A Heart for the Taking Read online

  Also by Shirlee Busbee

  LOVERS FOREVER

  Published by

  WARNER BOOKS

  Contents

  Also by Shirlee Busbee

  Copyright

  Prologue: Chance Meeting

  Part One: Fancy

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Part Two: Chance

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Part Three: Stormy Horizon

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Part Four: Devil’s Own

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Epilogue: Fair Horizons

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Excerpt from And Love Remains

  Copyright

  A HEART FOR THE TAKING.

  Copyright © 1997 by Shirlee Busbee

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  For information address Warner Books,

  Hachette Book Group

  237 Park Avenue

  New York, NY 10017

  Visit our website at www.HachetteBookGroup.com

  ISBN: 978-0-7595-2391-3

  A mass market edition of this book was published in 1997 by Warner Books.

  First eBook edition: March 2010

  To fine friends and good companions:

  CARLA and SANDY REIMER, who feed us in moments of crisis and graciously share horse knowledge.

  AND

  BARBARA and LOREN MACK-FISHER, who delight with “dead dog” stories and lucid explanations of ancient text.

  AND

  HOWARD— who is still the best!

  Prologue

  Chance Meeting

  Colony of Virginia April 9, 1740

  In the dead vast and middle of the night.

  William Shakespeare,

  Hamlet

  The storm shrieked across the land like a furious banshee, the treetops tossing violently in the fierce wind and lashing rain. Lightning tore the utter blackness of the sky time and again, and the angry rumble of thunder rose above the fury of the storm, sometimes just a sharp crack that seemed to shake the very ground, other times merely a long, ominous grumble.

  It was certainly not a night, if she had been given a choice, that Letty Walker would have chosen to give birth. But then, just as she had no control over the arrival of one of the most violent storms to strike the Colony of Virginia in a decade, so did she have no choice over the arrival of her own firstborn child. It was not an easy birthing.

  Letty hadn’t expected it to be. She had been married for nearly twenty years to her beloved Sam Walker and had just celebrated her thirty-eighth birthday this past January in this year of our Lord, 1740. She was far too old to be having her first child, and her body made that clear with every spasm of pain that streaked through her. But, oh, dear God! She and Sam wanted this child so desperately. So very desperately.

  The only children of only children, when they had married, they had planned to have a large, boisterous family. But as the years had passed, those desperately longed-for babies had never appeared. The one that was presently attempting to be born was the culmination of years of hope and yearning, and she would suffer this pain tenfold if it put a babe in her arms.

  While Letty and Sam longed most urgently for this child, there was someone who did not. Constance Walker, Letty’s ridiculously young stepmother-in-law. Constance had arrived in the Colonies from England two years ago as the bride of Letty’s father-in-law, John, and had subsequently given birth to a baby boy. Until Letty’s pregnancy, it had been understood by everyone that at some time in the future, Constance’s son, Jonathan, would inherit all of the great Walker fortune.

  In the normal course of events, it would have been Sam’s children who would have inherited, but Sam and Letty had not been so blessed. John had been determined for his vast estate to flow into the hands of his own direct bloodline, and at the age of sixty-two he had gone to England in search of a suitable wife to bear him another child—or children, if the fates be kind. To his delight, he had found everything he had been searching for in Constance Wheeler. When Jonathan had been born, some ten months after their marriage in England, John had been ecstatic. Letty and Sam had been happy over the event, and they all doted on the infant, Jonathan. Tragically, John had not lived six weeks beyond the birth of his youngest son. His vast estate had been divided equally amongst his two sons, with Sam having total control of the entire fortune until Jonathan reached the age of thirty-five, when his portion would be turned over to him. Constance had slipped easily into the role of beautiful young widow, confident, since Sam and Letty had no heirs, that in due course, Jonathan would inherit everything.

  From the moment she had stepped into the New World, Constance had viewed all the diverse wealth of the Walkers as her own, from the thousands of acres of untamed land, to the rich tobacco fields and the elegant plantation house, Walker Ridge, the palatial home in Williamsburg, to the ships and the cargoes in their holds, to the cold hard cash that John Walker, unlike most colonists, commanded. And it was cold, calculating greed for her son’s future that made her view Letty’s stunningly unexpected pregnancy with such great rage.

  The Walkers were Virginian aristocracy. An ancestor had been one of the early settlers at Jamestown in the last century, and John Walker, as his forebears before him, had continued to increase the family holdings. The Walkers commanded respect and prestige in the colony and controlled a great fortune. A fortune that had induced Constance at the age of nineteen to marry a man forty-four years her senior.

  Not that John Walker had been a raddled old man. He had not been. Like the majority of the Walkers, Sam and Jonathan’s father had been tall, broad-shouldered, and robust, proud of the fact that he still had all his own teeth and that he had no need of wigs and powder to give himself a fashionable head of hair. Despite his age, with the glinting blue eyes and handsomely chiseled features of the Walkers, John could have taken his pick from any number of eager, nubile young women. He had traveled to England for the express purpose of finding a bride to give him a son, but he had taken one look at Constance’s lovely green eyes and soft fair hair and had fallen in love like a callow youth.

  Possessing no fortune of her own and coming from a background of genteel poverty, Constance had wasted little time in debating the wisdom of marrying a man so much older and leaving behind all that she had ever known. There was a fortune to be had, and she had every intention of securing it for herself . . . and her child.

  For a moment her unfriendly gaze drifted to Letty, as she lay on the bed, her wan features twisted with pain as another contraction knifed through her. Constance’s lips tightened. She didn’t hate Letty, she actually liked her; Letty was kind to her and openly adored Jonathan. It was Letty’s child who aroused all her resentment and antipathy. All her hatred was focused on the child who would supersede her own son and who would one day inherit an enormous share of the Walker wealth. It just wasn’t fair, she thought bitterly. J
onathan was the heir! Jonathan was supposed to inherit everything!

  Since Letty’s ecstatic announcement of her impending motherhood, Constance had had seven long months to brood over the injustice of it all, and she had come to view this child struggling so to be born as a rival, a usurper who had no right to take away her own child’s inheritance. It didn’t matter that as John’s youngest son, and Sam’s half-brother, Jonathan would still be wealthy and have land and a fortune of his own to order. All that mattered to Constance was that a major portion of the fortune she had considered her son’s would be given to someone else. If it weren’t for Letty’s child, it would all be Jonathan’s, which as far as Constance was concerned was how it should be.

  A loud boom of thunder brought Constance’s thoughts back to the matter at hand. The babe was early—it wasn’t to be born until sometime in mid-May, and here it was not even the middle of April. Over a month too soon, and the birthing was taking too long. Far too long. Hope suddenly sprang into her breast. Perhaps the babe would die.

  Slightly cheered, she bent over and, wiping Letty’s damp forehead, said kindly, “Push, dear. Try not to fight the pain. You must not struggle so—your babe will arrive soon enough.”

  “Oh, Constance! Do you think so?” Letty whispered tiredly. “It did not take you so long to bring forth Jonathan, as I recall.” She smiled faintly. “It seemed that the servant had barely entered our wing of the house when Father John arrived almost on his heels to tell us that you had safely delivered a son.”

  Constance couldn’t help the superior smile that curved her small mouth. “That is true, dear Letty, but you must remember that I am much younger.” At the anxious look that flashed in Letty’s beautiful gray-blue eyes, Constance said hastily, “Which should not concern you at all. You will do just fine. ’Tis just taking a trifle longer. Do not worry. All will be well.”

  “If only Sam were here,” Letty murmured. “I know he never would have gone to Philadelphia if he had had the least notion that the baby would decide to come early.”

  “Shush. Sam’s task is done and ’tis up to you to finish the deed.”

  Another contraction savagely clenched Letty’s swollen body, and she gave a soft cry. It was now well over thirtysix hours since the first onslaught of pain had struck her, and she was growing very weak and exhausted. Anxiety about the safety of her child gnawed at her, and with every passing moment she feared that both she and her baby would die. Poor Sam. He would be devastated.

  Thoughts of her dear husband’s grief at the demise of both wife and child roused Letty from her dark musings, and she began to concentrate on the messages her body was sending her, pushing with renewed vigor with each contraction. For several moments there was just the sound of the raging storm outside the stout walls of the plantation house intermingled with Letty’s harsh, panting breaths as she struggled to rid her body of the baby within it.

  It was a spacious, richly furnished room in which Letty labored. The huge bed in which she lay was lavishly hung with pale green silken curtains, a carpet in hues of rose and cream lay upon the floor, and a fire leapt comfortingly on the hearth of the gray marble fireplace. Lamps holding the finest whale oil shed a gentle light over the remainder of the room, revealing the tall mahogany wardrobes on the far wall and a satinwood dressing table with its velvet-covered seat. A chair near the bed held several clean towels and the small blue-and-white blanket that Letty had knitted herself in anticipation of the coming child. Next to the chair, sitting on an elegant walnut table, was a china bowl and ewer, both filled with warm water.

  Letty and Constance were not alone in the room. Anne Clemmons, Constance’s companion-servant, who had accompanied her from England, was also present. It was Anne who carefully lifted the sheet and viewed the progress of the birthing. Intensely loyal to the mistress she had served for fifteen years, since she had been twelve and Constance only six, Anne had come to believe that her fortunes were firmly aligned with Constance’s. It had been a maxim in Anne’s life that whatever was good for Constance was good for her. Anne wanted this baby no more than her mistress did.

  Pushing the sheet farther out of the way, Anne glanced up to meet Constance’s eyes. “The head is there,” she said flatly. “A few more strong pushes and the babe will be delivered.”

  Letty heard the words with a fearful joy. Her baby. In a matter of moments, her child would be laid in her arms. “Please, dear God, let all be well.”

  Caught up in the pain of the impending birth, Letty was hardly aware of the ugly look that crossed Constance’s face or the manner in which her fists clenched at her sides. Filled with impotent rage, Constance could only stand by helplessly as the end to all her schemes was forcing its way into the world. Shattering her world.

  Anne was very busy for the next several moments as Letty brought forth her child. As the worst of the contractions subsided and Letty fell back in exhaustion, Anne lifted the infant from the bed. “A boy,” she said. “Stillborn.”

  A scream of anguish rose up from Letty. With tears streaming down her face, she demanded, “Give him to me! You must be wrong. He cannot be dead.”

  But he was. Even Letty could see that as Anne gently laid the blue-faced infant in her outstretched arms. The cord had twisted around his neck, and the long birth had stolen what chance he’d had of life. Weeping soundlessly, Letty clutched the small body to her bosom.

  Releasing her pent-up breath, Constance shot Anne a look of triumph. To think she had worried. Letty was too old to have a live child.

  Now that any threat to her happiness had been removed, Constance was able to offer comfort to the grieving mother. “Oh, Letty!” she cried, almost sincerely. “I am so sorry! I know how much this child meant to you and Sam.”

  Tenderly Letty’s hands touched her dead baby, marveling at his perfection, too stunned by the tragedy to care very much for Constance’s words of comfort. “He is so beautiful,” she muttered. Instinctively she glanced at his tiny feet, noting the six toes on the right foot. “He even,” she whispered painfully, “has the six toes of Sam’s family—every Walker child since Sam’s grandfather has been so marked.” Her hand gently brushed that soft little foot, her gaze wandering over the small, still body. “Isn’t he perfect? So very perfect?” A huge sob welled up inside of her. “And so very dead.”

  Anne and Constance moved quickly to soothe her, Anne eventually taking the dead child from her arms, Constance pressing a concoction of brandy and laudanum on her. “For the pain and to help you sleep,” Constance said softly as she helped the older woman to sit up against the pile of pillows and swallow the liquid.

  For several moments only the sound of the storm was heard in the room as the other two women worked quickly, wrapping the dead infant in one of the towels and clearing away the stained sheets. Grief-stricken and exhausted, Letty merely lay there, welcoming the black numbness offered by the laudanum.

  More moments passed, Constance mentally composing the sad little letter she would have delivered to Sam in Philadelphia as she supervised the tidying up; Letty drifting slowly into a deep, drugged sleep; and Anne, pleased that her mistress was pleased, almost humming as she followed Constance’s orders.

  Suddenly, a sharp urgent pain lanced through Letty, and her eyes flew open. “Merciful heavens. What is happening?”

  “The afterbirth,” Anne said calmly. “ ’Tis nothing to fret about, mistress.”

  But Anne was wrong, as she and Constance soon found out. Exhaustion and the laudanum had taken firm hold of Letty, and despite the pain that racked her body, she drifted deeper and deeper into unconsciousness as her body fought to relieve itself not of the afterbirth, but of a second child! Without waking up, Letty was unknowingly giving birth to twins. The second boy was as strong and lusty as the first had been weak and lifeless.

  Her jaw set, Anne swiftly cut the cord and wrapped the second infant in the blue-and-white blanket his mother had knitted with such joyful anticipation. The boy had a powerful set of
lungs, and Anne fitted the blanket securely over his head, hoping to muffle the cries.

  She and Constance looked at each other. “What do we do?” Anne hissed, holding the child to her bosom. “This one is alive.”

  Constance bit her lip, fury at the trick fate had played on her giving her pretty face an ugly cast. It just wasn’t fair! The baby had been born dead—no one expected twins! There was only supposed to be one baby.

  Her gaze suddenly narrowed and she glanced at Letty. Letty, who was too deeply drugged to be aware of what was going on. Letty, who thought she had given birth to a dead son. And only a dead son.

  Constance took but a moment to make her decision. This child stood between her son and a great fortune. Letty thought her son was dead. Why not let her go on thinking that?

  Constance took a deep breath. “Get rid of it,” she said sharply. “Everyone is asleep. You can slip out of the house and throw it in the river. No one will ever find out. Letty’s stillborn son lies just over there. No one need ever know about this child.”

  Anne hesitated. She had taken care of Constance since the younger woman had been a mere child and she loved Constance dearly. Being Constance’s companion had saved her from a life of drudgery and uncertainty. There was nothing she wouldn’t do for her . . . but cold-blooded murder? The child wiggled against her bosom, and her reluctance grew. This was a babe they were talking about. A newborn.

  “Well. What are you waiting for?” Constance demanded. “Get rid of it.”

  “Mistress, I . . .”

  Constance’s eyes narrowed, and reaching across the short distance that separated them, she slapped Anne hard across the cheek. “Do you hear me?” she snapped. “Get rid of it, I tell you.”

  “What harm has he done you—Master Jonathan will still be a rich young man—you are a rich young widow—far richer than you ever dreamed when we lived with your father in Surrey. You have so much now. Couldn’t you—”

  Constance’s green eyes flashed angrily. “How dare you! You forget yourself! And you forget that I am your mistress and that you will do as I say or it will go ill for you.” She stepped closer to Anne. “I could send you back to England without character. How would you like that? I could write Father and tell him that you were a lying, thieving wretch and that he was not under any circumstance to offer you employment and to tell all his friends what a terrible person you were. What would you do then? Penniless and without character?”