Everlasting by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss Read Free Book Online

to be generous if it meant he’d be getting what he had been yearning for since first espying Abrielle in the company of her parents at Weldon’s keep. Abrielle couldn’t help wondering why, if there was a nephew in the family, he had not inherited anything from Weldon, who had been a generous man.
     
      Little had Desmond realized when he had offered to buy his bride just how close Vachel was to ruin. As it stood now, all the latter had to do to replenish his coffers was to accept Desmond’s request for Abrielle’s hand in marriage. Unfortunately, the squire’s proposition failed to assuage the rapidly mounting qualms of all three members of the family, perhaps Vachel most of all, because the girl would be giving up all hope of marrying someone she loved in order to save the family for which he was responsible. He could not be the one to take her future from her.
     
      Elspeth’s elegant brows gathered in fretting concern as she watched her husband pacing about. “Vachel, I know we are desperate…” she began, but the look on his face forestalled her frantic pleading. She instead approached her husband and rested a gentle hand upon his arm, caressing it unconsciously. Although she was aware that he could be obstinate at times, she had little doubt that she had made the right choice when she had accepted his proposal of marriage. As far as his tendency to make decisions contrary to her preferences and wishes, it had recently dawned on her that she preferred to be challenged by one of his manly disposition and intellect rather than to be bored to the marrow of her bones by another who might have readily complied with her smallest request. Although Berwin had considered her advice when she had offered it, he had not always followed it, as he had proven the day of his death. She had to believe there was some way out of their predicament without laying it all upon her daughter’s shoulders. To burden a young woman with the likes of Desmond de Marlé as her husband seemed a cruel blow indeed.
     
      Straightening to his full height, Vachel thrust out his meticulously bearded chin in vexation. Normally his amber eyes glowed with a mesmerizing radiance of their own, but at the moment they seemed as cold and lifeless as stone as he stared across the room. He could rally no hope for the future, knowing that his family faced nothing but bleakness unless he accepted Desmond’s offer.
     
      Elspeth knelt on the rush-covered floor beside her husband’s chair and folded her hands in her lap as she looked up into his frowning face. “Vachel, if you would please consider Desmond’s reputation, you would know that he isn’t a suitable husband for Abrielle.”
     
      “By all that’s holy, woman, what kind of a monster do you think me?” he demanded, distraught at the idea that she would think he would barter off her daughter to provide for their family. “I could never live with myself if I were to force Abrielle into such a union. That decision is entirely hers to accept or to reject, but please consider that Desmond now has all the wealth and lands that once belonged to Weldon, enough to guarantee that his offspring will never lack for riches and position. That’s more than I can say for that small league of suitors who’ve been wont to offer themselves since all at court learned of my low standing with the king. I’ve seen starving hounds drool less over a meaty bone than the besotted buffoons who slaver in lusting eagerness after your daughter. But then, you witnessed that very thing yourself before we were married, so I needn’t try to describe the zeal her admirers have been wont to evidence.”
     
      “Vachel, I understand how troubled you are by our dilemma,” Elspeth said in a quiet voice. No less distressed than he, she sought to find some ray of hope in a painfully dark future. “Do you know of anything else we can do to alter our present unfortunate state?”
     
      His laughter was brief and