[LadyKate]

I know, it's a romance lol. I have been trying to find the title and author of a book I read a few years ago. It was set in America and started in the east, I think Boston.

A girl is dumped by her fiance who wants her to become his mistress. She has a dependent mother and two young brothers. The ex fiance is marrying a girl a few houses down the street. She is in financial straights and needs to marry to support her mom and brothers.

She overhears a man getting dumped by the woman who is marrying her ex fiance. He is from a wilderness area I think to the west although it may be southwest. He is there seeking a wife and has two brothers in the city with him.

The girl suggests to this man that they marry almost on a whim. The man accepts her proposal and he and his brothers are there in her home for a fast wedding and then to arrange the packing of things to take with them.

One thing that stood out in my memory is that the new husband was eager for all the linens to be boxed up for transport to their new home where they will live with his younger brothers and her mother and young brothers.

Later in the story, at the destination, there is a young boy who is treated as a slave and beaten who the girl befriends and tries to teach. She and her mother end up saving the boy from his father or owner (don't remember which).

The new husband feels that he forced her to "marry beneath her" when visiting friends and seeing her talking and laughing with his friend's son. She has already started to fall in love with her husband though...

The mother of the girl ends up marrying someone from the town and having an interest in life. The mother and the girl both work together to free the slave boy.

Any help coming up with title/author would be appreciated.