CHAPTER 1
Thursday, August 11, 1870
Adele Jensen sat in the front of the railroad car on a train headed west. So many thoughts were going through her head. The biggest one being was she making a mistake?
Was her decision to become a mail-order bride and pursue her dream of a husband and children, the right one? She’d thought so when she went to Brides for the West and signed up. That had been more than eight months ago.
Mr. Edward Wharton had answered her letter and sent travel fare. She accepted his proposal and was now on the train to St. Louis, Missouri. From St. Louis she would take a steamboat up the Missouri River to Fort Benton and then the stagecoach to Angel Creek, Montana. All in all, the trip would take a little more than three weeks.
Her husband-to-be was a rancher outside Angel Creek and had a seven year-old daughter. Adele was thrilled with the thought of having a child she could help raise. Over the last five years, she’d managed to save three-thousand dollars and with some of that she purchased a small wardrobe she thought a governess would wear with button up bodices, lace collars and long sleeves. She didn’t have any idea what a ranch wife was expected to do. Adele knew how to cook and was good at it. Her specialty though was baking. She loved to bake and had done so quite often.
She sat by the window on the train and watched the countryside go from big city to small town to farm land, it also went from tall gray buildings to flat fields. This being the eleventh of August, the land was green, the crops nearly ready for harvest. According to her readings, as soon as the crops were harvested, the farmer would prepare the land to lie fallow for the winter.
Adele had hoped to see lots of greenery. New York didn’t have much and the slums where she was raised had none. But she’d done a lot of reading in the last eight months or so about what she might see and wasn’t disappointed. The countryside was beautiful. Small towns with lots of trees and empty country with rivers running through it and cattle grazing. She wondered if Montana was anything like this.
The second part of her journey was on a steamboat. The ride was lovely. She’d gotten a room and was finally able to change her clothes and take a spit bath with a basin, washcloth and water. What she wouldn’t give for a real bath. She closed her eyes and smiled picturing her bathtub back at home. She’d fill it with hot water, as hot as she could stand and bubbles. Lots of bubbles.
She laughed at her flight of fancy. Her life would be drastically different on the ranch and yet, not. Hard work was not something she shied away from. She’d done plenty of hard work…her parents had seen to that. Growing up in the Irish slums of New York didn’t make you lazy. You worked, hard. She remembered her father telling her “You do whatever you can to make a living, to raise a family. You work hard. It’s our way.”
Adele’s life had a different path forced on her. Not one she’d asked for but one she’d enjoyed for the first few years, until she came to realize what she really was. That her benefactor hadn’t loved her but he lusted for her, until he didn’t.
Over the years Adele had managed to save more than three-thousand dollars out of the money from her benefactor. She never denied he wasn’t generous. He was, but she still kept as much money as she could without him knowing. She had most of the money and her jewelry with her now. She’d earned those jewels…every one of them.
Today was Friday, September second and she was on the last leg of the journey, a two hour stagecoach ride. She’d been traveling for twenty-two days. Whereas the scenery was lovely, cattle grazing and winter wheat fields waiting to be harvested, the ride itself was anything but comfortable. She swore the coach hit every hole and bump in the road. Her skirt and coat provided some cushion on the seat, but the plank of wood the company had the audacity to call a seat was not padded and left her backside sore. No wonder she was caught rubbing her bum when the tall, dark haired man approached.
“Mrs. Jensen? Mrs. Jensen?”
She quickly dropped her hand and looked up into eyes so blue they seemed violet. “Uh…er…yes, yes I’m Adele Jensen.” In her correspondence, she signed her real name, not wanting the marriage to be invalid because she used an alias. “Mr. Wharton?”
“I am.” He extended a hand. “Edward Wharton, at your service.” Looking at her feet he lifted his eyebrows. “Is this all the luggage you have?”
She lifted her chin and raised an eyebrow. “Yes. Is that a problem? The stage company only allowed me forty pounds. I managed with two large carpet bags.”
As he stared at her luggage, he ran a hand behind his neck. “No problem.”
Taking pity on him, she pointed at the bags. “I know they look very full and they are, but it’s really not as much as you think. You’ll see when I get unpacked.”
He nodded and then smiled. “Would you care to get a bite to eat at The Eatery before we get married?”
Gazing up at him, she would almost say yes to anything he asked. Those eyes, the chiseled jaw and then that smile, with the dimple winking at her…she shook her head a tiny bit, closed her eyes and took a short breath. She looked down and brushed some of the dust from her skirt of her hunter green travel suit before returning her gaze to his face. “What I’d really love is a place to get cleaned up even just a little. The dust during the ride in that stagecoach was awful and I’m sure I look a wreck.”
He smiled again showing straight, white teeth and the small dimple in his left cheek she saw before. It was the nicest smile she’d seen in a long time. “Well, in that case, we should probably get married first, then. You can clean up at the reverend’s home. Ginger…er…Mrs. Carroll is always happy to help. You’re not the first mail-order bride needing to refresh herself before the wedding.”
“Oh, good.” She pointed at the carpetbags sitting on the packed dirt of the street. “Did you bring a conveyance large enough for my luggage?”
He chuckled. “A conveyance? Yes, I brought my wagon. I did my regular Wednesday grocery trip as long as I was in town. It will save me a trip back.”
“Shall we go?”
He looked over the two bags and then nodded once. “Reverend Carroll’s house is at the other end of town from here. You wait right here and I’ll get the wagon.”
She clasped her hands at her waist and nodded.
He turned and walked back the way he’d come.
Adele stood on the dirt street next to the stagecoach parked in front of the stables. She watched him until he was swallowed up by a crowd of people standing in front of a store. She couldn’t make out the name from where she was. When Edward disappeared from view she turned to watch the horses changed on the stagecoach. The new horses were fresh and feisty, prancing a little as the harness was placed on them.
None of the buildings as far as she could see were more than two stories high and all appeared to be made from wood. None were like the tall concrete buildings in New York. The streets weren’t paved unlike the streets in New York which were paved with layers of crushed rocks called macadam.
She waved her hand in front of her face to blow away the dust. They could use some macadam here.
Edward returned in short order with the wagon pulled by two matching black horses. He pulled to a stop, climbed down and joined her.