On the train, I narrowed my eyes at Major. “What’s so foolish about your brother? He’s got good-enough taste.” And I finally stopped folding my gloves and placed them on the table.
“He was desperate, you see,” he said at last. “Sent out letters to five exceptionally classy women. Thought he’d get one. Maybe two, if fortune was kind. He had no idea so many would say yes.”
My heart slowed to a crawl. Not shattered. Just… stunned. Why was it always me being forced to prove myself in a crowded field?
I sank into the overstuffed mattress of the sleeper cabin, letting my head tilt back against the velvet cushion. The train’s rhythm, that quiet mechanical lull, worked its way into my chest like a spell.Calm me, please.
How did women manage these infernal clothes on long train rides? I imagined myself in the back with the chickens, easing the stays on my bodice to rest. The corset pressed like an iron bandagainst my ribs, my petticoat bunched uncomfortably under my legs. There was no grace in this, no ease. This was the price of pretending to belong in first class: The performance never stopped. Not even when you were alone.
I unpinned my hat and sighed. Let the hair fall, dark and straightened, loose around my shoulders. My scalp sang at the release.
Correction. I wasn’t alone. Lessie was passed out asleep on the chair, and Major was… well, looking.
His gaze flicked to my hair. It stayed there. Then back to my eyes.
“So you’re here to turn me right around?” I asked, massaging my scalp. “Tell me your brother doesn’t want me anymore?”
My voice was strong, like the old me.
Lordy, why am I already calling myself theoldCaroline. I had been on this train for four days, and New Orleans already felt like a lifetime away.
He shrugged, and it was a heavy slow roll of his shoulders. “Not turning you around. Worse. I’m here to tell him you are the best of them.” Major’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “You’re the one he told everyone about. You are the prize. The others were insurance. He’s a wealthy man, and he wanted to be cautious.”
His words landed like a slap. Cautious was whatIwas. Before I started running around with fake porters/bounty hunters and teenage entrepreneurs.
“How many women are on their way to Carsondale?”
“Three now.”
“Now?” My eyes bugged out, and my mind raced.
“It was seven, but four were unsuitable. I just met you and couldn’t intercept the other two. Bertha Wallace and Elle Mae.”
“So Bertha and Elle are both on their way to Colorado? From God knows where, thinking they’re marrying Ealy next week?”My voice pitched high, wild around the edges. “Is that what you’re telling me?”
I stared at him, at the unbothered calm in his face, while my future unraveled like cheap thread. Everything I had planned—every step, every calculated yes—slipping through my fingers like cloudy bathwater.
“I can’t believe this,” I whispered.
Major stepped forward. Just one step. But in the lush, compact VIP parlor room it was a scandalous proximity. “It won’t happen like that. I’m going to tell Ealy of all the women, it’s you. I will make sureyou’rethe woman he chooses.”
“Why?” I asked. My voice was thinner than I meant it to be. “Because you met me?”
His gaze held mine for just a breath too long. And it made me feel like a train was going right through my belly.
“No. Because I’ve seen you.”
I straightened my spine. I wasn’t some trembling damsel, even if my hands were shaking. I meant to scoff. Truly. I meant to lift my chin and make some clever remark about his needing spectacles.
Instead, I swallowed, and the sound seemed loud in my ears.
The train groaned beneath us, iron wheels grinding toward a future I no longer recognized.
“Well,” I said, smoothing the front of my skirt, though there wasn’t a wrinkle to be found. “Let’s hope Ealy’s eyesight is just as sharp.”
And I turned to fold down the bed before I could see if Major was still watching me.
But I felt it. The heat of it. The pull.
