Linda Ford (22 page)

Jack studied each of them carefully. “I know it’s a lot but I’m asking if you would be willing to care for my nieces and nephews.”

Cassie heard Roper swallow. He gripped her hand tightly.

“Are you asking us to take the children?” he said, his voice full of uncertainty.

Cassie nodded, filled with the same doubts as to the meaning of what Jack said.

“If you would?”

Roper pulled Cassie around to face him. He grinned. “I don’t even have to ask what you want. I can see it on your face as plain as day.” As a pair they faced Jack. “Yes, we’ll gladly give them a home.”

“It will be our joy,” Cassie said.

“Thank you. Now go tell the children. I think I know what their reaction will be.”

Roper called the children back indoors. “I have an announcement to make.” He waited until Billy stopped dancing about. “Your uncle Jack asked us to keep you and we agreed.”

Neil understood first and whooped. The others followed suit, even Pansy. The noise of the joyous celebration brought Linette from the kitchen and Eddie from the yard where he visited the neighbors.

“This is wonderful news,” Linette said.

Roper pulled Cassie into his arms, uncaring about the audience about him. “This is a day of good news. I am the happiest man on earth.”

And in front of all those present he kissed her and their kiss brought a roar of cheers and clapping.

Epilogue

R
oper drew Cassie into the crook of his arm and rested his chin on the top of her head.

“I wonder how many couples get married and adopt four children on the same day.”

“Only a fortunate few, I venture to say.” Cassie sighed her contentment. “Isn’t that right, children?” she called over her shoulder.

“Yes,” they chorused in unison.

Jack had wanted to sign the papers before he returned to Toronto so they had made the trek to Fort Macleod where they were married. With promises to write and Uncle Jack’s assurance he would return to visit, they’d said goodbye to him as he began his journey back to Toronto.

The children stared after their uncle as he departed on the stagecoach.

“I wish he didn’t have to go,” Daisy said.

“Me, too, but I’m glad we don’t have to go with him.” Billy’s comment made them all smile.

They were soon homeward bound. A little later, the children recognized landmarks and pressed close to watch.

“Are we almost there?” Neil asked.

“Almost. Look. You can see the ranch in the distance.”

Suddenly the children sat back.

Cassie gave Roper a questioning look. He shrugged as he turned to consider the huddle of children.

“What’s wrong?”

The children silently consulted each other then Daisy spoke for them all. “You adopted us. You’re giving us a home. We have nothing to give you.”

Cassie shifted and signaled them to come close. She hugged them. “You have given us the best gift anyone can give. Your love.”

“Amen,” Roper said. Then he turned the wagon up the trail toward home. Eddie had appointed him foreman before they left and promised him the little cabin. It would be crowded until they could build on a couple of rooms but they’d been crowded before and managed just fine.

Eddie and a bunch of the cowboys came from the barn.

Roper wondered at the way they all grinned, then he turned the wagon toward the cabin.

“Hold up,” Eddie called.

“What’s up, boss?”

“Here comes Linette.”

Linette trotted down the hill, Grady at her side, and when she reached Eddie she laughed.

Roper thought it rather odd.

“Hop down.”

“You’re the boss.” He jumped down and helped Cassie to her feet. The kids scrambled out on their own.

“Let’s go.”

Cassie raised her eyebrows and looked from one grinning face to another. “Where are we going?”

Linette grabbed her arm. “You’ll have to come see.”

En masse they marched down the trail, past the storage sheds, past the barn, past the corrals. They kept going and drew to a halt before a new building.

“That wasn’t there when I left,” Roper pointed out.

“We built it while you were gone.”

Linette laughed again. “It’s your new house.”

Cassie stared. “You built this while we were gone?”

“We had it all planned and the material ordered. As soon as you left the yard we got to work.” Eddie waved them ahead. “Have a look.”

Roper let Cassie go ahead of him. There was a nice big kitchen, furnished and ready to use. Beyond that, a small sitting room with two rocking chairs.

“Jack provided them,” Linette said.

Roper opened the doors off the sitting room to find two smaller rooms.

“Bedrooms for you and the girls,” Linette explained. “There’s a loft for the boys.”

Roper stared at Cassie, saw the shock in her face and knew she was as surprised as he. “I never expected—”

Eddie chucked him on the arm. “I want my foreman to be happy.”

“I couldn’t be happier but it’s not because of the house. Don’t get me wrong. I appreciate the room. But it’s Cassie—” He pulled her to his chest. “And the kids.” He opened his arms and drew them all close. “They provide my happiness.”

“We know that.” Linette signaled to her husband, and they all withdrew, leaving Roper alone with his new family.

He kissed Cassie. “I love you.”

“And I love you.”

“Us, too,” the children chorused.

Roper knew he had never before known such joy. Joys shared were joys doubled, and he meant to double his over and over.

* * * * *

Keep reading for an excerpt of
A Royal Marriage
by Rachelle McCalla!

Dear Reader,

I love children of all sizes and ages and temperaments so it was a joy to write about four children who were instrumental in bringing together a wary hero and heroine. As I wrote the story and created situations that involved the children I had fond memories of when my children were young. We made a sincere effort to create pleasant memories for them. That included picnics, game time, family dinners and reading the Bible together. I’m sure many times the children did not see it as ideal. So I’m happy that the children in my story regard their family traditions as worth maintaining.

Of course, the story is really about Cassie and Roper. I hope as you read it, you, too, find a measure of something positive, be it sweet memories of family traditions or the assurance that God cares about each of us even when circumstances would give us reason to think otherwise.

I love to hear from readers. You may contact me through my website,
www.lindaford.org
, where you can also hear about upcoming releases and learn a bit about me.

Blessings,

Linda Ford

Questions for Discussion

1. What is the reason for Cassie being so prickly? Do you think she is justified? How would you react in similar circumstances?
   

2. What has shaped the way Roper looks at life? Do you consider his viewpoint as positive or negative?
   

3. How did Roper keep people at bay so he didn’t expect too much from them? Or did he? How did he protect his heart?
   

4. Why does Cassie refuse Roper’s help when it is so freely offered?
   

5. What role do the children play in helping Cassie and Roper fall in love? Do other characters in the story play a role? How? Why?
   

6. Did you feel Lane should have won Cassie’s heart? Why or why not? Did you like the way she dealt with Lane or should she have done things differently, in your opinion?
   

7. How did you feel about Cassie’s mother? Do you think she should have stayed with her? Why or why not?
   

8. Did you think the children should have gone with the uncle? Why or why not? Would your answer be different if the man had been young and healthy?
   

9. What lesson did Cassie and Roper each learn that enabled them to trust love? Do you feel the way they overcame their past was realistic? Too simple? Too hard?
   

10. Was there any lesson in this story that you can apply to your own life?
    

11. Do you think Cassie and Roper’s story ended happily? Is there anything different you would have liked to see them do? Do you think their lives together as a family will be happy?
    

We hope you enjoyed this Harlequin Love Inspired Historical title.

You find illumination in days gone by.
Love Inspired Historical
stories lift the spirit as heroines tackle the challenges of life in another era with hope, faith and a focus on family.

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to find your next great read.

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Chapter One

Castlehead, Lydia, A.D. 801

“A
ship approaches, Your Majesty. Her sail is spread with the Carolingian cross.” Renwick, chief messenger among the Lydian guard, bowed low before the king.

“Charlemagne.” His Royal Highness, King John of Lydia, lowered the sword with which he’d been sparring with his younger brother, Prince Luke. Why would the Holy Roman Emperor send a ship to Lydia unannounced? Charlemagne’s realm had expanded vastly under his leadership, but John had assumed the renowned ruler would have no interest in the tiny kingdom of Lydia. Was he wrong?

King John turned to face the messenger. “She approaches directly?”

“Making for the wharf at high speed, sire,” Renwick panted as though he, too, had run to reach the king quickly.

“Then we shall make haste, as well.” Sheathing his sword, John headed for the courtyard gate, the fastest route to the Mediterranean shore.

“To the lookout tower, Your Majesty?” Renwick appeared confused by the king’s choice of direction.

“No, Renwick.” John led the way. “To the wharf.”

Prince Luke ran beside him. “Why would Charlemagne visit Lydia? We are not his vassals.”

“I doubt it is Charlemagne himself,” King John acknowledged. “The emperor regularly sends emissaries throughout his empire to report back to him.” He prayed that was true this time, irregular though it might seem.

“But Lydia is not part of his empire.” Luke chafed visibly at the idea.

“We are part of Christendom. As such, we ought to ally ourselves closely with the Holy Roman Empire. Such a position could prove to be advantageous.” John reached the end of the wharf and shielded his eyes from the sun, examining the quickly approaching vessel, her sails emblazoned with the distinctive Carolingian cross, four triquetras joined at the center to form the distinctive symbol of Emperor Charlemagne’s reign.

“Three masts!” The sight filled John with awe. Lydia had no ship to match it. And yet, “She looks to be wounded.”

“Aye, brother.” Luke clapped one hand on John’s shoulder and pointed with the other. “Her foresail has been rent and hastily mended. Do you think she has weathered a storm?”

“Or an attack.” John met his brother’s eyes.

“Saracens?” Prince Luke spoke the word softly, as though saying it aloud might draw the vicious pirates closer.

“They raid the Mediterranean waters regularly.”

“Never so close to Lydia.”

“We don’t know how far this ship has come,” King John acknowledged. “Or whether the Saracens may have taken her.”

“Taken her?” Fear sparked in his brother’s blue eyes as he looked out to the ship and back at the ramparts of their castle. If the pirates had taken the ship, they could approach under Charlemagne’s cross and dock before the Lydians realized trouble had reached their shores. The castle’s defenses might be breached before they could even prepare for battle. “Why would Saracens approach so boldly?”

“For no good reason.” John shook his head. He didn’t want to believe that Saracen pirates had taken the emperor’s ship, but given her condition, it was a distinct possibility. “Let us pray for Lydia’s safety.”

While the brothers murmured hasty yet heartfelt prayers, King John heard the rumble of boot steps on the wharf. He turned to find Eliab and Urias, two courtiers who’d been his father’s close advisors, panting as they trotted down the wharf.

“Your Majesty,” Urias called out. “You should not be out here!”

“This does not look good.” Eliab gestured to the ship as he bent to catch his breath.

“His Majesty should hide until we’ve determined the motives of the approaching vessel.”

John dismissed their concerns. The pair often treated him as though he was still a child, though he’d weathered twenty-eight winters and had ruled Lydia capably since his father’s death four years before. “I may determine their motives much faster if I stay here.”

“They’ve put down a boat!” Renwick had hardly taken his eyes from the ship.

“They’re worthy seamen, then.” John approved of the ship’s rapid loss of speed. They’d obviously put down an anchor. It was wise. He’d never docked such a large vessel alongside the wharf, and though he couldn’t be sure the depth of the ship’s rudder, he doubted they’d have made it to the dock without scraping against the submerged rocks that hid not so far below the water at low tide.

“What are they loading?” Luke studied the men as they carried a large fabric-draped bundle onto the boat. From the care they took in handling it, the cargo must have been delicate. The dark green cloth glistened in the sunlight like silk. Whatever was wrapped inside must be quite valuable.

A plump, wimpled figure was loaded next, with no shortage of howling admonitions. Then six burly men boarded and took to the oars with vigor, slicing through the water as though Charlemagne himself was watching.

“I believe that bundle is a person.” John observed the way they’d propped the bundle in the stern with the wimpled woman fussing over it. “A slender figure, perhaps a youth or a child.”

“Or a woman,” Prince Luke offered.

“On a ship?” Urias scoffed.

“It
is
possible,” Luke pointed out as the boat drew nearer and its contents easier to see. “The cut of the silk clothing is certainly suggestive of a female. And it would explain the lady in waiting.”

“Bah. A nurse to the child,” Urias insisted.

“Whatever it is, I hardly think myself to be in immediate danger from it.” John felt glad that he hadn’t run and hidden as his father’s advisors had suggested. Granted, he had an obligation to protect the throne. Urias and Eliab were understandably skittish about the issue of safety, having been with his father, King Theodoric, when he’d died defending one of Lydia’s villages on the Illyrian border.

But King John had two younger brothers and a much younger sister, as well. Prince Luke was a worthy leader, and Prince Mark would be, too, if he ever returned from his long journey by sea. God would provide a leader for Lydia. When his wife had died in childbirth three years before, John had resolved that his line would end with his death. He would not ask another woman to risk her life trying to bear an heir for him.

“You don’t suppose it’s a ruse?” Eliab watched the fast-approaching boat with skepticism. “To lull us into thinking we’ve nothing to fear and take us while our guard is down.”

“Eliab, you are far too suspicious,” John chided him. As the boat moved closer, the shrieks and groans of the white-faced woman in the wimple grew louder. If she was part of a ruse, she was overplaying her role. Rather than pay the woman much heed, John examined the faces of the other men in the boat. To his relief, none of them had the stature or features of Charlemagne.

John had met the emperor once, before Charlemagne had been crowned Holy Roman Emperor of all Europe. Then King of the Franks, Charlemagne was an impressive bull of a man who ruled with an iron fist. Despite the power and gusto with which he governed, the man was also an intellectual and a devout Christian of renowned faith. John not only respected and admired him, he also feared him.

And he feared, too, the reason for this unannounced visit under Charlemagne’s sails. Protocol would have had them send greetings well in advance of their visit so that John would have an opportunity to make preparations to host them. Obviously, there had to be some reason the men hadn’t wanted him to meet them well prepared.

The wimpled woman howled. She swayed on her feet but refused to sit. Her cries carried ahead of the rowboat through the warm August air. “
Must
you lurch so? Oh, I fear I shall faint before we make it to the shore!”

The rowing men grimaced, and John suspected they’d have liked for the woman to faint, if only to still her cries. As the boat drew nearer, the man closest to the prow, the only man without an oar in his hand, called out, “Greetings in the name of Charlemagne, Emperor of all Rome.” The man spoke in impeccable Latin. “What lands are these?”

John could only hope his own linguistic training was up to the imperial standard. “Friends, this is the Christian Kingdom of Lydia.”

A relieved smile spread across the man’s face, and John realized his expression had been quite anxious up to that moment. The man tossed a rope. “We seek King John, the healer.”

“You have found him.” The symbol of cross and crown that decorated John’s habergeon signified his position. He caught the rope and pulled the boat toward the dock with a mighty heave. Behind him, Luke and Renwick grabbed the line, while Eliab and Urias stumbled over themselves.

The man’s smile grew broader. “Then God has surely been with us. I am sorry to arrive unannounced, but we had no alternative.” As the boat was pulled alongside the length of the dock, the man bounded onto the wharf and bowed low. “I am Boden, a servant of Charlemagne and acting captain of the emperor’s ship.”

“
Acting
captain?” John looked the man over. Clearly the youth was a strong and strapping lad, but he hardly seemed old enough to be a captain. Indeed, he was certainly younger than John or Luke.

“Alas, my beloved father was commissioned captain by Charlemagne himself and vested with a mission of the utmost importance—to carry the emperor’s most precious cargo. But we were attacked at sea by Saracens, and my father died defending his ship.” Boden’s face blanched as he spoke.

“You have done well to continue on his mission.” John hoped his words would provide some comfort to the youth.

But Boden only shook his head. “I implore thee, Your Majesty John the healer. You are our only remaining hope that this mission might succeed.” He raised his hand toward the boat.

The wimpled woman had quit her moaning and now peeled back the silk veil that covered the face of the bundled figure the men had so carefully loaded onto the boat.

John saw a flushed jawline and rosy lips that could only belong to a woman. So Luke had been right. This was no boy but a female of about twenty years of age. In fact, whoever she was, her features were beautiful, her complexion pale, save for a flush John recognized all too well.

Fever.

Her drawn lips confirmed it. The woman was suffering. No wonder Boden had twice referred to him as John,
the healer.
It was a title he was loath to use, but one which desperate men rushed to give him, especially when they had need of a man to stand between their loved ones and the advancing scythe of death. Yes, he’d been trained by his mother as a healer—a practice her family had observed for generations. When he’d taken to his studies with far greater success than his brothers, some had said he had a gift.

Now he considered it a curse. He hardly considered himself worthy of the title
healer.
Not when he’d failed to save his own wife or the mother who’d trained him.

Boden nodded to the lady in waiting, who peeled back more of the cloth.

“Ah!” Urias and Eliab recoiled at the sight of the infected gash above the woman’s right eye, which followed the curve of her eyebrow. The angry wound had swollen her eyelid shut, festering across her face in fever-reddened waves.

John understood immediately. He’d seen injuries that had deteriorated to a similar state before. Rarely had the sufferer survived. Rather than ask the men to lift the young woman, John lowered himself into the boat and approached her. He could smell the rancid scent of the infection and recognized with dismay the golden yellow crust that seeped from the gash.

The sight and smell carried as clear a message as any tolling death bell.

The lovely woman had less than a day to live.

And the herb that could save her grew half a day’s journey into the mountains, in the borderlands Lydia shared with the Illyrians. John’s father, King Theodoric, had died defending those borderlands. And yet, as John observed the woman’s fever-flushed features, he realized she’d have to have crushed hare’s tongue leaves applied to her injury by nightfall. Even then, it might be too late to save her.

He turned to Boden. “Was she injured two or three days ago?”

“Three days,” Boden answered. “How did you know?”

Relieved that the Saracens hadn’t attacked closer to the Lydian coast, John nonetheless felt the weight of the young woman’s grim prognosis. She’d already gone too long without treatment. “Infections of this nature always run the same course. Once the secretions turn yellow, the sufferer has less than a day to live.”

Boden’s face blanched, and his men at the oars hung their heads.

John didn’t doubt the sailors had been at the oars to bring the ship to Lydia—with her sails rent and patched, they’d have rowed in desperate hope of saving the woman’s life. Obviously the woman must have meant a great deal to them for the men to take on such a strenuous task. John wished he could tell them their efforts hadn’t been in vain. “You mentioned the emperor’s precious cargo.” He began the question slowly and found his throat had gone dry.

As he’d feared, Boden pointed to the woman. “
She
is the precious cargo—Princess Gisela, one of Charlemagne’s daughters. She has been pledged to marry an Illyrian prince. We were to have her delivered by Christmastide.”

“You were running ahead of schedule.”

“That we were,” Boden acknowledged with a bittersweet smile, “until the Saracens found us. If she dies, there will likely be war.”

“War!” Urias exclaimed.

“And you’ve gotten us involved in it?” Eliab added.

John raised a hand to quiet the courtiers. “Boden made the right choice.” He looked at the flushed face of the princess and felt sorrow rise inside him. Such a beautiful young woman. It would be tragic for her to die so young. His heart beat out a desperate prayer that somehow, in spite of his failures as a healer, God would see fit to spare the princess from death.

* * *

Princess Gisela felt the boat rock as someone stepped out from it. The sun burned hot against her face, even hotter than when the stifling veil of silk had covered her. Or perhaps her fever had grown that much worse.

“Can you save her?” Hope sprang to Boden’s voice.

“I
could.
” The voice of King John, the healer, followed him as he climbed back onto the dock. “Hare’s tongue leaves have proven an effective cure against this type of yellow secretion. But the leaves must be freshly picked, and the nearest plants grow in the mountains on the Illyrian borderlands. A swift rider could reach them by nightfall.”