Romance: Mail Order Bride "The Ideal Bride" Clean Christian Western Historical Romance (Western Mail Order Bride Short Shorties Series) (196 page)

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Chapter 1

New York was the city of dreams. At least that’s what my parents told me when we left Ireland. I was a very young girl when we left our homeland, but I was old enough to remember the vast greenery and rolling hills that made up my childhood home. In Ireland we lived in a small village in a respectable house, but soon it wasn’t enough to have what we needed. My parents wanted to build a better life for their children and so we packed up everything we owned and hopped on a ship to America.

The journey over was not easy. We experienced our first tragedy on the crossing. The conditions of the ship were deplorable to say the least and before we could land, the lack of food and fresh water took my youngest brother. He was only three and it broke my mother’s heart to watch them lower a makeshift coffin into the dark waters of the ocean.

Mother fought the crew, wanting to give her son a proper burial when we reached the mainland, but it was too far away. The body wouldn’t have held up and that could have cost more lives at the end of the day. Even at twelve I understood what the men were saying. My brother and I tried to comfort Mother, but there was no comforting her.

Father was sad as well, but it wasn’t appropriate for men to show their sadness, so he did what all grieving Irish men did: he drank himself into oblivion. Matthew and I watched our parents fight and scream in the small area we occupied on the ship. Mother wanted to return home but father was having none of it.

I remember him pulling me and Matthew aside, running his fingers through our curly blonde hair and sighing. He tried to assure us that New York was the land of opportunity. He was going to open a leather shop and make a vast fortune that would carry our family through any hardship we faced. He looked at me, his eyes cloudy and full of a desperation I’d never seen in my father.

“Gemma, we’re going to make it aren’t we?”

I’d wrapped my arms around him and gave him a halfhearted nod. I was twelve and I was putting all of my hopes and dreams in my parents’ hands, expecting them to help me achieve them. Parents were meant to care for their children and look after them and I expected mine to do just that. I had no choice.

When the ship finally landed we were just happy to be on dry land. We stumbled off the boat onto Ellis Island where we were instructed to change our last names. My father didn’t understand at first but when the man at the table looked at us and then back at my father, there seemed to be a silent understanding. He didn’t argue and wrote our names in the book.

That day I became Gemma Roan Walsh.

New York was bright and beautiful. The people were well dressed and far wealthier than anyone in the small village I’d been born in. They wore furs and beautiful dresses, and when I first arrived, I thought I could be like them. In my eager, childish mind, I thought I was the same as them, but I was proved so wrong, so quickly.

Discrimination wasn’t something we faced in Ireland. I’d never even heard of it. Of course there was a divide between the rich and the poor, but nothing like what I experienced in New York. People made it very clear to us that they didn’t want Irish people in their stores and apartments. We were sent to live in a small one-bedroom apartment with three other Irish families. It was there that I learned the ways of this new world.

Even though we changed our names, our accents gave us away. People knew where we were from and that was more than enough to cast us aside. My father wasn’t able to open his leather shop and he actually never found a steady job at all. My mother worked in the factories for pennies a day and my father managed to find odd jobs around town but that was about it. He wasn’t able to make enough money to keep us above water and soon we were desperate. I was about fifteen and could clearly remember my stomach growling every night. I remember the burn and ache of hunger like it was yesterday. Hunger and desperation often led to horrific things, and this case was no different.

Just after my sixteenth birthday, my father told me that I was going to be going with a young handsome man. I didn’t understand why and it wasn’t explained to me until after I’d arrived at the brothel. I didn’t understand the world of prostitution but I had to figure it out quickly. My red hair, fair skin and grey eyes made me desirable. I was ‘exotic’ as the Madame put it. I wasn’t sure if that was good or not, but I wouldn’t have to wonder for long.

Working in the brothel gave me a fear and bitterness towards men that I never expected to feel. I was angry at my own father for selling me into such a life and I was angry at the men who came into these places and took advantage of the women in them. Most of us were scared and had no idea how to escape this life. We were at the mercy of the men who came in and the madames who ran them.

It became my life for several years. It was the place I lived and worked, though I hardly ever saw any money at all. I managed to save up a very small amount by stealing it from my Madame’s change purse. I’m not sure if she ever noticed the missing coins, but if she did she never said anything about it. I was thankful for her silence, but even that wasn’t enough to make up for the horror show that took place in that brothel.

I’d always prided myself on my faith, but I found myself questioning God and his ‘bigger plans’ when I started working in the brothel. I couldn’t help but wonder how God could allow his children to suffer like this. I would pray every night and ask for him to deliver us from this place. I prayed until my head ached and my knees throbbed, but there was never any answer.

Eventually, I stopped praying entirely.

Chapter 2

I was one of Madame Scarlet's favorite girls. I was nineteen and still young with a pretty face and a fierce heart. I earned her respect when I threw out a man who was trying to come in and not pay for his girl. I threw him out on the street, leaving him with a black eye. From that day on, I was allowed special little privileges from time to time. One of those wad doing the shopping for the brothel.

I liked doing the shopping. It got me out of the brothel for a while and it allowed me to sneak money into my savings. I went out about once a week and on those runs, I'd sneak one or two coins from the pouch and put them in a little pocket I'd sewn into my dress, that way I could keep the money on me. A brothel was a dangerous place to keep your savings. The younger girls who didn't get paid as much made a habit of sneaking around and stealing anything valuable they could find and even top earners like me didn't have the privacy necessary to keep our things from being stolen.

I walked past the post office and paused when I heard a group of women talking. They were standing beside a board used to advertise for mail order brides.

"Wouldn't it be exciting to go out west, Rebecca?"

"I should hardly think so! Don't you realize how dangerous it would be? The west is full of Indians and bandits. There are no concerts or plays. It's just animals and dirt.”

The woman named Rebecca sighed and looked at the ads longingly. "I suppose you're right, but it can't hurt to dream can it?"

The other woman scoffed as they turned to walk away. "If you're going to dream about something, dream about finding yourself a good husband."

I watched them go and when they disappeared around the corner I approached the board, looking at the ads skeptically. I'd seen them before and I'd even fantasized about going west. I'd heard that the land was wild and untamed. I could find the rolling hills I missed so dearly. I'd thought about it, but the idea of being at the mercy of a man was horrifying. I'd lived my life under the thumb of men and I wanted to go west and be a free woman. What was the point of escaping the brothel just to live under another man's control? Men had always controlled my life and I wanted to be free.

I sighed and turned away from the board, going to the dress maker’s shop. It was my least favorite place to be. The woman who mended the dresses always looked at me with a strange mix of disdain and pity that I hated more than anything. I had gotten used to people hating me. I could handle that. What I couldn’t handle was pity. Life had thrown me a lot of bad deals and I was dealing with them the best I could. I liked to think that I was a strong woman for enduring the things that I did.

Just as I suspected, the dressmaker was offering me that look that I hated so much, so I paid her and got out of the shop before she could start offering me prayers and other useless things. I wasn’t interested in her prayers. I did the rest of the running, getting food and a few pieces of jewelry for the Madame before returning to the brothel.

As I came around the corner I saw policemen loading girls from the brothel into the backs of large carriages. Their hands were bound and they looked terrified. My heart skipped a beat and I quickly ducked back around the corner, hiding from whatever was happening. When I dared to peek around again, I saw that Madame Scarlet was being loaded up as well. Our eyes locked and her gaze told me everything I needed to know.

‘
Run
.’

I wasn’t sure what was happening but I did exactly what her eyes were telling me to do. I turned and walked away, clutching everything in my arms. I only made it a few feet before I saw the same women who’d been inspecting the ad board.

“It’s wonderful they’re finally cleaning up those brothels. So much disease,” one said, shaking her head back and forth.

Her friend nodded. “They’re thinking about making them illegal entirely.”

I’d heard of what the two women were talking about. Prostitution itself was not illegal, but the police found ways around that. They made tiny little laws about what brothels could and couldn’t do and those laws were so restrictive that it made it easy for the cops to catch the brothels doing something they weren’t supposed to do. It was incredibly sneaky, but it worked.

Just like that I was homeless. I didn’t know what to do or where to go, so I sold everything I had bought that day and took the money to an inn so I could rent a room for a few nights. I had all of my savings as well as Madame Scarlet’s. It didn’t take me long to decide what I was going to do with the money. I certainly couldn’t stay in New York. There was nothing for me here.

A few days after the brothel was raided, I went down to the train station and bought myself a ticket out west. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do when I arrived, but that didn’t seem important. What was important was that I got out of New York before one of the other girl’s told the cops I was missing. It normally didn’t take prostitutes long to rat each other out. The idea of a shorter sentence was always appealing and they always offered plea bargains.

Just like that, my life changed forever and I could only hope it would go better than the last major move I made.

Chapter 3

I hated the train. It was hot and stuffy and there were always babies crying. It made me feel trapped in a strange way that I’d never expected. It reminded me of being back on that boat and I hated it. The cramped spaces made my stomach roll and while the train ride was much shorter than the boat ride had been, I was more than thankful when we finally arrived in Missouri.

It was a place I’d never even heard of before, but when I stumbled into the streets of St. Louis I knew I wasn’t in New York anymore. It was spring and many of the trees around me were blooming beautiful colors. The scent of fresh flowers filled me and I knew I was going to be happy here.

The streets were quiet compared to New York and there were far less people. The air smelled fresh and the greenery reminded me of Ireland. I was already feeling much freer. As I stepped off the train platform I spotted a few tables with women sitting at them. They wore big hats and badges that said ‘Bride Ambassador.’ I wasn’t a bride, but I approached one of the tables anyway.

The woman I walked up to smiled at me brightly and spoke with a soft, southern accent I’d only heard a few times before.

“Well, hello there, darling! How can I help you?”

“I’m not really sure where to go.”

She picked up a big book and laid it out on the table. “Well, that’s exactly why I’m here,” she said with a nod, licking her fingers and flipping the book open. “What’s your husband’s name?”

“Oh. I don’t have one.”

Her brows furrowed and she looked genuinely confused. “You don’t have a husband, sweetheart?”

“No. I came here on my own.”

“You aren’t a mail order bride?”

I shook my head again and she closed the book, looking over at the woman beside her who just shrugged. “Well, honey, if you don’t have a husband there’s not much we can do. Maybe you should go to the local inn and see if they’ll let you work for a room?” she offered.

“You should put your name on this list here, though,” the other woman said, her voice gruff and not as sweet as the southern woman’s.

“What’s this list for?” I asked, glancing down at it.

“It’s a list of unmarried women. When new men come to town or someone loses their wife, they typically need to get married quickly. There’s a shortage of women here in St. Louis,” she explained.

I looked at the piece of paper and frowned. “I’m not here to find a husband.”

The gruff woman slid the paper away and glanced at it for a moment. “Then maybe you ought to keep moving.”

The southern woman offered me an apologetic look but didn’t say anything. I could see that there was a line behind me, so I turned away from the table. Their dismissive attitudes didn’t bother me much. People had been dismissing me my whole life. I wasn’t expecting it to be any different here.

I started across the street to the building I recognized as a saloon. I knew I could find work there in way or another. It might not have been exactly what I wanted to do, but money was money. I was going to have to start at the bottom here. I knew that. I had some money, but not enough to carry my through more than a week. I was going to have to get working right away.

Just as my hand reached out to open the door, someone snagged my wrist. “Hey there pretty lady.” The voice was gruff and intoxicated. “Where are you going?”

“Get off me,” I snapped, pushing him off me.

He was drunk enough that he stumbled back, wide-eyed and shocked. “What’s wrong with you?!” He yelled, righting himself and stomping back over.

I took a wider stance, ready to take care of this man if he really decided he was going to come after me. My eyes narrowed but before things could escalate, a tall blonde man stepped in. He came up behind the man and put a hand on his shoulder.

“Michael. What do you think you’re doing?”

The man turned to face the blonde, his eyes narrowed and his lips set in thin line. “Nothing, preach.” He said simply, grunting and turning to walk away.

The blonde man watched Michael walk away and then he turned to face me. “Are you alright?”

“I was fine. I was handling myself just fine.” I murmured, looking away.

“I wasn’t trying to step on your toes,” he said gently. “I’m sorry. This town can be rough. I didn’t mean to impose.”

I sighed and nodded. Maybe I was being a bit rude, even by my standards. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap. It’s just a little tense.”

“Well…I’m Robert Miller. The town preacher. If there’s anything I can do to help, please let me know.” He hesitated and offered a small smile. “You have a lovely voice. Can I ask where you’re from?”

A part of me didn’t want to tell him. People always treated me different when I told them where I was from, but what difference did it make? They were going to figure it out sooner or later. I sighed softly.

“Ireland.

“My father was Irish.”

I looked up at the blonde man in front of me, finding it hard to believe that he was at least part Irish. “You’re lucky you don’t have an accent,” I murmured, running my fingers through my hair.

“On the contrary…I like your accent.”

“Why are you being so nice?”

He seemed taken aback by the question. “Well, I don’t really have a reason to not be nice.”

“Well, thank you for your help,” I said softly, heading back towards the saloon.

“Can I ask why you’re going there? It’s not the best place for a young woman.”

I cocked my brow and put my hands on my hips. “I need a place to stay. The women at the train station told me to come here.”

“You could stay with me.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I’m aware. I’m offering it to you. The people who own this saloon are vultures. They’ll charge you twice what they should because you have nowhere else to go. If you come with me, all I ask is that you help with work around the house.”

It seemed like a good enough deal, but I still felt wary for some reason. I was having a hard time understanding why someone would trouble themselves so much if they didn’t have to. Maybe he was just lonely? That was entirely possible. I’d met many men who would have paid just to have a woman sit beside them and stroke their hair. It was always strange to me just how badly these men wanted and needed comfort.

“Alright, preacher. Lead the way.