Marianne's Marriage of Convenience Read online

  The town’s two rival newspapers, the Smoke River Sentinel and the Lake County Lark, sat directly across the street from each other. Jessamine Sanders was the editor of the Sentinel; her husband, Cole, ran the Lark. Marianne decided that separate advertisements for Collingwood Boots should appear in each newspaper, but she chose the Sentinel for printing up the posters. First, though, she would visit the Lark.

  She stepped into the office to find a young girl seated before a rack of lead type. “I’m the typesetter,” she explained. “Noralee Ness.”

  “Well, good morning, Noralee. Is your father the owner of Ness’s Mercantile?”

  “Yes, ma’am, he is.”

  “And are you the one who paints the storefront such pretty colors?”

  “Oh, no. That’s my sister, Edith. Papa hates it, but Edith wants to be an artist and Mama, um, makes him let Edith do whatever she wants.”

  Marianne laughed. “It certainly makes the mercantile appear unusual, doesn’t it? Now,” she explained, “I am the owner of Collingwood Boots, and I would like to run an advertisement in the Lark.”

  “Oh, yes, ma’am,” the girl said instantly. “I can typeset it today, and it will come out in the Saturday edition.”

  Marianne thanked her, arranged for payment, and walked across the street to the Sentinel office. Eli, an older man with graying hair and a salt-and-pepper beard, greeted her at the counter.

  “I would like to put an advertisement in your next edition. Could that be arranged?”

  “Why, shore. Jes’ lemme have them words you want printed and I’ll see to it.” He promised he would personally typeset the ad “soon as Miss Jessamine gets back from breakfast down at the restaurant with the editor of the Lark. They do that every morning,” he confided. “Comparin’ notes, you might say. Miss Jessamine says it keeps ’em both on their toes, newspaper-wise. Makes no sense to me, but them two seem to like doin’ it.”

  Marianne understood perfectly. The two had a partnership, like she and Lance did. She left the Sentinel office and headed straight for the railroad station and the telegraph operator.

  “A telegram? Sure thing, Miss,” the man behind the desk said. “Whaddya want to say in this wire?”

  She slowly recited the words of the telegram while he jotted them down, and when he finished she read over the completed message.

  WISH TO PLACE ADVERTISEMENTS IN YOUR PUBLISHED BOOKS STOP PLEASE SEND RATES TO BURNSIDE, CARE OF COLLINGWOOD BOOTS STOP MARIANNE COLLINGWOOD BURNSIDE.

  When she left the telegraph office she was so buoyed up at the prospect of hundreds of boot orders flooding in she made a beeline for the restaurant and ordered a big slice of Rita’s peach pie.

  “My stars,” the waitress exclaimed. “You just missed your husband by sixty seconds. Don’t you two eat together anymore?”

  “Lance was here? What did he—?”

  “Gosh, he talked so fast I could hardly tell what was on his mind. Something about leather-punching awls and ten-penny nails. But he sure smiled a lot.”

  Marianne studied the snowy tablecloth, feeling her cheeks grow warm. Was Lance happy because he was learning to make boots? Or was it because they were married?

  Or was it because he had kissed her and held her in his arms last night?

  “Rita, could I also have a big cup of coffee?”

  “Sure. Funny, that’s what Lance wanted, too. Your stove workin’ okay?”

  “Why, yes. I made a pot of coffee just this morning.”

  “Maybe somebody stopped by your shop and drank it all up,” Rita joked.

  “But who would do such a thing?”

  The waitress bent toward her. “You know that woman, Eugenia Ridley? She came into the restaurant early this morning and was asking all about you and Collingwood Boots. Then she sailed out of here and headed straight for the livery stable.”

  “I fail to see—”

  “Eugenia Ridley doesn’t see to her own horse. She doesn’t drive a buggy, either. And,” Rita said in a confidential tone, “Collingwood Boots is right next door to the livery stable. I figure she just wants to snoop around.”

  “Oh.” Marianne gulped down the mug of coffee Rita set in front of her, waved away the pie, and set off for the shop. On the boardwalk outside the shop entrance she met Lance, and to her embarrassment he greeted her with a very public hug.

  “Thank God you’re back!”

  “Why? What has happened?”

  “Some busybody woman barged into the shop and pushed her way up the stairs into our living quarters. She asked about five hundred questions and drank up every last drop of our coffee!”

  “Questions about what?”

  Lance groaned. “Where did we come from? Who were ‘our people’? What happened to Matthew Collingwood? And while she was guzzling down our coffee she kept eyeing everything in the place, especially our bed.”

  A giggle bubbled out of Marianne’s mouth, and Lance’s dark eyebrows went up. “That woman was Eugenia Ridley,” she explained. “She turned up at Ness’s mercantile when I was ordering our new bed, and she was over-interested in the Montgomery Ward catalog page I was consulting.”

  “If I’d known that, I’d have asked her to sit down. On the bed,” he added.

  Marianne laughed aloud, and then suddenly sobered. “I wonder how Mrs. Ridley got past Abe?”

  “Abe’s been bent over a hunk of cowhide all morning, swearing like a sailor. He hardly even looked up when Sammy arrived this morning. And that’s another thing on Mrs. Ridley’s sniff list. Sammy. And Abe.”

  “What about Sammy and Abe? Did Abe say anything insulting to her?”

  “No. But she seemed awful interested in the fact that Sammy’s an Indian and Abe is Negro.”

  Marianne frowned. “Why would that be any of Eugenia Ridley’s business?”

  “It isn’t,” Lance growled. “I think she just doesn’t like Indians or Negroes.”

  Marianne felt a whisper of uneasiness crawl up her backbone. “Let’s try to forget about Eugenia Ridley,” she said. “We have more important things to discuss.”

  When they walked inside the shop, Abe looked up from the cutting table and grinned. “Glad yer back, Miss Marianne. Any luck with the newspapers?”

  “Our advertisements will be published in tomorrow’s issue of the Sentinel and the Saturday morning Lark. I can hardly wait to see them.”

  “Guess we better get us ready for a real rush of orders, huh?” Abe blurted out.

  “I’m ready!” Sammy called from the back.

  “Me, too,” Lance added.

  Abe snorted. “Not yet yer not. You two fellas got no idee how much work’s involved in makin’ a high-quality pair of ridin’ boots. No cotton-pickin’ idee.”

  His statement was met with silence.

  “And,” Marianne said after a moment, “I wired Brooks and Cassidy in Philadelphia about their advertising rates.”

  “Oh, lordy,” Abe groaned. “We’re gonna be flooded with more work than we kin handle in a month of Sundays. I think I need a shot of whiskey. Lance, you wanna join me?”

  “Sure.”

  “I’ll join you, too,” Marianne murmured.

  Abe’s eyes widened. “Aw, you’re a lady, Miss Marianne. Ladies don’t—”

  “This lady does,” she said firmly.

  “What about me?” Sammy yelled.

  “You’re too young!” three voices answered in unison.

  *

  Late that afternoon Sammy brought over a telegram from the telegraph office. Lance ripped it open while Marianne peered over his shoulder.

  “Three hundred dollars!” she cried. “They want three hundred dollars to advertise in one of their books? Why, that’s outrageous!”

  “We only got two hundred dollars in the bank,” Abe pointed out. “We cain’t afford this Bricks and Corsets publishing place in Philadelphia.”

  “No, we can’t,” Marianne admitted. “Lance, what are we going to do? Think of something!”

 
Lance took her hand in his. “I would if I could, Marianne. My brain’s been kinda blank ever since last night.”

  She turned the most delicious shade of rose-pink. Then she bit her lip until it turned a shade darker than a ripe strawberry, and he had to turn away.

  She spun toward Sammy and Abe, who was still gripping his hammer in one hand and holding a handful of long nails in the other. “Think!” she ordered.

  “When an Indian needs something they hold a potlatch,” Sammy offered.

  “A what? Spell it,” Lance directed.

  Sammy grinned. “P-O-T-L-A-T-C-H.”

  “Sort of a trade fair, right?”

  “Yeah, sort of,” the boy said.

  “I seen one once,” Abe said. “Got me a fancy huntin’ knife and a year’s supply of pemmican. Stuff tasted awful, like ground-up skunks.”

  “A trade fair…” Marianne murmured. “Maybe…”

  Abe frowned. “Miss Marianne, I kin see them wheels turnin’ in yer head. Kinda scares me, to tell the truth.”

  “Me, too,” Lance admitted with a grin. “Marianne with an idea in her head is like a tornado looking for a place to touch down. Anybody in the way had better stand back and watch out.”

  “What if…” Marianne continued, tapping her forefinger on her chin. “What if we held a…a contest of some kind?”

  Lance frowned. “What kind of contest?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe a contest of skill. Women hold cake bake-offs… What do men do?”

  “Play mumblety-peg?” Sammy suggested.

  “Or poker,” Lance offered.

  Abe thought for a minute and then his face lit up. “How ’bout marksmanship? Fellers always like to show off how good they can shoot.”

  “What about…a horse race?” Marianne murmured. “What if Collingwood Boots sponsored a horse race?”

  Lance stared at her and then closed his mouth with a snap. “That’s a smart idea, Marianne. Every man with a competitive bone in his body likes to show off his riding skill.”

  “Boys, too,” Sammy insisted. “There could be a junior race. You know, for boys under sixteen.”

  “And maybe one for girls,” Marianne said with a smile.

  Sammy looked horrified. “Girls! You mean boys and girls in the same race?”

  “Nah,” Abe countered. “No self-respectin’ male would race against a female.”

  Marianne looked thoughtful. “All right, we could hold three races, one for boys, and one for women, including girls, and one for all the competitive horseback-riding males in the county.”

  “We could charge an entry fee,” Lance said. “Say, five dollars.”

  Abe scratched his chin. “Whaddya figure on offerin’ as a prize, Miss Marianne?”

  “Well, let me see…” She gazed around the shop with a calculating look on her face. “The first place winner in each race could win a pair of fine custom-made Collingwood riding boots. You can make junior-sized boots, can’t you, Abe?”

  Abe nodded. “Sure I can. As long as they’re not too itty-bitty.”

  “Any rider with really small feet would be too young to enter a horse race, much less win a prize,” Lance said.

  They stared at one another until Lance broke the silence. “It’s a good idea, Marianne. I bet Sammy knows all the trails in the valley. He could lay out the course.”

  “And Miss Marianne could line up the judges,” Abe said with a chortle. “All she’d have to do is smile at ’em nice to get ’em to volunteer.”

  Marianne brought the chatter to a halt with a single question. “When?”

  Abe scratched his graying head. “What about Fourth of July? There’s always a big celebration on the Fourth, lotsa picnics and horseshoe games and such. And that’d mean lotsa spectators.”

  “And most people in the county come into town for the fireworks,” Sammy volunteered. “There’ll be plenty of horses.”

  “Which means,” Marianne said with a slow smile, “plenty of people who will be needing riding boots.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  News of the Fourth of July horse race sponsored by Collingwood Boots went through the county like wildfire. Both the Smoke River Sentinel and the Lake County Lark ran feature stories about it, and the men who gathered at Whitey Poletti’s barbershop spent long hours discussing horseflesh and riding skill. After the first week, they also started placing bets.

  Young boys suddenly began finishing up all their chores in record time and sneaking off to saddle up their ponies and practice careening around the hay bales in farmers’ fields.

  And people began pouring into Collingwood Boots to sign up for the race and pay the five dollar entry fee. One morning when Marianne was checking over the list of potential competitors for the women’s race she discovered it even included one young girl, thirteen-year-old Annamarie Panovsky. Sammy confided that Annamarie could ride like the prairie wind, and that very day he signed himself up to ride in the junior boys’ race.

  To the delight of Carl Ness, the mercantile’s stock of leather gloves and bandanas and fancy Stetsons sold out, and Stockett’s Feed & Seed saw a huge increase in high-quality oat sales. And there were many nights when dressmaker Verena Forester stayed up past midnight stitching fancy new shirts in boys’ and men’s sizes.

  While making deliveries with his wagon, Sammy made sure everyone in the county knew which ranchers and townspeople were entering the race, and betting at the barbershop ratcheted up. The Golden Partridge saloon sloshed more whiskey into more shot glasses and settled more arguments than bartender Tom Jameson could ever remember.

  Every morning Abe marched off to the bank with a leather satchel bulging with entry fees. So far, forty riders had signed up, and the Fourth of July was less than three weeks away.

  “Forty!” Marianne marveled. “That’s two hundred dollars!”

  “Who’d a thought folks in Smoke River was so competitive,” Abe mused.

  “Or so willing to fork over five bucks to see whether their horse could run faster than anybody else’s,” Lance added.

  “Well, that’s people fer ya,” Abe scoffed. “Allus willin’ to lay out their, uh…beggin yer pardon, Miss Marianne…lay out their, um, well, you know…to see whose is longest.”

  Marianne turned scarlet, and Lance laughed so hard he had to turn away.

  “Even my mother will ride in the women’s race,” Sammy confessed one afternoon.

  “Huh?” Abe exclaimed. “Didn’t know Rosie even owned a horse.”

  “Yes,” the boy confirmed. “My mother owns three horses. She taught me to ride on a fine black mare, and now I have my own horse.”

  The next afternoon in the utensil aisle at the mercantile Marianne overheard Eugenia Ridley’s voice complaining loudly about Sammy’s mother, Rosie Greywolf. “It’s indecent, that’s what it is! Positively indecent. Why, that woman is…well, everyone knows she’s an Indian, for heaven’s sake!”

  “So what?” Marianne heard Carl Ness inquire. “Miz Ridley, is there somethin’ about an Indian woman that makes her unable to ride a horse? Are they nearsighted, maybe? Or deaf?”

  Marianne instantly decided to bake Carl a three-layer chocolate cake that very afternoon.

  As the Fourth of July drew closer, Marianne began staying up past midnight every night, writing advertising copy for the newspapers. Lance worked on the planning details for the coming horse races, but he usually gave up long before Marianne did, puffed out the kerosene lamp and lay in the dark listening to the scritch-scratch of her pencil as she made notes on her notepad.

  For the past week he’d been studying his wife, noticing how short-tempered she grew when she was tired or hungry and how she smiled at him a lot more when she was rested and her stomach was full. Tonight they had splurged on a supper of steak and fried potatoes at the restaurant, and while they lingered over their apple pie and coffee he noticed that Marianne was smiling warmly at him.

  He guessed maybe it was time to advance his seduction plan one step f
orward. He thought it over during a second cup of coffee and then rolled his courage up into a ball and leaned across the table.

  “Marianne?”

  “Yes, Lance?”

  “Marianne, I have a question for you.”

  She looked up and narrowed her eyes. “Oh? What is it?”

  He opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again, while she looked on in bemusement. “You, uh, you do like me, don’t you?”

  She waited such a long time before answering he began to sweat.

  “Yes, of course I like you,” she murmured. “People don’t get married if they don’t like each other.”

  “Some do,” he said slowly. “Then there are people who, uh, resort to blackmail.” He raised a pointed eyebrow.

  She stared across the table at him. “Lance,” she said in a hushed tone. “Are you saying you regret marrying me?”

  “Oh, heck, no.”

  “Regret” was the furthest thing from his mind. In fact, there were days when he felt like dropping to his knees and thanking God he was the man Marianne had chosen to blackmail!

  “I don’t regret marrying you one bit,” he assured her. “But…”

  “But? But what?”

  “Well, right now we have what some folks might call only half a marriage. You know, a marriage of convenience.”

  She said nothing, so he screwed up his courage and plunged ahead. “So I was just wondering if that’s what we’re gonna always have?”

  Her eyes began to look troubled. “Well, maybe. I had not thought too far ahead.”

  Maybe? He ran that around in his brain for a good two minutes while Rita refilled their coffee cups and swished off into the kitchen.

  “Lance, I don’t really know how to describe our marriage.”

  He sighed. “Yeah. You didn’t think about what being married really meant, did you? You just needed a husband so you could inherit your uncle’s business, and I was it.”

  “Oh, no, it was more than that, Lance. Now I wish I hadn’t blackmailed you into marrying me. It was dishonest.”

  “Yeah, it was dishonest all right.” He let that sink in a moment. “But, Marianne, you know what? I’m not sorry.”