Thirteen
Seattle, Washington Territory
December 1866
What better time than a wedding to ask a man to marry you?
Nora Underhill stood in the corner of the Occidental Hotel’s fine restaurant, watching as toasts were raised. Behind the head table draped in white, her friend Maddie O’Rourke looked beautiful in the embroidered spruce-colored wool gown Nora had sewn for her. The other ladies wore their church clothes, soft wools and a few velvets in rich colors that glowed like jewels in the golden lamplight.
Everyone seemed so happy, particularly Michael Haggerty as he gazed down at his bride, whose blush was nearly as red as her hair. Nora liked seeing people happy. She liked making people happy. A shame she’d never managed that with her parents or her brother and sister-in-law. If her brother’s socially astute wife were here, Nora could imagine what Meredith would say.
You are quite right to hide in the shadows, Nora. These people will only judge you and find you lacking. I can’t imagine what your friend was thinking to name you maid of honor. No doubt she was only being kind.
And Maddie was kind. Nora knew that. The outspoken Irishwoman had befriended her, trusted Nora to teach her little sister, Ciara, how to sew. Maddie had even complimented Nora on her dress today—lavender crepe with a scalloped overskirt, fitted bodice and embroidered amethyst-colored hearts along every edge. Quite fitting for a wedding, she’d thought when she’d finished it. And she’d managed to tame her unruly black hair back behind her head in a bun that was at least a trifle fashionable. Even Meredith would find her satisfactory today. But then, it wasn’t Meredith she was trying to please.
Let him look with favor on my proposal, Father.
Immediately, guilt gnawed at her. She tried never to ask for things for herself. When her parents had sickened, she’d prayed for them as she’d nursed them. The Lord had seen fit to bring them home to heaven.
When her brother, Charles, and his wife, Meredith, had taken her in, she’d prayed at first for their strength. They’d always seemed terribly burdened by her presence.
When she’d decided to leave home and venture to Seattle with the Mercer Expedition, she’d prayed for its success, for the health and safety of the ladies sailing all the way around the continent to make a new life. God had delivered them to Seattle, where nearly all her traveling companions, including Maddie, had found employment and husbands.
Surely, just this once, He’d consider it appropriate for her to pray for herself.
And she certainly needed His help. She wasn’t brave or bold like Maddie, but today she would ask the bravest, boldest question a lady might utter. Her entire future depended on how Simon Wallin answered. She couldn’t return to the life she’d led back in Lowell, Massachusetts. She’d thought she’d escaped by coming to Seattle with Asa Mercer last May. She’d fallen in love with the wide sweeps of fir, the massive mountains in the distance, the gentle call of the waves on Puget Sound. Even the cool, damp air smelled like freedom here!
And then her brother, Charles, had written that he and Meredith were also coming to Seattle. It seemed they’d suffered a financial setback and thought to reestablish themselves here. Charles had instructed her to secure a home for them and furnish it, the costs to be paid with his remaining funds. Of course, he didn’t ask her to find a cook or a maid. She knew who would be cooking and cleaning and helping his wife dress.
Her.
She shuddered and had to paste a smile back on her face as more of Maddie’s friends rose to cheer her good fortune. Maddie and Michael made a fine couple, and the way Maddie’s little brother and sister beamed, the four were already on the way to becoming a loving family.
That was not her experience of family. Family clutched at you, pecked at you, bared each of your faults and made you feel small, stupid and vulnerable. Neither her parents nor her brother had ever loved her. Perhaps the only love she’d have was that of her Heavenly Father. There was a certain contentment in that. No one could steal it from her.
But Charles and Meredith could certainly try to steal her happiness, her prosperity. She could attempt to stand up to them, but they were like a stream running down a mountain. The mountain could stand as tall and proud as it liked. The water was still going to cut a canyon.
Like her parents, her brother felt it his duty to protect her from a world that was unkind, condemning a lady who lacked fortune, figure and face. What he saw as protection, she felt as a swaddling blanket, tight, smothering. Meredith had, surprisingly, been the one to encourage her to leave Lowell. Why couldn’t Charles understand that Nora had done well for herself here, with no help from him? There wasn’t a man or woman in the room who hadn’t come to her to either repair or create clothing.
Except one.
She could see him now, standing against the opposite wall as if he too had other matters on his mind. Though his strong arms were crossed over his chest, tightening the wool of his plain brown suit, there was nothing hesitant or shy about Simon Wallin. He burned with the intensity of an oil lamp’s flame, barely contained by the glass. He alone was as tall as his older brother Drew, who had married Catherine Stanway of the Mercer Expedition, and Simon held himself with his head high, his gaze firm as he watched his family nearby.
They too seemed terribly happy together, enough so that a sigh came out of her. Mrs. Wallin, the matriarch of the family, her graying red hair curling, had linked arms with her blond-haired daughter, Beth, who smiled up at her. Towering over them, Drew exchanged glances with his pretty wife, Catherine, as if remembering their own wedding day, as did the regal Alexandrina and her dapper husband,
