Follow the Heart

P
RAISE FOR
F
OLLOW THE
H
EART

Follow the Heart
is filled with delightful characters that set out on a mission to marry well . . . if only their hearts would stay out of it! Dacus has created a rich Victorian setting filled with fresh characters whose backgrounds include everything from the poorhouse to aristocracy, adding charm and depth to this romantic tale. A thoughtful takeaway is watching Kate discern the difference between her obligations to duties—duties both fair and unfair—and listening to God’s direction. This is one story I’ll never forget!

—Maureen Lang, author of
Bees in the Butterfly Garden

Kaye Dacus has created a wealth of memorable characters in this charming story of love, duty, and sacrifice. Sent to England to marry a rich man and save her family from financial ruin, the heroine can’t allow her growing feelings for the handsome gardener to keep her from her obligations. The fast-paced plot and tender love story are bound to delight and leave you eagerly awaiting the next book.

—Margaret Brownley,
New York Times
best-selling

writer and author of the Rocky Creek and Brides of

Last Chance Ranch series

Follow [Your] Heart
to pure magic! Kaye Dacus has penned a dual love story—twice as tender, twice as romantic, twice as sigh-worthy as a proper Victorian tale should be . . . and I devoured every heart-fluttering page!

—Julie Lessman, award-winning author

of The Daughters of Boston and Winds of Change series

Follow the Heart
is a delight! Kaye Dacus has written a richly layered romance and given us characters who readers want to find both love and happiness. I couldn’t wait to see whether or not they would follow their hearts!

—Robin Lee Hatcher, best-selling author of
Belonging
and
Betrayal

In
Follow the Heart,
Kaye Dacus takes readers on a romantic journey through some beautiful homes and lush gardens in her English setting, while letting her readers get to know and love her engaging characters. The story had me cheering for Kate and Christopher to do just what the title says and follow their hearts.

—Ann H. Gabhart, author of
The Outsider
,

The Believer
, and
Angel Sister

Kaye Dacus has once again crafted a tension-filled love story that will keep you turning the pages.
Follow the Heart
will have you cheering for characters who hold fast and exhibit sacrificial love for their family while temptations rise at every turn.

—Judith Miller, author of
A Hidden Truth

Charming, delightful, and captivating are three words that come to mind when describing Kaye Dacus’s newest novel,
Follow the Heart.
Her characters spring to life in old England, and her romance is more than satisfying—with the added pleasure of an equally enjoyable secondary romance. I heartily recommend this book to any lover of historical romantic fiction. It’s my first book by Kaye but certainly won’t be my last.

—Miralee Ferrell, author of
Love Finds You in Sundance, WY

In
Follow the Heart,
Kaye Dacus gives us a love story set in the age of Queen Victoria when the English aristocracy ruled. Not only has she created characters who will grow on the reader, but she has placed them in extraordinary circumstances that will test everything they ever believed. With beautiful settings, characters true to the times, and actual events, Dacus paints a beautiful story with words that will capture the reader’s imagination.

—Martha Rogers, author of the series

Winds Across the Prairie and Seasons of the Heart

Follow the Heart, Digital Edition

Based on Print Edition

Copyright © 2013 by Kaye Dacus

All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America

978-1-4336-7720-5

Published by B&H Publishing Group

Nashville, Tennessee

Dewey Decimal Classification: F

Subject Heading: LOVE STORIES—19TH CENTURY \ ROMANTIC SUSPENSE NOVELS \ INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION—FICTION

Scripture reference is taken from The Webster Bible: Title: The Holy Bible, Containing the Old and New Testaments, in the Common Version. With Amendments of the Language, by Noah Webster, LL. D. | New Haven: Published by N. Webster. | M.DCC.XLI. Date: 1841. Publisher: N. Webster: New Haven.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

For Ruth and Liz—two of the dearest friends anyone can have. Thanks for all of your love and encouragement.

A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS

H
ow would this even be in readers’ hands if it weren’t for my fabulous agent, Chip MacGregor, and my wonderful editor, Julie Gwinn? I owe both of them so much. And I must also take this time to publicly laud adulation upon my copy editor, Kathy Ide. There were a lot of times in the revision process in which I was infuriated by her questions, suggestions, and changes—but then I realized that she was only challenging me to become a better writer. And that’s a gift she probably doesn’t even realize she gave me. Thanks, Kathy. I also can’t close this without giving a huge shout-out to Middle Tennessee Christian Writers for all of their encouragement. It’s wonderful to have such a close-knit and supportive community of writers with whom I get to spend so much time.

P
ROLOGUE

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
New Year’s Eve, 1850

W
ould the rustle of her skirts against the floorboards give her away?

Kate Dearing lifted the burdensome bulk—pink silk-taffeta flounces over layers and layers of starched petticoats—and padded down the hall in her soft kid dancing slippers. Christopher, her younger brother, said he’d seen Father and Devlin Montgomery head toward Father’s study.

Devlin wanted to ask for Father’s blessing before he proposed to her. At least Kate assumed so. Devlin had been courting her for almost a year now. And even though she could hardly tolerate being in the same room with him for the hour his calls lasted, at twenty-seven years old, she had no alternatives—for no other man had paid court to her in more than five years, despite the family’s wealth and her large dowry. Devlin was wealthy and somewhat handsome. His family owned hundreds of thousands of acres of land in western Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio. The railroad company in which Father had invested his fortune wanted to lay new rail lines through it.

She squeezed through the narrow door of the storage room behind Father’s study. She and Christopher had discovered the hiding place years ago.

Trying to mash her bell-shaped skirt flat to keep it from catching on any of the old, framed paintings stacked against one wall, Kate sidled down the cramped space toward the thin beam of light that trickled through a chink in the wood-paneled wall. Too high to see through, it carried sound from the adjacent room quite well.

“You lied to me.” Devlin’s voice held a venom she’d never imagined the staid young man possessed.

“Lied?” Her father sound shocked—offended. “Is Kate not beautiful and accomplished? Intelligent and well capable of running a large household?”

Devlin snorted at her father’s words. “When she keeps her mouth closed and her radical beliefs about abolition and voting rights for women behind her teeth, yes, she is passing pretty.”

Kate stifled a gasp. Only passing pretty? Then she shrugged. She’d always known she’d never be a great beauty like her mother, God rest her soul.

“It is not of Miss Dearing that I speak,” Devlin continued. “It is of you and the deception you used your daughter to try to draw me into.”

Kate frowned. Father had nothing to do with Devlin and her meeting each other. Aunt Kitty arranged the introduction.

“I am certain I do not take your meaning,” Father said, though Kate recognized the tremor of fear in his voice. It was the same as when he’d tried to convince seven-year-old Kate and four-year-old Christopher that their mother and newborn sister would be just fine—and the same as when he’d told them the next day of Mother and Emma’s passing. Now, as then, her heart caught in her throat.

“You may have everyone else in Philadelphia fooled, but we Montgomerys know better.”

Father laughed nervously. “I do not know to what rumors you have been listening—”

“They are no rumors. The front page of the paper announced the land commission’s decision to vote against allowing a railroad to be built through that part of the state. That means everyone who invested in the speculation, in buying up all of that land, lost everything. And since you boasted to my father of how you invested all your wealth in the speculation, trying to get him to go in it with you, it is obvious you are also now penniless. And you intended for me to marry your spinster daughter—whom no man with use of his senses would have before she possessed no dowry—to save the railroad and your fortune.” A loud thump followed Devlin’s pronouncement as if he’d hit his fist against the table or desk. “I will not be your dupe.”

The thud of footsteps followed by the opening and slamming of the study door masked the whoosh of Kate’s skirts as her knees gave out and she sank to the floor.

Bankrupt? Penniless?

Surely not. Yet . . . the invitation list for tonight’s ball had been kept suspiciously small. Father had spent more time than usual away from the house in recent weeks. And when he returned home, his haggard appearance made her wonder if he was coming down with a chill.

Bankrupt. Penniless.

Kate pushed and pulled herself back up to her feet and squeezed through the small space and back out into the wide hallway. The
dark
hallway. Never before during a social event had so few candles been lit. And when had the exquisite Persian rug that had dressed the hall floor since before her birth been removed?

Though not a proper ballroom, the salon in the back of the house served the purpose well, looking much larger tonight with the pared-down number of guests who had come to celebrate the advent of the new year.

Maud gave her a questioning look when she stepped into the room. Kate smiled at her stepmother, hoping to keep her believing everything was fine.

How soon would all of these people know that the Dearings were ruined? How soon would they turn their backs on Father and Maud, on Christopher and her? On her young half-sisters, Ada, Clara, and Ella? Once Philadelphia society discovered their new financial status, doors would be closed, connections severed. No one would want to be associated with a man who invested unwisely and lost everything.

Devlin had been correct—no man would want to marry her now, with no dowry.

Ignoring the cold of the winter evening, Kate escaped through the back doors to the solitude and peace of her garden, its wildness beautiful even in the light of the half-moon and covered in snow.

Dear Lord, what am I supposed to do now?

C
HAPTER
O
NE

SS Baltic
Off the Coast of England
February 9, 1851

Y
ou should come back down to the saloon, where it’s warm.”

Kate did not turn from the vista of gray, choppy water in front of her at her brother’s voice. The last fourteen days seemed as nothing to Christopher—a lark, an adventure, not the exile Kate knew it to be.

An exile that came with an edict: Find someone wealthy to marry.

“I do not see the point in sitting in the grand saloon, pretending as though everything is fine when I know it is not. I have no talent at pretense.” Kate wrapped her thick woolen shawl closer about her head and shoulders at a gust of icy wind. “If any of those other passengers knew we were being sent to England as poor relations, they would shun us.”

Just as everyone in Philadelphia had. Word of Graham Dearing’s financial misfortune spread like last summer’s great fire that consumed the Vine Street Wharf—quickly and with almost as much destructive force. Kate and Christopher’s stepmother had been too embarrassed to come down to the train station to see them off to New York two weeks ago—too afraid she would see someone she recognized on the street and not be acknowledged. Only Father had come with them to New York to say good-bye. And to remind Kate why she was being sent to her mother’s brother: to find and marry a fortune that would save their family. The memory of their argument on the platform before she joined Christopher to board the ship burned through her like the coal that powered them closer to her destiny.