A Heart for the Taking Read Free Page A

and brought forth the babe. She even got as far as lifting him in the air to toss his swaddled weight in the river. But she could not. A sob broke from her. What was she to do? She could not murder this innocent babe. And she could not return to Constance with the deed undone.
    As she stood there indecisively, her desperate gaze suddenly caught sight of a tiny light moving through the woods in her direction. Someone was coming. But who? Who would be out in a storm like this? Her breath caught in her throat, and she clutched the baby tighter to her. She couldn’t be discovered. Not here. Not now.
    She glanced around frantically, utter blackness meeting her look. What was she to do? The small bobbing light drew nearer, and still Anne stood there undecided. The force of the storm seemed to lessen for a moment, the wind falling, the rain slacking, the thunder and lightning slowing in its intensity.
    The sound of a man’s voice carried to her, and to her astonishment she realized that the fellow was singing. Singing in the midst of a storm like this?
    The baby gave a great lusty cry just then, and to Anne’s horror the singing stopped and a voice called out, “Who goes there?”
    Thoroughly terrorized, Anne did the first thing that occurred to her. She laid the baby gently on the ground near the edge of the bluff, and then, without a backward look, sheplunged into the undergrowth. The infant’s howl of outrage rang in her ears as she ran through the night toward the house. Please, dear God, she prayed silently, let him be safe—let whoever was singing find him and take him far,
far
away from Walker Ridge! Somewhere where he will be safe!
    There was a moment when it appeared as if Anne’s heartfelt prayer would go unheeded, as a long and loud rumble of thunder drowned out the infant’s cries. Hearing nothing but the sounds of the storm, the man in the woods, Morely Walker, shrugged his broad shoulders and decided somewhat foggily (he had consumed many pints of ale over the course of the evening) that he must have been hearing things. Rather unsteadily, Morely began to make his way once more toward his destination—the overseer’s cottage at Walker Ridge.
    Morely was a distant cousin of Sam’s. Somewhere back on the Walker family tree they shared a great-grandfather, and while Sam and most of the Walkers were respectable, hardworking gentlemen, occasionally within the family someone like Morely would appear—a charming rapscallion, unable to keep a penny he earned. Not that Morely was a ne’er-do-well; he was simply a handsome, amiable young man who just preferred drinking and gambling and decidedly
un
respectable feminine company to anything even faintly resembling work. Orphaned at the tender age of twelve when his parents had been killed in an Indian raid, Morely had grown up at Walker Ridge, and John and Sam had ably administered the tobacco plantation left to him by his father until Morely had reached his majority.
    Unfortunately Morely had not the least head for business, and within two years he had managed to lose everything. Two years of riotous living and frankly bad management had left him deeply in debt at the age of twenty-three. Only Sam’s intervention had saved Morley’s plantation from the sale block. But while he could still claim he owned nine thousand fertile acres planted in tobacco and a charming little house, in actuality Sam controlled everything—the price Morley had had to pay to save the land.
    It had always been clearly understood that this was a temporary arrangement, that when Morely had proven himself a responsible and prudent young man, Sam would return the reins of power to him. Regrettably, in the six months that had passed since the debacle, Morely had shown no indication of changing his dissolute ways. In fact, if Sam hadn’t given him the overseer’s cottage at Walker Ridge in which to live and provided him with a nominal sum—which Morely promptly spent on ale and women—Morely