Charity Roberts
Charity Roberts was one of the seven wives of Silas Silver IX, and the occasional lover of Silas’ sister Sarah.
Claiming to descend from pirates, she was a woman who took what she wanted in life—even when she knew it was against her best interests. Because, as Charity told Sarah in The Seven Wives of Silver, pirates do things for “the challenge…the notion that whatever curse has been laid upon the hoard, you can beat it.”
It was while living and working as a prostitute in Virginia City, Nevada that Charity first met the gunslinging Sarah Silver. Silver, having hired Charity and another girl for the evening, offered a sympathetic ear and a shoulder to cry on. And it wasn’t long before the two could call each other friend.
On her next visit to Virginia City, seeking to help her friend make a better life for herself, Sarah Silver paid off Charity’s debts and put on her on a train back east. Sarah’s brother Silas was in need of a new wife, it turned out, and the eager-to-please Charity seemed like just the woman for him.
Silas and Charity were married in 1870, a union which lasted for nearly 20 years. But it was an ultimately fruitless union, as most of Silas’ marriages were, and Charity died in 1890 without providing Silas with his long-desired heir.
I really like the sound of her. It's a shame she died quite young!
Yes! That was one of those unintended consequences of making her one of the Seven Wives. I'd written that story long ago, and I knew that meant that anyone I made a wife of Silas Silver would die young. What I didn't expect is how much I would grow to love writing each of them. That's why I find myself digging back and writing more about their pasts, because I miss them!