Passion's Song (A Georgian Historical Romance) by Carolyn Jewel Read Free Book Online Page A

work.” She would
have shut the door in his face if he had not quickly put his foot
in the way.
    “ I assure you this is no joke! My
brother—that is, your father—has spent the last several years and a
great deal of money trying to locate you. He expects me to return
to London with you.”
    “ My father is dead.”
    “ His lordship would be surprised
to hear that.”
    “ His lordship? Oh, really!” Her
voice was dripping with sarcasm. “Do you think me so stupid as to
believe such nonsense? Next you will be telling me King George has
decided to ask for my hand!”
    “ I can prove I tell the truth!”
Edward exclaimed. The last thing he had expected was to be
disbelieved. Provided he even found his niece, he had envisioned
informing her of her good fortune and taking the grateful girl back
to England. No arguments, no reluctance, and certainly no
suspicions about his veracity.
    “ How?” she asked
skeptically.
    “ Do you recognize this?” He took a
miniature out of his pocket and held it out to her.
    “ No,” she said bluntly, barely
glancing at the painting of a small blond child before thrusting it
back at him. He refused to take it.
    “ Turn it over.”
    Isobel read the inscription on the back:
    Your daughter, Isobel St.
James on the occasion of her 3rd anniversary, 23rd April
1772.
    She looked at him. “So?”
    “ Your mother sent this to your
father.”
    “ If she sent it to my father, how
did you get it?” She handed the miniature back to him.
    “ Jonathon Rowland was not your
father.” He pocketed the painting with a long sigh of
frustration.
    “ Perhaps you have the wrong
Isobel?” She had offered the suggestion to be helpful and she
looked taken aback at his sharp reply.
    “ No! And that necklace proves it.”
He jabbed a finger at her chest. “It was a gift from my brother to
your mother.”
    “ And just who is it you say is
your brother?” She crossed her arms over her chest as though
challenging him.
    “ Your father is Robert St. James,
third earl of Chessingham. Your mother sent him news of you every
year on your birthday and at Christmas. Her letters stopped coming
several years ago.”
    “ My mother died when I was ten.
Why didn’t he try to find me then?”
    “ I think that’s a subject you’d
best discuss with your father.” Edward began to have hope he might
be back in England before too long.
    “ Am I to understand I am to meet
him sometime?” She spoke slowly, trying desperately to absorb what
this stranger was telling her.
    “ Your father has instructed me to
find you and bring you back to England.”
    “ But I don’t want—” She was going
to say she did not want to go to England, but stopped herself. What
was there for her in New York if what he was saying was true? “Miss
Isobel St. James.” She said the words as though savoring their
sound. She looked at him and asked, “Is he very rich?”
    Though Edward was surprised by her question, he did
not show it. “He’s a wealthy man, yes.” If finding out his brother
was rich would get her to go with him, he was willing to tell her
he was Croesus.
    “ Perhaps you had best speak to Mr.
Samuels.” She opened the door and let him in. “If you don’t mind
waiting, I think he would be very interested in hearing your
story.”
    II
    Edward took Isobel’s arm as they boarded the English
packet bound for Bristol, concerned that she would be frightened to
be on a ship for the first time. As it turned out, he needn’t have
worried, for, as she told him, she’d been sailing with Rowland more
than once. During the weeks it took to cross the Atlantic, she did
not suffer a moment of seasickness, not even when the weather
turned foul. She spent hours standing on the deck looking out over
the water as though she expected the shores of England to magically
appear.
    Isobel spent the nearly ten weeks it took to cross
the Atlantic in a state of constant turmoil. Though she often
longed to go back to Boston, and sometimes