After the rain had confined them to their cabins yesterday, Mercy was as antsy as the others to stroll around the deck. Yet even when they’d been allowed out, Mrs. Robb had placed ropes at both ends of their row of cabins, leaving them only a small stretch of deck for their use.

The matron had looked directly at Mercy when she instructed the women not to go beyond the ropes. Mercy wasn’t sure if the enclosure was punishment for taking Sarah to see the doctor yesterday, or if the chaperones would have confined them anyway. Whatever the case, she hadn’t argued or protested. None of them had. She supposed they were all too afraid Mrs. Robb might send them back to London and the slums if they didn’t obey.

“To be sure,” Ann lamented, “them fancy ladies will grab up husbands quicker than we will.”

“You’re too young to grab a husband,” Mercy said from her position on the edge of Sarah’s bed.

The other girls giggled, and Ann just shrugged. “If a husband keeps me from a life of worry and hardship, then I don’t care a jot how old I be.”

Sarah twirled a loose strand of Mercy’s hair around her finger. “You’re so pretty, I daresay the instant you step foot off the ship, you’ll have a dozen fellows all uncommon sweet on you.”

Mercy smiled at the girl. “Stuff and nonsense. I didn’t come on this trip to find a husband. I’m not planning to get married.”

“You’re not?” Sarah asked.

“No. Not ever.”

The girls in the doorway grew silent, and Sarah’s eyes rounded in her pale face.

“But ain’t that why we’re going to the colony?” Ann asked. “’Cause the men there sent for us to come and be their brides?”

Mercy let her hands fall idle in the washbasin. “We’re a-going to get jobs.”

The girls all exchanged glances.

“’Course we’ll get jobs,” Ann said. “But Miss Rye made it mighty clear that this is a bride ship, and we’ll be expected to get married at some point.”

Flo nodded, her face wreathed in seriousness. “We’re going cause the fellows are asking for wives.”

“That’s right. They don’t got enough women for all the men,” Minnie added.

Mercy sat back and stared at the girls, the true nature and purpose of the voyage hitting her full in the face. How had she been so naïve as to miss the truth? She supposed since she’d joined the group late, Miss Rye and Mrs. Dotta had been too busy to outline all the expectations, but surely they could have mentioned the teeny-tiny fact that they meant for her to become a bride.