Yesterday, 1859

Elisabeth Margaret Nelson shifted the curtain back and looked out the stagecoach window. Over the last few hours the green, rolling hills had grown gradually flatter and the rutted, dirt roads busier. She dropped the curtain and sat back as another wave of stomach wrens assaulted her.

What had she done? Had she made a terrible mistake? She’d walked to the end of a plank and stepped right off…that’s what she’d done. Lissie wrung her hands and looked around at the other passengers. The older man in the opposite seat, beside the window, had been staring at her from the first moment, his dark eyes speculative.

He had to wonder what a young woman was doing travelling alone, without a companion. Lissie had begun to wonder that too. She’d thought it sounded like a grand adventure when Felix had suggested it, insisting that they needed time alone. But she’d never been more terrified in her life. Lissie clutched her reticule closer under that questioning gaze and gave him a small, uncertain smile.

“Do you have family waiting for you in Crocker, Miss?”

Did she have family waiting for her?

“Yes. My hu…” Lissie swallowed hard, still not believing it was true. “My husband is waiting for me.” He’d gone ahead to prepare a place for them to live. Or that was what he’d told her. Deep down Lissie doubted a man as handsome and vibrant as Felix Bickershaw could love a girl as ugly as she.

Lissie frowned, glancing down at the overstuffed reticule in her hands. She felt the man’s eyes on her again and discreetly shoved the velvet indispensable under her cloak. They’d all told her he only wanted her dowry. Lissie had believed it was true. Though Felix looked down at her with softness in his pretty, blue eyes, there was a certain coldness waiting just beyond that look, a negligence of her regard, which convinced her he didn’t so much love her person as what it could get him in life.

Lissie didn’t care. An ugly heiress with no prospect of finding love, she’d settled instead for a one-sided infatuation with a handsome man who could at least give her the appearance of a storybook life.

Lissie was sure she would eventually win him over to an abiding affection at the very least.

The stagecoach dipped dangerously and Lissie pitched forward, catching herself on the window frame before she landed in the lap of the cantankerous matron across from her. It was obvious from the woman’s stern gaze that she thought Lissie a trollop of the worst order because she traveled unaccompanied.

Lissie told herself she didn’t care. In just hours she’d see her beloved Felix and all would be well in her world.

Sometime later Lissie woke from a doze to the sound of shouting and the clanging of pans. She shoved the curtain aside and eagerly took in her first view of Crocker, Indiana. The sweet smell of countryside had been replaced by the moldering stench of animal dung, overlaid by the yeasty smell of spirits and the spicy tang of something cooking over a fire.

Lissie’s mouth watered and she covered her stomach with a hand as it rumbled unhappily. The muddy street was filled with men on horses and fast-moving carriages. The wooden walkways that lined the log and limestone buildings on either side of the street were busy too. Lissie’s gaze took in the women dressed in fine clothing, carrying parasols against a burning afternoon sun, and excitement seared through her.

She’d never been in a real town before. Maybe some of the beautiful, well-dressed women watching the stagecoach rumble through town would be her friends. That would be lovely.

If only they wouldn’t judge her for her plainness. Surely the cache of jewels she carried in her reticule and the equally sparkling visage of her handsome husband would win her some friends.

For the first time in her very young life, Elisabeth Margaret Nelson realized she liked her chances for a happy future. It was a heady feeling indeed.