Agathe skedaddles—her isolated past for freedom and thrill in the Wild West. But she is not prepared for the harsh reality of the American frontier….
The minibus rattled—to a bone-harrowing stop, Jesu—and the solo passenger clasped at the hanging leather strap to keep her poise. Agathe cropped up—the flecked side window—her T-zone and palms slippery as she brawled to keep the pinguid breakfast prescribed ten hours earlier in Santa Clarita.
She was longing for a primary glimpse of her new home—but the long plume of filth from the stage's arrival hung like—a blue fog in the gigantic air, mantling the view. As it larghetto settled to the ground—she was capable to catch sight of the general scene—and it was almost nil to her composure.
In all her twenty-five years—she never tried to glance upon such a inhospitable scene. Omitting a few horses tethered to a rail and diverting their tails sluggishly. The town looked arid. Aligning her antwacky straw hat—she experimented to smooth the puckers from her third-best gown of pale pink muslin—then called it a day the vain trial. Her hands were twitching.
Swiftly she scrutinized the street once more. There was not a creature to be perceived. No idlers in the open door frames—no pedestrians along the contorted wooden sidewalk outside the shattered hotel front. And most exasperation of all, no Louis—on the edge of his seat for his debut meeting with his future bride.
A tiny disgruntled glower created between Agathe's straight dark brows. She has left Manhattan for the desolation of Illinois Territory in the pitiless June heat—enduring dirt and malaise all the way—intending to marry a man she had never seen.