America's First Daughter by Dray Stephanie & Kamoie Laura

Author:Dray, Stephanie & Kamoie, Laura [Dray, Stephanie & Kamoie, Laura]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Historical, Romance, Adult
Amazon: B00ZP4KE70
Goodreads: 36425455
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
Published: 2016-03-01T08:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-two

THE MAGNITUDE OF THE DISASTER—both emotional and financial—was too much to take in. “That can’t be true,” I said, my head spinning as I grappled with all this would mean for us.

“It is true,” Tom said, too weary to stand. Sinking down onto the schoolmaster’s desk, he said, “My father rewrote his will in his last hours. He chose to spite me with his very last breaths.”

Suddenly, Gabriella’s strange remarks at breakfast took on a new light. No doubt Colonel Randolph’s young widow and her father hovered like buzzards over the mean old bastard to the last. They’d stolen Tom’s patrimony, but I’d have to put a more charitable spin on it, because Tom looked on the verge of shattering to pieces.

Regardless of the inheritance, my husband would be guardian over the children and steward of the estate. Much as my grandfather had been when he built this schoolhouse. That was the custom, and Tom could find some solace in that. “Tom, I’m sure your father was only worried the child would have nothing. That boy isn’t even two years old and will need us to look after him and his mother. It’ll be nearly twenty years before he comes into his inheritance, and with your stewardship at Tuckahoe—”

“You don’t understand,” Tom said, sharply. “I won’t have a stewardship at Tuckahoe. I meant what I said. I’ve lost my ancestral home. Not just the profits and enjoyment of it. But everything. John Harvie was named guardian over the younger children.”

I gasped in outrage and insult, my arms hugging my stomach against the sudden burning ache that settled there. Never mind the money; how could Colonel Randolph have entrusted his children into the care of the Harvies? And I was suddenly struck with fear that little Jenny, who had been living with us for years now, might be ripped away. “That cannot be true.”

Tom gripped the edge of the table so hard the wood creaked. “You think I’d make it up? Until the boy comes of age, Harvie will be master of Tuckahoe, not me. My mother’s children have no place here any longer.” My husband laughed bitterly. “But my brother and I do have the singular honor of executing my father’s estate.”

Which meant that Colonel Randolph had left my husband to settle his debts.

My throat tightened and my heart raced, sending my head into a spin. I pressed a hand to my forehead. That malevolent old rotter said my Jefferson blood ran cold. But nothing could have been colder than this. Colonel Randolph hadn’t simply impoverished us, but aimed to rip Tom’s sisters away from us and saddle us with costs and expenses besides.

He was as petty a tyrant as any king who’d ever lived, and the most un-Christian feelings welled up inside me such that I wanted to make the trip to the cemetery just to spit on Colonel Randolph’s freshly dug grave.

But my fears, disappointment, and anger were nothing in the face of Tom’s loss. “I—I tried to obey him,” Tom murmured through bloodless lips.

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