Frontier Bride

With no visible effort, Reed went from his easy crouch to a standing position. His broad chest was just inches from her face. “Yes, ma’am,” he replied with a grin.

“Thank you. I’ll bid you good-evening, sir.” She turned away with a flounce of her skirts.

Reed watched as she crossed the room to lift a drooping Jacob from Randolph Webster’s lap.

Hannah had cleaned the tiny office in the back of the Webster house many times, but this was the first time she had ever sat there in the stiff horsehair chair across the desk from Randolph Webster. It was after the noon meal. Peggy and Jacob were playing blindman’s wand with a group of children from the neighborhood. Hannah had been watching them from the front window, thinking that soon they would be leaving all their friends behind, when Mr. Webster had come up quietly behind her.

“Are you busy, Hannah?”

She’d jumped and a guilty flush had come over her. It was seldom that she could be found idling thus in the middle of the day. But Mr. Webster looked distracted and didn’t seem to be chiding her for her lack of activity.

“I wonder if I might have a moment of your time?” he’d continued.

He’d led her into the office that he used to keep his accounts and those of his in-laws and many other friends and neighbors. The neat rows of books and ledgers made Hannah question once again Mr. Webster’s decision to leave his home and comfortable city life. What did Randolph Webster know about carving a farm out of the wilderness? She sighed. It wasn’t her decision. And she supposed someday the frontier would need accountants, too.

Mr. Webster appeared to be studying her from his deep leather chair, and Hannah was just beginning to grow uncomfortable when he said, “I’ve not been the most attentive employer these past months.”

The remark surprised her. It had sounded almost apologetic. “You’ve had your grief to bear, Mr. Webster. ‘Tis understandable.”

“You’ve done a remarkable job with the children. They miss Priscilla, but I can’t imagine how they’d be faring if you hadn’t been here for them.”

“They’re very dear.” Hannah smiled uncertainly.

“Yes, well…” Randolph reached out to roll a marble blotter back and forth under his hand. “It’s been brought to my attention that it might be unfair of me to ask you to join us on the trip west.”

Hannah let out a breath. So this was what was on his mind. “My contract doesn’t specify where my services will be performed, Mr. Webster. I consider that you and…Mrs. Webster…have always been fair with me.”

Randolph gave the blotter a spin, then stopped the motion with a smash of his hand. “The MacDougalls want me to sell them your indenture.”

Hannah swallowed. She had thought of little else all morning. It wouldn’t be a bad life. The MacDougalls were honorable people, and Hannah had no doubt that her three years would pass pleasantly enough. But if she stayed in Philadelphia, she’d never see those silver rivers….

Randolph Webster watched her silently. His stern features had softened, and he looked almost like a little boy making a silent plea for permission to embark on an adventure.

All at once Hannah realized that her decision had already been made. “Mr. Webster,” she started slowly, “back in London when my mother became too ill to work, we moved to an almshouse. I lived with forty other people in a room the size of your Sunday parlor. On the crossing, there were over a hundred of us in a smelly ship’s hold not as big as this house. Now you tell me about a rich land where you can walk all day in the sunlight and never see another living soul. Just imagine!” Her blue eyes sparkled. “If you and the children want me, I’ll go west with you.”

Randolph seemed to let out a breath he’d been holding. He didn’t smile, but the tenseness left his face and he leaned back in his chair. “We do want you, Hannah.” The slightest bit of red began to show from underneath his stiff white collar. “Er…that is…the children are very fond of you.”

“Then it’s settled,” Hannah said briskly. “Please thank the MacDougalls for their offer and their concern.”

Randolph nodded. He didn’t speak further, but continued studying her.

“Was there anything else, sir?” she asked.

“No. Ah…thank you, Hannah.”

She got up and started to leave, but Mr. Webster’s voice stopped her at the door.

“Hannah, there is one more thing. Would you please prepare the back room?”

She turned back to him. “The back room, sir?”

“Yes. Captain Reed will be joining us tonight. He has accepted my offer to stay here until we’re ready to leave.”

Much to her annoyance, Hannah realized that her heart had given a thump inside her chest at the mention of the man’s name. “Very good, sir,” she said a little sharply.

Randolph looked up at her curiously. “Reed seemed taken with you last night at the inn.”

“He said it had been a spell since he’d been around women, and judging from his manners, I believe he was telling the truth.”

Randolph smiled. “It’s hard to fault a man for noticing a pretty girl, Hannah.”

Hannah’s cheeks grew hot. It was the first time that Randolph Webster had made the slightest comment on her person. His eyes had an odd expression, too, as he watched her from behind his big desk. She dropped her gaze to the floor. “I’d best see to getting his room ready, Mr. Webster.” Then she gave a bob of her head and escaped down the hall.

Chapter Two (#ulink_a3627ff6-b51c-5799-bbc5-e55f6db23242)

Ethan Reed had spent the entire past year with a government survey party mapping the unknown territory along the Monongahela River north of the Ohio. The winter before that, he’d spent at Fort Pitt, the rough frontier stronghold that the English had built to replace the burned-out French Fort Duquesne. As he had told Webster’s servant yesterday, it had been a long spell since he’d been around a lot of women. It had been an even longer one since he’d seen any as pretty as Mistress Hannah Forrester.

He stood framed by the open doorway of Webster’s house and watched her as she bent dipping candles in a pan of tallow. She was too intent on her work to notice his arrival, and he took advantage of the moment to let his eyes roam over her long, slender body. Too slender, perhaps, for the rigors of the West. But with a willowy grace that put a hollow in his midsection. She wore no cap, and her bright blond hair hung in a thick braid down to the middle of her back.

She turned to hang a dripping row of candles on the drying rack, then stopped as she spied him. Her body stiffened. She was a skittish one, that was for sure. Like the fawn he’d tried to tame last fall when one of the members of the survey party had killed its mother. Ethan had patiently attempted to convince the little animal to trust him, but it had looked at him with big fearful eyes and jumped every time Ethan came near.

Mistress Forrester’s eyes were not fearful, but they were full of mistrust. He wondered if she’d been telling the truth about Webster’s lack of interest. The man must be daft…or blind. Of course, as she had said, Webster was still grieving for his wife. Ethan shook his head. If he had a woman like this living under the same roof, he’d do a lot more than notice.

“You startled me, Captain,” she said, putting the candles in their place.

“I beg your pardon, mistress. I should have announced myself. But you were standing there in that shaft of light, and I was trying to decide if that was your real hair or a halo of sunbeams wreathing your pretty face.”

Hannah wiped a wisp of hair from her forehead. “Captain Reed, it’s not seemly for you to address such remarks to me. I’m Mr. Webster’s servant.”

Ethan stepped inside the door and removed his felt tricorne. “I believe you’re going to find that west of the Ohio those kind of labels don’t make much difference anymore. Everyone’s as good as a servant out there. Those who don’t work hard won’t make it.”

Hannah’s eyes widened as he approached. He was clean shaven now and dressed in a well-tailored suit, tapered at the waist in the current style. He still looked big. His shoulders filled out the jacket in a way that she’d never noticed with Mr. Webster or his friends. With his whiskers gone and clean clothes, Captain Reed suddenly looked as if he could be one of the fine gents who had sauntered into Piccadilly back home in search of a good time and easy women. Her mum had always scurried away when one approached, dragging Hannah behind her. “They’ll not be after you with their fancy words, luv,” she’d say with that distressing look of desperation in her eyes.

“Perhaps you’re not aware that I’m indentured to Mr. Webster,” she told the captain. “I’m his servant not by choice, but by contract.”

His potent dark eyes watched her. “Contracts don’t mean a hell of a lot out West, either.”

“Nevertheless,” she said with quiet dignity, “I intend to honor my commitment to the Websters—Mr. Webster and the children.”

“It’ll not be a picnic.” He finally broke off his gaze and began looking around the large kitchen. “You’ll not be able to take much of this with you.”

Relieved to turn to a less personal topic of conver-sation, Hannah said, “The MacDougalls will be selling most of these things after we’re gone. Mr. Webster has spent the past few weeks packing up the essentials. We’re taking very little.”

“I saw his bundles out in the carriage house and told him to reduce the amount by two-thirds.”

“But surely…”

Ethan gestured impatiently. “As I told Webster, we’ll be traveling over little more than a mule track as far as Fort Pitt. From there we’ll move onto the flatboats, which will be a sight easier on everyone. You might be able to pick up some extra supplies at the fort.”