Their Stolen Bride (Bridgewater Menage Series Book 7) Read online

  Table Of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  About The Author

  Their Stolen Bride

  By Vanessa Vale

  © 2016 Vanessa Vale, Bridger Media

  All rights reserved.

  No part of the book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.

  Cover Design: RomCon - www.romcon.com

  Cover Photo: Period Images; fotolia.com- Jag_cz

  THEIR STOLEN BRIDE

  by VANESSA VALE

  PROLOGUE

  MARY

  “Up on your hands and knees, darlin’.”

  The man stood beside the bed, naked as the day he was born, stroking his very hard cock. Clear fluid seeped from the tip and the wicked grin on his face proved he was having a very good time. He was attractive, slim, muscled, and his jaw was darkened by a trimmed beard.

  The woman smiled coyly at him and did as she was told. She wore only a blood red corset, the top few stays undone and her abundant breasts spilling out.

  I stood in the next room, looking through a small hole, my hands pressed against the wall, watching. Chloe, one of The Briar Rose’s many whores, stood beside me, our shoulders bumping, as she watched from her own secret spot.

  The whore, now up on her hands and knees, thrust her bottom out and wiggled it, inviting the man to look at her pussy. While neither was shy and one was a professional, they had a way about them that indicated they’d been together like this before.

  I’d been eavesdropping with Chloe over the past few months and could now tell such things. Yes, I knew the more vulgar terms for a man’s member, a woman’s secret place and more. Cock, pussy, ass, cum. Those words were no longer crude or salacious. I’d visited the brothel, at first innocently enough to bring used clothing as charity through the Ladies Auxiliary, but met Chloe and returned out of friendship. And, admittedly, because I was curious about what went on in a brothel. What went on between a man and woman.

  I gasped as the man spanked the whore on the bottom, a bright pink handprint blooming on her pale flesh.

  “See, Nora likes it,” Chloe whispered.

  There was no doubt the whore knew of the peepholes, but the man who’d paid for a tumble with the plump Nora probably did not. They were meant as a safety measure—men were unpredictable and sometimes cruel—but I found them useful for eavesdropping. Miss Rose, the madame, seemed content with my reasonably innocent activities, just as long as I remained in hiding.

  “She likes to be spanked?” I whispered back. I could see she did, with her surprised look, then hooded eyes. I liked it too, but I didn’t dare say that to Chloe, or to anyone else. The idea of a man’s hand striking my bare bottom made me wet between my own thighs, made my pussy clench, just like Nora.

  Her pussy was pink and swollen and slick with her arousal. No doubt mine was as well, and I was just watching. I wanted a man to do that to me. Not the man with Nora, but some man. My man, whoever that may be. I wanted to glance coyly over my shoulder at him, see his wicked grin in return. I bit my lip to stifle a moan when he spanked her again, the loud crack of his palm against her flesh resounding through the wall.

  I’d seen whores who were pretending with men, acting out their pleasure in exchange for money. But Nora didn’t need to feign a thing with him. Instead of putting his cock inside her—fucking her, as Chloe called it—he knelt on the bed behind her and put his mouth… there.

  “Oh lord,” I whispered. Chloe covered a giggle with her fingers. I looked at my friend, all wild red hair and pink cheeks, and I knew my eyes were wide. That was something new to see.

  “He likes pussy,” she whispered.

  I put my eye back to the peephole when I heard Nora’s cry of pleasure. He was licking her woman’s flesh, sucking on it, nibbling, too. Oh my. His beard began to glisten with her arousal.

  “That’s it, darlin’, come for me,” the man said. “Come on my fingers and then I’ll fuck you.”

  “Yes!” Nora cried. The man wiped his mouth with his free hand and slid his fingers in and out of her as she writhed upon them.

  It was hard not to squirm as I watched the man give Nora such pleasure. He was so eager to see to her come that he delayed his own need. I wanted that. I wanted a man who put me first.

  The man spanked her again. The man’s cock was engorged and dripping, clearly in need of his own release. “Now, darlin’. Give it to me now.”

  Nora did, crying out her pleasure. The look on her face was exquisite. Wild abandon. She thought of nothing but the bliss the man wrung from her body. The man’s wicked grin inferred his power over her body.

  God, I wanted that. I ached for it. Needed it. But I wasn’t a whore at The Briar Rose. I was a copper heiress and I shouldn’t even know about fucking. I shouldn’t even know the word itself. But I did. Did that make me a wanton? Probably, but my life was so plain, so strict and dull, that visiting Chloe and discovering an entirely new world was the only thing that gave me amusement. Hope.

  Hope that there was a man out there who would want me like this man wanted Nora. I wanted to be wild, not stifled. I wanted to allow every one of my secret desires to be shared with someone who would see to them, not crush them beneath the boot of polite society.

  I wanted more than I’d ever get with my intended husband. If my father had his way, it would be Mr. Benson and he would never spank my ass, or lick my pussy, or even take me from behind as the man was with Nora. Instead, I’d lie on my back in bed, it would be dark and Mr. Benson would lift my nightgown and rut into me, filling me with his seed. It would be awkward and uncomfortable, sticky and messy; I’d see no pleasure. I’d see… nothing.

  When the man and Nora had found their final pleasure, both of them vocal about it, Chloe and I turned from the wall. Another whore, Betty, stuck her head into the empty room where we’d been spying. “Mary, your man is here,” she whispered.

  “Mr. Benson?” My heart skipped a beat at the idea he may have seen me. Highly doubtful, but unnerving nonetheless. “He’s here?”

  The idea of watching my intended fuck some other woman made me nauseous.

  Betty nodded, but she wasn’t excited. “Yes, and he’s taking a whip to Tess.”

  Chloe and I glanced at each other and hurried after Betty. Panic filled me at what I would witness through a different peephole, for I knew then and there that if I married Mr. Benson, the pleasure Nora had found would never belong to me.

  CHAPTER ONE

  MARY

  The surprise hiss of steam made me stumble as I stepped down from the train.

  “Careful, Miss Millard,” Mr. Corbin said, taking gentle hold of my elbow until I was once again on solid ground. Even in the heat, I could feel the warmth of his touch through my sleeve.

  The platform in Butte was busy, many alighting after a long journey from the east. It was the richest town on Earth and would-be miners were eager to find their own vein of copper and strike it rich.

  I wasn’t quite so eager, for I’d only come from Billings, not Minneapolis or even Chicago, and had lived in Butte my entire life. I was quite familiar wi
th the town and I did not have the hope the others had. Of course, I didn’t need to work for money. Not because I was a woman, but because my father had more of it than God. His words, not mine.

  So the journey across the Montana Territory was too short, and I was not ready to return to my father and his intentions. While spending the month with my grandmother was far from exciting, it certainly delayed what I assumed was inevitable. I wanted to turn right around and settle back in the train car, watch Butte trundle right on by and continue on to parts unknown.

  Mr. Corbin’s hand lingered on me a moment longer than perhaps necessary. I turned to look up at the man—one of the two men—who’d been kind and attentive to me during the journey. We’d chatted amiably for hours and they—he and his friend, Mr. Sullivan—escorted me to the dining car for the noon meal so I didn’t have to sit alone. It was no hardship to pass the time with two handsome men.

  With his blond hair and quick smile, Mr. Corbin no doubt turned heads wherever he went. He’d definitely turned mine. So had his friend Mr. Sullivan. I’d spent hours silently debating which one appealed to me more. Did I prefer my man fair or dark? At ease or intense? Regardless, they’d both been perfect gentlemen. Sadly.

  Even now, with Mr. Corbin’s hand at my elbow on the station platform, he kept appropriate space between us and was completely solicitous. No one would look twice at his chivalry. Chivalry was good and all, but I ached for the more… intimate attentions a man had for his wife. I wanted that connection, the bond I saw between my friends and their husbands. The secret looks they shared, a gentle caress, even holding hands. I also wanted to be taken with wild abandon. Fucked, as my friend Chloe called it.

  But these men saw me as a lady and would not subject me to such wanton behavior. Drat.

  Sadly, Mr. Corbin’s hand on my elbow was one of the only touches I’d ever received from a man. I wanted more from him, imagined how his skin would feel against mine, not with the barrier of my dress in the way.

  “Thank you,” I murmured, wishing he’d stroke his hand down my back, undo the pins in my hair, untie the strings of my corset. As a maiden, I would—or should—know nothing of what a man could do once that corset was removed, but I did. Not in the practical sense, but I’d seen enough of what went on between a man and woman to want it for myself. It was Chloe who had piqued my interest in all things male and it seemed I had been thoroughly corrupted. I might be tarnished, but I still had my virtue.

  If my father knew of my visits to The Briar Rose and of Chloe, of what she’d shown me, I’d never be allowed out of the house. I’d probably be sent to the convent on the outskirts of town, the Ladies of the Immaculate Conception, until he found a use for me.

  I also discovered that my sheltered existence came with skewed and preconceived views of girls like Chloe. The auxiliary ladies had said the whores were poor when instead they earned a pretty penny on their backs and did not need the used clothing I’d delivered. I also discovered the men my father had paraded in front of me as possible suitors were not real gentlemen; I’d surprisingly recognized several through the little peepholes about the establishment. What I’d seen would make those Ladies Auxiliary ladies swoon. All it made me was frequently wet between my thighs and eager for a man’s attentions.

  Because of my spying, I’d seen the real Reginald Benson, the man walking down the station platform in my direction with my father, and he was not a man I wished to court. After knowing what he did to Tess, I didn’t even want to be on the same train platform. I shuddered at the memory of the whore’s screams as she’d been whipped. Fortunately, Chloe had said Big Sam had come to her rescue and she would recover. Mr. Benson had even been banned from The Briar Rose, but that did not mean he’d change his ways. He’d just find someone else to hurt. And if I were married to him….

  And yet my father found favor with the man, for they walked toward me together. My father either knew of the man’s cruel proclivities or didn’t care.

  “Oh God,” I murmured. My father wanted a match between me and Mr. Benson. They would not be retrieving me from the station themselves—together—for any other reason. Bile rose in my throat at the realization that I was the link connecting the two biggest mines in town together, one owned by each of them.

  I wouldn’t be going to the convent; I was going to be married to Mr. Benson and soon.

  I couldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t survive the wicked lash of a whip or any of the other horrible things Mr. Benson would do. There would be no help for me, no rescue. No Big Sam. As a wife, I could be beaten—or worse—without any recourse. I’d be property. I whimpered at the idea and grabbed Mr. Corbin’s arm.

  Yes, it was an impetuous, yet desperate gesture. But in a matter of a minute, they would find me and take me away.

  I looked up frantically at the man. “I… I need your help.”

  Mr. Corbin’s eyes narrowed as he looked at my grip on his arm before searching the area around us for hidden dangers. He tucked me behind him, sheltering me.

  “What’s the matter, sweetheart?” he asked, his pale eyes finally meeting mine. I swallowed, for he was just too attractive for his own good and quite concerned. His protectiveness did not go unnoticed, nor did the overly familiar endearment.

  “My father is here with a man I do not wish to… offer my attentions.”

  He glanced down the length of the platform. While there was much commotion, I knew he’d honed in on the duo searching for me. I was glad, for once, that Butte was such a busy place.

  “One’s the size of a pot-bellied stove, the other has slicked-back hair and mustache?” he asked.

  I nodded and kept my face averted, shivering at the description of Mr. Benson. Mr. Corbin turned us so his body blocked the approaching men’s view of me, affording me a few more moments’ reprieve. He was so big I was well hidden behind his broad shoulders and chest. I barely reached his shoulders. I felt protected and oddly safe.

  “Yes. There is much to tell and no time, but my father will marry me to him, the one with the mustache.”

  “You do not wish it.” His voice was low and deep, clear and calm, unlike my frantic one. My palms were damp and my heart was pounding frantically in my chest.

  I shuddered at the idea of becoming Mr. Benson’s wife. “I could not… could not bear his touch.”

  Mr. Corbin somehow grew taller, more alert. “If he’s done something inappropriate, I will kill him.”

  His sharp-edged words made my mouth tip up in a small smile, but I worried that he was being quite truthful. I didn’t fear that he offered to murder someone, but instead found it protective and reassuring.

  With a quick peek around Mr. Corbin’s shoulder, I saw they were getting closer. “Pretend to be my intended,” I hastily said. The idea was preposterous, but the first thing that came to me. It could work. Mr. Corbin was the right age, he was not married—at least he did not mention a wife during our train ride—and was of an appropriate station in society to make it believable to my father and Mr. Benson.

  It was his turn to smile. “When someone proposes to me, they should at least get down on one knee.”

  Pursing my lips, I struggled with his flippancy at a time like this. “My father is marrying me to the man to broaden his mine holdings. I will be the man’s third wife; the first died in childbirth and the second disappeared mysteriously.”

  All amusement slid off Mr. Corbin’s face.

  “Your assistance will delay what they see as inevitable, but it will allow me time to escape.”

  “Escape?” he said, his voice cold.

  “I stalled by spending the month with my grandmother in Billings, but the men are both impatient. They would not come to the station for me otherwise. It is not in their nature to tend to anyone but themselves.”

  “You fear him that much?” he asked. His eyes roved over my face as if assessing the truth of my words.

  I darted my eyes to the buttons on the man’s shirt so I didn’t have to look him in
the eye as I said, “Fear him?” I nodded my head. “Absolutely. I’ve also seen him with whores and I know that we are not… well suited. What he desires and what I long for are opposing.”

  There was no time to elaborate on Mr. Benson’s cruelty.

  Mr. Corbin’s pale brow winged up. “I’d like to hear about what you long for, but at another time.” He glanced behind him. “If your father is so eager to wed you to this man, a fiancé is not going to deter him. I recognize your name, sweetheart, and your father’s a powerful one in these parts.”

  My shoulders slumped and tears filled my eyes. He wasn’t going to help me. No one would go against Mr. Gregory Millard. As soon as my father found me, I was doomed for marriage to a dreadful man. The very idea of Mr. Benson naked and on top of me, touching me, fucking me, hurting me, made me cringe.

  “What’s the trouble?” Mr. Sullivan alighted the train and stood alongside us. He was Mr. Corbin’s travel companion and had joined us in conversation and lunch. His voice was deep and smooth, his shoulders broad and well-muscled. He was a touch taller than Mr. Corbin, and much more intimidating.

  Side by side, their large bodies shielded me from the sun, and hopefully from my father.

  I knew from the journey they traveled from Miles City and were also getting off in Butte, but continuing on by horse to Bridgewater. I’d heard of the community, which was a few hours’ ride from town, but had never met anyone from there before. They’d been pleasant and good conversationalists.

  I glanced up at Mr. Sullivan, all dark hair and cool manners. He placed two leather satchels on the ground at his feet. Where Mr. Corbin was cheerful and amiable, Mr. Sullivan rarely smiled. It was difficult to read his thoughts, to discern if he’d found my presence in the dining car a nuisance or not. He just stared, then stared some more. It had been unnerving to say the least, as if the man could see every dark secret I held. In the dining car, Mr. Corbin had slapped his friend on the back and assured me he was just a brooder with everyone.