Promise of a Family Page 24

  Lulu clapped her hands and giggled, but Susanna’s heart faltered again.

  Drake loved her, and she loved him. That had not changed. Nothing else had, either. His life was on the sea, far from Cothaire. Hers was not, but her sister’s words about her marriage resonated with her. Like Caroline, she must be willing to have the man she loved with her whenever possible. His infrequent visits would have to be enough to last her through the lonely times between.

  Raising her eyes to his, she said, “That would be wonderful, Drake. Your dream is coming true.”

  “It is.” He stroked her cheek with his thumb. “I know I am not worthy of you, Susanna—”

  “That is nonsense. I told you that before. Will you believe me now? Do you think I care about your past? It is your present and future I want to share.”

  “You are the daughter of an earl.”

  “And you are the man I love.” Taking Lulu from his arms and setting the little girl on the deck, she drew his mouth down to hers for a kiss. When his arms curved around her, she was sure that he understood what her words had struggled to say.

  He laced his fingers through hers, and after she picked up Lulu, he led them up to the main deck. They walked to the bow. In one direction, she saw the open sea. In the other, the cliffs of Porthlowen with Cothaire sitting on the hill behind them.

  He plucked Lulu out of her arms and whispered in the child’s ear. The little girl giggled and squirmed to get down. He bent to make sure she was steady on her feet beside them, then dropped to one knee and took Susanna’s hand. “Susanna, you have mended my heart and brought me back to God. You have banished the bitterness that filled my life and replaced it with love. If you will have me, sweetheart, I will gladly give up my other dreams on the sea and be yours forevermore. Say yes, and become my wife.”

  Her hand swept through his black hair as she lost herself in his dark brown eyes. No, she did not lose herself. She found herself, the woman she could become with his love.

  “Yes, I will marry you. I will try to be the best wife any woman has been, whether you are in Porthlowen or far away at sea. But I will never again ask you to give up the sea. Your life on The Kestrel has made you the man I love.” She touched the center of her chest. “Your heart beats here with mine, and I know how you love being captain of a fine ship. I was wrong to expect you to live my life. I want us to live our lives as husband and wife in whatever direction we go.”

  Coming to his feet, he did not look away as he called orders for his crew to turn the ship around and head back to Porthlowen Harbor. He lowered his voice and said, “Benton will be taking command of The Kestrel.”

  “When you take command of this ship?”

  “No, I will hire a captain to sail The Lady Susu, if she is awarded to me by the Admiralty as a prize of war.”

  “What will you do?”

  “Fulfill my dreams. I will find other captains who are interested in working together for the betterment of all of us. We should not let the customers pit us one against another so we make pennies on a voyage. I think of the miners on Warrick’s land and how they bid against each other. If they stood firm, they would earn a better living for them and for their families. We merchant sailors can do the same.”

  Susanna smiled as she drew his arms back around her. “What a great plan!”

  “I could use someone who is used to keeping accounts to help me get started. Do you know someone?” He looked down at Lulu. “Someone who has cute twin children to be a part of our family, at least for a while?”

  Her joyous yes vanished beneath her lips as he kissed her again, making their sweetest dreams come true.

  Epilogue

  Susanna stood in the middle of the room and looked around. Furniture was scattered everywhere, and a rolled-up rug leaned against the marble hearth. She should decide where to put each chair and settee and table in the new house her father had started building when she first planned to wed. Did she want the gold curtains or the blue ones hung over the windows with the tempting view of the cove and the crashing waves?

  Last night, a storm had risen out of the sea. The wind drove water ahead of it, raising the waves as high as the ones that battered unprotected shores. Now the thunder and lightning and driving rain were gone, and bright sunshine lured her to hurry down to the sand.

  She heard two deep voices followed by the joyous giggles only little girls could make. She turned to greet Lulu and Moll, then scurried hastily out of the way as Venton came in, followed by a trio of footmen.

  “Over there.” He watched the men put the crates next to a pair of side tables, then waited for them to leave. He gave a terse nod in Susanna’s direction before following them.

  “Venton takes his new duties as butler very seriously, doesn’t he?” Drake walked in with the twins holding his hands. Love and happiness filled his gaze as it met hers.

  “Very.” She held out her arms, and the twins rushed to her. As she hugged them, she looked over their heads to the man behind them.

  By this time tomorrow, she would be Drake’s wife. She had counted down each day since—what the villagers called—the Battle of Porthlowen. With Captain Allard and his crew—including Lieutenant Morel—secured in prison, there had been no further destruction to Drake’s ship or the village or Cothaire. The cannon from the privateer and cannonballs Lieutenant Morel had made at the smithy garnered enough money to repay Drake’s customers for the cargo lost the first time his crew fought the French sailors.

  Waiting for the banns to be read had been difficult, but gave Susanna time to begin to put together the home they would share. A home overlooking the cove and Cothaire on the opposite hillside. A home filled with the laughter of two little girls who would live with them until the puzzle of their origins was unraveled. A home where she and Drake could forget the past and embrace the future...as well as each other.

  “Why are you grinning like a cat in catnip?” he asked as he walked toward her.

  “I am happy. Why are you grinning?”

  “I am happy, as well.” He reached past the twins to wrap his arm around her waist. As the children skipped away to peer into an open crate, he added, “I have everything a man could want and more.”

  “More? What more could any man want than a house filled with unpacked boxes and rooms that still need to be painted?” When he laughed, she savored the joy within her.

  “Read this.”

  Susanna took the page Drake held out to her. It was from the Admiralty, and the letter announced the decision of the disposition of the French ship. Le Corsaire and its contents were being awarded to Captain Drake Nesbitt.

  “This came quickly,” she said as she folded the sheet and handed it to him.

  “Perhaps because the government is embarrassed at how easily the French sailors escaped from Dartmoor Prison.” He gave her a wry grin. “Or it might be that your father’s influence reached from here to the halls of Admiralty House.”

  “Either way, you deserve this reward.”

  He turned her to him. Leaning his forehead against hers, he asked, “Can I tell you a secret?”

  “Of course.” Her heart hammered as she curved her arms up his back.

  “I will get the reward I truly want tomorrow when we exchange vows.”

  “You are a smooth-talking sailor, Captain Nesbitt.”

  “And you are a beautiful woman, Lady Susanna Nesbitt-to-be.”

  He tilted her lips below his, and she held her breath, waiting for his luscious kiss.

  “Cap!” shouted Lulu.

  “Cap!” shouted Moll. “Lady Susu, time to eat. Now!”

  Drake shrugged with a lopsided grin. The twins would not give up until they had their luncheon. “Later.”

  “I will be waiting.” As he was about to step away, she put her hand against his cheek
and turned his eyes toward her again. “I will always be waiting for you, no matter if you sail to the ends of the earth. Don’t ever doubt that.”

  “I don’t. Not ever.” When he claimed her lips, holding her against him, the children’s giggles were the perfect music to match their hearts’ song.

  * * * * *

  Keep reading for an excerpt from SECOND CHANCE LOVE by Shannon Farrington.

  Dear Reader,

  Thank you for picking up Promise of a Family, the first book in the Matchmaking Babies miniseries. How families are created in many different ways has always intrigued me. For many years, my husband and I were involved in adoptive family support groups. Two of our children are adopted, and we quickly learned that how a child comes into a family is far less important than how many blessings we all share with each other. Even though my children arrived by plane rather than a rickety rowboat, I really enjoyed writing about how hearts expand to welcome those who become an integral part of our family. I hope you enjoyed reading this book and will look for the next in the series, which will be out in October.

  As always, feel free to contact me by stopping in at joannbrownbooks.com.

  Wishing you many blessings,

  Jo Ann Brown

  We hope you enjoyed this Harlequin Love Inspired Historical title.

  You find illumination in days gone by. Love Inspired Historical stories lift the spirit as heroines tackle the challenges of life in another era with hope, faith and a focus on family.

  Enjoy four new stories from Love Inspired Historical every month!

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  Second Chance Love

  by Shannon Farrington

  Chapter One

  Baltimore, Maryland

  1864

  David Wainwright stared past his brother’s casket to the place where Elizabeth Martin sat. Her beautiful red curls were pulled back tightly in a bun at the base of her neck. Head to toe, she was covered in black. In just a few short weeks the woman would have become part of his family, but not in the way David had hoped.

  “I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live...”

  The reverend presiding over the service recited the words of Jesus, but by the look on Elizabeth’s face, it appeared she found no comfort in the promise of eternal life. Pale and stunned, she stared at Jeremiah’s coffin. By all outward appearances she was the epitome of proper decorum, but the moment David caught her eye he sensed a storm below the surface.

  If only you had left well enough alone, she seemed to say. I’d have given anything for just a few days with him as his wife.

  Grief rolled through him in more ways than one. The loss of his brother was like a knife to his soul, and the sight of Elizabeth’s pain cut him just as deeply.

  I’m sorry, he wanted to say. So sorry for everything.

  She returned her focus to the minister, but David’s thoughts remained in the past.

  Little had he realized when he first met her that his life, and that of his brother’s, would be changed forever. Elizabeth was a Baltimore belle, born and bred. Like many other women from her city, she had volunteered to serve as a nurse following the battle of Antietam. Scores of wounded soldiers, Union and rebel alike, had come to Baltimore’s US Army General Hospital for care and processing. David and Jeremiah were a pair of soldiers from Boston who had been assigned as stewards in the place. Elizabeth had worked in the ward alongside David. Jeremiah served next door.

  Her Southern sympathy revealed itself from time to time, mostly in expressions of relief whenever she learned of rebel victories on the battlefield. As a Union soldier and the son of an abolition-preaching minister, David found that troubling. Then he learned Elizabeth’s loyalty was more to an older brother named George, who had enlisted in the rebel forces, than to the actual Confederacy.

  Her devotion to her secession-supporting family member, however, had cost her the position at the hospital. For, when a rebel prisoner escaped, Elizabeth and several other Baltimore volunteer nurses were accused of assisting him. She was found innocent of the charges but was forced to leave the hospital for refusing to sign an oath of loyalty that would have demanded that she cut off all contact with her brother.

  It had been a dark day when she left David’s ward, but worse ones were to follow. Shortly after her dismissal, Jeremiah had announced he was courting her.

  Why didn’t I speak up then? David couldn’t help but think. Why didn’t I do something? Surely my brother would have respected my wishes if I’d told him that I’d fallen in love with her.

  Three weeks later Jeremiah had proposed. He and Elizabeth had planned to marry immediately. David had done his best to speak then. He remembered every detail of that conversation.

  “You can’t marry her,” he’d insisted.

  “Why not?”

  “Well...this war.”

  “I will not reenlist,” Jeremiah had announced. “I’ve done my duty. I’m going to marry Elizabeth.”

  “But you would marry her before your service is through? Why, you barely know each other.”

  “We will have a lifetime to get to know each other. I love her. She loves me.”

  The pain that statement had inflicted was more than David could stand, but he did not let his brother know that. “But surely you want what is best for her,” he’d said.

  “Of course I do.”

  “Then consider what could happen. If you married her before your service in the army is finished...”

  Jeremiah had quickly dismissed his misgivings. “They have kept us in the same hospital for the past two years. There is no reason to think they would change our posting now. It’s already November! We’ll be out the first of January.”

  “But you can’t be certain of that. You have no guarantee the army will keep you here in Baltimore until your enlistment ends. They could extend our service. What if we are sent to the battlefield?”

  “Then I will do my duty.”

  David didn’t doubt his brother’s courage, and that was exactly what had frightened him.

  “For her sake, don’t be selfish, man! Think of her! Will you run the risk of making your new bride a widow? And if there is a child, would you leave him fatherless? Where will that leave her? I’ll tell you—with the memory of a short-lived love and the lifelong responsibility of rearing the consequences!”

  He may have been crass, indelicate for certain, but Jeremiah saw his point and he’d postponed the wedding. For David, however, it was hardly a victory.

  Sitting here now before his brother’s casket, his own words pounded repeatedly in his mind. Don’t be selfish, man! Think of her...

  He had told himself he had acted for Elizabeth’s protection, but he realized now he had spoken for his own well-being. Deep down David knew he could not bear the thought of her belonging to another man, even one as good and as God-fearing as Jeremiah.

  But a man without the courage to proclaim his own intentions has no business disrupting another’s.

  The minister continued on, talking of Jeremiah’s unselfish nature, how he’d ministered to sick soldiers, many of whom considered him the enemy. David’s guilt grew.

  I am the older brother. I was supposed to be looking out for him. That’s why I enlisted in the first place. I should have encouraged him to marry Elizabeth when he wished. I had no idea he would succumb to pneumonia just days before our service in the army ended
.

  He chanced a glance in her direction. She was staring straight at the coffin. Her chin was quivering, but she was trying desperately to maintain control.

  The last thing on earth he’d wanted to do was hurt her, and yet that was exactly what he had done. He had stolen what precious little happiness Elizabeth could have had. He’d stolen it from Jeremiah, as well.

  The casket was closed. A bone-rattling chill, one even colder than the dreadful January weather, shivered through him. The minister offered a final prayer, and when it was over, David and his fellow mourners stood.

  Across the way, Elizabeth did the same. She wiped her eyes, tucked her black-trimmed handkerchief in the cuff of her sleeve and prepared to greet each of their guests. David was confident she would do so with respect and grace, no matter what she may be feeling inside. She would execute the duties of this day. He would do the same.

  In a few hours he would place his brother’s casket on the northbound train. When he reached Boston, his family would then conduct a second service at their home, followed by internment in the Wainwright plot. All honors would be paid to Jeremiah for his service to the Union.

  In the weeks to come David would help settle his brother’s affairs, then do his best to reenter civilian life. In all likelihood he would never see Elizabeth Martin again, but he knew what he had done to her and his brother would haunt him for the rest of his days.

  * * *

  Elizabeth mustered her strength and stood. She’d told herself she could get through this. She would get through this. Her determination, however, was immediately tested as Jeremiah’s older brother approached. Elizabeth had managed to avoid him all morning, but now there was no escaping his presence.

  The sight of David made her heart squeeze. He wore the same blue uniform, had the same dark, wavy hair and lean yet muscular build. Were it not for the neatly trimmed mustache and chin whiskers, he could have easily been Jeremiah’s twin.