Darby_Bride of Oregon Read online

  It was a lucky thing for Darby the Queen was never in a hurry, for she was able to catch her tongue before it ruined the game.

  No. Not a game. It was her future she was forging. But considering the grave importance of that meeting, if she didn’t think of it as a game, she might break into tears. And McClintocks had more pride than to trade their dignity for a good cry. Even when she’d been told about the factory’s destruction, she hadn’t fashed. Sure, she felt sorry for dear Roberta, who had kept her eye out for them all like a hen watching over her chicks. And she’d felt sorry for every woman who would struggle to survive. But the best thing she could do for them was to keep a stiff upper lip and be bold when necessary.

  It was necessary now.

  Miss Miller picked up a pad of paper and a pencil. “Let’s start with your name.”

  “McClintock. Darby McClintock, lately of Newcastle, England.”

  “Lately?”

  Darby lifted her brows and acted as if her eyelids were much too heavy to open completely. “Lately, as in, prior to coming to Massachusetts, of course. My father was a minor baron, and though it embarrassed the family, dabbled in the coal business. All was lost after he died, and I found myself in want of employment. Of course, the only menial labor for which I had any experience was my stitching. I found that very few in Lawrence were looking for a woman adept at running a household.”

  Miss Miller lifted a brow. “And you have such experience?”

  Darby feigned the most subdued impression of excitement. “Do you know of someone who requires a chatelaine without the burden of marriage?”

  The woman shook her head. “I’m sorry. No. But if you are genuinely interested in marrying Mr. Beauregard of Portland, Oregon, I believe you fit the bill well enough. When you told me your last name was McClintock, I worried you were a Scot, and this gentleman has a particular aversion to Scots. Apparently, he works with many sea captains in his office as Commissioner, and the last thing he wants is to go home to a Scot at night, if you can understand that.

  “I’ve met the man personally, about a year ago, and I can assure you, he is far too honorable to hold someone’s nationality against them, but where his personal life is concerned, I can at least understand his reasoning. Besides, he insists that I only send him someone who can be dignified in all situations.”

  “My dear, Miss Miller, I assure you I am not a Scot, though I admit there must be a drop or two in my veins from generations ago in order for me to have such a last name. Great Britain is a much smaller place than you have probably guessed. Everyone is related, unfortunately, to everyone else.”

  That last bit was heartfelt. She really did deem it unfortunate that she had as many English relatives as she did, distant though they may be. After centuries of squabbling over minor worries—like life and death, robbery and abuse—bitterness was an easy trait to pass down from generation to generation. And it galled her, the need to play the part of her eternal enemy for the time being.

  But it galled her even more to hear the woman insinuate that a Scotswoman can’t be trusted to be dignified in all situations. In fact, with Miss Miller poised to hand over the keys to her future, Darby was tempted to toss the offer back and spit in her eye.

  “I’ll be honest,” the woman said. “I’ve been trying to find the right woman for Mr. Beauregard for quite a while. I’d like to offer it to you now, if you don’t mind. I suppose if I asked you for references, you’d only have the other ladies to vouch for you?”

  “I’m afraid so,” she lied. “I never would have believed I would need references when I left England, let alone employment.”

  Silently, she prayed Miss Miller wouldn’t ask for those references. The only three who might have written something for her had already left town. Margaret left that morning, and Violet Keating had gone to meet her new husband in North Dakota the week before. Rachel West was still in town, but she worried Rachel might find it difficult to lie intentionally, especially when she knew for a fact that Darby was a Scottish lass with a wicked temper. She’d witnessed it firsthand a time or two.

  After taking down Darby’s address, the woman stood. “I’ll take you at your word, then, Miss McClintock.” They shook hands, and as they did so, the ribbon fell from Darby’s legs. Under the cover of her skirts, she shook it off one foot, then the other. Then she nudged in under the chair behind her, all while shaking the woman’s hand. If Miss Miller thought it odd to shake hands for so long, hopefully, she would excuse it as a British habit.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Rand had just come out of one of his stupors of guilt and brandy to find that the sun had risen without him. Portland went about its above-board business as usual without him reigning over it from his high window on Burnside. And he didn’t hold out hope that, while he was otherwise engaged, the bowels of the city had cleansed themselves, and the sea captains had decided to recruit sailors the honorable way and pay them a decent wage to boot.

  Rand told Hardy Jacobs, the driver, to take him home. He needed a hot bath and a good meal to play the part of City Commissioner. Shadow waited for him inside his carriage, and he dreaded what his dark assistant would say.

  Unlike Rand, Shadow’s notorious name was his own. A son of an African slave and a plantation owner, just before the end of the civil war, Shadow came out of his mother’s womb so late he was overcooked, he said. Rand and Shadow had grown up along the banks of the Mississippi together and one day, had hopped on a steamship bound for the west coast. They thought they’d been escaping the fresh wound of slavery, but they’d been wrong.

  Oh, how they’d been wrong.

  And every night, as they did their part to thwart the inhumanity of Portland’s underbelly, Rand thanked God for such a stealthy assistant. In a carefully selected wardrobe of black, Shadow was the night itself. He regularly moved close to some of the city’s vilest creatures and they never knew. But most importantly, he was able to eavesdrop when those creatures alerted the sea captains to what kind of flesh was for sale that night. And this gave Rand time to save many before they were drugged, purchased, and carried away.

  Some days, he wished he could fill those tunnels with dynamite and flatten Portland all together. But the devil and his minions would always find a way to ply their trade and line their pockets. No use taking down the city for nothing.

  Besides, Rand had high hopes that one day Portland would become a beacon of light for the west, that the law would find a way to thwart those sea captains who created the demand for slave labor.

  One day.

  Unfortunately, the practice had gone on for forty years, and it showed no signs of abating. And so, for as long as he was able, he would wallow in the darkness with the rest of vermin kings for the sake of a few.

  “Did I miss anything?” he asked Shadow.

  “You were gone for two days,” the man said by way of answer. What he’d meant was, “Of course you missed something.”

  “Tell me.”

  Shadow pulled something from his pocket. “That last one…” They never repeated the name of a victim after they were taken from the waterfront. Ever. “He had a sister.” He handed over a note. “This was left for him at the Drake.”

  “The Drake?” Few of Rand’s victims had money enough to stay at the Drake Hotel. “How did you know to look there?”

  Shadow laid a finger alongside his nose and tapped it twice. It was a secret he was going to keep. But suspecting the man had his own informants at the prestigious establishment was a good thing to know. There was no telling when it might come in handy.

  Rand opened the letter and glanced through it, then held it out while Shadow struck a match and lit the paper on fire.

  “She only hopes he will come home again,” Rand said. “She won’t come looking. I listened to the man for a good ten minutes before…” He waved his hand to indicate all they had done to get their victim from the saloon, into a cage, and onto that dingy. “This gal, whoever she is, would be a fool to come l
ooking for him. I’m sure she’ll be relieved when she never hears from him again.”

  Shadow frowned. “I hope you are right.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Yes. You had a telegram from that Miller woman. She has found you a bride.”

  Rand grinned. The news would help him shrug off his hangover. “She found a British woman, then?”

  Shadow nodded. “Poulson will not be happy I gave you the news.”

  “Oh, don’t worry. I’ll pretend I’ve heard nothing. Did she give the woman’s name? Her lineage? Anything?”

  “Just her name. A Miss Darby McClintock.”

  The fire ate up the last of the note and bit his fingers. “Damn it all to hell.”

  “Are you hurt?”

  “No. But someone will be if Miss Miller has sent me a Scot to marry.”

  “McClintock? Surely it does not mean she is family to that crazed sea captain.”

  “I hope not.” Rand’s frown lightened with an amusing thought. “And if she turns out to be a Scot, you know what I’m going to do?”

  “Send her back?”

  “No.” He shook his head and grinned. “I’ll sell her to Captain McClintock himself. And for ten times the usual price. By the time she wakes, they’ll be out to sea. And when he realizes what I’ve given him, he’ll finally understand what all his victims felt.”

  “Justice for them, yes?”

  “Justice for them, indeed.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  In the two years since Darby entered the large boarding house on Haverhill Street, she’d accumulated another few pounds of clothing, a nice pair of shoes for church in the summertime, and two books with which she would never part. This necessitated another satchel, which her landlady provided from a large box full of things left behind by past residents.

  Darby suspected the donation was motivated less by generosity and more from the probability that the woman was happy to be quit with her. It was a fact, she and Mrs. Fussbudget found it difficult to appreciate one another. The woman had a hard time differentiating between a Scottish accent and an Irish one, and since she had a firm bias against the Irish, she always eyed Darby with suspicion. Thus, Darby thought it best to never linger in a room occupied by the landlady.

  Unfortunately, this made mealtime a bit awkward. If she arrived early, she had to eat quickly before Fussbudget arrived to ruin the meal. And if she couldn’t arrive early, she was forced to wait in the hallway for the other woman to finish eating, then rush to the table and hope there was something left to eat.

  With Margaret on hand for the past four months, Darby’d been guaranteed to have a nice portion set aside for her. With Margaret gone, the last week had been lean indeed. However, since she was leaving for Portland that morning, she saw no reason to worry over Fussbudget’s whereabouts and sashayed into the dining room without peeking around the door first.

  “Good morning,” she said with a smile, greeting the long table at large. She even held the smile a bit longer to be sure she caught Fussbudget’s eye. The woman was seated at the head of the table and the edges of her mouth turned up before she realized who she was greeting.

  “Good morning,” she muttered.

  “It’s a fine morning for changing one’s life, is it no’?” She strode to the sideboard and filled a plate with enough breakfast to make up for two days’ crumbs. She was tempted to pour gravy over all of it and dig in with a small shovel, like some lumberjack, but she forbore.

  At the table, she found a seat directly opposite two other young women whom she knew to be leaving Massachusetts as mail-order brides. The pair were close friends, and they gripped hands and stared at their plates as if they had just been served their last meal.

  At first, Darby gazed on them with pity. But she realized pity was not what the girls needed.

  She swallowed a bit of ham and pointed at the girls with her fork. “You two.”

  They flinched and gripped each other tighter.

  “Ye’d best eat up, aye? No telling when yer next meal will come, nor what ye’ll get. Now,” she pointed to their plates, “ye eat up, ye hear? Ye’ve paid for that meal, and from now on, you must boldly take what’s yers. It won’t matter the manner of men yer husbands turn out to be if ye let them know, from the start, that ye’re strong lasses who can take care of themselves. And if ye don’t feel so strong right now, then you just keep up the pretense until it’s true.”

  The pair stared at her with open mouths.

  She frowned. “Do you understand?”

  Hesitantly, they nodded.

  Darby nodded back. “Then let go.”

  The girls looked at their hands for a heartbeat or two, then each of them pulled away and sat up a bit straighter in their chairs.

  Darby rewarded them with a smile. “Ye’re going to be just fine. Both of ye.”

  After the pair finished their breakfast, thanked her for her advice, and left the dining room, the old woman to Darby’s left gave her a nudge.

  “I certainly hope that advice doesn’t earn those girls a beating on their first night married.”

  Darby shook her head. “Sadly, a man who would beat a confident lass would beat a timid one just as often. Perhaps more.”

  Lost in thought, she was only vaguely aware when the rest of the ladies, including Mrs. Fussbudget, left the table. She couldn’t stop her imagination from summoning half a dozen incarnations of Mr. Beauregard of Portland, Oregon. Would he be handsome, as Miss Miller claimed, or was it only the very thing she said to all nervous mail-order brides?

  She did say she’d met the man before.

  But handsome wouldn’t matter if the man was overly stern. She feared the chances of him being so were greater since he’d asked for an upper-crust wife. Or would he be a man from a distinctly lower class who wished to raise his station through the image of his bride? In either case, she feared she would never be able to show her true self without paying dearly for it.

  She harbored the same secret dream as all the rest of the unemployed mill workers headed off to their own mysterious weddings—that they would be greeted by a kind, handsome prince of a man who would grow to love her, and she him. But men like those would have little need of advertising for a wife, since every woman from miles around would recognize such a prize and fight to have him.

  No. There had to be something wrong with the man in order to marry a perfect stranger. She just hoped it wouldn’t be some horrible flaw in his character. After all, a homely man could still be good and kind. And surely, a kind man would find it in his heart to excuse a small untruth his wife might have told at the beginning of their marriage.

  Darby retrieved her bags and stepped out of Haver House for the last time, more nervous than ever about meeting this mysterious Mr. Beauregard. For she was convinced she would know her fate the moment she set eyes on him. She prayed for a downright repellent man, for if he were handsome, she was in trouble. A handsome man, with a flawed character, would likely be unforgiving, so she could never let him know he’d been deceived.

  That was it! She would simply have to take her own advice, to keep pretending she was as refined as Queen Victoria herself…until it was true.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Jezebel Carlton whacked Rand’s desk with her delicate mother of pearl fan and the pieces flew everywhere. Two shards hit him in the face and he winced.

  On her feet, seething, she hardly noticed she’d destroyed her favorite gift from him. “You said you’d changed your mind!”

  “No,” he said calmly, rubbing his face to see if he was bleeding. “I said I’d given up hope that Miss Miller would ever find someone to meet my requirements. I never changed my mind.”

  Since Jez didn’t seem concerned about the fan, he brushed his hand across his desk to send the debris to the floor.

  “You don’t have to marry a stranger—”

  He held up his hand to cut her off. “I will not marry you, Jez. I cannot get far in politics with a wife named Jez
ebel, let alone a brothel owner, and you know it. We’ve already been over this.”

  She came around the desk and pressed up against him with one arm around his shoulders and her…endowments…close to his face. “I can sell the businesses, change my name. I’ve done it before. Portland will forget.”

  He resisted shaking his head for what the contact would do to them both. He would never go to her bed again, not with a wife headed his way on a fast, westbound train. And if Jez hadn’t realized it yet, that any intimacy between them was over, she would soon enough.

  He leaned away from her slightly. She understood the hint and, with her seduction foiled, went back to the seat across from him and slumped into it.

  “Which part of Portland would forget?” he wondered aloud. “The men who frequent your cathouses? Or their wives who resent you for owning them?”

  Jez rolled her eyes and ignored the question. He was relieved the emotional outburst was over. In fact, she didn’t seem any more upset about his rejection than she’d been about the fan. Something was off.

  “What are you really upset about, hm? You don’t really want to be a married woman. You’d have to sit in my house on the hill, away from the action. No more night life.”

  She wrinkled up her pretty nose. “No, thank you. Besides, you’d be dead in a week without me watching your back.”

  “I’ve got plenty of men watching my back, Jez, if you really want to settle down with someone.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Can we close the subject? You’ve already managed to put me off my dinner.” She hid her eyes from him. “What’s the princess’s name, anyhow? It had better be a lot more respectable than Jezebel.”

  He grimaced, then dropped all expression. “Miss Darby McClintock.”