Free Mail Order Bride Leah: A Sweet Western Historical Romance (Montana Mail Order Brides Series Book 1) by Rose Jenster Page A

wren like herself—what had she to stir any man’s ardor? She would content herself with his devotion and hope that their child would bind them together more closely.
    The exquisite Melody Carver, née Baker, was staying in her father’s mansion but spent most of her time flitting about town, twirling a parasol and remarking about how “quaint” everything looked after her time in Europe. She came to the inn, ostensibly to meet the innkeeper’s new wife from back East, but really to display her beauty and riches in front of Henry Rogers.
    Melody exclaimed over the size of the establishment and tapped Henry’s arm with her fan playfully.
    “I had no idea you would be such an entrepreneur! Why, when I left here, you were nothing but a clerk sweeping the floors at the trading post back in Coulson!”
    Henry winced, the muscle in his jaw tensing visibly. Leah’s hand tightened on his sleeve comfortingly.
    “So you’ve been away a long while, I suppose—if you knew Henry way back then,” Leah said, wondering how best to defend her husband from this blowsy, flirtatious woman’s onslaught of rudeness.
    “Oh, it seems a terribly long time, to be sure, Leila.”
    “Leah,” Henry corrected her stonily. “My wife’s name is Leah Rogers,” he emphasized.
    “Oh, yes, of course. Dear little Leah,” she said with a dismissive wave of her fan. “Did I have it wrong? I’m so dreadful with names. Mother says it’s because I’m flighty.” She tittered, and Leah was privately inclined to agree with the woman’s mother.
    “We’re having a little dinner party tomorrow night, just family and a few close friends at Father’s house to celebrate my return. Do come and join us. It’s to be at seven in the evening. You will come, won’t you?” she requested , fluttering her eyelashes prettily. Leah was almost sure the woman had on rouge—it couldn’t be—only painted ladies, prostitutes did that!
    “Certainly,” Henry said, not meeting her eyes.
    “Oh, la la, I must be off. I’m to take luncheon with dear Mrs. Gibson. Sweet old thing, but dull as powder,” Melody mused, dismissing one of Leah’s dearest friends so lightly.
    When the woman floated out of the inn, her silk taffeta skirts rustling beneath her massive bustle, Leah looked quizzically at her husband.
    “Who was she? I mean, apart from being the mayor’s daughter?”
    “No one. Old acquaintance,” he said, shrugging her hand off his arm and returning to the stables. Leah felt the old distance return between them, and his withdrawal stung as always. That woman seemed so insincere and offensive, but Leah felt something threatening gripping her emotions.
    Disappointed, Leah returned to their sitting room, where she resumed embroidering a gown for the baby they expected in a few weeks. She made a row of tiny French knots in yellow along the twisting green vine she’d just completed. As she stitched, she thought about the months she and Henry had spent as husband and wife. Their cozy evenings by the fire reading aloud to one another from novels and poetry books, just sharing whatever they each happened to be enjoying at the time. The time they spent sitting in rocking chairs on the back porch looking at “their” mountain and talking over their hopes for the baby and for the babies who would follow. She wanted four in all, while Henry jokingly claimed to want eight.
    If this child were a boy, she planned to call him Josiah Henry after his father, while she hoped to call a girl after her own mother, Hazel, and Henry’s mother, Kathleen.
    Leah shifted in her chair to ease the pain in her back and contemplated making some tea. She would have liked to visit with dear Mrs. Gibson, but knowing that Melody Carver was lunching at the rectory was enough to keep Leah at home. She read over the latest letter from Jane again and worked on her reply half-heartedly.
    Something about the mayor’s daughter was troubling Leah, but she couldn’t figure out what it