Heartbreak Creek (2 page)

Pru nodded and turned away. She took a step, then paused to swing her gaze around the room that was empty of all but their father’s desk and three mismatched chairs—one behind the desk, and two in front. “I shall miss the books.”

Edwina heard the quaver in her sister’s voice and strove for a lighter tone. “I don’t know why. You read every one of them.”

But Pru didn’t seem to hear. “They were like friends. I felt safe among them.”

Safe.
Something twisted in Edwina’s chest. Guilt, no doubt. She wanted to blurt out that those days of hiding—under beds, behind drapes, inside the pages of books—were over. She had a plan. A desperate, foolish, outrageous plan that was already in motion and, if successful, would allow them a new start far away from this place of destruction and despair.

It wasn’t just the war-torn South Edwina hoped to escape but their own desperate childhoods. Years ago Pru had been Edwina’s protector—and would bear the scars from that selfless act for the rest of her life. Now it was Edwina’s turn to step out from behind her sister’s skirts and do what she must to save them both.

Again, that feeling of liberation swept through her. She might be leaping from the fat into the fire, but at least for that brief moment she hung suspended between the two, she would be totally free. Clasping her hands once more at her waist, she stiffened her back and lifted her chin. “I’m ready, Pru. Send them in.”

A scant fifteen minutes later, the papers were signed and witnessed. Rose Hill Plantation was now the property of Bayou Bank & Trust of Sycamore Parish, to be auctioned off at a later date for back taxes.

Before the ink had dried, Edwina was slipping out the office door and down the veranda steps into the south lawn.

Hardly a lawn anymore. Mostly ragweed and dandelions. More weeds choked the azalea and camellia beds. The crepe myrtles had been left untended for so long they hardly bloomed anymore, and the arbor where she and Pru had hidden from Mother was now a tangled mass of ropey wisteria vines. With no one left to fight back the undergrowth, Rose Hill, like most of the grand houses throughout southern Louisiana, was slowly falling into neglect, disappearing beneath a mountain of untamed vegetation.

Blood was an excellent fertilizer, Edwina had heard.

Chased by so many memories and emotions she couldn’t separate one from the other, she quickened her pace. By the time she reached the resting place on the rise above the bayou, she was almost running.

The gate creaked as she pushed it open. Slowing to catch her breath, she followed the weed-choked path past the raised vaults of all those who had lived and died at Rose Hill. Here, in this quiet place, nothing changed. The same birds nested among the wide, glossy leaves of the magnolias. The same squirrels scurried by with their acorns. The stately oak still stood guard over the dead, its outstretched arms trailing long streamers of moss like gray tattered scarves.

When she came to the newest graves, where the lime-washed concrete was still starkly white, unscarred by war and time, she sank down on a stone bench and dropped her head into her hands.

It was over. Gone. Her home, this resting place, an entire way of life . . . lost with the signing of her name.

“Daddy, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

After a while, disgusted with herself for giving way to useless tears, she blotted her cheeks and straightened. She had cried and wrung her hands for years, and it had gotten her nothing. Now she would do what she must to protect herself and Pru, even if that meant going all the way to Colorado Territory.

Gathering what courage she had left, she pulled the letter from her pocket and broke the seal.

A bank draft and several railroad vouchers slipped from a folded piece of paper and into her lap. Edwina carefully studied them. One voucher was for passage on the Texas and New Orleans Railroad dated five days hence. Another was for a later date on the Missouri Pacific, and the third was for the Colorado and Nevada.

It’s happening,
she thought, her heart starting to pound.
It’s really happening
. With trembling fingers, she unfolded the sheet of paper.

Edwina stifled a sudden urge to break into hysterical laughter. Or maybe wails of despair. It didn’t matter which. It was done. Her fate was sealed. Within less than a month, she would serve herself up like a timorous virgin to a man she had never met, in a place she had never been, for a purpose that made her cringe.

Except, of course, she was neither timorous nor a virgin, and this time, she knew exactly what was in store for her.

A shadow passed overhead, and Edwina looked up to see a brown pelican wing by, the pouch beneath its beak full. She doubted they had pelicans in Colorado. Or magnolias, or shrimp gumbo, or long sultry days when even the alligators didn’t venture far from the slow, murky waters.

But they had mountains. And snow. And since she had never seen either, she at least had that to look forward to.

 

 

“You’re
what
?”

Pru’s voice had risen to a near shriek. Her eyes were as round as a carp’s, and her brows had moved halfway up to her tight dark curls as she’d stared at the papers in her hands.

It might have been comical had Edwina been in a laughing mood. Hoping to avoid arguments, she had planned to put off this confrontation until tomorrow, the day before their departure. But her sister had found the proxy papers, so Edwina was forced to tell her all.

“A mail-order bride.” Edwina flopped down on the narrow bed in the room they shared in Mrs. Hebert’s boardinghouse. “It’s the perfect solution. And please don’t try to talk me out of it, because as you can see by those papers, the deed is already done.”

“You’re married?”

“This morning. In Judge Aucoin’s chambers. His assistant stood as witness. It was all rather humdrum.” And somewhat sordid, but she didn’t mention that. She’d been through one grand wedding. She certainly didn’t need another.

“To Declan Brodie. He seems a nice enough man.” Seeing that her sister was about to start yelling, Edwina dumped the contents of her reticule on the bed and riffled through the papers and vouchers until she found the tattered newspaper clipping. “Here,” she said, handing it to Pru. “Read for yourself.”

Edwina already knew the words by heart:

Such a romantic.

And one with rather low standards, she thought. Yet she qualified—except for the “sturdy” part. Since she had lost so much worry weight over the last months, her once “willowy” figure now had all the appeal of a flagpole.

“You actually responded to this?” Pru’s voice was starting to rise again. “An advertisement in a common newspaper?”

“It’s not common,” Edwina defended. “It’s the
Matrimonial News.
And it’s famous. Everybody has heard of it.”

“I haven’t.”

Edwina waved that aside. “And he wrote a very nice letter back.” Digging again through the papers on the bed, she came up with a crumpled envelope, which she handed to her sister. “A rather nice assessment, I think.”

“As well it should be,” Pru snapped when she saw the signature. “Since the man wrote it himself.”

“Not that one. The one from the traveling circuit judge.”

Another terse appraisal that Edwina knew by heart:

Tall?

“And he also sent this.” She held up a tiny tintype of an unsmiling, clean-shaven, dark-haired man in a dark coat and banded collarless shirt.

Pru studied the tintype, then handed it back along with the letters of recommendation. “I just wish you’d talked to me first,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest.

Edwina recognized the pose and braced for a scolding.

“Why would you do such a thing, Edwina? I know it was hard losing Rose Hill, but—”

“It isn’t just Rose Hill, Pru. It’s . . .” Edwina spread her hands in a helpless gesture. “It’s everything. That man spitting on you, the vile things that Yankee upstart said to me, those horrid men in Crappo Town who are terrorizing everyone. This isn’t home anymore. Everything has changed. And if there’s nothing left for us here, why should we stay?”

“We? You’re dragging me into this?”

“You’re my sister. Did you think I would leave you behind?”

“Well . . . I . . .”

“They have mountains, Pru. Huge mountains! And all kinds of things we’ve never seen. And look!” Edwina bent to pull from beneath the bed the book that had arrived only yesterday. Beaming, she held it out. “Knowing what a glutton for information you are, and how curious you would be about our new home, I had this sent all the way from a New Orleans bookstore.” And it had cost her dearly, but seeing the smile on her sister’s face convinced Edwina it was worth every penny.

“
Our
new home?”

“Our new home. Mr. Brodie has a place for you in his household, too.” Or he would, as soon as Edwina talked him into it.

Pru laughed and rolled her eyes. “He’d better. Since his new bride doesn’t know a thing about cooking or tending children.”

 

T
wenty-seven days after signing over her childhood home to the Bayou Bank & Trust of Sycamore Parish, Edwina Ladoux stared bleakly out the soot-streaked window at her shoulder.

Just a few more miles. An hour, at most. And they would finally arrive in Heartbreak Creek and begin the exciting new life awaiting them.

The thought filled her with absolute terror.

Not that she wanted to put off this meeting forever. Or could. The signed proxy papers were in her carpetbag, all nice and tidy and legal. She had spent the man’s money and had used the train tickets he had sent. She was obligated. Married. A wife again.

Thank heavens she had had the foresight to insist upon a two-month waiting period before actual consummation took place—God, how she dreaded going through that again
—
so for now, anyway, her husband couldn’t force his attentions on her.
Her husband.

It was madness. Ridiculous. The very idea that Edwina Whitney Ladoux, once the reigning belle of Sycamore Parish, should be reduced to marrying a complete stranger—a man who apparently was so hard-pressed he had to advertise for a wife in a newspaper—was ludicrous. Absurd.

Yet here she was, so terrified at the thought of having a husband again, her stomach felt like it was stuffed with hot nails.

Especially when the train began to slow. She clutched at Pru’s arm. “Are we there? So soon?”

“Soon? It’s been almost three weeks, Edwina. I, for one, am ready for this journey to end.”

“Maybe something has happened.” Edwina peered out the window toward the front of the slowing train, but saw nothing untoward. “We just stopped to put water in the tender, so it can’t be that. Perhaps there’s been a rockslide. Or a tree has fallen across the tracks.”

She hoped so. She hoped it was something so catastrophic she could delay the meeting looming ahead of her for weeks. Months. Forever.

“Second thoughts, Edwina?”

Of course she had second thoughts. Hundreds of them. Thousands. What had seemed like a viable solution back when penury was panting in her face now seemed like the most foolish thing she had ever done. Not that she would ever admit such a thing to her sister after tearing her from the only home she had ever known and dragging her halfway across the country. It was too late, anyway. Edwina had given her word and had signed her name. There was no stopping it now.

Unless she died. Or the train fell into the ravine. But that seemed a bit drastic. “Maybe it’s another herd of buffalo.”

“Oh, I doubt that.” Beside her, Pru fussed with the front of her traveling cloak, then checked the tilt of her black horsehair bonnet. “They rarely range this high into the mountains.”

Ever neat, Pru was. Sometimes such excessive attention to detail drove the imp in Edwina to do or say something to mess up that perfect order. But not today.

Today—assuming a host of guardian angels didn’t swoop down to rescue them—they would arrive at the small depot five miles south of Heartbreak Creek, where her husband would be waiting. With his four children. Arms outstretched to welcome his bride.

The thought almost made her vomit.

“I suppose it could be a herd of bighorn sheep,” Pru mused. “Or elk. The book said both are common in mountainous terrain.”

Oh, who cares?
Biting back her mounting apprehension, Edwina stared stoically out the window. She wished she could be more like her sister, eagerly devouring each new tidbit of information, delighting in every long-winded description of the fauna and flora of the Rocky Mountains, as if this journey was some grand adventure rather than an act of pure desperation.

But then, Pru wasn’t the one who would soon have a strange man coming at her with consummation in mind.

Edwina shuddered. In sudden panic, she reached over and gave her sister’s hand a hard squeeze. “Thank you for coming with me, Pru. I couldn’t have come without you.”

“And I couldn’t have stayed without you.”

With a sigh, Edwina tipped her head against the cool glass and studied the small canyon below with its fast-moving stream and toppled boulders and deep, dark forests pushing right up to the edge of the churning water. Back home, the bayous and rivers were sluggish and warm and brown, shaded by sycamores, stately cypress, and moss-draped oaks. By now, the redbuds and dogwoods would be blooming and the magnolia buds would be fattening for their annual summer display of fragrant, showy blossoms.