Mail Order Bride - Natalia's Voyage

By Julie Mace

Edward Connor is a successful lawyer in a small mining town. He has everything he could ever want, except the thing he wants most of all-Love! Natalia Rossi's a former heiress to a massive Italian fortune until the day she loses both her parents to a tragic sea accident. Now her fortune is gone and she's left wondering what her life may bring. Can worlds collide to bring these two star-crossed lovers together before old family secrets come back to haunt them?

• Language: English
• Publisher: JMP Publishing House
• Release date: Jun 27, 2017
• ISBN: 9781536554250

Book preview

Mail Order Bride

Natalia's Voyage

Julie Mace

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Other Authors Recommended Free Books

Copyright

Chapter 1

Sorrento, Italy  October, 1898

Natalia stares aimlessly out her window, counting the blooms on her mother’s prize red roses as she does every morning. Her thoughts always turn to her mother in the mornings, as the breeze carries the scent of those roses into the foyer and to Natalia, barely awake. She’s always careful that this morning scene is the first to greet her. Nearly six years have passed since the horrific sinking of their shipping vessel that took both her parents’ lives. Now all Natalia has left of either of them is her mother’s beautiful roses and a small broach her father had gifted to her when she turned fourteen. As it turns out, that was the last present she ever received from either of them, the accident happening almost immediately after. Now Natalia refuses gifts of any kind and carries on her mother’s tireless upkeep of those roses.

Most mornings, after careful accounting of the rose garden, Natalia dines alone in the Red Room. It’s a regular dining room but adorned with wonderful paintings of her mother’s roses. The chairs are upholstered to match, and fresh bulbs are placed on the centerpiece at dawn. Aunt Emogene used to accompany Natalia to these breakfasts, but her condition has deteriorated greatly in the past year. Aunt Emogene moved onto the estate after Natalia’s parents’ passing. The sister of Natalia’s father, Emogene never married or had a family of her own. She’d always been sickly, as far back as Natalia could remember. Now, it seems, her time has come. However, she still finds ways to make her presence known to her ward in the early mornings.

Without fail, Natalia finds along with her tea and biscuit tray, cuttings from the previous day’s newspapers. These aren’t just any cuttings. They are Matrimonials, lonely men from the United States offering marriage to women abroad. Women like Natalia, Aunt Emogene is quick to point out. Aunt Emogene, aside from her many true ailments, has also come down with a touch of Gold Fever. Her one wish in this world is for Natalia to find a nice American boy and live the dream. Natalia is deeply opposed to even the thought of marrying for money, no matter how desperately they need it these days. Every morning the Matrimonials greet Natalia, and every morning she promptly crumples them and tosses them — unread — into the fireplace.

This morning, however, Natalia’s eye is caught by one of the ads. It’s longer than the rest, almost a full letter instead of the customary terse two or three lines. This intrigues Natalia because she’s sure these poor men have to pay by the word. This... Edward, she reads from the bottom of the paper, must be quite serious about finding a mate if he’d go through all this trouble. As she lets the name Edward play in her mind, she catches herself reading then re-reading the Matrimonial in its entirety. Before she knows it she’s sitting in the lounge chair by the fire, committing the poetic words to memory, unable to release them to the flames like so many times before.

Dearest Mademoiselle,

I write this letter to introduce myself to you, whomever you may be, and wherever this letter finds you. I find that it has not been easy for a man in my position to find a woman of like mind and virtue as myself. I’m a simple man, a lawyer in a budding mountain town called Crystal Springs, Montana. I was born here, raised here, and will probably die here. Hopefully not for a long while yet, as I’m only thirty years of age. And, hopefully, not after I’ve had a long happy life with a happy wife.

You see, that is my goal. My parents had a wonderful marriage and I want to share that same long caring relationship with a woman worthy of the Connor name. My family goes all the way back to the days before Crystal Springs became a city of its own. Generations of Connors have served this fair little town, and I plan to make it my life’s goal to continue that tradition. To do so, I must find a woman can carry herself with the utmost dignity at all times. Alas, in a small gold mining community, there