The Beloved Land Read Free Page A

to find her.” She squeezed her father’s hand. “It will be wonderful to have something like this to add to my letter. Something with a measure of hope.” Excitement filled her heart and her voice. “He knows many influential people, both in England and in France. If there is news to be had, Charles will discover it,” she finished confidently.

Chapter 2
    “ ‘Although Father John is getting on in years,’ ” Anne read aloud to the small group gathered by the fire in the sitting room, “ ‘he continues to help me as he is able.’ ” Catherine’s letter included the little story about the unwearable darned socks, and they all chuckled. Anne picked up where she had stopped. “ ‘I fear all this only adds additional strain to his frail body, but there is no stopping him. He feels a responsibility, especially now that Andrew is unwell.’ ” Anne tried to swallow over the lump in her throat.
    “His heart,” Charles murmured, his hand against his chest. “What a family trait to share with my dear brother.”
    Catherine’s next words appeared and vanished on the page through the film of tears in Anne’s eyes. “ ‘Andrew has good days and bad. The bad, I am sorry to say, are coming more often and are far more severe.’ ”
    Anne could go no further. The letter dropped to the floor as her hands covered her eyes.
    “Anne, my dear.”
    Anne heard the rustle of skirts as Judith, Charles’s wife, rose from her place beside her husband. She was a woman well versed with sorrow, having lost both her husband and her oldest son, Anne’s own first husband, in scarcely the space of a year. She would know that words had little effect at such a time, and she only knelt beside Anne and put gentle arms around her.
    Charles asked softly, “Shall I finish reading for you?”
    Anne nodded mutely.
    From the other side of the fireplace, where Anne’s Thomas sat holding the child, her boy John observed softly, “Mommy’s sad.”
    Anne pressed a small square of cambric to her eyes and drew as steady a breath as she could manage. Small John now stood on the settee alongside Thomas. His round arms circled her husband’s neck, cheeks touching, dark hair burnished and intermingled in the firelight. Two sets of eyes regarded her with loving concern. John’s little chin quivered with effort to not cry also. “I’m fine, darling,” Anne managed to say, though forming a smile seemed beyond her. “It’s just … it’s the news that your grandfather isn’t well.”
    Thomas held the little boy closer.
    John released his grip on Thomas’s neck long enough to wipe his own eyes. “I’m a big boy now.”
    Charles had crossed the room to retrieve the letter at Anne’s feet.
    Anne had thought she would never feel as separated from her parents as she had at her wedding to Thomas. But now … The tears returned, this time nearly blocking out Charles’s voice as he found the place and began to read.
    Anne found herself surrounded again by the scent of the bright English morning on the day of her marriage to Thomas. They originally had planned for a small double ceremony in the largest parlor of Charles’s manor. It was, after all, a second marriage for both her and Judith. Charles had become less than welcome in London society since his vocal opposition to the war against the American colonies. The family had not returned to the city for over a year. No, the ceremony was to be a private family event.
    But when they spoke to the vicar about their plans, he had counseled them to make it more public. Not for the society folk from London, he urged, but rather for the villagers who cared so deeply for them. Was it not right, said the vicar, that local families who in recent years had been so blessed by the Harrow estate and the benevolent outreach of the family should witness this wedding?
    Thomas had joined Anne in forming schools and nursing care, and had with Charles’s blessing begun organizing private ownership of what