Effie (Cowboys and Debutantes Book 1) Read online

  Effie

  Cowboys & Debutantes

  Kit Morgan

  Angel Creek Press

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Also by Kit Morgan

  About the Author

  Effie

  Cowboys and Debutantes, Book 1

  by Kit Morgan

  © 2017 Kit Morgan

  Angel Creek Press

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without permission in writing from the publisher. All characters are fictional. Any resemblances to actual people or livestock are purely coincidental.

  Cover design by Angel Creek Press and Agape Authors.

  Created with Vellum

  Prologue

  New York City, April 1888

  Effie Anne Stout watched her cousin Della pour them each a cup of tea. They were both the eldest of their siblings, both in their third season after coming out into polite society, and both starting to worry. If they didn’t find husbands this season, they’d likely be snubbed next year. Worse, their younger sisters were joining the ranks of debutantes, adding to the competition. Perhaps, Effie thought, she shouldn’t have turned down so many proposals the year before …

  “I don’t understand why Minnie, your dear sweet sister and my cousin, would refuse Robert Wilkins,” Della said as she set down the teapot.

  “Because you turned him down last year, remember? Besides, it’s only her first proposal, and the season’s barely begun.” She took a sip, eyeing her cousin over the rim of her cup. They were in Effie’s private drawing room, which would’ve belonged to her mother if she were alive. But Mabel Stout had died long ago, and her stepmother Fanny never cared for the room.

  “I’m determined to make a wise choice for myself this year,” Della went on. “Mother’s in a state, I can tell you.”

  “Aunt Jane has said nothing to me,” Effie informed her. Indeed, Aunt Jane treated Effie and her two sisters as her own. Unlike their stepmother, who to this day couldn’t keep their names right – calling Effie “Lula,” Minnie “Effie” and Lula “Minnie.” After ten years, one would think the woman would have it down. But she only tolerated Ulysses Stout’s daughters, nothing more. Still, since she’d been unable to give Ulysses a son (or any child, for that matter), she was forced to be cordial to them … most of the time.

  Not that Ulysses and his brother were lacking for progeny – between them they had eight beautiful children. Effie and her sisters were different shades of blonde, their eyes varying blue hues. Della and her sisters Hattie and Pearl had dark hair and hazel eyes, and her two younger brothers, twelve and fourteen, were already handsome. Ulysses had made noises about wanting a son of his own, but figured himself well-blessed regardless.

  The problem was that with Lula and Pearl, the youngest pair, debuting this year, there were now six Stout girls on the marriage mart. Effie and Della would be in danger of landing on the spinster shelf if they didn’t stop being picky and choose husbands for themselves. Ulysses had begun making noises about that, too – loud ones.

  Effie set her cup down and squared her shoulders. “Della, you’re the first to know.”

  “Know what?” Della asked with a tilt of her head.

  “I’ve decided to marry Walter Durridge.”

  Della stopped spooning sugar into her teacup. “What? That boor?”

  “That rich boor,” Effie amended. “My father suggested that he’d bring both our families a lot of business. And he’s not completely unlovely …”

  Della stared at her, shocked. They both knew Walter well, having met – and quickly passed on – him their first season. The Durridges were rich indeed, but Walter hadn’t suited either of them. Until now, perhaps, in desperate straits. “Couldn’t you hold off and see what other proposals come your way? As you said, the season has barely begun.”

  “True, I could wait. Though Father has made it clear I have to marry someone.”

  “So has mine. But … Walter Durridge?” Della shuddered.

  “Let’s face it, cousin, the other bachelors haven’t been any better. At least my family likes Walter – that’s more than you could say for a lot of the proposals offered us over the last couple of years.”

  “I agree,” Della said with a reluctant nod. “Most were, at best, hideous.”

  “And most of the rest were barely upper middle class,” Effie added. “Credit to Walter, boor though he may be – at least his family’s bankbook is attractive.”

  Della put a hand to her mouth and giggled. “You don’t mince words, do you?”

  “Never.”

  Della sighed, took a sip of her tea, and suddenly straightened when Effie’s father stormed into the drawing room. “Uncle Ulysses, what’s the matter?”

  Ulysses Stout, a tall, thin man with light brown hair and mutton-chop sideburns, frowned before speaking. “Della, go home – your father has something to tell you. Effie, gather your sisters. I have an … unfortunate announcement to make.”

  Effie thought she might faint. “Unfortunate?” she repeated. “How unfortunate? What are you talking about?”

  “Do it!” he barked.

  Effie and Della exchanged a quick look and hurried to comply. Della set down her cup, got up and rushed out the door. Effie lifted her skirts and hurried from the room, a string of unimaginable horrors running through her mind. She’d never seen him so upset. Had her sisters done something? But how could they – Minnie and Lula had been in their rooms resting after a seemingly endless barrage of callers that morning. Were they not going to receive an invitation to the Whites’ ball? Had the dressmaker they were using this season fallen ill, or worse, died? And oh, dread of dreads, had something happened to Walter Durridge?

  When she returned to the drawing room, her sisters in tow, their father had calmed enough to sit and pour himself a cup of tea. “What is it – what’s happened?” she asked, glancing around. “Where’s Mother?”

  “Your stepmother is still out. She … doesn’t know. But likely she will before she comes home.”

  “Know what?” Minnie asked, her dark blue eyes wide with curiosity.

  He looked at the trio and swallowed hard. “There’s no easy way to say this other than to say it.” He wiped his hands on his trousers. “We’re wiped out. We’ve lost everything.”

  Effie felt her knees go weak. “Wh-what do you mean?”

  “I mean it’s gone. All gone.” Ulysses put his face in his hands and did something none of them had ever seen him do. He cried.

  Effie stopped breathing. Minnie went to their father, sat and put an arm around him. Lula stood next to Effie, tears in her own eyes.

  “Ulysses!” Fanny Stout cried as she marched into the room, not even stopping to give the maid her wrap. “I just heard the most horrible rumor – that nasty Ethel Birch told me …”

  “It’s true,” he interrupted. “We’ve nothing. He took it all. I should have seen this coming.”

  Fanny stood, her eyes narrowed to slits. “How could you? How could you lose everything? What about Septimus?”

  “He’s wiped out too. He’s telling his family now.”

  Fanny’s hands flew to her mouth. “No! Not both of you!”

  Lula’s lower lip trembled. “Father …?”

&
nbsp; He looked at Minnie, her arm still around him, then at Lula and her tears, before finally fixing his eyes on Effie. She stood frozen like a Greek statue, her blonde curls spilling over one shoulder, pride the only thing holding her up. “Your Uncle Septimus and I have been embarrassingly swindled. There’s no better way to put it, and nothing we can do about it.”

  Effie closed her eyes, trying to take his words in. “You’ve … you’ve …what?”

  He sighed and wiped his eyes with his handkerchief. “We gambled, and we lost. It’s as simple as that. All of our money is gone.”

  Effie took a step back. “All? What do you mean by all?”

  Later, she’d regret asking that.

  Chapter 1

  Baker City, Oregon, May 1888

  Effie stared out the stagecoach’s window as it rolled into Baker City, though it seemed a “city” in name only. New York had tenement slums that were better developed. Many of the small towns she’d passed through on her travels by train and stage west to Oregon had made her cringe, and Baker City, from the looks of it, was no better.

  Still, according to her father and Uncle Septimus, this was the hand she’d been dealt and she would have to play it. Her poor sisters and cousins were probably already on their way to their prospective grooms, whoever they turned out to be. At the moment, she was more concerned with her own.

  After her father delivered the news that both families were bankrupt due to their business misadventure, she’d been furious. How could this have happened? How could her father and uncle have been so taken in? And why would neither speak of it further, not even to tell her the man’s name? Just as well – if they had, she might have tried to kill him.

  But the next day Fanny had hit Effie and her sisters with the final blow. Since all three were now old enough to marry, the woman meant to see it done by any means. Including marching them down to the nearest mail-order bride agency to ship them off to who knows where. Which was exactly what she did.

  They barely had a chance to say goodbye to their friends, and the few Effie managed to see before she left offered her no comfort. None of them felt one bit sorry for the Stouts; many were celebrating the removal of six debutantes from the local matrimonial playing field. A permanent removal, since who would want them now – they had no dowries, no real possessions to speak of (her father was having to sell whatever he could to keep the creditors at bay), and no prospects for the future.

  Worse, in those circles, news traveled fast – especially bad news. There would be no chance to start anew in Boston or Philadelphia or Baltimore, or even Chicago or Denver. The Stout name was now a byword anywhere the “right” people gathered, a warning. The girls’ only hope for survival was to get train and stage fare sent to them from some stranger, marry the lout and hope for the best.

  So here she was, about to do just that in Baker “City.”

  The stage pulled to a stop in front of a general store. A balding man of medium height swept the boardwalk between barrels of goods. Effie wondered if it was the only store in town or if there were several. Judging from what she’d seen so far, the hamlet might have two at most. Not that variety would do her much good – she wouldn’t even be living in town. The groom Fanny had thoughtlessly picked out for her owned a ranch, presumably cattle, miles away.

  It was bad enough that Effie and her sisters and cousins were forced to become mail-order brides, but having her stepmother pick the grooms was a cruel blow indeed. Fanny, controlling and overbearing, had insisted the bridal agency’s owner Mrs. Farmer had chosen the grooms, but Effie knew better. Fanny had come home with a stack of applicants from the agency, handed one to each of them and told them to marry the stranger they got or live in the streets.

  Not that leaving New York wasn’t in one way a relief, since their two families had gone from living in ten-thousand-dollar houses to sharing a ten-dollar-a-month hovel. That had probably made it easier for Fanny to browbeat Uncle Septimus and Aunt Jane into abandoning their daughters to the same fate she was subjecting her stepdaughters to. As it was, Aunt Jane could hardly speak for weeks after the terrible news, unable to handle the sudden fall into poverty.

  And as for friends … ha! No one offered help. The man that swindled their father and uncle had not only ruined their finances, but slaughtered their reputations. Society had promptly turned its collective back on them.

  Effie gripped her reticule and caught herself before she twisted it. For the last thousand miles she’d dreamt of a revenge she could never have. How could she? Their betrayers were on the other side of the country from her. She didn’t even know the conman’s name, and probably never would. The only name she need concern herself with was Forrest R. Lang, her future husband.

  The stage had come to a stop with very little dust, a reminder of the one good thing about her trip west: the beautiful weather. After the huge snowstorm New York had suffered in March, any spot of sunshine was welcome. She just wished it would bring some warmth to the rest of her life.

  The stagecoach door opened to reveal the driver’s smiling face. “End of the line, Missy. I’ll help ya down.”

  Effie held a handkerchief to her nose and sniffed the faint scent of her favorite perfume. Most of the people she’d met on her journey stank to high heaven, and it was all she could do to converse with them. Not that many were worth conversing with – she suspected few of them could even read.

  She allowed the driver to help her disembark, then waited as he scrambled up the back of the stagecoach to retrieve her small trunk and satchel. She should look for Mr. Lang, she knew, but couldn’t bring herself to, and no one was jumping off the boardwalk and heading in her direction. Perhaps she could get back on that stage and head to Portland or Seattle – her chances of finding a man with means were much better in a larger town …

  … except she herself had no means, not even for the extra stage fare to go elsewhere. Oh, if she could only get her hands on the devil that did this her family! She’d see him hang higher than Haman!

  “Miss Stout, I presume?”

  Effie froze. That wasn’t the driver’s voice …

  She turned and looked right into a man’s chest. Her nose was even with the button of his shirt before it opened at the neck, exposing a sheen of sweat on his tanned skin. Her eyes drifted up to the golden-brown stubble of his jaw, then on to a piercing set of brown eyes and lashes longer than hers. She took a step back and tried not to gawk. This couldn’t possibly be her betrothed, could it? “And you are?”

  “Forrest Lang, ma’am,” he said with a quick tip of his wide-brimmed hat. He tossed a coin at the driver. “Put her things in the back of my wagon,” he explained, waving toward a buckboard across the street. Without another word he grabbed her by the hand and started off.

  “Wait a minute! What are you doing? Where are you taking me?”

  He looked at her with an arched eyebrow. “To the church to get married, of course. Where else would we go?”

  Figures. After six months of battling with himself on whether or not to send for a mail-order bride, he finally got one and she was dumber than a post. Where else would they be going? She came to Baker City to marry him, didn’t she? Naturally they’d go straight to the church.

  “Can’t we talk about this?” she asked as she stumbled along behind him.

  “Why?”

  She yanked her hand out of his. “What do you mean, why?”

  Not only slow-witted, but looking for a fight as well. He supposed he could cut her some slack – she had just traveled thousands of miles. “Don’t worry, as soon as we’re hitched I’ll get you something to eat.”

  She went silent again, which allowed him to get a good look at her. She wasn’t tiny, exactly, but she wasn’t as tall as he’d like – her head barely reached his chin. On the other hand, she was shapely and her outfit was mighty fancy. He hoped she’d brought a work dress or two, though – she would need them.

  “About our wedding …,” she finally said.


  He thought he understood. “You done brought yourself a wedding dress, is that it? You want to change into it? Don’t make no difference to me …”

  Her mouth dropped open as she stared at him in horror.

  Okay, maybe he didn’t understand. “What’s the matter?”

  She just stood there, looking at him.

  Forrest rubbed his face with his hand. Shoot, he didn’t have time for this. He grabbed her hand again and walked on, pulling her behind him. She didn’t resist as he thought she might, just made a tiny squeaking sound. He hoped she wasn’t about to cry. Oh please, Lord, not that! He glanced over his shoulder at her. “You okay?”

  “Fine!” she said, her voice cracking. At least she didn’t have tears in her eyes. Yet.

  They reached the church and he led her around to a side entrance and knocked on the door. He could feel her trying to pull away and tightened his grip. For all he knew, she was about to bolt like a frightened filly. He looked at her again, but her face was turned away.

  The door opened. “Well, if it isn’t Mr. Lang – nice to see you.”

  “Preacher,” Forrest said with a nod. “She’s here.”

  The Rev. Henry Bolen smiled. “And who is this lovely lady at your side?”

  She faced the man about to marry them and forced a smile back. “Hello. Effie Stout.”

  Rev. Bolen studied her a moment. “Are you not feeling well, Miss Stout? You look a little pale.”

  Forrest glanced at her again, noticed her pained expression and turned her to face him. “Are you? All right, I mean.”

  Her jaw tightened. “No, I am not all right! There is nothing right about any of this!”

  Forrest exchanged a quick look with the preacher. If he didn’t marry her now, he wasn’t sure what to do. He had to get home and back to work. He had to …