Prologue

Independence Home for Foundlings and Orphans

Independence, Missouri

March 1850

Amelia Calvert tugged at the collar of her plain blue cotton dress. The material was too tight, threatening to choke her.

Last year, she’d needed some clothing for her new position as secretary at the orphanage, and the dress had been a church donation. Despite the garment being snug, Amelia was happy to have it. The problem was it seemed to be changing sizes every day.

It’s not the dress, silly! It’s you.

She tugged at the collar again. How can I still be growing? Mercy me, I’m nineteen years old!

And yet, growing she was. The spindly little waif she’d been just last year was gone, replaced by a blossoming young woman. Rounded curves replaced sharp angles and protruding bones, while knobby knees and elbows had become softly padded.

Perhaps it’s all because of Mary Montgomery’s good food at the boardinghouse.

Amelia had been grateful for every meal she’d ever received all her life, no matter how unappetizing. She did have to admit, though, that the food at Addington’s Boardinghouse was far better than the food she’d eaten at the orphan asylum, mostly due to Mary Montgomery.

Mary was the cook at Addington’s but also Amelia’s friend and the only mother figure she’d had since the age of five.

If Amelia’s appearance was anything to go on, Mary’s cooking, prepared with the food Mr. Addington, the owner, bought, was far healthier, and much tastier, than the food at the orphanage. Amelia wondered at the unfairness of it all. Shouldn’t children’s health be given priority?

She felt as though she’d been cheated throughout her childhood, and it was clear to see by the changes in her during the last year she’d been right. Not all of it could be accounted for by her age alone.

Amelia’s blue eyes held a sparkle, the whites as clear and bright as new-fallen snow. Her brown hair, once frizzy and unruly, now fell in gentle curls down her back. The chestnut strands were sun-kissed with golden highlights, and on the occasional times she let her hair down in the privacy of her own bedroom, it looked like a glimmering waterfall.

However, in public, a proper young lady never wore her hair down. That would be inappropriate for both her secretarial position and her age now. Instead, she wore it in a bun, low on her nape, though she allowed gentle curls to frame her face, much like Mary. Amelia had scant friends, and with her position here at the home, she had very little time to make any, but Mary had been there for her during the last thirteen years.

Mary had been a matron and caretaker when Amelia, a tiny six-year-old, left orphaned by a coach accident, had arrived at the new asylum financed through local charities. Thirteen years ago, Mary had been there to welcome Amelia and had embraced her with open and loving arms. Those arms were still there to offer support to Amelia, even though Mary had lost her employment at the home a year ago, which led to her position as cook at Addington’s.

Amelia was still baffled as to why Mary had been dismissed at the orphanage. Mary professed to have no idea why Mr. Harding, the manager of Independence Home, had let her go, but as Mary often said, “He’s a strange one, that Mr. Harding. Who’s to understand the reasoning behind anything he does?”

Amelia concurred, even though she’d known Mr. Silas Harding for over a decade. She’d spent most of her life in this orphanage, her memories full of it. She’d learned her numbers, became proficient at reading, and had a fine hand when it came to writing. She’d been taught how to perform domestic tasks—cooking, cleaning, mending, baking—and had taken care of the younger charges. And when her eighteenth birthday heralded the need to take her leave of the only home she truly remembered, aside from the warm, comforting arms of her mother, Mr. Harding had offered her a position as his office secretary after a string of opportunity rejections.

She made her way to the only window in the small office. From the spot where the children’s home nestled on a small hilltop, she gazed at the hustle and bustle of downtown Independence in the distance. Thousands of people from hundreds of places had converged, hoping to find a coveted spot on a wagon train.

“Oh, to be going on an adventure,” she said, sighing longingly.

She tugged on the sash, craving some fresh air to make the office less stuffy from the unseasonably warm March weather, but the window appeared to be stuck. Funny, she’d had it open just a few days ago.

Now that it wouldn’t budge, she felt almost desperate to enjoy the breeze on her face. She wanted to hear the distant murmur of crowds, the clatter of wagon wheels, and the cacophony of animal sounds. Horses, oxen, mules, and farm animals were herded in an almost endless procession down the main street of town, some belonging to travelers, others being prepared for auction. In the wake of the animals’ plodding, thick dust hung in the air, almost obscuring the vast fields beyond, which were pitted with deep wagon tracks in the west.

“It’s so hot in here,” she complained, fanning her hand near her face.

Her faint reflection in the glass showed her expression, pinched in annoyance, and though she wasn’t one to smile like a loon—what do people have to smile about anyway?—she normally looked at least pleasant. But now she was hot, flustered and antsy, and desperately wanted a breeze.

She pushed her palms against the frame and tried to push it up, but it still wouldn’t slide. She stomped her booted foot in frustration and pounded against the wood to no avail.

Her face flared with heat and she felt the hot flush spreading over her skin.

Settle yourself. You’re panicking for nothing.

Amelia yanked at the top buttons of her dress, opening her collar so she could breathe. The small gold locket she wore hidden beneath her bodice spilled through the opening, and she clutched at it for comfort. It was the only thing she had left of her old life, her first life.

She pounded on the window again, feeling like a wild bird trapped in a cage. She couldn’t understand her sudden anxiety.

And then she heard the unmistakable shuffle of footsteps in the corridor.

He’s coming.

She’d been praying for a reprieve today from Mr. Harding’s unwanted attentions. He’d had meetings scheduled in town, and she’d thought perhaps they would last longer. She’d hoped beyond hope he would join his colleagues for a drink at one of the saloons so she could be long gone by the time he returned.

She hurriedly tried to rebutton her dress, but it was too late. Whirling around, she found Silas Harding watching her. His tall, massive frame took up the entire doorway. He was dressed in a suit so austere it should have been on an undertaker, not on the administrative caretaker to dozens of parentless charges. He could bring a sense of doom to an otherwise brilliantly sunny day.

It’s no wonder the children call him the Dark Ogre.

No surprise, his mouth was drawn down in a frown between his large muttonchop sideburns. He took off his top hat and ran a hand through his thick mop of dark hair after setting his hat on the counter.

There’d be no escape for her now. She was trapped in this small room with him, a man over two decades older than she was, a man who took every chance he had to get as close as possible. Her skin crawled in his presence, and though she avoided him like a dreaded disease, he continually found ways to close that distance.

She could smell the alcohol on his breath from where she stood despite the fact that his meetings had ended early.

“I heard you pounding on something from down the hall, Miss Calvert.”

“The sash is stuck again,” she said.

“It’s an old building.” He waved his hand and began to sort through some papers in the wire basket on the counter.

“Yes, but opening windows is necessary now that spring is here. The children need fresh air, and their safety is compromised if windows can’t be opened.”

He made a noise of dismissal. “I see no children in here.”

She was determined he hear her out. Too many times he’d ignored her pleas for improvements to the old building. She understood postponing cosmetic repairs, such as painting the corridors and sanding the desks, but some of the things she’d asked for were necessary to keep things from collapsing or harming a child.

He pled lack of funds, but she entered the funds into the accounting book, and there seemed to be plenty for some of the repairs she’d proposed.

She steeled herself and shifter enough to gain his attention—not too close, keeping the counter between them. “The building needs repairs,” she insisted firmly, “and the accounts indicate we have enough to fix—”

“Enough.” He gave her a pointed look. “I’m the administrator here, Miss Calvert, not you. Though you seem very reluctant to accept that.”

“Mr. Harding… sir… Why are we accruing donations if not to make the children’s lives better?”

His hands became still, his back rigid. His face twisted toward her, a big shaggy head with furry cheeks. She was reminded of a bear emerging from hibernation, lumbering toward her with malicious intent. A grizzly dressed up in a top hat.

“Why must you question my judgment on everything?” he asked through gritted teeth.

His eyes, deep pools of dark gray that looked almost black, glittered with menace and something undefinable that made her back up a few steps.

A smile lifted one corner of his mouth in a leering expression, hinting at the dark thoughts in his mind. She couldn’t imagine what depravity hovered in the corners of his mind, and she didn’t want to.

“That’s better,” he said quietly.

She moved back another step, and as his smile grew wider, she thought, How he enjoys my submission.

In truth, as much as she wanted to be brave, she couldn’t help cowering beneath that stare. It burned into her flesh like a branding iron. Silas Harding frightened her, and as the year had passed, his behavior had become more threatening, more unnerving. Every moment spent in his presence seemed to shave a moment off her life.

He plucked something from his pocket and turned toward her, fluttering a piece of paper in his hand. “Now, if you’ve finished manhandling the window, and questioning my intent, I need your assistance.”

“Yes, sir,” she murmured.

He rounded the counter toward her. She thought to take her place on the stool again, but her mind looked for excuses to stand so she couldn’t be cornered. He might need a file, she rationalized. In reality, she didn’t want to be trapped. Her imagination worked overtime where Mr. Harding was concerned. She could practically feel his breath on her neck, smell the alcohol, hear his heavy breathing, as he hovered over the stool behind her.

She shivered, frozen in her spot by the counter. He started toward his closed office door, but something must have caught his eye, because he stopped and put the paper on the counter. He veered toward her instead, coming closer and closer.

Please stay away…

When he stretched out his hand toward her, she barely held back a flinch. Her body gave an involuntary tremble as he cupped the locket around her neck in his beefy hand. The backs of his rough fingers slid along her skin, making a raspy, dry sound. She felt dizzy with revulsion.

“This is a lovely piece,” he said, his gaze flashing up to hers. He studied her for a long moment, the silver specks in his gray eyes making her much more uncomfortable. He leaned closer. The stench of alcohol burned her throat. “Is it gold?”

“I-I’m not sure, Mr. Harding. I believe so.”

He caressed the locket like someone would caress the face of a loved one, and when his finger slid up her neck, she shuddered.

He wasn’t pleased by her reaction, and she would have given anything to take it back. His eyes narrowed and hardened. “Is it… stolen?”

Amelia’s breath caught in her throat, and she swallowed roughly, trying to find her voice. “N-no, of course not. I’d… I’d never steal, never. That goes against God’s Commandments.”

“Then where did you get it?” he snapped. “I don’t pay you enough to purchase gold.”

“My mother gave it to me.”

“Your mother…” He spat out the words like a bad-tasting pudding.

“My mother meant the world to me,” Amelia said. “This locket is all I have left of her love for me, so it means the world to me as well.”

She felt a bit stronger invoking thoughts of her mother’s soft voice and warm arms, seeing her mother’s smile in her mind’s eye. It was a smile Felicity Calvert had reserved for her daughter alone. Amelia used to hold the locket in her hand as her mother recited her favorite passages from the Bible.

“So you claim it belongs to you? Then why have I not seen it before?” His words held an accusation, as though an orphan couldn’t possibly have possessions of her own or secrets she hoped to keep.

“I feared losing it as a child, but now…” She lifted her chin. “I’m an adult, so I’ve begun to wear it. I usually keep it tucked beneath my dress, but it was so hot today that I—”

“Why wasn’t it in the safe all these years?” he barked. “All valuables go in the safe.”

“Y-yes, I know,” Amelia said, “but Mary held it for me.”

“Mary Montgomery? Bah. Why would you trust her?”

“She was very kind to me,” Amelia said. “She kept it for me when I was a resident here so I could see it sometimes, rather than bother you with opening the safe. Last year, when she was—” Don’t say discharged. Don’t give him a reason to get angry… “When she left the orphanage, she returned it to me.”

Harding stuck a grimy fingernail in the crease of the locket, and Amelia curled her hand around the chain and pulled back, tugging the locket from his hand.

“You dare to pull it away?” he snarled, his eyes glittering with that undefined rage again. “After everything I’ve done for you? Why, you ungrateful—”

Heart pounding, knowing she’d made a disastrous mistake, she stuttered, “Y-you’re…” Think, think… “You’re very strong, Mr. Harding. You might break the clasp.”

He looked mollified for a moment, his eyes flashing with arrogance, and then the hard look returned. “Then open it,” he snapped. “I want to see inside. To see if there are initials.”

To see if it’s stolen… was left unsaid.

Fingers shaking, Amelia pushed her own fingernail into the crease, heard the tiny snap of the clasp, and gently unfolded the locket. Inside, written in script, was her mother’s favorite passage, the one she’d lived and died for. Also Amelia’s initials.

“ARC?” He glanced up.

“Amelia Rose Calvert,” she said softly.

He blew out a breath. “Yes, well, I do remember that from your file.” He took the locket in his hand again, tugging until she was forced to move a bit closer. “John, Chapter 15, verse 13,” he read. “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

He stared at the inscription for a long moment and then laughed darkly, his eyes roaming over her face, making her hot and angry. “If I remember correctly, your father died somewhere in Indian territory.”

When she nodded miserably, he continued, “And your mother was crushed several years later beneath the wheels of a carriage.”

Tears sparked in Amelia’s eyes as a wave of sorrow swept her body, burning out the anger and leaving her feeling bereft and alone. “Yes, sir. She was trying to catch a runaway horse to save a boy inside the carriage.”

“And did she stop that horse? Did she save that boy?”

“Yes,” Amelia said softly.

“And in doing so, she made you an orphan,” he scoffed. “Where is the love in that, Miss Calvert? Why lay down a life for a stranger when that very act leaves your own child an orphan to face the world alone?”

“We cannot always know the will of God,” Amelia said. “We can only try to please him in our daily lives.”­

He dropped the locket with a disgusted huff, and when the cool gold hit the warm skin beneath the hollow of her throat, Amelia shivered and hastily fumbled to work the buttons closed.

Harding turned toward the window, pounded the frame, and raised the sash, allowing a cool breeze to flow into the room. He turned to her with a smile that caused her stomach to roil. “If you’re going to manhandle something, Miss Calvert, do it correctly.”

“Yes, sir,” she murmured, feeling dirty as his stare roamed over her body.

“You know, Miss Calvert, we could end all of this…tension between us if you’d only accept my offer of marriage.”

The cold dread, always familiar, always terrifying, plunged through her. It was like falling into an icy river on the hottest day of summer, a shock so profound it stole her breath. They’d had this conversation before, so many times in the last year that she’d lost count.

She was running out of reasons to say no, and of course, the truth that she wouldn’t marry him if he were the last man living on earth would ruin her life. She would lose her position and become destitute.

“I’ve no wish to marry right now, Mr. Harding,” she said.

“Yes…” His oily glance slithered across her body again. “You’ve said that repeatedly, and yet you’ve never given me the reason for that. What young woman doesn’t wish for marriage, a home of her own, children…”

The last word, the way he said it, held horrifying connotations that she didn’t quite understand but recognized by the maliciousness in his gaze.

Her mind simply froze. She had no answer for him, and he knew it. She prayed to God that Mr. Harding would drop this conversation for the day. Even the slightest reprieve, Lord…

“Perhaps the next time we have this conversation you will have an answer for me,” he said brightly, rubbing his hands together. “And I surely hope for your own sake that the answer then will be a resounding yes.”

“Perhaps…” she echoed softly, and as the words left her mouth, she died a little inside.

He turned back to the window, his hands clasped together and tucked behind his rigid back, a king surveying his kingdom.

As she studied him, she thought of 1 Peter, Chapter 5, Verses 2 and 3. Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind; Neither as being lords over God’s heritage, but being examples to the flock.

She wondered how Silas Harding had come to be in his position. Of all of the people on God’s green earth, how had a man like him come to be in charge over those who needed help most?

Where was the money going? Or if it lay in a bank vault, why wasn’t it being used to benefit Mr. Harding’s charges?

Amelia heard someone outside counting for a game of tag. Often, she wished she still had the innocence of childhood, the thrill of thinking that today, or tomorrow, or the day after, someone would come into Independence Home and ask to adopt her.

Thirteen years and no one wanted me…

And when she turned eighteen and had begun to inquire about possible positions for hire in Independence, her bad luck had continued. No one had wanted her for employment either. Not for a store clerk or nanny or cook or wait staff. No one at all, until Mr. Harding had offered her a position here as his secretary and bookkeeper. With no other options, she’d had to accept.

He leaned out the window now, as though it were his responsibility to suck all the joy out of everyone’s life, and yelled, “Jasper Wilding! Get your sorry carcass off that gate before I come out there and kick it off.”

“Kick this, you old ogre!” Jasper yelled back.

Amelia stifled a rare laugh when she heard Jasper’s retort. At sixteen, and broader than a barn, Jasper had no fear of Silas Harding. Harding had threatened to oust Jasper from the home many times, and Jasper might have been long gone if not for his brawn. He performed all the hard labor and chores that Harding couldn’t be bothered with—and received no payment for his work beyond room and meager board. None of the children ate well—or slept comfortably for that matter.

“That boy’s not long for this place,” Harding said, pulling back into the room. He adjusted his large black bow-tie.

“He works hard,” Amelia said, knowing that her opinion meant nothing, but she always believed in giving credit where it was due. Besides, Mr. Harding threatened to banish Jasper from the home almost weekly. He seemed to be all bluster in regards to the children. She wished he were the same with her, but she sensed he meant every word he said when talking to her.

“You, Miss Calvert, are blind to the ways of the world. Jasper Wilding will be the ruination of some poor girl’s life before you can say Jack Robinson, I’d imagine.” He rubbed his hands together as though washing them of the whole discussion. “I didn’t come in here to talk about Jasper. I have more meetings this afternoon, and I need the coins from petty cash.”