1870, Philadelphia, USA.
Martha Whitcomb, the wild child of Philadelphia society, is now a grown woman, independent in wealth and in personality. At twenty-three, still unmarried and childless, she is exposed to constant rumors and ridicule, crushed...
This chapter is rated *M* for mature, but at this point, the whole story is, so... enjoy!
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Martha rose from her chair, sparing a glance at the clock—3:50—and resuming the pacing back and forth across her cramped hotel room, the same pacing that had consumed her on and off for nearly an hour. She had attempted all manner of distraction, even popping into the nearby Gold Dust Saloon for a bit of roulette. She had intended to test her luck, and considering that she had walked into the establishment with five dollars and walked out with seven, she supposed it was a good sign.
Sakes alive, she was nervous, every little detail second, third, and even fourth-guessed:
Should she have dinner brought up? It was a little early for dinner, but far too late for lunch, and she and Benjamin had not had the best conversations over tea. Yes, there was no harm in a meal, but should she ask for chicken or beef? She liked beef, and Benjamin preferred chicken, so that would be a neat solution to things, but then would that be too much? Perhaps fish would be a happy medium?
Should she change clothes? Obviously, as she was not about to walk around indoors in her visiting toilette, but did she truly like her dinner dress? It was pretty enough, though muted, and she wished to look her best, but her best was the plum and mulberry visiting toilette, and therefore would be inappropriate as she was not the one doing the visiting.
And so it went, uncertainty and clucking being her faithful friends for the afternoon. She had, in the end, changed into her dinner dress and asked for both the beef and the chicken, along with possibly far too much wine. Excess in some areas and conservatism in others might balance each other out into something sane, after all.
Spinning around with her hands braced on the small of her back, Martha checked the clock again.
3:51
One minute. She huffed. Life was unfair. Perhaps she should send a letter to God, protesting the intolerable conditions.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Benjamin forced himself to climb the stairs like a rational man rather than bounding up three at a time as he wished to, straightening his jacket once more as he walked down the hallway in search of room seven. It would, of course, come after room five, across from room six—lo and behold, his powers of deduction had served him well indeed. He scoffed weakly, exhaling no more than a faint puff of air. He had already accepted that he was apt to make a fool of himself a handful of times over the evening, but he refused to anticipate what it might bring beyond that.
