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Warbrooke. You’ll see.”
    â€œI hope you’re right,” Nick said. “I’m afraid that they may believe what they see.” He was referring to the ridiculous sight Alex made in his fat padding and brocade coat and powdered wig. He certainly didn’t look like the handsome young man come home to save a town from a dastardly brother-in-law.
    â€œYou’ll see,” Alex slurred, since Nick had been giving him brandy to help him face the coming exertion. “They know me. They’ll laugh when they see me like this. They’ll know that something has happened. They’ll take care of me until this damned shoulder heals. I just pray they don’t give me away in front of the soldiers. You’ll see, they’ll know that no Montgomery ever dressed like a peacock. They’ll know there’s a reason for this.”
    â€œYes, Alexander,” Nicholas said soothingly. “I hope you are right.”
    â€œI am. You’ll see. I know these people.”

Chapter Two
    I DON’T know why I have to be there to meet him,” Jessica Taggert said for the thousandth time to her sister, Eleanor. “Alexander was never anything to me—nothing good, that is.”
    Eleanor tightened her sister’s corset strings. Eleanor, by herself, was considered a pretty woman, but when Jessica was present, she was overshadowed—as was every other woman in town. “You have to go because the Montgomery family has been very good to us. Get down from there, Sally!” she said to her four-year-old sister.
    The Taggert house was little more than a shack, small and only as clean as two women with full-time employment and the responsibility of taking care of seven young brothers and sisters could make it. The house was on the edge of town, set back in a tiny cove, with no close neighbors; not because the family chose to be so isolated, but because eighteen years ago when the fifth loud, dirty Taggert had entered the world and there didn’t seem to be an end to their numbers in sight, people stopped building near them.
    â€œNathaniel!” Jessica shouted to her nine-year-old brother who was dangling three, fat, angry spiders on a string in front of his little sister’s face. “If I have to come over there you’ll be sorry.”
    â€œAt least you wouldn’t have to see Alexander,” Nathaniel taunted before wisely scurrying from the house just after he tossed the spiders onto his sister.
    â€œHold still, Jess,” Eleanor said. “How do you expect me to lace you into this dress if you’re wiggling about?”
    â€œI don’t particularly want you to lace me into it. I really don’t see why I have to go. We don’t need charity from the likes of Alexander Montgomery.”
    Eleanor gave a heartfelt sigh. “You haven’t seen him since you were both children. Maybe he’s changed.”
    â€œHah!” Jess said, moving away from her sister and lifting the infant, Samuel, off the floor where he was trying to eat some unidentifiable substance. She saw he had one of Nathaniel’s spiders in his fat, dirty little hand. “No one as bad as Alexander changes. He was a pompous know-it-all ten years ago and I’m sure he hasn’t changed. If Marianna was going to get one of her brothers to come and help her get away from that man she was fool enough to marry, why couldn’t she have asked one of the older boys? One of the good Montgomerys?”
    â€œI think she wrote each of them and Alex received his letter first. Sit still while I get some of the tangles out of your hair.” Eleanor took her sister’s hair in her hands and couldn’t help feeling a little jealous. Other women spent many hours trying to do what they could with their hair to make it look good, while Jessica exposed hers to sun, salt air, sea water and her own sweat—and it was more beautiful than anyone else’s. It was a