Page 14 of Mail-Order Viscountess

Clara’s fingers tightened around hers, holding on like Kate was the only solid thing in a world gone liquid and uncertain. “Promise?”

“I promise.” Kate’s throat constricted around the words. Clara needed steady right now, even if Kate’s insides churned with uncertainty.

She pulled her sister closer until Clara’s head rested against her shoulder.

She’d kept Clara safe this far. Through Clara’s mother’s schemes and the suffocating drawing rooms of Columbia society. Through steamships and frozen rivers and endless prairie. Through everything that had tried to break them.

She hadn’t failed yet, and she wouldn’t do so now.

CHAPTER 5

The leather reins had frozen stiff between Thomas’s fingers, cold enough to bite through his gloves.

He guided the team out of the livery’s wide doors, the wagon bed creaking under the weight of supplies they’d loaded last night. The horses’ breath formed white clouds in the barely dawn air, and their hooves rang sharp against the frozen ground.

Butte still slept around him—most of it, anyway. A few workers stumbled along the street, heading toward the mine shafts. Smoke curled from chimneys against a sky the color of old pewter.

The cold settled into his bruised ribs with every breath, a dull ache that matched the throb in his cheek. He’d barely slept, what little he managed punctuated by dreams of Clara McKinney’s devastated face and Kate McKinney’s razor-sharp eyes.

Two women. His brothers had ordered him one mail-order bride and gotten two women instead—one who’d come expecting marriage, and one who looked at him like he was something she’d scrape off her boot.

He pulled the team to a stop in front of the hotel and set the brake. Through the dining room windows, lamplight spilled onto the boardwalk. James would be in there already, probably working on his second cup of coffee while Rose picked at whatever breakfast Mrs. Kendall had set out.

And the McKinney sisters would be there too. Preparing for a full day’s ride to a ranch they’d once thought would be their home. At least…Miss Clara’s home. Where had Kate McKinney planned to live? He should have asked that. Maybe it didn’t matter now. They would be leaving together eventually.

Unless… The idea that had dawned sometime around midnight crowded in once more.

Robert.

He should be the one to marry next anyway, as the older brother. Why in cotton they thought Thomas needed a bride more than Robert was still a mystery. They must think him a truly desperate case.

But this could all turn out for good. He could match Robert with one of them—Miss Clara, probably, since she was the one who’d come expecting a husband.

Robert was steady, responsible. The kind of man who’d make a decent husband once he got his head out of whatever book of law cases currently occupied it. And if Robert married Clara McKinney, Thomas could leave for California with a clear conscience.

The plan had seemed brilliant in the dark hours before dawn. Now, sitting in the cold with his ribs aching and his face throbbing, it felt less likely.

He climbed down from the wagon seat, his boots hitting the frozen ground with a jolt that shot pain through his side.

The dining room’s warmth hit like a wall when he pushed through the door. Heat from the cast iron stove in the corner had already chased away the worst of the morning chill, and the smell of coffee and frying bacon made his stomach clench with hunger he’d been ignoring.

James sat at a corner table with all three women, and they all looked up at Thomas’s approach.

Clara wore a traveling dress the color of dark green pine needles, her honey-blonde hair arranged in some complicated style that had probably taken her an hour. She looked bright and cheery, despite the early hour and the months the pair had been traveling.

Kate sat beside her in a dress of deep blue wool, simpler than her sister’s but well-made. Her blonde hair was pulled back into that same severe style she’d worn yesterday, not a strand out of place.

Rose smiled at him from across the table, though the expression carried a note of caution. Like she wasn’t sure whether he’d bolt or cause a scene.

Fair enough. He’d considered both options last night.

“Good morning.” He aimed for the empty chair at the table’s end. Sitting pulled at his ribs again, and he had to concentrate on keeping his breathing steady as he settled.

Kate’s gaze tracked every wince, every careful shift of position. Tallying his weaknesses again. “Morning.” James pushed a cup of coffee across the table toward him. “Wagon loaded?”

“Most of it.” Thomas wrapped his hands around the cup, letting the warmth seep through his gloves. “Still need to add the trunks and tie down the canvas in case the weather turns.”

“It will.” James glanced toward the window, where gray light filtered through the frost patterns on the glass. “Could start snowing any time.”