Courting Calamity by Amanda Barratt

Author:Amanda Barratt [Barratt, Amanda; Meyer, Gabrielle; Uhlarik, Jennifer; Y’Barbo, Kathleen ]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781643524139
Publisher: Barbour Publishing, Inc.
Published: 2020-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 2

A moonless night enveloped Alex and Sofia as the carriage came to a stop under the porte cochere at his father’s mansion on Summit Avenue. A single light glowed from Father’s office window, but the rest of the house was dark. No doubt the staff would be asleep this late at night. Alex hoped he and Sofia could enter without disturbing the whole house, because it would only hasten the questions that were sure to arise.

“Thank you,” Sofia said quietly in her lilted accent from the other side of the carriage. “For all you’ve done.”

“I wish I could have done more.”

It had been a long, emotional day. After their very brief wedding at the courthouse, they had returned to find Alberto had peacefully passed away. It had taken several hours before the undertakers were able to come, and then a bit more work to pack up the few things Sofia had wanted to take to remember her grandfather. Alex had asked if he could have Alberto’s Bible, which he held reverently in his hands now. It was soft from use, its pages and cover well loved over the years.

Terrance opened the door, and Alex stepped out. He turned and offered his hand to Sofia. A lantern from the carriage flickered and highlighted her high cheek bones. Fear and uncertainty radiated from her eyes as she hesitated inside the dark interior.

“I will not let anything hurt you,” he said gently. “You have my word.”

She studied him for a heartbeat and then took the hand he offered.

Her hand was small and delicate. She did not wear gloves or have any of the adornments of the women he knew—but he’d never seen a more elegant or graceful lady. He marveled at the way she held herself on such a hard and trying day.

The reality that she was his wife washed over him like a tidal wave, taking him unaware, and he had a sudden urge to protect her. He had promised not to let anything hurt her, yet the man inside the house would be the first in line. Alex knew his father’s feelings about the lower classes all too well. He would employ them, but he wouldn’t associate with them. Wasn’t that why Alex had witnessed Hans’s beating all those years ago in Swede Hollow? His father wanted to make an example of the boy and threaten Alex that the same thing would happen to any friend Alex played with that didn’t meet his standards.

Unease washed over Alex as he wrapped his wife’s hand around his elbow, pulling her closer. He rarely interacted with his father anymore and preferred to keep it that way. But it wasn’t always easy to avoid him, since his father was also his boss.

When he was nineteen, Alex had moved a hundred miles northwest to Little Falls, Minnesota, to manage the White Pine Lumber Mill, the largest mill in the United States. It was just one of a dozen mills owned by the Midwest Lumber Company, which his father had started with several business partners before Alex was born.

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