Marry Me By Sundown
Johanna Lindsey
About the Book
Summoned back to Philadelphia from the social whirl in London, Violet Mitchell never expected to find her brothers living on the edge of financial ruin while their father seeks new wealth in Montana’s gold fields. With the family’s home and social standing at risk, Violet makes a drastic decision.
Morgan Callahan rode away from his family’s cattle ranch to make his own fortune. Now as he finishes exploiting a mother lode of silver, a young woman claiming to be his late partner’s daughter turns up wanting to be taken to her father’s mine. Suspecting that the pretty schemer works for the mining outfit that is trying to steal his land, he has no qualms about snatching her and holding her at his camp where she can do no harm.
Morgan underestimated the new thorn in his side. Determined to claim what rightfully belongs to her family, Violet summons up the courage, grit, and spunk to cope with the hazards and discomforts of an untamed land and the disturbingly masculine stranger who holds her fate in his hands. But an error of judgment brings down a hailstorm of calamity and danger that upends her plans and deepens her bond to a man who might not be the brilliant match a lady wishes to make, but could be all that a strong, passionate woman desires.
Utterly captivating. Wonderfully entertaining. Let legendary author Johanna Lindsey capture your heart with her unforgettable romance.
Chapter One
“I DON’T THINK SHE’S GOING to stop crying, even for this party,” Sophie warned Violet as she returned to the bedroom the two girls shared.
Violet Mitchell sighed, knowing Sophie was talking about her aunt Elizabeth, Sophie’s mother. But then Violet put her arm around her cousin’s shoulders and squeezed gently. She was good at consoling, good at mothering, too, having tried to be a mother to her two brothers when they were all still children.
“She doesn’t want me to go,” Violet remarked.
“None of us want you to go!”
“She shouldn’t have arranged this party, which is just going to remind her that I’m sailing back to America in the morning.”
“If only that letter hadn’t arrived four days ago,” Sophie said in a grouchy tone. “If it had come next week, you would at least have been here for the first ball of the Season. I can’t believe you’re going to miss them all!”
Violet was going to start crying herself in a moment. She had so looked forward to the festivities this summer and sharing them with Sophie. She and her cousin had both turned eighteen this year, Violet last month, Sophie in early spring. Violet had continued to grow this year, ending up at five feet seven inches, while Sophie was quite petite at only five foot three. And Elizabeth had spared no expense in having beautiful wardrobes made for both of them.
Violet had lived with her aunt and uncle and their large brood of children these last nine years, ever since Aunt Elizabeth had come to America and visited Philadelphia, where she and Violet’s mother had been born, and swooped into the Mitchell household insisting that Violet was returning to London with her to live with her and her husband, Lord Edmund Faulkner, and their six daughters. Violet’s father, Charles, hadn’t protested too much.
Violet actually understood why her father was relieved to have her taken off his hands. Raising a daughter without his wife, who had died of consumption a few years after Violet was born, had probably been a bit much for him. Her brothers, Daniel and Evan, hadn’t protested either. They didn’t exactly enjoy her bossing them around, but with no mother to guide the rambunctious boys, Violet had taken it upon herself to assume a motherly role toward her brothers, even though they were two years older than she. But there had been no one to mother her, and by the age of nine, she’d definitely felt that lack. So she hadn’t protested much either when she’d been told she would be leaving her immediate family and moving to London. It had been hard trying to be a mother. Yet the behavior had been ingrained in her by then, and she’d done her fair share of bossing her cousins in England, too. But at least they didn’t mind. They called it her being American!
“You should be happy for me,” Violet remarked. “It will be wonderful to see Papa and my brothers again. You don’t think I’ve missed them?”
“You never mentioned it, so, no, it’s not something I gave much thought to.”
Violet tried teasing: “If I’ve learned anything from you Brits, it’s to keep unpleasant emotions under wraps.”
“As my mother is currently doing, flooding her bedroom with tears?”
They both smiled before Violet continued, “You know what I mean. And you, my girl, have kept me too busy and entertained to darken your moods by sharing those occasional twinges of sadness I’ve felt when thinking about my brothers and father. But I wrote to them weekly, and while the boys aren’t as good about replying as I would have liked, I understand that they have other things on their minds besides writing letters. And I know my father hates writing. I was lucky to get eight letters from him in all the years I’ve been here, but he always had the boys include a few lines from him in their letters. And at least they all visited twice.”
“They should have come more often.”
“I’m surprised there was even a second visit five years ago, considering how terribly Papa and Evan suffered with seasickness on the first voyage.”
“Oh, I forgot about that. Still, they should have braved it for your come-out. If you hadn’t sent them that portrait of you last year, they probably would have, just to see for themselves how you turned out, seasickness or no.”
“Stop being annoyed for my sake when I’m not. I told them not to come again, that I would visit them instead. They might have enjoyed touring London, but they already did that twice—and while they would never say so, I don’t think they were all that comfortable with the formality of British society. But mainly, I felt too guilty that my father and Evan had to suffer like that both coming here and returning home. And I did plan to visit them this year, just not this soon. I probably shouldn’t have mentioned that I hoped to bring a fiancé with me. They weren’t very happy about that.”
“Did you really tell them that?” Sophie squealed happily.
“Why wouldn’t I? Your mother has been talking to us both about this particular Season for years, so, yes, I thought it was something that might happen, and I shared that with my family. After all, your mother expected us both to get engaged this Season.”
“What exactly did your father say about it?”
“Nothing yet. There were no lines from Papa in that reply, or in this last vague letter. But Papa will want me to be happy, so I expect to receive his permission to marry an Englishman when the time comes. In any case, it will be sorted out when I get home.”
Sophie suddenly gasped. “Is that why they want you home immediately? They are afraid to lose you to an English husband?”
Violet frowned for a moment as she considered that possibility, but then shook her head. “No, they wouldn’t dare try to pull a ruse like that. Daniel just wrote that it was urgent and sounded desperate about it.”
“Yet failed to mention what is so urgent,” Sophie reminded her in pique.
Violet sighed. “I’m sure he meant to explain, but he did mention that Evan had warned him not to write me about whatever is going on, so Daniel probably rushed the letter off so Evan wouldn’t find out about it. He might have thought he did explain better than simply saying, It’s urgent, Vi. Only you can fix this.”