The Other Bride. Lisa Bingham

Чтение книги онлайн.

      Chapter Four

      “You’re going to do what?” Doreen Llewelyn-Bowes blurted when the women outlined their plan to obtain a male escort. “Have you all lost your minds?”

      Phoebe was beginning to grow tired of Doreen. The other women had barely returned to the boardinghouse and gathered together their emergency funds before she’d begun a litany of complaints—they’d taken too long, the weather was too hot, New York was too noisy. When Mable and Maude explained the plan to hire Bertram Potter to escort them West, Doreen had stared at them with as much horror as if they’d announced they planned to strip naked and dance in the streets.

      “I really don’t know what you find confusing about the plan, Doreen,” Phoebe said. “We need a man—any man—who would be willing to travel West with us in the morning.”

      “B-but you said this Potter person was in jail!”

      “Merely a formality. He hasn’t committed a crime. Not really. He merely…played stowaway. I heard the captain say that he would forget the charges if Bertram could find a way to raise the necessary funds. If not, they’ll send him back to England.”

      “So let them.”

      “He’s our only chance, Doreen,” Twila said impatiently.

      Without another word, Phoebe dumped the bonnetful of coins they had collected onto an overstuffed settee. Allowing for those expenses that would arrive during their journey, the women had contributed any money they felt they could spare. Now, gathered in the sitting room, they feverishly counted their stash.

      “Do we have enough?” Edith breathed.

      “If I’ve figured the correct exchange for dollars into pounds, we’re…” Phoebe quickly counted, then bit her lip. “We’re five dollars short.”

      Five dollars. She found it ironic that only weeks earlier she had boarded a ship as the daughter of the Marquis of Dobbenshire. If only the title had come with tangible wealth rather than letters of credit.

      En masse, the women turned to look at Doreen.

      Betty proclaimed indignantly, “You haven’t contributed yet.”

      Doreen sniffed. “That’s because it’s a horrible idea. It won’t work.”

      “You’ll contribute or we’ll go without you,” Mable said. She clasped the handle of her walking stick in a way that warned she wasn’t so ladylike that she wouldn’t consider using it.

      Doreen huffed again, folding her arms tightly beneath her breasts. But her stance had lost some of its bravado. “I don’t have five dollars to spare.”

      “Give what you have,” Phoebe said softly, “and I’ll find a way to get the rest.”

      It was clear that Doreen didn’t believe Phoebe’s assertion, but she finally sighed with great theatrical emphasis. Bending, she lifted her skirts to remove a small coin purse stitched to the inside of a petticoat. Removing two large dollar coins, she tossed them on the pile.

      “I expect my money back when this preposterous idea fails to work,” she proclaimed. “If Gabriel Cutter frowns on women joining his group, he won’t let a felon board that train.” Then, turning on her heel, she left the room in a swish of skirts.

      “We still need three dollars,” Mable said, counting the money, then counting it again.

      Phoebe mentally reviewed the valuables she’d sewn into her spare corset—a few pieces of her mother’s jewelry and the signet ring her father had given her as a wedding present. The items were precious to her, worth far more in sentimental value than they could ever obtain on the market. But she was at a crossroads. She had no money to speak of, merely the smallest amount she had thought necessary for the journey. Even her friend “Louisa” could be of little help to her until she arrived in Boston and was able to exchange the letters of credit for cash.

      So Phoebe would have to sell something.

      Spying her dusty satchel still lying on the floor next to the door, Phoebe said, “Can someone show me to my room? I’ll just СКАЧАТЬ