told her, pushing away his troublesome emotions. “We won’t be able to return north until early tomorrow morning.”
“I expected as much,” she replied, taking her case from John. “Where should we wait?”
John cleared his throat. “I’m sure you and your bride would like some privacy. Levi and I can make our own way.”
Nora glanced between him and Simon. “There’s no need.”
“None at all,” Simon agreed.
John and Levi exchanged glances. “But you just married,” John pointed out.
“I know this is you, Simon,” Levi added, “but Drew and Catherine and James and Rina were pretty lovey-dovey when they married.”
Nora flamed. “I never intended— That is I never supposed— I mean, really, I—” She appeared to run out of steam like a poorly tended engine.
Simon pulled a coin from his pocket and tossed it to John. “McClendon’s, on Main. Request three rooms. We’ll join you shortly.”
With a nod toward Nora, his brothers took off up the street.
Nora had her feet planted so firmly on the boardwalk she might have been part of its construction. “I can see we should have discussed the details of our convenient wedding more fully.”
He might on occasion have a difficult time following other people’s logic, but he thought he knew what was troubling Nora. “Then let’s discuss them now.” He started up the boardwalk, careful to slow his stride to allow her to keep up. She paced him, head down and case close. The feather in her hat bobbed with her movements.
“We’re not really married, you know,” she said.
Simon raised a brow. “I distinctly remember a ceremony just a few hours ago.”
She nodded. “Yes, yes. But that’s the extent of it. Nothing need change. We are agreed on that.”
She didn’t sound convinced of the fact. “I’ll do my duty,” Simon told her.
She stopped on the boardwalk. “Please don’t use that word with me. I am not a duty, Mr. Wallin. I am your partner in this bargain.” She glanced at him under her lashes. “And partners do not share sleeping accommodations.”
He couldn’t help chuckling. “I thought that might be your concern. I have no intentions of claiming my husbandly rights.”
She clutched her case closer. “You requested three rooms. There are four of us.”
“One room is for me, one is for you,” Simon replied. “The last is for John and Levi. I saw no reason they couldn’t share.”
She took a deep breath, setting her green overskirt to fluttering under the edge of her cloak. “I see. Forgive me. I suppose that’s settled, then.”
She had a way of overlooking things. Was it inexperience or blind trust? Neither boded well for the future.
“That’s not the only detail we should discuss,” Simon told her, starting forward again and allowing her to fall into step beside him. “There will be no mingling of finances. What you earn from your sewing is yours. What I earn from my logging is mine.”
“Agreed,” she said. “And very wise of you.”
For some reason, that made his head come up a little higher. Silly reaction. He didn’t need her praise. “You will call me Simon, and I will call you Nora,” he continued. “People will expect that.”
“My father always called my mother Mrs. Underhill,” she said. “But very well. What else?”
This was the toughest part. “We will tell our families that we entered into this arrangement for stability. I will not lie and claim it a love match.”
He thought she might take umbrage. Beth was forever prosing on about romance, for all she claimed she would never want a husband hanging about.
Instead, Nora shrugged. “My family will never believe it’s a love match. I intend to tell them we decided we’d suit well enough, and you are too busy with the farm to come into town on a regular basis but were willing to allow me to continue to ply my trade. I don’t intend to inflict them on you any more than absolutely necessary.”
He still struggled to imagine any family that cruel. “Are they truly so bad?” he asked.
“That,” Nora replied, “you’ll soon see for yourself.”
* * *
Charles and Meredith arrived on a rainy day exactly a week after Nora and Simon returned from Olympia. The harbormaster had sent word to Nora at the Kellogg brothers’ store, where her sewing customers met her, so she was standing on the pier, umbrella over her head, when the longboat bumped the pilings. She smiled as the sailors helped Charles and Meredith to the wide wood planks of the pier and hoped they would attribute her shiver to the cool weather. She was only glad she’d had an opportunity to send a note to Simon through a miner headed north. Her husband should be able to reach her by dinnertime. She only had to survive until then.
“Wretched trip,” Charles greeted her as if it were somehow her fault. No one who did not know them well would ever have taken Charles for her brother. Though he wasn’t a tall man, he was certainly taller and thinner than she was. His hair was lighter than hers, a fine chestnut, and it was pomaded back from his square-jawed face. His well-tailored coats were always crisp and clean, and his trousers always held a crease.
“Do tell me you brought the carriage,” Meredith said, her feathered hat taking a beating from the rain. She plucked the umbrella from Nora’s grip and huddled under it. Meredith was the very epitome of a grand lady, her gown with its top cape festooned with lace and ribbons and tucks that had fairly worn out Nora’s fingers and patience to arrange to her sister-in-law’s liking. Everyone in Lowell had talked about how the fair-haired, blue-eyed beauty had married above herself when she’d snagged noted accountant Charles Underhill, but Meredith always acted as if she were the one born to privilege.
“There isn’t a single carriage in the city and precious few horses,” Nora told her sister-in-law. “Most people either travel by wagon or walk.”
Meredith gasped. “Walk! I cannot be expected to walk all the way into town from the harbor.”
“It isn’t so far,” Nora assured her. She waved toward the hillside rising above them. “That’s all there is.”
Charles and Meredith exchanged looks of dismay. Perhaps they would be concerned enough to turn tail and leave on the first ship out. Hiding the hope that thought engendered, Nora motioned to the waiting teamster to come take her family’s belongings.
“Mr. Mercer will carry your things up to the house,” she explained as the fellow pushed past them with a nod. “He’s the older brother of the Mr. Mercer who escorted us here. You remember him.”
“Indeed,” Charles assured her, giving Asa’s brother a sharp look. “He was quite persuasive about the opportunities to be found in Seattle.” He returned his gaze to the hillside, clearly dubious.
Nora
