding her birth, and nothing about her life before she moved in with her father. It was as if her mother never existed. There was no doubt she was his daughter, though. She had the same unusual green eyes and auburn hair as him. Like two peas in a pod, a family friend had once remarked.

  “We had a lot of good times here, pa,” she whispered, gazing out the window toward the barn and the lush green pastures, trying to emblazon it on her memory. It would have to sustain her for a lifetime.

  Pa had spent a lot of time here, especially toward the end of his life. He loved the peace and quiet after the bustle of his busy medical practice in Denver. He was a gifted surgeon, having honed his skills in the union field hospitals during the war. As a sixteen-year-old, she had helped him by nursing wounded soldiers under his care.

  Young men not much older than her, with amputated limbs and other disfigurements, could still be stoic and grateful that her father’s skill had saved their lives. While she was often splattered with blood, dirty and exhausted, Lucille whined about shortages of the luxury items that were no longer available as the fighting wore on.

  Pa had barely been cold in his grave when Lucille sold the ranch and everything on it to their neighbor, who had coveted the place for years. He wanted it for his son and daughter-in-law. The two old timers who had lived and worked here for years had been dismissed. Bill went to live with his daughter and Joseph got himself a job as gardener for a wealthy family about twenty miles away.

  “Well, goodbye house. Goodbye ranch. Pa and I had a lot of memorable times here.”

  She left the ranch riding a horse she had borrowed from the livery stable in Hurstbridge, about three miles away from the farm. If she thought she could get away with it, she would cut her hair and pretend to be a boy; more opportunities for work that way, as she was an experienced ranch hand and not afraid of hard work. Binding her breasts was out of the question, as she could never flatten them out enough.

  Dressed in male attire, which she was wearing now, failed to worry her. She plaited her hair and let the pigtail hang down her back or stuck it under her hat.

  Being a friend of her father’s and taking pity on her after the townsfolk had turned on her, old Dusty Rankin had given her a temporary job at his livery stable. He was looking for a buyer for his business so he could retire. He wanted to sell the business as a going concern because it would be worth more, and she understood this. He lived with his elderly, spinster sister and they let her stay with them, meaning she was working for board and lodging, and a small wage when he could spare it.

  Once the place was sold, she would be homeless and jobless. It was unlikely she would ever get a decent job around here, after Lucille had spread the word far and wide about her illegitimacy.

  Nellie Rankin had suggested she check the Matrimonial Gazette which came out of San Francisco, although it had spread throughout the country now. It was a humiliating way to find a husband, but she was desperate, because Lucille’s nastiness made it virtually impossible to find a suitable man here. She was a figure of ridicule in the circles the family had always moved in.

  I bet I’m not the only one around these parts who was born on the wrong side of the blanket, as the English would say. Yes, but others in the same position had been able to successfully keep their secret, whereas in her case it was now public knowledge.

  Hannah and Lucille had spread their poison well. Complaining about the illegitimate daughter having the effrontery to attend her father’s funeral and mix with God-fearing folk. It was a disgraceful, vengeful act which had destroyed her name and sullied her father’s reputation.

  At twenty-nine, it was hard enough to find a husband in normal circumstances; now it was impossible. Starting off afresh somewhere far away from here, where no one knew her, was the only option if she was to get herself a husband.

  How many suitors had she rejected in the past, because she preferred to stay at the ranch with her ailing father? Had she inherited the ranch, remaining a spinster would not have worried her over much. How could she blame pa? Being an honorable man, he would have presumed Lucille would carry out his wishes.

  At the livery, she unsaddled the mare and brushed her down. “Anything you need doing, Dusty?” she called out.

  “No, go home. It must have been hard for you going out to the ranch for one last time.”

  “It was.”

  After finishing with the horse, she automatically checked that there was clean straw in the stalls. Dusty ran the livery with military precision, being an ex-cavalryman, it was second nature to him. Business had fallen off lately. Hurstbridge was a small town and young people had been drifting away for the last couple of years. Without the outlying ranchers coming into town for supplies, it probably would have become a ghost town.

  “Thanks, I might if there’s nothing needing to be done.” Bowed over like an old woman, she trudged to Dusty’s house, which was next door to the funeral parlor. It depressed her, although Nellie and Dusty appeared not to worry about it; probably used to it after all these years. Home is where the heart is, so the saying went. A place like this could never be home to her; as for her heart, it was well and truly torn to shreds.

  Chapter Two

  Briony unlocked the door and stepped inside. “I’m back,” she called out as she always did.

  “Okay,” Nellie said. “I’m in the kitchen; I’ll make us a coffee.”

  Briony headed out on to the back porch, which was slightly raised and gazed over next door. A large barn held the funeral wagons and rows of wooden coffins. It was depressing, so leaving here would not be a hardship, if she had somewhere else to go.

  She washed her hands and face in the dish of water always kept for that purpose. Nellie always used lye soap that she had made herself. Because it was so harsh on her skin, Briony used store bought soap. She had offered Nellie some as a matter of courtesy, but the woman maintained she had used lye soap all her life and it had done her no harm so she had no plans to change it.

  Nellie was a woman of habit. Briony had noticed this straight away. In one way she could understand. Nellie was a woman in her fifties, so why should she change from what had served her well throughout her lifetime, just because a younger woman had more modern ideas.

  Briony stepped into the kitchen, which was old-fashioned like the owner. Nellie had lived here for over thirty years. She was friendly and kindhearted. In her younger days, she would have been attractive. Why she had never married remained a mystery.

  “Sit yourself down, you must feel drained after visiting the ranch.”

  “I do. Thank you for being so kind, Dusty, too. I’m really grateful. I just can’t believe my father never put his wishes regarding the ranch in writing. I guess he trusted Lucille to do the right thing.”

  “Yes, being an honorable man himself, he would have believed they would have carried out his wishes.” She handed Briony the coffee and held out a plate of cookies. “As for telling people about the manner of your birth, that was a disgraceful, evil thing to do.”

  “Thank you.” Briony bit into a cookie, which was delicious. Nellie was an excellent cook.

  Once the older woman joined her at the table she said. “I think I might have found a way for you to get out of this mess you’re in.”

  “You do? What is it? I’m desperate enough to try anything, as long as it isn’t criminal.”

  “Have you ever thought about becoming a mail-order bride?”

  “No. I couldn’t imagine going off to marry a man I had never seen.” She wrung her hands. “I couldn’t do it.”

  “Seems to me you won’t have much choice if Dusty sells the livery. No one else i
n this conservative town would give you a job. After what Lucille and Hannah said at the funeral, few people even speak to you.”

  It was true, there was no denying it. “I don’t think I could place an advertisement in a newspaper and humiliate myself. Besides, what could I write?”

  “I was thinking you should answer an advertisement some gentleman has placed.”

  “Well…”

  “I took the liberty of picking up a copy of the Matrimonial Gazette.” Nellie gave a cackle. “Mrs. Dixon at the mercantile probably thought I was looking for a man.”

  Briony laughed. “Maybe we could both look for a man.”

  “Not me. I nearly got myself hitched once, only it fell through.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Too long ago to worry about it now.” Nellie handed over the paper.

  “I went through it and marked the ones I thought most suitable for you. The trouble is most of the men want a twenty-year old bride. Of course, they’re all wealthy and good looking.” She cackled again. “There were only a handful who wanted older wives.”

  Briony skimmed down one of the pages Nellie had marked. “Listen to this one. Handsome man of substantial means looking for an older woman with a view to matrimony.” She laughed. “If he’s so rich and handsome, why does he have to advertise for a bride?”

  “It’s all lies.” Nellie cackled again. Her laugh sounded just like a hen’s cackle.

  Briony read another couple of ads. Some of these men were absolute liars, they had to be. One man needed a woman to become a mother to his nine children; another stipulated that his future bride must like animals, as they shared the house with him. A buxom woman was another request.

  This was ridiculous. She almost threw the paper away.

  “Go to page three, halfway down,” Nellie instructed. I marked it. He at least sounds genuine.”

  The age was right and yes, she could cook and keep house. She was respectable. Well, she had been considered in that light, until Lucille spread her poison around.