The Gun Ketch by Dewey Lambdin Read Free Book Online

to be so ... subservient! In North Carolina, so much more was expected of a woman, so much more was she allowed, as a helpmeet to her man and her family! Here, one sews neatly," she complained. "One plays an instrument. One reads, and distills, and orders servants, and cannot dirty one's own dresses at gardening, but must tell others what to do. Here in England, I feel so like an ill-bred... lout !"
    "Out of place?" he muttered, laying a hand on hers this time, and she seized his hand like a drowning victim and linked their fingers. "Not a pink-cheeked, rude Colonial, surely."
    "Out of place, yes," she sighed, almost on the point of tears. "Truly, I wonder if I have a place! Or a life I may call mine own."
    "And what sort of a life do you desire, Caroline?"
    "I wish to be happy, Alan. I wish to ... to wed someone I love so deeply, and do I if indeed have the ... the economy to present that man with a well-run home, then that is what I want. I want children, and perhaps one maid-of-all-work to help a little. But I want to be useful, not only around the house, but on the land. And to myself and those I love. I know I may not aspire to a man's role in this life. I have no wish to enter Parliament, or night wars. But I do wish to be able to use those talents God gave me as a woman, and the mind I believe He gave me for something more useful than... bakingl"
    "To be able to talk about any subject without restrictions," Alan suggested.
    "Oh, God, yes!" Caroline beamed, laughing at her immodesty, or what most in Society would have called an unnatural, desexing immodesty. "To be included when men talk about important matters and not be run off to the parlor to drink tea and get the card table ready. To be listened to, if I feel I have an idea they haven't. Not patted on the head and told 'tut-tut, there, there, little girl'! Even if it's but the one man who would listen to me, that would be enough, I think."
    "And no one is listening to you now?" Alan said, letting go her hand and dismounting. He held her mare's head while she got down, revealing a dizzying vision of a slim white leg above the tops of her riding boots for an instant as her gown and petticoats raked down the saddle.
    "Burgess used to," she said, taking his hand once more as they strolled to the south edge of the rolling, wooded hill to look at the splendid morning view. It was a little cloudy and gloomy yet, before the sun broke through, and the tiny dells among the downs were clotted with wisps of mist. "And when I was with you, I felt that you did, or at least attempted to, Alan. But very few people now. Now, I listen, and I am told what I feel, what I should think."
    "Whom you should wed, perhaps?" Alan said, stopping them so she would turn to face him. "Is that why you are so sad? I came down, expecting to see the pert lass I remembered, and I find you troubled and melancholy. Who is the right young man of whom your uncle speaks?"
    "I have two wonderful choices in life." Caroline gloomed again. "Three, really. The last may be the most acceptable; it does not demand me living a lie. I may take service as governess to a widower's children. Mr. Byford, who rents the land and house we once had."
    "And the other two?"
    "Between Embleton and Glandon Park, there is a family with more than one thousand fine acres," she said with an impatient shake of her head. "George Tudsbury, another widower, is in need of a wife. He's in his forties, with three children to raise, mostfortunately all of them girls, who may not inherit the land if a younger wife is living. He's a very good friend of my Uncle Phineas. Of much the same tastes."
    "Ugh!" Alan exclaimed. "And again, ugh!"
    "He, at least, is a decent man, Alan, with no vices. And no hard edges, such as Uncle Phineas. In that, at least, they differ."
    "May I assume that he is your uncle's preference?"
    "No, you may not. There is also Harry Embleton." She tensed. "Mine arse on a bandbox!" Alan cried. "Why, I met the