Bronwyn Williams - The Mail-Order Brides

Not that she even owned any serviceable shoes.

Besides, she’d wanted to make a good first impression.

Imagining every man on the waterfront staring at her the way the men had before she’d left Bath, she wished she could shrink even smaller than she was. As that was impossible, she stiffened her back, staggered once and continued her march toward what would soon be her home.

A homely yellow dog raced past her, followed by half a dozen others. After one shaggy brown creature nearly knocked her off her feet, she regained her balance and gazed around her, trying not to feel too discouraged. The house on the ridge didn’t improve at closer range. Not the slightest effort had been made to adorn its uncompromising façade. Window boxes might be a nice touch. And perhaps a porch swing, or some lovely rattan furniture.

If her prospective bridegroom was anything like his house, she was beginning to feel less certain of her future. The least the man could have done was meet her when she arrived. The very least.

Passing a raw wooden shack halfway along the road, she wondered if it could possibly be a church. While there was no steeple, someone had erected a cross over the doorway. She tried and failed to imagine being married in such a place.

It was no easier than picturing herself marrying a total stranger.

Numerous sandy footpaths cut away from the main road, leading to what appeared to be several one-room cabins. Off in the distance she saw a long wooden structure with a shed jutting off the back. The few trees she saw were stunted, bent low as if by a constant wind.

Not a single shop in sight. She sighed, thinking perhaps she should have waited to be met. Then, at least, she could have asked questions before committing herself completely. If only she hadn’t been so determined to demonstrate just how strong, capable and sensible she was. To prove that she met every single qualification Mr. St. Bride had specified in his advertisement for a wife.

A shaft of sunlight broke through the dark, racing clouds. She told herself it was a good omen after a stormy crossing. You listen here to me, Dora Sutton—whatever he’s like, the man would never have advertised for a wife if he hadn’t wanted one.

That in itself was encouraging…wasn’t it?

Nor, she reminded herself, would she have responded if she hadn’t been desperate. A husband was the last thing in the world she wanted, but at that point she’d had little recourse. Which was why, professing to be a widow, she had written her qualifications, and Mr. St. Bride had arranged her passage, and now here she was, for better or worse.

It could hardly be worse than what she had left behind.

Stepping on another broken shell, she hopped on one foot and steadied herself on the picket fence she happened to be passing. Beyond the fence stood a cozy-looking cottage, far smaller than the house on the ridge, but larger than any she had seen so far. Behind the house, an elderly man on a ladder appeared to be repairing the roof of an outbuilding of some sort. As the entire contraption was leaning, it hardly seemed worth the effort, but then, that was the least of Dora’s concerns.

Waving away a cloud of midges, she trudged on, setting her sights hopefully on the gaunt structure ahead. The brisk, salt-scented breeze helped to clear her head but did little to steady her legs. She still felt as if she were on a rolling deck, although the captain had assured her that the effects would pass quickly.

Evidently she was no better a drinker than she was a sailor.

The closer she came, the more she dreaded the coming interview. To think that not long ago she’d been celebrating her engagement. Henry Carpenter Smythe, a young man her father had met on a business trip to Richmond and brought home with him, had seemed to be everything any woman could want. Handsome, with lovely manners and a delightful sense of humor, he had quietly let it be known, without actually boasting, that he was more than comfortably situated.

Dora had been smitten at first glance. Intent on impressing him, she had arranged a dinner party and invited a dozen of her closest friends, praying that Henry wouldn’t fall instantly in love with her best friend, Selma, who was easily the most beautiful woman in their set.

He’d been polite to all her friends, but no more than that. At her father’s invitation, he had extended his stay at Sutton Hall, and two weeks later, after a whirlwind courtship that had been encouraged by her father, Henry had asked her to marry him.

On St. Valentine’s Day he had given her a handsome diamond ring and they’d begun making plans for the wedding. They had talked of June weddings and bridesmaid gowns and flowers, and who Henry’s best man would be.

“If I’d seen him first,” Selma had declared, “he would have been mine.” She’d said it in jest, but there’d been something about the way she’d persisted in hanging on to Henry’s arm at every meeting, quizzing him about his friends and asking if he had a brother, that had made Dora rather uncomfortable.

But then, at the time, Dora had been increasingly concerned over her father’s health. He’d lost weight and seemed distraught. Even if she hadn’t fallen in love with Henry, she would have encouraged him to stay because her father seemed to perk up in the younger man’s company.

When Henry had asked for her hand, her father had beamed, offered his blessing and urged them not to wait. “I’m looking forward to seeing my first grandson before I die,” he kept saying, and each time, Dora would hasten to assure him that he would soon be teaching a raft of grandsons to ride, to hunt and fish.

One or two, she’d thought privately. After a few years. First she wanted time alone with her husband who, seemingly every bit as eager to wed, had talked about the trips they would take together, the home they would build, the children they would eventually have…

That had been in February. Now here she was, barely two months later—orphaned, seasick, tipsy and penniless—about to face a future as the mail-order bride of a man she had yet to meet, in the most godforsaken place she had ever seen in her entire life.

Well…not quite godforsaken, she amended. There was the tiny, steepleless church.

Standing on his wide front porch, a tall, dark-haired man slid a pair of leather-palmed hands into the hip pockets of his lean canvas trousers as he gazed with satisfaction over his windswept island. He’d watched as Dozier’s bugeye, the Bessie Mae & Annie, pulled alongside the dock. Watched the men swarm aboard, lift the hatches and begin unloading freight. Still others tackled a deck cargo of lumber, swinging bundles off onto the wharf. Clarence’s crew of warehousemen began logging in and transferring crates to the warehouse for future shipment, setting aside a few small parcels to be brought up to the house.

Grey nodded in satisfaction. They knew what they were about, the men of St. Brides. A bit rough but, for the most part, good men, deserving of all he had done for them. All he planned to do.

Today’s woman, however, couldn’t have come at a more awkward time. He needed to leave within the hour if he wanted to reach Edenton by tomorrow morning. His brother, Jocephus, after setting up a meeting with another ship owner with a view to consolidating their two businesses, had asked Grey to take part in the negotiations, even though Grey had no direct interest. While his brother might be better at reading fine print, Grey was the acknowledged expert when it came to reading men.

Circumstances had made Grey St. Bride what he was. Some called him arrogant because he made laws as he saw fit and expected those laws to be obeyed. Grey didn’t see it as arrogance, but simply as the only way to keep peace among the tough, independent men who lived and worked on St. Brides Island.