Read Mail Order Bride Leah: A Sweet Western Historical Romance (Montana Mail Order Brides Series Book 1) for Free Online Page A

and a woman staying at the house while she tried to set up shop as a dressmaker. This lady was very interested in talking to Leah soon about the current fashions on the East Coast. Leah managed to eat some of the fried potatoes, and helped clear the table and wash the dishes.
    Leah excused herself and went to her room, where she divested herself of the corset that had been pinching her for the two-thousand-mile train ride. Washing up thoroughly with the cake of soap and the chilly water in her pitcher, Leah tried to rub the kinks out of her back and shoulders from the cramped journey.
    She lit the lamp and read over all of his letters again, trying to keep fresh in her mind the character and voice of the man she had fallen in love with, sight unseen. His handsomeness was almost distressing—she was shy enough around ordinary people, much less a man who looked like one of the Lord’s angels.
    She unfolded and brushed the cranberry walking costume with its fitted jacket and narrow striped skirt. Feeling yet too excited and awake to rest, she fished her embroidery things out of the trunk and set to work embellishing the plain jacket with twirls and leaves in a soft sage green.
    Before she left New York, she had purchased more embroidery silks than she could use in two years—unsure how hard it would be to come by such luxuries in the West. She worked a twining vine with leaves around the flared hem of the short jacket and made a matching double row of delicate vine around the cuffs. Well pleased with her work, she snipped off the thread with her silver embroidery scissors and put away her sewing things for the night.
    The next morning dawned, and Leah scrubbed and scoured herself, even under her nails, until every bit of railway dust was gone. Then she brushed out her long brown hair till it shone, and braided the length, twisting it into a low knot and securing it with pins. She regretted the curling tongs she used to borrow from Jane, but fluffed her fringe as best she could with her fingers and a few drops of water from the pitcher. It was nearly time for breakfast, but she could wait no longer to open Jane’s package. Unfolding the carefully pinned paper, she found an array of items that made her smile.
    First was a set of new curling tongs (clever Jane!). As she set them in the lamp’s chimney to warm, she found a smart little set of jeweled hairpins—five of them—with shimmering pearl-like beads affixed to the ends, perfect for a wedding day. Next came a packet of dried lavender for her linen press, and two white tablecloths, hemstitched and ready to embroider (thoughtful Jane!). The tablecloths were folded carefully around another object…a yellow penny dreadful (mischievous Jane!)—a sensational adventure novel of the sort Jane enjoyed.
    Leah giggled at the sight of it and placed it in her trunk under the tablecloths Jane had made for her, lest Mrs. Hostleman peek into the room and see such a novel lying about and think that she was fast. Leah took the tongs from the lamp and stood before the small square of spotted mirror on the wall, arranging her fringe into becoming curls.
    Breakfast was more fried potatoes and fried eggs. After the washing up, Leah found Henry Rogers standing just inside the front hall, shifting from foot to foot uncomfortably with his hat in his hands.
    “Good morning,” she said, as casually as she could manage.
    “Morning, ma’am,” he replied quietly. “You ready to go?”
    “Yes, thank you. Let me get my bonnet.” She took her straw bonnet from the peg and tied it on.
    When they were on the wooden sidewalk, he offered her his arm stiffly and she took it just as awkwardly. She had never held a man’s arm before. She rested her fingers lightly in the crook of his elbow but did not grip his arm or lean against him in any way. It seemed a bit of an absurd way to walk, as though promenading down a city boulevard instead of traversing the uneven sidewalk of a boomtown out in the