Mail Order Roslyn Read online

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  Mail Order Roslyn

  Widows, Brides & Secret Babies

  Book 9

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  Zina Abbott

  Copyright © 2020 Robyn Echols writing as Zina Abbott

  All rights reserved.

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  Dedication

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  This book is dedicated to the medical personnel, the first responders, the truckers, and all who have gone over and beyond during the Covid-19 pandemic.

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  Acknowledgements

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  A special thank you goes to

  Linda Carroll-Bradd of Lustre Editing for proof-reading this manuscript,

  To Virginia McKevitt of Black Widow Covers for the book cover, and

  To Marcia Montoya for beta-reading this manuscript.

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  Disclaimer

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  All the characters described in this story are fictional. They are not based on any real persons, past or present. Any resemblance to real persons, living or deceased, is coincidental and unintended.

  1866 Map of Kansas stagecoach stations

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  Chapter 1

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  Junction City, Kansas

  April 30, 1866

  A s soon as Roslyn Welsh closed the hotel room door behind her, she turned and flopped against it, using the hard surface to support her back. She pressed both forearms against her nipples to stop the flow of milk. She squeezed her eyes shut and bent over, willing the let-down sensation to stop. How long before my milk finally dries up? It’s already been two days. After several seconds, she stood up and brushed aside the once royal blue Zouave jacket her aunt had dyed black. She inspected the front of her shirtwaist and heaved a sigh of relief. No wet spots. The folded muslin pads she had stuffed into the front of her corset were holding. She poked the side of one breast with her forefinger. Rock hard.

  Doing her best to ignore the discomfort of her engorged breasts, Roslyn stepped toward the single bed that dominated the room. She untied the now-bedraggled black ribbons holding the straw hat on her head and tossed it on the bed. She stared at the head covering that was as out-of-date at the rest of her clothing but focused her thoughts elsewhere. Emmy, your ma loves you. Truly, I do. Tears filled Roslyn’s eyes. I miss you so much.

  Anger welled up inside Roslyn. She yanked the jacket off her arms and shoulders before tossing it across the room. I always hated this outfit on Penelope, and I like it even less on me.

  Roslyn stared at the garment for several seconds before she relented and picked it back up. I’ll admit, when it was still blue and the black trim stood out in contrast, on Penelope, with her dark brown hair. it did not look bad. It is the way Aunt Mena fusses over Penelope while she finds reason to fault me that I resent. On me, this sad attempt to make it appear I’m a widow in half-mourning looks ghastly. She smoothed out the back and front panels of the jacket and draped it over the footrail of the iron bedstead. Hopefully, the creases pressed into it as a result of her stagecoach ride from Lawrence would ease out of the wool fabric by morning. She owned nothing else suitable to travel in, which was why Aunt Mena insisted Penelope give it to her. And, I really cannot blame Penelope for the nasty trick played on me. It was her mother’s doing. Dear old Aunt Almena—the despicable witch.

  Roslyn lifted her head and focused her gaze on the muslin-draped sash window across the room from her. Why did you go along with her demands? What are you, a spineless worm? Roslyn knew why. In spite of her screamed threats and initial vigorous rejection of her Aunt Mena’s expectations, she knew why, in the end, she capitulated and went along with it. Emmy. I have to do what is best for Emmy.

  She looked down at the dark gray skirt that went with the jacket. Because she stood several inches taller than her cousin, where the skirt, now too full to be fashionable, had been the right length for Penelope when worn over a crinoline, on Roslyn, who refused to wear more than two cotton petticoats beneath her skirts, it hung just how she liked it—above her boot tops. I better take this off and let it air out, too.

  She next inspected the underarms of her white shirtwaist. At least, Aunt Mena did not insist on dying that black. Fortunately, she saw no hint of yellow stain in spite of the daytime warmth of the two days of travel. She could feel the dampness of the underarm guards. I need to wash the shirtwaist and pads, too, so they will be dry by morning.

  Assuring that she had locked the door to her room, Roslyn stripped down to her drawers and chemise. She draped the skirt over the privacy screen and hung her shirtwaist over the back of the ladderback chair. Perhaps I should wash up and put all clean clothing on from the inside out. Her fingers reached for the hem of the chemise, but a sense of restlessness held her back. She turned her head and stared at the window again. Behind the muslin shielding the glass, the sun still shone brightly. She had just finished the dinner meal that came as part of her hotel lodging that day—lodging that had been prepaid by the man who had sent for her. After being cooped up in the stagecoach for the past day and a half, she refused to end the day stuck in her room. I’ll wash clothes later.

  Roslyn opened her carpetbag and began pulling out the clothing she had tucked beneath the wool cape which showed wear and her knit shawl. The hairbrush and used bar of lye soap she placed on the dresser. Her clothes—what little she owned—she spread out on her bed. One clean set of unmentionables she set folded on the side of the dresser and the other she placed back into the bag. She stared at the faded, front-opening gown, the seams of which she had finally taken in just before leaving her aunt’s house. In spite of pressing, she could still see the difference in the fabric color from where it had lightened more before she had let the seams completely out to accommodate her pregnancy, and where she had not been able to take it all the way back in due to the extra weight she still carried after giving birth to Emmy. She fingered the faint needle holes from the original seams. When will I be able to alter this back to how it was before?

  Roslyn grimaced and turned away from the gown. She did not feel like wearing a skirt—any skirt. She needed to move. She needed to exercise what few muscles remained to her.

  Roslyn reached for the other set of clothes, the ones that had belonged to Ross. As she ran her fingers over the thick weave of the dulled white shirt, she fought sorrow from overwhelming her. She next studied the trousers—the same ones she sewed for him years before he made his way to Fort Leavenworth a month before their eighteenth birthday.

  Roslyn recalled how he had left them behind for her, telling her with a laugh, that it was a backdoor birthday gift so she did not have to sneak them out of his chest any longer. Since he would not be there to help their father in the livery, she could alter them to fit her better in order to work by their father’s side in Ross’s place.

  She harrumphed. In Ross’s place? Roslyn had been helping all along, especially once she completed her schooling. However, she often complained how the longer skirts she wore once she turned sixteen got in her way when she helped clean the stalls or pitched hay. More than once, her skirt fabric had tangled with a hoof she was in the process of trimming and filing, leading her to nearly being trampled if the horse was uncooperative.

  When she had originally made the trousers for Ross, she had cut the fabric pieces oversized. She left large seam allowances and deep hems to allow for his teenage growth years. Instead, those seams and extra fabric at the hem had allowed those pants to grow
with her and her changing shape. Although Aunt Mena had flown into one of her screaming fits once she learned a baby was coming and insisted that Roslyn rid herself of Ross’s old clothes, Roslyn refused to do so. Instead, she hid them on a shelf she fashioned in the rafters of the storage shed that became Roslyn’s “room” once Penelope and Jeremy Humphry married. She had no idea what this man she was about to marry would think of her wearing them when she performed outdoor chores, but she had no intention of leaving them behind. She looked forward to wearing the trousers once more. Today. There has to be a livery in town.

  Roslyn untied her boots and kicked them off of her feet before she slipped one leg and then the other into the trousers. She sucked in her tummy, fastened them at her waist, and did up the front buttons. She reached for the shirt but paused. As important as it had been to bind her breasts once she first moved to Lawrence to live with her aunt and sought out a job at one of the local liveries, she realized it was even more important now. I’m so full of milk, will it do any good? She looked over at the man’s jacket she also wore when dressed as Ross. Between the bindings and the jacket, would they disguise her well enough? They will have to do. I have to get out and do something, especially since I don’t know what I’ll be dealing with in my future.

  Back home, people knew her. They might criticize her choice of attire worn in the livery, but she had not needed to hide her gender. Her attempt to gain employment after moving to Lawrence had been a different matter. She sneaked away from her aunt’s home after making herself appear more like a teenage boy. Fortunately, since she was taller than many women and had a slender build with fairly flat hips, she had been able to pull off the deception while she lived in Lawrence, at least until the livery owner realized the “he” was really a she and word got back to her aunt. After that, Aunt Mena saw to it she spent her days wearing a skirt while standing next to a laundry tub.

  Roslyn next undid the bun at the back of her head. Using her fingers, from behind her ears straight back to the center of her head, she parted her hair, twisted the top strands up, and secured them with several pins. The strands below the part she brushed smooth until they fell down her back.

  She found her knife which, for years, she carried inside her waistband. She stared at the tool with its sharp, carbon steel blade and wrapped leather handle. Traitor. Roslyn shook her head. What had happened back home before she was forced to live with her aunt had not been the knife’s fault. She heaved deep breaths as she fought down the pounding of her heart. She blinked to chase away the tears that once again threatened. I’m already nervous about my future and devastated over leaving Emmy behind for now. I cannot think about that at the moment. She coaxed her brain into concentrating on her plan for that day—her intent to get out of this room that promised to sabotage her sanity with painful memories. She must find someplace in town where she could get away from both her past and her future—someplace where she could find peace and enjoyment in the moment.

  Roslyn stood in front of the mirror. Holding the strand behind her left ear between the index and middle fingers of her left hand, she pulled her hair straight until her fingers reached her shoulder. She hacked off the hair above her fingers, which allowed the portion of those strands still attached to her head to spring back. She did the same all the way around until the lower back of her head was wreathed in a fringe of hair that brushed the top of her shoulders. She had figured out it did not matter if the ends looked poorly cut and uneven. Most people did not expect a poor teenage boy working in a livery to spend money at a barber.

  The rest of her hair, Roslyn braided and tied off before she pinned it to the top of her head. She knew from experience that, as thick as her hair was, when she wished to wear it up in a more feminine style, all she had to do was tuck the short ends into the sides and bottom of her bun at the back of her head and pin them in place. No one would guess the bottom locks had been cut shorter than the rest of her hair.

  To relieve the pressure on her breasts, Roslyn expressed some of the milk into the pads she had been wearing to keep her clothes dry. The entire time, she fought back tears that threatened to fall. This should be for Emmy. After tossing the pads over with the other clothes to be washed, she next took out two of the wide strips of muslin she had folded to use as pads to protect her clothes against milk leakage. She unfolded them and wrapped them around her chest, doing her best to flatten it to better match the physique of a male. She donned her shirt and jacket. Could she still pass as a teenage boy like she had before she learned Emmy was coming?

  Roslyn pulled out the felt slouch hat that had been Ross’s most of his life until he exchanged it for a Union kepi. She used her hands to straighten the brim, and her fist punched the misshapen and lumpy crown into a semblance of acceptable shape. With no headband, she relied on its initial tightness as a child’s hat to keep it snug enough to hold to her head. She laced up the boots and slid on the leather gloves she had taken over after Ross’s fingers had grown too long and muscular to fit them. She stepped back from the mirror and turned side to side to gauge the effect.

  Even as the tears that had plagued her ever since her arrival in Junction City ran down her cheeks, Roslyn smiled with satisfaction. “Hello, Ross. I wish the real Ross were here instead, but you’ll do for now.”

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  Chapter 2

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  H is pitchfork full of straw, Elam Stewart turned toward the front of the livery barn just in time to witness a scroungy young man scrub his cheeks and lower face with both hands before he brushed his palms together to rid them of loose dust. He watched his boss, Henry Williams, walk toward the newcomer. With a shrug, he decided the man would take care of whatever the customer wanted. He began to return to his task before the pressure of his thigh rubbing against his wooden prosthesis at an odd angle turned into discomfort but stopped and turned again to study the customer. Something about the gait of the young man as he walked toward Henry ignited his curiosity.

  Elam scrunched the skin between his eyebrows together. After serving in the Union Army for four years during the recent war, he had seen a lot of young men from a lot of different parts of the nation. As a matter of moving among large groups of soldiers, he had seen many of them walk in all manner of strides—everything from thumping to prancing to mincing. However, he doubted he had ever seen one of them step like this person.

  Lifting his Union kepi off his head of dark brown hair long enough to wipe the perspiration on his brow with the sleeve of his faded blue uniform sack coat, he shrugged and turned back to his task. His imagination must be getting the best of him—a consequence of too much time spent on repetitive tasks. He did his best to concentrate on laying down a fresh bed for the next horse to use the stall rather than trying to solve the puzzle of why he found something to be off about the young man at the other end of the building.

  “Elam! Come here a minute, will you?”

  Upon hearing Henry’s call, Elam propped the pitchfork against the side of the stall and stepped out to meet his boss. Both Henry and the newcomer walked toward him, but all his gaze could focus on was the young man. He took long strides and swung his arms in rhythm, but in too exaggerated a fashion. The muscular appearance of his chest did not match up with the lack of muscles in his shoulders.

  “Elam, this here is Ross Welsh. He’s in town for a short time and is looking for a little exercise on the back of a horse. We have any that haven’t been out for a while that could use a good gallop?”

  Elam forced his gaze away from Ross Welsh to Henry. “Reckon he could ride either Sadie or Flintlock. Both of them could use it. Bandit’s still green-broke, so I wouldn’t go renting him out to no one yet.”

  “I wasn’t planning on renting out Bandit.” Henry shook his head and sighed. “Need to get someone in here to finish breaking him.”

  Ross cleared his throat.

  Elam turned his attention to him once more and noticed,
by the expression on his face, the young man appeared to be uncomfortable.

  “I…um…I’m sort of short on cash for renting a horse. I was hoping I might exercise a couple of them in the corral for you and then brush them down afterward. I’ll even muck out their stalls and get them taken care of for the night, if you have other work for your man to do.” Ross shrugged. “I just need to get out and move around.”

  Elam kept his eyes on the young man even as, with his peripheral vision, he watched his boss wince. He guessed Henry hoped for a paying customer. Too many liveries had sprung up in town which resulted in business being slow for Henry. His boss had given him that as the reason he could not hire him on permanently, but only for work by the day, as needed. The arrangement did not allow Elam to earn enough to support himself in any kind of dependable fashion, but he got by. Fortunately, Henry was decent enough he allowed Elam to sleep in an empty stall whether he worked that day or not. Elam considered the arrangement preferable to sleeping out in the open, especially since, with his missing leg and prosthesis, he could not move as fast as he used to.

  “I’m already paying a man, Mr. Welsh. I don’t have need of hiring another helper.”

  Elam watched the young man pull himself to his full height which, he noticed, was only about two or three inches shorter than he was. Yet, his voice had not deepened. How old is Ross Welsh, anyway?

  “I’m not expecting to get paid, Mr. Williams, although I wouldn’t turn down a job offer. I’m just looking to spend some time with your horses. It beats walking around town.”

  Elam sensed Henry’s reluctance, but eventually, his boss nodded. “All right. I’ll point Sadie and Flintlock out to you. Elam, here, can show you where the tack is. I assume you can saddle your own mount?”