The Mail-Order Brides. Bronwyn Williams

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СКАЧАТЬ father had lost a fortune that included their very home, then shot himself rather than face ruin, Emmet had lost the wife he adored.

      “I don’t suppose his name really matters,” she said wistfully.

      Emmet watched the sparkle fade from her eyes, the smile from her face. He nodded for her to continue, and she did. “Henry and I were already engaged by the time my father—lost everything—and killed himself.” There, she’d gotten over the first hurdle.

      As if to give her time, Emmet pushed himself up from his chair and went out to the kitchen to bring her a tumbler of water. “I take it your young man didn’t stand by you.”

      “Stand by me?” Her eyes threatened to overflow, but she managed to laugh. Henry had completed the task her father had only begun, destroying any possible chance she might have had of happiness. “Hardly. You see, Henry had lost all his money by investing in the same stock scheme my father had, only neither of them realized it at the time. They’d both been told that by keeping the deal private, they stood to recoup a fortune beyond their wildest dreams—something to do with South American oil and diamonds, I think.” She spoke rapidly, as if by skating fast enough on thin ice, she could reach the other side without plunging into the freezing depths. “Evidently Henry got wind of trouble first and decided to insure his future by marrying me, Daddy’s only heir. What he didn’t realize until too late was that Daddy had mortgaged our home and invested everything he could scrape up in the same risky scheme. And then he—” She swallowed hard before she was able to continue. “Once he realized what he had done, Daddy decided that the only way to look after me was to find me a wealthy husband.”

      Ironically, she had found herself a far better husband than the one her father had chosen.

      “Henry was somewhere up north when the Wall Street Journal broke the news. When it came out, Daddy shot himself.”

      Dora breathed deeply, like a winded runner. Somewhere nearby a whippoorwill called softly to its mate, the melancholy cry almost an intrusion. The constant sound of water lapping against the shore was like music heard from a distance, while beside her, Emmet rocked slowly in the slat-back rocker, offering her time to recover.

      Now that she had put herself back in that time, that place, Dora found herself unable to go on, yet unable to stem the flow of memories.

      It was the night after her father’s funeral. Everyone in town had attended, even the servants, even though, with no money to pay them, some had already left to find other positions.

      Needing to be alone to make sense of all that had happened, Dora had wandered out to the summerhouse, with its chintz-covered settees and rattan tables and chairs—the place where Henry had proposed to her barely a month earlier.

      Henry had not returned in time for the funeral, yet she hadn’t been particularly surprised when she’d seen him that evening, following the winding path through the magnolias and cypress trees. She’d known, of course, that he would come as quickly as he could.

      She opened the door, needing more than anything in the world the undemanding comfort of his strong arms, the healing balm of his love. As if her father’s suicide hadn’t been enough of a shock, the reading of the will had left her stunned, wondering how on earth a man who had inherited wealth and accrued still more could have lost it all in less than a week.

      “He’s gone,” she’d said, her voice rising to a thin wail as she rushed into the arms of her fiancé. “Oh, Henry, Daddy’s gone—everything is gone. Tell me I’ll wake up and it will all have been a dream.”

      The vultures hadn’t even waited until after the funeral to descend. Strangers brought in by her father’s lawyers had been taking inventory for the past two days while the lawyer himself met with creditors in her father’s study. That was when she’d learned that her father had even sold her pearls, her diamond-and-sapphire bracelet and the gold-and-emerald broach he’d insisted on keeping in his office safe.

      “Henry, tell me what to do,” she’d wept in her fiancé’s arms.

      “Shh, it’ll be all right,” he’d murmured. “You still have me, sweetheart. Let me make you forget all this.”

      Feeling as if her whole world had collapsed, she’d been in desperate need of comfort and security. Several times they had come close to making love, because Henry’s kisses had been so very exciting. This time when he tossed several cushions onto the floor, eased her down and began unbuttoning her bodice, she hadn’t tried to stop him.

      It had ended far too quickly. She remembered the pain—remembered feeling chilled and oddly disappointed. As if she had reached for a rainbow that hadn’t been there. Henry had rolled over onto his back, his clothing awry, and stared up at the ceiling. Feeling bereft, she had waited for him to reassure her that their wedding would take place quietly, as soon as decently possible, because she needed him now more than ever.

      Only he hadn’t.

      When she’d asked what she should do now that her home was going to be sold out from under her, he’d looked at her as if she were a stranger.

      “What to do?” Rising to stand over her, he began tucking his shirt back into his pants. “My advice to you, dear Dora, is to find yourself a paying position. There must be something you’re good at. God knows, the last thing I need if I’m going to have to start all over again is a spoiled, whining wife hanging around my neck.”

      She remembered thinking it must be some horrible, tasteless joke. Only how could he possibly make jokes at such a time, when her whole world had crumbled around her? When she’d needed him more than ever?

      When they had done what they had just done.

      “Henry—”

      “Goddammit, Dora, I’m ruined, don’t you understand? I lost every damned cent I could beg, borrow or steal! Why do you think I asked you to marry me? Because you’re so damned irresistible? Come, girl, even you can’t be that stupid. Once I got wind that things might be headed for trouble, I started looking around for a backup plan. And there you were, daddy’s precious darling, ripe for the plucking.” In the rapidly fading light, his features had twisted into those of a stranger. “So I thought, why not? The old man can’t live forever, and once he dies, I’ll be set for life.”

      They were standing stiffly apart by then. Dora, her gaping gown held together by only a few buttons, felt behind her for a chair. “Th-that’s not true. You—you’ve been drinking. Besides, if you thought something was wrong, why didn’t you tell my father? Why didn’t you warn him before he—before he—?”

      “Before he blew his brains all over your fancy French wallpaper? Because I didn’t know the old bastard had gone out on a limb to put everything he could scrape together into the same lousy deal I had, that’s why! It was supposed to be a private, limited opportunity!” By that time he’d been yelling, patting his pockets as if to be sure he hadn’t lost anything. “Five investors, one in each state, I was told. All names kept secret, they said. Once it paid off, we’d all be rich beyond our wildest dreams. God, I can’t believe I was so stupid! They must’ve rounded up every idiot who could scrape together a few thousand dollars and sold them the same bill of goods!”

      She had stared up at him, dazed, struggling to make sense of what she was hearing after the absolute worst three days of her life. “But—but then, why did you—”

      “Allow you to seduce me?” His bark of laughter had made her flesh crawl. “Why СКАЧАТЬ