Beverly Jenkins by Destiny's Surrender Read Free Book Online Page A

daughter?”
    Warning bells clanged. “There’s scandal tied to Rosaline?”
    “No, the older daughter, Annaline, ran away with a seaman a few years back. The gossips had a field day. As for the husband. He left her. I suppose he found her too joyless as well. Moved in with his mistress about ten years ago. Has fathered three children, and there are rumors that he gambled away most of the fortune Emmalina brought to the marriage.”
    “Now I understand why she considers him dead.”
    “Is that what she told you?”
    “Yes.”
    She shook her head sadly.
    “How many of Rosaline’s suitors has she run off?”
    “A slew. The girl’s nearly nineteen. In some corners she’s considered past marriageable age, which is tragic because once you get her away from her mother you find that she’s pleasant enough.”
    “Is the older sister still in the city?”
    “I’ve no idea. Are you truly considering Rosaline?”
    “I am. She’s very beautiful.”
    “That she is. A bit of a spine as well, which is often missing in young women from the old families. Rumor has it that she helped her sister flee.”
    He did want a woman with a spine, but did he want a mother-in-law he couldn’t abide? The jury was still out. “Senora Ruiz wants the courting period to be a full year. If we still suit, the engagement will follow.”
    “She prides herself on being very traditional. Did you agree?”
    “I have little choice.”
    She nodded understandingly.
    Drew had all the information he needed and so stood. “Thank you, Consuela. I’ve taken up enough of your time. Again, my apology for the rude arrival.”
    “None needed. Just keep me informed. Rosaline would learn a lot at the feet of that fierce mother of yours. I will put your quest in my prayers.”
    Inclining his thanks, he made his exit.
    Back in his office, he put the Ruizes out of his mind for the moment and opened the day’s mail. Drew had been a practicing lawyer for nearly a decade. He’d inherited his office and many of his clients upon the death of his good friend and mentor Victor Cabrillo, a descendant of Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, discoverer of Alta California. In amongst the day’s delivery were two letters from Spanish families seeking representation for their land claims. Even though he’d been handling such cases for many years the turmoil tied to them continued to draw his ire. After the defeat of Mexico by the Americans, the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed, giving the government in Washington full sway over the states of California, Texas, and New Mexico. The treaty specifically stated that all Mexican land grants would be honored. The California Land Commission was established to oversee the claims, and in the beginning the Spanish were only required to produce their original land grant titles. Many were able to do so, but others could not—after the passage of three and four generations, items were misplaced, lost in home fires, or damaged by the elements. The Commission appointees didn’t seem to care. They wanted what they termed legitimate proof that the Spanish families were entitled to live and farm on land they’d been doing both on for more than one hundred years. Many unresolved cases had been in the courts for close to two decades now while the Commission continued to add amendments that seemed deliberately designed to frustrate the claimants and further aid the government in its ruthless land grab of their ranches and farms.
    The first letter asked his help in removing squatters. Drew sighed angrily. Land still in dispute had been added to the public rolls and squatters were moving in and declaring the land their own. They in turn were selling their bogus claims to unscrupulous land developers, who were selling the land at a tremendous profit.
    The second letter was from a family facing foreclosure due to survey problems. Currently it was also necessary for Spanish landowners to have their land surveyed to show that the plot lines on