Isaiah's Brides by Bierworth Marlene

Author:Bierworth, Marlene
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-09-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

When Kitty next awoke, the woman was still there, dozing in the chair, knitting needles on her lap. Why had she stayed? Kitty had not given Isaiah’s mail-order bride any reason to like her. Maybe she was trying to win Isaiah by using the back door. Being nice to a tramp would put her in a good light with a man struggling to find his place in the mess she’d created.

She gazed at her bruised arms and cringed. Black and blue had replaced the pink flesh. When she touched her face, pain shot through her head. Kitty groaned. Everything hurt. She couldn’t begin to imagine the damage her assailant had done with his array of punches. So much of the encounter was a blur. He’d knocked her senseless, which helped distract her from the real pain of him tearing out her soul. And to think she’d been on her way to his camp to offer herself to him with the hope of being impregnated. Fool that she was, making one mistake after another.

Isaiah’s prize sat next to her, still glowing, pink and beautiful in her morally acceptable dress. It was harder to summon the feelings of hate the desperate woman rebelled against; the girl simply wanted her happily ever after, just like Kitty. Still, the baby was the trump card she held over Isaiah, and that man would never abandon his responsibility. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to be cordial to the bride he’d cast away.

She wondered if the assault she’d endured managed to do what she knew Isaiah had not. Could she afford to wait to see if the terror had produced any results in her womb? She sighed, having realized there were no easy answers. To keep Isaiah and the lifestyle she craved, the deception must continue. Now was not the time to get soft, for as easy as not, she could find herself back at Godfrey’s door, begging for her job back. It surprised her how good she’d become in the art of wooing men to her lair, but then most of them had been drunk or desperate. It became suddenly clear that her motivation for accepting the whole immoral scene was to have a baby and laugh at the grave of her dead husband, letting him know she was neither useless nor barren.

When she attempted to sit up in bed, she groaned involuntarily, waking the woman resting at her side.

“Katherine—you’re awake.”

Why had she called her Katherine? Kitty didn’t want her, of all people, to cooperate with her name change, to accept the new woman she was trying to become.

“I am, and I’m feeling terrible, I might add.”

“No doubt. A man has no right to treat a woman like that.”

“I’m used to it.” That was a lie, for Kitty had never been subjected to that level of abuse. The saloon had rules of conduct, and the gentlemen usually minded their manners. It hit her that she had said it to remind this particular lady where she’d come from.

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