Excerpt of Texas Bride by Joan Johnston

Chapter One

“It’s a disaster,” Hannah said. “Plain and simple. We’re
DOOMED.”

“You’re the only thing standing between us and Miss
Birch,” Hannah’s twin, Henrietta, confirmed. “Once
you’re gone, we’re dead ducks.” Hetty drew a dramatic
finger across her throat, dropped her head sideways,
stuck out her tongue, and crossed her eyes. Miranda
Wentworth choked back a sob. “Surely not doomed,” she
said with a wobbly smile, as she met the gazes of the two
seventeen-year-olds sitting to the left of her on the hard
dining room bench. But things were going to be bad. The
headmistress at the Chicago Institute for

Orphaned Children, Miss Iris

Birch, had promised as much.

Miranda and her five siblings had snuck into the dining
room after lights out to sit on plank benches at a plank
table set on a frigid brick floor. The whale oil lantern in
the center of the table created sinister shadows that
turned
their features into gargoyle faces. Miranda could see
the two younger boys shivering on the bench across from
her, huddled under the thin, gray wool blankets they’d
taken
from their beds.

“The subject of this meeting is Miranda’s imminent
departure
from the Institute,” sixteen-year-old Josephine announced
from her seat beside Nicholas, the elder of the two boys.

Miranda shivered, and not just from the cold. The thought
of leaving her sisters and brothers behind when she was
forced to leave the orphanage on her eighteenth birthday
was terrifying.

The six Wentworth children had been orphaned three
years ago in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, which had
burned for three days, destroying most of the business
district, including their father’s bank.

It had also burned down their three-story mansion and
killed
their father and mother. Their wealth had gone up in
flames, along with their home. Destitute and homeless,
their uncle, Stephen Wentworth, had decided the best
place
for them was an orphanage.

Miranda had begged Uncle Stephen to let them live with him,
but his home had also burned down. There was no “home”
where
they could all be together. So the Wentworth children
had
ended up at the Institute. Uncle Stephen had promised
they would all be together again as soon as he could
rebuild.

But that day had never come.

Repeated pleas for rescue from the cruelty of Miss Birch
had
gone unanswered. Letters to Uncle Stephen’s last known
address had come back unopened. There was no way of knowing
what had happened to him.

Then, a year ago, Josie had read an article in the
business section of the Daily Herald announcing that Mr.
Stephen Wentworth was opening a new bank. It appeared
Uncle Stephen was not only alive and well, but that he
was rich enough to open a bank!

Miranda had immediately written to their uncle at the
bank’s address, asking why he hadn’t come to get them as
he’d promised. That letter had resulted in a visit from
Uncle Stephen.

Miranda flushed every time she remembered that meeting.
Uncle Stephen had told her he felt ill equipped to be a
surrogate parent. They would have to stay where they
were. Furthermore, she was not to con tact him again. It
wasn’t his fault they were orphans. He wasn’t the one
who’d wanted a large family, his brother had. And it
wasn’t his fault their father hadn’t kept his funds
somewhere safe, so his fortune wouldn’t have gone up in
flames.

Miranda had been shocked at her uncle’s harsh words
and devastated by his unwillingness to help them escape
Miss Birch. When her father was alive, Uncle Stephen’s
behavior had always been friendly. Obviously, appearances
could be deceiving.

Ever since that day, Miranda had felt all the
responsibility of being the eldest. Though the twins
were only a year younger, they were flighty and silly in
a
way Miranda never had been. After the fire she’d been
determined to rescue her siblings from the orphanage. But
three years, four months, and two days later, here they
still were. Not only that, but tomorrow she would be
leaving Hannah, Henrietta, Josephine, Nicholas, and
Harrison behind while she escaped the tyrant who’d made
their lives at the Institute so miserable.

Once she was gone, her younger siblings would be at the
mercy of the stern headmistress. No, stern was too kind a
word. Cruel. That was the word for Miss Iris Birch.

“Do you have to leave, Miranda?” Nick asked
plaintively.

“I must,” Miranda croaked, her throat swollen with
emotion. “I have no choice.”

Four-year-old Harry crawled under the dining table
and
climbed into her lap. As his arms tightened around her
neck he begged, “Please don’t leave, Miranda.”

Harry was small for his age, barely more than skin and
bones and always sick with a cold that never seemed
to
go away. Miranda wiped his nose with a handkerchief she
always kept with her for that purpose and pulled him
close
to comfort him.

“DOOMED,” Hannah repeated, melodramatically placing the
back
of her hand across her forehead.

Miranda felt the urge to console her siblings, but the
situation was likely to be every bit as bad as they
feared.

“There is another option.”

Every eye at the long pine dining table turned to
Josie.
She peered back at them through spectacles perched on
the bridge of her freckled nose. Josie always had her head
in a library book, and she was, without a doubt, the most
educated—and practical—of them all because of it.

“What is it, Josie?” Miranda asked. “I’m willing to
consider
anything.”

“Here.” Josie unfolded a worn advertising page of the
Chicago Daily Herald on the table in front of Miranda. She
pointed a grimy finger at an advertisement circled in lead
pencil.

Everyone leaned close as Miranda read:

“WIFE WANTED: Must love children, cook, sew and do
laundry.
Reply to Mr. Jacob Creed, General Delivery, San Antonio,
Texas.”

Miranda tried not to appear as crestfallen as she felt
when she looked up and met Josie’s owl-eyed gaze.
“I’m sorry, sweetie, but I don’t see how this is going to
help.”

“We’re DOOMED,” Hannah muttered.

“Forever and ever,” Hetty agreed with her twin. “Or at
least for the next year, until we turn eighteen.” “What
about me?” Nick said. “I’m only ten. I’ve got eight more
years of this hellhole to survive.” “Nicholas Jackson
Wentworth!” Miranda scolded in a hushed voice. “Watch
your language in front of the baby.”

“I’m not a baby,” Harry protested. “I’m four. And I don’t
want to stay here. Miss Birch is mean. Take me with you,
Miranda, please!”

“I can’t, Harry.” Miranda’s heart ached with the pain of
leaving them all behind. “You’re safer here. All of you,”
she said, meeting the stark gazes of her siblings around
the table.

“Can’t we at least try to make it on our own, Miranda?”
Hannah asked.

“It’s the middle of February,” Miranda replied in a
voice made harsh by the agony she was feeling inside. “I
can only count on a single bed in a boarding house and a
job in a kitchen. I don’t have any way to take care of
you. Any of you.” She tenderly brushed

Harry’s white-blond hair away from his forehead.

On their own, they’d freeze to death or starve and be
dead
in a week. Or maybe two.