Angel walked to the window, and pushed the curtain aside. The last person in her life hurried down the path to the coach her sister had sent. Daisy followed behind, sniffing into a h
andkerchief.
She spread her fingers on the glass, as if to touch Sylvia. Would she ever see her again? Not likely. She cursed the tears that rolled down her cheeks. Dear God, how am I going to handle this?
With sweaty hands, she picked up a black straw bonnet and tied it snugly under her chin. One last look around the room she’d slept in every night of her life, and she was ready to go. With the packet of letters from her future husband in one hand, and an already soggy handkerchief in the other, she left.
Angel dabbed at her eyes, watering from the smoke pouring in through the window on the train about to leave for St. Louis, Missouri. Her trunks had been loaded, and she settled in a seat across from a woman with a young child.
She studied the child. Having had no experience at all with children, Angel regarded her with the fascination one might have for a zoo animal. The little girl screeched when her mama set her in the seat. When the frazzled mother handed the child an apple, she threw it across the aisle, barely missing Angel’s head. The mother smiled a tired apology.
The poor woman’s hair hung loose from the bun at the nape of her neck. A definite stain of some sort of food had landed on her blouse. Fatigue was written all over her face.
The girl climbed onto the seat and began jumping up and down, ignoring her mother’s entreaties to settle down. Each time the woman sat the child back down, she would scream “No!” and climb back up again to resume her jumping. Several passengers in the vicinity scowled in the child’s direction, and shaking their heads in annoyance, changed to other seats. Embarrassed for the mother, Angel stayed put.
Sweat beaded her forehead. What in heaven’s name would she do if one of Mr. Hale’s children behaved that way? Her first instinct would be to hang the child out the window, but it didn’t seem likely Mr. Hale would approve.
She sighed and looked out the hazy window as the train jerked in its attempt to gain momentum. After several miles of smooth riding, Angel opened her reticule and withdrew the packet of letters from Mr. Hale to Sylvia. She untied the pink ribbon, and began reading.
Appalled at the lies her stepmother had told, she had a hard time fighting down panic as she read how Mr. Hale wanted a wife who knew her way around the kitchen, could take care of the garden, and put up the produce for the winter. Put it up? Where?
He was happy to know she adored children, and could help the little ones with homework. The last statement was the only truth in the entire exchange. She’d excelled in school.
How Sylvia could deceive this man was indefensible. Mr. Hale would get a wife whose only knowledge of the kitchen consisted of meeting with Cook to plan the menus. The woman would then turn these ideas into meals prepared by a kitchen staff, ruled by her iron hand. Angel’s idea of a garden was the lovely flowers the gardener took care of for the family’s pleasure that she cut and arranged in vases throughout the house. My loving stepmother led Nathan Hale to believe I’d be a competent wife.
She shivered.
This man expected a real wife, and instead, he was getting her. He sounded like a good person, very fond of his children. She had no idea what he looked like because he hadn’t sent a picture, but described himself as ‘not hard to look at.’ Whatever that meant. She sighed, then leaned against the seat, and looked out the window. Watching the scenery pass by, she wished, as in the fairy tale, she could sleep forever until Prince Charming—with no children—found her.
The train trip had been tedious enough, but at least the woman with the child got off after only a few stops. But now, traveling for the seventh day on the stagecoach, Angel was sure she had perished in a train crash and had ended up in hell.
Never in her life had she suffered such heat and blinding sun. Sweat poured off her in rivulets. She waved her lemon-scented handkerchief under her nose to avoid the nasty smell emanating from the man next to her. The odorous man—she refused to call him a gentleman—had joined the stagecoach at the last stop.
Besides smelling bad, he took up a lot of room, and kept a large cigar clamped between his yellowed teeth, moving the offensive stump back and forth as he spoke. Even though unlit, the constant shifting of the thing caused dribble to run down his massive chin.
“So, missy, where are you headed?” He turned in her direction, his foul cigar breath wafting over her.
“Oregon City.”
“You don’t say? Got a sweetheart there?” He stared at her breasts and leered. Her stomach churned.
“No.” The last thing she wanted to do was encourage this man. And she truly wasn’t lying. Nathan Hale might be her future husband, but he was not her sweetheart.
He then turned to the older woman on his other side who sat knitting. “What about you? Where you headed?”
Luckily, the woman was more than happy to regale him with tales of her daughter who just produced her third baby that she was going to visit.
Across from the three of them were a traveling salesman, a man who claimed to be a doctor, who kept taking sips from a bottle he kept tucked into his jacket pocket, and a young, very pregnant woman. Angel’s heart sped up every time the stagecoach hit a rut and the woman winced.
The stench was bad enough, but the added heat and red dirt that blew in through the window when she attempted to clear her head made for a miserable ride. She fought off nausea, and wished for the relief of a fainting spell to escape her misery for a while.
Angel leaned her head in the corner of the coach and closed her eyes. Not being at all familiar with stagecoach travel, she had no idea there wouldn’t be any overnight stops. The stage stopped at various stations along the way for about twenty or thirty minutes so passengers could get a meal, and stretch their legs.
They were expected to sleep in the coach as best they could. Too nervous to actually sleep with strangers surrounding her, she’d only managed to doze on and off. Her eyes burned with grit, and she could have done with a cloth and water basin.
Never in her life had she worn the same underwear for more than one day. Her dress was soiled, with stains under her arms. She shifted on the seat.
The heavy man gave her a dirty look. “You’re taking up a lot of room for a little slip of a thing.”