LITMIR.BIZ

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rippled along her skin. The reality she’d tried to push aside broke through her senses, and the truth of the situation turned her knees to water.

      She’d be married to this man before the sun finished its journey across the sky. He’d be her husband, with the rights and expectations that went with the position. She intended to keep him from consummating the marriage, but how could she make sure? Despite the honor and decency she sensed about him, Thomas Greenwood might not have the patience to wait. He might simply take what he justly believed to be his.

      * * *

      When they got downstairs, Charlotte followed Thomas Greenwood out through the double doors, onto the wide porch of the Imperial Hotel. At the far end of the rutted street, she could see a small church gleaming white in the sun. She stared at the cross on the roof. It seemed to be pointing up to the heavens, like the finger of God lifted in fury to warn her against the sin she was about to commit.

      In her anxiety she failed to notice that her bridegroom had come to a halt at the top of the porch steps. She kept on walking and slammed smack into his broad back. He didn’t even flinch at the impact, merely reached around with one powerful arm to propel her forward, until she was positioned beside him.

      In front of them, an old man with pure white hair and wrinkled features stood clutching a prayer book between his hands. He wore an odd mix of clothing, a formal black coat with dirty denim trousers. He smiled at Charlotte, a benign, absent smile as he studied her through the thick lenses of his spectacles.

      “The preacher will wed us here,” Greenwood said. He wrapped his fingers around hers in a steely grip, as though to quash any lingering thoughts of an escape.

      Married. They were about to be married.

      The realization broke through Charlotte’s panic, like the sound of a ship’s horn breaks through a fog. She’d dreamed of marriage, of course she had, every girl, every woman did. At twenty, she’d been getting ready to start searching for a husband, and then Mama and Papa had died...

      She slanted another glance at the man standing beside her. Even leaving out his imposing physique, he was attractive, with healthy skin and an even row of white teeth. The prominent cheekbones gave him a stern look, but the sensitive curve of his wide mouth softened it.

      If they had met in Boston, if they had courted and fallen in love, she’d be proud to be standing beside such a man in a church, family and friends sitting in the pews behind them, the organ playing a wedding march.

      But now, she stood beside a stranger, on a ramshackle hotel porch, in front of a geriatric preacher who contemplated her with a pair of myopic eyes. Evidently, her husband-to-be didn’t consider it worth the trouble to walk over to the church. She embraced the gift, not pausing to question his motives. Telling lies on the porch of the Imperial Hotel didn’t seem nearly as great a sin as voicing the same untruths in a temple of God.

      “Get on with it,” Greenwood told the preacher. “And make it quick.”

      With an annoyed frown, the old man closed the prayer book he’d opened, and lowered it in his hands. He took out a small card from his coat pocket and read from it. “Do you, Thomas Greenwood, take this woman, Maude Jackson, to be your lawfully wedded wife?”

      “I do.” The reply resonated clear and firm.

      Charlotte swayed on her feet as she realized how close she’d come to being exposed. She hadn’t known the first name of Miss Jackson. If her bridegroom hadn’t furnished the preacher with the information in advance, she might have been caught in a lie before the marriage ceremony was even finished.

      Behind them, the porch timbers creaked with heavy footsteps. Charlotte glanced back over her shoulder. A squat man in a long canvas duster had arrived. Another man climbed up after him, a battered hat clasped in his hands. Then a third appeared, a dark-complexioned man with a patch over one eye and a neatly trimmed beard.

      “How much?” the first man grunted.

      “Get it done,” Greenwood said to the preacher.

      “Two hundred.” The reply came in an insolent voice Charlotte recognized. She whirled around and saw the lanky innkeeper lounging against the door frame. An amused expression brightened his narrow features.

      “Three hundred,” said the man in a long canvas duster.

      “Four,” one of the others called out.

      Greenwood took a step toward the preacher, tugging Charlotte along with him. He scowled at the ancient reverend. “If you don’t finish it quick, there’ll be trouble.”

      The preacher squinted past Charlotte at the gathered crowd of men, nodded and speeded up his words. “Will you, Maude Jackson, take this man, Thomas Greenwood, to be your lawfully wedded husband?”

      Charlotte stole another glance behind her. The number of men had grown, and the amounts they were shouting had escalated to a thousand. She couldn’t understand the cause of the fracas, but she was left in no doubt about the urgency with which her bridegroom wanted the ceremony completed.

      Instinct told her to stall.

      “Excuse me.” She raised her chin and addressed her words to the preacher. “Is it really appropriate to ask him first?” Her eyes flickered to Greenwood, who stood by her side, bristling with impatience. “Shouldn’t you ask me first?”

      “What does it matter?” The words rumbled out of her bridegroom in a harsh growl, as if they were his heart and guts yanked out. “The end result will be just the same.”

      A solitary burst of laughter vibrated along the porch. Charlotte turned around and spotted the innkeeper chuckling on the doorstep. “What exactly about my situation do you find so amusing?” she asked, irritation overcoming her anxiety.

      The man jerked his chin to take in the crowd of spectators. “You don’t get it, do you?”

      She frowned at him. “Get what?”

      “They are bidding for you.” He shook his head in wry amusement. “It’s like a cattle auction, and you are the cow on the auction block. Greenwood could sell your marriage contract to the highest bidder. If he had any sense at all, he’d make a profit on you and order another bride for himself.”

      Charlotte spun to her bridegroom and tipped back her head to look up at his face. “Is it true?” she demanded..

      His fingers tightened around hers. “Say your vows now, before I have a chance to consider what a thousand dollars might mean to me.”

      Alarm soared inside Charlotte. She surveyed the group of men gathered on the porch and recognized the pair who had alighted from the train with her. One sent her a bold grin, his grimy fingers fondling the moustache that decorated his upper lip.

      She spun back to the preacher and blurted, “I do.”

      “With the powers vested in me by the Territory of Arizona, I declare you man and wife.” The preacher completed the ceremony in haste and invited two of the spectators to act as witnesses. Charlotte watched the strangers scratch their names on the piece of paper, and shivered with the knowledge that she had now become the property of Thomas Greenwood.

      Another ripple of laughter came from the porch.

      Charlotte darted a sour glance at the innkeeper. “What is it now?” she asked him tartly.

      “Of course, if you’d had your wits about you, you could have taken charge of the auction yourself. You could have accepted a thousand, paid Greenwood back his two hundred and kept the rest. You could have taken your pick, married any one of these men.”

      Charlotte swung her attention back to her new husband.

      Greenwood finished passing a handful of silver to the preacher. “Let’s get going,” he said and turned toward her, but he was refusing to meet her eyes. From his reaction Charlotte understood the innkeeper had been telling the truth.

      Thomas Greenwood had tricked her.

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