The Mail-Order Brides. Bronwyn Williams

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СКАЧАТЬ think of himself as a visionary. Generous but firm. According to the terms of the old land grant, no St. Bride could sell so much as a grain of sand, but there was nothing to say he couldn’t give it away. So as an added inducement, part of the marriage bargain was to deed each married man an acre of land and the material to build a house.

      His plan included an initial exchange of letters with any applicant before he arranged for her outward passage. Those who didn’t pass muster would be sent back with enough funds to support them until they could make other arrangements. He hated to send any woman back, knowing she had to be desperate to even answer such an advertisement, but if his plan was to work at all, he had to maintain standards. It took a special kind of woman to survive on a barrier island like St. Brides. Rejecting those he deemed unsuitable was actually a kindness.

      But it also meant that his plan was progressing far slower than he had hoped.

      As a shaft of sun glinted on the head of golden hair a few hundred yards down the road, Grey eased his hands from his pockets and crossed his arms over his broad chest. He could easily have met the woman at the landing and interviewed her there, as he’d be leaving within the hour. It would have saved time. But experience had taught him that distance lent him the perspective he needed to make a judgment. Gave him time to watch a prospective bride and size her up. By the time she reached him, he would likely have made up his mind whether or not she would do.

      From what he’d seen so far, this one looked none too promising. A man needed good stock if he hoped to breed up a passel of strong St. Bridians. The woman coming up the road looked as if a stiff breeze would send her tumbling tip over toenails.

      Eyes narrowed against the sudden glare of the sun, Grey studied the yellow-haired woman who was trying to hold down her skirts with one hand, hang on to her valise with the other, and still keep her hair out of her face as she staggered up the road toward him.

      Staggered?

      A fair man, he gave her the benefit of doubt. Walking in sand and shell took some getting used to when a woman was accustomed to sidewalks or hard clay roads. Then, too, she’d just crossed the Pamlico Sound. With a thirty-knot breeze out of the northeast, the waters might be a bit choppy. The effects took a while to wear off.

      On the other hand, he needed women who were sound of wind and limb. Even with his inspection hampered by layers of billowing skirts, it was plain to see there wasn’t much in the way of flesh on this one. Maybe he should have specified a minimum weight. No runts need apply.

      Grey made every effort to evaluate the woman objectively, but something in the way she moved distracted him. Such as the way her arms would fly out for balance when her foot caught the edge of a deep rut or a clump of uncrushed shell. When a gust of wind caught her skirt and she swatted it down again, offering him a clear view of the shape underneath, he barely managed to hang on to his objectivity. Shifting uncomfortably, he found himself reacting in a way that was not only inappropriate but damned embarrassing.

      Waiting until she was close enough to see the set of her features—he firmly believed that given the right circumstances, a woman’s disposition could be read in her face—he descended the worn wooden steps. Obviously, she was tired and irritated. Only to be expected. Other than that, he couldn’t quite decide. She was a real beauty, though, and beauty was definitely not an asset on an island where men were men and women were rare.

      He’d intended her for James Calvin, his chief carpenter. Thank God he hadn’t told him she was due in today, because he was going to have to send this one back and try again. Whatever else she might be, a woman with her looks was trouble just waiting to happen. The last thing he needed was to set the men fighting over her like a pack of mangy hounds.

      At the foot of the dune, Dora stopped and watched the man striding toward her. This was Grey St. Bride? This was the man who had advertised for a wife?

      There must be something terribly wrong with him—something that didn’t show from the outside. Either that or the brandy had affected her eyesight, because even from this distance he appeared to be strikingly handsome. Tall, with a rangy sort of leanness that reminded her of the live oak stumps she’d noticed along the shore, worn down to heartwood by centuries of wind and water.

      “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 СКАЧАТЬ