Remembering her Baronet

Contents Contents Dedication Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Epilogue Guide Contents Start of Content Without forgiveness, there cannot be love. Chapter One Anne could not understand the words spoken around her. Furthermore, she had no idea why she could not understand them. The voices were low, certainly, but their volume was sufficient. The language was not foreign. If only she could open her eyes and see who spoke and where she was, she felt sure she might make sense of things. Her eyelids hung like anchors. Her skin was stuffed with sand, heavy and loose, rather than bone and muscle, strong and rigid. She could not move. She must move. Thought turned to effort and effort to struggle. Panic struck. A creaking noise accompanied the jostling of her body. She could feel what she thought were hands on her shoulders and face. She wanted them off her. The pitch of the voices increased. It was a night terror. It must be. She must calm herself before she could wake properly. Anne could not. She gulped for air as if she had been drowning and the tremendous labor at last woke her. She shot up and looked about herself. It was not nighttime, she was not in her bed, nor even in her home. Sun lit the room, crowded with luxurious furnishings, far richer than anything to which she was accustomed. She sat on a bed, tangled in silken sheets and fur-lined blankets which must have cost more money than her family would see in five years. An old man with deep wrinkles and a large nose peered at her from behind small spectacles, leaning close over the left side of the bed. She did not recognize him, but when she turned, she saw a man she did know. Major Fredrick Kambray. He sat on the right side of the bed very near to her and now reached for her hand. “Where am I? What have you done to me?” she demanded, shoving him away before reaching down to try to free herself from the tangled bedding. Anne stopped suddenly and clutched her head, as a wave of agony overcame her. Her first thought was that Kambray had struck her. That must be what caused the tremendous pain to reverberate through her skull. “Easy, my lady. You are in a most fragile state,” the old man’s quavering voice touched on her ears and made her doubt her initial thought. He would not be cooing to her so gently if she had been violently struck by the other man. Anne did not know about fragility, but she knew she was badly injured. Her fingers searched her scalp for the source of her pain and they quickly came upon what felt to be a thick wound at the top, right of her head. Her stomach knotted. “I think I might be sick.” She mumbled her warning before retching. Nothing came up, but it did cause her yet more pain and dizziness. When the wave of nausea subsided, she looked around again. Major Kambray had moved away and now stood in the corner glowering at her from beneath his heavy brow. His clothing, or the lack of it, was plainly indecent. He wore nothing but breeches, stockings, and a shirt. His sleeves were rolled up over strong forearms and his feet were barren of shoes. His visage wore thunderclouds. His lips pressed into a hard line and his cheeks were dark with what most have been several days growth of beard. His black eyes sparkled with an emotion she could not decipher. He looked older than she remembered, quite a bit older. Perhaps it was the lined expression and dark stubble making him appear that way. Major Kambray was intimidating at the best of times. As he stood now, he shot fear into her very marrow. The old man she now presumed to be a doctor was speaking, but Anne was not listening. She was trying desperately to think where she was and why the major was there, but her thoughts ran as slow and thick as molasses. The door across from her burst open suddenly, and a young, peacock of a man burst into the room. “Egad, Anne! You gave us a scare!” he exclaimed, coming forward in a great ruffling of velvet, lace, and silk. Anne did not know him. She was sure she had never seen him before. Anne would recognize any man who wore paisley breeches and a gilded quizzing glass in her dusty Pennsylvania town of tobacco farmers. Major Kambray stepped out of the corner then and physically barred the young man from coming any closer to the bed. The peacock’s face fell and he looked to her as if her permission might override the major’s lack of it. He laughed a quiet, anxious, little giggle and asked, “Gad, what’s wrong?” “Drink this, my lady.” The doctor’s orders pulled Anne’s attention away from the scene at the end of the bed. He proffered a crystal flute filled with a murky and foul smelling liquid. “What is it? Who are you? And who is this lady you address?” she demanded, for there was no other woman in the room. Her voice came out weak and groggy, not at all expressing the anger and authority she wanted to convey. “Lady Kambray, please.” The old man shoved the flute at her again. Anne knocked it from his hand, spilling the contents upon a Persian rug. She may not understand what was going on around her, but she knew one thing for certain: if this doctor was under the major’s orders, she would take nothing he offered. The young dandy looked to Major Kambray, his face animated with confused alarm. “Anne, you do remember Doctor Malone, don’t you?” the major spoke at last. “I demand to be released at once,” Anne told