Short Straw Bride

“I’m a widow. How could anyone complain if I choose to hire a companion?”

“A companion even younger than you are?” Eleanor asked, raising her brows.

“I ought to be able to have any companion I want,” Letty said stubbornly. She caught Eleanor’s eyes and sighed. “Oh, all right. You’re right and I’m wrong. But I don’t have to like it.”

“I thank you for the offer.” Eleanor smiled at Letty’s disgruntled look.

“Even if you can’t come stay with me, I don’t want you to marry Andrew Webb just to get away from your aunt and uncle,” Letty said after a moment.

“I don’t see that I have much choice. I’ve no skills with which to earn my own living. He seems like a kind man and his children need a mother.” Even to her own ears, Eleanor sounded less than excited and she forced a false note of enthusiasm into her voice. “I’ve always wanted children of my own, you know.”

“That’s an altogether different thing from gaining a husband and four children all in the same day and not knowing any of them any better than you do some stranger just arrived on the train from St. Louis.”

“They’re not exactly strangers,” Eleanor protested.

“What are the children’s names?”

Letty’s unexpected demand left Eleanor momentarily speechless. “The oldest girl is Elizabeth, and the boys are—” She hesitated, groping to put a name to the four towheaded children who sat so quietly beside their father in church. “Simon and…William. And the littlest is Mary—no, it’s Margaret.” She gave Letty a triumphant look. It was short-lived.

“The oldest girl is Liza and it’s not short for Elizabeth. The second boy isn’t William, he’s Willard, and the baby’s name is Minerva.” Letty ticked off the names on her fingers before fixing her friend with a stern look. “You can’t marry Andrew Webb when you don’t even know the names of his children, Eleanor.”

“I can learn their names.” Eleanor set her chin in a way that would have startled Luke McLain.

“You don’t love him,” Letty noted.

“Not everyone marries for love. Love can come after marriage.” Eleanor tried to sound more confident than she felt. “He’s a nice man.”

“With terrible taste in hats,” Letty observed, nodding to the overdecorated hat that Eleanor had set on the sofa next to her.

“I can learn to live with that,” Eleanor said, casting a doubtful look at the item in question.