Mail Order Brides: A New Life In The West (A Pair Of Western Historical Romances)

By Helen Keating

Mail Order Bride: The Victorian Orphan Girl, is an incredible love story about the strength and character of one orphaned woman who, facing a tough and extremely hard life in Victorian London, decides to go to California as a mail order bride. She runs out of money for the train ride after crossing the Atlantic and getting sick, but an unscrupulous conductor tells her she can hide in the cargo car as long as she remains out of sight. Almost dead close to the end of the journey because she hasn’t any money left to buy food, she doesn’t know if she’ll live to marry the rancher who is to be her husband.

Mail Order Bride: Praying For A Cowboy, is about a woman and her sister who are sent out to Texas for one of them to be a mail order bride to a disabled war veteran rancher with one hand, and as a new mother to his two children. The rancher hadn’t known he could ever love again, but when he first saw Beth, he realized instantly that she would be the one to save him. His brother is there at the ranch and he realizes that he’s also in love with Beth’s sister. Their life and love together develops slowly, until something happens later that will change six lives forever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Susan Hart
• Release date: May 7, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311397881

Book preview

Mail Order Brides: A New Life In The West

By

Helen Keating

Copyright 2014 Helen Keating

Smashwords Edition

Mail Order Bride: The Victorian Orphan Girl

You there! Get back here!

Beatrice panted even though she was barely trotting away from the policeman wielding a baton. She stuffed the pilfered roll into her mouth as she urged her weak legs to carry her a little faster. Beatrice knew the bit of bread wouldn’t grant her instant strength or speed. It wouldn’t even sustain her until the next meal she was able to scrape together.

However, she’d needed something. Anything. In addition, she thought she’d been discreet. It was just a little roll, after all. No one was going to miss it.

I see you! the policeman bellowed, making Beatrice jump, but it was hard for him to slip through the crowd of people she was darting through. Ever so often, it paid to be as slight as she was — even if it was symptom of not having enough to eat.

She finally managed to chew and swallow the roll, wondering if the small dent it made in her hunger would be worth it. She willed herself onward, ducking through one alley and another, counting on the fact that getting caught up in the crowd would slow the policeman, make him lose sight of her for just a few precious seconds.

All it took was seconds to find a safe place to hide.

Beatrice rounded the corner, her lungs burning at her pace, and saw her salvation as plain as day. A small chapel, tucked away among a row of buildings, would be perfect to duck into — as long as the policeman didn’t see her do it.

Her goal in sight, Beatrice took the time and effort to dart into several more alleys, taking a roundabout path to the chapel to ensure she’d knocked the policeman off her scent. She was running so fast now that she didn’t dare turn back, her skirts flapping around her.

When she finally gained access to the chapel via an open side door in a terribly narrow walkway, Beatrice had to struggle to slow her breathing. It sounded harsh to her ears, and she was sure vicars and faithful alike would be able to tell that she was in trouble just from the rasp and rattle.

However, the sanctuary was blissfully empty. Perhaps the vicar had stepped away only for a moment. It was fortuitous, and Beatrice would take whatever divine intervention God might grant her.

He was the only one intervening on her behalf now, and she didn’t often get in his good graces anymore. More often than not, Beatrice felt like she was the only one in her world. No one helped her.

Collapsing into a pew, her heart still struggling to regain its normal pace, Beatrice reflected on her life. A chapel was as good a place as any

One good thing about her life, she decided, was that she too busy to lament anything. If she ever stopped one day and had the time to really think about things, she was afraid she’d never be able to stop. There were plenty of things to regret, plenty of things to decry, but Beatrice didn’t have the luxury of lounging around all day, regretting and decrying her life.

The worst of it wasn’t her fault, she knew. The worst of it was just a terrible combination of bad luck, a chain of events that she could do nothing with but cope.

For one, she was born a woman. That was the first cosmic error. The second was that both of her parents had died during an epidemic of influenza, leaving Beatrice an orphan at a young age.

Even when her parents had been alive, everything was hard. If there wasn’t an illness sweeping the cramped confines of the city, an epic freeze lasted for weeks killed people in their homes.

Both of her parents had to work to scrape together enough money to keep their small flat over their heads and a little bit of food in their bellies. Beatrice’s mother had been a washerwoman, and her father had worked at the docks on the river, offloading cargo from ships that had come to London from all corners of the world. Some of Beatrice’s brightest memories were of speculating with her father just what all those boxes contained.

Pearls, she’d gush, her eyes wide.

Rubies, he would counter, grinning.

Her parents always tried to distract Beatrice from the fact of their destitution. Truly, it wasn’t until their deaths that she realized how poor they had been.

Look at this hovel, one policeman had muttered to the other after they’d arrived to escort Beatrice to the orphanage.

Where are your things, girl? the other demanded. Haven’t you packed yet?

Packed what? she asked meekly, hardly daring to glance up to meet their eyes.

Both of them had laughed like she’d just made the funniest joke they’d ever heard.

Nothing in the world but the dress you’re wearing, the first policeman had said finally, and there are still those worse off than you.

I don’t know, the other policeman said as they escorted Beatrice out of the only home she had ever known. Nothing much worse than an orphan girl.

There it was. Spoken like a prophecy, the words echoed around in Beatrice’s mind, staying with her even years later.

It was her experience that there was truly no worse sentence than that; a young orphan girl.

Life at the orphanage had been so brutal — beatings from the monsters who had been in charge, not enough food to feed all of them at mealtime, the bullies who lived among the population — that Beatrice had decided to take her chances living out on the streets. Packing up a little food she’d been able to pilfer, Beatrice sneaked out of the institution late one night and slept in a doorway in a quiet alley.

She’d thought that nothing could be as bad as the conditions inside the orphanage, especially as she still grieved for the parents she’d lost, but Beatrice had been so naïve.

Her situation was no better on the streets, she soon discovered. On the streets, youngsters ran around in gangs. Beatrice had been too timid to join up with any of them, too scared to approach anyone, child or adult. She ate whatever she could find, learned to steal quicker than she’d like to admit, and grew to realize that the best way for her to survive was to make herself invisible.

As long as she could slip through the streets and alleyways as unnoticed as possible, she found that she could escape the wrath of most anyone who didn’t like children — or girls.

In her teens, Beatrice thought she met her guardian angel.

You, girl, said a woman with a downright imperial voice, pointing at Beatrice. At the time, Beatrice had been eating an apple. To this day, the fruit still held a special meaning for her.

Me? Beatrice had asked, pointing at her own chest.

You’re the only girl around, the woman said. She had a posh fur slung over her shoulders even though the weather wasn’t cold enough to warrant it. Beatrice suddenly had the idea that the woman would probably wear the fur in sweltering weather — simple because she had it and wanted other people to see her sport it.

Beatrice approached cautiously, ducking her head down as the woman studied her.

You’re a pretty little thing, the woman said. Are you in need of employment?

Beatrice flinched. If the woman was already saying she was pretty, why did she want to give her a job? Wasn’t she concerned about how her

Reviews for Mail Order Brides

[damarisym15 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Too sad!