Educating Elizabeth. Yasmine Hyde

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СКАЧАТЬ the remainder of her days in jail.

      Only a moment or two passed before she was helped up into the ride.

      "Where are you needin' to go?" The Irish brogue of his accent filled the interior.

      "The train station. I must catch a train." It wasn't until that moment that she realized where she needed to go. The locomotive was the fastest way to travel and she needed to get away fast, now.

      "I'll see that he gets you there safely." The officer tipped his hat then moved away and closed the door.

      She could hear him call up instructions and warn the man that if he didn't get her their safely, he'd have to answer to him.

      The driver called out a garbled response before he set out. Elizabeth clutched her bag to her queasy stomach and sent up silent wishes that she would be able to leave the city. No matter where the train was going, she would be on it.

      An hour later, Elizabeth settled into her seat in her satin dress. The bodice was practically soaked through from her sweat and anxiety as each minute ticked by while she sat in the depot waiting for the next train to arrive.

      "Are you traveling alone?"

      Elizabeth met the gaze of the woman seated across the aisle from her. "Um, yes."

      The woman, with auburn locks wrapped in a severe high and tight bun at her crown, not a single strand out of place, offered Elizabeth a warm smile. "It will be nice to have some company on the trip. May I?"

      When the woman gestured toward the seat on Elizabeth's side that was vacant, Elizabeth considered telling her a respectful no but then changed her mind. The law would not be looking for two women traveling together. "Please."

      "Thank you." The other woman shuffled over a bag a little smaller than Elizabeth's and not as fine. Then she settled in the high polished wood seat that faced Elizabeth and held her hand out. "I'm Beth. Well, Bethany Talbot."

      With a hesitant smile, Elizabeth slipped her hand into the other woman's. Bethany's shake was firm and steady, almost manly. "I'm Elizabeth Taylor."

      She wondered if she should have given the woman her real name. However, it was too late for her to take it back.

      "Well, isn't that something? We practically have the same name." Beth's smile was large.

      "Something."

      Elizabeth observed that the woman was similar in height but noted she was wide in the shoulders and hips, with a face plain but kind. Their names were where the similarities ended.

      "I'm headed to Kansas. How about you?"

      "Yes. Kansas City." Elizabeth knew someone outside of Kansas City. If she couldn't think of another place to get off the train, then Kansas City would have to do.

      "I'm headed to Grover Town." A blush crept up the woman's features as she leaned forward. "I'm a bride. A mail order one."

      "Oh." Elizabeth had heard about an agency in the city that catered to helping lone, hopeless women connect with lonelier men out west. Bethany wasn't unattractive, plain, definitely, but surely there were men a plenty in Boston who would have taken her to wife…and breed. In Elizabeth's experience, men were always trying to find a wife and over eager to have children. She'd gotten offers practically daily since sixteen.

      She didn't think there was ever a need to leave home and go off to marry some stranger in a strange town who could look like the good Lord only knew what.

      The train's horn blew, and moments later the locomotive began to roll down the track. Elizabeth kept her face turned toward the opposite window, away from the depot to keep anyone from recognizing her through the window. She'd spent hours sitting on one of the wooden benches, worried that one of her servants would come back to the house early and find the solicitor by now. When they didn't find her within the residence, they'd begin a wider search. Her staff would confess how she'd strangely sent them away that night. The law would begin to question her friends, who'd say they hadn't seen her, that she hadn't made it to the theater that evening.

      The tension in her shoulders released even more as the only city and home she'd ever known sat farther and farther in the distance as the engine moved on.

      "…I know it is strange. My sister had some luck with it."

      Elizabeth realized that Bethany had still been chattering along as she'd been bemoaning the loss of her city and home.

      "Your sister? Has done what, you say?"

      "Oh, the mail order thing. She went by wagon trail with a group of other women and families doing the same. They were bound for a farther destination…Montana. It was five years ago. But she wrote that she was fine and had two children already. Her husband has a sheep farm. She tends it with him."

      A sheepherder. Elizabeth didn't realize she was shaking her head until she heard the other woman agree.

      "It couldn't be me either." Bethany laughed. "My intended, well, husband practically, since we signed the papers by proxy, he's the town doctor and I'm going to be a big help to him. I completed training a couple years ago and was working at the clinic connected to the New Haven school. I came home a year ago to tend to my mother who was ill. Once she was buried and with my schooling, not a lot of men were looking my way, because I'm so much older than most."

      Tilting her head, Elizabeth studied her. She didn't seem fresh-faced, but she wasn't matronly by any stretch. "How old is that?"

      "Twenty-four." She shrugged. "It's not too old to have little ones if we start right away. Since some of the towns in the Midwest don't have many women, they're not as picky."

      "I wouldn't guess they would be. Aren't you nervous? You know, because you don't know what he looks like or his house, for that matter. He could be in some shack with the roof caving in."

      Bethany laughed again. It was kind of a broken snort. "No. It wouldn't bother me because I could help him fix it. But I already know he just finished adding on to his home. Well, the clinic side anyway."

      Elizabeth didn't know what to say to that. The woman seemed happy at her prospects. The last thing Elizabeth would want was a bunch of sick people traipsing in and out of her home. To each their own.

      "What about you?"

      "Me?" Turning, Elizabeth glanced around at the other passengers in their train car. There were a couple families, a few gentlemen riding along or in pairs, no one she recognized from her circle of friends.

      "Yes. I'm headed to a town in Kansas, how about you? Doubt you're a proxy bride."

      "That's right. I'm no one's bride. I'm not even twenty yet." She fingered one of her perfectly placed pinned curls. Her maid worked hard on her hair daily to make it curl just so. Since her hair was bone straight and long, it took them a lot of time in the afternoon, when she awoke, to get her hair to stay curled in the high-fashion style.

      "So, what takes someone so young out of the city?"

      Elizabeth wished the woman wouldn't ask so many questions. She much preferred silence or when the woman was speaking about herself. "I'm going to visit family…outside of Kansas City."

      The lie tumbled out of her mouth. СКАЧАТЬ