Lilly: Bride of Illinois (American Mail-Order Bride 21) (7 page)

Lilly was out of her chair at the table where they had been eating their breakfast, and practically hopped over to the settee. She was excited as a child on Christmas morning.
I hope she likes what I picked out for her.

“Any order I should unwrap the packages?”

“Well, now that you asked, yes,” Seth said as he moved his chair over to the pile on the settee. “Shall I bring over a chair over for you?” Lilly sat back on her knees by the settee like it was a Christmas tree.

“No, I’m so excited, I just want to open a package!”

“Let’s see…” Seth sorted through the packages and picked out one, but didn’t hand it to her outstretched hands yet.

“Keep in mind because we’re traveling, I just bought a few pieces of clothing. Taylor’s Mercantile in Clear Creek won’t have the selection as Chicago, but we can buy more clothes for you later.”

Lilly literally tore the brown paper wrapping off the first small package to reveal a royal blue silk shawl. She ran her fingers over the slick material then wrapped it around her shoulders. “It’s gorgeous! I’ve never had something so elegant!
Thank you!
”

“The sales lady said you could wear it as a shawl or as a scarf. And I mentioned I liked the color blue on you, so be prepared…” He grinned as he handed her a box from a popular department store next.

She had the string unwrapped around the box and the lid off in seconds. Neatly folded inside were two shirtwaists, one white and the other a blue and white striped, and a navy blue wool dress skirt.

“Hopefully they’ll fit. The skirt has an adjustable waist band so that should help to make it fit right. And…I said I liked blue again.”

Lilly’s eyes grew wide with joy. “Oh, Seth, these are perfect, both size and color! I’ve never had three new pieces of clothing at once…or ever. And the latest fashion, too!”

Seth laughed. His ma literally danced around the Christmas tree last year when she unwrapped a new shirtwaist. She was especially excited because it had the new style of sleeves. In contrast, the men in their family didn’t care a whit what they wore as long it was clean at the start of the day.

“Okay, here’s a package you won’t get as excited about, since it holds the items on your list.”

“Well, I shouldn’t have forgotten my toiletries on the wash stand, but I did in my rush to get out of the Emporium. I’ve been embarrassed knowing I hadn’t used my tooth brush and powder in days,” Lilly confessed opening the top of the paper bag from the pharmacy to peek inside it. She’d also needed a comb and hair pins.

“What’s the little bottle?” she stuck her hand in the bag to pull it out.

“Now I didn’t buy it because you have an odor and need to be wearing it but…read the label.”

“Blue Lilies Perfume!” She immediately unscrewed the cap, took a sniff and then held it up so he could smell it. “I like it! Thank you, Seth.”

“I didn’t know what it might smell like, but I couldn’t pass it up when it had both ‘blue’ and ‘lily’ on the bottle,” he chuckled, pleased he’d bought the little extra surprise for her.

“Okay you need to finish opening your packages so we can get on with our day. Since it’s winter, you need…”

“A shawl to keep warm,” she finished his sentence as he handed her a large package.

“This is awfully heavy for a shawl. Are Kansas winters worse than back east?”

“Don’t know since I’ve never been past Chicago. Please open it up and see if you think it will be warm enough.”

Lilly’s mouth changed into a big “O” as she unwrapped her new…navy blue Mackintosh coat.

“Oh, Seth! This is too much!” The full–length wool coat, lined with a dark blue plaid to add another layer of warmth, also had two detachable capes for even more protection. Lilly stood up and put the coat on over his night shirt she was still wearing.

“Kansas can have some harsh blizzards, so you’ll be warm wherever you go. And there’s a pair of lined leather gloves already in the side pockets, too.”

“You’ve spent so much money on me! I don’t know what to say, except thank you a thousand more times!”

Seth raised his hand. “You’ve already said it enough times and I’m glad I could purchase them for you. Now you have one more box to open. And remember you’re going to be living on the Kansas Plains not in the Chicago high society district so it’s not fancy.”

Of course, Lilly knew it was a hat by the box. He was sure she’d like anything to put on her head, but he wanted her to look nice too. Nice hats gave women self–confidence, simple as that.

Lilly slipped off her new coat, and carefully laid it on the bed before opening the hat box. Lilly’s eyes teared again when she took the hat out of its tissue–lined box. Seth had seen Lilly’s plain brown hood cap at the train station, so he wanted to give her something more stylish, but would still offer warmth. The hat was a combination of light blue silk and dark blue velvet fabrics, with a little sprig of dainty blue silk flowers on the crown. The wide velvet ribbons would cover her ears when she tied them under her chin.

“I thought a simpler hat without too much…flowers and birds and stuff….would work best so you could wrap your shawl over it for more protection.” She looked so overwhelmed—or shocked—he wanted to put his arms around her to give her more warmth and confidence.

Seth had heard Lilly quietly crying during the night, but he tried to keep his breathing even so she wouldn’t be embarrassed he heard her. Seth had a hard time visualizing how she must feel, because he’d never been in a desperate situation like hers. He and his brothers were taught to push forward in a bad situation, dig their way out of a mess, find a solution—but his family was always there to support one another. Lilly had no one, and it gave him a guilty conscience for being lucky, so maybe he went a little overboard on the clothing he bought, but Seth wanted to give her hope in mankind—and him.

“Since I was hoping you’d say yes to my proposal, I also checked about getting married. It would be easiest and faster to be married at the courthouse, rather than a church. Will that be okay with you, Lilly?”

“Yes, I’m just happy to become Mrs. Seth Reagan,” she hiccupped through another sniffle.

How she said his name made him a little uneasy, but that was to be expected with her circumstances.

“You’ll need to show some sort of identification to get the license. Do you have something to prove who you are?”

“Yes. Since my immigration paper was in my Bible, it didn’t get stolen at the Emporium.”

“Good. How about you get ready, then we’ll go to the courthouse. I want to go back to the Stock Show this afternoon so I’ll bring you back here to rest.”

“I’d like to go with you, if I wouldn’t be in the way. My ribs are sore, but not enough to spend most of the day here by myself—especially since it’s our wedding day,” Lilly shyly finished as she picked up the clothes and headed for the bathroom.

Well, yes it was, so he should make it special for Lilly. After the ceremony, they’d go to the show for the afternoon, then dine in a nice restaurant before returning to their room this evening.

***

“Malena Lillya Linddotter,” Lilly proudly stated as she handed the clerk her immigrant paper. In a few minutes, she would be wed to Seth Edward Reagan.

She looked up at Seth when he coughed in his hand. He raised his eyebrows questioning…?
Oh, she hadn’t told Seth her real name
. She’d Americanized her name to fit in, but she hadn’t officially changed it. And now it didn’t matter because her last name would be Reagan, at least for a while.

“That’s all the paperwork, now if you’ll wait on the bench down the hall, the judge will call you into his office for your ceremony,” the clerk said while handing the papers, which the judge would sign, to Seth.

“I’m glad you said your name first, or I would have said Lilly Lind,” Seth whispered when they got to the bench and sat down.

“I’m sorry, I’ve used my American name for two years but the Swedish version is my still legal name.”

“I like the name Malena. What don’t you use it?”

“Our family, and most Swedes, use the second name when talking about someone instead of the first. Malena was my grandmother’s middle name, and she went by that. My parents put it as my first name, and used Lillya for the name I went by in Sweden.”

Lilly’s breath halted when the judge’s chamber door opened and a man waved to them to come into the room. She stood, smiling at Seth as they linked arms. This man was giving her a new future, and for today she’d pretend it was forever.

Chapter 6

Lilly walked tall and proud, walking through the Exhibition Hall, looking at some of the best cattle in North America. Not only was she now married, she wore beautiful, fashionable clothes for the first time in her life. Lilly caught herself smiling and rubbing her new gold ring with her thumb through her gloved hand.
My temporary husband is rich!

Her bruised side was a little uncomfortable walking so much today, but she wouldn’t miss this time with Seth for anything. She wanted to learn everything she could about the livestock raised in Kansas, because it could be part of her new life.
I’m a rancher’s wife…for a while.

After the ceremony they found a telegraph office to send messages to her friends, telling them she had “switched grooms” and would be traveling to Clear Creek, Kansas the day after tomorrow. She couldn’t wait to get mail from her friends and hear how their lives had changed for the better like hers had. Of course, her life was on hold until she found a permanent husband or job, but Lilly was confident Seth would help her out until that happened.

Lunch was in a cozy little café and Seth told her to order whatever she wanted to eat. Lilly ate a big meal while Seth told her about his hometown. She could imagine the Wild West town and couldn’t wait to be a part of it.

“What breeds of cattle do they have in Sweden? Longhorns made up the first herds in Kansas, but now we have shorthorns, Herefords and Angus, too.”

“I’d say milking shorthorns are the main breed of cattle now in Sweden. I milked
Fjäll
cattle, the Swedish mountain breed, when I was young. Women do the milking there compared to men doing it on farms here.”

“We have a shorthorn cow for the ranch’s milk supply, but she’s a pain to milk. Daisy can knock over both the milker and the milk pail in one quick kick,” Seth smiled, thinking of the cow’s antics. “Maybe you can show me how to do it right,” he joked.

“Oh, I bet Daisy and I would get along fine. I’d love to milk her. Even though I hated doing so many chores on the manor farm, I enjoyed the animals. They were my friends. They didn’t yell or hit me, well, except for one sow who always chased me when she had a chance. She bit me once, too.”

“Lilly? Who yelled and hit you back then?”

“Seth, I was a poor peasant girl, and well, life was not good there. I prefer not to talk about it, especially today.”

Someone grabbed Lilly’s arm and yanked her hand out of Seth’s arm.
“Ouch! What are you doing!? Stop it!”
Her feet left the ground as she was roughly hauled up against a big chest of a man who was running and shoving his way through the crowds of people in the Hall.

“Seth! Help!”
Pain shot through Lilly’s side as she twisted and kicked at the man.

“Quit it! Mr. Hardesty don’t want you banged up too much.” A deep voice hissed in her ear as he wrapped his big paw around her mouth. Lilly froze a second when she heard the man’s voice. He was one of the two burly thugs who had escorted Seth out of the Emporium that night!

Where was the other man?! Did he attack Seth so this thug could grab her?!

Lilly clamped her teeth into one of the big fingers and ground her teeth as hard as she could, while bringing up her knees and kicking her heels backwards repeatedly, trying to connect to his groin. She finally hit the right spot and he staggered, still holding on to her, but losing his grip on her mouth.

“Help! This man is kidnapping me! I’m a rancher’s wife!”

Lilly tumbled to the ground when she was dropped by her attacker. She jerked around to kick him again and realized the man’s arms were being held back by several men.

“Are you all right, ma’am?”
A hand reached down, ready to help her up.

“No! Where’s my husband!? I think someone attacked him too!”

“I see a mad cowboy coming this way with a policeman, so I bet he’s all right, ma’am,” the gentleman assured her as he helped her to stand.

It felt so good to have Seth’s arms wrapped around her shoulders. “Are you all right, Malena?”

“My ribs…he squeezed me so hard, they hurt like the devil,” she complained.

“Okay, Malena, we’ll go find a doctor to check your ribs in a minute.”

Lilly realized he’d called her Malena twice, as if to remind her of her Swedish name?

“Officer, you need to arrest these two men for attacking us. There were plenty of witnesses who saw what happened,” Seth was breathing hard, and Lilly noticed his right jaw was starting to discolor and his lip was cut.
He got hurt because of me!

“Now, sir,” the policeman said to Seth, “this gentleman tells me another story—that
you
kidnapped this woman from the Stockyards Emporium and they were
rescuing
her instead,” the policeman tapped his baton on his palm. Lilly’s heart raced even faster with panic besides pain, because this police officer was clearly on Hardesty’s payroll.

“So who are they rescuing? What’s her name?” Seth pointedly asked the officer, then looked at the men who were being held. Thank goodness there were people gawking around so the policeman had to appear to be honest.

“She’s Miss Lilly Lind, Mr. Hardesty’s favorite…ah singer, and the cowboy who took her—is you—George Milner,” Hardesty’s man sneered. “You paid to use her ‘female services’ up in her room one night.” Lilly could have melted into the ground because of his remark.

“Officer,
he’s lying
. May we show you identification of who we are?” Seth asked, staring down at the policeman until he finally shook his head yes.

“First, I’m taking off my left glove, showing you my wedding ring. Malena, would you please do so, too?” Lilly did so, raising her left hand in the air to show off her new ring, but she kept her right arm wrapped around her middle.

“I have identification in my wallet and I am now getting it out,” Seth stated loudly as he pulled his wallet from his vest pocket.

“Care to read it out loud, sir?” Seth said holding his card in front of the officer.

“Seth Reagan,” he said, then slanted his eyes at one of Hardesty’s men still being held by bystanders.

“Malena sweetheart, do you need help getting your Swedish immigration paper out of your reticule?”

“Yes, please,” Lilly breathlessly said as she handed her reticule to him.

Seth opened the drawstring, pulled out the paper, and held it in front of the policeman. “What’s the name on her paper?”

“Malena Linddotter,” he grumbled.

“Yes, and Malena became
my wife
today, so her name is Mrs. Seth Reagan.”

“Can you
prove
that? You could have fake identification cards and rings on to disguise your real names,” the policeman was trying to draw any suspicion on them to sway the bystanders.

“I still have our marriage certificate tucked in my vest pocket because we came from the courthouse, directly to the Stock Show. Want to read it, too?” Seth’s temper was rising with this voice.

“Yes.” The officer’s chin jutted out, mad Seth wasn’t bowing to his authority.

Seth reached in his pocket, pulled out and unfolded their license. “So the officer doesn’t have to
question my honesty
, anybody who wants to read our marriage license is welcome to come to view it.”

“I was in the courthouse this morning, too, and saw them filling out papers at the marriage license counter,” a man in a nice business suit piped up. Four men walked up to read the paper and agreed out loud the names were correct on the certificate.

“Officer, could you confirm these men’s statements?”

He read the paper Seth held out in front of him, then shrugged his shoulder in deference.

“These men have no reason—
nor right
—to accost my wife or me because a certain saloon keeper is looking for a poor woman who was probably trying to escape from him anyway! I want these two arrested for attacking us without any cause!” Lilly guessed Seth’s temper had reached the boiling point, but she wasn’t worried he would ever use it on her, only to protect her.

The policeman eyed her, Seth, then the crowd around them. It was clear he was outnumbered by witnesses, especially the ones who still held the arms of the two men.

“Okay, if you men holding these two will help me escort them outside, I’ll get some officers to accompany them to jail.”

Seth stepped in front of the officer before he turned away. “Should we follow you to your police station so we know these men
will
be thrown in jail? Because if there’s any hint
my wife
is in danger ever again…I’ll be sure the Chicago newspapers, the Chicago mayor and the city council hear about it.” Then Seth lowered his voice so only the officer could hear him. “I’m sure not everyone in this town is on this saloon owner’s payroll, and this incident could shut him down.”

The officer looked at the ground, then back at Seth. “No, it will be taken care of. I’ll pass on the word.”

“Thank you for your help. Now, where can I find a doctor to help my injured wife?”

***

“Are you sure—because the hotel can have a doctor come here to check your ribs,” Seth realized he’d asked the same question several times already, but seeing the big thug squeeze Lilly scared the dickens out of him. He’d taken off Lilly’s shoes and she was now reclining on the bed, and he was pacing back and forth.

“I’ll be all right, Seth. I don’t need to see a doctor. Yes, the ogre aggravated my sore ribs, but he didn’t break any.”

“You would think with the
thousands
of people in Chicago and the Fat Stock Show, we’d never see or hear from Hardesty’s men again…”

“They knew you were here for the exhibit and got lucky running into us.”

What would have happened if they hadn’t gotten married today to show their wedding rings?
How lucky was it Lilly’s first name is Malena and she had proof along with her because they needed it to get married?
Thank you God and Saint Michael…again.

“Please stop pacing, Seth. We’re all right…and it’s our wedding night.”

“He got your new coat dirty!”

“We were in an exhibit hall filled with cattle…and it will brush right off…once the manure dries. I grew up around animals so
I’m
not upset.”

Seth turned and looked at Lilly. No, she didn’t look upset, but tired, bruised, and happy. Lilly finally felt she was in a safe place with him, and he didn’t want to burst her bubble.

She kept mentioning it’s their wedding night, even though they both agreed it wasn’t a real marriage in that sense.

But you were thinking the other day the ranch house is lonely being there by yourself.
No, he promised Lilly a safe, respectable means of transportation and that’s what he’d stand by.

“I’d still like to eat in the dining room rather than here in the room. I saw they had ribeye steaks on their menu,” Lilly looked hungry...again. “I don’t think I’ve ever gotten to eat a whole steak by myself.”

A rap on their hotel room startled both of them. Seth went to stand behind the closed door before asking, “Yes, who is it?”

“Mr. Hansen, the hotel manager, sir,” a muffled male voice replied. “I heard of your wife’s attack and wanted to see if there is anything the hotel can do for you.”

Seth cautiously opened the door, keeping a firm hand on the knob in case he needed to slam the door shut. Seth was leery of everyone in Chicago now.

“Yes?”

“Good evening, I’m Mr. Robert Hansen, the Hough Hall manager, and I heard about the horrible attack on your wife at the Stock Show today.”

“And how did you hear about it?”
Was Mr. Hansen on Hardesty’s payroll too?

“More than one guest came back from the show talking about it. One guest said he’d held one of the men down until the police took care of him.”

“Yes, we had a
big
crowd of witnesses,” Seth said not letting the man look past him into the room.

“Does your wife need a doctor, or yourself, since I see you were hurt as well?”

“Seth, it’s okay, I think it’s safe to open the door.” Seth took a quick look back to see she was still reclining on the bed, one hand on her side, and one on her forehead.

“I was just being careful, Sweetheart. We’ve unfortunately found out Chicago is
not
a friendly place,” Seth said while staring at the manager and slowly opening the door a little wider.

“Hello, Mrs. Reagan,” Hansen said stepping into the room, but not farther because Seth wasn’t going to let him walk over to Lilly. “I didn’t see you check in with Mr. Reagan the day he arrived.”
So much for worrying about Lilly’s injuries.
The man was here to snoop.

“That’s correct, because I arrived later.”

“Do you have a doctor on staff here?” Seth was tired of how Lilly was being treated.

“No, but we can call one in…if she needs help.”