His Mail-Order Bride. Tatiana March

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СКАЧАТЬ She paused to catch her breath, and finally turned around to survey the house. Mist hovered over the lawns, but there were no signs that anyone had noticed her escape. Through the library windows she could see an orange glow, already fading.

      Charlotte turned around, forced her way deeper into the forest. It was less than a mile to a streetcar stop, but she didn’t dare to take local transport. People might recognize her, remember her. She’d obey Miranda’s instructions and walk all the way to Boston. Four miles. Charlotte gripped her bag tighter in her hand, ducked between branches and set off through the forest, making her way south toward the city.

      * * *

      Twilight was falling when the train pulled in at the railroad station in New York. Charlotte gripped her leather bag in one hand and climbed down the iron steps from the second-class car of the New York and New Haven Railroad Company train. She came to a halt upon the teeming platform and swept a frightened glance around.

      So many people. So much noise.

      Porters dashed about, pushing through the crowds. Relations welcomed passengers with joyful greetings. Street vendors hawked their wares. Dogs barked. Beggars cried out their pleas. Street urchins raced about, yelling at each other. The cacophony of sounds filled her ears, booming and relentless, like the trumpets of doom.

      The journey had taken her two days, even with the trains rushing along at speeds in excess of twenty miles an hour. Who could have imagined that apart from the costly express service there was no direct connection, but a bunch of local railroad companies, half of which seemed to be going bankrupt at any given time? She’d had to change trains three times, and the overnight stop in Hartford had made a further dent in her funds.

      “Miss, do ye need a place to stay?”

      Startled, Charlotte whirled toward the coarse voice. A man had stopped beside her. Short and stocky, he wore a gaudy brown suit. He whipped his bowler hat down from his head, exposing coils of oily black hair. His dark eyes raked over her in a bold inspection. His lips curled into a suggestive smile.

      “New into town, ye’ll be,” the man said, with a note of satisfaction in his tone. “A pretty girl like you could do well in the right place. I’ll show ye where to go.”

      He reached out to take her traveling bag. Charlotte gave an alarmed squeak and jumped backward. She gripped her bag tighter, spun around and hurried down the platform, away from the man. In her haste, she kept bumping into people. Rough hands groped at her and another man shouted a lewd comment after her.

      She increased her pace, panic soaring inside her. She might be innocent, with no exposure to life outside of Merlin’s Leap, but she possessed common sense. A young female alone in a big city was easy prey to the worst elements of humanity.

      Her hair was disheveled after her flight, her clothing dried into wrinkles from getting soaked in the drizzle, her face a mask of fear and uncertainty. Everything about her revealed that she was down on her luck and therefore an easy target for the predators.

      Along the platform, a conductor was yelling instructions to board a departing train. “Train to Chicago and cities and towns west,” the dapper little man shouted. “All passengers to Chicago and cities and towns west must board immediately.”

      Charlotte’s gaze fell on the open door of the railroad car. Her steps slowed. She knew she didn’t possess enough money for the long-distance fare, but boarding a train without a ticket seemed less terrifying than facing the dangers of New York City after nightfall.

      The train blew its whistle. The iron wheels screeched, spinning into motion. Charlotte gripped her bag tighter and sprinted forward. Reaching up, she grasped the handle on the door and climbed up the steps into the railroad car.

      * * *

      The train chugged over the flat prairie with a dull monotony. Charlotte dozed in the hard wooden seat, crammed between a large woman on the way to her sister’s funeral and a thin salesman who sold farm equipment. Sunshine streamed in through the windows, making the air hot and stuffy.

      All through the night, as the train rolled from town to town, making frequent stops to take in water for the steam engines, she had moved from compartment to compartment, snatching a moment of sleep whenever she could, while at the same time trying to avoid detection by the conductor.

      The man beside her shifted in his seat. He fumbled in his coat pockets, his bony elbows butting into her side. Charlotte stirred from her slumber and cast an alarmed glance down the gangway. The conductor in a peaked cap and uniform had entered through the frosted glass door at the far end of the car, and he was inspecting tickets.

      With a muttered apology, Charlotte jumped up and hurried in the opposite direction. At the end of the car, she darted through another door and lurched toward the convenience tucked away in the corner. She’d already made it without a ticket most of the way to Chicago, and she had no intention of being caught now.

      The lock on the convenience door appeared stuck. In a burst of panic, Charlotte rammed her hip against the peeling timber panel. The door sprang ajar, and then jammed again, meeting some obstacle on the other side. Scuttling backward like a crab, Charlotte squeezed in through the narrow gap. She dropped her bag at her feet, kicked the door shut and turned around to survey her refuge.

      A soundless scream caught in her throat.

      In front of her, a young woman lay slumped beside the toilet bowl. The folds of her plain brown gown rippled in the draft that blew up from the iron rails below.

      Her legs unsteady, Charlotte inched closer. Her breath stalled as she saw the marble white skin and the lifeless look in the open eyes of the woman.

      The image of her parents flashed through her mind. Nothing in her twenty-four years had matched the ordeal of visiting the mortuary with her sisters to identify their bodies after they had been recovered from the sea.

      Nothing until now.

      Nearly swooning, Charlotte lurched forward and clung with both hands to the edge of the porcelain washbasin. In the mirror, her reflection stared back at her. Her face was ghostly pale, her eyes round with fear. Like a black cloak, her hair tumbled past her shoulders, her upsweep fully unraveled.

      Scowling at her image, Charlotte struggled to contain the harsh breaths that tore in and out of her lungs. She couldn’t afford to give in to hysteria now. Dead is dead. A lifeless body presented no danger, required no rescue.

      As her terror ebbed, her attention came to rest on a collection of items on the small metal shelf above the washbasin. A bundle of papers. Next to them, an empty apothecary bottle rattled from side to side, the stopper missing. Charlotte picked up the glass vessel and studied the label, neatly printed in blue ink.

      Laudanum.

      Pity clenched in her chest. What could have been such a dreadful burden? What had happened to extinguish the lust for life in someone so young? The urge to understand swept aside all hesitation, and Charlotte picked up the bundle of papers. Her fingers trembled as she shuffled through the documents.

      Railroad ticket to Gold Crossing, Arizona Territory.

      A letter, signed by someone by the name of Thomas Greenwood, referring to arrangements made through an agency. It confirmed that a room had been reserved for Miss Jackson at the Imperial Hotel, where someone would meet her with further instructions.

      The last piece of СКАЧАТЬ