by Tess LeSue
“I don’t,” the scruffy man said, a bit bewildered. He had the white napkin tucked into his shirt. It was splotched with egg yolk. “I’m with him.” He pointed at Matt.
“I have three seats at my table,” Mr. Dugard said brightly. “You can sit here with me. It will be close enough to your charming sons for you to keep an eye on them.”
Georgiana didn’t want to sit with Mr. Dugard.
“Why don’t we pull the tables together?” Conroy suggested, giving Dugard an irritated look.
“Yes,” the pale man agreed. “It would be our pleasure.”
“Why don’t Doyle and I just move and make things easier,” Matt Slater sighed.
“No!” the twins exclaimed simultaneously.
His eyebrows went up at their vehemence, as did Georgiana’s.
“I’m sure they don’t want to displace anyone,” Georgiana said hastily. What on earth had gotten into her boys? Why were they so keen to sit with Matt Slater?
Oh dear, she made the mistake of looking at him again. That mouth. She’d never seen such a pointed bow or such a full lower lip on a man. In fact, she didn’t think she’d ever even noticed a man’s mouth before. She couldn’t for the life of her think what Leonard’s mouth had looked like . . .
“If you’re moving tables, we’re going with you,” Phin told the brute cheerfully.
“Why would you go with him?” Georgiana asked, exasperated. In fact, why were they sitting here with him in the first place?
“He’s our friend.”
If possible, the brute’s eyebrows shot even higher, until they all but disappeared under the dark hair that flopped over his forehead.
“What do you mean, ‘he’s our friend’?” Georgiana looked back and forth between the twins and the brute. Wilby was squirming in her arms.
“Matthew is our friend,” Philip said patiently, speaking to her like she was a half-wit.
“It’s Matt,” the brute growled, “and one conversation doesn’t make us friends.”
“Of course it does. We introduced ourselves. That’s how these things work.”
“It’s settled, then,” Mr. Dugard said, interrupting. “We’ll join the tables together.”
Oh no. She was in trouble. Her pulse had jumped at the thought of sitting with the brute. She didn’t want her pulse jumping.
“Biscuit!” Wilby said, reaching out a chubby hand for the brute’s biscuit. His fingers opened and closed impatiently.
“Get your own, Wilby,” Phin told him.
“Good idea.” Georgiana plonked her youngest son in Phin’s lap. “Why don’t you take him over to the sideboard and get him a plate. Philip, you can take your little sister.”
The twins opened their mouths to protest.
“Don’t,” she said sharply. “You’re on thin ice already. Off you go and get some breakfast.” She watched them like a hawk as they took their younger siblings in hand. “And don’t you dare torture her,” she warned Philip.
He gave her a look of wide-eyed innocence.
“Don’t worry, Mother,” Susannah said primly. “If he does, I shall scream.”
“Please don’t,” Georgiana pleaded. “We’re in public.”
“It looks like you have your hands full there, Mrs. Smith,” Conroy said. He sounded a touch nervous.
“It’s nothing a father’s firm hand wouldn’t solve,” Dugard reassured her. It didn’t reassure her. It only made her put another mental strike through his name.
“So . . . ” the third gentleman said, watching the children as they piled their plates high with biscuits and bacon, “you have four children?”
“Five.”
If possible, the pale man went even paler.
“Are you joining the tables together or not?” the brute asked impatiently. He was looking increasingly irritable. “My food is getting cold.”
Georgiana saw Dugard’s distaste for Matt, but the men obediently pulled the two tables together. She also saw Mrs. Bulfinch giving them the evil eye as she delivered a fresh plate of scrambled eggs to the sideboard. She didn’t approve of her tables being moved. Or of the men flocking around Georgiana. If she’d said it once, she’d said it a thousand times: it wasn’t decent.
“Shall I get us a pot of coffee?” Dugard was solicitous. “Or would you prefer tea?”
“Coffee, thank you.” Georgiana slid into the chair next to Matt Slater. At least here she wouldn’t have to look at his face. That seemed safer.
“We’ll take coffee too, won’t we, Seb?” Slater said, without looking up. Georgiana thought she detected a thread of humor in his voice.
“Tea for me,” the pale man said, and he quickly took the seat opposite Georgiana.
“Me too.” Conroy sat on her other side.
Dugard found himself fetching pots of tea and coffee for the table, and by the time he got back all the seats were taken and he was stranded down the far end of the table with the children. He looked none too pleased about it.
Georgiana downed her first cup of coffee quickly. She needed it. Conroy and the other man, who said his name was Peterson or Patterson or something she couldn’t be bothered to remember, assailed her with questions. Nothing very interesting, just the same questions she’d fielded all day yesterday: how much land did she own in Mokelumne Hill, had her husband been mining it, was there any gold, how much capital did she have to get herself established in California? Not a single man so far had asked her anything about herself or the children. They didn’t ask how old she was or what her favorite color was; they didn’t want to know how recently she’d been widowed; they didn’t ask her what she was hoping for in a husband; they didn’t even ask the children’s ages. All they cared about was land and gold.
Beside her, Matt Slater’s chewing slowed as he listened to their barrage of questions and to her careful answers. His attention made her nervous. From the corner of her eye she saw his cutlery pause in midair.
Eventually, she heard him clear his throat. “You gentlemen might want to let the lady eat,” he rumbled.
Georgiana risked looking at him. His golden-lit gaze was sympathetic. Oh no. No, no, no. That was even worse.
“I’m sure Mr. Dugard is happy to watch the kids while you go grab some food, Mrs. Smith,” he said dryly. “He seems keen to volunteer—what was it again, Dugard?—‘a father’s firm hand’? Might be a good chance to practice.”
“Absolutely.” Dugard forced a smile, but his eyes shot daggers at Matt Slater.
“Thank you.” Georgiana was up like a shot. He was thoughtful too. It just got worse and worse.
To her dismay, the other two gentlemen followed her to the sideboard.
“The food here is simply deplorable,” the milky one confided, as he trailed her down the buffet. “You’re probably safest with the biscuits and apricot conserve.”
Feeling contrary, Georgiana scooped a spoonful of eggs on her plate. He wrinkled his nose. She added a second scoop.
“The bacon’s hot,” Mrs. Bulfinch said from behind them. The man jumped a mile. He was clearly scared of her.
“Wonderful,” Georgiana said grimly, adding the blackened bacon to her watery scrambled eggs.
“You know what’s wonderful?” Conroy leaned over Patterson to talk to her. “Seeing a woman with appetite! Are you a good cook, Mrs. Smith?”
“I don’t know,” Georgiana answered honestly. “Are you?”
“Pardon?”
She left them prodding at the biscuits and went back to the table.
“You seem to have a lot of friends in town,” Slater observed when she sat down.
“They’re not her friends,” Phin objected.
“Consider us new friends,” Dugard said.
“I’d rather not.” Phin didn’t even look at him as he dismissed him.
“They’re
all trying to marry her,” Philip told Matt. He barely looked up from his syrup-drenched griddle cakes. Georgiana wished she’d seen those on the buffet. You couldn’t really get griddle cakes wrong. Especially with that much syrup on them.
“So I gathered.” Matt was giving Georgiana a calculating look. She wished he wouldn’t. That was a face you could fall in love with, and she had no intention of ever falling in love again. It led to no good.
“Have any of you gentlemen been to California before?” Matt asked them.
They shook their heads. Slater’s companion Doyle smirked into his coffee.
“Going for the gold, I assume?”
Conroy and Peterson/Patterson nodded.
“Not just for the gold. For a chance at a new life, Mr. Slater,” Mr. Dugard said somewhat piously. “For the freedom.”
“I wouldn’t be going to California, then. Oregon’s where I’d head for freedom. California’s full of ruffians.”
“Really?” Phin and Philip perked up.
“I said full,” Matt told them. “They don’t need to be adding you two; they’ve got enough already.”
The boys laughed.
He was good with the children too. Georgiana swallowed hard. She was getting a headache. It only got worse when she realized what he was doing. He was distracting the table, asking about their travel plans, and what they knew about the goldfields, so that she had the chance to eat her breakfast in peace. And it worked. Except for the interruption of Wilby, who climbed into her lap and started eating her eggs, everyone left her in peace. Georgiana was able to eat what she could, and have a second cup of coffee, without having to answer a single question about her land in California.
It was a surprisingly gallant gesture. She hadn’t expected it from a man as rough as he was. She found herself darting sideways glances at him, wondering what other surprises he held.
No. Stop it. It was best not to know.
“You planning on using oxen or mules?” he was asking the men.
None of them knew.
“You hired a captain yet? Or joined a group?”
They hadn’t.
“Bought a wagon?”
Of course not.
It was crystal clear that none of them had the slightest idea what they were doing, and they were all woefully unprepared for the journey ahead. It was another timely reminder that they were exactly what she wasn’t looking for in a husband.
She sighed. Please let today bring her a man who knew what he was doing. A man as capable and strong and brave and kind as the brute, as brutish as the brute, but without that face. Someone like he’d been yesterday. Scruffy and stained and rough and utterly without charm. She only had a handful of weeks until the wagon trains rolled out. She had to get this settled and her travel plans fixed before the spring rains came and went. According to her guidebook, the parties would roll out after the rains. She didn’t have a moment to lose.
“Hurry up, children, we have to get you to Mrs. Tilly’s for the day.” She pushed her plate away and cleaned Wilby’s face up with her napkin.
“Huh,” Doyle said, brushing crumbs from his beard, “that’s exactly where we’re headed too.”
Of course they were. Now that she’d decided he was unsuitable, he was going to be everywhere she turned, just like these other men, dogging every minute of her day.
“Excellent, we can go together,” the twins declared, dropping their cutlery with a clatter.
“I ain’t going yet,” Matt told them. “I’ve got to take some food up to my brother.”
“We’ll wait for you.”
“Phineas! Philip! You don’t go imposing yourself on perfect strangers,” Georgiana scolded.
“He’s not a stranger.”
“We need to have a talk about who is and isn’t a stranger,” she snapped, once she’d dragged them away from the table and the brute. “You don’t know him from Adam! You can’t go about trusting everyone you meet.”
“Why not? You’re going to marry a perfect stranger.”
Georgiana silently counted to ten so she wouldn’t lose her temper. “I’m interviewing them first.”
“Well, we interviewed him.”
“When?”
“Oh look!” Philip pointed at the front window of Cavil’s Mercantile. “You promised us rock candy yesterday if we cleaned Mrs. Tilly’s kitchen . . . ”
“And we did!” his twin finished.
They took her by the arms and dragged her across the road. Georgiana gave in. She had promised. And perhaps with their mouths full of candy they wouldn’t be able to talk.
* * *
• • •
BY LUNCHTIME, GEORGIANA was wishing she’d bought herself some candy too. It would have cheered up a very dreary day. And the worst part was that more men kept arriving. Word seemed to have spread. It was utterly ridiculous. She was a near-destitute woman with five children, but by some warp of Chinese whispers through the saloons and stores of Independence, men were flocking to the hotel, thinking they had a chance to marry a gold claim.
She could see the greed in their eyes.
“Do you want your lunch in here again, while you keep going with this lot?” Mrs. Bulfinch asked at noon on the dot, her voice clanging over the chimes of her grandfather clock.
“Heavens, no!” Georgiana couldn’t keep the horror from her voice.
Mrs. Bulfinch pursed her thin lips. “I can’t say I approve of advertising for a husband,” she said, and Georgiana braced for another lecture. “But . . . ”—the landlady smoothed a doily on the side table—“your endeavors are proving very good for business.”
Georgiana imagined so. Every room in the hotel was booked solid, and the dining room was bursting at the seams. She imagined the widow was doing a brisk business in tea and coffee too, considering the number of men loitering around the hotel all day.
“I’m having to do two sittings for lunch,” Mrs. Bulfinch confided, “so I’d best be off. Will you be wanting a table at this sitting or the next?”
“Neither,” Georgiana said hastily. “I think I’ll take a walk and get some fresh air. Perhaps visit the children at Mrs. Tilly’s.”
“I’ll tell the men you’ll be back in an hour, shall I?”
Georgiana pursed her lips. “Make it two. I need to make some inquiries about our emigration.”
Thank goodness Mrs. Bulfinch enjoyed bossing these men around so much. It meant Georgiana didn’t have to go out there and face them. She took her guidebook and her parasol and slipped out the back door and through the kitchen, leaving her suitors to the formidable hotelier.
The guidebook said people gathered in the town square to find wagon train captains. Georgiana hadn’t gone to see for herself yet, so she decided to detour past the square on her way to Mrs. Tilly’s. She wrapped her shawl tighter, as there was a brisk breeze up, which took some of the warmth out of the day. But, oh, it was nice being out in the world, and not cooped up in the dusty rose smell of the parlor anymore. Georgiana felt herself relaxing as she walked off the torpor of the morning. Or at least she was relaxing, until she noticed the way people were staring at her. Every second man she passed tipped his hat at her. Some of them she recognized from her interviews, and some she didn’t. She dropped her parasol to her shoulder to shield herself from their stares.
She heard the crowd in the town square from a distance: a wave of noise rose above the rooftops. She turned the corner, and suddenly, she was in a sea of humanity. It wasn’t just wagon train captains who were lining the square: there were also wagonmakers and livestock traders, merchants and blacksmiths, all loudly hawking their services to a stream of emigrants. The place resembled a makeshift marketplace. Georgiana let the crowd carry her along like a current.
“Wagons!” one man was yelling, his voice hoarse. “Prairie schooners! Conestogas! Handcarts! M
ade to order! Some frames in stock, ready to go sooner!”
“Our wagons are guaranteed waterproof!” his nearby competitor was barking.
While she’d already ordered her wagons, she hadn’t yet bought animals to pull them or supplies to fill them. She stopped and listened to a man explaining why oxen were better than mules, and then she moved on to the next person, to hear why mules were better than oxen. One woman was crying out about the importance of taking a milk cow on the trail, while right next to her a man insisted goats traveled better than cows and gave milk more reliably. Then there were the blacksmiths, shouting about the quality of their kettles and pots, and the grocers pointing people in the direction of their stores, with recommendations of how much flour, bacon, coffee, sugar and salt they should be buying.
It was head spinning. Georgiana felt a vague sense of panic. She didn’t even own a kettle, let alone a milk cow! She had so much to do . . .
She wriggled through the crowd in search of the captains. That’s where she should start. She should find a group to join, or she and the children would be stranded. And, despite what Mrs. Tilly had suggested last night, she had no intention of leaving such important matters to a husband . . . particularly as the quality of husband was proving to be of concern.
She could worry about kettles and cows once they were booked in with a group. Maybe the captain could give her advice on what kind of kettle she’d need, because the Lord knew she had no idea.
Matt Slater was a captain. He’d know about kettles. Stop thinking about him. He wasn’t even going to California. He was going to Oregon.
He said he didn’t have a wife there, but maybe he had a fiancée, or a sweetheart?
Stop it.
She was going to California. It didn’t matter what Matt Slater was doing.
She needed to join a train—that was the only thing she should be thinking about right now. Matt Slater had mentioned someone who led parties on the California branch of the trail. She couldn’t remember his name; it was something biblical. He and Matt Slater shared the trail until Fort Hall, she remembered. She bit her lip. Maybe Mr. Slater was here somewhere and she could ask him what the man’s name was again . . .
