The door clicked open behind them, and before they could pull away from one another, Tasik said, “I do hope this means you have asked her to marry you.”
“I believe,” David said, “she asked me first.”
“And you haven’t in truth answered,” Morwenna reminded him.
“I’d say he has,” Tasik said.
“Do you truly think I would say anything other than yes?” David asked. Then he kissed her again.
“And here I thought I would never plan my daughter’s wedding,” Mammik said over Tasik’s shoulder.
Morwenna turned to see her parents both in the doorway smiling at her, looking a little bemused. “I would like to have you there.”
“And then I’ll need to stay here long enough to attend my next grandchild’s birth,” Mammik continued.
“Considering the chaos you’ve wrought in the two months you’ve been in England, Mammik,” Morwenna said, “another year might cause a revolution.”
“Chastain,” Tasik said with mock severity, “you will have to teach her how to be a good daughter, as you are a good son.”
David coughed, then chuckled. “I’ll do my best to be a good husband.” He held Morwenna against his chest. “I love her more than I knew possible.”
“And I love you.” Morwenna turned in his arms to lay her head against his shoulder and circle her arms around him.
“Then you have our blessing,” Tasik said. “But I’m not closing this door.”
Morwenna hid her hot cheeks in the front of David’s coat and joined him in joyous laughter.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. At the beginning of the book, Morwenna saves a stranger from drowning. Why is she determined to keep him close at hand?
2. Morwenna fears several things. What are they and why does she fear them?
3. Morwenna holds considerable resentment toward her grandparents. How do you think her past drives her present actions?
4. Which of these actions are justified? Which are not?
5. How do Morwenna’s actions affect her spiritually? In her relationships?
6. How can you relate to Morwenna—or not?
7. How does David’s relationship with his family affect his ability to cope with everything he endures?
8. How does he justify not telling Morwenna about her parents?
9. David is of a vastly different social class than Morwenna in a class-conscious society. What insecurities about his rank does David show—if any—and how do they affect his actions?
10. How are David and Morwenna alike despite their different backgrounds? How are they similar?
11. Morwenna is determined to succeed on her own. In what ways have you acted with a similar actor and what were the outcomes—positive or negative?
12. How does the romance between David and Morwenna help them both grow spiritually and emotionally?
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
WRITING THIS BOOK SHORTLY AFTER THE DEATH OF MY mother has been one of the most difficult tasks of my career, as Mom was one of my biggest fans. Thanks to many people, I got through it and have even found joy in my craft once more. Mere mention of names cannot express a fraction of the gratitude I feel towards these ladies, and that is what I have space to do here. My agent, Natasha Kern, made sure I got the time I needed to grieve and still turn in my book. Becky Monds, my editor, took on an author she didn’t know and helped me find the story I wanted to tell. My Facebook accountability group kept me on the straight and narrow when I wanted to lose my sadness in someone else’s book. And, as always, Debbie Lynne, Louise, Marylu, Patty, and Ramona prayed me through. And so did a group of people new in my life—the ladies from my community group at church: Emily, Kathryn, Whitney, Kayla, and Krystal. My life is so much richer with all of you in it.
AN EXCERPT FROM
A Lady’s Honor BY LAURIE ALICE EAKES
CHAPTER 1
Cornwall, England
April 1811
“FASTER. FASTER.” ELIZABETH TRELAWNY LEANED FORWARD on the edge of the carriage seat as though the angle of her body could bring the impossible out of the coach and four—more speed. “This pace will never do.”
“It will g-get us all killed.” Her middle-aged companion, Miss Pross, stammered one more protest to the breakneck pace Elizabeth demanded of her coachman. “It’s d-dark out.”
Indeed it was—too dark. The three-quarter moon Elizabeth counted on to guide her escape floated somewhere above a layer of black clouds rolling in from the English Channel and threatening rain at any moment.
Rain would be her undoing, making narrow, winding roads too slick for speed.
“But the marquess is right behind us.” He had been since he caught up with them at an inn outside Plymouth. Only the freshness of Elizabeth’s horses and the fatigue of the marquess’s, coupled with her coachman’s quick thinking, had gotten them way ahead of Elizabeth’s would-be fiancé. With the size of Romsford’s entourage and the ability to send men across Cornwall on horseback or to sail along the coast in a fishing boat, Elizabeth’s slight advantage wouldn’t last for long.
“I must reach Bastion Point before he blocks our way in all directions.”
Bastion Point, perched on the cliffs along the north coast of Cornwall and still twenty miles away, had represented safety for Trelawnys for the past one hundred and fifty years. Elizabeth Trelawny was one more generation seeking shelter behind its gray stone walls.
“But this p-pace isn’t dece—Ooph.”
Brakes squealed. The carriage slewed sideways and jarred to a halt.
“No.” Elizabeth shot up and rapped on the hatch. “Do not stop. Coachman—”
Shouts and the sound of galloping hooves surrounded the vehicle. A shot roared like thunder for the approaching storm. A man yelled. Another one laughed.
“Highwaymen,” Miss Pross cried.
“Romsford.” Elizabeth nearly sank to her knees. If only she knew something more than the liturgical recitations she performed with the congregation at St. George’s Hanover Square every Sunday morning.
“At least we’ve stopped.” Miss Pross sounded calm, her usual self-possessed person of governess turned companion. “You will see that the marquess will not harm you. His intentions are completely honorable.”
“Then why does he seem incapable of listening when I say no?” Elizabeth knocked on the hatch again. “Coachman, stop this nonsense and get moving.”
The hatch remained closed, the coachman silent, others unnaturally quiet, the hiss of their whispering voices not much louder than the sea a hundred yards away. Those murmurs rose and fell close to the carriage door, but not close enough for more than a word or two to penetrate the enameled panels as though the wind snatched a fragment of conversation here and there to throw it against the window.
“. . . boat . . .”
“. . . never do . . .”
“. . . circle around . . .”
Her heart beating hard enough to break through to her stomach, Elizabeth pressed her face to the glass. Despite her eyes adjusting to the darkness inside the carriage, she could see little beyond the window, as though a curtain had been drawn across the outside of the pane.
Yet the subdued argument continued, and this time she heard her name. Her name. No highwayman would have her Christian name.
She grasped the handle. “I’m going out there.”
“You cannot.” Miss Pross clutched Elizabeth’s shoulder. “They could be—”
The carriage door burst open. Strong hands grasped Elizabeth by the waist and swung her from the coach. A scream rose in her throat, but she choked it back. Souvenez qui vous etes. She recited the family motto in her head. Remember who you are.
Trelawnys didn’t scream; they fought.
She kicked the shin of the man who held her. Pain shot through her toes in their kid slippers. She sucked in her breath. The man merely laughed as he slung her over his shoulder and started carrying her away from her carriage.
Miss P
ross was screaming as she scrambled out behind them. She carried no family motto demanding a certain type of behavior. “You let my lady go, you brute, you beast.” She ran after them, brandishing her umbrella.
The man ignored her and instead picked up his pace, striding forward as though Elizabeth weighed no more than her velvet cloak.
That same velvet cloak imprisoned her arms so she couldn’t beat on his back and twisted around her knees so she couldn’t jab him in the middle. Her hood tumbled over her face, smothering her and muffling the sobs pressing at her lips.
I’ll not cry. I’ll not cry. I. Will. Not—
Tears burned in her eyes. She struggled in the man’s hold, trying to loosen it.
He held on to her more tightly. “Stop it, Elys. You’re safe now.”
Elys?
She went limp over the man’s shoulder. Only four people in the world called her by her Cornish name. Grandpapa, Grandmama, Conan, her childhood friend, and—
“Drake?” Her soft exclamation of her brother’s name became lost in Miss Pross’s shout of protest.
“I’ll not go back to the carriage without my lady. You cannot make me.”
Apparently they could. A door slammed and the protests grew muffled. A whip cracked. With a crunch of wheels on roadbed and the flicker of swaying carriage lamps, the coach began to move.
The man holding Elizabeth, the brother she hadn’t seen in six years, set her atop a horse. “Grab the reins,” he commanded in an undertone, a gentle voice just above a murmur. “You can still ride astride?”
“Yes, of course, but where—”
“Later.” He released her.
As bidden, she caught up the reins with one hand, then tried to smooth her skirts over her legs as far as possible with the other. Darkness, if not the fabric of her narrow skirt, preserved her modesty. As though allowing anyone to see her stocking-clad ankles mattered when Drake had not failed her after all but had come to her rescue in the spectacular way she expected of her daredevil elder brother.
She nearly laughed aloud.
“Let’s ride.” Drake rode up beside her on another horse. “I’ve got a lead rope. You just stay in the saddle. We’re going to go fast to beat this rain.”
He clicked his tongue at his mount, and both horses sprang into action, heading west toward the narrow track that led over the spine of Cornwall to Bastion Point. Elizabeth held on with hands and knees, bent low over the horse’s neck, her hair flying loose of the last of its pins. Behind them, the rumble of the carriage and other horses faded away to the east, back toward Falmouth. Romsford would catch up with Miss Pross, not Elizabeth.
As long as his men hadn’t managed to ride cross-country or take a boat and get ahead of her.
She was free, flying through the night toward Bastion Point, toward home at last.
The story continues in A Lady’s Honor by Laurie Alice Eakes . . .
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
“EAKES HAS A CHARMING WAY OF making her novels come to life without being over the top,” writes Romantic Times of bestselling, award-winning author Laurie Alice Eakes. Since she lay in bed as a child telling herself stories, she has fulfilled her dream of becoming a published author, with a degree in English and French from Asbury University and a master’s degree in writing fiction from Seton Hill University contributing to her career path. Now she has nearly two dozen books in print.
After enough moves in the past five years to make U-Haul’s stock rise, she now lives in Houston, Texas, where she and her husband are newly minted church leaders. Although they haven’t been blessed with children—yet—they have sundry lovable dogs and cats. If the carpet is relatively free of animal fur, then she is either frustrated with the current manuscript, or brainstorming another—the only two times she genuinely enjoys housekeeping.
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