A Fortune for the Outlaw's Daughter
Page 26
‘One never completely escaped the worry,’ Theo admitted, ‘but battle was the exception. Most of the time was spent training, moving between encampments, or billeted in winter quarters. Provisions were generally good, with game to supplement the soup pot. As for accommodations...’ she chuckled, remembering ‘...Papa and I shared everything from a campaign tent to cots in a stable to the bedchamber of a marquesa’s palace! It was a grand adventure shared with marvellous companions, and I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.’
It had also brought her Charles, and, she thought as a stab of grief gashed her, a fiery passion she didn’t expect ever to experience again.
Which also reminded her that not all the companions had been marvellous. After the devastation of her fiancé’s death, one officer who was no gentleman had sniffed at her skirts, certain she must eventually succumb to the blandishments of a man of his high birth and social position.
The only benefit of leaving the regiment was she’d never have to deal with Audley Tremaine again.
‘Game in the soup pot and a cot in a stable!’ her aunt cried, recalling her attention. ‘Call me pudding-hearted, but I prefer a bed with my own linens under a sturdy roof, awakened by nothing more threatening than the shouts of milk-sellers.’
‘Campaigning would not have been for you,’ Theo agreed. ‘But I must leave you now to check on the children. Constancia—you remember Constancia, the nursemaid I brought with me from the convent after Charles was born?—will show you to your room. I hope you’ll make a long visit!’
‘I am due back in London shortly, and you’ll have much to do, getting your establishment put together. Unless I can dissuade you from this enterprise? Coax you to leave the children with those used to dealing with orphans, and concentrate on your own future?’
‘Abandon them to a workhouse?’ Theo’s heart twisted as she thought of those innocents turned over to strange and uncaring hands. ‘No, you cannot dissuade me.’
Lady Amelia sighed. ‘I didn’t think so. You’re as headstrong as Richard when you get the bit between your teeth. The whole family tried to talk him out of going to India, but no one could prevail upon him to remain at home, tending his acres like a proper English gentleman, once he’d taken the idea in his head.’
‘I do appreciate your wishing to secure a more suitable future for me,’ Theo assured her. ‘But having never lived in England and being so little acquainted with the society’s rules, I fear I’d be an even greater disappointment than Papa, were you to try to foist me on the Marriage Mart.’
‘A lovely, capable, intelligent girl like you? I don’t believe it! Though I admire your desire to aid those poor unfortunates, I refuse to entirely cede my position. I still think marriage would be best for you and them, and I shall be searching for a way to make it happen!’
Theo laughed. ‘Scheme, then, if it makes you happy.’
‘It’s your happiness I worry about, my dear. You’re still so young! I want you to find joy again.’
Joy. She’d experienced its rapture—and paid its bitter price. She’d since decided she could make do with contentment, as long as Charles was safe and happy.
‘I expect to be happy in my life, helping those “poor unfortunates”,’ she told her aunt firmly as she kissed her cheek.
So she must be, she thought as she walked out of the room. It was the only life left to her, a choice she’d sealed years ago when she left that Portuguese convent with a swaddled newborn in her arms.
Copyright © 2015 by Janet Justiss
ISBN-13: 9781460381151
A Fortune for the Outlaw’s Daughter
Copyright © 2015 by Lauri Robinson
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