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Show Page 15 had joined her at the rail. "I can imagine what the prospective bridegrooms would have thought had their brides arrived in the New World looking like wraiths. Yet I've heard there are so few women in Virginia the lads would be happy to wed with any woman, be she ghost or flesh." Anne giggled, then added wistfully, "Oh I do hope I shall find me a good, handsome man to marry." Anne and many other maids aboard had been recruited by the Virginia Company of London to go to Virginia to become wives to the unmarried colonists. Their fares would be paid by the men they married, but they would not be forced to marry against their will. I could not imagine marrying at all, much less marrying a man I scarce knew. I marvelled Anne and the others could be in such a twitch of excitement about it all. "Do you think you can be happy married to a near stranger?" I asked Anne, pulling her down beside me out of the wind. "I shall be happier than I might have been, married to that loutish Devon peasant my father wished me promised to," she answered. "And I intend to be very particular ere I choose my life's companion. "If only Lieutenant Richard Kean would cast his bold eye my direction I might precede the other maids to the altar. Instead, he seems content to gawp after you, who take no notice of his fine figure at all. You could do worse, Sarah, by waiting to see what manner of man awaits you in Virginia." "I hope to do better," I snapped. "And Richard Kean's |