A Bargain Struck (Choc Lit) Read online

  Copyright © 2013 Liz Harris

  Published 2013 by Choc Lit Limited

  Penrose House, Crawley Drive, Camberley, Surrey GU15 2AB, UK

  www.choc-lit.com

  The right of Liz Harris to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying. In the UK such licences are issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London, W1P 9HE

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available

  from the British Library

  ISBN 978-1-78189-051-6

  For my very good friend, Stella

  She knows why

  Contents

  Title page

  Copyright information

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Epigraph

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  More Choc Lit

  Introducing Choc Lit

  More from Choc Lit

  Acknowledgements

  Once again, I should like to thank Choc Lit for being such great people to work with. I feel very privileged to be part of a publishing team and a group of authors who are so unfailingly friendly and supportive of each other.

  To ensure historical accuracy, I’ve drawn upon a wide range of books. I don’t have room here to mention them all, but I should like to single out Women and Men on the Overland Trail, by John Mack Faragher, The West: An Illustrated History, by Geoffrey C. Ward, Cow Chips ‘n’ Cactus, by Florence Blake Smith, A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains, by Isabella Bird and Letters of a Woman Homesteader, by Elinore Pruitt Stewart.

  I was very fortunate in being able to go with my husband to Wyoming in order to find the answers to questions that still eluded me after months of research, despite having access to a wide range of books and the internet. I met too many kind and helpful people in Wyoming to mention them all here, but I’d like to say a special thank you to the staff of the Homesteaders’ Museum, Torrington, and to Jan Sherman at the Savery Museum, for their untiring patience in answering my questions and in explaining the many items of great interest in their museums. There can have been no more interesting and exciting way in which to learn about US life in the late 1800s.

  The Romantic Novelists’ Association continues to play a large part in my life, and I’m grateful to it for the help, support and the many friends I’ve made through going to the Oxford, Reading and London Chapters, the RNA meetings and the annual summer conference. So, too, does the Historical Novel Society, to which I belong. My membership of the Oxford Writers’ Group is also a source of great pleasure and friendship, and I am extremely appreciative of their excellent observations.

  Talking of friendship, I must once again thank my friend in the north, Stella, who reads everything that I write, and who is unfailingly supportive. I am extremely lucky to have a friend who has such superb insights and who always tells me the truth.

  Finally, a huge to thank you to my husband, Richard, who does all of the things that I’m unable to do because I sit in front of the computer all day. I’m very grateful to you, Richard. A massive thank you.

  In popular opinion a good marriage was a bargain struck between two strong-willed characters for an equitable and advantageous division of labour.

  John Mack Faragher, Women and Men on the Overland Trail (1979)

  Chapter One

  Baggs, Wyoming Territory; July 1887

  The stage came to a halt in a cloud of dirt and grit.

  Ellen O’Sullivan lifted the oiled leather flap that covered the glassless window and looked out. Dust kicked up by the horses’ hooves swirled up around the sides of the coach, and she coughed. With one hand holding her poke bonnet firmly in place and the other covering her mouth, she leaned slightly out and glanced around.

  They’d stopped in front of a tall, wood-framed building. As far as she could see, it was the first in a line of buildings that straggled a wide, dusty track. Hitch racks had been dug into the ground along the front of the building, and a number of saddle horses were tied to them. Several men clad in worn, dirt-covered jeans hovered among the horses; a few others stood talking in groups in front of the entrance.

  One of those men would be Connor Maguire, she thought, and she dropped the flap.

  She sat back against her seat and breathed heavily. Beads of cold sweat gathered on her forehead – she could be about to make a dreadful mistake, a mistake that she might have to live with for the rest of her life.

  She took her handkerchief from the small bag that hung from her waist and wiped her forehead, pushing back her fear.

  She couldn’t let herself think like that, not after enduring four uncomfortable days on an overcrowded train, and one seemingly never-ending day on a jolting stagecoach; not after choking day after day on whisky fumes and tobacco smoke, unable to escape either the rancid odour or the open stares of her fellow passengers. She’d put up with it all just to meet this man, and now that she’d reached her destination, it was much too late to question what she’d done.

  Or rather, what she’d not done.

  But she’d had no choice. To have stayed in Omaha would have been a mistake. She’d been right to come to Wyoming in search of a new life, and if Connor Maguire could understand why she’d not been completely honest with him, and if he could forgive her, then that new life could be a good life.

  The door of the stage was flung open. Dust and the stench of manure and sweating horses filled the coach, and she coughed again.

  ‘This is it, ma’am. This is Baggs. It’s just you to get off,’ the driver told her, and he stood aside to let her get down.

  Her hands shaking, she pulled her hat more closely around her face and climbed slowly down the steps, her limbs stiff and unwilling to move, her petticoats sticking damply to her legs. She reached the ground, straightened her skirt and looked about her.

  Some of the men had stopped what they were doing and were staring at her, openly curious, but no one appeared to be making a move to come over to her. She glanced to her right, saw that her travelling bag had been unstrapped from the back of the stagecoach and thrown to the ground, and went over to it. Grit crunched noisily beneath her high
button boots at every step.

  Her heart beating fast, she took up a position next to her bag, tied her bonnet ribbons into a tighter bow and stood waiting, her eyes firmly on the ground.

  ‘Be you Mrs O’Sullivan?’

  She gave a slight jump. Shaking inwardly, she drew in a deep breath, and looked up. A tall man in a suit was standing in front of her, twisting a broad-rimmed felt hat in his hand.

  ‘I am. Yes,’ she said. Piercing blue eyes scrutinised her face. She attempted a smile. ‘And you must be Mr Maguire.’

  He nodded, his eyes never leaving her face.

  Self-conscious, she put her hand to her cheek, then slid it to the ribbon beneath her chin. Her heart pounding, she untied her bonnet, took it off and smoothed down her hair. ‘My hair is thick with dust. I fear I’m very travel-stained.’ She could hear the nervous edge in her voice. Fixing her gaze on the broad shoulders in front of her, she stood very still.

  Silent, he stared at her. Then he cleared his throat. ‘The Justice of the Peace is waiting in the roadhouse. With two witnesses.’

  She forced herself to raise her chin and look directly into his face. ‘And you still wish this?’

  It was a moment before he spoke. ‘I believe in honourable behaviour, ma’am, and I always honour the agreements I make,’ he said quietly. He bent down and picked up her bag.

  A lump came to her throat. ‘Thank you, Mr Maguire. I promise, you will have no cause for regret.’

  ‘That is to be hoped,’ he said flatly. ‘For afterwards, I’ve ordered you a room for the night, and a tub of hot water. You will feel stale after so much travel, I’m sure, and you will wish to bathe. And there will be a meal for you. For my part, I’ll go straight to a friend – we have business to talk over. I’ll come by for you tomorrow morning, when you’ve had breakfast. We must start early if we’re to reach the house before sundown.’ He paused. ‘I hope that this suits.’

  ‘It does suit. Thank you, Mr Maguire.’ She put her hat back on and tied the ribbon tightly.

  He nodded again. ‘Then we can go.’ And he started to walk.

  Guilt swelled up inside her. Swallowing hard, she followed a few paces behind him.

  His face impassive and his eyes fixed on the infinite horizon, Connor headed the wagon out of Baggs and across a vast expanse of blue-green sagebrush spiked with clumps of golden rabbitbush and spears of purple asters.

  Sitting next to him, clutching the side of the wagon with one of her hands and gripping the wooden seat with the other, Ellen clung on tightly as the wagon raced across the uneven ground at full speed, jolting her sharply whenever it hit a rock or a deep rut. From time to time, she turned to stare from one side to the other, watching mile after mile of emptiness fly by, an endless wilderness of sage-green shrubland, broken only by patches of yellowing grass and the occasional glimpse of an isolated claim shack.

  More than once she glanced across at Connor and wondered about trying to strike up a conversation with him. But while he looked more relaxed than he’d done the day before, having changed into denim jeans and a light-blue flannel shirt, the grim set of his mouth daunted her. Instinct told her that any attempts at conversation would prove unwelcome, and each time she’d turned away from him and continued to stare in silence around her.

  As the morning drew to a close, the desolate beauty of the brush desert gradually gave way to gently undulating hills and lush green meadows. A line of trees in the distance suggested that they were following the course of a river, and soon she saw Connor pull on the reins to angle the wagon so that it was heading in that direction.

  As they drew closer to the trees, she caught fractured glimpses of a verdant meadow beyond the foliage and blue-green water. Reaching the first of the trees, Connor slowed the wagon and began to guide the two horses skilfully between the slender trunks of the tall aspens and aromatic pines. A heady scent enveloping them, they made their way beneath a canopy of branches until they came out of the shade and on to an open expanse of grass that led to the water.

  She gazed in front of her. On the other side of the river which was meandering across the meadow, sparkling in the bright light of day, a wide, tree-studded patch of green stretched far into the distance where it met a line of dark-blue mountain ridges that were framed by an azure sky. Her face broke into a smile and she turned to Connor.

  He continued to stare fixedly ahead, clicked on the reins and increased the speed of the horses. She turned away and held on to the side of the wagon more tightly.

  ‘We’ve gotta cross the river,’ he shouted above the creaking of the wagon and the pounding on the ground of the horses’ hooves as they gathered pace, his voice breaking up at every jolt of the wagon. ‘The crossing will be easy. There’s been scant rain this summer and the water’s low. Hold tight.’

  With a loud clatter as their hooves hammered across the white pebbles that lined the water’s edge, the horses dragged the wagon into the shallow depths, its wheels grating stridently. Water splashed up its sides, spraying Ellen’s dusty boots and dampening her skirt. She gripped the wagon more tightly as the horses pulled them deeper into the water, their necks straining.

  They reached the other side and the wagon gave a mighty shudder as the horses pulled it clear of the river.

  ‘Are you all right, ma’am?’ Connor asked, glancing across at her as he pulled on the reins and brought the wagon to a halt.

  ‘Ma’am?’ she repeated in surprise, turning to him. She glanced down at her left hand, at the thin gold band that glittered in the light, and she looked back up at him. ‘Not Ellen?’

  ‘No, not Ellen, ma’am. I don’t know you.’

  ‘Then in answer to your question,’ she said, her voice shaking, ‘I am all right, thank you. The dress is calico and it will soon dry. Thank you for asking.’

  He nodded, dropped the reins and jumped down to the ground. ‘We’ll break now – the horses have need of water and we must eat.’ He unhitched the horses, took the bits from their mouths, pulled off their bridles and gave them a slight push in the direction of the water. With a toss of their heads, they made straight for the river, their flanks steaming.

  Ellen climbed to the ground. Aching all over, she stretched herself, put her hands on her hips and arched her back. Then moving her shoulders in circles to rid them of their stiffness, she walked down to the water’s edge and stood a little way downstream from the horses, watching them drink their fill from the water that lapped against the pebbles.

  The late morning sun beat down upon her, and without the cooling effect of the wind that the moving wagon had thrown back at her, she began to feel hot and uncomfortable in her tight bodice. Kneeling down, she gathered her skirts and petticoats and bunched them between her knees, then she cupped her hands, scooped up some of the clear water and lowered her face into it. Then she ran her wet hands across the back of her neck. Feeling slightly fresher, she dried her face on her underskirt, stood up again and smoothed down her damp garments.

  ‘If we don’t have rain before long, we’ll see the rivers dry up like the springs have done. The land’s startin’ to crack up.’

  She turned sharply and saw that Connor was only a few steps away from her. He was standing in the water, which was trickling over the toes of his brown leather boots, his hand shielding his eyes from the glare of the sun as he scanned the river in both directions. He’d rolled his sleeves up to his elbows and the tanned skin on his forearms gleamed gold.

  She swallowed hard.

  ‘It certainly is hot,’ she ventured, her mouth dry. ‘Now that we’ve stopped, I can feel the intensity of the sun.’

  ‘It sure is intense, as you put it,’ he said, his eyes still on the river. ‘It’s been an unusually hot summer with little rain, same as last year. I’ve known years when we’ve woken on a morning in August and found a light frost, but I doubt it’ll be that way this year.’ He turned to her. Deep-blue eyes stared at her from a sun-browned face, eyes without warmth. ‘Reckon we’d better ea
t now and be on our way again.’ He started to walk back to the wagon.

  She watched as he took a large canvas bag from the back of the wagon, carried it over to the cottonwood tree and sat down in the shade of the wide, silvery branches. As she stood there staring at him, at his face which was dappled from the sunlight that slipped between the leaves, she ran her hand slowly down her cheek. Then she tightened the ribbons of her bonnet so that its sides were flat against her face, and she went and sat under the tree a little way back from him.

  He opened the bag and pulled out two packets of food and two canteens of water. Leaning across to her, he passed her one of each, then he sat back upright, opened the other packet, took out a slab of cornbread and started to eat. At the sight of the food, she realised how hungry she was, and she hurriedly unwrapped her parcel and began to eat the cold chicken and cornbread that she found inside it.

  Neither spoke as they ate.

  His meal finished, Connor stood up. ‘You might want to freshen up – put water on your face, make yourself more comfortable. We won’t see a river again until we reach the house. The creeks between here and there are dry. I’ll see to the horses, and I’ll fill the canteens again. If you’ll pass me yours.’ He held out his hand.

  She finished the last of her water and handed the canteen to him. He went down to the river, refilled the canteens, then stood nuzzling the mouths of the horses, his back to her.

  Understanding that he was giving her privacy, she ran quickly to a nearby clump of bushes. When she’d finished, she went down to the river, rinsed her face and hands, and wiped her face dry.

  Returning to the tree, she saw that Connor had already cleared away the remains of their lunch and had hitched up the horses again. He was standing on her side of the wagon, waiting to help her up to her seat. She hurried over to him. As she reached him, he offered his hand to her.

  She took a step towards him, went to take his hand and stopped. ‘Are we not to talk at all?’ she asked, trying to keep the tone of her voice light.

  ‘Not if we want to get to the house before sundown. Of course, you may prefer to go slow enough to talk, and then bed out beneath the stars tonight. It can be mighty cold when the sun goes down, but if you want to do that …’ He shrugged his shoulders.