Unconquered by Bertrice Small Read Free Book Online

You’ll marry Adrian, and Mama and I can live with you.”
    “My dear sister, when I marry Adrian no one is going to live with us except our children.”
    “What of old Lady Swynford?” Miranda was surprised by the firm tone in her quiet twin’s voice.
    “To the dower house at Swynford Hall! Adrian and I have already discussed it, and agreed.”
    Miranda yanked off her dress, undervest, and petticoat. “Then Mama and I will set up our own establishment! Hand me my breeches, Mandy. You know where they are.” She opened her bureau drawer, drew out a soft, well-laundered cotton shirt, put it on and buttoned it up. Amanda handed her sister the faded dark green corduroy breeches, and Miranda pulled them on. “Stockings and boots, please.” Amanda complied. “Thanks. Now run to the stables for me, darling, and tell Jed to saddle up Sea Breeze.”
    “Oh, Miranda, do you think you should?”
    “Yes!”
    Sighing, Amanda left the room. Miranda first drew on the light wool stockings, and then her worn but comfortable brown leather boots. Her backside still hurt, and she blushed with the sudden realization that Jared Dunham had seen her underdrawers! What a hateful beast he was, and Mama had allowed him to hurt her. In her whole life no one, certainly no man, had ever handled her so intimately.
    She could not remain on Wyndsong for long. A self-pitying tear slipped down her pale cheek. When Papa’s will was read they would be rich, and Jared Dunham could go to Hell. Now, she would enjoy her island. She slipped down the back stairs of the house, and out through the kitchen.
    Jed had Sea Breeze already out of the stable. The big gray gelding danced at the end of his rein, eager to be off. Up on her own horse, the familiar salt air in her nostrils, Miranda could almost believe it was still all the same, and then Jared’s voice cut into her dream.
    “Where are you going, Miranda?”
    She looked down, gazing at him full in the face for the very first time, and thought how incredibly handsome he was. His bronzed oval face was as angular as her own. It was a sensitiveface. The dark hair was untidy, a lock that she longed to reach down and brush back tumbling over his high forehead. Beneath his bushy, black brows his bottle-green eyes glittered up from under heavy lids. The thin lips were slightly mocking.
    A wave of something unfamiliar swept over her, and she felt her breath catch in her throat. But then anger and sorrow surfaced once more, and she answered rudely, “The horse is mine, sir. Surely you do not object if I ride it!” Then she yanked Sea Breeze’s head about and cantered off.
    He shook his head wearily. He had been in charge of a mission to stop any English vessels he encountered, search them, and rescue any impressed American seamen found on board. For the time being his missions to Europe were finished, and he was free of intrigue. Now, thanks to that constantly disobedient fool, Elias Bailey, a good man was dead and he was stuck with an inheritance he hadn’t expected to have to cope with until late middle age.
    Worse—far worse—he suspected that he was going to be charged with the care of his late cousin’s family. Of course, that was the proper thing to do. The lovely widow, only twelve years his senior, would be no trouble. Neither would sweet, little Amanda, who would wed Lord Swynford in England next June. As to the other—Lord! What was he going to do with that headstrong, bad-tempered Miranda?
    Thomas Dunham, eighth lord of Wyndsong Manor, lay in state for two days in the front parlor of the house. His friends and neighbors came from both forks of the Long Island mainland—from the villages of Oysterponds, Greenport, and Southold on the north shore, from East Hampton and Southampton on the south shore and from the neighboring islands of Gardiner’s, Robins’s, Plum, and Shelter. They came to pay their respects, to console Thomas Dunham’s family, and to size up his heir.
    The day of the