The Most Eligible Bachelor Romance Collection: Nine Historical Romances Celebrate Marrying for All the Right Reasons (72 page)

She nodded. He offered his arm, and she looped hers around his, laying her white-gloved hand on his black sleeve. In moments they left the Baker House ballroom and strolled down the corridor to the sunroom. Irie started to pull her hand away.

“We’re not there yet,” said Duke, grabbing her blue knitted shawl from the back of a chair.

“Where did you get my shawl?”

“Your mother.”

He draped it around her shoulders, keeping his gaze on hers. Then he took her hand and led her through the opened french doors to the gardens and the inky starlit sky. They strolled in silence down the brick path winding through the yard, past the noisy frog pond, and to the candlelit gazebo. A white cloth covered the cast-iron table set for two. A coffee urn and a buttercream-frosted cake sat in the middle.

“Duke,” Irie said, her heartbeat increasing, “what is this?”

He turned to face her. “You seem to like tea parties with my daughter. I thought maybe you and I…” He grinned like a little boy asking his mother for an extra dessert.

Irie’s breath shortened. Duke Baker was actually wooing her. “Where did you buy a cake at this time of night?”

“Oh, I”—his cheeks reddened—“made it. Cook did have to show me a few things, and it may have eggshells.”

“You baked me a cake?” She tried to keep the note of hopefulness out of her voice. Tried to ignore her heart beating painfully against her ribs. Tried to forget he still held her hand.

He nodded. At once his scent, his nearness, his heated gaze surrounded her, chasing away the chill of the cool evening air.

“Why?” she whispered.

“I love you, Irie. I’m desperate to prove it.”

For a moment she was struck dumb. “You love me?”

“I was wrong for proposing to you yesterday, and I’m sorry. You deserve better.” His voice choked. “I began courting The Twelve thinking I only needed to find a mother for Tabitha. God showed me I needed much more. You captivate me. From this day forth, I’m going to die for you every day, in little ways and big ones, until God takes away my breath.” He released his hold on her hand and took a step back. “Irie LaCroix, will you do me the honor of giving me time to court you properly before I ask you to marry me?”

Something deep in her heart broke open. Joy poured forth. He loved her. She could see it in his eyes, hear it in his voice, and knew he baked a cake probably with eggshells in it because he
loved
her. Tears welled in her eyes.

“I will, but”—she paused—“there’s a lot you don’t know about me.”

He grinned. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me, too. That’s why we need time to court without any spoken commitments made.”

“How about we meet for lunch a week from today?”

“Agreed,” he said with his gaze focused on her lips.

Her heart raced even more. “Are you going to kiss me?”

His gaze refocused on hers. “I would very much like to. But I haven’t earned the honor. When I do…” One corner of his mouth tipped up in such a devilish manner, so like the Duke she first fell in love with thirteen years ago. “Well, Misery, where do we go from here?”

Irie gave him her own mischievous smile. “I suppose we start with cake.”

“Now I know I love you.” Duke pulled out a chair for her to sit.

As he settled in his chair across from her, Irie poured coffee into the teacups. “You do know a proper courtship lasts at least a year?”

“This is Texas.” He winked then cut them both heaping slices of cake. “Six months.”

Irie sipped her coffee to hide her smile. Six months would do quite nicely.

ECPA-bestselling author Gina Welborn wrote public service announcements until she fell in love with writing romances.
Baker’s Dozen
is her fourth Barbour novella. A moderately obsessive fan of
Community
and
Once Upon a Time,
Gina lives in Oklahoma with her pastor husband, their five Okie-Hokie children, a box-Lab, two rabbits, four guinea pigs, and a fancy Russian dwarf hamster named Tom Bob Deucalion.

The Final Baker Bride

by Kathleen Y’Barbo

Dedication

To those who wander.
Not all are lost,
and none escape our gracious Father’s watchful eye and loving care.

Chapter 1

New Orleans, Louisiana
May 1889

A
train whistle sounded. Octavia Derby glanced up at the massive clock and then reached into her handbag to retrieve the envelope she had prepared for this moment.

“It’s time for you to get back on the train.” She pressed the envelope into Bridget’s palm.

Bridget shook her head. “Oh miss, I mustn’t take this. You’ve already been so generous.”

Tavia brushed away the comment with a swipe of her hand. “It’s for your mother, not you.” Another round of train whistles split the air between them. “Hurry now. You’ll miss your train.”

Bridget reached to touch Tavia’s sleeve. “Now remember, you’re staying at the Monteleone Hotel. Tomorrow you have an appointment with Miss Marie O’Shea at Baker Shipping. Do you remember what you’re to tell her?”

“That her niece Bridget wrote to her about me and that I am fully capable to take on any menial task she might offer.”

“Perhaps not all that.” Bridget smiled. “I think simply that I wrote to her on your behalf will suffice. Auntie Marie wrote that she has a position as a typist available for you.”

“Of course.” Tavia exchanged good-byes and then watched Bridget scurry away. The Irishwoman disappeared inside the railcar, and then a moment later, she reappeared at a window.

“Miss Tavia!”

Tavia hurried toward her as the steam from the train rose around her. “Yes, what is it?” she said as she batted at the sodden air.

“Your trunks! You’ll need to fetch them.”

Tavia shook her head. “Fetch them? How? Where?”

The train’s big wheels jerked forward. “Over there.” Bridget pointed. “Remember, you’re staying at the Monteleone, and you will need to hire a taxicab for transport. But first, find a porter and tell him…” The remainder of her statement was lost in the screech of wheels and blast of the train’s whistle.

Tavia let out a sigh and turned her back on the disappearing train. She could do this. She
would
do this. All she had to do was find a porter. Over there. If she could just figure out what a porter was.

But she did know what her luggage looked like, and she spied it a few minutes later unceremoniously stacked with all the other various bags, boxes, and trunks in a corner of the station. She found a rather thin fellow in a uniform who vaguely resembled Father’s butler, Vargas.

“I need my luggage, please. The two Louis Vuitton trunks and the bag.”

Thankfully, the fellow was much stronger than he looked, and a moment later, he was shadowing her toward the exit. Father always offered a few coins to the men who moved their things between conveyances, so she opened her purse and reached for the first two pieces of money she found.

Apparently her gratuity was generous, for the fellow’s sour expression quickly turned congenial. “Where’ll I be depositing these?” he asked as he struggled to move the decrepit trolley over cobblestones.

“Depositing?”

“Yes ma’am. How will you be leaving the train station? Perhaps you’ve got someone here to retrieve you?”

Oh dear. “No,” she said slowly, “but I will need to find my way to the Monteleone Hotel. How does one accomplish this?”

His quizzical look almost made her smile. “Well, miss,” he said as he scratched his head, “most folks either take the streetcar or they hire a taxicab.” He shifted the burden of the trolley to the other shoulder. “Under the circumstances, I reckon I’d hail a taxicab if it was me. Seeing as how you’re not exactly traveling light.”

A taxicab. Of course. She’d ridden in a taxicab once in Paris. The ride, though completely unsanctioned and undetected by her mother, had been quite entertaining for her and her friends.

Tavia looked around the station. Every sort of carriage, wagon, and buggy crowded the street in both directions. Most were filled with persons of various social stations and dubious intentions, or so it seemed.

Except one.

“You there.” Tavia waved to the driver of what appeared to be a decent taxicab. “You’ll do. I wish to be dispatched to my hotel immediately.”

Though hers was not the first offer Merritt Baker had received while waiting for his driver to retrieve his trunks from the train’s conductor, it was the most brazen. And tempting.

If he had been the sort who could be tempted by a pretty face and an attractive offer. Which he was not, or he would have already married one of the many society gals his family insisted on introducing to the last unmarried Baker brother on a regular basis.

Oh, but she was a beauty. Not nearly tall enough to reach the top of his shoulders, and pretty as any woman he’d seen, this gal certainly did not look like the type who plied that sort of profession.

Honey-colored curls teased her neck and cascaded down her straight back, tamed only by a feathered confection of a hat that must have set one of her customers back a minor fortune. Her scarlet traveling dress brought out the fire in her eyes and set off rosy cheeks and lips that looked as though they had been recently kissed.

While he watched, those lips formed a frown as the little lady gestured to a porter burdened with two trunks and a traveling case stacked on a trolley. Before he could protest, the porter hefted one trunk to his buggy and was reaching for the other.

“Hold on here,” Rit said. “What do you think you’re doing?”

The porter spared him only a brief glance before returning to his work. “Just following orders, sir.”

“Well, I order you to take those bags off my buggy before I take them off for you.”

Ignoring him, the porter tossed the final bag atop the others. “I reckon you ought to take that up with the lady.” And then he was off.

“I’ll do that.” Rit turned around to see the lady in question had already situated herself in the buggy and appeared quite irritated that he hadn’t done the same.

He stalked around the buggy to the side where she sat like a queen awaiting her coronation parade. “What exactly do you think you’re doing?”

“Waiting far longer than I ought. Are you always this reluctant to conduct business?” Those sea-green eyes gave him the same measuring up she’d just given the buggy.

He gave her the same look right back. “What makes you think I plan to conduct business with you, ma’am?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said with a swipe of her hand. “Of course you will. This is a taxicab, is it not?”

“A taxicab?”

Rit waited for the change in expression that would indicate the woman was joking. It never came. Was it possible this woman actually believed the Baker Shipping buggy was a New Orleans taxicab? Apparently she did.

“You’re serious,” he added to be certain.

“Quite. I’ll be going to the Monteleone. Have you heard of it?”

“I have.” Considering Baker family friends owned the place.

“Then please come around and do your job. I have traveled quite a distance in the most atrocious circumstances. I actually had to sleep sitting up. All the way from Houston.” She shuddered and then straightened the plume on her hat.

There wasn’t anything waiting on him back at the office except his brothers and more work than he cared to attend to. Not with memories of the Texas ranch he’d left this morning still riding hard in his thoughts.

Oh, why not?

“One minute, ma’am.” Merritt tipped his hat to her and then loped over to meet his driver. “Hire a wagon to get my things home,” he said. “I’ll be using the buggy for a while.”

“Yes sir, but I’m supposed to deliver you to Baker Shipping. What will I tell your brothers?”

Rit reached into his pocket and retrieved a day’s pay for the man. “Take the afternoon off. After you deliver my bags. I’ll handle my brothers myself. Tomorrow.”

He returned to the buggy and climbed onto the seat beside the young lady. She looked up at him, wide-eyed and pretty, and his heart did a little giddy-up.

“Belle callas! Tout chaud!”

His passenger jumped at the sound of the street vendor who stood less than an arm’s length away. Her eyes went wide as the elderly woman with the colorful scarf lifted the basket from her head and thrust it toward her.