The Reluctant Bridegroom Read online

  Conveniently Wed

  Marriage for any reason but love was once unthinkable to Maryland councilman Henry Nash. But when an innocent encounter with a criminal puts Henry’s reputation in jeopardy, he’ll make any sacrifice to maintain custody of his orphaned nieces. And an alliance with a powerful politician’s daughter could secure the little girls’ futures. As long as gentle Rebekah Van der Geld never hears the rumors surrounding her new groom...

  Refusing her father’s choice of husband wasn’t an option for dutiful Rebekah. But Henry’s kindness is a happy revelation, and she’s quickly falling for his adorable nieces—so she allows herself to hope this unconventional arrangement could become much more. But can it survive a shattering revelation that puts their new family in danger?

  “You are my wife. I want you to be happy.”

  The look Rebekah gave him made his pulse quicken. Was this what being in love felt like? If it was, he wanted to feel more of it.

  “Now tell me,” Henry said, “what else are you fond of? And don’t give me an answer you think I want to hear.”

  “I should like to learn more of your work with the council,” she said.

  “What else?”

  “And I would like to learn more about this trial. Did you know that one of the accused conspirators is a woman?”

  His heart slammed into his ribs. “Yes.”

  Of all the things he and his new bride could discuss, she had chosen the one topic he so wished to avoid.

  “Oh, listen to me,” Rebekah then said. “I’m prattling away... You’ll be sorry you ever asked of my interests.”

  “No, I won’t,” he said. It was the truth. He wanted to learn her, win her, love her. What he didn’t want was for Rebekah to open the paper one morning and find the names of Mary Surratt and John Wilkes Booth listed beside his own.

  Shannon Farrington and her husband have been married for over twenty years, have two children, and are active members in their local church and community. When she isn’t researching or writing, you can find her visiting national parks and historical sites or at home herding her small flock of chickens through the backyard. She and her family live in Maryland.

  Books by Shannon Farrington

  Love Inspired Historical

  Her Rebel Heart

  An Unlikely Union

  Second Chance Love

  The Reluctant Bridegroom

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  SHANNON

  FARRINGTON

  The Reluctant Bridegroom

  There is therefore no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

  —Romans 8:1

  In memory of Jessica Kathleen

  Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.

  —1 Corninthians 2:9

  And in honor of my wonderful editor Elizabeth Mazer, without whose patient guidance this story would not have been possible.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Epilogue

  Dear Reader

  Excerpt from His Prairie Sweetheart by Erica Vetsch

  Chapter One

  Baltimore, Maryland

  1865

  What is he doing here? He has never visited our home before.

  Rebekah Van der Geld watched from her position behind the large oak tree as her father’s chief political rival, State Delegate Harold Nash, stepped from the porch and came down the front walk. The graying widower looked quite pleased with himself, as though he had just secured some grand victory.

  Few men ever smiled after leaving her father’s presence, and yet this particular legislator was whistling happily as he stepped through the front gate and headed up the street. He had just passed her next-door neighbor’s home when Fiona, Rebekah’s maid, spied her behind the tree.

  “There you are, miss,” she said. “I’ve been looking for you! You must hurry! Your father wants ya!”

  Rebekah’s stomach immediately knotted. She brushed her clothing. “Am I presentable?”

  Fiona twirled her about. “There’s mud along your back hemline,” she said, “but I daresay you haven’t time to change. Perhaps he won’t notice.”

  He will notice, Rebekah thought, and he will be angry. She knew, though, there was nothing she could do to remedy that now. Her father would be even angrier if she didn’t come straightaway.

  Resigning herself to the inevitable, Rebekah hurried inside. The door to the study was ajar, but she knocked upon it just the same. She had been told more than once never to step into the room without her father’s permission.

  “Enter,” he commanded.

  Drawing a quick breath, Rebekah did so. Her father was standing at the window, hands clasped behind his back. Theodore Van der Geld was not a particularly large man, but his stern voice and iron hand were enough to intimidate most everyone with whom he came in contact, especially his daughter.

  Rebekah positioned herself near his desk just so, hoping he would not noticed her soiled dress. “You wished to see me, sir?”

  “Indeed,” he said without turning around. “The time has come for you to wed.”

  Wed? The air rushed from Rebekah’s lungs. Had she heard him correctly? If she had, then just whom was she supposed to marry? She had no suitors, at least none of whom she was aware. No young man had dared come calling for fear of facing her father.

  And yet as shocking as this announcement was, deep down she had always known her father would orchestrate her marriage. He had arranged everything else in her life, and every decision he made was filtered through the lens of his own political benefit. Having become a successful state legislator, he now wanted to be governor.

  Apparently he is going to hand me over to some well-connected gentleman in order to support his campaign. But whom?

  Then she remembered Harold Nash’s unprecedented visit, and the smile on his face as he walked away. A sickening feeling swept over her. Oh no! Surely not!

  The man was more than twice her age, and up until today, her father had despised him. Harold Nash had voted against President Lincoln, had vehemently defended slave owners’ rights all throughout last year’s constitutional convention and had worked to delay outlawing the detestable practice of slavery for months.

  And to be given to such a man! Rebekah feared her knees were going to buckle.

  “You will marry Henry Nash,” her father announced, turning to judge her reaction.

  Henry Nash? Rebekah struggled to process this news. So I am to be handed over to the delegate’s son? While the man was closer to her age, she felt little relief at the prospect. To marry him was to become not only a wife but immediately a mother, as well. The man had recently taken charge of his two orphaned nieces. Word was
their father had fallen in battle while serving the rebel army, and their mother had died in childbirth.

  None of this makes any sense! Rebekah thought. Why was her father so insistent on this match? Henry Nash had strong ties to the Confederacy, and her father had once called him a self-serving coward because he had not held office in the United States Army.

  “Father, I don’t understand...”

  She should have known better than to question him, for the moment she did, Theodore Van der Geld stormed out from behind his desk. His eyes were wide. The veins in his neck were bulging.

  “I do not expect you to understand,” he shouted. “I expect you to obey! I expect you to do your duty!”

  Rebekah immediately lowered her chin, stared at the floor. She dared not raise her eyes. She knew what would happen if she did.

  When he spoke again, his voice had softened slightly. It was the same tone he used when addressing a crowd of potential voters. “Your marriage to Henry Nash will take place within the next few weeks,” he said. “The ceremony will coincide quite nicely with our nation’s victory celebrations.”

  The long, desperate war between the states was finally drawing to a close. The nation had been preserved, but all Rebekah could think of now was her own impending union. Terror overwhelmed her. Yes, she wished to marry someday. She also wished for children, but most important, she wished for love. How was she to love a man she barely knew?

  Please don’t make me do this! I don’t want to do this! But she knew her father would not listen to her pleas, let alone grant them. He waved her away like a simple servant. “Go to your room.”

  Rebekah went obediently, knowing that in his mind, the marriage had been firmly decided, and she was powerless to alter his decision. Her only hope was that Henry Nash would somehow change his mind.

  * * *

  “You agreed to what?” Henry’s jaw literally dropped when he heard the news. “You told Theodore Van der Geld I would marry his daughter? Why on earth would you do such a thing? Why on earth would he even suggest it?”

  Harold Nash, a shrewd man at best and conniving at worst, simply smiled. “The man wants to be the next governor, and he knows he can’t win the office without our help.”

  “Our help?”

  “Yes, by gaining the confidence of those who supported me in the past and those who will support you in the future.”

  Henry groaned. Now he saw the truth of the matter. His father wasn’t running for reelection, but that didn’t mean he was finished with his political scheming. Ever since Henry had expressed a possible interest in campaigning for his father’s seat in the state legislature, Harold Nash had taken it upon himself to become his political advisor. “So you orchestrated all of this?”

  The veteran politician laughed. “Of course not. Van der Geld did, but I am smart enough to recognize an opportunity for your advancement when it is presented.”

  “By mortgaging my future?”

  “You want to have a say in what goes on in this state, don’t you?”

  Of course Henry did, but this was not at all how he wanted to go about it. Deal making and deal breaking, flattery and false alliances had led to war. After four years of killing, peace was finally within reach. Richmond had fallen. Lee and his army had surrendered. The nation, however, had to be reconstructed carefully, and so did his own state.

  Although Maryland had not declared secession, there were many in the state who had chosen to fight for the Confederacy. As a Baltimore city councilman, Henry had dealt with his share of people, both prounion and sympathetic to the South, who were hot for revenge. Loved ones had been lost, property damaged, dreams destroyed.

  There is still a lot of healing to be done.

  Henry had worked hard to ensure that his reputation as a councilman was that he was fair and trustworthy. He held his office honestly and kept it that way by maintaining an open, forthright dialogue with the mayor, his fellow council members and the people of his city. His yes was always a yes and his no a no. He was determined to go about matters the same way should he win the bid for state delegate.

  If I decide to run for higher office, I don’t need to form an alliance to do so, especially not with my father’s chief political rival. Henry told his father so.

  Harold shook his head. “You are too young to realize what is at stake here,” he said. “Too young to comprehend fully the advantages of securing such power. Theodore Van der Geld is an Unconditional and you could have considerable influence over him.”

  The Unconditionals were the members of the National Union Party, and they had been a thorn in his father’s flesh since ever since they managed to gain control of the statehouse. While Henry’s father had been in favor of preserving the Union, he had not thought Washington should use any means necessary to do so.

  Like his father, Henry had opposed many of the tactics employed to keep Maryland in line the past four years. He had been against the closing of newspaper presses critical of Washington, against voters being denied the right to vote simply because they were suspected of having Southern sympathy.

  Henry wished to correct such wrongs, but marrying Rebekah Van der Geld and trying to use my position as his son-in-law to sweet-talk her father toward my side of the aisle is not the way to go about it. “I want no part of this,” Henry said adamantly. “I earned my seat on the city council by honesty and hard work. If I decide to run for the state legislature, I will get to Annapolis the same way.”

  And it was a big if. He wasn’t so certain he even wanted to run for the state legislature, at least not now. Henry had much more pressing matters on his mind. His sister Marianne’s death had hit him hard, and now he had the task of caring for her children. Henry knew almost nothing of being a father, and that which he had witnessed from his own, he did not wish to repeat.

  The older man’s face lined with disappointment. “You won’t get to the state capital by shaking hands and talking about your war record. You can’t tell all those grieving fathers that while their sons were bleeding on the battlefield, you were floating well above it.”

  Henry resented the inference. He was no coward. He had done his duty with his military service. He had served as honorably as any other veteran. While it was true he’d never made a valiant charge, his service as an aeronaut in the balloon corps, scouting the positions of the rebel army, was just as valuable—and within artillery range, just like any other man.

  “You didn’t want me serving in the first place,” Henry said, “and now you think I wasn’t brave enough?”

  “It isn’t a matter of what I think. It’s what the voters will think.”

  Henry was just about to respond to the mocking comment when footsteps in the hall caught his attention. The door to the study suddenly burst open. In flew his four-year-old niece, Kathleen. Her face was red and tear streaked. Henry was fairly certain of the cause of her distress. Since coming into his home, she had cried repeatedly for her departed mother.

  Kathleen froze upon sight of her grandfather, instantly sensing she was unwelcome. Henry went to her immediately. True, his life had been turned upside down with the arrival of her and her sister, but the last thing he wanted was for his niece to feel unwanted. “What’s wrong, pretty girl?” he asked as he bent to her level.

  Kathleen’s chin quivered. “I want Mama.”

  Henry’s heart broke for her. “I know you do.” He pulled her close, gently patted her back. As he did so, he could feel his father’s disapproving gaze.

  Henry wasn’t certain if it was because the man thought such displays of affection were improper or if, deep down, he resented the fact that Marianne had chosen Henry to be her children’s guardian and not her own father.

  Hannah—his cook, and now temporary governess—came into the room. In her arms was a tiny blanketed bundle, Kathleen’s little sister, eight-week-
old baby Grace.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Henry,” Hannah said. “She got away from me while I was feeding the baby.”

  “It’s all right, Hannah. Tell me, have you any spice cake left?”

  “I do.”

  “Then I believe this young lady would benefit from a slice.” His niece looked up at him, eyes still cloudy with tears. “Go with Hannah, pretty girl. I’ll be by directly to see that you are settled.”

  Kathleen slowly took Hannah’s hand and turned from the room. Henry watched them go. He was thankful the ploy of sweets had worked. He wasn’t certain what he would have done if it hadn’t. But such measures will work for only so long.

  “And there’s another reason,” his father said when the little girl had left the room.

  “Another reason for what?”

  “To wed Van der Geld’s daughter.”

  Henry sighed. “Father, if I want help with my nieces, I’ll hire a suitable governess.”

  “A governess isn’t going to get you to the statehouse.”

  Henry shook his head, his patience wearing thin. “I’m not going to discuss this any further. I will speak to Van der Geld myself, tell him I want nothing to do with this.”

  This time his father grinned, but Henry knew full well it was not an expression of joy. “You go right ahead, son,” the man said. “Do it your way. I’ll be here when you change your mind.”

  Henry wanted to give a snappish reply, but he held his tongue. He is my father. He deserves my respect if for no other reason than that.

  Leaving the study, Henry went to the kitchen. Kathleen was pale, but at least the tears had dried. Hannah had her at the table, a slice of spice cake in front of her. His cook kneaded bread dough for the evening meal.

  How the woman managed, Henry was not certain. Surely she must be exhausted. He was, after all. It had taken him only forty-eight hours trying to manage glass feeding bottles and complicated rubber tubes before becoming so. To make matters worse, Grace cried incessantly and refused to take milk from the contraption.