Within minutes of Belinda Hopeworth landing in Virginia and meeting her wonderful new husband-to-be, he lay dead at her feet and the thugs who had stabbed him were advancing with intent to do the same to her. Belinda's escape from a life of degradation and cruelty in Liverpool, her year-long dreams as she awaited her journey to the American Territories of 1850, and her horrific voyage on a tobacco boat to Norfolk, Virginia, had all been in vain. Nineteen-year-old Belinda was now totally alone and helpless in a harsh and strange land, and was about to die a most horrible death herself...