Josephine: Bride of Louisiana (American Mail-Order Bride 18) Read Online Free PDF

worn cloth of the other two dresses she’d brought with her. She turned slowly in a circle, her eyes drinking in the majestic fabrics and furniture in what was now her room and shook her head as her eyes fell back to her shabby clothing.
    She sat on the bench of the vanity, her head falling into her hands. How would she ever convince anyone that she even knew what it meant to be a member of French society, let alone be one?
    Sighing once more, she stood, squared her shoulders and reached for what she thought was her nicest dress. She held it in front of her and looked hard at herself in the mirror. There was no turning back now. She would just have to make this work.

Chapter Seven
    “ I s she here yet ?” Pierre tossed a coin on the mahogany bar and sipped his ale as Jerome sat at a table in the inn.
    “She is, my friend. Safely ensconced in the room you wanted her to be in. As far away from yours as possible, I noticed.” Jerome hailed the bartender and motioned that he would like an ale as well.
    Pierre leaned his elbows on the table and rubbed his neck. He’d allowed Jerome to convince him that advertising for a mail order bride had been a good idea, but the closer it came to her arrival, the more he’d wondered what he’d been thinking. How could this possibly work? Even if she was a lady, and French at that, how would he explain to his father how they’d met?
    But there had been so little time, and Jerome was right--if this was the only way for him to secure his inheritance and save the plantation, then it would have to be so. But he didn’t have to like it.
    “Has she been informed regarding the situation?” Pierre cleared his throat, hoping that this new person--Josephine--understood that this was to be a marriage in name only, and nothing was expected beyond her mere presence, and her ability to appease his father’s--or his mother’s, actually--expectation that he be married to a French woman of social stature.
    Jerome sat back in his chair and nodded at the bartender as he set his ale in front of him, wiped his hands on his apron and walked back behind the bar.
    Pierre’s stomach churned as he waited for more information about his future wife--even the thought sounded ridiculous to him.
    A slow smile spread across his cousin’s face. “Yes, she’s been informed regarding the situation, for the most part. I didn’t share with her the reason for your request for a French-speaking bride. She knows nothing about the inheritance and I thought it best that way. Women who seek these positions--marriages, I should say--are frequently in dire straits. And, I might add, it appears that this one may be as well.”
    Pierre leaned forward, his eyebrows raised, an unexpected pang in his heart. He hadn’t even met this woman--Josephine--but her correspondence had been clear and she’d seemed eager to relocate to Louisiana. There had been no discussion of dire straits. And he had to admit, the photograph she’d sent accepting his proposal had been remarkable. Pierre had thought she was lovely, which wasn’t necessarily a good thing as he had no intention of having the relationship evolve into anything but an arrangement, for his mother’s sake.
    “What do you mean? Dire straits?”
    Jerome took a sip of his ale and set it down on the table. “I haven’t spoken to her at length and, granted, she’d just come off a very long and arduous journey, so it would make sense that she’d be a little frazzled.”
    “Of course it would...days and days of traveling. I do hope she was all right.”
    Jerome waved his hand. “She’s fine, quite fine. And quite pretty, too,” he said as he winked at Pierre.
    Pierre scowled at his cousin as heat rose under his collar. This was just a business arrangement and he had no intention of being baited into anything other.
    “That is not relevant, what she looks like, and you know it.” Pierre set his mug down with a thud.
    Jerome’s eyes twinkled as he grinned. “Now,