Read Online Undercover Bride by Margaret Brownley - Free Book Online

commutation money.” She paused before adding, “Then came the Battle of Gettysburg.”
    “Garrett said he spent time in a rebel prison. Was that when he was captured?”
    “Yes, along with Katherine’s brother.” Aunt Hetty sipped her lemonade. “After the war, Garrett came home to recuperate. He was in pretty bad shape, and I nursed him back to health. Katherine knew him before the war and apparently thought him dead. But when she heard from her brother that he was still alive, she traveled out here to see him. What she found was not the man she knew before the war, but a man with a broken spirit. He’d even given up his dream of becoming a doctor.”
    Aunt Hetty worked her neck back and forth. “Not that I blame him, of course. He’d seen too much sickness, too many deaths.” As an afterthought she added, “At first I think Katherine had reservations about marrying him.”
    “But she did anyway.”
    “She probably felt sorry for him, having to spend time in that horrid prison and all.”
    Maggie took a sip of lemonade. It was hard to believe that a smart, educated woman would marry a man out of pity. It was harder still to think that a man who refused to avoid the draft out of fairness would suddenly board a train, shoot a guard, and take off with seventy thousand dollars.
    Maggie set her half-empty glass down. “How did Katherine die?” She already knew the answer—or at least what was in the coroner’s report—but it might appear odd if she didn’t show curiosity about his first wife.
    Aunt Hetty pursed her lips before answering. “The fool woman went outside during a storm. She fell and hit her head.”
    There was something in the woman’s voice that made Maggie wonder if there was more to the story. “What a terrible thing. It must have been very hard for Garrett and the children.”
    “Yes, it was. And totally unnecessary, if you ask me.”
    The off-hand comment provided an opening too good to let pass. “How do you mean?”
    “The accident occurred in the middle of the night while her husband and children slept. Now I ask you, who in their right mind would wander outside on a stormy night?”
    Who, indeed? Maintaining a casual air, Maggie sipped her lemonade, but there was nothing casual about her thoughts. The peculiar circumstances of Katherine Thomas’s death had been in the Pinkerton report, but not the time at which it occurred. This new information led to all sorts of questions.
    What had possessed her to leave the house on a stormy night? With that thought came another: Was her death really an accident as reported, or was Rikker correct in suspecting something more sinister? And what part, if any, did Garrett play in her death? The possible ramifications sent chills down her spine.
    Aunt Hetty had little nice to say about Garrett’s first wife and went on at great lengths to say it. She especially disapproved of the woman’s extravagant taste in clothes.
    “She was one of those… what do you call them? Modern women.” She sniffled and reached into her drawstring purse for a lace handkerchief. “She had this fancy education and resented letting it go to waste.”
    Katherine wasn’t the only woman who felt that way. Society was changing—especially in large cities. College-educated women now questioned traditional female roles, and even the church had gotten into the debate. To hear some clergy tell it, working women were leading society down a wanton path.
    “She even thought women should have the vote.” Aunt Hetty shook her head in disgust. “Can you imagine? As if we don’t have enough things to worry about.”
    Maggie clamped her mouth shut. She was a big believer in a woman’s right to vote, but she didn’t dare voice a dissenting opinion. She needed Aunt Hetty on her side.
    Instead, she listened quietly and politely and nodded in agreement whenever Aunt Hetty’s rants called for it. But the more the woman carried on, the more Maggie wondered if perhaps Katherine