Mail Order Cowboy (Love Inspired Historical) (19 page)

“Reverend, may I say something?”

It was Elijah who had spoken. Everyone stared. Waters ground his teeth as if enraged by Elijah's effrontery.

“The difference between us and slaves is we
want
to be workin' for Miss Milly and Miss Sarah,” Elijah said. “And we're
willin'
to help y'all folks with buildin' that fort—if you're willin' to have us help.”

Elijah stepped back into line with his brothers, and Nick once again took hold of the pulpit and began to speak. “But the problem with having these four strong young men building a fort for everyone's safety is that because of the bigotry and prejudice of a few, these young men who are willing to work hard to make Simpson Creek a safer place to live might not be safe
themselves—on the road to and from town, or while they're here building. And everyone here knows I'm speaking of the Circle.”

B
ill Waters jumped to his feet, shaking his fist. “You've got a lot of gall, Englishman, coming here and accusing us of anything!”

“I'm not accusing you of just ‘anything,' Mr. Waters. I'm accusing you and your associates in the Circle of hiding under white hoods and attempting to terrorize these men who only want to live and work like the rest of us. You've set fires and left hangman's nooses where these men would find them. When that didn't work, you attempted murder—”

Waters was the picture of outraged innocence. “At tempted murder? I don't know what you're talking about.”

Milly left her pew and dashed up to the pulpit before she even realized she was moving. “You know exactly, Bill Walters, but I'll tell those who don't—I'm speaking of the bullet that was fired at Caleb Brown when he was in the southeastern part of our land last Tuesday. Fortunately, your assassin failed.”

The hum in the room became an excited buzz.

“You're a liar, Milly Matthews. Becoming an old maid has addled your brain,” snapped Waters.

“Careful,”
warned Nick, his soft voice a lash. “You're speaking to a lady.”

Waters smirked and crossed his arms over his barrel chest. “All right, I'll put it more politely. Miss Matthews, you've been lied to by that boy and you've imagined all the rest. Perhaps you've been overly influenced by that foreigner next to you.”

“Brookfield, you don't know what it's like, dealin' with people like them,” Dayton snarled, pointing at the brothers, his face flushed. “You lily-white English only know folks as white as you. You never had a passel a' helpless fools let loose on you after a war.”

Nick's blue eyes blazed in his sun-bronzed face. “It's true, we freed our slaves some time ago, and without a war.” He stood his ground at the pulpit while the hum of conversation rose to a wasplike buzz, then died down as the congregation waited to hear what else would be said. “And as for lily-white…can you mean
me?
” he asked, and rolled up his sleeves, revealing forearms as tanned as any Texas rancher's there.

Several ladies and men chuckled. His humor had brought them back to him, Milly thought.

“Yes, I'm English, and I wasn't here during your Civil War. But the British Empire extends all over the world, and in India, I assure you, white Englishmen were distinctly in the minority—a few thousand in a vast country of brown-skinned people. Yet for the most part, we respected them and worked alongside them, helping bring modern civilization into that country.”

Milly, who'd been sitting sidewise so she could see
both Nick and the reactions of the Circle, saw Blakely Harvey step into the aisle now.

“Oh, yes, Nicholas Brookfield
respected
the Indians—if
respect
is what you'd like to call his ah…
liaison
with the rajah's lovely daughter, the Princess Ambika,” he said, his voice silky. “But the army called it inappropriate and ‘conduct unbecoming an officer' and he was drummed out of the regiment in utter disgrace. That's how he came to be in Texas, good people. I daresay he wasn't welcome back home in England. And you'd consider letting him advise you what you should do?”

Milly saw Nick's face drain of color and his gaze fly to her. He flinched as if the words had been a physical blow.

So he hadn't trusted her enough to tell her the truth about Ambika, the woman whose name he had called in his delirium.
“We were acquainted, yes…I was taken with her for a time…”

Yet Harvey was saying his relationship with the Indian woman had been much more. A shameful amount more. If Nick lied to her about this, what else had he lied about?

Could she love him now?

Love rejoices in the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Milly looked Nick in the eye and mouthed the words,
I love you.

There would be time to hear his side of things, time to hear the complete story, but right now, the important thing was to stand with this man who loved her. And she believed in his love, whatever he had done.

She saw Nick straighten. “There is more to this story than what Mr. Harvey insinuates, of course. But the person who has a right to hear it first is the woman I love, Miss Millicent Matthews, and I pledge here and now that she will.”

Silence gripped the church.

Reverend Chadwick stepped forward and let his gaze roam about the church. “Let he who is without sin among you cast the first stone.”

Milly saw men, and even some women, drop their gazes and stare down at their feet.

Nick cleared his throat. “Mr. Harvey called you ‘good people,' and he's right about that, at least. You are good people. And we're asking, good people, for you to let Elijah, Isaiah, Caleb and Micah Brown work alongside us
in safety
to build that fort for the common good of us all, earning their right to be as respected as any of you. Which means telling the men of the Circle that you won't tolerate, silently or openly, their hatred and violence.”

There was utter silence as Nick stood there with Milly next to him, as each person in the church eyed his neighbor, then Waters and Dayton and the other men who stood with them at the back of the church, then looked back at Nick and Milly—and at Reverend Chadwick as he came back to the pulpit to join them.

“Well, what do you say?” the pastor asked. “Are you the ‘good people' that Nick, here, called you?”

Mr. Patterson stood up. “I don't know about the rest of you folks, but I went to war, and I've had enough of killin' except to defend myself and my family. I vote yes—let's build the fort, and the more folk that want
to pitch in—” he gestured at the four brothers up front “—the quicker we'll have us a fort.”

Mr. Wallace stood up now. “Haven't we lost enough in this war? I lost my son. Waters, you lost yours, too. Why, Miss Milly had to organize a group of ladies just to bring more young men to this town! Ain't you hated enough for a lifetime without hatin' anybody else? I vote yes, too.”

“Anyone wants to make life safer from them Comanches, I'm all for that,” the town's milliner announced.

One by one, townspeople stood and aligned themselves with Nick and Milly.

Then Mrs. Detwiler rose ponderously to her feet, and Milly had to stifle a groan. Would the old woman say something awful that turned the town against Nick again?
Please, God…

But when Mrs. Detwiler began to speak, Milly thought she could indeed believe in miracles.

“Bill Waters, you gonna hold on to your stiff-necked ways 'til the Comanches stampede through here again?” the old woman demanded. “Not me!”

That seemed to be the final straw for Waters, who raised his arm and made a disgusted, dismissive gesture with his hand. He turned on his heels and walked out and the others of the Circle stomped out after him. Harvey went as well, leaving Ada looking stricken.

Mrs. Detwiler gave a sniff of satisfaction, while Milly tried to make up her mind whether to laugh or cry happy tears.

Then the old woman pointed at Sheriff Poteet, who'd been sitting midway back, his arms stretched out over
the back of the pew. “Sheriff, did you know about any a' these goings-on?” she demanded.

He dropped his arms and sat up straight. “Ma'am?”

“You heard me, young man.”

Milly had to stifle a smile, for Poteet was only perhaps a decade younger than Mrs. Detwiler.

“Well…” He drew out the syllable as far as it could go. “Miss Milly did come to me a few days ago about that fire some yahoos lit around her pecan tree…and she did say they was wearin' hoods over their heads, but shucks, ma'am, that didn't give me no proof who they were…”

“And you didn't even investigate, did you? Same as when someone stole some a' my prize roses, or the pie I had cooling on my windowsill. You just couldn't be bothered. From now on you better shape up, Sheriff Poteet, 'cause this town pays your salary. Otherwise we're liable to vote that foreigner in as our new sheriff—he's shown a lot more gumption than you.”

“That won't be necessary, Mrs. Detwiler,” the sheriff said, meek as a lamb.

The old woman harrumphed at that, as if not fully convinced. “And furthermore, I'm one to put my money where my mouth is. You know that big old field in the back of my house? Mr. Detwiler bought us a big piece of land behind our house, planning to build homes for our children one day. But he was always too busy being the parson, and the Lord took him home before he ever got the chance. Bein' as it's near the center of town, I'm thinking that lot would be a good place to build a fort—if y'all agree.”

Reverend Chadwick started to clap, and in seconds, everyone was clapping and cheering their approval.

When the applause finally died down, Mrs. Detwiler's face was pink with pleasure. Milly couldn't recall seeing her smile.

Nick bowed from the pulpit. “Bravo, Mrs. Detwiler. Your generosity will inspire all of us. I propose we name it Fort Detwiler.”

Again, there was thunderous applause.

Mrs. Detwiler beamed. “Generous? Not me—I just want to be closest to the fort, that's all. I'm an old woman, and I can't run so fast.” Everyone laughed.

“It's not necessary to name it after me, young man, but thank you for the thought. And now I reckon we'd all better get home for our dinners and rest up, 'cos bright and early Monday morning, I expect to see all you menfolk hard at work with these young men—” she pointed at the Brown brothers “—building that fort.”

 

After the meeting was brought to a close with another prayer from Reverend Chadwick, Milly, her heart in her throat, approached Mrs. Detwiler to thank her for what she'd done. To her astonishment, the old woman hugged her, and begged Milly's forgiveness for the way she'd treated her ever since Milly had thought up her scheme to bring bachelors to town for the unmarried girls.

“I was just pure jealous at your daring, don't you see, Milly? I never had such spunk in my whole life, and I was coveting yours. Now I've got to admit I'm proud to know you. And don't worry, you and your young man will work out any problems about the past. None of us
come to our spouses straight from heaven, you know. None of us is perfect,” she said.

“Thank you,” Milly said, and burst into the tears she'd been trying so hard to hold back. Nick handed her his handkerchief.

Then Sarah came forward and invited Mrs. Detwiler to come home with them for supper.

“Thank you,” she said, “but two of my sons are coming in from Deer Creek this afternoon. In fact, they're probably already at the house wonderin' why I'm not home from church yet. But I'll take a rain check, sweet girl.”

N
o one spoke of Blakely Harvey's embarrassing revelation on the way back to the ranch. Everyone but Milly and Nick seemed eager to fill the silence. The Brown brothers voiced relief at the town's willingness to work with them and reject the Circle. Sarah chattered about Mrs. Detwiler's amazing turnaround as if oblivious to Milly's distracted quiet.

Milly had told him she loved him while he stood alone in front of the church, giving him a flash of hope that her love for him had not died in the instant that Harvey had coldly attempted to destroy his reputation. Perhaps in that moment her generous heart had overridden her self-respect and motivated her to support him in case of public censure. But now that she had time to think, she might not be so quick to ally herself with a man who was, despite his high moral pronouncements, nothing but a liar after all.

“I'll unhitch the horses,” Nick said aloud as they pulled up in front of the barn. He was not surprised when Milly lingered with him rather than following Sarah into the kitchen to help put dinner on the
table as she usually did. The other men went into the bunkhouse.

Once the wagon horses were in the corral, by tacit agreement she followed him into the cool dimness of the barn. He turned to face her with the same feeling a man must have when turning to face a firing squad.

“Do you…do you hate me, Milly? Do you want me to leave?”
Or merely abandon any pretense that I am worthy of you?

She blinked at him. “
Hate
you? No, of course I don't hate you. How could I hate you? Didn't you see me mouth the words ‘I love you'?”

He held up his hands, palms upward. “Yes, of course I did, and I thought perhaps it was a noble gesture, not abandoning me publicly in front of the wolves—the Circle, that is—and the townsfolk. I thought once we were alone, you might tell me that you've reconsidered how you feel, now that you know what I've done—”

She flew at him now until she was practically toe-to-toe with him, her face upturned, her eyes blazing. “You British idiot! You thought I was being
noble?
Is that what a proper English lady would do? Well, Texas women are different! We don't give up so easily on someone we love. I came in here to hear the truth from you, not some silly self-sacrificing
nonsense!
”

She was magnificent when she was angry, but he didn't want to chance making her angrier still by telling her so.

“I love you, Nicholas Brookfield, and that's not going to change,” she went on. “But now I believe you have something to tell me—or so you promised back there in church.”

He nodded and gestured toward a pair of old chairs. “Why don't we sit down?”

He waited while she settled herself, took a deep breath, then said, “Yes, it's true that I had feelings that were inappropriate for the maharajah's daughter Ambika. It will not excuse me to say that she collected the hearts of naive British officers like some women collect jewelry, or that she had claimed Blakely Harvey's affections before she turned her efforts toward me. Nor is my shame any the less though I can say we never…that is to say, didn't actually…” He broke off, his face flushing. “Oh, Milly, none of this is proper to say to you…”

She leaned forward, her eyes full of compassion. “I believe I understand.”

“We were alone together in her bedroom when we were interrupted by the intrusion of a servant girl who came in to clean the room, not knowing I was there with the princess. Princess Ambika flew into a rage, striking the poor terrified girl again and again.”

His eyes closed as he relived the incident in his mind, remembering how the silky, enthralling woman had been transformed in an instant into a screaming, brutal virago. “She would have killed the poor girl then and there had I not intervened, restraining her and telling her I could not allow anyone, even a princess, to beat a helpless servant. Then she turned on me, screaming and telling me to be gone and take the worthless girl with me. I left the palace, vowing never to return except in the course of duty, and never alone. I saw that the servant girl was given employment in the army compound in the household of a colonel's wife. But the
colonel's wife reported she soon disappeared. I assumed the girl had returned to her village, but then she was found murdered. A knife left by the body bore the royal insignia.”

He heard Milly gasp, and felt her hand on his shoulder, felt its warmth even through his shirt. He took it for a moment, squeezed it to show he was grateful for her touch, then rose to his feet, unable to sit still any longer.

“I thought living with my guilt was awful enough, but Ambika was not finished with her revenge. No one shames a maharajah's daughter, it seems, and escapes unscathed—though of course my guilt in knowing I'd had a part in the servant girl's death hardly qualifies as unscathed.”

Milly had risen behind him. “Ambika is the one who got you thrown out of the regiment,” she guessed.

“Yes, her father called my commanding officer to the palace and berated him for allowing an officer to attempt to despoil his daughter—as if that were possible!” He gave a bitter laugh. “The maharajah was demanding my head—quite literally.”

Again, he heard her gasp. “Hadn't you told him the truth?”

“Of course, but try to see it as he must have—after all, the maharajah could command thousands to attack, and the army had been through the massacre at Calcutta some years before. What was one stupid fool of a captain more or less?”

“But in the end, that's not what happened.”

“No. Obviously, I stand before you with my head very much attached to my shoulders. In the end, the general
made a very brave decision not to let a maharajah decide the fate of one of Her Majesty's soldiers, and settled for drumming me out of the regiment in disgrace. I was forbidden to tell the truth to anyone, for my own safety and the preservation of relations between the British government and the maharajah. But Blakely Harvey, back in Ambika's good graces, spread the story of my foolishness among my fellow officers. For the most part, they thought me an idiot allowing the fate of a serving girl to matter. That's when the nickname ‘Mad Nick' took on a life of its own. Harvey's gossip wasn't traced back to him, though. He paid no price for it.”

“No wonder you despise him,” she breathed.

“God forgive me, yes. And to have him show up here…” He shrugged. “Just to be on the safe side, for they didn't trust the maharajah not to have me permanently silenced, the general hustled me out of Bombay in the dead of night and put me on a ship.”

He fell silent, drained by the confession.

“Is that it? Is there anything else I need to know?” Milly asked.

“What more could there be?” he asked, genuinely confused.

“I just want there to be complete honesty between us,” she said simply. “The subject of your family came up once, and you looked distinctly uncomfortable, Nick. I…I didn't want to pry, but I think it's better I know everything that could affect us in the future.”

“Oh. Well, I suppose it does explain why I was such a fool with the maharajah's daughter,” he said, realizing it just that moment. “I suppose I never thought about it…. My mother was a lovely woman who decided after my
sister, her fourth child, was born that she had been dutiful to the viscount, my father, long enough. She threw over the traces, as it were, and became something of a scandal. She finally left my father. He divorced her, and I never saw her again before she died.”

“How old were you when she left?” she asked quietly.

“Fourteen. Father was never quite the same after that. He'd always been a bit distant, the proper Victorian noble who believed children should be seen and not heard, but after that, he may as well have lived on the moon.”

He didn't realize he was shaking with suppressed tears until she circled around him and took him into her arms.

 

“I love you,” she said, after a while. “Broken places and all. We may argue from time to time, but I will never, never cause you not to trust me or doubt my love.”

He stared at her. “You're more than I could ever de serve,” he said at last.

“None of that,” Milly insisted, putting a finger to his lips. “You were wonderful today,” Milly told him. “And so brave—like a general leading his troops into battle.”

“I had you fooled, then,” he said wryly. “I was shaking in my boots—for me and the Browns,” he told her. “I wasn't sure if the Circle fellows would pull out guns or if the townspeople would tar and feather me. But they came through for us, didn't they?”

“Especially Mrs. Detwiler!” she said, shaking her
head in wonderment. She still couldn't believe it. The old woman who'd reminded her of a dragon was now a friend.

“Simpson Creek's going to be a different place, thanks to you,” she murmured. “I feel so much safer.”

He sighed. “My dear Milly, you give me too much credit. The Comanches are still out there, and they could still attack here at the ranch. I promise you, though, we'll have a fort on top of the hill next year, but until then…”

She loved hearing him speak of next year, as if he assumed he'd be there with her for all the years to come. They'd be married by then, she thought. They hadn't spoken of a date yet, but she knew they would.

“I've told you before the Comanches have always been a possible threat,” she said calmly. “Until you build that fort, we'll do what we always do—pray for the Lord's protection.”

“Your faith is strengthening mine, Milly Matthews,” he said, gazing into her eyes. “It's just one more reason I love you.”

The compliment and his declaration swelled her heart with joy. “And your goodness is making me a better person, Nicholas Brookfield. I would not have been brave enough to hire the Browns on my own, or to take on the whole town as you did today. So we will help each other grow in faith, I think. What's that verse in the Proverbs—‘Iron sharpens iron'? And then it goes on to speak of one friend sharpening another?”

He smiled. “We were friends first, Milly, and I al ways hoped the woman I married would be my best
friend, too. I can hardly believe I'm daring to ask this after what happened today, but will you marry me?”

“Yes. Oh yes, I will marry you!”

Cupping her chin, he kissed her, tenderly and thoroughly.

“When?” she asked, as he lifted his lips from hers.

He was thoughtful. “As soon as the fort is finished? Will that give you enough time?”

Milly nodded, already thinking of the wedding dress she would sew.

“I should write and invite my brothers and sister to come. Richard, the vicar—he'll adore you. He'll tell you you're much too good for me,” he said, a fond smile curving his lips. “I imagine he never expected me to marry a woman who lived her faith like you do.”

“Perhaps he could take part in the wedding ceremony. I imagine Reverend Chadwick wouldn't mind.”