The Engagement Bargain. Sherri Shackelford

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СКАЧАТЬ bright yellow dress and white pinafore, scooted in beside Caleb. She rested her chin on the barricade and stared at the podium.

      Caleb frowned.

      While the onlookers currently appeared harmless, this wasn’t the place for an unattended child. “Shouldn’t you be at home? Or in school or something?”

      Two dark blond braids rested on the girl’s shoulders, and she blinked her solemn gray eyes. “She’s the prettiest lady I ever saw.” The girl’s voice quivered with admiration.

      “The prettiest lady I’ve ever seen.”

      “You like her, too?”

      “No, that is....”

      The woman on the stage announced Anna Bishop, and the girl’s face lit up.

      Caleb held his explanation. He’d been correcting his younger brothers’ speech for years, and the habit was ingrained.

      The girl in the yellow dress rose onto the balls of her feet and stared. Caleb followed her gaze and froze. He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands and looked again. Anna Bishop couldn’t have been much older than her midtwenties or thereabouts. Her dark hair was smoothed away from her face and capped with a pert velvet hat decorated with an enormous teal plumed feather. Her skin was radiant, clear and pale, her cheeks blushed with excitement.

      The cartoons he’d seen in the newspapers had depicted Miss Bishop as a dreary spinster with a pointed jaw and beady eyes. Having expected a much less flamboyant person, he fixated on the vibrant details. Her satin dress matched her feathered hat in the same deep, rich shade of turquoise. Rows of brilliant brass buttons created a chevron pattern mimicking a military style. The material at her waist was draped and pulled back into a modest bustle, the flounces lined with rope fringe.

      She glanced his way, and he caught a glimpse of her eyes. Blue. Clear, brilliant blue.

      His heartbeat skittered before resuming its normal rhythm. Miss Bishop marched up the stairs and exchanged a few words with the woman who’d made the introduction, then faced her audience.

      “I am here as a person whose opinions, according to the laws of this nation, are of no merit to my community. I am here as a soldier in a great Civil War to amend this gross injustice,” she declared, her lyrical voice pulsating with each word.

      As she detailed the importance of the amendment, her eyes flashed, and the passion in her voice swelled. “We live in a country founded on the right of revolution and rebellion on the part of those suffering from intolerable injustice. We cannot fail to recognize the injustices heaped on one half of the population simply because that half is female. The Fifteenth Amendment was progress, but there is more to be done. If the question of race has been removed as a restriction, must the question of gender stand between us and the vote?”

      Caleb forgot the crowds, he forgot the little girl standing beside him. He forgot everything but the woman on the stage. She was captivating. Her passion infectious, her furor beguiling.

      He leaned forward, his grip on the barricade painful. Loosening his hold, he studied the rapt audience. He wasn’t the only person riveted. Jo appeared equally enthralled by the charismatic speaker, as did most of the folks standing near the front. With each subsequent declaration, Miss Bishop’s enthusiasm held the audience in captivated silence.

      Caleb exhaled a heavy breath and shook his head.

      Just his luck. The one woman who’d caught his attention in the time since his childish infatuation with Mary Louise was a suffragist. A woman who, according to the newspaper clippings Jo collected, considered men an unnecessary nuisance and marriage a legalized form of bondage. If Jo hadn’t been standing beside him, he’d have hightailed it out of there. The last time he’d noticed a girl, he’d wound up with his heart broken and a whole passel of trouble besides.

      “Go home to your mother,” a hoarse voice near his left shouted, jarring Caleb from his glum ponderings.

      “I think her mother is here!” Another jeered.

      “Yeah,” a third man bellowed. “How about you do something useful? Find yourself a husband.”

      A chorus of titters followed.

      Caleb yanked upright, blinking as though he’d been awakened from a dream. The growing hostility in the crowd sent a slither of apprehension up spine.

      The dissenters remained buried in the confusion of people. Anonymous in their enmity. Cowards.

      He glanced at the little girl in the yellow dress, then leaned down. “Where are your parents?”

      She pointed at the Savoy Hotel across the crowded square.

      Caleb tugged on Jo’s sleeves and nodded toward the girl. “She shouldn’t be here.”

      Jo’s eyes widened, clearly noticing Miss Bishop’s young admirer for the first time. “Is she all alone?”

      “Near as I can tell.”

      His sister tightened her bonnet over her dark hair, tossed a wistful glance at the podium, then sighed. “The atmosphere here is growing hostile. We should take her home.”

      He stepped back and let Jo pass before him.

      A gunshot sounded.

      Someone screamed.

      Miss Bishop’s brilliant turquoise skirts disappeared behind the podium. In an instant the scene descended into chaos. A man tripped and slammed into his back, shoving Caleb forward, and he careened into Jo. They crashed over the barrier. He angled his body and took the brunt of her weight, knocking the wind from his lungs. His ears rang, and he shielded Jo with his arm, searching for the girl in yellow.

      She stood in the midst of the stampede, her eyes wide, her hands covering her face. The crowd parted around her like water skirting a boulder.

      Caleb pushed off and forced his way through the fleeing mob. A sharp heel dug into his foot. A shoulder knocked him off balance. With a burst of strength, he lifted the girl into his arms, turned and leaped back over the toppled barricade.

      The mob pushed and shoved, scattering like buckshot away from the podium. A cacophony of deafening voices shouted as people were separated in the confusion. While disorder ruled, Caleb crouched behind the limited protection of the barricade with his sister and the girl, shielding them as best he could with his outstretched arms. He’d rather take his chances with a stray bullet than risk getting trampled beneath the fleeing spectators.

      After several tense minutes that seemed to last an eternity, the ground ceased vibrating. The noise lessened. A gentle breeze stirred the hair at the nape of his neck.

      He chanced lifting his head, astonished by the sudden silence. In an instant the square had cleared. Only a few people remained, looking dazed but uninjured.

      Jo shoved her bonnet from her face. “Is everyone all right?”

      The little girl nodded. She straightened and brushed at her yellow skirts, appearing no worse for wear.

      A panicked voice shouted behind him. “We need a doctor!”

      Caleb СКАЧАТЬ