Read Heartbreak Creek for Free Online Page B

family and left. Ghastly man, that earl.”
    “Earl?” Lucinda sounded shocked. “You were married to an earl?”
    “His father is the earl. Angus is only third in line, which was why he was in the military, of course.”
    “Edwina, you wouldn’t last two minutes on your own,” Pru said, responding to her earlier remark. “You can’t even cook.”
    “Who cooks?” Maddie said airily. “I’m sure your new husband will be delighted with you, Edwina, whether you can cook or not. Angus didn’t seem to mind that I couldn’t cook. But then we rarely left the bedroom. When he bothered to come see me, that is.”
     
     
    The next morning at ten minutes after eight o’clock, Edwina stepped out of the Heartbreak Creek Hotel into such bright, glaring sunlight it made her head pound even worse than it had throughout the night. Raising a hand to shade her eyes, she looked around, wrinkling her nose at the smell of the horse droppings in the street and the stale reek of whiskey and tobacco smoke drifting out of the open door of the Red Eye Saloon next door.
    Other than the distant thudding of machinery up at the mine, the town seemed deader than it had when they’d arrived the previous day—no gawkers peering through the greasy windows of the saloon, no wagons lumbering down the muddy street, and no unsmiling man resembling that tiny tintype waiting outside the hotel.
    “So where is he?” she groused, squinting down the boardwalk. “It’s after eight. He should be here by now.” After spending a nearsleepless night dreading this meeting, she now found herself churning with impatience for it to be over. Rather like the terrified anticipation felons facing a firing squad must feel. “It’s rude to keep a lady waiting. A wife waiting.”
    What if he never comes? What if the money runs out and we’re stranded in this nasty little town forever?
    A sharp breeze, crisp with spring’s promise even though snow still capped the peaks above the mine, cut through Edwina’s thin coat and made her shiver. Beside her, Pru patted and smoothed and checked her buttons with annoying predictability.
    “Stop fidgeting, Pru,” she snapped. “It’s giving me a headache.”
    “Poor dear.”
    The lack of sympathy in Pru’s tone fueled Edwina’s pique. “And another thing.” She met her sister’s bland look with a warning glare. “If you refer to yourself as my maid again I will cause such a ruckus it’ll make your hair curl.”
    “My hair is already curled.”
    “I mean it, Prudence.”
    “In a bad mood, are we?”
    Realizing she was sounding like a petulant child, Edwina let go a deep sigh and along with it, most of her anger. “I wish Maddie and Lucinda were here. Maybe I can hire on as Maddie’s photography assistant. Or as Lucinda’s personal seamstress. I should have thought to ask.”
    “No matter. You’re married.” Pru straightened her bonnet after a sudden gust almost snatched it from her head. “And we decided to let them sleep, remember? Besides, we said our good-byes last night.”
    “I know. But still . . .” Edwina would have liked having them there for support. Maddie’s eternal good cheer might have kept her spirits up, even as Lucinda’s innate pragmatism would have reminded her that she’d made her choice and had best get on with it. “This waiting is fraying my nerves.”
    What if he misrepresented himself? What if he’s an ogre? A toothless, squint-eyed, wife-beating ogre?
    Blinking back the sting of tears, she stared down at her tightly clasped hands. Thank God she had insisted on the two-month waiting period so they could get to know each other before doing . . . that . Perhaps she should extend it to three. Yes, three would do nicely. That way, if he didn’t work out, she would have time to come up with another plan before he insisted on exercising his husbandly duties. Her skin prickled at the thought.
    “I don’t think you’ll have to wait much longer.”
    Edwina looked up to see