Journey to Love (Angels of Mercy)
PRAISE FOR CHARLOTTE HUBBARD
AND A PATCHWORK FAMILY!
“Hubbard delights with the first in a five-book series that is sure to keep readers salivating for the next installment.”
—RT BOOKclub
“A Patchwork Family is a wonderful adventure! Each time you think the story has finally leveled out, there is another surprise waiting at the turn of the page and around the bend . . . A Patchwork Family is a Perfect 10 and sure to become a cherished keeper!”
—Romance Reviews Today
“A great family story to share, [A Patchwork Family] will appeal to nearly every age and anyone who enjoys historical literature.”
—Fresh Fiction
A LESSON IN LOVE
“You have no idea,” Christine told Tucker, “what it’s like to be betrayed by everyone you loved or trusted.”
Tucker held her quaking body against his, seared by her pain once again. How could he help her see things from a different point of view?
“Do you recall Saint Thomas, the apostle—Doubting Thomas?” he asked softly. “He had to see for himself—put his hands on the Lord’s wounds from those nails—before he could believe that Jesus had risen from the dead.”
Her fallen expression tugged at him. Christine wanted romance, and he’d given her a Sunday school lesson.
“I hope someday you will believe in this family—in their best wishes for you, Christine,” he finished earnestly. “Sometimes you must believe first, and then you will see the love in their faces, and in their hearts, for you.”
Christine buried her face against his warm, solid chest. He meant well—she heard the love in his melodious voice. But sermons were the last thing she wanted from this man.
Journey to Love
Charlotte Hubbard
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Text copyright © 2006 by Charlotte Hubbard
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Montlake Romance
P.O. Box 400818
Las Vegas, NV 89140
ISBN-13: 9781477831199
ISBN-10: 1477831193
For my niece, Christina.
Love you, Sweetie.
Contents
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
Epilogue
This title was previously published by Dorchester Publishing; this version has been reproduced from the Dorchester book archive files.
“A mother is not a person to lean upon,
but a person to make leaning unnecessary.”
—Dorothy Canfield
“When you’re a kid, you love your
mother no matter what she does. And you miss
her somethin’ fierce when she’s gone.”
—Billy Bristol from A Patchwork Family
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The characters in my Angels of Mercy series discuss Negroes and colored men and Indians, because in the 1800s such terminology wasn’t derogatory or demeaning. It simply was. The Malloys pray and discuss their faith in public, too, because a strong belief in God was the foundation these homesteaders built their lives upon.
So, at the risk of writing a politically incorrect story, I have told a more authentic, historically accurate one. I applaud my editor, Alicia Condon, for supporting me in this.
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels,
but have not love,
I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
And if I have prophetic powers,
and understand all mysteries and all knowledge,
and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains,
but have not love,
I am nothing.
Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful;
it is not arrogant or rude.
Love does not insist on its own way;
it is not irritable or resentful;
it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things,
endures all things.
Love never ends.
When I was a child, I spoke like a child,
I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child;
When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.
For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.
Now I know in part; then I shall understand fully,
even as I have been fully understood.
So faith, hope, love abide, these three;
But the greatest of these is love.
—I Corinthians: 13
Chapter One
October 1869
“Preacher’s a-comin’!”
Christine Bristol looked out the window of her upstairs room, shaking her head at the scene below.
Asa, the old hired man, hailed the approaching preacher, while her younger brother Billy made a valiant attempt to keep three-year-old Joel out of the muddy corrals.
“Christine’s gonna tan your hide if you get these new weddin’ clothes dirty, boy!” Billy warned.
The feisty child ducked and ran the other way.
“Can’t catch me! Can’t catch me!” Joel taunted over his shoulder. And if the two border collies hadn’t dashed over to knock him down, he’d have shot out in front of the reverend’s wagon.
As it was, the preacher’s horse spooked, and Reverend Larsen, a slender, bookish fellow, struggled to rein it in so the pump organ wouldn’t roll off the back of his buckboard.
All the commotion provoked an adorable blond toddler to tears, which in turn set off the baby she’d been playing with.
“My Lord, it’s a three-ring circus out there,” Christine remarked. “I’d better go down and—”
“Let the men handle things for a few minutes more, while we put on my veil. Please?”
The willowy sixteen-year-old turned to behold Mercedes Monroe—soon to be Mercy Malloy—arrayed in an ivory gown Christine had designed. While the silk dress, made with a lace overlay and trimmed in satin ribbon, was the most elegant piece she’d ever created, it was the woman wearing it who made the whole room glow. Radiant didn’t do justice to this homesteading widow about to take her wedding vows again.
“How do you do it?” Christine asked. “First, you took in Billy and me. You lost Judd last year, and nearly lost your mind before Solace was born. Then you had little Lily and Joel dropped in you
r lap. I would have gone mad, and yet you look like you’re the happiest woman in the world.”
“I am.” Mercy took Christine’s hand and approached the window. “You see that man out there? The dashingly handsome one in the new suit, who just snatched his son up from the dust?”
Christine nodded. Her temper and Mike Malloy’s stubbornness had caused some strained moments, but she had to admit he was a fine catch.
“Well, when Michael smiles at me, I’m seventeen again,” Mercy continued. “And when he kisses me, I’m thankful to be twenty-nine. Woman enough to appreciate him.”
As though he’d heard her, Malloy looked up at them. Holding a squirming, kicking Joel against one hip, the sandy-haired man blew them a kiss.
“Lovely day for a wedding, ladies!” he called. He looked a little rakish with his mustachioed grin. “I love you, Mercy!”
“I love you, too!” she called, returning his kiss.
Christine yanked her away from the window. “It’s bad luck for the groom to see the bride—”
“Only if you believe such superstitions.” Mercy smiled serenely at her, still holding her hand. “The fact that I’ve survived to see this happy day is proof that I’m a very blessed woman. Watched over by the angels all around me,” she continued quietly. “There’s a man downstairs—and a Man Upstairs—who thinks I’m really somebody. So I don’t argue with that. I hope you’ll find this same happiness someday, Christine.”
“Nicely said, Mercedes. And aren’t you just the loveliest bride on the face of this earth?” said a voice from the doorway.
Agatha Vanderbilt also wore a new gown Christine had created, this one from shimmering fuchsia faille. With its beaded neckline adding sparkle to her cheeks and a nosegay of ribbon roses tucked into her upswept hair, she could have passed as royalty.
“And you, Miss Bristol,” the petite headmistress went on, “have come such a long way—have developed your extraordinary talent for design to such a level—that I stand in awe of you as well, my dear. It’s a proud day for us all.”
Christine basked in this woman’s praise. It was no small favor that Mercy’s Aunt Agatha had accepted her at the Academy for Young Ladies, and introduced her to the upper crust of St. Louis, and then to the esteemed seamstress she would work with after Christmas. Much as she missed her own mother, she realized such opportunities would never have come her way had she still lived in Missouri.
Mercy’s voice brought her out of her daydreaming.
“Christine, I can’t thank you enough for making this gorgeous dress. And thank you, Aunt Agatha, for providing the beautiful fabrics.”
As the bride turned in front of the mirror to admire her wedding gown, Christine scrutinized it a final time. More than a gift of gratitude to the woman who’d taken her in, this confection of silk, satin, and lace had won her an apprenticeship with Madame Devereaux, the most exclusive couturiere in St. Louis.
“Since this is Michael’s first marriage—and since you so graciously agreed to let Christine keep the dress—nothing but the finest ivory silk and Brussels lace would do,” Miss Vanderbilt replied proudly. “Its fitted bodice becomes you, Mercedes. You look even lovelier than the day you married Judd.”
The three of them fell silent, recalling the handsome, loving man Mercy had lost in an Indian attack.
“Well!” Christine remarked cheerfully. “I’ll need a few hairpins to secure your veil. The guests will be arriving any minute now.”
“Check in my vanity, dear. They should be in the top drawer.”
Christine descended the stairs with a smile of triumph. She’d designed her own gown of mint green taffeta, too, delighting in the high style that set her above their neighbors dressed in calico. No one was happier than she that the family would be leaving these dark log walls behind to move into the white frame house Michael had built. High time Mercy had something besides a calico curtain separating her bedroom from the parlor!
She yanked open the center drawer of the vanity, rummaged for the hairpins, then checked the drawers down the sides. Mercy had worn her chestnut hair tied back for so long, she’d had little use for the hairpins most women considered a necessary—
Christine gaped. Over the years, Mercy had stashed her keepsakes in this bottom drawer, but these letters were addressed to Miss Christine Bristol! At the academy! The bold, looping penmanship made her heart skip into triple-time: Only Tucker Trudeau wrote this way.
“Of all the lying, two-faced—”
She ripped the ribbon from the bundle. Why, there must have been half a dozen letters there. And the top one had been opened! For the past three years, she’d assumed the handsome photographer from Atchison had lost track of Mama—or lost interest in her.
Ma chère Christine, she read with ravenous eyes, A pleasure it is, to hear from you again. And you are enrolled in a fine school! A bright, pretty girl like yourself should make the most of her talents.
She ran to the back door, scanning the yard for her brother. “Billy! Billy, you come upstairs now!” she hollered. Then she hurried up the steps as fast as her crinolines allowed.
Her chest felt so tight she couldn’t breathe. She burst through the doorway, where Mercy and Miss Vanderbilt were attaching orange blossoms to the veil’s headpiece.
“What is the meaning of—these letters are addressed to me! And I never got them!” she cried. “Tucker was my last contact with Mama—my only hope of finding her! But now I’ve discovered what a liar and a traitor you are, Mercy! And you, Miss Vanderbilt, saw them first!”
Mercy’s face paled to the shade of her wedding dress, and the headmistress pressed her lips into a thin line. Guilty! One glance at the letters and the two women shrank into a strained silence. As well they should.
“You were only thirteen when those letters came,” Miss Vanderbilt began. “It wasn’t proper for a man of Mr. Trudeau’s age to correspond with—”
“Proper?” Christine demanded, shaking the pages at them. “How proper was it for Richard Wyndham to sweet-talk my mother into running off with him? You all called him a shyster, but what did you do to rescue Mama from his clutches?”
Her voice rang shrilly in the small room as she advanced toward the two women. All the humiliation and heartache of being abandoned returned in a rush, making her pulse thunder so loudly she couldn’t think. If it weren’t for Billy’s rapid footsteps on the stairs, she’d be strangling these two conspirators.
“What’s all the dang yellin’ about?” he asked, breathless. “I thought the house must be afire, the way you—”
“We’ve got a fire, all right,” Christine muttered, “and it’s straight out of hell! Did you know your sweet, loving Mercy Monroe was hiding these letters? And that your buddy Miss Vanderbilt was in on it?”
Her brother’s confused expression told her he’d never seen them. “They’re from Mama?”
“No! But you know Tucker Trudeau gave me that photograph of her and Mr. Wyndham when I met him in Atchison,” she snapped. “And now I find out he did not stop writing to me!”
“You were very upset,” Mercy hastened to explain. “We were afraid you’d run off again and find more trouble than you could handle. If the Indians hadn’t grabbed you, the wolves would’ve—”
“You could’ve at least opened them! You knew Tucker had seen Mama—”
Billy’s low whistle silenced them. He’d opened one of the thicker envelopes, and his eyes went wet as he turned the page toward her. “Looks like you ain’t the only one who has that likeness of Mama and Mr. Wyndham.”
Christine gasped. The page Billy held was a WANTED poster.
“Hitch up the wagon,” she breathed. “We’re going to Atchison.”
“But Mike and Mercy’re gettin’ married in—”
“How can you care about these people?” she cried. “They’ve betrayed you, too, Billy! I’ve got to talk to the only man I can trust—and any son who loved his mother would come along. Now move!”
Her brother
tugged at the collar of his new shirt, glancing nervously from Mercy to Miss Vanderbilt. “But how do you know—what if Tucker ain’t—”
“Are you such a traitor you can’t at least drive me to the train station?”
Billy swallowed hard. “All right, then. Let’s go.”
Chapter Two
“If you ladies will excuse me, I have to pack.”
With her arms folded beneath her bosom and the color rushing to her cheeks, Christine Bristol cut an imposing figure. Her fury filled the room as she arched one russet eyebrow to challenge their presence.
Mercy dipped into the cooling well of emotional control that sustained her. Considering the hardships she’d endured this past year, dealing with this contrary sixteen-year-old wasn’t much different from handling Lily. Why wasn’t she surprised that this temperamental young woman had found those forgotten letters—and was taunting her with them—on her wedding day?
“You’re making a hasty mistake, Christine. You haven’t even read—”
“I don’t have to!” the redhead retorted. She stalked toward her trunk and threw open the lid so hard it thumped against the wall. “Once again your meddling has kept me from reuniting my family.”
“What about your apprenticeship with Madame Devereaux? And your graduation from the academy?” Aunt Agatha was shorter than her star pupil, but she’d never been one to back down from a challenge.
“Do you think dressmaking matters to me now?” Christine whirled to face them, her upswept hair vibrating with her wrath. “My mother is a fugitive from the law! The Pinkertons have probably put a price on her head! And your sense of decency has cost me three years of trying to find her!”
The girl yanked a dress from its peg on the wall and crammed it into her trunk. “If Mama’s been hanged—or shot while outrunning a sheriff—her death’ll be on your head, Miss Vanderbilt!” she cried. “Yours, too, Mercy. I thought you, of all people, would understand how badly I wanted to find—”
“What makes you think Tucker Trudeau is still in Atchison?” Mercy asked, appealing to reason. “Who says he’ll still want to help you—”