Prologue

New Orleans, Louisiana

March 1881

“You ain’t nothing but a loathsome man,” Irene had heard her older brother, Alfie, holler as she stepped out the church doors. His voice was like nails on a chalkboard, sudden and harsh, and Irene barely knew how to make sense of any of it when she turned the corner and saw him, left-footed and clumsy, trying to shove Mr. Claude Franke.

Irene barely had to think before she caught hold of Alfie, grabbing his arm before he did something he regretted right at the church’s door. “Alfie,” she said, and with that firm murmur of his name, Irene’s older brother seemed to come to something near sense.

Or, at least, it seemed like sense. “Irene,” Alfie had said, his eyes softening when he turned back toward her. His eyes met hers, a dark brown that was similar to hers, but never the same. It couldn’t be. Irene was adopted, after all. Though just looking at the way Alfie regarded her then wouldn’t have told you that.

Alfie had always treated Irene like his flesh and blood.

Half a second later, his anger seemed to come back. Irene saw his jaw clench, the ball of his fist at his side. She knew he was going to rile himself up some more then.

Maybe that’s why she kept her hand on him.

Alfie had always been gangly and slim. Red hair, a big nose, and pale as the moonlight. Irene’s parents had once prayed for a miracle that would lead to a day like this. One when their son, Alfie, would be strong enough to be considered a man.

Irene knew that better than anyone. Just as she also knew that the pair would rather die than have the handful of eyes that were turned to Alfie on that cloudy spring day staring the way they did.

“Alfie!” Irene insisted, taking his arm once more and failing this time to pull him back.

Alfie had descended upon Mr. Franke, hand all knotted up in the man’s collar, eyes alight with rage as he managed to jostle the man another inch.

It was an achievement, really. Mr. Franke was a short, stout man about twenty years Alfie’s senior, with constantly pink, waxy skin and an upturned nose like a pig’s. Rumor had it that his nose pointed to the heavens the way that it did from turning up his nose at anyone who entered his shop with less than two dollars in their pockets. The man was rich with a capital R, all dressed in fine woolen suits the likes of which New Orleans only saw in the business quarter. Of course, all that money couldn’t buy him hair, or hide the way the New Orleans’ heat made him sweat good and hard, so the back of his collar was near-constantly soaked.

“How long have you been planning this?” Alfie demanded of the man. Irene had no idea what he was talking about.

Alfie was no businessman. He played the trumpet down in the French quarter—outside of their small church, he hardly had business with a man like Mr. Franke.

“Well?” Alfie asked, shoving once more at the man’s collar, not minding the way they were carefully balanced on a cement step at the church doorstep. “Weeks?” Alfie asked, pushing again. “Months? Years?” His voice was higher, near hysterical—

It died away the second a heavy hand came to rest on his shoulder.

“You,” Alfie said, turning back just as Irene took a step down, allowing her adoptive father to step into the light, his cracked lips pursed, and his hooded eyes peeled toward the crowd. Max Gracefield would be far more concerned with the watching eyes than any damage his son might cause.

“Alfred,” their father warned in that tone of voice that always made Irene shrink.

Irene winced and stepped back, just about tripping on the stairs as she did so. She could feel the hawklike stare of her mother as she appeared behind Mr. Gracefield, ever exhausted with the perceived inadequacy of her adopted daughter.

Alfie, however, could do no wrong. Even as he turned back on his father with a snarl, his lip peeling back to show his upper teeth.

“How could you do this to her? To me?” Alfie asked. “Irene, you know what they did?”

“Alfie, darlin’,” Mrs. Gracefield clucked before Irene could respond, “let’s not make a scene.”

“Let’s not make a scene?” Alfie asked, eyes wide as he looked almost theatrically to the one thing his parents truly care about—the gathering crowd. “Let’s not make a scene?” Alfie repeated. He seemed to be asking the other churchgoers if they had heard what his mother had said. “A man goes leaning to me in the middle of a church pew and tells me he looks forward to being my brother-in-law in two weeks’ time without me having heard a peep about it until then, and you tell me not to make a scene?” Alfie asked as a cold chill tore through Irene’s body. “A man near three times my sister’s dang age, and you ain’t want me to have something to say to that?” Alfie asked, brows rising and teeth gritted.

The thin, bent-backed Maude Gracefield winced away from her son, stepping behind her husband’s formidable form.

Max Gracefield, all thick shoulders, dark red hair, and lumpy nose, glared back at his son. “Your mama’s family’s been going to this church for eight generations, now, you ain’t gonna make a scene and ruin that for us,” he snarled, and Alfie scowled. “You get down these stairs and get walking before you make a fool out of us. The pastor’s gon’ hear you.”

“Or what?” Alfie spat, staring down at his father. “I’m near a man. I make my own wages; I can get a room out at Miss Buntie’s if you so much as dream of doing anything to—” Alfie’s words stopped as their father turned his head.

Irene knew where he would look. It was the same place he always looked when Alfred acted up. Her.

Alfie shoved in front of her with a grimace, staring at his father with a look between disgust and humiliation.

“Irene, get to walking,” their father said, and Irene did as she always did.

Exactly as her parents asked.

***

The fight continued once they were home. The front door rattled in its frame as Alfie slammed it behind him, clearly not caring about the large cracks that were already in the wall or how splinters of the wood chipped off in protest.

“Ain’t God teach about being satisfied with what you have?” was the first thing Alfie asked once they were home. The door was shut firmly behind him, and no one on the street would hear them. Maybe that was why Papa got to preaching.

“God tells us to take the opportunities He gives us—”

“She ain’t an opportunity!” Alfred snapped so loudly that Irene couldn’t help but stumble, her brother’s grasp catching her before she could trip over the old jug that Papa kept by the doorway.

“You’re right, she’s the test God gave us before He decided to save you—” Mama began.

Alfie didn’t so much as dignify that statement with a response. Instead, he whirled, looking at Irene with wild eyes before asking, “Did they tell you?”

“Now, Alfie, don’t you go riling your sister up,” their mother insisted. “You know she ain’t one to say much—”

“Did they tell you what they did?” Alfie said between gritted teeth, ignoring Mama as she swatted at his shoulder.

Both his hands were on Irene’s shoulders. His eyes were wide. The normally easy smile on his face was gone, and Irene couldn’t help but spend more time worrying about how wrong it all looked than grasp what he was saying. At least until Alfie put it bluntly.

“They done sold you to that old man,” Alfie said, and with that, her world came crashing down.

***

Irene could still hear all the yelling and stomping downstairs as she sat in her bedroom minutes later. The cross on her wall swung with every loud slam. Alfie had reached his breaking point, spurred on by the words whispered to him by Mr. Franke on that cloudy and grey Sunday.

And in Mama and Papa’s mind, and almost Irene’s, too, there would only be one person to blame—her.

Sitting on her bed, holding the small, woven bracelet that had been left with her when she was a baby, Irene couldn’t help but wonder the same thing that she’d wondered over and over again for years: what life would have looked like if her mother, the woman who had birthed her, had kept her.

The Gracefields had never wanted a daughter. They couldn’t afford one, but the Lord had given them one anyway. At their darkest hour, when Alfie had been bad with a fever, knocking on death’s door, and Mama had begged God to save him, Irene had arrived.

Bundled up in a basket and left on the failing tailor’s doorstep. Mama always told her that she had her doubts when she looked down at Irene in that basket. That she wondered how she would feed some stranger’s baby and take care of her own. But Mama and Papa were good people who trusted in the Lord, and they’d known when Irene showed up at their doorstep that it was a test from their Lord and Savior.

That was why Mama and Papa had taken Irene into the small, crowded house. Why they had taken on a baby girl when they could barely afford to feed themselves, and why the Lord had eventually rewarded them by breaking Alfie’s fever and giving Irene the steady hands to do the fine stitching that needed doing while Mama cut the fabric and Papa did all the number crunching.

But there were, of course, limits to God’s kindness.

Papa could only make enough shirtwaists to pay rent and feed a few mouths. As the years went by, Irene did more and more to earn her keep, never complaining. But she should have known there would come a time when the Gracefields could no longer afford to keep her. When no other options remained. Irene had prayed near nightly for her family’s prosperity, but she must not have been pious enough, or said the right thing. Mama had never bothered to teach her the right words to whisper to God, always saying that you had to prove yourself to get so much as a whisper in the Big Man’s ear.

Irene’s prayers just weren’t important enough for Him to hear.

Irene’s head was bent, and her eyes were closed when she heard the soft knock at her door. She stood from her prayer, not knowing how much time had passed since she had first craned her neck—the sky had turned from light to dark, and not a soul had checked on her since the morning congregation.

Irene’s stomach grumbled, but she crossed the room in a matter of two steps, opening the door to see Alfie standing on the other side, looking like she’d never seen him before. Alfie was bruised and bloodied from all his fighting, with a split lip and a shiner the likes of which made Irene go pale.

She’d heard the banging downstairs, of course. The walls weren’t thick enough to hide it. But in all the years they had been together, Mama and Papa had never laid hands on Alfie.

“Alfie—”

He pushed into her room. “You gotta be quiet now so they don’t hear ya, sis,” Alfie warned, his one good eye begging. “Shoot, has your room always been so small?” he asked, squinting at the former storage space.

Alfie grimaced as he looked at the large stain on the ceiling. He shook his head at it, and only seemed to become more determined then.

“Ma and Pa are sleeping now, and I’m fearing that this might be my only chance,” Alfie said. “Irene, we’ve got to get you out of here,” he continued, turning back to her.

“What are you saying?” Irene asked in confusion.

“I’m saying, Claude Franke is not a good man, and as much as I want to believe otherwise, them two roosting in their bedroom right now ain’t good Christians,” Alfie said, swinging his arm so Irene could see the large carpetbag he held. “Heck, I can’t claim to be a good one, either. But, Irene, you are my little sister, and I’m going to do good by you, even if it’s just this once,” he said, stepping to Irene’s drawers and wrenching them open. “If you marry Claude Franke, he’s gonna make the rest of your life a living nightmare. But if you leave now…” Alfie grabbed Irene’s clothing by the fistful, cramming it in the bag. “We gotta get you out of here, and quick—before they come marching up them stairs to check that all is good and well.”

“And how would I do that?” Irene asked fearfully.

“I was afraid you’d ask that,” Alfie winced, and then he reached into his front pocket and showed her something he most certainly should not have.

***

Hours later, the two of them stood side by side in New Orleans’ cheapest, most run-down train station. Chipped paint blew in the breeze as Irene’s brother stood protectively at her side, having taken one look at the worn bench behind them and announced the two would sooner stand than face the splinters. Night had turned ink blue, and only the dim lights from the platform and the bright shine of oncoming trains illuminated the world around them.

Alfie stood beside her, her hand in his and his eyes peeled for trouble like any good big brother’s should have been. Though truthfully, the trouble was something Alfie had brought.

“Don’t feel bad about it,” Alfie said for the umpteenth time. “It’s my inheritance, and you ain’t the one who stole it,” he insisted. “The sin’s on me. You ain’t bad for taking what’s given.”

He said that, and yet Irene couldn’t help but feel guilty anyway.

The two of them waited side by side, Irene bound for the only train coming that late at night. One headed to Colorado Springs.

“I can’t do this without you,” Irene said after a minute longer, her nerves already shot and the shine on Alfie’s black eye making her feel all sorts of empty.

“I ain’t got enough money for two tickets,” Alfie said with a shrug, “and besides, what’s a trumpet player gonna do outside of New Orleans?”

“There’s always a place for music in the world,” Irene said, more sure of that fact than anything. She might have lived her whole life quiet as a church mouse, but the Lord didn’t want the world to be silent.

“I can’t,” Alfie said. “This money won’t go far with the two of us.”

“Alfie,” Irene said, looking at her brother with cloudy eyes as they waited in the cool night air. “I don’t know how to be just me on my own,” she said. “You know as well as I do that the Lord never hears when I call,” Irene added, so sure of that fact after years with Mama.

“That ain’t true,” Alfie insisted, but Irene couldn’t believe him. Not when it came to this. “Then I’ll call,” Alfie said decisively after a moment. And, as loud as he always was, Alfie threw his head back on that empty platform and said, “Lord, if You are listening, please, oh please, give my baby sister someone to travel with. Someone who You’ll listen to, so she can find a new place to call home.”

Irene didn’t expect anything immediate when he said it. Prayers were rarely, if ever, the sort of thing that you found answered immediately.

But as they stood there, side by side for the final time, something strange happened.

A meow filled the air, and with that soft, crying sound, Alfie turned back to his sister with a raised brow. “Well,” he said, “I’d say that’s as sure a sign as any that He answered.”

Chapter One

Colorado Springs, Colorado

March 1881

Irene kept her head down and her hand on the top of her basket as she moved down Main Street. It made it easier not to attract attention, and the one thing that Irene had learned over the years was that she never wanted to attract attention. Not being a woman, and especially not being one out on her own, far from home.

Though, Irene admitted to herself as she entered the boarding house she’d been staying in, she was not on her own but rather mostly on her own.

“And you’re sure no one near you has cats?” the boarding house mistress, Mrs. Marple, asked one of the dark-haired women who had checked in the night before, convinced that she was lying as she scratched her delicate nose.

Irene kept her head down.

“Now, I ain’t accusing you of nothing,” Mrs. Marple said as Irene passed her by, eyes still fixed on the woman in front of her and nose still twitching. “All I’m saying is that there had to have been a cat that came in, and it had to have been last night…”

Thank heavens Irene blended into the woodwork of just about every building she stood in. She wouldn’t have known what to say if Mrs. Marple had accused her. Not when she knew the truth well and good.

A simple click of the lock and slide through the crack, then Irene saw her.

Lounging on the bed, splayed out as she bathed herself. Breadbox.

“I hope you know that you are a wanted woman,” Irene told her, reaching over to scratch the black and white cat behind the ears. She took a seat beside the cat on the bed, unsurprised when Breadbox began to poke her nose into the basket. “I suppose I’m a wanted woman, too,” Irene admitted, shaking her head sadly as she lifted the lid of the basket and showed Breadbox what she had brought back with her.

Fish. A brown, muddy thing that was the cheapest meat Irene could get. She had to make her money stretch as far as possible, after all. Lord knew when she would find work.

“Now, don’t you go licking that fish,” Irene cautioned Breadbox as she grabbed hold of the fish and scooted down the bed. “You know I have to eat it, too.”

Irene took a seat at the head of the bed and pulled the nightstand near to her, setting the fish out in front of her. Breadbox turned up the nose the moment the fish was laid bare, obviously not liking what she saw. Big surprise.

“It’s going to look better once I clean it,” Irene said, pulling open the drawer of her nightstand to expose a small pocket knife that Alfie had given her.

Her chest tightened as she lifted it into the air, the engraving of Alfie’s name catching in the light. He’d looked guilty when he’d given it to her, admitting that the knife was silver. As if Irene hadn’t already realized that the Gracefields saved all the best of everything for Alfie. Irene didn’t mind; she never had. Years she’d lived with them and cleaned the home, done all the sewing that a tailor’s apprentice probably should have, and prepared every meal in Mama’s stead.

Now, Irene didn’t have a job, but she desperately needed one. Thus why she had chosen fish even when she would have much rather have had chicken.

“All right,” Irene reassured herself as she set the knife on the nightstand. The moisture from the fish was already soaking into the newspaper; all that muddy water had been dripping out of it during Irene’s whole walk home. But Irene made out what little of the newsprint that she could, her eyes going to the same ad they had a week ago, when she’d been a little more confident in not running out of money and had bought a wrapped pastry.

It was wiping the grease off her fingers from her hand pie that Irene had seen it and knew that she needed to pinch every penny she had left. At least until she could get a job of some kind.

“The Colorado Springs College for Women,” Irene read once more, if only so that she could get the thrill of saying it out loud. Supposedly, some of the other female boarders Mrs. Marple was housing went there. “What a dream,” Irene said, and despite the fact that she knew it could only be that, she dared to hold onto it.

Irene had always wanted to go to school. She’d always wanted to learn everything, to know everything. Maybe become one of those school teachers who went traveling around the country, invited into other people’s homes, and treated not only as if they belonged but as if what they did truly mattered.

Lord, to be a teacher and be welcomed somewhere. Irene could only dream; the reason why was as clear as day and featured as a tagline on the bottom of the college’s ad.

“Ladies, ask your husband about St. Jude’s,” Irene repeated out loud with a frown. “But what about us who ain’t got husbands?” she asked, looking up to Breadbox like she should have some sort of answer.

Meow.

“You’re right,” Irene said, taking hold of the fish and lifting it from the slimy pages as she opened the paper to the classified ads. “We get jobs.”

Of course, there weren’t many jobs for women.

Irene let the fish fall from her hand and stared down at the classified ads with a frown. There weren’t any ads for unmarried women—well, save for one.

Breadbox meowed.

“It ain’t that kind of cathouse, Breadie,” Irene said, grimacing at the large, boxed-in ad. She’d already heard whispers of the brothel just outside of town—the women of the boarding house loved to gossip with Mrs. Marple. But there was a difference between hearing about a cathouse outside of town and seeing an inches-long ad with a cartoon cat lounging coyly at the bottom of it. Irene had to remind herself that it was mainly men who read the newspapers. That’s why all the classifieds insisted on asking your husband all proper like, to fluff up their egos and remind them that the world was made for them.

And that a woman could hardly live in any of it without them.

“A shame they don’t advertise husbands in the newspaper,” Irene said, “because that would solve all my problems.” Or at least some of them. The ones that really, Irene shouldn’t have let become her problems.

Who was she to dream of going to college?

“Argh,” Irene sighed, flopping back on her mattress in exasperation. “The amount of money we got will only last us a week at most, and that’s if we’re lucky. I wouldn’t put it past Ma and Pa to send some policemen after me,” she said, reaching blindly for Breadbox. “And then, there will be no marriage for me. Just straight to the slammer. They’ll tell me that’s the only pious thing worth doing.”

Breadbox rubbed herself against Irene’s hand in consolation. The feeling of her long, fluffy fur between Irene’s fingers was enough for Irene to turn to her, asking the same thing that she seemed to do multiple times a day.

“Pray with me, Breadbox?” Irene asked, lip jutted and eyes pleading as she did so. Mama always said that God might not be able to hear someone like Irene. That’s why Irene had prayed next to Alfie her whole life and was now begging a cat to stand by her side as she closed her eyes.

Irene’s hands braced together, she held her breath, and she spoke, “Dear Lord, if You’re out there and You hear us, please send me a husband,” Irene joked, never good at the whole voicing her prayers thing. Not when Alfie and others had done it for her her whole life.

A smile played on her lips, but it left Irene half a second later when she realized how desperately she wanted this. Not the husband, but the school. The life. The freedom. She reconsidered her words and spoke far more carefully.

“Dear Lord,” she began again. “If You are out there, and You are listening to someone like me, please just…” Irene trailed off. She grimaced, but she admitted it out loud, “I want to go to that school more than anything, and I beg You, if You can hear me, please just show me a way to get there, and I promise I will work as hard as ever so You don’t regret it,” Irene said.

And though God was rarely prompt, when she opened her eyes, Irene saw it.

Irene jolted from her bed. “Looking for a mail-order bride?” she read, her voice barely a whisper as she struggled to believe it. God had heard her!

A small part of the newspaper hung over the side of the nightstand, and that’s where it was. The ad that promised her everything she’d asked for, unmarked by the mud and muck draining out of the fish above.

She tore it off carefully and stared down at it, astonished by her good luck.

“And he’s in Colorado to boot. We gotta write him right away, Breadie,” Irene told Breadbox as the cat swiped playfully at the ad’s curling edges. She turned toward her bag, pulling out the half-empty ink bottle and crinkled pages Alfie had packed away for her. “This is as sure a sign as any. Whoever this man is, he could be my blessing.