Bay City Belle. Shirley Kennedy

      Before the war, Belle Ainsworth led a life of pleasure and privilege in the Deep South. Five years after losing her fiancé at the Battle of Gettysburg, she is still alone, with no prospects for marriage among the remaining men of her acquaintance. But out west, there are possibilities. And when Belle answers an ad for a mail-order bride and boards a train to San Francisco to meet wealthy restaurateur Robert Romano, it’s with the hope of at last making her dreams of family come true.

      When the train is robbed, Yancy McLeish, a disillusioned Union Army hero, rescues Belle from her attackers—and lays claim to her heart. But Belle has pledged her troth to Romano and intends to honor that commitment. It’s a decision she soon regrets, for her groom-to-be is nothing like his letters. As she plots a course to escape Romano, Belle prays that road can lead her back to the safety of Yancy’s arms, where she believes she was always destined to be . . .

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      Books by Shirley Kennedy

      Women of the West Series

      Wagon Train Cinderella

      Wagon Train Sisters

      Gold Rush Bride

      In Old California Series

      River Queen Rose

      Bay City Belle

      Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation

      Bay City Belle

      In Old California Series

      Shirley Kennedy

      LYRICAL PRESS

      Kensington Publishing Corp.

       www.kensingtonbooks.com

      Copyright

      Lyrical Press books are published by

      Kensington Publishing Corp. 119 West 40th Street New York, NY 10018

      Copyright © 2018 by Shirley Kennedy

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      First Electronic Edition: July 2018

      eISBN-13: 978-1-5161-0439-0

      eISBN-10: 1-5161-0439-0

      First Print Edition: July 2018

      ISBN-13: 978-1-5161-0442-0

      ISBN-10: 1-5161-0442-0

      Printed in the United States of America

      FOREWORD

      As the reader will no doubt discern, Meiggs Wharf, which plays a prominent part of the story, later became San Francisco’s famous Fisherman’s Wharf. It was built by Henry Meiggs, a man some called a Victorian hustler. At one point in his career, he paid off his money lenders with bad checks and had to flee to Valparaiso, Chile, where he couldn’t be extradited. The story has a happy ending, though. He made a small fortune building railroads in South America, returned to San Francisco, and paid back every cent he owed his creditors. Meiggs Wharf stretched an amazingly long two thousand feet into the bay, some two hundred feet longer than it does today.

      Chapter 1

      Savannah, Georgia, 1870

      Miss Annabelle Ainsworth, known as Belle, never missed the semi-weekly meeting of the Georgia Ladies of the Confederacy. At today’s meeting, held in the parlor of the Elihu Barnes residence, visits to veterans’ hospitals were arranged and the annual report from the Committee Dedicated to the Beautification of the Graves of the Glorious Dead was heard and approved. Soon both old and new business had been efficiently dispatched. As they always did, the members conducted themselves with profound dedication. The war had ended over five years ago, yet the consequences of that terrible conflict lived in the hearts and minds of everyone present. As far as the ladies were concerned, General Lee’s surrender at the Appomattox Court House happened yesterday.

      Refreshments and social chitchat followed. Ordinarily Belle enjoyed this part best, but at the moment, her mind kept wandering. If there was anything more boring than listening to the endless prattle of Miss full-of-herself Allegra Barnes, she didn’t know what it was. Not that she’d let it show. She sat, teacup in hand, face carefully arranged in an expression of attentiveness, as if she couldn’t hear enough of Allegra’s account of her struggles with her latest achievement in the art of embroidery.

      “So I decided to go with the dollhouse cross-stitch,” Allegra rambled on. She paused and got a curious grin on her face. “But enough of all that. Ladies, I have something exciting to tell you.”

      “What?” came a chorus of curious female voices, including Belle’s and that of her sister, Victoria, who sat beside her.

      “I’m going to get married.”

      Everyone gasped. Belle set her cup down with a clatter and exchanged stunned glances with Victoria. In the old days before the war, such an announcement wouldn’t have come as such a shock, but now? Who on earth was Allegra going to marry? More to the point, who was left to marry? The war had cut a deadly swath through the male population of Georgia. The battles at Gettysburg, Bull Run, Wilson’s Creek, and more had taken countless Confederate lives. If a bullet hadn’t felled their brave soldiers, then dysentery, typhoid, and God-knew-what diseases did. And even if they’d lived… Belle felt a twinge of sorrow, as she always did when she thought of Bridger, her brother. He’d survived the war but would never be the same. Come to think of it, neither would she. At the age of twenty-five, she should have been comfortably married by now, with at least a child or two, but she’d lost Jeremy, her fiancé, at Gettysburg. In fact, most of the beaux who’d courted her were gone now, so here she was, single, childless, living with Victoria and her husband. Not that she led a useless life—far from it. Her busy sister depended upon her to help care for her three children who all adored their aunt Belle. In turn, she loved them so dearly she hardly missed having children of her own, or so she told herself.

      Victoria was the first to respond to Allegra’s stunning marriage announcement. “That’s wonderful news. Is it someone we know?”

      “Not exactly.”

      “But of course he’s a Southerner.”

      “Not exactly.” Allegra got that smug, superior look on her face that annoyed Belle to no end. “Don’t worry, dear, he’s not a Yankee.”

      “Then who?” came the chorus. “Tell us! We’re dying to know.”

      “His name is Edward Smith, and he’s a respectable merchant in the city of San Francisco.” Amidst a sudden, shocked silence, Allegra continued, “We’ve corresponded. He’s asked me to marry him,