Ransome's Quest (46 page)

At a nudge from Susan, Julia dragged her attention from Margaret’s dimpled cheeks and dancing eyes. “Yes?”

“Who is that young man?”

She followed Susan’s gaze. A tall young man with dark hair, hooded eyes, and a melancholy air stood in the shadow of the house. “That is Stephen Grayson, our new steward. He arrived yesterday. I invited him to come to the wedding so he could start getting to know the family—the entire Tierra Dulce family.”

“It seems there’s one family member he seems interested in getting to know.” Susan nodded toward the group gathered around Sir Edward.

Julia wished Susan had not talked her out of tucking her spectacles into her reticule. Was it Margaret who drew Stephen’s unalterable attention? Concern, followed by joy, fluttered through Julia’s chest. It was too soon to hope, but hope bloomed nonetheless.

“I always worried that Margaret was too much like me.” Julia hooked her arm through her best friend’s. “That she would have to go through the stigma of being called an old maid, of fearing she would never find anyone who loved her and whom she could love in return.”

“Do you regret that you did not marry until you were almost thirty years old?”

Julia thought back over the past thirty years of her life. William. Edward. Eleanor. Nathan. Margaret. Tierra Dulce. A husband who loved his vocation—and now was home much more often. Children who loved each other, their parents, and their home, but who had thoughts and ideas of their own.

“No. No matter how much pain and loneliness I experienced in my life before I married, I would not change one thing. I have the best family—including a sister,” she squeezed Susan’s arm, “the best home, the best life anyone could hope for. And in the end, where we are now is what matters, not fretting over choices made in the past.”

Julia watched as Margaret moved away from her grandparents and toward the house. Stephen Grayson stepped forward and then hesitated. Julia willed him to find the courage to speak to Margaret, but he let her go by without taking notice of him, her head no doubt filled with plans for modernizing their harvesting and production equipment to maximize Tierra Dulce’s sugar output.

Yes, Margaret was her mother’s daughter.

And that was just the way it should be.

1.   What expectations did you have when you began reading the book? Were your expectations met? Were you disappointed with anything in the story?

2.   What did you learn about the time period that you didn’t know before reading this book? What did you learn about how people lived and what life might have been like? Was there anything you didn’t understand (terms or social customs)? Was there anything you expected to see but didn’t?

3.   In this story, there are a lot of hidden agendas and identities. In what ways did you see this happening and with which characters?

4.   There is quite a bit of concern over Charlotte’s “ruined reputation” in this story—first from her disguising herself as a boy and living with the other midshipmen (in
Ransome’s Crossing)
and now from having been abducted by a pirate. Is reputation—what is known or assumed about someone’s background—as important today as it was then?

5.   Charlotte shows once again that she’s willing to go against her family’s wishes to be with the man she loves. Would you be willing to do that?

6.   Before the modern era, it wasn’t unusual for women to find themselves at the mercy of men around them. What were your thoughts on Julia’s interactions with Shaw? Could she have done more to protect herself? to protect James?

7.   Captain Salvador considers himself a moral man, yet he also claims to be a pirate. In what ways did Salvador live up to the Christian morals of his family? In what ways did he betray those morals? What did you like about Salvador? What did you not like about Salvador? What would you have changed about him?

8.   James Ransome reveals to William and Julia his jealousy over William’s “easy” rise through the ranks in the Royal Navy. Was James justified in his jealousy?

9.   What did you think about the way in which Julia described God’s    forgiveness to James—by comparing it to the way James’s mother loved and forgave him?

10.  Read Luke 15:11-32. How is the parable of the prodigal son exemplified in this story?

Commodore William Ransome

First Lieutenant Patrick O’Rourke

Second Lieutenant Angus Campbell

Third Lieutenant Horatio Eastwick

Fourth Lieutenant Eamon “Jack” Jackson

Fifth Lieutenant Robert Blakeley

Sixth Lieutenant Josiah Gibson

Midshipman Walter Kennedy

Midshipman Christopher Oldroyd

Steward Archibald Dawling

Boatswain (Bosun) Matthews

Surgeon James Hawthorne

Sailing Master Ingleby

Purser Holt

Captain Ned Cochrane

First Lieutenant Lewis Gardiner

Second Lieutenant Millington Wallis

Third Lieutenant Richard Duncan

Acting Fourth Lieutenant Thomas Hamilton

Acting Fifth Lieutenant Cornelius Martin

Midshipman Harry Kent

Midshipman Louis Jamison

Midshipman Charles Lott

Midshipman Isaac McLellan

Master Carpenter Colberson

Boatswain (Bosun) Parr

Sailing Master Bolger

Purser Harley

Captain of Marines Macarthy

Captain El Salvador de los Esclavos

First Mate Martin Declan

Second Mate Simon “Picaro” Donnelley

Sailing Master Jean Baptiste

Boatswain Hanyu Lau

Steward Suresh Bandopadhyay

Kaye Dacus
lives in Nashville, Tennessee, and holds a master of fine arts degree in writing popular fiction from Seton Hill University, is a former vice president of American Christian Fiction Writers, and currently serves as the president of Middle Tennessee Christian Writers. She loves action movies and British costume dramas, and when she’s not writing she enjoys knitting scarves and lap blankets (she’s a master of the straight-line knit and purl stitches!). To learn more about Kaye and her books, visit her online at
kayedacus.com
.

W
hen young Julia Witherington doesn’t receive the proposal for marriage she expects from William Ransome, she determines to never forgive him. They go their separate ways—she returns to her family’s Caribbean plantation, and he returns to the Royal Navy.

Now, twelve years later, Julia is about to receive a substantial inheritance, including her beloved plantation. When unscrupulous relatives try to gain the inheritance by forcing her into a marriage, she turns to the only eligible man to whom her father, Admiral Sir Edward Witherington, will not object—his most trusted captain and the man who broke her heart, William Ransome. Julia offers William her thirty-thousand-pound dowry to feign marriage for one year, but then something she could never have imagined happens: She starts to fall in love with him again.

Can two people overcome their hurt, reconcile their conflicting desires, and find a way to be happy together? Duty and honor, faith and love are intertwined in this intriguing tale from the Regency era.

I
n order to get to her secret fiancé in Jamaica, Charlotte Ransome must disguise herself as Charles Lott, a midshipman who joins the crew of one of the ships in a convoy led by her brother—Commodore William Ransome. Unknown to her, First Lieutenant Ned Cochrane, also in Ransome’s convoy, has set his heart on Charlotte after meeting her briefly in Portsmouth. But because he is about to leave for a year of duty in the Caribbean, he despairs of finding her unmarried when he returns home.