Looking After Others First Is The Right Thing To Do: A Pair of Mail Order Bride Romances

By Beth Overton

Mail Order Bride: Looking After The Drunken Man - On her way to her fiancé in the Wyoming Territory a woman encounters an apparently inebriated man during the next leg of her journey but when all disembark for the night at a way station, they discover that he is severely wounded. What happens later shocks them all.

Mail Order Bride: Only One Hand, But A Complete Heart - An orphan from New York discovers a mail order bride poster and decides to correspond with a cowboy rancher in Texas. He replies immediately, with a ticket enclosed, and she has no chance to tell him she lost one of her hands to a childhood accident. He is abrupt with her when he sees it, but takes her out to his ranch to meet his son. She feels it will be an uphill battle to prove herself with both.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Beth Overton
• Release date: Mar 11, 2016
• ISBN: 9781311612670

Beth Overton

Beth Overton lives in Northern California with her husband and three cats. Besides writing romances, she loves to read everything she can get her hands on, as well as cooking up gourmet delights for her entire family.

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Looking After Others First Is The Right Thing To Do: A Pair of Mail Order Bride Romances

By

Beth Overton

Copyright 2016 Quietly Blessed & Loved Press

Mail Order Bride: Looking After The Drunken Man

Mail Order Bride: Only One Hand, But A Complete Heart

Mail Order Bride: Looking After The Drunken Man

Synopsis: Mail Order Bride: Looking After The Drunken Man - On her way to her fiancé in the Wyoming Territory a woman encounters an apparently inebriated man during the next leg of her journey but when all disembark for the night at a way station, they discover that he is severely wounded. What happens later shocks them all.

Am I pretty enough? As she studied the reflection from the small bureau mirror allotted to her, a pinch of both cheeks brought up faint color to skin so pale as to be considered washed-out.

Is my hair thick enough, shiny enough, or long enough? Sorrel brown and unruly, it was, according to dictate, scraped back into a severe knot. Yet a few tendrils defied order to escape here and there.

Will I be strong enough to survive, capable enough to cope, and wise enough to endure whatever comes along? Seen by the dim light glowing through a small high window, her mouth, too gentle for the harsh world around her, tightened, and her eyes, as navy-blue as the getup she wore, narrowed. She had no choice. She would have to be.

Sophronia! Sophronia Taylor!

A whiny voice carried up two flights of stairs, then grumbled, Blast it all, where is that girl? She knows I have to take my medicine at this time of day. Sophronia!

If nothing else could have dissuaded her, one last glance around the bare, cramped room hardened her resolution and her heart. Swiftly she undid buttons, unfastened cuffs, threw aside the abhorrent white apron and compulsory uniform to pull on her summer Sunday best, a simple green and white checked skirt, topped by its companion gauzy white polonaise with flowing sleeves. At the collar she had fastened her only piece of jewelry, a small cameo pin.

Sophronia! Get down here immediately!

Another hail, raspy and frustrated, that echoed through the halls.

I require your services!

Time to gird her loins and move forward. Her arrangements had long since been made. Her meager belongings had been packed. It needed now only that she leave.

Dragging in a deep breath, she picked up her battered leather valise and, taking the strong bold steps that would be necessary from here on, started down the stairs.

Ephraim Hartwell, seated in the parlor’s large leather chair, peered up at her over the rim of his spectacles as she entered the room.

Took you long enough to show your face, he complained. Haven’t you heard your mistress calling for you?

I have, sir.

Though she kept her voice calm and her expression carefully neutral, Sophronia could feel her heartbeat racing. What she was about to do she had never tried before, and the very idea of standing up with audacity to anyone in control had her insides twisting like a leaf in the wind.

Really, Sophronia, you have been most inconsiderate, fretted Mrs. Hartwell, clomping back through the doorway in her ridiculous tiny high-heeled pumps. Where on earth have you been? It’s time to fix our mid-day dinner. And why are you not wearing your uniform?

My uniform.

The girl bit down on incongruous laughter. Her uniform was the least of her worries.

You’ll find it in my room, Mrs. Hartwell, neatly folded and laid aside. From now on, I’ll be wearing my own clothing.

A frown of deepest displeasure from the lady, her stock in trade, once used to intimidate and devastate anyone within range of power, especially Sophronia, but no more. Amazingly, throwing off the shackles of servanthood, she was beyond that now.

And just why would you do such a thing? her spouse demanded, rising to his feet.

An upright posture, he had learned long ago, is much more threatening than one seated.

Sophronia looked from one to the other. She was feeling tremendous relief, trepidation, and joy, all mixed together with just a tiny speck of pity.

I’m leaving, Mr. Hartwell, she told him gently.

Leaving? Leaving our employ? What is this, how dare you even think… Mrs. Hartwell began babbling.

Flora, said the head of the household in warning tones, before turning back. What do you mean, leaving? Just like that, without even letting us know?

Mr. Hartwell, I gave you notice a month ago, she reminded him.

Strong. Stay strong. Don’t give in. Don’t let them ruin your plans.

The nerve!

The babble continued, unabated.

We took you in from that dreadful orphanage, so many years ago…

Five. I was sixteen.

…and gave you a good home, food, wages…

Poverty wages, Mrs. Hartwell, Sophronia pointed out. And held back a portion each week for what I ate and what I wore.

That is as it should be!

She puffed up like a peahen, indignant in her own cold rage.

That is how it’s done, Missy, and I’ll not have you forgetting it!

Oh, no, agreed Sophronia, still gently, still reasonably.

I won’t forget. I won’t ever forget.

The lonely nights, locked in her attic room like a caged animal, freezing under winter’s ice, broiling under summer’s sun. She’d had no friends, no family, no future, and a starvation salary, so that little could be put aside. The wonder was that she had taken this step at all and was finally making an escape.

See here, harrumphed Mr. Hartwell, pompous as always. Your behavior is absolutely brazen, without precedent. You just go on back upstairs, Sophronia, and put on your uniform. We’ll do our best to pretend this never happened.

No, Mr. Hartwell. I’m done. Goodbye.

The quiet shut of the front door behind her left both of them open-mouthed and speechless, incredulous with shock.

Done. She was done.

Were she much younger, and dressed for it, she would have been kicking her heels in the air, all the way down the street.

The railway, with its shining steel tracks disappearing away into the horizon, both fascinated and frightened Sophronia. As the survivor of so much tragedy interspersed by moments of sheer heartwarming good, she had traveled via rail car only a few memorable times, and was not looking forward to more. This would be, however, the best way for her to arrive at her destination.

The direction of her whole life’s path had shifted since Sophronia’s initial glimpse of that fateful notice listed in the January, 1880, Matrimonial News weekly edition.

Her early morning errands for the Hartwells had included a brisk walk to the general store some eight blocks away, to place an order for their cook’s kitchen necessities. In the process, curious about the periodical’s contents, she had picked up, paid for, and slipped into her reticule a double-sided sheet of newsprint that she knew, she just knew, would have an effect on her future.

It wasn’t until late that night, sequestered in her attic room, that she was able to peruse every advertisement by the dim light of a candle’s stub. Lots of lonely, woman-less men, in lots of lonely and forsaken parts of the country, from the gold fields of California to the mining camps of Nevada to the Kansas wheat farms. Several had seemed interesting, possibly worth a second look, but one in particular caught her attention.

I am