Katy Madison - Bride by Mail

Crystal earbobs danced against her pale-as-milk slender neck. She looked extravagant and indulged.

A woman who dressed as if she was due to go to a ball was all wrong for the frontier. Wrong for the hard life in a trapper’s cabin. Wrong for him.

Jack focused on the woman as he walked closer.

‘I’ll give you fifty dollars for her,’ said the man beside her.

Jack hesitated. Fifty dollars was a lot of money—not as much as it had cost to get her here, but enough that he could reconsider and send for another bride.

Olivia’s eyes widened.

‘Unhand her,’ Jack said softly.

New Mills & Boon® Historical author

Katy Madison

invites you to her

WILD WEST WEDDINGS

Mail-order brides for three hard-working, hard-living men!

Three penniless East Coast ladies are prepared to give up everything they know for the lure of the West. Will they find new beginnings, new families and eventual happiness as mail-order brides?

Their advertisements answered, three rugged frontiersmen await their new brides—with eagerness and not a little trepidation!

What have they all let themselves in for?

Read Olivia’s story in

BRIDE BY MAIL

and look for Anna’s and Selina’s stories

Coming soon!

Bride by Mail

Katy Madison

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Award-winning author KATY MADISONloves stories. As a child she was always lugging around a book. At the age of eight, after having read over a hundred Nancy Drew mysteries, all the Laura Ingalls Wilder books and a full weekly allotment of library books, Katy went to her mother and begged for a new book to read. Her frustrated mother handed her a romance novel. Katy fell in love with the genre. She quickly discovered where her mother hid the rest and began sneaking them out to read.

Now she gets to write romances and live the glamorous life of a writer—which mostly means she stays in her pyjamas all day and never uses an alarm clock. Katy thinks nothing is better than curling up with a good book.

Visit her on the web at www.katymadison.com

This is Katy Madison’s fabulous debut novel for Mills & Boon ®Historical Romance!

AUTHOR NOTE

This is the first of my Wild West Weddings series, following three young women working in a cotton mill in Connecticut. When the Civil War halts cotton shipments the three of them answer advertisements for mail-order brides. After exchanging a few letters that take months to reach their destination, they set out to marry men they’ve never seen.

In the early years women were scarce on the frontier. Men often had to send back to the East to find brides. The lure of the West always held promises to Americans of yesteryear. The frontier provided a chance for a new beginning, plentiful land, and reward for hard work. But what incredible bravery it must have taken to leave everything behind and go west to marry a virtual stranger.

This first story is about Olivia and Jack. Ever since her parents died in a tragic train accident Olivia has wanted to find where she belongs. She doesn’t realise she has inner strength and hopes to find a protector in Jack. He doesn’t see her strength either, and is certain it won’t be long before she flees from the tough life in the Rocky Mountains.

For history buffs, the train accident that Olivia survived really happened in 1853, in Norwalk, Connecticut. The official death toll was fixed at fifty-six, although some bodies were never found, and many others were severely injured.

I hope you’ll enjoy the adventures of Olivia, Anna, and Selina.

Please visit me on the web at www.katymadison.com

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Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter One

Denver City, Colorado Territory

May 1862

Twenty-seven-year-old fur trader seeks wife and helpmate. Have cabin with cookstove in Rocky Mountains. Must be brave woman with calm nature.

Olivia Hansson stepped down to the dusty street. Her shaking hands spoiled her attempt to look calm.

“Here you go, miss.” The stagecoach driver set her mother’s trunk on the boarded walk behind her.

Tossed from the roof of the stage, her carpetbag thudded next to her feet. The outrider pitched down more bags, raising a cloud. During the harrowing race across the Western prairies, his eyes had held a flinty look, scanning the horizon for danger at every stop.

Raw wood buildings blocked any view of the mountains. The sprawl of buildings with crazy false fronts substituting for second stories was a far cry from Connecticut. The farther West she’d gone, the more often city was tacked on to any cluster of buildings, but she was a little relieved the outrider no longer looked as if he feared attack from every direction.

“Gentlemen, grub and beds are available at the saloon,” said the driver. He cast a sideways look at Olivia. “Are you being met, ma’am?”

“Yes, thank you.” Her husband-to-be would retrieve her. As soon as the stagecoach and crowd cleared out of the way, she would surely see Jack Trudeau.

Her heart skittering, she smoothed a gloved hand over her lavender jacket and tugged the bottom to erase any wrinkles that might have formed. Meeting one’s groom didn’t happen every day.

In her best anticipation of how the first meeting would go, her beauty would astound him. Not that she really expected that. She pinched her cheeks and bit her lips to force color into her too-pale countenance. She didn’t consider herself more than passably pretty, but compared to the careworn women on the frontier, she would do well by contrast. Thanks to her mother’s carriage gown, she was better dressed than any woman she’d seen since leaving Kansas City. Surely Jack would be pleased with her appearance.

“We’ll head back East tomorrow morning.” The driver held her gaze a moment as if warning her to return to a more civilized place.

Her throat went dry. She couldn’t afford a return trip. What little money she’d possessed she’d used in a fruitless search for her father’s assets.

Her fellow travelers, all men, trudged across the street and into the saloon, but no man waited for her.

The driver and the outrider drove the empty stage through the open double doors of a livery stable. They exited laden with mailbags and toted them down the street. She waited alone.

The wind kicked up gritty dust. Olivia held down her hat and searched for a man wearing buckskins. She resisted the urge to reach into her reticule and retrieve the photograph he’d sent at her request.

When the months without a reply had stretched to December and the pressure to answer another advertisement from the Matrimonial News had almost grown too much to bear, she feared her request had put him off. Then Mr. Trudeau’s letter had arrived.