Bound for Sin

Book 2: A Frontiers of the Heart novel

by Tess LeSue

Genres: Historical Romance; Romantic Comedy; Western Romance

Synopsis

Georgiana Bee Blunt is a respectable widow of means who knows exactly what she wants: a resourceful frontiersman--for the purpose of matrimony.

Citified men with thoughts of love need not apply to Georgiana's ad for a husband. What she desperately needs is a rugged backwoodsman who can get her family safely to California, two thousand miles away. Someone who could wrestle a bear and not break a sweat. Someone just like Matt Slater...

Travel worn and trail weary, Matt Slater wants a clean bed and some R & R--not a woman with fancy airs and a brood of high-spirited children. He can tell Georgiana is trouble, but doesn't realize how much until he's bamboozled into pretending to be her fiancé. And when Georgiana hitches her wagons to his train, Matt finds himself facing something much more daunting than the journey before them: a woman with the spirit and the courage to tame his wild ways...

Release date: September 4, 2018

Publisher: Berkley

Print pages: 432

Sample

***This excerpt is from an advance uncorrected copy proof***

Copyright © 2018 Tess LeSue

 

Chapter One

A respectable widow of means seeks resourceful frontiersman for the purpose of matrimony. The lady seeks passage west to land owned in Mokelumne Hill, California. The advertiser presumes her manner and appearance will recommend her and expects applications from responsible parties only. Interviews are scheduled for the 6th of next month, beginning at nine o’clock in the morning, in the front parlor of the Grand Hotel. Please be prompt.

Independence, Missouri, 1849

Now that was how a man should look. Suffocating in the stuffy hotel parlor, Georgiana Bee Blunt looked longingly out of the window, where she could see a backwoodsman tethering his animal to the hitching rail outside Cavil’s Mercantile. The fellow was a brute. He had a wild head of bristling black hair and a stiff beard, and his arms were the size of smokehouse hams. And if that wasn’t enough to make him look like a character from one of her dime novels, he was also clad head to toe in buckskin. And the size of him! My, but he looked like he could rip an oak from the earth bare-handed. That was exactly the kind of man she needed, and exactly the kind of man she had advertised for.

It was also exactly the kind of man who had not answered her advertisement. Georgiana sighed and looked over at the candidate sitting opposite her. He was a dapper, charming, handsome man, with very white teeth and very shiny hair. His fingernails were perfect ovals. And his shoes . . . They were spit polished until they gleamed. How did he do it? She couldn’t set foot outside without the bottom inch of her dress getting covered in dust. Had he shined them in the foyer before he’d come in for his interview?

She couldn’t imagine the brute outside doing that, she thought, stealing another glance. He was reaching over to unbuckle his saddlebags, and the buckskin stretched tight over the broadest back Georgiana had ever seen. She sighed again. It was probably too much to hope that he’d come to answer her advertisement.

“Mrs. Smith?”

It took Georgiana a moment to remember that she was Mrs. Smith. She’d adopted the name to hide from that horrid Hec Boehm and his henchmen, but she kept forgetting to answer to it.

“Yes?” She gave the man her full attention and tried her best to look as she imagined a Mrs. Smith should.

“As you can see, Mrs. Smith, I have a pedigree that would please even the most discerning mother.” Mr. Dugard beamed at her with his white teeth.

Oh no. He wouldn’t do at all.

“Thank you so much for your time, Mr. Dugard.” Georgiana tried to smile back. “But as you can see, I still have so many people to interview, and the hour is growing late . . . ” She stood and, because he was a gentleman, he stood too.

“If I could ask you to leave your details, I’ll be in touch as soon as my decision is made,” she assured him.

“As luck would have it, I’m staying right here in the hotel,” he said.

Of course he was. Most of them were. She resolved not to use the dining room tonight; she had no intention of talking to any of them again, let alone marrying one of them. They were all so sociable and polite and courteous and civilized. It was enough to make a woman scream. Her ad had clearly specified frontiersman. She didn’t want a well-bred man, or a good-looking man, or a charming man, or a clever man. She’d had quite enough of that with her first husband (God rest his sordid soul). All she was looking for was a simple, hardworking and reliable brute. Like the one outside.

The one who was not walking toward the hotel to answer her ad. She watched glumly as he headed in the exact opposite direction. He’d been joined by another rough-looking man and was heading for the saloon.

Perhaps she should have scheduled her interviews for the saloon, she thought with a sigh. The men there were probably far more likely candidates than the ones she was meeting here.

“May I say, Mrs. Smith,” Mr. Dugard was saying in his low, suave voice, “I hadn’t expected to find you so young, or so beautiful.”

She flinched. God save her from men with silver tongues. She wouldn’t be in this situation if it hadn’t been for Leonard and his pretty words. She had no interest in listening to any more pretty words in her lifetime.

Mr. Dugard took her gloved hand and raised it to his lips. His dark eyes were moist with admiration. It took all of Georgiana’s willpower not to yank her hand away. She suffered through the press of his lips on the back of her glove.

There was a disapproving cough from the doorway. The hotelier, Mrs. Bulfinch, was glowering at them. “I hate to break up your tête-à-tête,” she said in her clanging voice, “but there are still men in my foyer.” She said it like they were an infestation of mice. “You promised me, Mrs. Smith, that this affair would be done by midafternoon. It’s now almost five.” She gave a sniff and drew herself up to her full height of four foot nothing. “I’ve dismissed them all and told them to come back tomorrow. This is a respectable hotel, and I shan’t have men clogging up my foyer at all hours.”

Oh, thank heavens for ghastly old Mrs. Bulfinch! Now Georgiana wouldn’t have to interview another pale, clean, nice man! At least not until tomorrow . . .

And maybe before then she could hunt the brute down and she wouldn’t need to face tomorrow at all, she thought hopefully. She stole a glance at the saloon. It was a shame ladies weren’t allowed in there, or she would have headed straight over the road and through the doors.

“May I escort you into supper?” Mr. Dugard asked hopefully.

Lord, no!

“I’m sorry,” Georgiana said, skipping out of his reach before he could take her arm, “but I really must collect the children.” If she could get through the knot of hopefuls in on the porch, that was. They were milling about, just waiting for a chance to speak to her; each and every one of them was holding his hat politely in his plump, clean hand and giving her an earnest smile. They were a horrific sight.

She’d never moved so fast in her life. She grabbed her bonnet and purse and was out the front door and off the porch before anyone could so much as make a move in her direction.

She took a deep, grateful breath of dusty air as she plunged down the street. She’d been cooped up in that parlor all day, with its smell of desiccated rose petals and burned coffee. Mrs. Bulfinch didn’t hold with open windows: too much dust. After today, Georgiana was sure she would forever associate the smell of mummified roses with disappointment.

She’d met at least two dozen men today, and not a single one of them was suitable. They’d be eaten alive out west! Just imagine if they met rogues and gunslingers like Kid Cupid or the Plague of the West! They’d probably faint dead away. No, she needed someone who could get her safely to her son . . .

The thought of Leo took any trace of sunshine out of the day. Her son, her eldest . . . all alone out there with those horrible men . . .

Don’t think about it. You can’t afford to think about it. You have to keep moving.

He was safe so long as they needed her signature on that deed. And she was on her way. Soon, she thought desperately, soon I’ll be there. She felt the two thousand miles between them like a searing pain. Goddamn Leonard for taking the boy with him. And double damn him for dying and leaving her baby stranded on the other side of the country, twelve years old and all alone, held hostage . . .

Don’t. Don’t think about it.

Georgiana was sweating but felt icy cold, even though she caught the full flood of afternoon sun as she headed to Mrs. Tilly’s to get the other children. Leo was tough, she reminded herself. Of all the children, he was the most resilient. He’d had to be; he’d been the man of the house since he was knee-high. His father would swan out of their lives for years at a time, telling Leo to look after his mother, and it was something the boy had taken to heart. He wasn’t one to cry or feel sorry for himself. She used to watch the way he kept his head high and his expression brave every time his father left, and the way he’d comforted her and the younger children, and her heart would break for him. Her eyes welled with tears. Her poor boy.

It was just one more disaster in Leonard’s long line of disasters, and he wasn’t even here for her to rage at. This was precisely why she would be choosing her next husband with her head rather than with her heart. Her next husband would protect her children and not abandon them (or kidnap them and take them two thousand miles away from her); he would be frugal and sensible and not sell the rug out from under her; he would be predictable and reliable and not flit from place to place with no thought of building a home for his family. If she had to give up hopes of marrying a man she was attracted to, she would . . . After all, what real use was attraction? And she was certainly happy to give up any idea of a love match. Love had caused her nothing but pain.

 “Did you find your Prince then?” Mrs. Tilly asked her hopefully when Georgiana stepped through the front door of the tearooms. “I saw that nice Mr. Dugard heading over to the hotel. He’s a handsome-looking man.”

“Yes, he is.” Georgiana pulled a face as she let Mrs. Tilly usher her to a table by the window and pour them cups of tea. The older woman also put out a plate of strawberry tarts and immediately popped one in her mouth.

“And he’s a capable man,” she said as she brushed crumbs from her lip. “He used to run a furniture store in St. Louis.”

“He might be capable enough for St. Louis, Mrs. Tilly,” Georgiana sighed, “but he didn’t look anywhere near capable enough for the wilds. I can’t imagine him fording a river or shoeing a horse.”

Georgiana flushed as Mrs. Tilly looked pointedly at Georgiana’s silk skirts and heeled slippers.

“It’s a wonder you want to go at all, if it’s so fearsome,” Mrs. Tilly clucked as she sipped her tea. “You’d be better off keeping the little ’uns here. We have a school and lots of nice men.”

Ugh. Nice wasn’t what she was looking for.

“I’m committed to going to California, Mrs. Tilly,” Georgiana said firmly. “That’s where our land is. Leonard built us a house in the lovely little town of Mokelumne Hill.” Or so he said. “It has rocking chairs on the porch  and enough bedrooms for the children to have one each.” She’d believe it when she saw it. But that’s certainly what he’d written in his letters. “And my son is there.” Oh no, there went the tears again. Georgiana fumbled for her handkerchief. She hated crying in front of people, but these days the tears just erupted. She could be perfectly serene and then, bang, she’d be crying. She had to stop thinking about Leo. She couldn’t afford to be crying all the time; there’d be time for crying once he was safe.

“Oh, you darling love.” Mrs. Tilly was welling up in sympathy. “How insensitive of me! I’m sure your people are looking after the lad, but I know how a mother feels.”

Georgiana just wanted the whole moment to end. She didn’t want comfort or fuss—it didn’t do any good. She just wanted to get on with the whole ordeal: get the husband, pack the wagon, and get on the trail. The sooner she got on the trail, the sooner she could reach her son. Crying solved nothing at all.

“How were the children today?” she asked, desperately trying to change the subject as she blotted her eyes.

“Energetic.” Mrs. Tilly didn’t quite meet Georgiana’s gaze.

Georgiana stood. “I should get them out of your way. It’s getting late.”

“Oh no!” Mrs. Tilly looked a touch panicked. “Finish your tea first. And have one of the tarts; the children helped make them. They’re with Becky; they’re fine, no need to worry.”

“I really should feed them.”

“They had some tarts less than an hour ago.” When Georgiana didn’t sit, Mrs. Tilly got to her feet too. She was looking a trifle anxious, Georgiana thought. Her stomach sank. Oh dear. What had the children done now?

There was a clanging sound from the back of the house. Georgiana saw Mrs. Tilly flinch.

“Now, don’t be too mad at them!” Mrs. Tilly cautioned. There was the sound of something breaking, and Georgiana turned on her heel and made for the kitchen. “They’re high-spirited boys!”

The devils looked up with wide-eyed innocence as she threw open the door to the kitchen. Their faces were white with flour. Even her daughter, Susannah, the sensible one, was covered in powder from head to foot.

“Mama!” two-year-old Wilby shouted, holding out his pudgy hand. Pasty white sludge oozed between his fingers. “Glue!”

“Oh my.”

The white sludge was everywhere: dripping from the wall sconces, blobbed on the bench tops, splattered across the windows.

“Well,” she said, aiming for calmness, “aren’t you all very clever, discovering the recipe for glue.”

“Glue!” Wilby shouted again, before shoving his hand in his mouth.

“William Bee! Don’t eat that!” Georgiana pulled his hand from his mouth and got glue and slobber all over her glove. She eyed it distastefully. Mothering really was a messy business. This was only her second month without a nanny, and she had to admit, she was struggling.

“He can eat it,” one of the twins (Phineas?) said impatiently. “It’s just flour and water.”

Georgiana cleared her throat.

“It’s really Becky’s fault,” Mrs. Tilly said quickly in defense of the children.

“My fault!” The girl was outraged. She popped up from in front of the stove, which she’d clearly been scrubbing vigorously. She was a mix of soot and glue. “How is this my fault?”

“I told you to watch them,” Mrs. Tilly scolded. “You know what they’re like.”

Georgiana blanched. If she’d been a better mother, this never would have happened. You know what they’re like. Wild. And running wilder every day. They certainly hadn’t been like this when Mrs. Wyndham, the nanny, was still around.

Georgiana bit her lip. What would Mrs. Wyndham do in this situation?

“How was I to know they’d make glue while my back was turned?” Becky complained.

This never would have happened if Mrs. Wyndham had been here, that was the whole problem.

“Well, your back shouldn’t have been turned. Don’t think I don’t know where you were. I saw Fancy Pat’s horse tethered up outside. And I don’t know how many times I have to tell you that you’re throwing good after bad, consorting with the likes of him. Your poor parents must be rolling over in their graves.”

“His name’s Pierre,” Becky said, sounding more outraged by the minute. “It’s French.”

“Now, now,” Georgiana interrupted, still striving for calmness as she surreptitiously looked around for something to wipe her slobbery glove on. “It’s hardly Becky’s fault.” She turned a stern look on her children. Only Susannah had the good grace to look shamefaced.

“They promised me they’d clean it up before you came in, Mrs. Smith,” Mrs. Tilly said hurriedly. “And really, there’s no harm done.”

“See,” the other twin said. (Was it Philip? Surely, a good mother would be able to tell them apart?) “She doesn’t mind.”

Georgiana shot him a black look. “My dear Mrs. Tilly . . . and Becky . . . ” It was proving difficult to keep her voice even. “The children and I would like to take you to supper to make this up to you. Please. If you’d like to go and freshen up . . . ” She cleared her throat dubiously as she took in Becky’s filthy face. “The children and I will get your kitchen in order. And then we’ll all go out for a nice meal.” Georgiana peeled off her slobbery glove.

“Oh no!” Mrs. Tilly sounded scandalized. “I can’t let a lady like you scrub my kitchen.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” Georgiana said grimly, “I won’t be the one doing the scrubbing.”

“You don’t need to. Becky can—”

“Becky can get scrubbed up for tea in no time,” Becky said quickly, cutting Mrs. Tilly off mid-sentence. She wriggled out of her apron and hung it on the back of the kitchen door on her way out.

“Please, Mrs. Tilly.” Georgiana tried to smile at her. “It would be our pleasure.”

Mrs. Tilly looked dubious but nodded and retreated. She paused at the door. “They were perfect angels for most of the day,” she said weakly.

“Were you?” Georgiana asked once the door swung closed.

“We’re perfect angels now,” Phin said, rolling his eyes. “We’re only not angels if you don’t like glue.”

“Indeed.” Georgiana felt ill as she looked at the paste smeared in lumps all over the kitchen. “How does one clean glue?”

“Vinegar,” came a muffled voice from behind the kitchen door.

“Thank you, Mrs. Tilly! We’ll see you in an hour for supper!”

There was a pause, and then they heard footsteps retreating down the hall.

“We could let Wilby lick it all up,” Philip suggested.

To Georgiana’s dismay, Wilby didn’t look entirely unhappy at the prospect.

“Listen,” she said, thinking fast, “if you can get this place clean by the time they come downstairs for supper, I’ll buy you rock candy from Cavil’s Mercantile in the morning.”

“How much rock candy?”

“More than you deserve. And if you don’t get it clean, I’ll tell Mrs. Bulfinch that you’ll help her wash her unmentionables tomorrow. It’s laundry day at the hotel.”

“You wouldn’t!”

Of course she wouldn’t. And of course Mrs. Bulfinch wouldn’t either. But the twins didn’t need to know that. “Just test me.”

Maybe parenting wasn’t so hard. She watched as they hurried to grabs mops and buckets. The children were the only good things Leonard had ever done in his life, she thought fondly, as she watched the curly dark heads bent over the concoction of vinegar and water they were brewing in the sink. They were working the water pump madly. With any luck, they could clean up the mess without destroying Mrs. Tilly’s kitchen. Georgiana tugged off her other glove and set to work helping them. She didn’t have much experience scrubbing kitchens or . . . well, anything. But now that her trust fund was exhausted and they had no more money for servants, she guessed she’d just have to learn.

 

 

Chapter Two

 “Did you get a room?” Matt asked when Deathrider joined him out the front of Cavil’s Mercantile.

Deathrider looked like his name personified. His skin was waxy, and his eyes had the unfocused stare of someone who was using up all his energy just staying upright. He still hadn’t recovered from the gunshot wound he’d sustained back in Kearney. “No beds,” he grunted.

“What do you mean, no beds?”

“The man at the saloon said there are no beds.”

Matt felt like punching something. This was because Deathrider was an Indian. He knew it. This last month had been the most hellish month of his life. He’d been holding on to the idea that things would get easier once they got to Independence, but so far that just wasn’t the case.

Matt unbuckled his saddlebags. His old gray donkey, Fernando, gave a cranky hee-haw. Matt pulled his ears absently and then hefted the saddlebags over his shoulder. He was bone-tired from the trail, and the last thing he needed was trouble finding a bed. “C’mon,” he growled.

“Sam!” he bellowed as he pushed into the dark saloon. “What’s this I hear about you not having a bed for me?”

“Well, look who it is,” the bartender said. He spat tobacco juice at a spittoon so full it made a wet sloshing sound as the stream hit. “You’re late. You said you’d be here by the end of March.”

Matt always stayed at the Lucky Star when he was in town. Mostly because it was the only place that didn’t run whores. Matt didn’t like whores. They made him uncomfortable. And he didn’t want to stay in a bunkhouse; he wanted his own room, away from other people. Matt didn’t care much for people.

“I had a room for you at the end of March,” Sam told him.

“We got held up.”

Matt saw the way Sam’s eyes slid over Deathrider.

“We?” There was another slosh as Sam spat his juice.

“This is my . . . brother.” Matt was still getting used to the lie. “He said you don’t have room for us.”

Sam shrugged. “I don’t. I ain’t in the business of keeping rooms empty when there’s money to be made. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but there’s a gold rush on.”

Matt grunted. He’d more than heard; he’d had a busy few months at the end of last year finding the fools lost on the Siskiyou Trail from Oregon down to California.

“They’re piled four deep up there,” Sam told him, jerking his head at his rooms upstairs. “And you’ll find it’s the same everywhere. Town’s bursting at the seams. On the upside, you should do a roaring trade putting together your train this year.”

This would be the fifth year in a row Matt was taking a train on the trail. As always, he was dreading it. He didn’t know why he did it to himself, except he was good at it and he couldn’t think of much else he would rather be doing. It paid well, but Matt didn’t really need or want the money. He’d sort of just fallen into it when his brother Luke had given it up; it was either stay home and be a third wheel in the house with his brother and his new wife, or find something else to do. He’d tried running cattle with his brother Tom for a while, but he found he hated cows even more than he hated people, if such a thing was possible. At least with the wagon trains he got to ride out by himself. The people tended to stay in a neat clump and not have to be herded the way cows did. But they complained a lot more than cows did.

“Are you telling me there ain’t a single bed in town?” Matt felt more than ever like punching something. He didn’t fancy another night sleeping out rough.

“’Fraid so. I can sell you a drink though.”

“I bet you could,” Matt said sourly. But there wasn’t much daylight left, and they needed to find a room.

“The Grand Hotel probably still has space,” Sam said grudgingly. “That woman charges a fortune, and people get mighty pinchy about their pennies when they’re heading west. It’s an expensive business as it is, without paying through the nose for a bed.”

Matt grunted his thanks, and they headed back out into the street. He didn’t want to spend a fortune on a goddamn room. But he also didn’t want to sleep another night on the ground. He’d been looking forward to cleaning up and enjoying a decent mattress. Damn it. He could wring Sam’s neck.

You’re just tired. It’s what he told the emigrants on the trail when they got low, and there were many points on the trail when people got low. It’s nothing a decent feed and a good night’s sleep won’t improve. It was good advice, advice Matt’s father used to give them when they were boys. Matt had been pretty young when his father had died, but he’d never forgotten those words. It was true. When life got to you, it was always best to put your worries aside until you’d eaten and slept. Problems had a way of looking bigger when you were tired and hungry. Especially when you had to pay a goddamn ransom for somewhere to rest.

“Looks like we’re headed for the Grand Hotel,” he grunted. It was a mark of how low Deathrider was feeling himself that he didn’t protest.

“You wait here,” he told Deathrider shortly, pointing at their animals, which were still tethered over the street from the hotel. “Let me deal with this. You give people the terrors.”

Deathrider didn’t protest. It was true.

It had been a hell of a month. Matt rubbed his face as he headed for the fancy hotel. A hell of a year so far. At some point, Deathrider’s notoriety had snowballed, and it had become a sport to hunt him. They’d run into a mess of trouble back in Fort Kearny, and Deathrider had taken a bullet. They’d laid low until he was well enough to travel again, and by then word was getting around that Deathrider, aka the Plague of the West, had been killed. Matt had bullied his friend into using the gossip to his advantage; they’d dressed him as a white man and passed him off as Matt’s brother, Tom. Everywhere they stopped, Matt had spread the gossip about the Plague of the West’s demise. He only hoped the story would get picked up by one of those wretched dime novelists. A book about Deathrider’s death would set them both free.

The Grand Hotel was a three-story brick slab with pretensions of grandeur. There were white columns all along the length of the porch and wicker furniture for people to take their ease. A couple of scrappy hickory trees grew out the front, and there were dusty-looking rosebushes by the stairs. Lanterns were burning along the brick wall of the porch, and light fell through the windows in warm pools. But for all its grand pretensions, the rawness of the town clung to the hotel too; it looked hastily built, and the stairs were slightly askew. They creaked under Matt’s boots as he climbed them. The place was busy. Matt hadn’t seen so many freshly scrubbed and suited men outside of a church. They were sprawled in the wicker furniture and clumped along the railing, talking in low voices. They all looked as though they were waiting for something. Or someone.

Matt hoped it wasn’t him.

“Best wipe your boots.” The advice came from a scrawny-looking fellow who was sitting in the rocker closest to the door. He had an elaborate waxed mustache, which barely seemed to move when he spoke. It sat as stiff as a pencil. He peered at Matt over a pair of pince-nez. “Mrs. Bulfinch is rather particular about her floors. She hates dust.”

“She’s living in the wrong place, then.” Matt wasn’t much for conversation at the best of times, and now certainly wasn’t the best of times. He wiped his boots on the mat. It didn’t seem to do much good. The dirt was baked on.

“By the look of you, I’d hazard a guess you’re fresh in from the frontier!”

Matt grunted.

“My girls and I are headed west ourselves.”

“That so?” Matt ducked through the front door before the man could continue. The fellow didn’t seem daunted; in fact, he followed Matt inside.

Into what could only be described as a man’s worst nightmare. Matt had never seen anything like it. The place was too pink to be believed. The wallpaper was flocked pink on pink, the rugs were pink, and the lampshades were frosted pink glass. All of it a dusty, grayish pink that made Matt think of faded roses. Even the air smelled pink.

He didn’t like it.

There was a small brass bell on a doily-shrouded desk and a prissily lettered sign: “Please ring for attention.” He rang it, trying to breathe through his mouth so he wouldn’t have to take in the smell. It was like a graveyard for roses.

“Where are you from, Mr.