A Bargain For A Bride: Clean mail order bride romance (Montana Passion Book 1) (3 page)

Moira was not quite so optimistic once she saw the accommodations. Their temporary lodging, while far less than Moira could easily afford, would have to do until the train departed the following Tuesday. She was already carefully budgeting for the items they would need upon their arrival in Montana; extravagant luxuries like lodging in the Aster House, which would have eaten away at her remaining funds, especially because Gretchen would have required a separate room in the servants’ quarters, were too frivolous at a time like this. She put on a brave face for her maid’s sake, trying to remain cheerful as she reminded her that their lodgings would be even more sparse once they arrived at their appointed plot of land.

“Come, Gretchen! We’ve travel supplies we must gather. We’ll wait until we arrive in Montana—how I never tire of saying the name! Montana!—to buy the bulk of our dry goods and equipment, but we’ll certainly need more suitable travel clothes for the train journey. I apologize, dear, but it appears that Mr. Walsh didn’t book us a private car as the expense was very great. I attempted to pay the difference at the train station this morning, but the private cars are all booked. But it will be more than suitable, I know it will. Besides, we need to plan our funds carefully. We will be fine financially, of course, but I can’t know what needs we will have once we arrive, and certainly not once we face the winter out West.”

“Will the winter be fierce, my lady?”

“I’ve heard talk of the seasons and it seems that the temperature is much like home.” Moira’s voice cracked on that last word, but she cleared her throat lightly before continuing. “After all, we’ll be living in a cabin, practically a shack smaller than our carriage house, so I should think the winters would be quite cozy, nothing like trying to warm the stone rooms of Brennan Castle. My only fear is the wind from the mountains, wrapping us in snow that we cannot fight our way out of.”

“Do you think we’ll have much snow?” Gretchen asked, her eyes brightening. Moira remembered looking out through the windows and watching some of the servants romp and play in the light dusting that landed one Christmas Eve, wishing more than anything that she could have gone out and joined them in their fun. Instead, with her mother already passed away, Moira had to be the lady of the house. She’d smiled watching them, but wished she could have been a child herself instead of a lady.

They discussed what they knew about Montana and America in general, which both admitted was not a lot. They speculated on the things they would see, the area in which they would live, and their plans after staking their claim. Moira was excited about the opportunity to take charge of her own life, and even made the scandalous pronouncement that she might purchase work pants for herself, causing Gretchen to cry out in alarm.

By the time the day had arrived for them to depart, cabin fever had set in again, far worse this time than it had been on the ship. Knowing there was an entire bustling city just outside their doors, and an even greater frontier awaiting them to arrive, made their stay indoors almost unbearable. Between their brief, icy cold walks about the city and their meals taken at the boarding house’s dreary, rather dirty kitchen, Moira and Gretchen hadn’t ventured too far from the apartments. Their only interactions in the city were limited, as their focus was on their journey.

They finally boarded the train and tried to hide their disappointment at seeing the crowded train car. Barely better than a freight car, their fellow passengers were crammed into the aisles and rows, with those who didn’t purchase a seat having to stand. They wedged themselves past the crowds of travelers until they found their seats, collapsing gratefully and overjoyed to see that theirs were situated side by side next to a wide window.

“Here, Gretchen, you take the seat beside the window. We can open it slightly if you feel faint, as the fresh air will do you good once we begin moving,” Moira said, directing her maid to the narrow cushioned seat before sitting down beside her. She took their bags and stowed them beneath their feet, then settled back into the seat, eyeing the passengers around her to see who looked trustworthy. To her dismay, much of the group seemed shifty instead.

The train, unexpectedly fast at twenty-five miles per hour, was nearly dizzying with its speed, and more than once, Gretchen had to turn away from the window to avert her eyes from the colors that blurred past. Moira traded seats from time to time, content to let her ladies’ maid rest her head on her shoulder while she slept, a gesture of familiarity that had gotten her chastised more than once by some older relatives. More passengers exited at each of the tiny train depots they stopped at, and although a few more passengers came and went throughout the journey, the car was practically empty by the time they’d reached the Ohio Valley.

This went on for days. The ladies made use of the washrooms as best they could, but by the third day, they mourned even the comforts of the slummish boarding house. They took their meals in the small towns where the train would pause for longer stretches, and at the start of the second week of travel, Moira surprised both of them when she let a room for the day, just to give them a chance to wash in a bathtub and sleep in a real bed, even if it was only for a luxurious nap. They barely made the train before it departed West again, but they managed.

“My lady, how is it possible that we haven’t gone ‘round the whole world and ended up back in Brennan by now?” Gretchen said mournfully, her shoulders slumping from the weeks of riding in her seat. Everywhere they’d stopped and every train change they’d made, she’d stretched and walked, but the miles were showing in her thin frame.

“I understand your worry, but it’s for naught. I never would have thought it possible that the country could be so enormous. It makes me worry that Ronan would never find us, if he ever chose to, that is.”

“Oh! You don’t think we’ll never see him again, do you? Surely someone as stalwart as Lord Brennan could move the very mountains that stood in his way to come to his sister!”

“I dare not think of it. My heart is torn in pieces at what I’ve done to him. Is he sad that I’ve left him? Is he angry that I’ve gone against his wishes? I only hope he knows I did it to save his life and the Brennan lands. If I’d stayed, either Ronan or our estate would no longer exist.”

It was Gretchen’s turn to pull her mistress into a comforting embrace, resting the lady’s head on her thin shoulder and patting her arm comfortingly. They’d noticed that every stop brought a rougher and rougher crowd of passengers, none of them women, and they’d tried their best to avoid attention and keep from looking too prosperous. Fortunately, none of the other passengers paid them any mind, all too intent on their own affairs and their own reasons for travel.

The weeks stretched on and the endless miles of country proved just how immense this new land really was. Cities gave way to farms, which gave way to sporadic settlements dotting the landscape, but all the while, Montana never appeared. Rain beat at the windows at times, and every evening, the car was wrapped in eerie darkness as the sun descended. The scant light from the oil lamps on the walls only cast an ominous flickering over the assembled passengers, making the view inside the car even scarier than the view outside.

It was a welcome shock when the conductor shook both ladies gently by the shoulder early one morning before the sun had risen above the horizon. He peered down into their faces with his weathered smile and said those most blessed words: “We’re here. Welcome to Montana!”

New Hope, Montana, had a population of merely eighty-six people, or so the wooden plank hanging by one corner above the unofficial postmaster’s house claimed. Moira scanned the train depot for any hint of civilization, and was dismayed to see no one in sight. She pulled the collar of her coat closer to her chin and reached out a gloved hand to point out their baggage to Gretchen.

“Come, Gretchen, we’ll find someone to greet us and tell us where we’re to go next.” She left her maid to oversee the transporting of their trunks, but when she realized there was no porter coming out to help, she bade the girl to give one handle to her. Together, they wrestled all their worldly possessions around to the front of the station, letting them fall to the wooden boards with a loud thud when they took in the town in front of them.

It was barren. Except for a few squat, clapboard buildings, there was nothing to break up the gray countryside, nothing to stop the eye from seeing all the way to the mountains in the distance. A wide dirt path ran between the two buildings, cutting a road far wider than any Moira had ever seen. The reason immediately became clear as she made out jumbles of hoof prints in the frozen road, scars left by what had to have been thousands of cattle.

“My lady?” Gretchen began, but she stopped. She had no question, at least not one she could expect Moira to know the answer to. Moira just stood, staring, taking it all in as she tried to formulate her next move.

“Surely there’s a boarding house here,” she thought aloud, speaking more to herself than to her maid’s unspoken question. “’Why have a train depot, or a rail stop at all, if there’s nowhere to stay?”

“We can ask after this man, no?” Gretchen said in a hushed voice, not wanting to draw attention to the fact that they were newcomers and were already lost. Just as Moira opened her mouth to call out to the tall man, the only other soul standing in front of the station, he turned and strode toward them, a look of derision clear on his face.

He stopped only a few feet from them and looked from one girl to the other, his eyes roving back and forth several times before stopping on Moira’s. He nodded curtly, no sign of recognition in his gray eyes. A faint scar above his upper lip twitched lightly when he spoke.

“You. You’re the Brandon girl? I’ll take you. Someone will come along for the other one soon, I suppose.” Moira blinked in surprise, trying to decipher his words. His accent was not so unrecognizable as to be foreign; in fact, it felt almost familiar, but the words he spoke made so little sense that surely he wasn’t speaking their language.

“I’m sorry? Pardon my ignorance, but I’m not sure what you’re talking about,” Moira said, standing taller and assuming the same stance she used with servants and business acquaintances of her father’s.

“I’m Pryor MacAteer. I’m here to fetch you,” he said, as though that explained everything. He paused, then seemed to remember himself before taking off his hat and grabbing Moira’s hand, shaking it forcefully by way of greeting. Gretchen reached out her hands to steady her mistress, holding her firmly by her upper arms to keep her from toppling over at the near-thrashing.

“
Fetch
me?” Moira asked. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”

“Oh. Okay. I’m here to pick you up? To take you to my cabin?”

“Why ever on earth would I go to your cabin?”

“Because I have an order here to pick you up? I placed the ad, and they sent you out. I paid your fare, remember?” Moira and Gretchen exchanged quizzical looks, then turned back to the man in the cowboy hat and denim pants, waiting for him to explain. “You are Mara Brandon, right?”

“No, the name is Moira Brennan. Lady Moira Brennan, of the house of Brennan,” she said slowly, watching for some kind of understanding to cross his face. It never did. Instead, he reached behind him into a deep pocket sown to the outside of his thick wool coat and retrieved a piece of worn yellow paper.

“I got this here letter in the post, had to go all the way down to the fort to pick it up. Says here that you’re gonna be my bride.” He held out the piece of paper, but Moira jumped back from it as though he held out a live snake clasped in his gloveless hand. She finally peered at it and sure enough, her name was in faint typed letters across the top of the page.

“There is a misunderstanding, I assure you. I am no one’s bride. I left home for this great land specifically to avoid becoming someone’s bride! I am here with a homestead claim.” She reached into her handbag and produced her own paperwork, thrusting it in Pryor’s direction the same way he’d offered up his letter.

He didn’t look at it. Instead, he narrowed his gaze as he looked straight at her innocent but determined blue eyes, the wheels in his head turning with this new situation. “I know what’s going on here. Don’t think for a second that I’m a big enough fool to fall for it, though.”

“I don’t know what you’re saying…”

“You think you can get free passage out here and then turn your pretty little nose up at the contract. Well, we don’t take kindly to people going back on their word around here. You signed a contract, and you’re gonna be held to it. Now grab your things, we’re headed home.” He turned to leave, as though he actually expected Moira to follow. Instead, she glanced at her maid and shot her a look that showed her clear contempt for this man, then sat down on her trunks to prove her point. Gretchen joined her in her indignation at being ordered around by this pig of a man, sitting down alongside her.

Pryor didn’t bother turning around. He called over his shoulder, “You don’t want to be sitting there when the sun goes down. And I can’t much promise that you want to be sitting there when the sun is up, either,” then kept walking.

“We will wait for the authorities, if it pleases you,” Moira called back from where she sat.

“It does not please me,” he answered. “Seeing as how we don’t have any authorities. You’ll be waiting ‘til I’m long past need of a wife. So let’s go.”

“I am staying here. Once you have left, I will go in search of lodgings for my maid and myself.”

“There aren’t any lodgings, either. You’ve never been to this part of the frontier, have you?”

“Obviously not. I should think that would be plain to see. Why would I call for the authorities and announce my intention to find a boarding house or an inn if I knew such things would not be available? I think you’re taking advantage of my ignorance of the region to strong arm me into acquiescing. And I won’t stand for it.”

“Lady, you sure talk a lot, but I didn’t understand half of what you just said. Now grab your bag and put it in that wagon. We have about a two hour drive to cover before evening chores, and we don’t want to do the milking after dark.”

“We, Mr. MacAteer? Why would I do the milking with you?” Moira asked, more puzzled than put out.

Pryor finally stopped walking, pausing where he stood for a moment to gather his thoughts. This wasn’t working out the way he’d envisioned it when he’d first heard about the opportunity to find a companion. He’d only known two other homesteaders to write off to the city back east for a wife, but they’d both explained how simple the process was, but more important, how happy their wives were to come to the frontier. This wench acted like she’d accidentally gotten off the train at the wrong station. Despite his shy, gruff manner, Pryor had mulled it over for months before ever sending off his letter, and had been just as hesitant about replying when he learned that a woman was headed to Montana looking for a husband. The last thing he wanted to do after waiting for so long was to start things off on the wrong foot.

He walked back to the covered porch of the train depot and stood in front of Moira, looking down at the two ladies where they were seated close together on an expensive-looking trunk. He took a deep breath before he spoke.

“I don’t know what kind of confounding thing is going on, but I have a signed contract for you to be my wife. You signed the papers with your own mark. The papers just arrived this week, with instructions to pick you up on the train. I’ve been coming to this train station every morning since the papers arrived, on account of I… because it didn’t say what day you’d be coming.” Moira’s angry glare softened just a little. “I’ve neglected my farm long enough. There’s work to be done, and the whole reason for writing off for a wife was to find someone to help me, and someone to be a companion. So far, I don’t have a lot of faith that you’d be either of those things.”

“Thank you for the explanation, Mr. MacAteer; I appreciate the time spent telling me your side of the story. But I’m telling you that I came out here to claim my own piece of land, not to be someone’s bought and paid for bride! There has certainly been some misunderstanding and I assure you we will work to make it right, but until then, I am not anyone’s wife, and I certainly won’t be doing any milking!”