Under the White Roses: A Pair of Historical Romances

By Vanessa Carvo

Oregon Trail Journey After The Civil War, is the story of a southern woman and her older brother, striking out for the West to escape the hardships of the South after the Civil War. She didn’t want to leave her home but not wanting to be left isolated, she went with him. The wagon train along the Oregon Trail is led by a seasoned veteran of the War, on the opposite side. Romance develops but the brother is still bitter about the south losing the war.

Harriet & Gavin’s Story - A woman is kidnapped from her coach while on her way to Southampton to join her mail ordered fiancé in America. The man tells her that he’s a travel officer there to help capture a trafficking gang and although cooperative, she feels that something is wrong. Once they reach Boston and after meeting her intended, she is again taken while staying at an inn on the way to Colorado. This time she knows that something is wrong and goes kicking and screaming into the night with her abductor.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Oct 16, 2016
• ISBN: 9781365465376

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Under the White Roses: A Pair of Historical Romances

Under the White Roses: A Pair of Historical Romances

By

Vanessa Carvo

Copyright 2016 Quietly Blessed & Loved Press

Oregon Trail Journey After The Civil War

Synopsis: Oregon Trail Journey After The Civil War, is the story of a southern woman and her older brother, striking out for the West to escape the hardships of the South after the Civil War. She didn’t want to leave her home but not wanting to be left isolated, she went with him. The wagon train along the Oregon Trail is led by a seasoned veteran of the War, on the opposite side. Romance develops but the brother is still bitter about the south losing the war. When a virulent disease erupts the wagon master abandons the wagon train, taking just the brother and sister and a single wagon, as he strikes off along the trail alone. Tragedy strikes later and the sister has to make a hard choice.

Mary looked at her dirt-stained gloves, the rain spattering down from the sky unevenly. She’d just thrown a handful into that gaping hole, the one that had become her parents’ final resting place. Her brother, Matthew, tossed his handful in, and it thumped against the caskets below. Mary shuddered. She preferred to remember Mother and Father in happier times — not like this.

They were riding in a wagon on the way home from visiting a friend one day when the horses had taken a curve in the road a bit too fast. The wagon, they’d surmised later, had hit a large rock in the dirt and overturned.

Both Mother and Father had died almost instantly, the sheriff told Mary and Matthew, as if that was some comfort. One of the horses was so badly injured that it had to be shot. The other they sold.

She and her brother had sold everything. It was more of Matthew’s doing, mostly. Mary had no choice but to go along with it. He was five years older than her twenty and was convinced that no one had her best interests in mind more than himself.

I agree that it’s a tragedy Mother and Father have died, he said as she sobbed in the sitting room, thirty minutes after the sheriff had imparted his grim tidings. Think of it as an opportunity to shed this life and begin anew.

Mary had no desire to shed anything about her life. She wanted Mother and Father back — Father’s ever-present pipe and the sweetness the tobacco infused his clothes with. Mother and the click of her knitting needles, creating scarves, hats, and mittens no matter what the season.

Matthew had presented this idea before, when their parents were still alive. He wanted to go west, to get away from the pervasive stench of defeat that still wafted throughout South Carolina.

Absolutely not, Father had said, his pipe puffing small clouds of smoke furiously.

People walk around here hanging their heads like dogs, Matthew argued, his face red with passion. I can’t stand it, Father, I won’t. If you all won’t accompany me to California, I’ll go by myself.

I forbid you, Mother said, the clicks of her needles punctuating each syllable.

Matthew had been fifteen at the war’s end, always embittered that Father refused to fight — and kept Matt, still a youngster, from going to war himself.

Mary remembered the Battle of Rivers Bridge, though she’d been just a child. She remembered seeing the lines and lines of navy uniforms marching past the farm, taking what they wished from the fields. As a little girl, she wept in outrage.

They’re stealing from us, she whimpered into Mother’s arms.

They need the food just as much as we do, Mother said calmly, even though she was shaking, her hands gripping the family bible. They can have as much as they’d like.

Father had to take a raging and frothing Matthew inside the house, as the boy ranted about the Union soldiers on their property.

Why doesn’t Father fight? Mary asked. Nearly all of her friends who attended lessons at the schoolhouse had fathers or brothers or cousins or uncles fighting in the war.

Mother had thought a long time before answering.

Father thinks that only God should decide who lives and who dies, Mother explained slowly. He would only fight if God called him to do so.

And God’s not telling him? Mary asked.

That’s right, Mother said. They sat down in a rocking chair on the porch of the old farmhouse, Mary sitting on her mother’s lap.

Mother opened the bible to Ecclesiastes. Mary knew the verses almost by heart, mouthing the words as Mother read.

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace.

Mother smiled down at Mary. Now, you read it, she said.

Mary began again. There is a time for everything …

They sat and watched the soldiers eat their ways through the fields.

Yes, that was how Mary preferred to remember Mother and Father. They had their problems, like any other family. Matthew was generally the source of most of them. He was brash and hotheaded, the very opposite of Father, who always thought things through.

Still,