From This Day Forward Read Online Free Page A

a notch. “I shall make do with what the Lord has given me.”
    His expression darkened. He clamped his jaw shut and glanced at Maddy, who held Rachel’s daughter. “What about your child?”
    “We shall be fine,” she said with as much determination as she could muster, but her voice cracked.
    He frowned. “How?”
    “God will provide.”
    He snorted. “He will? That naïveté will get you killed.”
    She sucked in a deep breath. “I don’t have a choice. I cannot return to England. My parents disowned me. Dalton Farm, in whatever condition, is all I have. It will be my home now.” She dropped her gaze to the bowl of chicken soup and picked up the spoon to take another taste of the broth.
    “Where did you grow up?” Tension poured off him, from his taut posture to the intense glint in his eyes.
    “Devonshire. My family owns an estate there. Mansfield Manor.”
    “Why did your parents disown you?”
    “Because I married Tom Gordon, a man they did not think worthy of me.” It wasn’t until after her marriage to Tom that she had discovered how right her parents had been. She wrote a letter and told them how sorry she was for defying them. She never heard back from her parents.
    “Surely now that your husband has died and you have a child—”
    “My father made it quite clear he never wanted to see me again. He had arranged a marriage for me. No one goes against him.”
    His look turned to ice, his jawline sculpted in stone. “I know how that is.”
    “You do?”
    “Yes.”
    Someone who understands what I am going through . The feeling of kinship with this man heightened the intimacy she felt between them. The room shrank in size, her heartbeat increasing. “What happened?”
    “My grandfather insisted I do what he wanted…to run Pinecrest, to learn how from my father. I didn’t want to be a planter. I wanted to help others as a physician. I had already started to train when…” His gruff voice faded into silence. He peered away, swallowing hard. A war of emotions played across his features, as though he were reliving a bad memory.
    The connection she felt to him strengthened. The urge to help him as he had her prompted her to say, “So you went against your grandfather’s wishes as I did my father’s. Was there no way you could do both?”
    “I tried, with my father’s support, but five years ago we lost many people on the plantation to yellow fever. My father tried to help and succumbed to the fever. I could not do anything to save him. After my father’s funeral, I stood up to Grandfather. He didn’t take kindly to that. He really does not understand….” He snapped his mouth closed, a nerve jumping in his jaw.
    “What does he not understand? That being a physician is important to you?”
    “If I had completed my training as I had planned, I might have been able to do more to save my father.”
    “You were upset that your father died. How could your grandfather disown you for speaking what you felt?”
    Dr. Stuart rubbed the back of his neck. “There was more to it than that. Looking back now, I believe my grandfather would have accepted my learning to be a physician as well as a planter.” He sucked in a deep breath and looked right at her. “Soon after my father’s funeral, my grandfather sent my mother back to England, telling her she was not welcome at Pinecrest ever again.”
    His expression was solemn and hurt dulled his eyes. Her throat swelled, tears close to the surface. “Pinecrest was your mother’s home.” Like Mansfield Manor had once been hers.
    “That’s what I thought. But when I spoke up, my grandfather became very angry with me.”
    “He threw you off the plantation then? For standing up for your mother?” Rachel never wanted to meet this man who could not understand a son speaking up for his mother.
    “Not right away, but our relationship became very difficult after that. I know he hated the English because they killed his eldest son and youngest brother