Felix’s Christmas Mail-Order Bride by Creeden P

Author:Creeden, P.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-12-11T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 8

On Friday of the following week, a letter arrived. Bethany frowned as Hannah came into the shop, looking stricken. She stepped up toward the counter. Bethany could tell from her expression that something wasn’t right. “What’s wrong?”

Hannah’s brow was furrowed as her frown deepened, and fears flickered through Bethany’s mind. Was it a letter from Richard acknowledging Hannah’s fears from Sunday? Was the wedding canceled when it was a scant two weeks away? How could he do that to her? Hannah didn’t answer, but she pushed the letter across the table.

Bethany picked it up and read through the words quickly, and her heart sank in her chest. As a courtesy to the orphanage in Louviers, Hannah had written them a letter a day or two after Archer and Marianne had arrived, informing them of their whereabouts and that the Spencer family would be taking both the orphans in. Unfortunately, the orphanage’s response was unexpected. They wanted proof that the children were in the home of a stable family environment with a husband and wife, or they wanted them returned to the orphanage. “What do they mean by a stable family environment? How are we to prove that?”

“I’m not sure,” Hannah said, “but if I can convince Richard that we should take the children with us to Denver, then I can send them a copy of our marriage certificate or even stop by the orphanage on our way back to the city.”

That didn’t help Bethany’s heart from hurting. “Mr. Spencer isn’t going to be happy.”

Shaking her head, Hannah’s eyes shined with unshed tears. “If I take the children with me, Felix will be devastated. He loves them and wouldn’t want them to leave. The children themselves may not be happy with leaving either. They are finding their place at school. They enjoy working in the shop with us and being useful. It is a stable environment here at the mercantile. We just need to find a way to convince the orphanage of that.”

Bethany swallowed a lump that had formed in her throat. If she and Mr. Spencer were to marry, they could keep the children here in the shop and send in their own marriage certificate. But even Hannah wasn’t mentioning that as a possibility. She must have noticed too. For some reason, this whole week, Mr. Spencer had been distancing himself from Bethany. He didn’t work with her alone any longer. The conversations they’d had where they’d drawn closer together had been dropped almost entirely. They rarely talked, and he almost never even made eye contact with her anymore. Often, when the shop was open, he’d disappear, which he’d never done previously. And all this week, he’d been volunteering to walk the children to and from school instead of Hannah doing it, presumably so he wouldn’t have to be alone with Bethany.

Had he decided that he didn’t want to marry her after all? Perhaps the feelings that she’d been developing for him were entirely one-sided, and she shouldn’t cling to him or something that she thought she’d been feeling.

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