BooksBarbecue
Back An Independent Woman Save as PDF
Chapters (44)
  1. Table of Contents
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright
  4. Dedication
  5. Chapter One
  6. Chapter Two
  7. Chapter Three
  8. Chapter Four
  9. Chapter Five
  10. Chapter Six
  11. Chapter Seven
  12. Chapter Eight
  13. Chapter Nine
  14. Chapter Ten
  15. Chapter Eleven
  16. Chapter Twelve
  17. Chapter Thirteen
  18. Chapter Fourteen
  19. Chapter Fifteen
  20. Chapter Sixteen
  21. Chapter Seventeen
  22. Chapter Eighteen
  23. Chapter Nineteen
  24. Chapter Twenty
  25. Chapter Twenty-One
  26. Chapter Twenty-Two
  27. Chapter Twenty-Three
  28. Chapter Twenty-Four
  29. Chapter Twenty-Five
  30. Chapter Twenty-Six
  31. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  32. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  33. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  34. Chapter Thirty
  35. Chapter Thirty-One
  36. Chapter Thirty-Two
  37. Chapter Thirty-Three
  38. Chapter Thirty-Four
  39. Chapter Thirty-Five
  40. Chapter Thirty-Six
  41. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  42. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  43. A word about the author...
  44. Thank you for purchasing this publication of The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

Tears flooded Philomena’s face as she sobbed. She struggled to speak, but words deserted her. She shook her head wildly, her throat raw with weeping. Through a mask of tears, dimly, she watched Hugh’s face. She ached to see him so white, so shocked. She reached out and dragged her soaking dress back on, too distressed to fasten the buttons.

Hugh grasped her hand. “What is it?” he cried. “Tell me what ails you.”

Philomena shook her head and pulled herself from his grasp. “No,” she wept. “I cannot…” She cried out in pain as her heart broke. She darted away, running as fast as she could, leaving Hugh, the man she loved, staring after her, pain and despair spread over his dear face. She threw the door of the summerhouse wide open and escaped into the wild weather.

As she ran, sobbing, memories flooded Philomena’s head. That dreadful day in London, the day she tried so hard to forget, that haunted her dreams, played again. Still a child, parted from her father, wondering why he had deserted her, she trembled in the church. Samuel tried to calm her, promising that nothing would harm her while he was alive. Tears stood in his eyes.

The terrible, unknown stranger with the cold green eyes took one of her hands. The clergyman, well paid, wrote the names in the register and signed it. The stranger signed his name. Philomena did not speak a word. Samuel spoke on her behalf, marrying her at the age of eleven to an unknown, cold stranger.

Why had it happened? Who was the stranger? Why had he married her? Even now, Philomena understood only that she could not marry Hugh, although she loved him with all her heart and knew he loved her too. Hugh loved her enough to defy convention, ignore the disgust of his family and marry her. He offered her everything, and Philomena had to refuse him.

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-One

Hugh, burning with pain and fury at Philomena’s rejection, urged Thunder into a headlong gallop, away across the fields, urging the horse to race faster and harder. He had no desire to overtake the woman on her return to the Hall. The rain had long stopped, but the sky was grey and bleak, echoing Hugh’s mood.

What was wrong with her? What more could he offer Philomena than a home in one of the greatest houses of the land, a life full of ease and pleasure? What other unknown woman, with a mysterious background and an unlikely story of relatives in distant parts of the country, could even imagine such an offer?