The Renegade Wife

by Warfield, Caroline

  Table of Contents

  THE RENEGADE WIFE

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Epilogue

  THE RENEGADE WIFE

  Children Of Empire Series Book One

  CAROLINE WARFIELD

  SOUL MATE PUBLISHING

  New York

  THE RENEGADE WIFE

  Copyright©2016

  CAROLINE WARFIELD

  Cover Design by Rae Monet, Inc.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, business establishments, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials.

  Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Published in the United States of America by

  Soul Mate Publishing

  P.O. Box 24

  Macedon, New York, 14502

  ISBN: 978-1-68291-241-6

  www.SoulMatePublishing.com

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  BY CAROLINE WARFIELD

  CHILDREN OF EMPIRE SERIES

  The Renegade Wife

  ALSO BY CAROLINE WARFIELD

  Dangerous Works

  Dangerous Secrets

  Dangerous Weakness

  For Bernadette Bruley Murray, my mother,

  who taught me to value family—both near and extended,

  introduced me to the Great Lakes,

  and shared her love of storytelling.

  Acknowledgements

  There would be no book if it weren’t for Soul Mate Publishing. If Deborah Gilbert had never taken a chance on me, I would be spending my time playing solitaire and accumulating half-written stories on my laptop. Her faith and the talent of my editor, Tamus Bairen, gave life to my first published novel, Dangerous Works. Tamus has continued to share her skills and wisdom through three additional books, and my work is infinitely better for it. Thanks to their faith in me, I have plenty of work to keep me busy for the next few years and most likely longer. I would be remiss if I didn’t also thank the cover artists of Soul Mate who put up with insane suggestions and patiently listen, only to come up with covers much more wonderful than anything I could have imagined on my own.

  This particular work owes a great debt of gratitude to the beta readers who read the rough draft and provided invaluable feedback, making it a much stronger story. Thank you to my belles, Sherry Ewing and Jude Knight. Thanks also Mari Christie, Nicole Laverdure, and Angela Withrow for their suggestions and advice.

  Chapter 1

  Upper Canada

  November 1832

  Meggy Campeau tucked her daughter into a stranger’s narrow bed in the smaller of his two bedchambers and hoped the girl would be well by morning so they could leave. The empty house she stumbled upon had been a godsend. Its owner was nowhere to be seen, but she knew he would eventually come back and would be enraged at the sight of a squatter in his home. She had fled one angry man; she didn’t need another. Besides, her conscience rebelled against taking what she couldn’t repay.

  “Is Lena going to die?”

  Meggy sat beside her son on a matching cot across the room and smoothed back his hair. “Dear me, no, Drew. She’ll come around.” She prayed that would be so; the deaths of two other children hung heavy in her heart, making hope difficult. She had suffered enough losses to last a lifetime. She forced a smile. “How is the arm?” she asked, gently touching the splint on the boy’s left arm.

  “Better.” She saw the creases between his deep blue eyes, so like her own, and knew it for the lie it was. The break had been clean but much too recent to be healed. She had nothing to give him for pain. His suffering had driven her to search the trunks in the man’s bedchamber for something—anything—that would ease his pain, but she hadn’t found anything helpful.

  Intruding on his privacy had convinced Meggy that the house and its furnishings belonged to a man of substance, one of English descent, as the rumors she had heard implied. She swallowed another spasm of guilt at the memory of going through his belongings.

  The little boy played with a strand of her hair where it hung, straight and black, over his bed. “Mama, are we going to stay here a while?” he asked. “I’m so tired of running, and I—”

  “This isn’t our house,” Meggy interrupted, much too quickly. “We can’t get comfortable here.”

  “But I am comfortable, Mama. We’re warm and dry, and dinner was ever so good.” The plea in his eyes tore open her heart, unleashing a flood of feelings she had struggled daily to keep at bay—failure, fear, and helplessness. What kind of mother can’t protect her own children?

  “Perhaps for a day or two until Lena is well, but you know we mustn’t let the Englishman catch us in his house.”

  “But if you tell him about Lena, Mama, and explain—”

  “Enough, Drew,” she said. “Our problems are not his problems.” Meggy knew better than to expect compassion or even kindness. Nine years with an abusive husband had beat the hope out of her. Drew would learn soon enough. She rose to her feet. “Go to sleep now.”

  “Will you be close by?”

  She bent and kissed him good night. “I’ll clean up downstairs first and then come up to sleep here near you and Lena. Never fear.”

  The boy looked skeptical but resigned. She picked up the candlestick ruefully. One more item added to my debt. Once in the dimly lit kitchen, she decided not to light another. She did her best to clean up by the light of the one candle. Darkness fell early in Novembe
r in Upper Canada, and she had a difficult time being as thorough as she would have liked.

  I’ll finish in the morning, she thought, and search for something we can do to pay back our unwitting host.

  The longer they stayed, the harder that would be. They piled up debts, and she had little with which to repay them. Still, Drew had it right—the temptation was nigh irresistible. The children had not been this comfortable since she walked out on her husband.

  She wondered briefly if they could do it, if they could squat in another man’s house, for weeks. She had skirted Gibb’s Mill, searching for food while avoiding town. A chance conversation overheard along the trail mentioned the eccentric Englishman. They said he would be gone until spring. With a freeze coming on, she was sure he would stay in the comforts of New York and not drag himself back down the Rideau and out toward the lakes.

  She remembered when she first discovered the cabin. They had passed it while foraging in the woods. The fortunate discovery of an empty dwelling—and the remoteness of it—were why Meggy had taken the chance to get Lena out of the cold, even though the gossips made the man sound distrustful and disagreeable. Meggy had approached the house with great caution and been astonished to discover that the owner didn’t put much store in sturdy locks in spite of his reputation. She had broken in with ease.

  She knew it would not be so easy to stay. She could hardly avoid lighting the fireplaces to warm the children and cook their food. Soon enough someone would notice and come to check.

  Will anyone come to check? an inner demon asked her. They said the man guards his privacy fiercely and drives away intruders. Folks hereabouts might assume he came back and stay away. She caught her lower lip between her teeth and turned the idea around in her mind.

  “Don’t be daft, Meggy Campeau. Someone’ll come, and they’ll have you up on charges!” Her words echoed in the empty kitchen along with the clang and bang of pots being scrubbed and beaten into cleanliness. If he finds aught awry when he comes back, it’ll be that his pots are cleaner than when he left. I’ll see to that.

  Hard work failed to banish her ghosts, and she leaned over the sink, both hands gripping its edge. We have to leave this place, the sooner the better, but where will we go?

  “Mama?” Drew called from the foot of the stairs. “You’re making too much noise. You’re bothering Lena.”

  “Lena is it?”

  “I’m not sure she was sleeping well, anyway,” he said. “She was thrashing around.”

  Meggy leapt up. “Thrashing? We best see to her.” If her fever doesn’t break, we’ll have to stay put.

  Despair dogged her passage up the steps, one after another. She had to leave Fergus, had to move the children to a safer place. Her plan had been to take them to her grandmother’s people when she slipped away from Fort Malden. She had hoped Grand-mère and her people would defy the law to help her, but that hope had been slim at best. Meggy took her straight black hair and dusky skin from Grand-mère, even as she took her blue eyes from her Papa, but she had never lived among the old woman’s people. Visits had been short and sporadic.

  Nothing had been as she remembered. Most of the Ojibwa who once lived along Lake St. Clair had moved north and west, she discovered. Those who remained didn’t remember Grand-mère. As the hope of finding her grandmother died, the need for shelter had consumed her thoughts.

  “Mama is here.” She soothed Lena, wiping her forehead with a cool cloth. She slipped into the bed and snuggled the little one into the crook of her arm. “Mama won’t let anything hurt you”—she glanced over at her son, the splint stark white in the dim light—“ever again.” She prayed it was true.

  “Good night, Mama.” Drew yawned. “See you in the morning.”

  Yes, morning. Perhaps something will come to me then.

  “Mama,” Drew called, his voice thick with sleep. “I like it here. I hope we stay another day.”

  Meggy didn’t reply. She watched his even breathing as he drifted off to sleep. I hope so too, sweet boy. One more day. Or maybe two. She examined the fine plasterwork in the ceiling, silently counting the whirls and curves. It was fine finish work for a single man’s home. He built this house—or had it built—for himself. Odd that. Usually a man builds a place like this for a family, but then, from what we have heard, he was an odd man. He’ll want his place untouched. We have to leave before he finds us.

  The words echoed in her head as she drifted off.

  Chapter 2

  Crowds made Rand Wheatly unhappy—crowds and intrusive questions. New York teemed with both. He longed for his cabin and his solitude. Six years of quiet in his own woods left him with no patience for fools, and no respect for those who preyed on them.

  “So, Wheatly, you must be relieved to enjoy civilization for a time.” The speaker, a rotund little man in an expensive suit, jostled sideways to avoid a particularly noxious pile on the bustling street.

  Using the distraction to his benefit so he wouldn’t have to formulate a polite and entirely dishonest reply, Rand asked, “Are you certain our business wouldn’t be conducted more efficiently in your office?”

  “A man must eat, my boy, and our business can be had over good victuals,” his companion countered. He moved along with remarkable speed for a small man.

  Rand bit back an angry reply. At twenty-seven, he was hardly a boy, and he didn’t choose dinner companions—when he bothered with them at all—from among business associates. Grasping cheats, the lot of them, he thought.

  Alpheus Brinkman, the Brinkman half of Brinkman and Wandelaer Shipping, Ltd, had found reasons to stretch their negotiations for more than a week. Rand already had decent—but not stellar—offers from three other shipping firms. Only Brinkman and Wandelaer’s reputation for speed kept him from breaking off talks. Speed mattered in trade. Only loyalty to his brother-in-law and chief investor kept him in New York at all.

  They rounded the corner onto Williams Street, and Rand found himself dodging first one thoughtless man in a tall beaver hat and then another when they crossed Wall Street. The well-dressed men hurried uptown toward their noon meal, and the less fashionable bustled down toward the taverns along Front Street. Bodies and voices swirled around him, and the shouts of carters assaulted his ears.

  Does no one simply walk in this city? Civilization? Hardly. At least I can’t hear Brinkman’s platitudes in all this chaos.

  They stepped away from the wharfs along the East River, but the stench followed them. Rand longed for open spaces and fresh air. The sooner he was able to bring Brinkman to contract, the sooner he could return to his house, his animals, and his privacy.

  For the time being, he chased his quarry as the man threaded his way through the crowded streets intent on a goal Rand could only wonder about, until he paused in front of a small establishment at 23 Williams Street. A discreet sign out front read: “Delmonico & Brother, Confectioners.”

  Confectioners. Of course. Brinkman would want his sweets. Rand grimaced when they squeezed past a crowd at the counter and commanded a tiny round table toward the back of the room. Three men rose from their chairs and left. He took the seat in the far corner with his back to the wall and wished Brinkman to the devil.

  A man with a dirty white apron wrapped tightly around a reed-thin middle dashed over. “Afternoon, Mr. Brinkman. I see you brought a guest today.” The waiter assessed Rand with the greedy eyes of a publican, his eyes stopping to take in his old wool jacket and shaggy hair. Rand enjoyed a moment of amused satisfaction. He made no apologies for the jacket; it was comfortable and familiar.

  Brinkman didn’t notice. “Let me introduce my esteemed client,” he said, puffing out his chest. “Mr. Randolph Wheatly, currently doing business in Upper Canada, but lately of London.”

  He probably mentioned Canada to explain my clothes. The thought left a bad taste in Ra
nd’s mouth.

  Brinkman leaned forward, glanced back toward Rand, and spoke in a faux whisper. “His sister is a countess, don’t you know, and his cousin is a duke.” He winked at the waiter, and the waiter’s attention snapped back.

  What is it about Americans that they fawn over titles? Their supposed republicanism falls away when they can claim an association with one, even the wayward brother-in-law of an earl. Rand’s smile was tight and as false as Brinkman’s bonhomie.

  Brinkman ordered for them both and soon plunged into his food with gusto. When his few business comments consisted of “cost of tariffs” and “shortage of good crewmen” shouted over the din, Rand stopped trying and applied himself to his own food.

  The luncheon—thick slices of cold meat between some bread with pickles on the side—proved pleasing. Rand was surprised that a confectioner could put on such an excellent spread. The beer used to wash it down, a brew in the Dutch style, tickled his throat and satisfied his thirst perfectly. He made a note to ship a few barrels home. He wished his business negotiations were as satisfying.

  Brinkman wiped his mouth and shifted the conversation to bald inquiries into Rand’s personal income, prominent relatives, and property in Canada.

  God help me, my marriage prospects will be next. At the rate he’s negotiating, he’ll drag it on for a month or more and trap me in New York until the onset of full-on winter. Then I’ll be well and truly stuck in this miserable city.

  Rand’s morose thoughts might have led him to an imprudent retort if a disturbance toward the front of the café hadn’t interrupted them. Shouts and overturned chairs had him on his feet in time to see a man pick up a cat by the scruff of its neck and toss it into the street. “What is a damned stray doing in a respectable establishment? I’ll have my luncheon for free or know the reason why,” the man shouted.