Chapter 3 #2
“My father said that you two were acquaintances?”
He took a sip of his glass and nodded.
“I reckon I’d say we were a bit more than that, though we hadn’t seen each other in many years. I was a little more than a boy when I was last in Boston.”
“How strange that things should turn out as they have.”
“I reckon so, but I’m not complaining.”
She tried to ignore the warmth of his smile.
“It must have come as a surprise, to be reintroduced in such a way.”
“I guess you could say so,” he acknowledged.
“Though, then again, my time in Boston was never far from my thoughts. The formative years, I reckon you’d call ‘em—my first time away from home, from the watchful eye of my ma and pa. Makin’ decisions on my own, for my own reasons.
I often thought fondly of Boston and of your father. And when he wrote to me…”
This caught her attention, and she sat up straight.
“What was that?” she demanded.
He blinked at her, nonplussed.
“When John wrote to me…”
She frowned mightily. “He wrote to you? My father wrote to you? But surely the matrimonial agency handled the correspondence. Why would he have done that?”
Jed opened his mouth, closed it again, and seemed to think carefully before speaking once more. “I’m guessin’,” he said at last, “that your father didn’t tell you how all this came about.”
“Indeed, he did,” said Bridie indignantly. “He went to a matrimonial agency because he was told they were in desperate need of mail-order brides. They made the match, and he recognized your name as someone he had known long ago.”
“Well—I guess that’s sort of true. But it sort of ain’t, too.”
Now it was Bridie’s turn to open her mouth, think better of it, and reconsider her words.
“Tell me,” she said at last, “exactly what happened.”
Jed sat back in his chair, drumming his fingertips on the white tablecloth for a moment, eyeing her as though sizing up her ability to cope with whatever it was he was about to say.
“I reckon it’s true that your pa went to the matrimonial agency,” he said.
“From what I hear, he was anxious to find a solution somewhere, and that seemed like it might work out just fine. But the agency’s fee wasn’t much.
Henry Broker, who worked with your pa and me when I was an apprentice out in Boston, told him that he’d heard I was interested in gettin’ married myself.
Henry went into the mercantile business himself, so we keep in touch.
So your pa wrote to me and asked if I’d like to meet you. ”
Bridie gaped at him.
“But—if that’s how it happened, why wouldn’t Pa have simply told me?”
Jed rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly.
“I reckon he figured you might not like how it all turned out.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that when I told your pa I’d be delighted to meet you and reckoned I couldn’t do much better than the daughter of a man like John Hamilton, he told me there was a fee to be paid.”
Bridie’s eyes shot open so wide that she momentarily feared they might pop out of their sockets and roll free across the table.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Well, it made sense,” Jed said, shrugging. “I would have paid any matrimonial agency a fee, too. The way I looked at it, this was about the best guarantee I could get for a bride who was worth the effort of hirin’ a preacher.”
“Well!” Bridie dropped her napkin onto the plate, but Jed was now smiling at her, teasingly.
“You know what I mean. The odds are better’n even that any marriage will be a challenge, even if you know each other well. I figured it was worth it to pay more for a girl like you.”
“And is that my value, then?” she asked, feeling as though she wanted to spit rather than speak.
She knew it wasn’t entirely fair—perhaps it wasn’t even a little bit fair at all—but her anger was split between her father and Jed himself, and since her father was hundreds of miles away, the result was that her burgeoning warmth toward Jed suddenly drained away into cold fury. “A—a bargaining chip for my father?”
This sobered him, and he shook his head.
“No, Bridie,” he said softly. “It isn’t like that.”
“Well, how is it, then?” she demanded.
He heaved a sigh.
“I’ve always been a worker,” he said. “That’s how my pa raised me.
But I could just as easily have lived off the wealth my grandfather made—my pa could have, too, and a few generations after me, I reckon, before we started to feel a little uncomfortable.
I always figured I’d join Pa in the business, but he wanted me to see the world.
Sent me off to college in Boston, and I took up carpentry while I was there as an apprentice.
That’s when I met your pa. Eventually I left it behind—it wasn’t much more than a hobby—and came back to Galveston to take over the business from my father.
But whether I set my mind to working or no, I always knew that I had wealth to fall back on if I ever needed it—and so did everyone else in Galveston. In the county. In Texas.”
He took a deep breath, eyes fixed on hers—he looked as though he were willing her to understand, to look beyond the words he was saying and see the heart beneath.
She pressed her lips together, finding herself drawn into compassion, unwillingly.
“I reckon you’ll think I’m no more than a bleeding heart to say that it’s not easy to be a rich man.
But the fact is, when everyone knows it, you never know whether someone likes you for you—or for your deep pockets.
My father was something of a miser. That’s what that uncertainty turned him into.
I didn’t want to follow in his footsteps.
Not that way, anyhow.” Another long breath, another beseeching pause.
“I knew John Hamilton wasn’t rich, but he was honest. If he wanted something from me, he’d tell me.
If he said that his daughter was worth marrying, she’d be worth marrying.
I trusted his judgment—I still do. I can deal with just about anything, Bridie—any disappointment, any heartbreak, any betrayal—just so long as it’s honest. If you decide you don’t want to marry me after all, that’s your decision to make.
I’ve paid my fee to your pa, and he can keep it. ”
Money, money, money, she thought spitefully—was that all her father had thought about when he made this arrangement? What he could get out of it?
But wasn’t that what she was thinking of, too? The thought whispered itself to her, and she shifted uncomfortably in her chair, not liking the weight it laid on her shoulders. She fidgeted with her napkin, her meal half-forgotten in front of her.
“Why didn’t my father tell me?” she managed at last, head still lowered.
“I reckon,” Jed said ruefully, “it was because he had a feelin’ you might be a little mad about it.” He grinned, also ruefully. “Lucky for me that you’ve such an even keel.”
She bit her lip to keep herself from smiling back and gathered what was left of her composure.
“Well,” she managed at last, “I suppose I ought to be appreciative that you’ve been so honest with me, Jed.”
He nodded.
“I thank you for it, Bridie—but all I really want is for you to be honest with me in return. You’re not trapped here. I wouldn’t force you or anyone to marry me if you don’t want to. But you’ve got to tell me.”
She lifted her eyes at last, gazing at him.
He looked back, his brown eyes wide and earnest. His simple, warm appeal only added to his attractiveness—there was little to object to when it came to Jed McHale, she thought, beyond the fact that their union had been arranged—and doubly so!
—under what she considered to be false pretenses.
It wasn’t fair on her that it had happened this way—but then, it wasn’t exactly fair on him, either.
Oh, wouldn’t she have a sternly worded letter to write to her father this evening!
His eyes were still on hers, and she realized suddenly that yet another blush was steadily creeping up over her cheeks. Confound the man! Why did he have such a power over her? She’d never met anyone quite like him.
With what little dignity she could muster, she lifted her chin and spoke.
“I think you’re right, Jed,” she said. “We ought to take the time to get to know each other a little before we marry. That way, we can be certain of what we really want—both of us. And who’s to say that you won’t change your mind?”
His eyes did not waver for a minute.
“I won’t change my mind,” he said.
It sounded like a promise.