Texas Bride: A Bitter Creek Novel - Couverture souple

Johnston, Joan

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0345527445 ISBN 13 : 9780345527448

Editeur : Dell, 2012

Synopsis

Book by Johnston Joan

A propos du livre

Extrait :

 
 
Chapter One
 
 
 
“It’s a disaster,”  Hannah said. “Plain and simple. We’re DOOMED.”
 
“You’re the  only thing standing   between us and Miss  Birch,”  Hannah’s  twin, Henrietta,   confirmed. “Once  you’re gone,   we’re dead ducks.”  Hetty drew a dramatic finger across her throat, dropped  her  head sideways,  stuck  out her tongue, and crossed her eyes. Miranda Wentworth  choked   back  a  sob. “Surely not doomed,” she  said with a wobbly   smile, as she met the gazes of the two seventeen-year-olds  sitting to the left of her on the hard dining  room  bench. But things  were going to be bad. The headmistress at the Chicago  Institute for
 
Orphaned Children,  Miss  Iris
 
Birch, had promised  as much.
 
Miranda   and her five  siblings had snuck  into the dining room after lights out to sit on plank  benches at a plank  table set on a frigid brick floor. The whale oil lantern in the center of the table created sinister shadows that turned  their features  into gargoyle  faces. Miranda   could  see the two younger  boys shivering on the bench across  from her, huddled under the thin, gray wool blankets they’d taken from their beds.
 
“The subject of this meeting is Miranda’s imminent departure from the Institute,”  sixteen-year-old  Josephine announced from her seat beside Nicholas,  the elder of the two boys.
 
Miranda  shivered, and not just from the cold. The thought  of leaving  her sisters and  brothers behind when she was forced to leave the orphanage  on her eighteenth birthday  was terrifying.
 
The six  Wentworth   children  had been orphaned three  years  ago in the Great  Chicago Fire of 1871, which  had burned for three days, destroying most of the business  district, including their father’s bank.
 
It had also burned down their three-story mansion and killed their father  and mother. Their wealth  had gone up in flames, along with their home. Destitute and homeless,  their uncle, Stephen Wentworth,   had decided the best place for them was an orphanage.
 
Miranda had begged Uncle Stephen to let them live with him, but his home had also burned down. There was no “home” where they could all be together. So the Wentworth   children  had  ended up at  the  Institute. Uncle Stephen had promised  they would  all be together again as soon  as he could rebuild.
 
But that day had never come.
 
Repeated pleas for rescue from the cruelty of Miss Birch had  gone  unanswered.   Letters to Uncle Stephen’s last known address had come back unopened. There was no way of knowing   what  had happened to him.
 
Then, a year  ago, Josie  had read an article  in the business section of the Daily Herald announcing that Mr. Stephen Wentworth  was opening a new bank.  It appeared Uncle  Stephen was  not  only alive and well, but that he was rich enough to open a bank!
 
Miranda  had immediately written to their uncle at the bank’s address, asking why he hadn’t come to get them as he’d  promised. That letter had resulted in a visit from Uncle Stephen.
 
Miranda  flushed  every time she remembered  that meeting. Uncle Stephen had told her he felt ill equipped to be a surrogate   parent.  They would have  to stay where they were. Furthermore,  she was not to con tact him again. It wasn’t his fault they were orphans. He wasn’t  the   one   who’d wanted   a  large family, his brother  had. And it wasn’t  his fault their father hadn’t kept his funds  somewhere safe, so his fortune wouldn’t have gone up in flames.
 
Miranda had  been  shocked   at  her uncle’s  harsh words and  devastated  by his unwillingness to help them  escape Miss  Birch. When her father was alive, Uncle Stephen’s  behavior  had always  been friendly. Obviously, appearances could  be deceiving.
 
Ever  since that day, Miranda  had felt all the responsibility  of being  the  eldest.  Though the  twins were only a year  younger, they were flighty and silly  in a way Miranda never had been. After the fire she’d been determined to rescue her siblings from the orphanage. But three years,  four months,  and two days later, here  they still  were.  Not only that, but tomorrow she would  be leaving Hannah,  Henrietta,  Josephine, Nicholas,  and Harrison behind while she escaped the tyrant who’d made  their lives at the Institute so miserable.
 
Once she was gone, her younger siblings would be at the mercy of the stern headmistress. No, stern was too kind a word.  Cruel. That was the word for Miss Iris  Birch.
 
“Do  you have  to leave,  Miranda?”   Nick  asked plaintively.
 
“I  must,”   Miranda croaked,  her throat swollen with emotion.  “I have no choice.”
 
Four-year-old Harry   crawled   under the   dining table and climbed into her lap. As his arms tightened around  her  neck he begged, “Please don’t leave, Miranda.”
 
Harry was small for his age, barely  more  than skin and  bones  and  always   sick with a  cold  that never seemed to go away. Miranda   wiped his nose with a handkerchief she always  kept with her for that purpose and pulled  him close to comfort him.
 
“DOOMED,” Hannah repeated, melodramatically placing the back of her hand across her forehead.
 
Miranda felt the urge  to console her siblings, but the situation  was likely to be every  bit as bad as they feared.
 
“There is another option.”
 
Every eye at  the  long pine dining  table turned  to Josie. She peered back  at  them  through   spectacles perched on the bridge of her freckled  nose. Josie always had her head in a library book, and she was, without a doubt,  the most  educated—and practical—of them all because of it.
 
“What is it, Josie?” Miranda asked. “I’m willing to consider anything.”
 
“Here.” Josie  unfolded  a worn advertising page of the Chicago Daily Herald on the table in front of Miranda. She pointed a grimy finger at an advertisement circled in lead pencil.
 
Everyone leaned close as Miranda  read:
 
 “WIFE WANTED: Must love children, cook, sew and do laundry.  Reply to Mr. Jacob Creed, General Delivery,  San Antonio, Texas.”
 
 Miranda tried not to appear as crestfallen  as she felt when  she looked  up and  met  Josie’s  owl-eyed gaze.   “I’m sorry, sweetie, but I don’t see how  this is going to help.”
 
“We’re DOOMED,” Hannah muttered.
 
“Forever  and  ever,”  Hetty agreed  with her twin. “Or at least for the next year, until we turn eighteen.” “What  about  me?” Nick said. “I’m  only ten. I’ve got eight more years of this hellhole to survive.” “Nicholas Jackson Wentworth!”  Miranda  scolded in a hushed  voice.  “Watch your language in front of the baby.”
 
“I’m not  a baby,” Harry protested. “I’m four. And I don’t want to stay here. Miss Birch is mean. Take me with you, Miranda,  please!”
 
“I can’t, Harry.” Miranda’s heart  ached with the pain of leaving them all behind. “You’re  safer here. All of you,” she said,  meeting the stark gazes of her siblings  around the table.
 
“Can’t we at least try to make it on our own, Miranda?” Hannah asked.
 
“It’s  the middle  of February,”  Miranda  replied in a voice made harsh   by the agony she was feeling inside.  “I can only count on a single  bed in a boarding house and a job in a kitchen.  I don’t have any way to take  care of you. Any of you.” She tenderly  brushed
 
Harry’s white-blond  hair away from his forehead.
 
On their own, they’d freeze   to death or starve and be dead in a week.  Or maybe two.  But if they all tried to leave, disaster  was a foregone conclusion.  Miranda was facing an impossible   choice. She couldn’t  stay, but she couldn’t bear to go.
 
Josie  set a  tattered   piece  of paper  on top of the newspaper  ad. “Read this.”
 
“What is it?” Hetty demanded.
 
“Something I wrote. Just read it, Miranda,” Josie urged.
 
Everyone leaned close as Miranda  read:
 
 
 
“Dear Mr. Creed,
 
I’m responding  to your advertisement for a wife. I’m eighteen, of sound mind—”
 
 Miranda looked up at  Josie. “Of  sound mind? Really, Josie—”
 
“Keep reading,” Josie  insisted. Miranda continued:
 
 "and body.  I have blue eyes and blond hair which curls by itself.”
 
 Miranda rolled her eyes but kept reading.
 
 “I can cook,  clean, iron and sew.”
 
 Nick snorted.  “I’ll  say! You can cook  gruel and scrub floors and iron linens and mend torn pajamas. I don’t think—” “Shhh! Let her finish,” Josie said. Miranda kept reading.
 
  "I love children and hope to have many of my own.”
 
 Miranda   stopped as tears  blurred her vision. She was  headed for a  life of drudgery from which  there was  no escape. She couldn’t imagine one day having a home and a husband  and children  of her own to love. Her current situation was impossibly hopeless.
 
Josie took  the paper from Miranda  and continued:
 
 “I will need first-class tickets and instructions how to meet up with  you in San Antonio. I am required to leave my present circumstances  by February 13, so I would  appreciate a reply at your earliest convenience.
 
Yours sincerely,
 
Miss Miranda Wentworth”
 
 “Oh,  sweetie,   it’s   a   wonderful idea,  a  dream, really,”  Miranda  choked out when Josie was done. “Mr. Creed  must have had  dozens  of responses. Maybe even hundreds.  He might  not be interested in me. Besides, it’s too late. By the time a letter  like this could  get all the way to San Antonio,  Texas, and an answer  come back, it will be far too late.”
 
Miss Birch would  have had weeks—or  months—in which to lay her cane  on the  backs  of Miranda’s brothers  and sisters without  Miranda there to inter cede.  She’d been  hoping  beyond hope for a solution that would allow her to take her siblings away from the Institute  when she left tomorrow.  This  was not it. She rose to usher her siblings to their cold beds.
 
“Wait! Look at this!” Josie said triumphantly.  She rose and unfolded  a crisp  piece of vellum  on the table in front of Miranda.
 
“What  is  this?”  Miranda asked,  picking up the paper.
 
“Read it,” Josie  said.
 
Miranda sat back down  on the bench as she read aloud:
 
“Dear Miss Wentworth,
 
I was pleased to receive your response to my advertisement. I understand your need for a quick response. Enclosed please find the first-class tickets you requested and instructions for your journey.
 
I will meet your stagecoach when it arrives in San Antonio.
 
Cordially yours, Mr. Jacob Creed”
 
 
 
Miranda  was aghast. “What is this?” she asked as she eyed Josie.
 
Hannah  and Hetty were goggle-eyed.
 
Josie replied with a  grin, “You’re going   to Texas, Miranda. You’re going to be married. You’re going to have a home where we can all come and live.  He must be somewhat well-to-do. He agreed to send first-class tickets.”
 
“Oh. Oh.” That was all Miranda  could manage to say. The thousand or so things  that could go wrong with such a plan ran through  her head, but her chest was near to bursting—with hope. “When did you get this?”
 
“It   came  yesterday,”  Josie said. “I   wasn’t  sure whether I should  even show  it to you, but I figured I might as well.”
 
“Why  do  you suppose  he  said yes?”  Miranda blurted.
 
“He was the only one who said  yes,” Josie replied. Miranda frowned in consternation. “How many of these advertisements  for a mail-order   bride  did you
 
answer?”
 
“About fifty or so,” Josie admitted.
 
“Where did  you  get the paper? And  the postage?” Miranda asked, amazed at her sister’s gumption.
 
Josie looked  sheepish as she replied,  “I stole  them from Miss Birch’s desk.”
 
“Oh, Josie—”
 
“Forget about  the  paper and the  postage!” Hetty said. “What are you going to do, Miranda?”
 
Miranda chewed on her lower lip as she stared  at the vellum.  “This  was the only reply to all those letters?”
 
Josie nodded.
 
“Mr.  Creed  didn’t  ask for any other information about me? Or provide any other information  about himself?” Miranda  wondered aloud.
 
Josie  looked  wary as  she replied,  “No. Is  that a problem?”
 
“I don’t know anything  about this man. He could be a murderer  or a thief  or—”
 
“He’s   our  salvation, Miranda,”   Hannah interrupted. “He’s going to get us out of here. Once you’re married to him, we can all come live with you.”
 
 
 
 
 
“I  couldn’t  possibly take  advantage of a  stranger like that!”
 
“He’s  willing to take  a wife sight unseen,”  Hetty said.  “Maybe he wouldn’t care if we came along.”
 
“I w...

Présentation de l'éditeur :

HE MAY BE HER ONLY HOPE.
SHE MAY BE HIS LAST CHANCE.
 
Miranda Wentworth never imagined becoming a mail-order bride. Now marriage to a stranger is her only hope of finding a home where she and her two younger brothers can escape the brutality of the Chicago orphanage where they live. With any luck, she can even start a family of her own, once the three of them are settled at Jacob Creed’s Texas ranch. But Miranda has one gigantic concern: Her husband-to-be knows nothing about the brothers she’s bringing along. What if he calls off the deal when he discovers the trick she’s played on him?

Jake Creed is hanging on to his Texas ranch by his fingernails. His nemesis, Alexander Blackthorne, is determined to ruin him. Jake will never give up, but he’s in desperate trouble. His wife died six months ago in childbirth, along with their stillborn son, and his two-year-old daughter needs a mother. The advertisement Jake wrote never mentioned his daughter—or the fact that he has no intention of consummating his marriage. He’s determined never to subject another wife to the burden of pregnancy. But Jake doesn’t count on finding his bride so desirable. He doesn’t count on aching with need when she joins him in bed. And he never suspected his bride would have plans of her own to seduce him.

The passionate Westerns in Joan Johnston’s Bitter Creek series can be enjoyed together or separately, in any order:
TEXAS BRIDE · WYOMING BRIDE · MONTANA BRIDE · SINFUL · SHAMELESS · BLACKTHORNE’S BRIDE · SULLIVAN’S PROMISE

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: Dell
• Date d'édition: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0345527445
• ISBN 13: 9780345527448
• Reliure: Poche
• Nombre de pages: 384