Westward the Dream (Ribbons West Book #1) , livre ebook

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Westward the Dream
Copyright © 1998
Judith Pella and Tracie Peterson
Cover design by John Hamilton Design
Cover photography: Getty Images/Germany
Costumier: Theresa Blake/Rossetti, UK
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.
Published by Bethany House Publishers
11400 Hampshire Avenue South
Bloomington, Minnesota 55438
Bethany House Publishers is a division of
Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan.
E-book edition created 2011
ISBN 978-1-4412-3237-3
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
To
Bud and Casey
With love
for sharing your son
and for all of the other
wonderful things you do.
—Tracie
JUDITH PELLA has been writing for the inspirational market for more than twenty years and is the author of more than thirty novels, most in the historical fiction genre. Her recent novel Mark of the Cross and her extraordinary four-book Daughters of Fortune series showcase her skills as a historian as well as a storyteller. Her degrees in teaching and nursing lend depth to her tales, which spin a variety of settings. Pella and her husband make their home in Oregon.
Visit Judith’s Web site: www.judithpella.com .
TRACIE PETERSON is the author of over eighty novels, both historical and contemporary. Her avid research resonates in her stories, as seen in her bestselling Heirs of Montana and Alaskan Quest series. Trace and her family make their home in Montana.
Visit Tracie’s Web site: www.traciepeterson.com .
Visit Tracie’s blog: www.writespassage.blogspot.com .
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
About the Authors
Part I / April-June 1862
Part II / July-December 1862
Part III / January-February 1863
Part IV / March-December 1863
Back Ads
Back Cover

1
With a sheer will and determination to match any man in the rapidly growing audience, Jordana Baldwin studied the four-story brick edifice of New York City’s Deighton School for Young Women and planned her strategy.
“You don’t have to do this, Jordana,” her best friend, Meg Vanderbilt, whispered. “Leave off with this nonsense and let’s go back to our room.”
Jordana grinned and tied her long brown curls back with a dark navy ribbon. “No! I said I’d do this and I will.”
“But—” Meg tried to protest, but Jordana would have none of it.
“I can do this,” Jordana insisted.
“My money’s on Jordana,” one of the young men gathered behind the girls called out. The crowd of observers from the neighboring boys’ school was growing rapidly.
“You have no money,” another chided, forcing the first to produce proof of his financial stability.
“I received a post from Mother this morning. She’s always good to send me fortification.”
“Then pay me back the money you owe me from last week and I can place a bet as well,” a redheaded boy clamored.
Jordana took a deep breath and tried to ignore the revelry and ruckus. If she didn’t hurry, they would all be found out, and then no one would fulfill the dare that Clarence Hooper had so thoughtfully issued only moments ago in the garden.
At sixteen, Jordana had no doubt in her abilities when it came to such physical demands. She just worried about how to get the thing done without causing herself any true embarrassment. Scaling buildings was a rage that had accompanied the technology to erect higher multiple-story structures. However, such a feat was usually left to the fearless males of their generation. Jordana thought this pure poppycock. She had lived in the mountains of Virginia for a good portion of her life and could climb rock-faced walls with the best of the men in her family. Of course, back home she had donned her brother’s trousers to do such a thing. Here she had no choice but to hike her skirts between her legs in a most unladylike fashion and throw off the constricting jacket that completed the Deighton School uniform.
Carefully considering the best foot and handholds to be had on the brick structure, Jordana hurriedly pulled at the buttons of the navy wool jacket and tossed it to Meg.
“I think she’s going to do it,” Clarence Hooper announced in awe.
“No, she’ll play around until the headmistress comes and puts a stop to this,” another boy countered.
Jordana gave him a sharp look of irritation, then kicked off her shoes. “I have no plan to wait around for Mistress Deighton to show her prune face,” Jordana declared. “But neither have I any plan to fail at this challenge. I know what I’m doing and I don’t see you offering to join me, Struther Harris, so unless you are volunteering to accompany me up the wall, kindly shut your mouth.”
The other young men laughed heartily at this and jabbed Struther in the ribs. They had come from the adjoining Deighton School for Young Men, where Mistress Deighton’s brother, the most austere Reverend Obadiah Deighton, taught men of exceptional intelligence.
Meg leaned forward, a look of panic in her eyes. “Please, Jordana, don’t do this. It isn’t safe or becoming.”
“Bah!” Jordana replied and reached down to pull the back edge of her skirt through her legs. At this particular school, girls were not allowed to lengthen their skirts to the floor until after their sixteenth birthday. Having just turned sixteen, Jordana found her longer skirts a terrible nuisance. Personally she had cherished the extra two inches she’d grown in the last year because it caused her own skirts to go from the prescribed six inches above the tops of her shoes to eight inches. She liked the freedom of shortened skirts. At least she did not yet have to wear those hideous hoops women had so stupidly adopted as an important mark of fashion, and she was still able to get away with failing to cinch herself into a corset.
However, by pulling her skirts up, she was exposing a clear view of stocking-clad, shapely legs, and it was this, rather than her threat to Struther Harris, that caused the male viewers to go silent.
Jordana ignored their stares and turned back to the wall. Her gloves would also have to go, she decided. There would be no other way to get a good grip on the bricks.
“Hurry, the band has stopped playing in the parkway. That only leaves prayers and hymns before the classes break up for the weekend!” Clarence declared.
“Oh, all right,” Jordana replied, tossing her gloves to Meg. “Never have I seen more impatience from a group that has no intention of participating.” She reached out and felt the texture of the building and smiled. This would be better than she’d originally figured. The wall was easy to grab hold of; the porous brick and poorly set mortar allowed good handholds for the young girl to stick her fingers around. It wouldn’t be as nice as a rock face, where natural formations provided occasional ledges and resting shelves, but it would work.
She whispered a prayer, knowing that God had kept her safe in all other times of her life. She had no reason to believe He would fail her now. It never even entered her mind that He might frown upon her activities and punish her with less than success in order to teach her a lesson. In her mind, God simply didn’t work in that manner.
Reaching high above her head, Jordana secured her grip on the brick, then found footholds where her toes seemed to mimic her fingers and grasp the very bricks set before her.
She was off!
The crowd behind her cheered as she made her way cautiously and thoughtfully up the side of the building. Jordana’s thoughts were fixed on finding the next handhold, but she was also completely aware of her audience, and that gave her the momentum to press upward. She liked the attention—liked that she was impressing the young men of her social circle and scaring the girls witless. It entertained her far more than anything else she’d managed to accomplish in her years at Deighton.
Stretching her right hand upward, Jordana angled herself to the left. A nice gathering of lilac bushes ran parallel to the building, and Jordana figured if she slipped, they might at least break her fall. Probably not by much, she mused, trying hard not to think about the outcome of such a fall.
She passed the tops of the first-floor windows. Only three more stories to go. The cheers below were evidence of her captive audience, but other than this, Jordana had to force such thoughts from her mind. It was imperative that she focus on what she was doing.
Reaching out for a protruding piece of mortar, Jordana felt the piece crumble in her hands. Her grip now lost, she fought to throw her body weight to the side where her hold was more sure. For a moment, however, she very nearly dangled away from the building, causing everyone below to utter a collective gasp. Jordana felt her fingernails tear away as she tightened her hold on the brick. I can do this, she told herself over and over.
The one thing she had learned as a child was to never look down when climbing. Her brother Brenton, though rather awkward when it came to the outdoors, had used logic and reasoning to get himself out of many a tight spot and had passed such to her.
“Press toward the goal,” he had said. “Even the Bible speaks to the havoc created by looking back.”
With that in mind, Jordana found a new strength to continue. She maneuvered herself upward, seeking each handhold with a dedicated eye, pressing toward the goal of the ornate roof cornice. The cornice gave her some worry as it jutted out from the house and formed the base to the mansard-styled roof. Once she passed this obstacle, the remaining story would be a simple matter of easing up the concave slope to take hold of the roof cresting at the top. Then s