Chapter One
Salina, Kansas, Late Summer 1883
"Damn, damn, and double damn!" Rose Elizabeth tapped her foot
impatiently against the rotting boards of the railway platform as she
waited with no small amount of dread for the arrival of the westbound
train from New York City.
It was cursed hot, she was sweating like a pig, and there wasn't a cloud
in the sky that held any promise of rain for relief.
"It's surely going to be something having a real live English duke
living here in Salina," remarked Skeeter Purty, the station manager,
scratching his whiskered chin. "I reckon it could put this here town on
the map." The wad of chewing tobacco he spit missed its mark, landing
just short of the brass spittoon near his rocker.
Rose jerked her head around, and with narrowed eyes she stared in
disgust at the brown gooey mess on the platform, then at the old man
himself, wondering if he'd been nipping at the bottle of corn liquor he
kept hidden in his desk drawer and thought no one knew about it. She had
half a mind to turn the old fool in to the sheriff, though she doubted
Morris Covington would do anything about it. Mo had a hollow leg himself
when it came ... read full excerpt from: Prim Rose ebook
