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1805
"No, I absolutely will not do it," Miranda Cameron told her sisters, Charlotte and Constance. "I don't want to marry." She attemptedto yank her arm away from her oldest sister's hold and hurry out the door, but Charlotte held fast.
They stood in the entrance hallway of Beardsley's, a popular but respectable inn located close to the New York docks, where Charlotte had caught Miranda before she could bolt out the door. A group of men had to squeeze by them on their way to the taproom. Aware of the curious glances,Charlotte pulled Miranda into a corner, so as to shield their conversation from prying ears, and replied, "You must go. If you don't, we shall neveramount to anything. We are the granddaughters of an earl—"
"One who drank and gambled his fortune away," Miranda shot back.
"As if the rest of them don't?" Charlotte said.
"How would you know?" Miranda challenged. "We've lived our lives in the Ohio Valley, not London. This is the farthest either of us has evertraveled."
"I listen to everything I can about the nobility,"her sister answered. "I ask questions and remembereverything Mother told us—"
"I remember, too," Miranda said, stung by theimplied accusation that she could have forgottentheir mother in any way.
"Then you know what she wanted for us,"Charlotte said. "Constance was too young whenshe died, but you know."
Miranda did know. Their mother, who had diedin an Indian raid fifteen years earlier, had neverwanted them to forget they had the blood of theConqueror flowing through their veins.
"She'd have wanted us to return to London, tofind proper husbands," Charlotte said.
"But I thought Mother and Papa were a lovematch? I thought they were happy," Constancesaid. She was nineteen, the youngest. Charlotteand Miranda were twenty-six and twenty-five,and only ten months apart.
"They were," Miranda answered. "Althoughshe didn't have many choices when our grand-father died. Being an earl's daughter with no family,no relatives, not even a farthing to her namedidn't give her many choices. Everything had tobe sold around her to meet his debts. She waslucky to have met Father."
"Who promised to make her wealthy," Charlottesaid with a trace of bitterness.
"I don't think she was unhappy," Miranda argued."They loved each other. I just don't believeshe realized how hard it would be over here."
"Or how violent," Charlotte tacked on, remindingthem all why they had chosen to leavethe frontier. There had been another Indian uprising.A family no more than two miles fromthe Cameron Trading Post had been massacred.Having seen their mother and baby brother diethe same way, all three girls were ready to beginnew lives. They had nothing holding themthere.
Charlotte gave Miranda's arm a squeeze. "Weare the granddaughters of an earl. We have achance to return to England, and I want it, Miranda.I want it for all of us."
"Then let us take the money and go," she countered,referring to eight hundred pounds they'dfound hidden in a secret drawer under the counterwhere their father had counted pelts. "That's whatwe had planned to do."
The money had been a complete surprise. Their father, who had died suddenly the month before,had always pleaded poverty. They'd not expectedto inherit anything and had thought themselvesworse off than their mother had once been. Whena German had offered to buy their small stake inthe Cameron Trading Post, the girls had gladly acceptedthe pittance he'd been willing to pay, especiallyafter the deaths of the William and NellMcBride and their children.
Then fortune finally smiled on the Camerons.While cleaning the one-room trading post for thenew owner, Constance had accidentally hit herhead on the counter edge when she rose from thefloor. A secret drawer had slid open, and insidewas eight hundred British pounds. Where it hadcome from, they didn't know. Perhaps theirmother had had a dowry, and their parents hadsaved it for them. Considering the bitter man theirfather had become, it wasn't likely. However, thismoney gave them possibilities.
The Price of Indiscretion. Copyright © by Cathy Maxwell. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.
Excerpted from The Price of Indiscretion by Cathy Maxwell
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
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