LITMIR.BIZ

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store. Perhaps people could leave commissions with them, and I could come into town when you pick up the mail to see what’s needed.”

      “You seem to have thought this out,” he said, slowing the horses as they approached the boardinghouse.

      And she would have thought he would approve of that planning. Instead, he sounded rather miffed.

      “I didn’t realize Charles and Meredith would be this difficult,” she assured him. “That is, I knew they’d be difficult. They always are. But I never thought even marriage would fail to deter them.”

      He shook his head as he reined in. “I never met anyone as oblivious to logic as your brother.”

      She ought to take umbrage on her brother’s behalf. Charles was a talented accountant, after all, someone to whom business leaders turned for advice. Certainly he had managed their father’s estate well, with the help of the bankers. The elderly Mr. Pomantier from the bank had come out on a regular basis to dine with them. He’d always spoken kindly to Nora but spent the bulk of his time in consultation with Charles.

      Yet despite all Charles’s qualities, Simon was right.

      “Charles is ever focused on his own needs,” she told him. “Meredith is worse. I simply couldn’t bear to slave for them one more moment.”

      “You should be no one’s slave,” Simon said. “You are an independent woman of intellect and skill. You should be treated as such.”

      Once again, the fact that he was agreeing with her left her speechless. Back in Lowell, people had been more likely to congratulate her on having such a kind, generous brother, someone willing to take her in when their parents had passed on. After all, not every family could accommodate a spinster without prospects.

      Simon climbed down from the wagon, and Nora scrambled to the ground before he could come around to help her. She felt as if she were still tingling from his touch when he’d helped her up at the house. She didn’t need any distractions before she faced the boardinghouse owner. A dark-haired older woman with a narrow face and narrower opinions, Mrs. Elliott was another person who seemed to think it her duty to tell Nora what to do.

      “I’ll just be a minute,” Nora promised as Simon stopped in front of the horses. Then she hurried inside.

      The boardinghouse with its pink-papered walls and flowered carpet was much quieter these days. The piano in the dining room was silent, and no one loitered in the perfumed parlor. Most of the women who had journeyed with Asa Mercer had either found jobs elsewhere in Washington Territory or married and moved out. Only a few still lived in the boardinghouse, and they had either work or serious suitors that kept them in Seattle. Mrs. Elliott had been advertising for more tenants to no avail. King County still boasted few unmarried women.

      The boardinghouse owner caught sight of Nora as she came in the door and hurried to meet her.

      “I understand your family has arrived from the East,” she said, blocking Nora’s route to the stairs. “I certainly hope you are not planning to leave us to live with them.”

      A wave of thankfulness swept over her that Simon had agreed to her request. “No,” Nora said, and she darted around the woman and started up the carpeted stairs.

      Mrs. Elliott followed her, her voice almost a purr. “I’m very pleased to hear that, Miss Underhill. A young lady such as yourself can never be too careful in the company she keeps. Why, I have heard of families who foisted the worst of gentlemen upon a spinster, simply to ensure she married.”

      That had not been her problem. Charles and Meredith seemed to prefer that she never speak to anyone but them. She nearly giggled remembering the look on Meredith’s face when Nora had announced she’d married Simon.

      “I can promise you my family will not be marrying me off, but I fear I will be leaving you,” Nora told the woman as she opened the door to her room. Once, she’d shared the space with another Mercer Belle, but the second bed had stood empty for weeks.

      Mrs. Elliott tsked as Nora went to kneel beside her iron bedstead and reach underneath. No time to fill her trunk. It would have to be the carpetbag she’d used in Olympia.

      “There is no other residence for young ladies in the city,” the boardinghouse owner reminded her, crossing her thin arms over her flat chest.

      “I won’t be moving to another boardinghouse,” Nora said, swiftly folding in a nightgown, several sets of undergarments and an extra dress. “But I can no longer stay here either.” The bag bulged, and she strained to clasp it shut. “You see, I got married.”

      As Nora rose, Mrs. Elliott’s fingers flew to her lips. “Oh, my child! I wish you’d spoken to me first. Some of the men here are so wild and unkempt. You shouldn’t have settled.”

      Nora thought of Simon, waiting for her outside—tall, strong, handsome, willing to sacrifice for family. She did not feel as if she had settled in the least.

      “Oh, I didn’t marry one of those fellows,” she assured Mrs. Elliott, lugging her bag toward the door. “I’m Mrs. Simon Wallin.”

      Mrs. Elliott’s astonished look was almost as gratifying as Meredith’s gasp.

      “I’m paid up through the month,” Nora told her as the woman’s mouth opened and closed wordlessly. “I would appreciate you leaving everything in the room until then. Someone will come for it shortly. Not,” she hastened to add, “my brother or his wife. You are only to provide access to someone named Wallin.”

      Nora hurried out into the hallway, and Mrs. Elliott fluttered after her. She seemed to have recovered her voice. “Certainly,” she warbled. “I will be delighted to do as you ask. Give my regards to all the gentlemen in your new family. Such fine, upstanding fellows, the Wallin men, for all you’re the third of my girls they’ve snatched away. And if there is anything else I can do for you, Mrs. Wallin, please let me know.”

      Mrs. Wallin. A real bride might have felt a jolt of delight at hearing herself addressed by her new name. Yet now it sent a tremor through Nora. She’d entered into this bargain thinking nothing about her life would change save that she would rid herself of Charles’s interference.

      Now everything was about to change. She was heading out into the wilderness. For all that Mrs. Elliott called them fine gentlemen, Simon and his brothers were rough loggers, the sort of fellows Charles would not have allowed in his home back in Lowell. Though she knew Catherine and Rina, the rest of the group were strangers.

      She had an odd feeling that she was about to learn exactly what it meant to be Mrs. Simon Wallin.

      * * *

      Simon drove the wagon north along the primitive road that led toward Lake Union. The rain had stopped earlier, but the firs they passed still shed a drop or two from their heavy boughs. He caught the briny scent of Puget Sound on the cool air before the trees closed around them.

      He couldn’t understand the woman at his side. She’d just upended her life, and his, yet she sat calm and proper beside him, her hands folded in her lap, her cloak draped about her. More, she gazed around at the forest as if it were the most amazing thing to appear in a long while. Perhaps she hadn’t ventured much outside the town proper, but she wouldn’t have had to go far to notice the trees, the inland sea, the mountains.

      And after all that she’d been through at her brother’s house, shouldn’t she be a bit more upset?

      “Are you all right?” he asked.

      “Fine,” she said with a smile.

      “No regrets, concerns?” he pressed, feeling a frown forming.

      “None,” she said happily.

      Once again, the lion had changed before him, becoming a tabby, docile and complacent.

      “And you’re absolutely certain you want to move out here with me?”

      “Oh, yes,” she said. “Thank

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