Читать книгу Nancy Whiskey - Laurel Ames - Страница 8

Summer, 1793

“Nancy! You are back, finally, though I almost wish you had not come home”, Aunt Jane said, wringing her hands. “We might then have been able to put him off, even hide you from him.”

“Who? Reverend Bently?” Nancy asked distractedly as she set down her basket of medicines in the hall and undid the ties of her cloak.

“What? No, of course not. Your father has come.”

“But how is that possible?” Nancy asked, her blue eyes alight with excitement. “I thought he was dead.”

“He is sitting in the library drinking a whiskey and demanding to see you.”

“I must go to him, then.” She tucked her long blond hair behind her ears and smoothed her work gown.

“But he means to take you away with him.”

“To the army?” She looked expectantly at her diminutive aunt.

“Nancy, he means to carry you to America,” Jane said tearfully.

Nancy rushed into the library, torn between excitement and fear. The man she encountered was not what she had expected. He was old, for one thing, his face red-veined from a life of hard drinking, and at the moment, also suffused with anger.

“Ah, Nancy dearie”, he said, changing his scowl to a smile as he rose to embrace her. “Ye’ve the look o’ yer dear mother. I would have known ye anywhere.”

She looked to her uncle for confirmation that this was her father, and he nodded sadly.

“I do not understand,” she said, stepping back. “You are going to America? But there is no war in America.”

“No, but there’s land, Nancy, and opportunity fer an adventuresome man. I’ve left the army and I’ve a bit o’ money by me now. Tis my one chance fer a life. Ye mean ta say ye will nay come with me?” the Irishman pleaded in his lilting voice.

Nancy hesitated, all eyes upon her. Oddly, she thought not of her papa, whom she had never known, nor of her aunt and uncle who had raised her, but of the somber Reverend Bently, whose imminent marriage proposal she could now escape. She pictured him fuming at her departure. “Yes…I will come.”

“Wot did I tell ye? She’s a plucky lass, fer all ye’ve cosseted her like one o’ yer own. I’m not unmindful o’ that, and I thank ye heartily, but she’s my dotter when all’s said and done, and I’ve a right ta have her by me in me last years.”

As this impassioned speech put an end to all argument, even from Nancy’s now-tearful aunt, Nancy fled upstairs to pack her trunks and fend off the questions of her younger cousins about her coming journey.