BEGINNINGS_Suffragettes Mail-Order Bride Read online

  BEGINNINGS: Choice Suffragettes Mail-Order Brides Agency

  A Sweet Clean and Wholesome Western Historical Romance (Book 1)

  Kate Cambridge

  Curl Up Books

  Contents

  Kate Cambridge

  CHOICE BRIDES: BEGINNINGS Suffragette Mail-Order Brides Series

  About Kate Cambridge and Also By

  CHOICE BRIDES: BEGINNINGS Suffragette Mail-Order Brides Series

  Kate Cambridge

  The Suffragette Mail-Order Brides Series, Book 1

  By Kate Cambridge

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  SIGN UP FOR KATE CAMBRIDGE’S CHOICE READER UPDATES FOR LATEST RELEASES, GIVEAWAYS, EXCERPTS, AND MORE! KateCambridge.com/choice

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  Kate Cambridge is a bestselling Amazon-author writing sweet romance books with strong women and men, often coming together in ways you least expect, with a thread of humor, hope, and faith throughout. A voracious reader and lifelong writer, Kate left the corporate world of training and project management to begin her own marketing agency, where the pull to do what she truly loved finally won. And now she writes!

  http://KateCambridge.com

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  Copyright © 2015 by Kate Cambridge

  All rights reserved.

  All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in critical articles or book reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and are not to be construed as real in any way. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales, persons or animals, business establishments, or organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Property of Kate Cambridge, December 2015

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  Details at the end of the story.

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  BEGINNINGS was part of a bestselling boxset called, “19 Brides for 19 Cowboys” exclusively for the first six months, and is the Epilogue for the entire Choice Mail-Order Brides Agency series!

  Now on to the story…

  Chapter 1

  The cold steel of the handcuffs stung her wrists as Elizabeth Dow was led away from the voting booth. Two police officers kept firm hands on her elbows as they frog-marched her forward, pausing every so often to allow her to hear the taunts and booing from the men in the crowd.

  “Was it worth it, honey?” one of the officers, a young man with a grizzled mustache, asked, as he shoved her forward.

  Elizabeth stumbled, but did not answer. She had the right to remain silent now that she had given the police her name and home address, and she knew that they could not charge her because she’d never actually managed to cast her ballot. She’d been in the process of trying to convince the election inspector to allow her through when the police had detained her. Now, they would take her home, give her a stern warning, and tell her father to be more firm with her in the future. As though that would stop her.

  Behind her, Elizabeth could hear other officers taunting Margaret, one of her friends and a fellow suffragette. She’d managed to get all the way to the ballot box before she’d been caught. The others had cast their votes and disappeared into the crowd as they’d agreed. Elizabeth was glad that they’d at least managed a handful of votes before the police had shown up.

  Glancing backwards, Elizabeth could see Margaret’s pale hair in disarray as the officers yanked her about as roughly as they dared while in full view of the public. She memorized their faces as they were marched through the crowd to the street beyond. The officers hoisted Elizabeth and Margaret into a paddy wagon and locked their handcuffs to the seats. Men from the crowd jeered at them from all sides, but Elizabeth just stared at the wall behind Margaret’s head. If she made eye-contact with Margaret, she might just break down and they couldn’t afford to appear weak.

  “Hope your daddy knows what to do with girls who misbehave,” one of the officers said as they closed the bars on the wagon and walked around to the front. A man pushed through the crowd and spat through the bars at Elizabeth’s dress.

  “That will wash out,” Margaret said in a shaky voice.

  Elizabeth knew that it was meant to be a comfort, but her heart clenched in her chest at the tone. “I know,” she replied.

  Another man reached through the bars and tried to grab at her skirt. She jerked away, but not before he got a hold of the edge and ripped a strip off the bottom. Margaret winced as Elizabeth pushed herself as far away from the bars as she could. She was still within easy reach and the man grabbed her ankle, scratching at her skin, his eyes wide with fury and his lip turned up into a sneer.

  Elizabeth used her legs to bang on the partition, which separated the prisoners from the officers.

  “If you’re going to take us home, then get on with it!”

  The floor beneath her feet started to shake as the motor turned over, and the man who’d clutched at her ankle was forced back by the smoke coming out of the tailpipe. Elizabeth watched with no small amount of satisfaction as he stumbled backwards, and then lunged forward just an instant too late as the paddy wagon lurched out of his reach.

  The paddy wagon left, the crowd disappeared behind them, and the two women kept their heads high as people on the street stopped and pointed at the locked-up suffragettes as they drove through town. Elizabeth couldn’t reach her own raven-black hair, but she could tell from Margaret’s sympathetic looks that it was a mess. She could feel bruises forming on her elbows where the officers had held her.

  They drove past the public garden, which was filled with the women and children who were passing the time while their men voted, cheerfully strolling beneath the shadow of George Washington and his horse. Elizabeth wondered if Washington would have approved of suffrage. He believed in liberty for men and slaves – surely women could have used some liberty as well? He was a Godly and fair man, and Elizabeth felt certain he would fight along side them for the right for women to vote – to own and run businesses. Women were created in God’s image, too, after all.

  “Do you suppose that this will be the last straw for them, f… for my parents?” Margaret asked, gazing up at Elizabeth with worried grey eyes.

  Margaret’s parents opposed the suffrage movement – they were anti-suffrage of the highest order, and thought that Elizabeth and the rest of Margaret’s friends had corrupted the girl. Her father had considered sending her to an asylum for correction. Most of the women who went to institutions had never come out, and even though they had claimed that the conditions had improved since Nellie Bly’s expose, the thought of being locked up in one was still enough to send shivers down the spine of the most hardened suffragette.

  “If they threaten you - threaten to send you away, you can come and stay with me,” Elizabeth replied, suppressing a shudder. “We take care of our own, and I know my father would agree.”

  Margaret bit her lip and looked unsure, but Elizabeth nodded encouragingly at her. Eventually, the other woman nodded.

  “Right,” she said. “Okay.”

  When they arrived at Margaret’s house, the two officers who’d arrested Elizabeth came around to collect the other woman and take her inside. Elizabeth watched them go and tried to quiet the fearful images in her mind of Margaret, strapped to a gurney, her hair frizzed from electro-shock treatments, lying next to the hundreds of other women who’d dared to challenge the government,
and sometimes their families, and stand up for their right to vote.

  Elizabeth was lucky that her father was so deeply opposed to women’s asylums. He’d tried to tame her to some degree, certainly – particularly when she’d begun to form bonds with other women, join protests, and started being escorted home by the police. But he would never dream of something as horrible as locking her up. He hadn’t openly admitted it, but Elizabeth felt certain he respected the fact that she fought for what she believed was right and just.

  She could hear the officers talking as they returned from the house and headed back down to the paddy wagon.

  “She’ll soon learn her place.”

  “Everyone knows a woman don’t have the intellect to understand politics.”

  Elizabeth nearly choked on the irony of that sentence; a grammatical nightmare which her elocution tutor would have rapped her over the knuckles for. She wanted to speak up and correct the man, but they were already climbing into the backseat of the wagon.

  “What they need is a firm hand, you see – any real man ought to be able to keep control of his women.”

  “If we let them vote the whole system’ll fall apart.”

  “Yes, there’ll be nothing but simpering dandymen in charge of our country if they get their way.”

  “Or worse – women.”

  “Don’t even joke about that.”

  She’d heard it all before, but it still made the bile rise in her throat. Sometimes Elizabeth wondered if people actually believed that drivel, or if they were simply regurgitating what they’d read in the paper or heard from male politicians because the effort of coming up with their own opinion was too much for them. She could not see how any rational human being, or any God-fearing person could truly believe the nonsense spewing out of the officers’ mouths.

  Surely they’d met women before, and talked with them? Surely there were women in their lives who would take issue with being called a simpleton, women they respected?

  Elizabeth had dozens of tutors growing up, teaching her spelling and arithmetic and history. She could name every battle fought in the civil war, as well as who’d won and who’d been leading each army. If she could do that, then she could collect the facts about each candidate in a political election and come to her own conclusions about who should win. But as far as some men – and indeed, some women – were concerned, she was just a rebel, an empty-headed fool with a pretty face and too much time on her hands.

  The wind ruffled her reddish-gold hair as the paddy wagon continued towards her own home, which was decidedly more upper-class than Margaret’s, though she knew Margaret didn’t hold it against her. Elizabeth’s father was a banker and a good one at that. Her younger brother, George, would follow in his footsteps and ensure the continued prosperity of their family. Elizabeth would have liked to do the same, but she was a woman and therefore not allowed to be a banker. Indeed, her family was so wealthy that people would think it an insult to her father if she tried to find work. She was meant to look pretty and simper about until someone wealthier, a good man came along and offered to marry her. Elizabeth couldn’t imagine a worse fate.

  As they drove through the streets of Boston, Elizabeth tried to imagine a world where women could vote, and run their own businesses without fear of retribution. It was difficult with handcuffs digging into her wrists and the beginnings of warm purple bruises on her elbows, but she tried anyway. She imagined the people stopping on the sidewalk to look were grateful and gawking because they were excited to see her, and what she and women suffragettes accomplished, and not because she was a filthy suffragette out to destroy everything they held dear.

  When the paddy wagon slowed, Elizabeth shifted in her seat. Her backside had gone numb from the hard wooden bench. It was a regular occurrence.

  The wagon stopped. The same two officers who’d arrested her got out and came around to fetch her. They weren’t gentle, but they didn’t knock her around like they had with Margaret. Elizabeth wished that their roles had been reversed and she’d gotten the worse treatment – poor Margaret had fair skin that bruised easily, and she would feel the pain of that encounter for days.

  Elizabeth was led by the elbows up the drive to her father’s front door. The officers didn’t say anything to her – they were probably saving their nonsense for her father. They knocked on the front door and jerked backwards as it opened almost immediately, revealing a man that Elizabeth had never met.

  He was dressed as a gentleman, but there was something about his demeanor that made Elizabeth think that he was not quite one. Tall and built like an oak tree, the man was all heavy muscles and a strong core. His jaw was square with a hint of rough-looking stubble, and his green eyes seemed to cut right through the heart of the matter, through the officers and Elizabeth. Elizabeth had a sudden feeling of transparency, as though this man could see into her mind and heart. She was acutely aware of her messy hair, ripped dress, and her cheeks which were still flushed from earlier.

  “Afternoon,” he said, nodding to Elizabeth and ignoring the officers. His voice was deep and rich like dark molasses.

  “You her husband?” the younger officer asked.

  “Friend of her father’s,” he replied.

  Elizabeth had heard her father speak of a number of friends, but she thought this man was a bit young for him – her father was in his fifties, whereas this man didn’t look a day over thirty.

  He glanced down and frowned. “You’re bleeding,” he said to Elizabeth.

  She looked down and realized that he was right. A small trail of red had dribbled down her ankle and onto her shoe. She became aware of the phantom pain in her skin where the man at the polling station had scratched her.

  “She tried to vote,” the young officer said. “Some of the rightful voters had something to say about that.”

  “And you let it happen while she was in your custody?” the man replied, frowning hard at the officer.

  The young officer blinked and sputtered. The man gestured into the house.

  “Mr Dow is in the study. I’m sure he’ll be interested to hear about how hard you worked to keep his daughter safe while she was in your care.”

  He nodded to Elizabeth and stepped back, expecting - no silently demanding that they move forward upon his command. Elizabeth didn’t know whether to feel impressed that he had defended her, or furious because he’d defended her without asking if she needed it. Of course, she thought wryly, with two police officers holding her elbows and handcuffs around her wrists, the stranger could be forgiven for assuming that she did not have the upper hand in the situation. Thankfully, Christopher, her father’s butler arrived next. He took in the scene with detached irony before beckoning the officers.

  “Miss Elizabeth, you might want to wait in the drawing room,” he said once he’d closed the door behind them. “I can send a maid to tend to your injuries.”

  “We were hoping she’d be with us when we explained to her father what she’d done,” the younger officer sneered.

  Christopher looked at the man as though he were a flea he would have liked to squash. “I assure you, officer – you have nothing to say that he has not heard. I will conduct you to the study while Miss Elizabeth retires to the drawing room. Please follow me.”

  His tone brooked no argument. Elizabeth was forever in awe of the way Christopher could dominate men with three times his social standing. He was the picture of propriety in his pressed suit and slicked back silver hair, but he had a confidence about him that perplexed everyone he met. His demeanor made Elizabeth respect him – the fact that he wholeheartedly supported women’s suffrage – made her love him.

  Elizabeth turned her wrists toward the officers. With a sigh, the one closest to her removed the cuffs, with a new gentleness she’d not thought him capable of. Elizabeth turned on her heels and did as Christopher asked, retiring to the drawing room. Christopher would send in a maid when one became available, and there were books which could occupy her while sh
e waited for her father to be done with the officers. She settled into one of the overstuffed couches and let the light from the fireplace illuminate the pages of her favorite Bronte.

  She didn’t have long to wait. It felt like she’d barely turned a few pages before her father stormed into the room, his portly belly preceding him by a moment and his bald head gleaming with the reflections from the golden fixtures.

  “Show me,” he said without preamble.

  Elizabeth sighed and cocked her leg, showing him the – admittedly rather deep – scratches on her ankle, as well as the bruises on her elbows.

  “The elbows were the police,” Elizabeth said.

  “Yes, Christopher was sure to inform me about how they were holding you, and the police commissioner will hear about it,” her father replied, crouching down to get a better look at her leg. Then he turned his head and called out: “Christopher! Ring for the doctor.”

  “Right away, sir!”

  “That’s not necessary, father –”

  “I do not want this infected,” her father replied sternly. He fixed his gaze on her. Elizabeth ran her fingers through her hair and tried to flatten it as best she could, but she knew that it was a hopeless case. She must look a mess. Finally, he sighed. “I wish you would be more careful.”

  “I wish I didn’t have to be more careful,” Elizabeth replied fiercely. “They claim that women are delicate and need protection, but that all goes down the drain when we do something they do not like! Do you know that Margaret’s parents are threatening her with an institution? An institution! The injustice of it, Father! I told her she could come and stay with us if they go through with it.”

  “Good, good, yes, of course she can.”

  “In Wyoming, women have the vote –” she continued. “– in Utah it’s the same. This change is happening whether they like it or not.”