Free The Right Wife by Beverly Barton Page A

waiting.
    For one brief second, Maggie turned backward, catching a glimpse of Thayer standing at the hotel’s entrance, his black eyes filled with concern.

Chapter 4
    O ver a week had passed since Maggie’s flight from the Parshall House, but, try as she might, she could not forget one moment of the last day she had seen Aaron Stone. Her feelings for the man alternated hourly, ranging from bitter hatred to what she assumed was unrequited love. On this warm June afternoon, Maggie’s thoughts kept wandering back to the very instant Aaron’s lips had first touched hers. It had been such a gentle kiss, but the feeling it had induced in her had been so wild they had set her head to spinning. She had begun to resent the man because he had invaded her mind and heart so thoroughly that Micah was accusing her of being love-struck.
    “Margaret.” Mathilda Gower moved about the room like a butterfly despite her heaviness. Maggie had soon learned that Aunt Tilly’s health and agility had little to do with her body. She was well and happy whenever it suited her to be so. “I was telling Alice how becoming this lavender jersey will look on her. Don’t you agree?”
    “Yes, certainly.” Maggie had her doubts that the material was suited to Mrs. Alice Mobley’s rather bony body or sallow coloring but the lady was her first customer now that Aunt Tilly was allowing her to take in sewing. “Since I’ve adjusted the pattern, I’m sure it will be a fine fit, Mrs. Mobley.”
    Alice smiled, and the warmth in her expression changed her pale, plain face into a pleasantly pretty one. Maggie liked her aunt’s friend, whose husband practiced law in Tuscumbia and twin daughters attended the Deshler Female Institute. She envied the Mobley family their happy, secure life. “I shall return on Wednesday for the fitting, dear. Tilly has praised you highly. I understand you’ve made her a lovely new dress this past week.”
    “Indeed,” Mathilda confirmed, a plump hand patting her niece’s shoulder. “I shall have it on at church Sunday. It is the most beautiful gray cashmere, and the jacket is trimmed in black. It’s a perfect match for my gray straw bonnet.”
    “Margaret, I’m so pleased you and your brother and sister have joined our community.” Alice Mobley’s voice was loud and clear, each word thoroughly enunciated, indicating that her origins were not Southern. “I’m sure you will grow to love Tuscumbia as much as my family has since our arrival fifteen years ago.”
    “I’m sure we will,” Maggie said as she methodically folded the yards of material her aunt and Mrs. Mobley had inspected. “Please come on Wednesday. And if you wish, I can see your daughters on that day to adjust the pattern for them.”
    “Most definitely,” Mathilda invited. “You must all come over. I’ll have Auntie Gem bake a batch of tea cakes.”
    “We shall be here.” Alice nodded good-bye as Mathilda escorted her from the small, second-story bedroom where Maggie had set up the sewing machine that Uncle Chester had brought down from the attic and proudly presented to her. Maggie treasured the machine all the more for knowing it had belonged to her uncle’s first wife, who had died along with their only child in the yellow fever epidemic of ’78.
    Once her aunt and their guest were gone, she sat down on her small bed, smiling serenely because she was filled with a sense of hope and purpose. Aunt Tilly had been in complete accord with Maggie’s desire to earn money of her own, and had even praised her plans to pay for Micah’s and Judith’s schooling. Her aunt had actually gone on and on about the virtues of honest labor, and exhorted her nieces and nephew to work hard, obey God’s commandments, and keep spotless reputations in the community.
    Maggie’s plans were beginning to come together nicely. Micah had adapted well to work at the general store, and his intelligence and conscientiousness greatly pleased Uncle Chester. Judith,