Page 104 of Scandalous

She swallowed several times, forcing back her fear.

Was she going to merely sit here and stare at it?

“You’re a big girl, Sarah,” she muttered.

She pulled open the heavy cream envelope and spread the pages before her; there were four of them.

She took a deep breath and began.

“My Dearest Sarah,”

Her heart fluttered. She was his dearest? Hope sprouted and grew inside her as she stared at the loving salutation. Was it possible—

“Just read the letter, Sarah,” she scolded herself.

“My Dearest Sarah,

I have tried to speek to you many times of the way I feel about you. Each time my eforts have ended in failure—or at least in a bad argument. I do not no why this happens. But I think may be a letter will be best.”

Sarah’s lips twitched at the small errors. How hard it must have been for him to write this letter—and yet he’d done it. What an amazing man he was. Six months ago he could do no more than write his name and now—

A drop of water hit the page, and the words Dearest and Sarah blurred and mingled into a small black puddle.

“Oh, drat!”

She blotted at the stain with her finger and smeared the words below it. She muttered and pulled her handkerchief from the sleeve of her morning gown and dabbed at her eyes.

It took her several minutes of sniffling before it was safe to resume reading.

“The story of my past is not fit for the drawing rooms of London. When you met me I only wanted one thing in my life: to hound, herry, and capture every slaver that crossed my path. Well, and maybe I wanted to dress in fine clothes, eat good food, and enjoy the company of women, two. But, in any case, I could not forsea a life where I was not a privateer.

And then I met you. You tot me to read and write and you opened a hole new world to me.

Of course I still burn to capture slavers, but I am no longer a slave myself. You freed me, Sarah. But then you enslaved me, two.

When I lerned about your rich and powerful family I new I was not the man for you.”

Sarah crumpled the pages in her fist. “Foolish, stupid, arrogant, idiot man! Why do you think you know what is best for me without even asking?”

She scowled at the wrinkled paper and smoothed the sheets flat.

“I new you were ment for better things, but I culd not stay away. And Ramsay, he nagged me and nagged me to tell you the truth and let you decide. (You no how bad he can be.) He said I culd marry you and we culd live happily at Oak Park.”

Sarah grinned. “Well done, Hugh!”

“I started to beleev him. But then my past cot up with me, just as I was going to tell you the truth.

Oh, Sarah, what a terrible truth it is.

I will try to keep my story short, and not just becus my hand is cramping, but becus it is not a happy story or the kind of thing a gentlewoman should here.”

“Foolish, stupid, arrogant, idiot man! Can you really be so blind when it comes to me?”

Sarah realized she was squeezing the pages as if they were his neck. She took a deep breath and released her death grip on the unoffending pieces of paper.

“My father was John Bannock. The Bannocks had been in French held territory for sevral generations. They once owned huge tracts of land, but had lost most of it threw gaming and bad stuardship. My father was the last of his line.

Well, except for me, I suppose.