The Mail-Order Brides

“Mrs. Sutton?”

Dora remembered just in time that on her application she’d claimed to be a widow. “Mr. St. Bride?”

Warily, silently, they sized each other up. Dora, still reeling from the long crossing, swayed on her feet. Forcing back a lingering queasiness, she managed a parody of a smile. “What a—an interesting place,” she said. It was the best she could come up with. Bleak. Stark. Inhospitable. Definitely the ends of the earth. “I’m sure it must be quite lovely in the summertime.” It’s the middle of April, for heaven’s sake. If ever a place is going to be lovely, surely it would be by now.

Grey took in everything about the woman, then wished he hadn’t. Seeing her at close range only confirmed his decision. Skin that pale, that soft, would never survive the harsh climate. As for her hands, if they’d ever done a lick of work it couldn’t have been anything more strenuous than wielding one of those fancy feather fans society ladies used for flirting.

Her eyes were the color of Spanish moss, shifting from gray to green. A man could lose his wits trying to figure out exactly which color they were.

“Not got your land legs under you yet, Mrs. Sutton? The trouble with living on an island is that there’s only one way to travel. I’ll be glad to pay for your time, but I’m afraid—” His keen senses picked up the smell of brandy. And while he wasn’t one to hold the occasional drink against anyone, man or woman, it was just one more thing he could chalk up against this particular woman. She was too frail, too pretty, and evidently prone to drink.

She’d never last out a month. If the hard work expected of a St. Bridian woman didn’t defeat her, the solitude surely would. Pretty soon she’d insist on leaving, and then, there would go his best carpenter. It had happened before. What man, offered a choice between work on a desolate island and a woman like this, would choose the job?

“Darling, you can’t possibly expect me to move out to that wretched island of yours. I’d wither and die within a week.”

Echoes of the past. Grey blocked them out and studied this small butterfly of a woman before him. The women who replied to the advertisements he’d been placing monthly were inclined to be plain, verging onto outright homely. If they could have found a husband at home, they would never have applied to his advertisement. It didn’t take a Solomon to know that whatever she was doing here, this one would be nothing but trouble, setting the men against one another.

Besides which, he wasn’t altogether immune to her himself. If he’d had no other reason to reject her, that would be enough.

“Mrs. Sutton, I’m afraid you won’t do. I mean this purely as a kindness, for you’d never survive. For the most part the men here are decent enough, but they’re a rough sort. Their wives will have to be tough as nails to stake a claim and hang on to it.”

Grey found it all but impossible to meet her eyes, though he was commonly known as a direct man. Shifting his weight on his big, booted feet, he tried to think of some compelling reason that might convince her to leave. He could hardly tell her that he hadn’t been this tempted by a woman in years, especially not one who reeked of brandy and looked as if she’d just been tipped head over heels out of a handcart.

“I’m tough,” she said, meeting his gaze with surprising directness.

“The nearest doctor is almost a day’s sail from here.”

“I’m healthy as a horse,” she said calmly.

“We’ve no amenities—no shops or tearooms—the kind of places ladies like to spend time.”

“I can do without those.” One by one, she continued to swat down his arguments, as if daring him to send her away.

“Dammit—begging your pardon, ma’am, but you’re too pretty! If I let you stay, the other men will never be satisfied with plainer women, and you must know, those who come out here are mostly ones who can’t find a husband anywhere else.”

She blinked those incredible eyes of hers. At least she didn’t simper. Finally she said, “I can be plain. I am, honestly, it’s just this gown—pink is—it’s so flattering.”

The air left his lungs in a hefty, hopeless sigh. Dammit, he felt like a dog, but for her own sake—for the sake of his peaceable community—for the sake of his own peace of mind, she had to go. “Your return passage won’t cost you a penny. The Bessie Mae & Annie belongs to me, her captain is in my employ. Naturally I’ll pay for your time….” He reached for his wallet.

Pay for her time? Dora thought wildly. Time was not a problem. Time, she had aplenty. What she didn’t have was another place to go. She had burned all her bridges—or rather they’d been burned for her. After coming all the way out to the ends of the earth, where could she go from here? Off the edge?

Pride fought with anger and desperation. After an exchange of letters—two on her part, one on his—her passage had been arranged. It had never once occurred to her that after all that, she would be rejected.

Fighting the urge to batter him with her fists, she forced back her anger and reached for pride. Head held high, she glanced disdainfully at the bills fluttering in his hand and turned away before the tears could overflow. She might have to crawl behind a sand dune to bawl her eyes out on the way back to the boat, but she would die before she would let him see her shed a single tear.

“Mrs. Sutton?” he called after her.

“I don’t need your money,” she pronounced clearly without turning around. “As you said, there are no shops here, no tearoom—why on earth would I even want to stay?”

“But Mrs. Sutton—”

She kept on walking as fast as she could, hoping to be well out of range when the dam broke. As it would. She was just too tired, too empty—too totally without hope, to hold back much longer.

The church. If she could just make it as far as the church…

But before she even reached the church, someone called out in a wavering, pain-filled voice. “Miss? Could I bother you for a hand up?”

Blinking away the moisture, she glanced over the neat picket fence and saw that the man who’d been standing on a ladder when she’d passed by the first time was now lying on the ground.

Without a second thought, she swung open the gate and hurried to his side. “What happened? Are you hurt?”

Obviously he was hurt. “My ankle,” he said with an apologetic look. “It’s not as young as I thought it was.”

It took her a moment to realize he was attempting a joke. In spite of her own situation, she was touched. “Let me help you sit up, and then we’ll see what needs to be done.”

He was not a large man. Pain clouded his eyes, but he managed a smile that cut through her defenses. Her own tears would have to wait.

Obviously embarrassed at having to ask for help, he attempted to lean forward to unlace his boots. With a soft, impatient murmur, Dora brushed his hands away and carefully removed his boot.

“Oh, dear.”

“Would you mind fetching St. Bride before he gets away? If he’ll help me into the house, I’ll be fine in no time at all.”

“It could be broken,” she said.

Fetch St. Bride? She’d sooner fetch the devil himself.

“Wrenched it good, that’s all. I’ve broke enough bones to know the difference.” His weathered face had paled noticeably. Dora could only hope he was right. Hadn’t the dragon king mentioned that there was no doctor on the island?

“If you’ll lean on me, I can help you inside. My father sprained his ankle once. They had to cut his boot off, it swelled so quickly.”

The injured man twisted around, peering hopefully at the house on the ridge of dunes while Dora looked for something to help her get him inside. A crutch, or even a walking stick would be perfect, but she was going to have to improvise. Scanning the tidy yard, she looked past the fallen ladder, past a sagging net pen holding a goose and several chickens to a handcart filled with gardening tools and a small wooden crate. Perhaps she could wheel him up to his porch and…

Perhaps not. It would have to be the crate. Dragging it closer, she managed to get him up off the ground and seated. Sweat beaded his furrowed face, but he thanked her as politely as if she’d offered him milk and sugar for his tea.

“As soon as you catch your breath, we’ll take the next step,” she said firmly. She might not measure up to his lordship’s lofty standards, but at least this much she could do before she left. “There now, if you’ll just take my hands…”

He was only a few inches taller than she was, and frail for a man who looked as if he might once have been far more robust. The steps up onto the porch were a problem, but patiently, she supported him until, hobbling beside her, he managed to get inside.

“There now, if you’ll just steer me to the settee I’ll rest a spell until the swelling goes down. I thank you kindly, that I do.”

“Who lives here with you?” Surely he had someone to look after him. The almighty St. Bride would have seen to that.

“Buried my wife two years ago, out by the fig trees. I’ve managed on my own since then. Can’t say I’m not glad you come along when you did, though. If that old gander of Sal’s was to get out again, we’d have had us a real set-to, with me down on his level.”

Hating her feelings of inadequacy, Dora located a towel, dipped it in a basin of cold water and applied it to his swollen ankle. In other circumstances she might have been embarrassed at such an intimacy, but the man was obviously in pain. She could hardly leave him here alone.

Besides, it wasn’t as if she had anywhere else to go. The boat that had brought her to the island would probably be returning to Bath as soon as it finished its business here. She could hardly go back there.

“I have a few minutes before I have to leave. What else can I do to make you comfortable before I leave?” she asked brightly.

He appeared to consider the offer. And then he said, “You’re one of St. Bride’s women, aren’t you?”

One of St. Bride’s women? How many did the man have, for heaven’s sake?

“You know about that? About the advertisement?” Fighting to keep despair from her voice, Dora managed to smile.

Ignoring her question, Emmet Meeks said, “’Pears to me we could both use a cup of strong tea, missy.”

“Dora,” she murmured. “Dora Sutton.” She had left Adora behind. The only good thing about being rejected was not having to go on with a lie. Or face the shame of admitting how gullible she’d been to believe Henry when he’d said he loved her. Of allowing him to—

Yes, well…from now on out, she was simply Dora.

“Emmet Meeks,” the man replied, still pale, still obviously in pain, but determined to hide it. It occurred to her that they were two of a kind in that respect. “My wife, rest her soul, swore by tea. Said coffee rotted a man’s bones. Reckon maybe that might be what ails mine?” His smile was more of a grimace, but it occurred to her that he must once have been a handsome man.

It also occurred to her that he was not in the best of health, sprained ankle notwithstanding.

The cottage was scrupulously neat. The walls had been whitewashed, the effect being warm and bright, with a faint pattern of wood grain showing through. There were hand-crocheted rugs on the floors and a basket of onions and withered apples on the kitchen table. Homely touches one would expect of a woman, but hardly of a man.

While Dora filled the kettle, her host told her where to find the teapot. “I can’t stay long,” she reminded him, almost wishing she could. Wishing she could linger in this unlikely sanctuary until she could think of what to do next, where to go. With no money, no family and no friends—with her reputation irredeemably shattered—perhaps she could just stay right here in this warm, friendly room and sip tea forever.

That old woman? Oh, that’s Dora Sutton. Ruined herself over on the mainland, don’t you know. Couldn’t go back, couldn’t go forward, so she just sat there and drank tea until she withered up like a dried plum.

Chapter Two

Once she had brewed a pot of strong tea, which more or less exhausted her culinary talents, Dora looked about for her valise and remembered that she’d left it out in the yard. She would tell someone at the docks—that nice red-haired man, perhaps—about Mr. Meeks’s ankle. Surely he would see to sending someone along to do whatever needed doing.

“So you’re one of Grey’s brides,” Meeks repeated. “Who’re you going to marry?”

Who? Well, no one, it seemed. Dora sat back down and stared at the man reclining on an old-fashioned settee in the tiny parlor. Pride alone kept her from telling him she’d been found wanting. He’d thought she was too pretty? Absurd, she told herself, feeling a rising inner heat that had to be anger. “Well…that remains to be seen, doesn’t it?”

“My Sal was the first,” Emmet confided wistfully. “Grey ordered her out special for me. Couldn’t have done better if I’d picked her out myself, and that’s the Lord’s truth. St. Bride deeded me an acre of land and the lumber to build us this home. Helped build it with his own hands, he did.” It was as if once the man began to talk, he couldn’t seem to stem the flow. “He builds one-room cabins for the single men, but he don’t deed ’em over until six months after they marry. So far, none of ’em that’s married has stayed that long. That makes me the only man on the island besides St. Bride to own so much as a grain of sand.” Pride was evident in his pale face.

But beneath the pride, there was loneliness. Dora understood grief and loneliness all too well. Somewhat to her surprise, she was tempted to pour out her own tale. What would it matter? He was a stranger, someone she would never meet again after today.

But telling wouldn’t change anything, it would only open the wounds again. The time for grieving was past. She had her future to secure now.

“Mr. Meeks, I really do need to leave now if I’m to catch the boat. I promise, though, I’ll send someone back to look after you.”

In a younger man, his smile might have been called teasing. “Call me Emmet. Been a while since I heard a lady speak my name.”

“Then, Emmet, I’d better hurry. It’s been—well, of course, the circumstances weren’t the best, but I’m truly glad I met you. Perhaps one of these days…”

What could she offer? Not friendship—there wasn’t time. “Perhaps Mr. St. Bride will find you another wife. Not to take the place of your first wife,” she added hurriedly. “I know no one could do that, but someone—a companion…”

“A companion,” he echoed wistfully. “Should’ve thought to tell him before he left.”

Before he left?

“Is Mr. St. Bride leaving, too?” If his high-and-mightiness was sailing on the same boat she was, she just might end up shoving him overboard to see if he could walk on water.

“Gone a’ready. Saw him set off across the ridge while you were helpin’ me to the house. Probably all the way out past Pelican Shoal by now, with the wind where it is.”

“He’s gone?” Dora didn’t know whether to rejoice or despair. At least he wouldn’t be sharing the cramped passenger cabin with her all the way across the Sound.

“Then I’d better—”

“Settle down, child. If you were fixin’ to sail with Cap’n Dozier you’re too late. He’s halfway out the channel by now, won’t come about for nobody, so you might’s well settle yourself in for a spell of waiting. Mail boat’s due in day after tomorrow. You could catch a ride out then if you’re still set on leaving. Dozier’ll be back the day after that.”

Settle herself in how? Where? She would like to think she’d begun to mature in spite of her father’s indulgences—the events of the past six weeks had surely hastened the process. But panic was her first reaction. What was she supposed to do, build herself a sand castle? Throw herself on the mercy of the first friendly face she came across?

Hardly. Foremost among the hard lessons she’d been forced to learn was that the world did not revolve around the Suttons. If she was to survive, it would be up to her to find a way.

“The—Mr. St. Bride, that is—um, happened to mention that my passage was paid on the Bessie Mae & Annie. What about the mail boat? Is it very expensive? Where would be her next port of call?”

“Well now, as to that, Grey owns the Bessie Mae. Mail boat’s a different matter—she don’t have much room for passengers. Won’t cost you much for deck space, but if I was you, I’d wait.”

Wait for what? Dora thought with the first fine edge of panic. Wait to be sent back to Bath, where women she’d known all her life would turn away and even cross the street to avoid embarrassment when they saw her coming? Where the men would look her up and down with a certain speculative gleam in their eyes that made her feel as if she’d wandered outside in her drawers and corselet?

No, thank you.

Where she would have too much pride to beg and too few resources to keep from starving?

No, thank you indeed!

“I don’t suppose there’s a—um, a boardinghouse here?” Where she could wash dishes to earn her keep until she could think of something better to do.

Emmet shook his head. “No need for one. There’s a longhouse for the pilots up at North End. Been inlet pilots here long’s there’s been a good inlet, ready to go out and meet incoming traffic, guide ’em across the shoals. Come August, there’s mullet fishermen, but now we got more of a permanent population. Like I said, St. Bride built cabins for them that don’t stay in the barracks.”

“What about the—the women? Where do they stay?” Surely she could find someplace to shelter until she could get off St. Bride’s blasted island.

“When Sal was here, we took one of ’em in. Didn’t stay long, poor woman. Lit out on the mail boat two days after she come. Since then, if the circuit preacher’s not here, they stay at the parsonage. If he’s here, he moves up to Grey’s house, let’s ’em have his place until things is settled one way or the other. Like I said, so far none of ’em’s stuck more’n a month or two, ’ceptin’ for my Sal.”

“Do you suppose—?” She hardly dared voice the question. If it involved the cooperation of Grey St. Bride, she knew in advance the answer. Having ordered her to leave, he would expect her to be gone. Instead she’d stopped to help someone in need and missed the boat. He could hardly blame her for that…could he?

“Now, if you was to want to stay here until the Bessie Mae gets back” Emmet said thoughtfully, “reckon there’s not much Grey could say about it, seein’s he deeded this place to me, fair and square.”

Dora looked about the small cottage. There appeared to be several rooms, including the kitchen off the back. There was also a narrow, steep stairway leading to what must be more rooms or an attic. Altogether, compared to Sutton Hall, Emmet’s cottage was scarcely larger than the servants’ quarters out behind their carriage house.

Odd that it should feel so…safe. Did she dare stay here long enough to plan her next move? No matter how despotic he might be, St. Bride could hardly chase her off his island as long as she remained on the part of it that Emmet owned.

Stalling for time until she could weigh her options, Dora said, “Would you like more tea? Perhaps I could—” Cook his dinner?

Hardly. She wouldn’t know how to start. She’d been no more truthful in her application when she had claimed to be a capable woman than she had when she’d called herself a widow.

Heaven help her if she had actually married St. Bride, as she had naively expected to, and he’d discovered the extent of her lies.

Fortunately, Emmet seemed more interested in talking than in dining. “Did I tell you about Sal? I buried her out by the fig trees. Sal used to race out there of a morning to beat the mockingbirds to the ripe figs.” His smile was for another woman, another time. Dora started to speak, but he continued, and so she leaned back in the uncomfortable spindle-backed chair, determined to be the audience he so obviously needed. She might be shockingly inadequate in most respects, but she could certainly listen for as long as he wanted to talk.

“Now’n again I haul a chair out there by her grave and study on the way things turn out in a man’s life. Planning don’t do much good, not when there’s a Master Planner up there with his own notions of how things is going to turn out.”

“Fate,” Dora murmured. She knew all about the way life’s chessboard could tilt with no warning, sending all the pieces crashing to the floor.

He nodded. “Some calls it luck—some might call it fate when a young woman happens by an old man’s house just when his sand’s about to run out. Does she stop and help when the old fool climbs up a ladder and takes a fall, or does she walk on by?”

Inside her flimsy kid slippers, Dora’s toes curled. What was he trying to say? That fate had directed her to his gate just as another door slammed shut in her face? Whatever it was he suggesting, could she afford not to listen? If she’d already missed the boat, what choice did she have?

“St. Bride, he signed up the circuit preacher before he sent for the first brace o’women. My Sal was one of ’em. With our own preacher on the line, we could send for him whenever there was any splicin’ that needed doing without having to sail o’er and hitch up on the mainland.”

Dora waited. She had a feeling he was leading up to something, only she couldn’t imagine what it could be. Surely he wasn’t about to ask her to marry him.

“Works out real good. Course, there’s not a lot for a preacher to do here less’n there’s a marrying. Not much sinnin’ to preach at, not like some of his other charges where they have saloons and wild women. Grey won’t tolerate sinnin’ on St. Brides—says if he allows sinnin’, first thing you know he’ll have to bring in a sawbones and a sheriff.”

Most of the color had returned to his weathered face. Dora murmured something to the effect that a doctor might be useful, but Emmet, now that his initial discomfort had lessened, seemed more inclined to talk than to listen.

“Now, Preacher Filmore, he’s a good man. Give you the shirt off’n his back if you need it. The Lord sort of slowed up his talking so folks wouldn’t miss any of his words. Trouble is, I listen a whole lot faster than he talks, and besides that, he don’t even play checkers. Not even for black-eyed peas. Calls it gambling, and gambling’s a sin in his book. So you can see the fix I’m in.”

She couldn’t, but she was beginning to see where the conversation might be headed. Evidently, the slow-talking minister would be expected to take care of Mr. Meeks and keep him entertained until he was on his feet again.

And just as evidently, Mr. Meeks’s patience would be sorely tested.

“Now Grey, he’s a meddler, for all he means well. Long as they’re living here on his island, a man don’t have no choice but to go ’long with his notions, ’specially since they generally turn out right good. I reckon he told you about the plans he has to pair up the single men with wives and start raising younguns?”

She wasn’t about to admit that she’d come here believing St. Bride meant to marry her himself.

“Used to be families living out here back in his pa’s day. Storms run most of ’em off. Shoreside washed in near half a mile. Since then, sand covered up just about everything left standing. He tell you about that?”

She shook her head. The man had told her little except that life on his island was hard, and that she would never be able to survive here. He could hardly know she had survived far worse than wild winds and raging seas.

He had also told her she was pretty. No one had ever told her that before—at least, not without wanting something from her.

“Won’t be easy, finding a schoolteacher. Finding the preacher and getting him to take on another charge was hard enough. Poor man can’t hardly keep up with things as it is. Like I said, he talks so slow it takes him two hours to get through a one-hour sermon.” He chuckled, and Dora felt some of the tension that had gripped her ever since she had recklessly answered the advertisement begin to ease.

“Licensed to marry folks, though, that’s mainly what he’s here for. Married Sal and me, right and proper. We was older than some, but when Sal came out, St. Bride, he thought we’d suit, set a good example, he said.” Nodding, he added, “Said words over her grave when I buried her.” He paused as if, satisfied with his summary, he was searching for his next topic. He had told her several times over about his wonderful Sal. The poor man was obviously starved for companionship.