Prologue

Oxcross, Colorado, the Spring of 1859

Henrietta Witt brushed a strand of chestnut-colored hair behind her ear and sighed. The late afternoon sun was streaming in through the small window in her bedroom and it warmed her face as she closed her cornflower blue eyes and took a deep breath. Somewhere in the distance, a dove cooed softly, and to Henrietta, it was a melancholy sound, that of one final goodbye.

Henrietta opened her eyes again and turned toward the bed. She reached for the handle of her small carpet bag and clutched the mother-of-pearl handle tightly in her left hand as she lifted it off the bed. It was light, a true testament to how little Henrietta really had left in this world.

She had lived in the large manor house for over three years and Henrietta knew it like the back of her hand. As she made her way out of the bedroom, she ran her right hand along the walls, feeling for the pulse of the house, which had become as familiar as her own heartbeat.

After Henrietta lost her parents and younger sister over three years ago, she thought she would never find a family or a home again. Then she met Mrs. Selma Day, a wealthy widow who welcomed her into her house like a second daughter. Their meeting had been one designed by God, or fate, depending on what one believed. Henrietta did not know what she would have done had it not been for Selma. Yet now Selma was gone, and the place that Henrietta had come to call home was being boarded up and forgotten.

Henrietta’s shiny black boots clapped against the stones on the kitchen floor as she made her way to the back door. She carefully placed her bag down on the step outside and then wandered into the garden.

As she walked along the wide, paved path, her skirts brushed against the aromatic plants, the air filled with the warm, herbaceous aromas of thyme, basil, and sage. She’d lost count of how many hours she had spent in the large kitchen garden in the past three years. She loved it there, all the smells, sounds, textures, and tastes. Being there made her feel as if she were experiencing the world just as other people did.

The entire kitchen garden was enclosed in a low wall made of old stone and as Henrietta came to the end of the gardens, she stopped. On her left was a large rosemary bush and she reached across to pick a piece; as her fingertips broke the woody stem in two, it snapped softly and she brought the stem to her nose and breathed in the sharp, crisp aroma. As she did, the leaves touched the top of her lip and felt similar to the bristles of a brush.

“Rosemary for remembrance,” Henrietta said to herself, tucking the woody stem into the pocket of her skirt.

Henrietta continued down the path, and soon the paving gave way to grass, and her boots sank into the soft earth as she walked. They’d had a lot of rain the past few weeks and the smell of it still clung to the air. Henrietta loved the rain, not just the smell but the sound. Henrietta’s little sister, Hannah, used to be terrified of thunderstorms, but not Henrietta—had she gotten her own way, she would have thrown off all her clothes and danced in the rain.

As she stood, clinging to her memories of the past, Henrietta could not stop from recalling the very first time that she and Selma had walked together in the garden. It had been the first day that Henrietta had come to the manor house and she’d been so broken by the tragedy of her family that she felt hollow, so hollow that the slightest breeze would blow her away like the seeds of a dandelion. Yet that day in the garden, that very first day, Selma had not treated Henrietta as something other or different and it was this, Selma’s ability to see past all that Henrietta had lost, that marked a turning point in her own life. Without Selma, Henrietta was not sure she would be there now, three years later. The woman had saved her, in all the ways that a person could be saved.

“Henrietta?”

Henrietta was suddenly pulled from the past and she turned toward the call.

“Henrietta? Are you here?”

“I am here,” Henrietta said.

The soft footsteps grew louder, and on the light breeze, Henrietta caught the distinctive sweet-smelling aroma of carbolic soap.

“I’ve been looking for you everywhere,” Doris Olsen said, a hint of concern in her slightly adenoidal voice.

Doris Olsen had worked as a housemaid in the manor for over five years and soon after Henrietta arrived, the two had become close friends. They were similar in age, and Henrietta always found Doris to have a wonderful sense of humor, and a kindness about her that seemed to radiate from her pores and warm whatever room she stepped in. She, like Selma, saw the potential in Henrietta, rather than the problem, and it was something she would always cherish in her friend.

“I am sorry,” Henrietta replied. “But I just wanted to take one more walk around the gardens.”

Doris said nothing for a moment but Henrietta heard her sigh softly and she knew that her friend was equally devastated that they were leaving.

“I am sure going to miss it here,” she said.

“Me too,” Henrietta agreed, a lump rising in her throat.

“Although I am not sure that I’ll miss Mrs. Tucker and her particular ways,” Doris said, lightening the mood. “I think I can count on my hands how many times I did something right in the last five years.”

Henrietta smiled to herself. Mrs. Tucker had been the housekeeper at the manor, but she’d left the day before, and although Doris was right, the older woman was particular, Henrietta had grown quite fond of her over the past years. She was just another person now part of her past, another face lost to the passing of time.

“Shall we go?” Doris asked.

Henrietta hesitated for a moment. The truth was that she’d been dreading this moment for months, ever since Selma passed away and the lawyers turned up at the front door. It had taken Selma’s distant relatives over a month to cross the channel and arrive in the town of Oxcross, Colorado. While they waited, it felt as if the whole house and everyone who lived in it were suspended in time, neither here nor there. It was a difficult time for Henrietta, having lost yet another person she loved, and it was also a frustrating time, not knowing what the future would bring and where she, and the others, would go next.

Eventually the long-lost relations arrived and they’d come with the same airs and graces all British had when stepping on American soil for the first time. They complained about the food, the smell of the streets, and the gruffness of the people. They did not spare any feelings when it came to the manor, either. They’d walked around the house, their noses so high in the air that all they could really see was the ceiling, and declared that no one in their right mind would live in such a place. It had taken everything Henrietta had to hold her tongue and not to give them a piece of her mind.

Within less than an hour, they’d decided the fate of twelve people. All the staff would be let go at once, the furniture covered, and the house closed up, until a time when they could think about what was to be done. They’d left the same afternoon, but not without filling their pockets with Selma’s possessions and declaring their old aunt nutty as an old fruitcake.

For months they’d waited, and in the space of one short afternoon, Henrietta and the rest of the staff’s fate was sealed, and they were given their packing orders. However, unlike the others, Henrietta had no family to return to and very little money to secure any kind of future. After the death of her parents and sister, she’d come almost straight to the manor and had been Selma’s companion since then. She had a bit of money saved but not enough to live on, not really, and Henrietta knew her chances at being hired again in any capacity were small.

“Hattie?” Doris said, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Are you okay?”

Henrietta blinked back tears as she did her best to smile. “Yes, I am okay. You are right, we should go.”

Doris placed her hand on Henrietta’s forearm and guided her back across the garden, and although Henrietta did not need her assistance, it was comforting to feel the warmth of her friend’s hand through the fabric of her shirt. That was another thing she loved about Doris—she knew just the right thing to do without having to ask or be told.

“Where is your bag?” Doris asked.

“I left it by the kitchen door,” Henrietta said.

“I’ll get it,” Doris offered. “I’ll be right back.”

Henrietta heard the bits of gravel between the paving stones crunch between Doris’s boots as she made her way toward the kitchen, and a few moments later, she returned.

“Let’s go,” Doris said as she steered Henrietta away from the manor.

The two friends walked the short distance to the gate that led out of the back of the large courtyard and as Doris swung open the small wrought iron gate, it squeaked loudly on its hinges. Henrietta hesitated a moment as she turned to face the large house. She’d never seen it, not with her own two eyes, but for years she’d felt it, breathed its smells, and it had been her home. It seemed impossible that she was leaving, and the weight of this reality made her heart feel as if it were made of lead.

“It’s a pity Mrs. Day’s relatives couldn’t see the potential in the old place,” Doris said. “Who knows how long it’ll stay boarded up?”

Henrietta could imagine the house months from now, when the heavy drapes were dressed in layers of dust and the cobwebs hung in fragile veils from the roof. When the furniture, covered in large white sheets, resembled ghosts in a mausoleum. Part of Henrietta was glad that she would never see the manor reduced to such a state. She hated to think what Selma would have said if she’d been alive.

“At least she’s not here to see it,” Henrietta said. “It would have broken her heart.”

“Come on,” Doris said, tugging at the sleeve of her blouse. “We’d better get going before it gets dark.”

Henrietta took a deep breath and let Doris guide her down the narrow path through the woods at the back of the manor. The town was just on the other side, two miles or so away, separated from the manor by a thick wood made up of centuries-old trees. When the first settlers came to Oxcross, the woods had been teeming with wildlife, but years of shooting had reduced the numbers significantly and now a stag was a rare sight to be seen.

“Do you remember the first day you came to the manor?” Doris asked, a smile in her voice.

“Of course I do,” Henrietta said, smiling too.

“I was scrubbing the kitchen floor while Mrs. Tucker was going on about something or other that I’d done wrong, and then in you stepped, your skirts covered in dust and your hair standing up in every direction.” Doris chuckled at the memory.

“Well, to be fair, I’d almost been stomped to death by Selma’s horses.”

“True,” Doris agreed. “In fact, I’d say you looked pretty good, all things considered.”

Henrietta could remember that day as if it were yesterday. Her parents and sister had only been dead for a week and she’d been sleepwalking for the entire time, alive but not numb. She’d stepped into the road and almost been killed by Selma’s buggy. The older woman had jumped out and pulled Henrietta to her feet and asked if she were blind, to which Henrietta said she was, and the rest was history.

“Do you need to stop and take a breath?” Doris asked after a short while.

“No,” Henrietta said. “I’m fine.”

“Okay,” Doris said. “But the path gets a bit slippery up ahead and it’s worse with all the rain.”

Henrietta felt Doris tighten her grip on her forearm as they continued forward. As Doris had predicted, the path was slippery, and they went slowly. She could feel the bottoms of her skirts were wet with mud, and by the time they were through the worst of it, Henrietta’s heart-shaped face was flushed with exertion.

“The house isn’t much further,” Doris said, a note of encouragement in her voice. “We are just coming through the end of the woods now.”

As the words left her mouth, Henrietta felt the warm sun on her face again as they stepped out from under the cool shade of the trees.

“This is one of my favorite views in the whole of Oxcross,” Doris said. “From up here, you can see the roofs of all the houses and shops in the valley. When I was a child, I used to pretend I was a mythical giant, and if I leaned over, I could scoop up the whole town in one hand and tuck it safely away in my pocket.”

“Our pa never let us come this far,” Henrietta said. “He was always worried that we might meet robbers or highwaymen.”

“Or little girls with scruffy skirts and dirty knees,” Doris teased.

Henrietta smiled. “I wish we had met when we were girls. We would have had so much fun together.”

“We’d have gotten up to some mischief to be sure,” Doris chuckled. “Still, I am glad we met when we did and became friends.”

“So am I,” Henrietta agreed.

“Come on,” Doris said. “Home is just over the hill.”

Henrietta and Doris continued on their way. It was kind of Doris to offer Henrietta a place to stay, but she knew that it was only temporary. Doris and her family did not have much and by all accounts, their house was small. The Olsens lived on a small holding with some horses and chickens that had belonged to Doris’s maternal grandparents. It was the only thing of value they had. Doris had warned Henrietta countless times that it was a far cry from the manor, but she was just grateful to have a place to go for a while.

“Timothy is going to ask you all sorts of questions,” Doris wanted. “I’ve told him not to be such a busybody and to mind his own business, but you know what little siblings are like.”

Henrietta smiled sadly. She missed her little sister and often wondered what she’d be like if she were still alive. She would be turning seventeen that summer, the same age Henrietta was the last time she saw Hannah alive.

“Sorry,” Doris apologized, her tone full of regret. “That was thoughtless.”

“It’s okay,” Henrietta insisted.

Doris slipped her arm through Henrietta’s and she smelled that sweet scent of carbolic soap again.

“I think things are going to change for you,” Doris said, her voice bright and full of hope. “You’ve been dealt a terrible hand, but your luck is changing. I can feel it in my bones.”

Henrietta said nothing. She did not know if Doris was right; all she knew was that no matter how much she wanted life to stop, it never did. No one could hold back time and certainly no one could turn it back. Things changed, people moved on, and those left behind were always the ones left picking up the pieces.

Chapter One

Oxcross, Colorado, the Summer of 1859

The hot June sun hung in the sky as if refusing to accept that the afternoon had come at last. Beads of perspiration formed on Henrietta’s neck as the flies buzzed against the glass of the kitchen window. It was one of those days where even breathing was a chore and all Henrietta wanted to do was escape the world and lie beneath a weeping willow tree with her feet dangling in a cool stream.

“This must be the hottest day of the summer,” Doris complained.

Henrietta said nothing. It was too hot to talk. The kitchen itself was stuffy since Doris’s mother, Mrs. Olsen, had a thing about opening windows. According to Doris, when Mrs. Olsen was a child growing up in Wisconsin, a black bear had climbed in through the kitchen window and half scared her out of her wits. Ever since then, she’d kept the windows tightly shut. Henrietta was certain a bear climbing through the window would be preferable to the stuffiness of the room, but she had not thought it wise to share her feelings with Mrs. Olsen. Unlike Doris, Mrs. Olsen did not have much of a sense of humor about such things.

“Let’s go out onto the porch,” Doris suggested. “Perhaps our presence out there will inspire a breeze.”

Henrietta got up from the table and followed Doris outside. The small porch had a table in the middle and four rickety chairs. Henrietta stretched out her arms until her fingers felt the back of one of the chairs, and pulled it out. In the past few months, she’d come to know the Olsen house well, and with Doris’s strict instruction, no piece of furniture was ever moved from one position to another. This, of course, was for Henrietta’s benefit, although she often worried it made her an unwelcome houseguest.

Doris sat down opposite Henrietta but then sighed heavily.

“What is it?” Henrietta asked.

“I promised Ma that we’d shell the peas while she was out.”

“Go and get them,” Henrietta suggested. “We can do them out here.”

Doris’s chair scraped back as she got up to go. A short while later, Doris returned and placed a bowl in front of Henrietta and she reached into the bowl, feeling with her fingertips for a hard glossy shell to peel.

“Where are your parents?” Henrietta asked as she pierced the seam of the pod with her nails and cracked it open.

“They went to see Timothy’s teacher,” Doris said. “He’s been having some issues with the other boys.”

“What kind of issues?” Henrietta asked.

Doris did not answer for a moment but she exhaled slowly.

“Last week, one of the other boys threw away his sandwiches into the bushes behind the school because he didn’t like the jam that his ma had put on it. Timothy saw him throw it away and he went to retrieve it after all the boys had gone to play. But one of them saw him eating it and told the others and now they won’t stop teasing him.”

Henrietta’s stomach sank. She knew that the food situation in the Olsen house was getting worse by the day. The problem was that Mr. Olsen no longer worked much. He used to be a ranch hand, but his leg had been crushed in a horse accident and the owner of the ranch had to let him go. Doris had been the sole breadwinner until the manor closed down, and since then they’d been getting by with what they had, but the money that Henrietta had saved was now gone and she was relying on the Olsens to feed her. She knew it was only a matter of time before the food ran out.

“Don’t worry,” Doris said, reading the expression on Henrietta’s face. “It will blow over. You know how kids can be. They’re ruthless. It won’t be long before they find someone new to tease.”

“It’s not just Tim,” Henrietta said. “We both know that I can’t stay here forever, Doris.”

Doris sighed. Henrietta had brought up this conversation every day that week and she knew that Doris was growing bored of it, but ignoring the problem would not make it go away. She loved her friend for wanting her to stay, but Henrietta did not want to be a burden, not on anyone.

“You don’t need to leave,” Doris said. “Seriously, it will all work itself out, you’ll see.”

“Doris, your little brother is digging for scraps out of the bushes at school—”

“Timothy probably would have done that even if he’d taken lunch that day,” Doris argued. “He’s got about as much pride as a raccoon.”

Henrietta frowned but said nothing. She knew that Doris was making light of the situation, something she was very good at doing, but she still felt awful about it. She wished she could do more, help out more, but her blindness made it difficult to do as much as she wanted, and Henrietta was constantly frustrated with herself for her limitations.

“Why are carrots orange and pointy?” Doris said, changing the subject.

“Why?”

“Because if it was green and round, it would be peas.”

Doris chortled to herself and Henrietta couldn’t help but smile as she picked up a pea from the bowl and threw it in Doris’s direction.

“Hey!” Doris complained. “Don’t waste food.”

Before Henrietta had a chance to reply, she heard the whinny of a horse and the rhythmic beating of its hooves. She smelt the dust rise from the ground as Mr. Olsen brought the buggy to a halt.

“They’re back,” Doris said,

Henrietta pressed her nails into the seam of another pea and a minute or two later, the stairs leading up to the old porch creaked.

“How did it go?” Doris asked.

“Fine,” Timothy said, his voice sounding quite the opposite of fine.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No, thanks. I am just going to go up to my room.”

Without another word, Timothy walked across the porch and into the house, his footsteps fading away down the hall.

“Well, if you have a better idea, then I am all ears, John,” came Mrs. Olsen’s shrill voice.

“All I am saying is that we need to start thinking about selling some of the furniture—”

“The furniture has been in my family for generations,” Mrs. Olsen argued. “Doris and Timothy are supposed to inherit it. We can’t just sell everything. Where will we sit? Where will we sleep? Do you propose we move into the barn with the rats, or how about the stables with the horses?”

“Don’t over exaggerate,” Mrs. Olsen said. “And Doris and Timothy won’t be inheriting anything if they starve to death—”

“And whose fault would that be?”

“If you are proposing I got my leg crushed by a horse on purpose then you are madder than I thought—” Mr. Olsen’s voice trailed off as he caught sight of Henrietta and Doris out of the corner of his eye. “Oh, I am sorry girls, I didn’t know you were out here.”

Neither Doris or Henrietta spoke, although she tried to smile as if they hadn’t overheard anything.

“I’d better get inside and see what I can scrape together for dinner,” Mrs. Olsen said, her voice bristling with indignation and she stalked off inside.

No one spoke until her hard and fast footsteps had faded into the house.

“Here,” Mr. Olsen said, the newspaper rustling in his hands as he handed it to Doris. “Maybe you can find something, anything. Goodness knows one of us needs to get a job before we really are sleeping in the barn with the rats.”

Unlike his wife, Mr. Olsen’s footsteps were slow and resigned as he disappeared inside, leaving Henrietta and Doris alone again. Doris paged through the paper and Henrietta sat quietly, waiting for her.

“So?” she asked, after a few minutes. “Is there anything?”

“Nothing,” Doris sighed. “Not unless you are skilled in arithmetic and have a gift with numbers or are a talented horseman with experience herding cattle cross country.”

Henrietta sat back in her chair and sighed.

“I suppose I could try dressing up like a man,” Doris said thoughtfully. “Although they might get suspicious when they realize I’ve never actually ridden a horse.”

Henrietta’s heart sank. How was it that it had been over four months since the manor closed and still they were unable to find work? Of course it was different for Henrietta, but Doris was young and able. She wasn’t bad at sewing and could bake a decent loaf of bread, yet there never seemed to be any jobs available that would suit her skills. It was endlessly frustrating.

“Ooh,” Doris said, playfully. “How would you feel about a marriage of convenience?”

“A what?” Henrietta said, frowning.

“Listen to this,” she said. “’A gentleman of twenty-six desires to correspond with a young lady between the ages of twenty and twenty-five with a view to matrimony. Intelligence and refinement indispensable. Address with the editor.’”

Henrietta said nothing. She knew that Doris had read the advertisement as a joke, but a marriage of convenience was something Henrietta had never considered

Doris snorted. “I suppose at least he wants someone intelligent and refined rather than someone affectionate and comely.”

Henrietta smiled but her mind was working quickly. She had always wanted to be a wife and mother, but after she went blind, she truly thought that life had seemed lost to her for good. But what if there was another way?

“We’d better get inside and help Ma,” Doris said, scraping her chair back again.

“I’ll be right in,” Henrietta said.

She waited for Doris to disappear inside before she leaned across the table and used her left hand to balance herself as she felt for the newspaper. She then picked it up and carried it inside, her mind still on the advertisement, and as she took the newspaper to her room, she could not stop herself from wondering what this man who wrote this advertisement was like, and what a life with him might look like.

After dinner that night, Henrietta went straight to bed but as she stared up at the ceiling, sleep felt far away. It was still humid and the mosquitoes buzzed around her head, but it was neither of these things that kept her awake, it was that man in the advertisement. Henrietta had always imagined that she would marry for love, but that idea seemed almost ludicrous to her now. Who would want to marry a homeless orphan, let alone a blind homeless orphan?

Henrietta rolled over onto her side; in the small bed beside her, Doris snored softly. She was not one to be overly disparaging of herself, but having gone blind and having lost her family and home in a fire, she was often forced to turn inwards and really look at what she had to offer.

Henrietta was kind, smart, and could hold her own in a conversation, but she could not perform housework to the same ability a seeing woman could, nor would she ever be able to. It took her time to get used to a space and to be able to maneuver herself around without aid. In the past three years, Selma and Doris had treated her as if she were a normal girl and she was grateful, but she could not just pretend. The truth was that she had a disability, and while she refused to let it define her, there really was no point in pretending that it did not exist.

A mosquito buzzed around her ear and Henrietta swatted the air until it stopped. She rolled back onto her back and sighed.

She knew that she wanted some kind of life, something more than what she had, and perhaps a marriage of convenience was the answer she’d been looking for all this time. There was the possibility that this man would reject her application after learning of her ailment, but for the first time since the manor closed, Henrietta felt as if she were taking charge of her life again.

Earlier that afternoon, Doris had said that things would work themselves out and perhaps this was what she meant. So, as the mosquitos continued to buzz in the darkness and an owl hooted outside the window, Henrietta promised herself that come morning, she would ask Doris to help her apply to the advertisement.