Chapter 2
Bridie took one last long look out the window of the train. For the first time in more than a week, she was about to disembark—and she wasn’t at all certain how she felt about the new world she was stepping into.
“A name I know, from years ago,” she murmured to herself.
The fact that her father had some familiarity with the man she was engaged to marry was a comfort—albeit a faint one.
After all, he might very well be wealthy and handsome, but he might just as well be fibbing and plain—the years tended to take their toll on the rich as well as the poor, in her experience.
And there was always the inescapable reminder that her supposed groom had been forced to write to a matrimonial agency in order to procure a bride. It wasn’t the sort of thing that built confidence in a girl’s heart, she thought disdainfully.
She heaved a sigh and stood from the none-too-comfortable bench seat of the train, reaching for her valise in the luggage rack above and relishing the stretch.
“Well,” she said aloud, “I suppose it’s time to find out whether Pa’s memory of Mr. Jedediah McHale is as accurate as he believes.”
According to John Hamilton, Jedediah McHale was somewhere between thirty and forty, with hair that was either brown or black and eyes that were either blue or green, or possibly gray.
Bridie supposed she couldn’t blame her father too much for not remembering such details—or, more likely, for never having noticed them in the first place.
He did remember, though, that Mr. McHale was “rather broad-shouldered for his age,” which, after all, had only been around twenty when the two had known each other ten years earlier.
Or, Bridie thought ruefully, somewhere between twenty and thirty—overall, her father’s verbal sketch of the man she was looking for was relatively useless.
She’d expected more, perhaps, from the matrimonial agency, but if her father had received anything specific, he hadn’t passed it on.
She sighed again as she left her compartment behind.
Not for the first time, she chided herself for not going to the matrimonial agency herself—but John had been in such a hurry to make the arrangements that she hadn’t had the opportunity.
The week between his confession of the match he’d made on her behalf and her departure from the dirty Boston train station had been filled with a flurry of packing and painful farewells; even now, the thought of her younger sister, Ella, with an arm around either of the twins, trying her best to be brave enough for them all, made her heart twinge.
James, of course, had not even been able to accompany them to the station; he had stayed behind, along with Marianne.
Bridie’s farewells to her mother and only brother were made in the heartbreakingly familiar environment of the home where she had grown up—and the home she never expected to see again.
She shook the thought away, determinedly. This wasn’t the time to grow nostalgic for Boston. She certainly had never been before! This was the time to focus on the future right in front of her—and on the possibility that it might lead her exactly where she had always wanted to go.
It might, with care and more than a little luck, lead her right back to Ireland.
She paused at the threshold, closed her eyes just long enough to offer a brief prayer, and then stepped down from the train.
The first thing she noticed was how very different this new place was from the city she’d left behind.
Where Boston was crowded and resounding with noise from the hubbub of everyday life, she could hardly hear more than a few murmured conversations here—there were a few knots of people strewn across the platform, and a few more passing by on the street, but it was nothing compared to the hustle and bustle of the great eastern city.
Even the little neighborhood where she had lived with her family was known for buildings several stories tall, with staircases that seemed designed to test the mettle of anyone who came to visit; here, the buildings were long and low, except for the false fronts on a few of them.
Boston’s cobbled streets were often slick with rain, with puddles of water reflecting the streetlamps; the streets here were not cobbled at all and seemed to be made of hard-packed dirt.
A wagon rolled by in the distance, headed this way, bringing with it a cloud of dust. The buildings were clapboard, not brick; even the people looked rather quaint, with the women wearing bonnets in a style that Bridie had not seen for at least a few seasons.
But above all, the sky was the biggest difference. She caught her breath as she looked up. Without the tall buildings to block her view or hem her in, the skies arched overhead, seemingly endless. She felt as though she could drift upward into them…
No doubt about it. This world of Galveston, Texas, was as different from Boston as Boston itself had been from Ireland.
Was she always fated to leave a home behind, trading it for the complete unknown?
Her heart was hammering a little in her chest as she stepped forward, eyes still on the sky.
There was something almost magical about it, stirring a feeling deeper than she would have imagined—though she could not remember, she thought perhaps the skies above Kinsale had shared this deep, brilliant blue…
“Miss Hamilton?”
So enchanted was she by the sky that she did not even realize she was being approached until the man stood just a few inches from her.
Startled, her eyes flew to his; her gaze was met by a reassuringly warm twinkle in a pair of fine brown eyes, lined with thick black lashes.
He was handsome, she noted rather vaguely—his features were large, yet they seemed to fit his face in a strangely appealing manner.
His form was tall and rangy, his shoulders broad.
He took off his hat and gave her a deep, polite nod.
“You are Miss Hamilton—aren’t you?”
She seemed to come back to herself with an almost audible thud.
“Oh! Yes—yes, I’m Bridget Hamilton. You—you can’t be Jedediah McHale, can you?”
“Why can’t I?” he asked, offering a hand to shake.
She took it, eyeing him doubtfully. His hand was warm and calloused, the palm broad, fingers long and thin.
“Well, your eyes are brown, for one thing…”
A grin spread across his face, so slowly at first that she almost didn’t notice it—she realized belatedly that he was laughing at her and arched an eyebrow.
“Well, it’s true, isn’t it?”
“It is, at that,” he agreed, nodding. “I’ve got my mother’s eyes, they always told me. Never realized they were incompatible with the name I was christened with, but then, I never thought to ask, either.”
She scoffed at him a little, though she found herself secretly pleased by the attractiveness of his smile.
“At least,” she said, “your hair is black.”
He clapped his hat back on his head.
“And that,” he said, “came from my father. I reckon he’d be glad that you approve.”
She allowed herself to laugh, now, and he grinned again at her.
“If you really are Jedediah McHale,” she said, “then you ought to know that my father, John Hamilton, has the worst memory of any man alive. He told me your eyes were blue or green and your hair brown or black.”
“Lucky for him, I’ve still got hair,” he said equably.
“My pa lost all of his before he passed away—and your father hasn’t seen me in quite some time.
I’m pleased to meet you, Miss Bridget Hamilton.
” He regarded her quietly for a minute, and another smile passed in the wake of his grin—there was a note to this one she could not quite put her finger on, but it sent a small frisson of nameless excitement up her spine. “Mighty pleased, in fact.”
“Likewise, I’m sure.”
“Might I take your bag? Have you other baggage, too?”
She did, in fact, have other baggage; her small trunk was being unloaded even as they spoke. Jedediah McHale swung the trunk up on one shoulder, lifted the valise with the other, and gestured for her to follow him.
“We’re not goin’ far,” he promised. “My little wagon’s just around the corner. There it is—the one with the gray horses.”
Bridie would certainly not have described the wagon as “little.” It was big enough for a solid dozen men to stand in the flat of the back, and it was sturdily built, with four fine horses in the traces, ready and waiting to draw it upon command.
It looked as though it would have gone steadily through a hurricane—were there such things here in Texas?
—and it took a great helping hand from Mr. McHale before she was able to make it up to sit beside him in the driver’s box.
He settled himself and grinned down at her.
“All right?”
“Where are we going?” she asked without responding to his question, smoothing her skirts over her lap.
“Why, home, of course.”
“And where is home?”
“Not far,” he said again. “Not far.” He smiled reassuringly at her and gave the reins a light slap. The horses moved forward in step, smooth as silk.
As they made their way through the little town, he pointed out a few notable sights—the feed store where he bought the oats for the horses, the church that sat on a slight rise above the rest of the town, and the dressmaker’s shop that was “the best in the county.” He did not point out the mercantile as they rode by, but she couldn’t help but notice.
After all, the name McHale was prominent at the top of the sign, which glistened with fresh paint.
“That’s your store, isn’t it?”
He nodded. His smile was slight, far from gloating, but she could sense a warm pride in him, at the same time. For all her reluctance to find anything to like about him, she couldn’t help but be drawn to his gentle emotions.
And besides, she reminded herself sternly, if the look of that store and the fine horses were anything to go by, he did indeed have wealth to his name. And it was that very wealth that might make her dreams come true.
The long, graveled pathway that he turned up at the edge of town, leading to a sprawling three-story home that dwarfed the other houses she had seen, added to her suspicions about his true fortune.
Despite herself, she found that she was gaping at it as he leaped down and came around to offer her a hand.
“This—is your house?”
“My father built it,” he offered, as though deflecting any pending compliments, but a grin flashed across his face almost immediately after the self-effacing remark. “Ma had a hand in it, too, of course.”
“Of course,” Bridie murmured as she allowed him to help her down to the ground.
She was grateful for the guidance, for her eyes were still fixed on the house.
Even if she had not known that Mr. McHale’s mother had been involved in designing and building the house, she would have guessed; it was the sort of home that a wife would dream of—large, stately, and elegant.
Provided, of course, that there was a host of maids and housekeeping staff to go along with it.
She would hate to have to clean this place from top to bottom all on her own!
If there weren’t a dozen maids waiting at Jedediah McHale’s beck and call, she would have been very surprised indeed.
But she couldn’t allow herself to be distracted by mere appearances. Not by the beauty of the house—and not by the kindness in Jedediah McHale’s warm brown eyes, either.
No, she must keep her inner eye on what mattered most to her heart—the rolling green hills of her lost homeland, enshrined in her memory.
And despite the similarity in the wide-open skies, it was so very, very different from Galveston, Texas.