Willing Love

by Mary Jean Adams

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Willing Love

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Epilogue

  Historical Notes

  A word about the author...

  Thank you for purchasing this publication of The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  “So how do you propose to catch a husband? I believe it would appear rather unseemly if you attempted to run one down.” He gave her another head to toe inspection. “Besides, you don’t appear to have the bulk to wrestle one to the ground.”

  “Money, Mr. Evan.”

  “Money?” Evan’s blood ran cold, but he tried to make light of her words. “I’ll admit, I am new to Rhode Island, but I am not aware of a market where young ladies can buy a husband.”

  “Aren’t you?” She turned and started walking back down the hill. “Money has purchased more than one husband for unmarriageable ladies throughout the years.”

  “Unmarriageable? Are you speaking of yourself?”

  Prudence shrugged. “Perhaps that is a bit strong, but I must be realistic.”

  “What about love?” Evan walked faster to catch up with her. “Your grandmother found it. Your mother found it. Why can’t you?”

  “Love?” She said the word as though it tasted sour. “Mr. Evan, I suspect you’ve made a wager or two in your life. Am I right?”

  “On many things.”

  “Reality dictates that I face the fact that my chances of marrying for love were never that great to begin with. What odds would you lay on my chances of a man falling in love with me, or me with him for that matter, within the next three months?”

  “I admit those are not odds I’d take, but then neither would I bet against it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I prefer a sure thing, Miss Ashcroft.”

  Willing Love

  by

  Mary Jean Adams

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Willing Love

  COPYRIGHT © 2015 by Mary Jean Adams

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Contact Information: info@thewildrosepress.com

  Cover Art by Debbie Taylor

  The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  PO Box 708

  Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708

  Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com

  Publishing History

  First American Rose Edition, 2015

  Print ISBN 978-1-62830-790-0

  Digital ISBN 978-1-62830-791-7

  Published in the United States of America

  Dedication

  To my sisters, Cynthia and Lauralee.

  There’s a little bit of both of you in here.

  Love you tons!

  Chapter One

  Newport, Rhode Island

  April 1764

  The British Crown, in an attempt to pay for mounting debts incurred in the defense of the American Colonies during the lengthy French and Indian War, barred her colonies from trading with other countries. The Americans, angered by increasingly burdensome oversight as well as taxes levied against them by a parliament in which they had no representation, turned rebellion into a profitable enterprise. Despite the best efforts of the king’s representatives to collect duties and control imports, merchants up and down the coast managed to elude them. Perhaps, the most notorious of these colonies was Rhode Island where the seeds of the coming revolution were already being sown.

  “But, Prudence, you have to marry eventually.”

  Prudence Ashcroft sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the soft hand her grandmother laid on her forearm. Through a vision distorted by unshed tears, she could see her grandmother’s skin had grown even paler and more translucent in the past week.

  Blinking away her distress, she raised her face to the old woman’s faded hazel gaze.

  “But, Grandma Rachel, I don’t understand how you could say such a thing. You ran Ashcroft for years by yourself.”

  Guilt nagged at Prudence. She shouldn’t be arguing with her grandmother. Not at a time like this. She still held out hope, against the express recommendation of Doctor Willis, that her grandmother would make another full recovery.

  Rachel Ashcroft just needed rest. Just rest. Nothing more.

  A seed of doubt insisted on taking root. Her grandmother hadn’t brought up the subject of marriage again simply to make idle conversation. They had argued about it before—many times. Talk of marriage had become as common as toast at breakfast. And like toast, it tasted bland on the tongue and was easily disregarded for more substantial fare.

  But not this time. This time, there was a note of urgency in her grandmother’s voice despite her weakening condition.

  The shadows in Rachel Ashcroft’s makeshift bedroom grew long, emphasizing the hollows in her cheeks and the purple stains under her eyes. Prudence longed to throw open the velvet curtains, oppressive in their opulence, and let in the fading light. She couldn’t, however, as even the soft orange glow of the sun dipping below the distant hills would hurt her grandmother’s eyes.

  She left the curtains as they were, their fashionably long length piling against the golden carpet in crimson pools.

  “I had your grandfather for twenty years after your great grandfather died.” Rachel Ashcroft’s voice shook, and her eyes grew distant as though she spoke of a world long past.

  Prudence gave the older woman’s hand a slight squeeze, bringing her back to the present.

  “I was ten years older than you are now when my father died, so I already had a great deal more experience than you. Then I had your grandfather to help me do the kinds of things that I couldn’t manage by myself.”

  Prudence gave a tremulous laugh. Rachel Ashcroft was the strongest woman she had ever known. Even now, lying back against her satin pillow, her grandmother’s white hair fanned about her head like unspun cotton, Prudence could easily call to mind her once strong, clear voice and intense, hazel eyes. No one, not local merchant, not servant, not even the royal governor, could stand against Rachel Ashcroft when she had her mind made up. Prudence had grown up seeing one after another crumble before the matriarch of the Ashcroft empire.

  The idea there was anything her grandmother couldn’t have done on her own was absurd.

  “You laugh, sweetheart, but I was young once, too.” Rachel gave her granddaughter
’s hand a squeeze that wouldn’t have killed a fly. “I had my share of challenges when it came to dealing with customs officials. Annoying little toads.” A flash of the old spark lit Rachel’s face for a moment, then faded into a soft smile. “Your grandfather had a way of negotiating that I just couldn’t match.”

  Prudence laughed again, this time with real humor. From the stories she had been told, her grandfather’s method of negotiating had been to dunk the customs officials in the sea if they didn’t agree to look the other way.

  “He also had a head for numbers that helped tremendously,” her grandmother added.

  Prudence ran the pad of her thumb against a delicate blue vein in the back of her grandmother’s hand.

  “But I have a head for numbers as well. Long ago, you told me that I got that from him.”

  Prudence cringed. Hers had been the voice of a little girl asking for approval. Not that of a young woman, ready to take sole responsibility for the family empire, an empire that employed half the county, perhaps even half the colony of Rhode Island in one fashion or another.

  “So you do.” Her grandmother patted Prudence’s hand as though she were seven again. “But the ability to add a column of numbers or calculate cargo duties is not quite the same as negotiating with a suspicious customs official. You’ve only been out of school for a few months now. It takes years to develop the kind of wisdom you’ll need to run Ashcroft by yourself.” Her voice dipped low. “Hopefully, you’ll never have to.”

  It had actually been closer to four years since Prudence finished her formal education. Most of her male classmates had continued their studies at schools like Harvard or Yale, venerable institutions of higher learning that were closed to members of her sex.

  Her grandmother had insisted she continue her education and arranged for her to stay on in Boston at the home of the Reverend and Mrs. Sorenson, where she had access to the finest tutors her grandmother’s money could buy and of whom the Sorensons approved.

  Unfortunately, Mrs. Sorenson’s idea of proper studies for young ladies had been in the languages and literature. Only very begrudgingly and at Rachel Ashcroft’s insistence had she allowed a tutor of mathematics in her home. And a real world education was out of the question. Mrs. Sorenson had swooned and cried for her smelling salts the one time Prudence suggested she be allowed to go down to the wharf to talk to the merchants. The good Reverend had helped his wife to her bedroom where she stayed sequestered for three full days until Prudence gave her word she would never suggest such an immoral thing again.

  Prudence’s sigh expressed her inner feelings about all the innate injustices of a woman living in a man’s world.

  What she would have given for just five minutes with John Hancock. Although older than her by almost ten years, he too was in the position of having to take over the family import business with the failing health of his uncle Thomas. The difference was that while well-meaning adults had cloistered her away from the business world, Hancock had been primed to become the patriarch of his family’s empire since the age of eight.

  Determined not to feel sorry for herself, Prudence tried a different tack with her grandmother. “I have Richard. He has five years on me, and he will advise me.”

  Grandma Rachel trusted Richard so thoroughly that she had allowed him to manage the day-to-day business at Ashcroft for the past two years. Rachel Ashcroft only became involved when there was a particularly important decision to be made.

  It was her grandmother’s turn to laugh now. “Never forget, Richard may be your friend, but he will soon be your employee, sweetheart.” When Prudence opened her mouth to protest, her grandmother quickly continued. “He’d never presume to tell you what to do. Even when you were children, he followed you around like a puppy. If you climbed a cliff, he was there waiting for you at the bottom, wringing his hands until you were on firmer ground. If you decided to swim in a pond, he would shiver on shore, holding your petticoats until you decided you’d had enough. When you rode Bolt for the first time, I found him praying in the barn for your safety. Did I ever tell you that?”

  Prudence chuckled. Her grandmother hadn’t told her that story, but she could easily believe it. Richard Bainbridge was so cautious as a child that she had taken great delight in finding ways to make him nervous. Luckily, as a young man, he had outgrown his timidity, or perhaps she had outgrown her delight in teasing him. She valued his friendship above all else.

  “Richard works for you, now,” her grandmother said with a certainty born of considerable thought, “and although he may advise you, he’d never be an equal partner in your relationship.”

  “So you want me to find a man who will tell me what to do?” Prudence could feel her frustration rising along with her voice. “One that will presume our family business is his, and I am some subordinate he can order around? Why on earth did you even bother to send me away to school if I am to spend the rest of my life doing my husband’s bidding?”

  The soft squeak of hinges interrupted her grandmother’s response. Prudence turned to see Dr. Willis’s shiny pate and rosy cheeks peering through the opening.

  “Is everything all right in here, Miss Ashcroft?”

  “Of course, Doctor,” Prudence said, in control of her tone once more.

  “Very well.” The doctor puckered his plump lips. “But you shouldn’t stay much longer. Your grandmother is tired this afternoon, and she needs her rest.”

  Rest? You are the one who told me she would never recover no matter how much rest she had. Just this morning you said it wouldn’t be long now. What if these are the last moments I have with my grandmother?

  Those thoughts remained unspoken. Instead she said in a slow, measured tone that belied the anxiety tearing at her insides. “Yes, you’re right, Doctor.”

  The doctor shuffled backward through the door, seemingly intent on shutting it behind him but leaving it ajar at the last moment.

  “Prudence, I am not asking you to marry someone who is your superior,” her grandmother said, drawing her attention away from Dr. Willis’s obvious attempt to keep an eye on his patient. Her grandmother must have noted it too because she spoke now in hushed tones that had nothing to do with her illness. “Frankly, honey, I am not certain you could find anyone like that.”

  Prudence smiled at her grandmother’s attempt to humor her. Grandma Rachel must have been born a diplomat.

  “I want you to find someone who will be your partner in the business. But more than that, I want you to find someone who is a companion, someone with whom you can spend the rest of your life.” Now it was her grandmother’s turn to blink back tears. When she spoke again, her voice trembled. “I don’t want you to have to suffer the same fate. It is no fun to grow old alone.”

  “Miss Prudence?” Doctor Willis said from the doorway.

  “Yes, yes, I am coming.” Prudence stood and smoothed her skirts. She leaned over and laid a kiss on her grandmother’s silky cheek. “I will see you tomorrow.”

  She gave her grandmother a smile meant to reassure the old woman, but Rachel Ashcroft had already closed her eyes.

  We will talk about this again, Grandmother.

  ****

  “I do not need a husband.” Prudence muttered and lifted her skirts to pick her way across the soggy grass.

  She could not, would not, turn the Ashcroft family business over to a husband—even if she could find one she could trust, even if she could find one willing to marry her. There was too much at stake, too many lives depended on it. Ashcroft was her responsibility, and she would see it cared for.

  Keeping her eyes on her footing, she paid scant attention to her direction, but as usual, her feet found their own way to the stables. Since she was a child, her search for solace always ended on the back of a horse.

  A pregnant mare raised her head and nickered at Prudence’s approach.

  Prudence paused at Mazy’s soft greeting, then made her way over to the fence.

  “I do not need a husband t
o help me run Ashcroft.” Prudence ran a hand down the horse’s neck and came away with a palm full of winter coat.

  The horse blinked caramel-colored eyes.

  In her final weeks of pregnancy, Mazy was one of the few horses at the Ashcroft stables that was not a brood mare. However, her gentle nature had such a calming effect on the more excitable thoroughbreds that Rachel Ashcroft treated her as one of her prize possessions.

  Prudence patted Mazy’s mottled coat.

  She didn’t want to be calmed by Mazy’s gentle nature. Not today. Today, anger bubbled within her, and she wanted to strike back at the world. A world that wouldn’t allow her the time nor the opportunity to prepare for the responsibilities that would soon be hers.

  She needed Bolt.

  Prudence swept her gaze over the rolling, pastoral hills. She felt a tug at her heart as surely as if they had called her name. Racing across those pastures on Bolt’s back, the sea breeze combing its fingers through her hair… It was the only time she truly felt free of the restraints her position and her gender placed on her.

  Prudence gave Mazy’s silky mane one last stroke as if to apologize to the little mare, then turned toward the stables. It was late, and the afternoon sun had already turned the dried grass in the meadows surrounding Ashcroft lands to gold. If she hurried, she could take Bolt out for a gallop across the meadow and be back in time for supper.

  Prudence stepped through the open stable doors, then glanced around, looking for the stable master. Robert, her grandmother’s previous groom, had left Ashcroft not a month before to move closer to his wife’s family in Boston. Had her grandmother even found the time to hire a new man before she fell ill?

  “Hello!” Prudence called out, standing on tiptoe to peer over the slatted sides of the nearest stall.

  “Hello.”

  Prudence pirouetted at the sound of a deep voice. A tall man with a blue and white checkered horse blanket draped over one arm and a shedding blade in the other hand regarded her with cool gray eyes. He wore a plain woolen riding jacket and breeches, not the close-fitting uniform of the Ashcroft stable hands, but his boots and the back of his breeches were caked with mud as though he had spent the day working in the stables.