Spanked Mail Order Bride Western Romance

By Elle London

Madeline doesn't know why Mr. Cortege has selected her as his bride, and she's concerned by rumors of his dominant personality - but rumors are just rumors after all, and she knows he's one of the few eligible bachelors left.

 

A letter in the mail, a hurried goodbye, and a long train ride later, she meets her new husband - Robert Cortege.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Elle London
• Release date: Apr 30, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215859803

Book preview

Chapter One

Are you sure you want to go through with this? Madeline’s father asked.

She heard the note of concern in his voice and almost let out a sigh. It was a question she’d been contemplating herself for the last few days and the honest truth was that she wasn’t altogether sure if she was doing the right thing. At the time of joining the mail order bridal agency, it seemed like an adventure and she knew it was likely her best chance of finding a man to marry. It was never going to happen in the small town she grew up in. The few men there that were of marrying age were already paired off and that meant her chances of meeting someone to share her life with were severely limited.

If she remained in the town she was certain she would end up an old spinster, with nothing but regrets of not taking a chance when she was younger. Becoming a mail order bride seemed a drastic step, but she could see no other way out. She wasn’t the only girl in town that joined the agency. She knew of at least two others and suspected there were more.

Madeline realized she still hadn’t answered her father and looked up to see him watching her closely.

Yes, I’m sure, she said in a loud voice.

She knew she was trying to convince herself as much as she was him and cast her eyes to the ground when she saw the skeptical expression on his face.

I’ll miss you, he said.

She brought her gaze back up and smiled.

I’ll miss you too, she replied and let herself sink in his arms as he wrapped them around her in a hug.

Tears pricked at the corner of her eyes, but she held them back. The last thing she needed was for her father to think she was unhappy with what she was doing. In truth she wasn’t, although there was definitely uncertainty in her mind. She knew that was normal when things changed and there were about to in a huge way. Madeline composed herself and put a smile on her face as she worked herself free of the tight hug.

Keep in touch and let me know that mother doesn’t get any worse, she told him.

I will, he assured her. I’ll write to you weekly to keep you up to date with her condition and let you know how we are getting on.

I’ll come back if you need me, she promised.

I know you will, he replied and smiled at her.

Madeline nodded then bent down to pick up her bag from where it was sitting at her feet. She turned to step on the train just as the whistle sounded, but looked back as her father spoke again.

Do you have everything? he asked.

Too late now, she said with a rueful smile.

She quickly moved inside the carriage and walked along the aisle until she found an empty seat on which she could sit next to the window looking out on the platform. Her father waved at her as the whistle sounded out again and the wheels slowly began to turn. The train chugged along slowly at first then started to gather speed. Madeline turned her head to keep watching until her father was a speck in the distance. She was setting off on a journey to a new life and really didn’t know what she was letting herself in for.

Her gaze remained on the passing scene as the small town slowly disappeared from view. It had been her home for all of her nineteen years and apart from the occasional trip with her parents, she really knew nothing else. That was about to change and she again considered if she was doing the right thing.

Do you want to stay here and end up an old spinster? she muttered under her breath.

A blush spread across her face at the thought she may have spoke too loud, but a glance around showed that none of the passengers sitting in seats nearby were looking in her direction. She turned her attention back out of the window and watched the open countryside rolling past. The life she knew was over and she suspected that nothing would be the same again. It brought the man she’d been corresponding with to mind and she reached for her bag.

Chapter Two

Searching inside, she found the details of Robert Cortege to take them out. The black and white picture was grainy, but showed a handsome, upright man. The information gave his height as over six feet tall and that meant he would tower over her petite frame. The picture showed his head and upper body only and he seemed to have a powerful physique. The smart Stetson, jacket and shirt he wore gave an indication of his wealth and Madeline wondered why he would turn to a mail order service to find a bride.

The details the agency gave her weren’t the only information she knew about her future husband. While the small town she lived in didn’t have a local newspaper, her father often brought one home from his travels for work. Madeline usually scoured them for details of what was happening in the wider world around where she lived. On occasions there were stories about Robert Cortege, which speculated on everything from his net worth to the growth and success of his company, his supposed dominating personality and the women he was said to have dated.

He was well enough known in the region that plenty of writers and commentators producing articles for newspapers were prepared to speculate on his professional and personal life. As Madeline stared out at the passing scenery, she wondered how much of the details she’d read about him were true and how much the invention of creative journalistic minds.

There was no doubt at all that he was rich. The company his father created was one of the biggest gold depository businesses in the region. It was already thriving when Robert was given the job of running it and he’d only increased its success. This gave him riches that most people could only dream of and while he didn’t exactly flaunt his wealth, by all accounts he was happy to luxuriate in the comforts it brought him.

Madeline guessed that the well documented facts about his professional life were more or less accurate, but suspected there was less truth and more make-believe in the stories she read about his private life. Robert was in his late thirties and there was plenty of speculation as to why he remained single. This ranged from him not having met the right woman to conjecture that he was a confirmed bachelor, that he didn’t want to risk losing part of his fortune to a divorce and that his apparent dominating personality manner meant that he couldn’t find a woman that would say yes to a proposal.

The one fact in it all was that he definitely was still single, although that would change the following day when they tied the knot. She could barely believe it, but that was what she was traveling towards. That she was doing it with a man she barely knew, and had done no more than correspond with, made her shake her head. It seemed unreal, but she knew that she would be Robert Cortege’s wife by the end of the following day.

Madeline again wondered why a man as wealthy and handsome turned to a mail order bridal agency to find a wife, but guessed there could be any number of reasons. At nineteen years old, she was around half his age and maybe he thought that would give him a partner that he could more easily control. Perhaps he’d given up on the conventional way of meeting woman since it hadn’t got him what he wanted or maybe his business interests meant that he didn’t have the time to devote to his personal life and he was just looking for a simpler way to meet a bride.

In the end it didn’t really matter. After the agency introduced them, he’d written offering her the chance of marriage and she’d accepted. The train she was on was taking her to a life that was going to be a million miles and a million dollars away from what she was used to. She thought about her father asking her if she was sure it was what she wanted to do when they stood on the platform. She let out a sigh as she dropped her gaze to the picture of Robert on her lap.

Am I doing the right thing? she asked it, a bittersweet smile breaking out across her face. She would find out soon enough.

The idea of her father going home on his own after her departure brought out her guilt. It left him looking after her sick mother and she wondered if he would be able to cope on his own. The illness came on six months before although it seemed innocuous to start with.

Complaints of aches and tiredness prompted a visit to the town doctor, whose only diagnosis was that her mother needed some rest. This seemed to do nothing to help and her condition worsened to the point that it was a struggle for her to get out of bed in the morning. She needed to give up her job and this only put an added strain on the situation. Madeline and her father did their best to look after her and she seemed to improve although she was nowhere near back to her old self. Repeated visits to the doctor didn’t help in finding out what the problem was and while he gave her medicine to help cope with the pain when it got bad, a cure didn’t appear to be around the corner.

The marriage proposal from Robert Cortege didn’t come completely out of the blue, since that was the aim of her joining the agency in the first place. It still came at a time when she wasn’t sure if it was a good move for her to leave home. In the end she knew that she couldn’t pass up on an opportunity that might never come her way again. The larger town of Melrose was only a six hour train ride away and she meant to keep her promise to her father that it her mother’s condition worsened she would come home to help. How her new husband would view this was another matter entirely, but she wasn’t planning to get married and abandon her parents entirely.

Madeline rested her head against the back of the seat and the rattling of the train and the mid-morning warmth made her drowsy. She put thoughts of her impending wedding and her sick mother out of her mind as she dozed off. It was over an hour before she opened her eyes again when the jolting of the train woke her up as it came to a stop at a station. She blinked her eyes a couple of times as she tried to sweep the drowsiness away and looked out at the passengers waiting to board the train.

TEN MINUTES, the conductor shouted as he walked along the platform.

Madeline decided to stretch her legs for five and got up to walk to the door. She stepped down to the platform then moved along it and back again. When she came to a stop, it was at the window she’d spent the journey looking out of. She glanced in to check on her belongings before turning her attention back to the station platform. A man selling snacks walked by and the sight of the drinks he was carrying made her thirsty, so she stopped him to buy one. It went down well and when she was finished, she moved to get back on the train. A glance at the station clock showed it was just after ten in the morning. There were still four hours or so to go before she arrived at her destination and she let out a sigh as she stepped back on the carriage and made her way along to her seat.

She flopped down in it and stared out at the station building as she waited for her journey to carry on. When it did, she just kept her mind blank for a while and watched the passing scenery. The small houses they passed reminded her of her parent’s property, but they quickly disappeared from view as the train sped through open countryside again. It wasn’t long before her mind was on her future husband again and she wondered why he picked her in particular.

Madeline never considered herself to be anything special when it came to looks. She always thought her long blonde hair was her best feature and while her face was pretty, she wasn’t in the same league as some of the girls in her home town. It was they that managed to catch the attention of the eligible bachelors rather than her and she sometimes wished she’d been more beautiful.

She wasn’t completely inexperienced when it came to the opposite sex and enjoyed a few encounters with young men in the last couple of years. Her suspicions were that their interest was to do with her blossoming curves more than anything else and that they were only interested in one thing from her. She made it clear to them that only marriage would entice her into giving it and she wondered if that didn’t have a bearing on why she remained single while other girls paired off. She’d heard rumors about what some of them were prepared to do to get and keep a boy’s attention, but was never tempted to do the same. It was why she remained a virgin although with a wedding night looming on the horizon, she knew that was about to change.

The agency asked if she remained pure when she joined it and she knew there was only one acceptable answer. Unlike most of the other women in her town, however, she didn’t need to lie. She wondered if that was the reason Robert picked her or whether he just saw something in the picture of her that attracted him. For all she knew it could have been something else entirely that got his attention. There was no way of knowing and she wasn’t even sure she would find out the reasons for his interest when she arrived.

Her apprehension began to rise as the journey progressed and she got nearer her destination. She finally got a book from her bag to try and turn her mind away from what was happening in her life. It worked to an extent and she concentrated on the story as the train sped on through the picturesque landscape. She closed the book when they arrived at the last stop before Melrose. The train remained stationary for only a few minutes before it set off again and gathered