His Mail-Order Bride. Tatiana March

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      “I’m sorry.”

      Overcome with compassion, Charlotte sank to her knees beside the body and steeled her senses against the putrid odors of the shabby railroad convenience. As she studied the woman’s waxen features, desperation whispered its own cruel demands in her mind. Charlotte hesitated, then swept her scruples aside and searched the dead woman’s clothing.

      “Please forgive me,” she muttered, shame burning on her face as she pulled out a small cotton drawstring purse and examined the few coins inside. “You don’t need this anymore, and I need it so very much.”

      Tears of pity and shame stung her eyes as she continued her inspection. She found nothing more, but understanding dawned as her gently probing fingers encountered the contours of a belly swollen in pregnancy.

      Poor Miss Jackson.

      Charlotte ended her harrowing search and stood. Her hands fisted at her sides as she stared down at the wretched waste of a suicide.

      God have mercy.

      God have mercy on Miss Jackson. God have mercy on her own desperate flight that took her away from family and home. God have mercy on every young woman whose life had been ruined by a predatory male and on every child who never got the chance to be born.

      “I’ll pray for your soul,” Charlotte said, her throat tight with emotion. She slipped the purse with coins into a pocket on her skirt and gathered her traveling bag from the floor.

      Her gaze lingered on the slumped form of Miss Jackson a moment longer. What would they do to her? A suicide couldn’t be buried in consecrated ground. Would anyone speak words of understanding and forgiveness over her grave? Or would they only preach about hellfire and damnation?

      In a quick motion, Charlotte set her bag down on the floor again. Her hands went to her neck, where a small silver cross hung on a chain. It seemed to take forever before her trembling fingers managed to unfasten the clasp.

      Holding the cross in her hands, Charlotte crouched to reach around the slender neck of Miss Jackson and fastened the chain. Don’t you dare anyone steal it from her, she admonished in her mind.

      The piece of jewelry, a birthday gift from her sisters many years ago, was not of great value, which was why Cousin Gareth had allowed her to keep it. Now the cross would be like a blessing for Miss Jackson, and the gesture eased Charlotte’s conscience over the money she had taken.

      Charlotte finished by throwing the bottle of laudanum down the toilet chute and stuffing the suicide note in her pocket. There, she thought as she straightened and surveyed the scene. The cause of death might have been an attack from an illness, which might make all the difference in how they buried her.

      Picking up her bag once more, Charlotte clutched the railroad ticket and the letter from Thomas Greenwood in her hand. She pulled the door ajar and peeked in both directions to make sure the corridor was empty before she slipped out.

      A plan was forming in her mind, born as much of lack of alternatives as opportunity and impulse. Charlotte Fairfax needed to disappear until her twenty-fifth birthday. If she could become someone else for a year, she would be safe from the Pinkerton agents Cousin Gareth was bound to send after her. Too much money was at stake for him to simply let her run away.

      Making her way down the corridor, moving up from third to second class, Charlotte strode along until she spotted a vacant seat. The compartment was occupied by a family. The parents sat on one side, feeding breakfast to a pair of sleepy children perched on the opposite bench.

      “Excuse me,” Charlotte said, in a voice loud enough to capture their attention over the churning of the train. “Would you be kind enough to allow me to join you?”

      “Don’t you have a seat in another compartment?” the woman asked. In her thirties, with delicate features and wispy brown hair hidden by a bonnet, she was pretty in a tired, worn-out way.

      Charlotte fiddled with the clasp of her leather bag and lowered her gaze, pretending to be embarrassed. “I would prefer to move. Sometimes gentlemen act too familiar. It makes a lady traveling without a chaperone feel uncomfortable.”

      The woman leaned across to wipe the mouth of the little girl in pigtails and glanced at her husband. A lean, bearded man in a wide-brimmed felt hat and a tightly buttoned black coat, he gave a silent nod of approval.

      “You’re welcome to join us,” the woman said.

      “Thank you.” Charlotte managed a strained smile as she settled next to the children. “I’m Miss Jackson,” she said. “I’m traveling to take up a position in the Arizona Territory.”

      * * *

      Afternoon sun scorched the dusty earth as Charlotte made her way from the railroad station along the single thoroughfare that ran through Gold Crossing. She lugged her leather bag with both hands. Sweat beaded on her brow and ran in rivulets down her back and between her breasts. In the Arizona heat the green wool skirt and jacket suitable for spring weather in Boston baked her body like an oven.

      She had spent ten days traveling, sleeping rough on trains and railroad stations, exhausting her funds with the cheapest meals she could buy.

      Each time she had to change trains, the town had been a little smaller, the passengers a little rougher, the train a little shabbier. The last legs of her journey had been westward from Tucson to Phoenix Junction with the Southern Pacific Railroad, and then a spur line north that terminated in Gold Crossing.

      Only two other passengers had alighted at the platform where the train still stood huffing and puffing. The pair of grizzly men had stared at her, the way a hungry dog might stare at a juicy bone. Charlotte had hurried on her way, without giving them an opportunity to offer their assistance.

      Imperial Hotel. She squinted down the street where a few equally rough men seemed to have frozen on their feet, like pillars of salt, ogling at her. Could this really be her destination? The town was no more than a collection of ramshackle buildings facing each other across the twin lines of dusty wagon ruts. Most of the windows were boarded up. It puzzled her how such a miserable place had merited a railroad spur.

      A faded sign hung on a two-story building painted in peeling pink. On the balcony that formed a canopy over the porch a teenage boy stood watching her.

      Summoning up the last of her energy, Charlotte closed the distance. The boardwalk echoed under her half boots as she climbed up the steps and swung the door open. A gangly man standing behind a polished wood counter looked up from his game of solitaire.

      “Can I help you?” he asked. Perhaps forty, he had sallow skin and faded blue eyes that seemed to survey the world with wry amusement.

      “Yes.” Charlotte dropped her bag to the floor with a thud. “I have a reservation. Miss Jackson.”

      The man adjusted the collar of his white shirt beneath the black waistcoat and gave her a measuring look.

      “You’re late,” he said. “You were expected a week ago.”

      “I’m here now.” She approached the counter. “I was told someone would meet me here with instructions. I have a letter from Mr. Thomas Greenwood.”

      “Greenwood’s СКАЧАТЬ