A Wild Hope

by Celeste De Blasis

Genres: Classics; Historical Fiction; Sagas; Romance; Regency Romance

Synopsis

Banished from her uncaring family home for her growing friendship with older neighbor St. John, Alexandria Thaine is unprepared for the new life she encounters with her distant cousins in England's West Country. She blossoms under the warmth of the Falconers, and as she throws herself into the thrilling danger of the family's smuggling trade, Alex forms an unbreakable bond with the eldest son, Rane.



But just as Alex begins to imagine a future in Devon with Rane at her side, the death of her older sister forces her back home to care for her sister's motherless twins. Still yearning for Rane, Alex grows to love the helpless babies, and as she rekindles her friendship with St. John, she finds herself caught between her heart and her home.



When the opportunity comes to start anew in Maryland's lush horse country, Alex faces the agonizing choice between the life she dreamed of and the promise of the new world. But starting over in a golden land on the brink of war brings unforeseen dangers to her door, and when Alex's new family is threatened, can she find the strength to risk her happiness today for the wild hope of a brighter tomorrow?



Contains mature themes.

Release date: October 8, 2020

Publisher: Bookouture

Print pages: 350

Sample

The air was cool and shadowed in the great oak. Alex took a deep breath, trying to taste its greenness. It did have a taste, an elusive sweetness. Eyes half-closed, legs dangling, she felt the solid trunk against her back, the pull of the earth on her legs. Despite her presence, birds flew in and out of the tree, and her mind went with them, seeking the course of their secret journeys. She was on the edge of knowing exactly how it felt to be one of them when the thud of a horse’s hooves brought her back to earth.

She peered through the branches and smiled in delight as she recognized the horse and rider. “Sinje,” she called as she started to climb out of the tree.

St. John Aiden Blaine Nigel Carrington grinned and dismounted as he watched the lithe body slither skillfully down the tree, but he managed to don a severe expression by the time she faced him, standing only a few inches shorter than his own bare miss of six feet. “Alexandria Thaine, I should think you had been in trouble often enough for wearing your brother’s breeches, and for that matter, for climbing trees, too. Your mother is going to be most displeased.”

“She always is, no matter what I do.” There was a touch of sadness in the observation but no self-pity.

St. John could not dispute the truth of what she said; he had never seen Margaret Thaine treat this, her youngest child, with kindness. Exasperation bordering on anger was a more likely response. And Caton Thaine, Alexandria’s father, was little help; his desire for domestic tranquility often led to what could only be termed a cowardly retreat from his wife’s temper.

Eleven years older than she, St. John had known Alexandria all of her life, and he was very fond of her. At thirteen she was still as slender as a boy, having no trouble fitting into her brother Boston’s castoff clothing, and yet, it would be hard to mistake her sex. When she was feeling uneasy, she could be awkward, as if the height she had attained in the past year or so still came as a surprise, but when she was happy, she moved with a quick feline grace and her face was undoubtedly as feminine as it was unusual.

If St. John had not been told that she took her coloring from her grandfather, Trahern Thaine, he would have suspected she was a changeling, for she looked nothing like her brothers and sister. Her skin was palest honey, and her hair was such a dark, rich brown, it appeared black in some lights, in others subtle shades of deep gold could be seen. Arched black brows and thick lashes delineated the little outer corner tilt of her big eyes. They, too, contained shades of gold that varied the green of them from the color of new spring leaves to the deepest shadowed emerald of the forest’s heart. Her nose was straight, nostrils slightly flared above her generous mouth. Her high cheekbones and the firm line of her jaw were definite though still softened by youth. It was an arresting face, and St. John suspected she was going to lead some man a merry dance when she grew up.

“Sir Arthur’s not limping,” she said with pleasure, eyeing his mount.

“No, he’s recovered. Your grandmother’s poultice did the trick. Would you like to get up on him for a bit?” It was a needless question; she never refused a chance to ride one of the horses from the Carrington stables. It was precisely why she had stationed herself in the tree to wait for him. St. John had been teaching her how to ride for years. Often he wished her sister Florence shared the same passion for fine horseflesh. He smiled to himself as he gave Alex a boost up into the saddle; Florence had other things to offer, not the least of which were curves that would never have fit into the breeches Alex was wearing.

Florence was the most perfectly beautiful young woman he had ever seen, ethereal in the delicately symmetrical features, wide sea blue eyes, and spun gold hair. Having known her since childhood, he had been obsessed with her since he had first made the delightful discovery that males and females differed. That his family disapproved and that Florence seemed to regard him as a great lord rather than an impoverished third son with no prospects, added greatly to her appeal. He felt a rush of warmth at the thought of her lush body. Nonetheless, he watched the horse and rider before him with critical attention, not thinking at all of the fact that he would be late for his tryst with Florence. Passing on his knowledge of and joy in riding and horses was a serious and agreeable business, and he could wish for no more enthusiastic pupil than Alex. He enjoyed her effortless control of the big bay hunter as if he were in the saddle instead of she.

“He’s not limping, but he still favors it, doesn’t he?” she observed, bringing the horse to an easy halt beside him. “I’m sure it’s not pain, just the memory of it.”

St. John was please by how finely tuned she was to the horse’s movement so that she was aware of the slightest hesitation in the stride. “You’re right, but he’s even jumping quite well again, and I think by hunt season he will have forgotten the injury. There are some advantages to being stupid.” As much as he loved them, he had no illusions about horses’ intelligence.

Alex slipped down off the horse to stand facing St. John, thinking that she must soon warn him or it would be too late.

He caught the intensity of her look and waited patiently for whatever it was she wanted to say. She was interested in nearly everything, and he had long since given up trying to guess where her quicksilver mind would go next.

She was as nervous as if she were trying to take a horse over too high a wall, but studying St. John’s face gave her the courage not to put it off any longer. No matter that he was the youngest Carrington son, he looked the most aristocratic of them all with his high-bridged nose and thin-lipped mouth set in his lean, slightly long face. His hair was heavy gold, his eyes very blue. He could look quite haughty and forbidding, but never had he turned that expression on her. To her, he had always been extraordinarily kind and his features were more dear to her than her own. He was certainly old enough so that he should know what was best, but in the case of Florence she feared he did not. She took a deep breath and let the words out.

“Sinje, I know how much my mother and my sister want it, but you really mustn’t marry Florence. It would be bad for both of you.”

He was stunned by the subject she had chosen this time, and he couldn’t think of anything to say except, “Why ever so?”

“Because she’s not useful!” Alex proclaimed fervently as if that explained everything.

“Not useful for what?” he asked sharply, feeling his patience wearing thin. She really had gone too far this time. “Marriage is not the same as buying a cow or a horse.”

“It ought to be! Then perhaps more people would be happy with each other. Florence doesn’t even cook very well. She thinks looking beautiful is all she need do. Surely you want a wife who knows how to do more than that.” She didn’t want to remind him outright that as the youngest son of Sir Ivor Carrington and given the impoverished state of his family’s finances, it was widely known that he stood to inherit neither title nor money. Florence would expect the kind of life he could never give her.

St. John had the sudden horrible suspicion that he had badly misread her character, and his anger was very near the surface. “Do you have someone else in mind? Yourself perhaps?”

“Of course not! What a foolish thing to say! I’m just a child.”

She was scandalized by the idea which had obviously never occurred to her. St. John’s anger receded. He knew Florence got on ill with her sister, but that wasn’t unusual; he himself was often at odds with his eldest brother. “Do you really dislike your sister so much?” he inquired quite gently.

She looked at him in surprise. “Most of the time I just ignore her and she ignores me. But that’s neither here nor there; it’s you who matters and how unhappy you’ll be if my mother and Florence have their way. Florence hasn’t the sense to know it, but she’ll be unhappy, too.”

Finally understanding her very real concern for him, he was touched, but he knew he had to set her straight regarding the wisdom of staying out of other people’s affairs. The words were never spoken.

So intent had they been on their discussion, they had even ignored Sir Arthur’s nervous sidestepping that should have warned them of someone approaching.

“You idiotic, wicked child!” Florence was upon them in the instant, her hand lashing out to slap Alex with great force. “How dare you say such things! Lies, all of it lies, and you so mean and jealous!”

For a moment, St. John had all he could do to control his horse’s frightened plunging, but then holding the reins close to the bit in one hand, he grabbed Florence with the other, jerking her back before she could hit Alexandria again.

Alex made no attempt to defend herself. She stood there, her eyes wide and unhappy, the mark of Florence’s slap turning from white to red. She had never intended a hideous scene like this. She had hoped St. John would just quietly stop courting Florence and go his own way.

“I think you’d better go, Alexandria,” St. John said, though at the moment, he would have preferred that Florence be the one to disappear. He could understand her rage, but still, she was ugly in the grip of it.

Alex saw Florence recollect herself and force tears into her eyes, masking her fury in the guise of heartbroken victim, and she left them there, knowing her continued presence would only make things worse.

She did not go home; she wished she never had to go there again. Once Florence had told her story, there was going to be no end of trouble. She went to her grandmother’s house instead, seeking the comfort of the familiar refuge.

Her goal lay to the west on the other side of Gravesend and the contiguous town of Milton, and she took country lanes to get there, skirting the busy port. She had had enough of civilized company for the day. Civilized—as her mother termed her sister. “Florence knows how to behave in a ladylike manner while you remain a little beast. God give me strength, I sometimes think it hopeless.”

She could hear the whining tone of her mother’s voice all too clearly, and she grinned at the afterimage of Florence screeching her head off. Civilized, was it!

She waved to several farmers on her way and received kind greetings in return. Despite her hoydenish ways, most of the countryfolk preferred her to her mother whose social pretensions were so rudely obvious. They also viewed Virginia Thaine with respect and affection and knew this child to be the favored granddaughter.

No matter what her mood when she began the journey, Alex never failed to feel comforted at the sight of her grandmother’s farm. The old thick-walled house with its crooked windows open to the sun, the neat gardens and well-pruned orchard with the hop fields beyond, all bespoke love and harmony with the earth and the seasons.

It was a world away from the discord of the house in Gravesend.

He grandmother’s ginger cat Henry VIII, named for the king with six wives, lay in his usual position in the sun before the front door, and Alex stopped to pay homage before she went on. Henry VIII growled lazily in greeting.

Alex found her grandmother carefully trimming herbs she grew for healing, cooking, and scent, and the air was perfumed by the fresh cutting. It was a magic blend Alex always associated with her grandmother.

Virginia straightened at her approach and smiled wryly. “Your mother won’t be pleased if she catches you wearing Boston’s clothing again.”

Alex shrugged. “She isn’t going to be pleased in any case.” The story tumbled out, and the expression on her grandmother’s face told her the offense was more grave than she had thought.

She did not regard Virginia as old. The spare figure and the white hair were unchanging in the world, and because Virginia continued to work at so many tasks, she retained the energy and quickness of a much younger woman. Her eyes were very dark brown and undimmed by the years, bright and endlessly observant. And her only concession to vanity, the gloves and hat she wore when she was outside, had served her well, leaving her skin soft and scarcely lined over the long, slender hands and the proud bones of her face. But now she looked all of her seventy-two years, her face grave and sad under the shadows cast by the hat brim.

“Oh, Alexandria, this time I fear you have gone too far, much too far. Your mother will be so very angry!” She did not add that the anger would be directed at her as well as at the child. Margaret Thaine kept up a kind of emotional blackmail, wanting nothing to do with her daughter but yet wanting no other influence on her either, particularly that of her mother-in-law. In return for the cherishing Virginia gave Alex, they both paid dearly in the aggravation of bearing Margaret’s complaints and accusations of bad behavior, and in threats that they should not be allowed so much of each other’s company.

Alex had hoped her grandmother would make light of what she had done, but the hope faded in face of the older woman’s gravity. This was the source of all comfort and wisdom in her life. It was Virginia who had taught her to read and to reason, Virginia who had taught her to observe nature and the earth with a keen eye, Virginia who continued to teach her the healing properties of plants and of an understanding heart. If her grandmother considered her offense serious, it was.

“What is wrong with everyone?” she protested. “No one seems to care about St. John or even Florence, for that matter. They do not suit. They will make each other so unhappy!”

“They may indeed. But that is their business, not yours, nor anyone else’s. Child, surely you have seen enough to know that people will do as they will, sensible or not. And your mother longs for the marriage because, even though the youngest and poor, St. John is of the nobility. Margaret is not alone in wanting such connections.” She detested her daughter-in-law so much, she often found herself stretching to be fair. No good would come of making matters worse between Margaret and her youngest child. “You know you will have to go home sooner or later,” she added gently. She could not find it in her heart to scold the child further; she knew her too well to suspect that her motive came from anything other than concern for St. John and, to a lesser extent, for her sister. The bruised mark on Alexandria’s face seemed punishment enough.

“I know,” Alex agreed reluctantly. “But not yet, Grandmother, please, not yet!” She flinched inwardly, already hearing her mother’s voice rising in fury.

Virginia let her stay, seeking to ease her apprehension by invoking their old pattern of teacher and student. Girl child or no, this was the brightest of her grandchildren and the most like her husband, Trahern. The child had not only the look of him, but the same quick intelligence. She had recognized it from the first and had given thanks, having by then all but given up hope that she would find a descendant with whom she could leave her peculiar legacy. Her husband and her two oldest sons had been dead for nearly twenty years, victims of the greedy sea, and while her surviving son, Caton, had scholarly leanings, he was always prone to take the easiest way, in thought and in action, anything to avoid dissension. Privately she considered his fathering of Alexandria as one of the few worthwhile acts of his existence. His wife had been an enemy from the first, and the four children who had come before Alexandria were not suited to what Virginia had had in mind. It was as well for a man to know the healing art as for a woman, but it was more usual now for the herbs to be given by women, “wise-women,” as they were often called. Despite the oath they swore, too many of the men of formal medicine did more harm than good to their patients, with their violent treatments, seldom considering that those treatments did as much or more damage than the illnesses. Until that changed, there would be the need for the gentler healers.

Virginia was not a mystic, though she never negated the power of human will in life and in death. She regarded her craft as just that—a skill to be learned through long and careful work and the study of new discoveries as well as the old. The potential for harm was ever present, and she was too aware that many who would deal in herbs inflicted as much harm as the worst of the medical profession. Though she indulged Alexandria in other things, in this her teaching was strict and relentless, and she had been rewarded from the beginning by the child’s ability to learn.

She offered her comfort now in the old ritual. “What if someone came to you and asked for a draught with the skin of a frog, cat’s liver and rue steeped in wine, saying it had cured the ague before and was needed again from the hand of a wise-woman. What would you do?”

Though Alex grinned at the unlikely ingredients, she did not fall into the old trap. “I would have to consider it very carefully to know whether or not it was a trick, the asking I mean. And if I thought it was not, that the person truly believed in such nonsense, then I would have to go very carefully to persuade him or her to let me treat with Cinchona bark instead.”

Virginia nodded in approval. “Well said, but you might do better to call it by the old name, the English Remedy, and relate that it cured Charles the Second’s fever. That would give the drug even more power to the superstitious. But what if the patient complained of other sickness, not the ague, and yet you found no signs of aught awry? What would you do then?”

“If I cannot help, I must not harm.” The words came automatically. “I might in that case have to give something harmless so that the patient’s own will would banish the symptoms.”

Satisfied, Virginia moved on, touching a tall stalk of purple flowers. “What is this and what is it used for?”

“Foxglove. It is useful to ease dropsy and trouble with the heart, though it must be used with care,” Alex replied. “And your bees are very fond of it.”

It was an old joke between them, the passionate interest Virginia had in the hives she kept on the farm. She claimed that the orderly workings of the insects soothed her when humankind was too frenzied.

The two of them stood in the warm shelter of the garden listening to the drone of the bees and the birdsong until the peace was shattered by the cheerful voice of Mrs. Rivers, the woman who came most days of the week to help with the housekeeping, thus giving Virginia more time in the gardens and with the sick.

Mrs. Rivers called her greeting again, and Virginia answered before she turned back to Alex. “A cup of tea before you go, my dear, or are you ready to face the dragon?” They both knew it would do no good for her grandmother to go with her.

“Thank you, no tea today. I’ve tarried long enough. I might as well get it over with.” She gave Virginia swift kiss on the cheek and was gone, lithe and agile in her brother’s clothes.

Watching her depart, Virginia thought of how old Alexandria was in some ways, how young in others, and she wished she could spare her all the pain growing to full womanhood would undoubtedly bring.

“Getting it over with” seemed more and more unlikely. Margaret’s rage, fueled by Florence’s tearful spasms over the defection of St. John, grew by the day. And Alex’s misery was deepened by Margaret’s refusal to let her leave the house. After only a couple of days, she longed for the outdoors and her grandmother’s company as if she had been a prisoner for years.

The violence of her mother’s reaction had stunned her. She had expected anger, but not the screaming hysteria that poured over her, nor the slaps that had bruised flesh already tender from Florence’s attack. Only now did she understand how much Margaret had been counting on the match with St. John. It had only made matters worse when Alex pointed out that St. John’s family was sure to disapprove of the match, thus negating any advantage from it. She had learned that her mother was not rational about this subject—any kind of connection was to be avidly sought. She had not known before the extent of her mother’s resentment of being no more than a merchant’s wife. Even the favored daughter, Florence, was to be sacrificed to the union, albeit in her ignorance she was a willing sacrifice. Or would have been—St. John seemed to have absented himself from the scene. For that, at least, Alex gave thanks.

She and her mother had never been at ease with each other, but somehow Alex had managed to ignore the full burden of it, taking comfort from her grandmother, and to a lesser degree, from Boston, the one among her siblings who seemed kin in spirit, and from her father, Caton, who, though retiring and ineffectual in his domestic role, had always seemed to love her.

But now nothing stood between Alex and the force of her mother’s dislike, and she could no longer ignore or deny it. It bowed her spirit with its ugly truth. Nothing she would ever be able to do would make her mother love her. Even knowing that it had never been, she felt as if something precious had died. And she felt unclean, unworthy, diminished in ways she could not understand. Suddenly her mother looked different to her. Before she had appeared to be a fairly prosperous merchant’s wife, a rather handsome woman with even features and dark blond hair slowly fading to white. But now her mouth appeared pinched and mean, her blue eyes cold. Even her voice seemed to have sharpened.

Alex wondered if she herself had similarly changed outwardly, becoming ugly to look upon, mean of countenance. She studied her face in the mirror and could see nothing beyond features so familiar to her. But she found herself slinking about the house, avoiding her family’s eyes and their presence as much as possible. Not even her sister’s rapid shifts from whining to strident blaming could rouse Alex from the apathy that crept over her.

Beyond offering the mild opinion that he thought the females of the household were making too much of little, Caton Thaine stayed out of it, preferring longer hours at the ship chandlery to the dissension a home. Rome and Paris, Alex’s older brothers, had their own wives and households in Gravesend, and once they discovered the stormy weather at their parents’ house, they made every excuse to stay away. Only Boston, at eighteen five years older than Alex and divorcing himself more and more from the doings of the household as he sought independence, found himself unable to ignore her plight.

He had always had a special fondness for his younger sister, having found her a good sport from the time she was little, unlike Florence, who was two years older than he and had always been too fastidious to enjoy rowdy adventures. And though Boston had long since learned to please his mother by saying the right things and staying out of her way, he could not bear to see Alex looking so wan and defeated, particularly since he thought St. John a good fellow and shared Alex’s apprehension should the man marry Florence. But he was not so foolhardy as to confront his mother directly; he went instead, as Alex had done, to his grandmother.

He did not have the close bond with Virginia that his sister had, but he loved and respected her.

“How is Alexandria?” she asked anxiously after the briefest of greetings. “I have not yet tried to find out from Caton. He is no use at all as a source of information. I swear my son lives perpetually in the river fog!”

“I’m truly worried about her,” Boston replied. “That’s why I’ve come. There must be something you or Father can do! Lexy looks so sad and lost; Mother and Florence are being beastly.”

His unconscious use of his old and long discarded pet name for his little sister told Virginia much about the depth of his distress.

His voice was suddenly young and unsure. “I don’t like to believe it, but I don’t think Mother loves her at all.”

Virginia swallowed the angry words that rose in unbidden confirmation. “Parents and children do not always find each other agreeable. And sometimes it takes a good bit of time before there is understanding.” The excuse sounded weak to her own ears, but she sensed Boston’s need for reassurance, not only for his sister’s sake but for his own; he was discomfited by his changing view of his mother.

“Sometimes it takes a bit of help, too,” she added more strongly. “I’ve stayed away because I knew how much Margaret would resent my interference—Alexandria is, after all, her child—but I haven’t been idle. I think it might serve everyone best if Alexandria were to go away for a time. I’ve written to relatives in the West Country, and I am sure they will take her in. They’re related by distant blood to your grandfather Trahern, and I would trust her to them. I am sure the answer will come soon. And in the meantime, I will talk to Caton. At least he can get her out of that house for a day or so, and maybe your mother’s temper will cool.” Though I doubt it, she added to herself.

“Don’t tell Alexandria of my plans, please, but you can assure her that I have not forsaken her.”

Boston left with a lighter heart, but Virginia was of a more sober cast when she finally confronted Caton.

It always amazed her, even after all these years, that this sober, clerkish man who was most happy when he was puttering amid the ships’ stores he sold could have come from the fiery mating that had been hers with Trahern. The shop was in the old section of Gravesend, in the maze of buildings crowded on the slopes that led down to the Thames. Tar, hemp and spices blended their scents with the less pleasant odors of refuse and mud, and the district was busy with the constant traffic of seamen, passengers, and all those who supplied the ships’ needs.

Gravesend was a town teeming with life and commerce, and yet, Caton Thaine always seemed to his mother to be inhabiting some other place, some slow backwater in his own mind. Virginia sometimes envied him this state, but usually it made her impatient, and she did not bother to hide that now, as she addressed him.

“You must do something for Alexandria. You cannot leave her at the mercy of her mother and her sister. They will break her heart, and I will not allow that. Nor should you be willing to see it done.”

Caton blinked at her, shifting his attention to his mother from a list of supplies destined for an outbound merchantman. “I am sure the trouble will pass; it always does,” he offered mildly.

“You are blind!” Virginia snapped. “And worse. It was your choice to marry that woman, but your children had no choice in their parents, and you have an obligation to protect them from their mother’s cruelty.” She lifted her hand, waving away his vague protest with a furious gesture. “Yes, cruelty. There’s no other word for it. It’s time to cease pretending. The others have fared well enough under Margaret’s care, but Alexandria is different. She’s a rare child, but her mother does not love her, and she is making that too clear now.” Briefly she sketched her plans for her granddaughter and added, “But until I can get her away, you must help. You love her, I know you do. Get her out of the house, away from Margaret, at least for a day or two.”

Caton loved his mother even as he sometimes flinched from the force of her personality, and he knew how hard she had tried to stay out of his marriage to a woman she had disliked from the first. He had not wanted to think about it, had in fact purposefully avoided thinking about it, but he was suddenly only too aware of how he, also, had come to dislike his wife. He wondered what he had ever seen in her. She had seemed to be what he needed, a capable, pleasant-looking woman who would make a good wife for a man of his standing. But he had not understood her ambition to rise above the station he found so comfortable, nor had he seen the pettiness of her spirit. And he had known for a long time without admitting it that Margaret had somehow chosen her youngest child as the focus of all of her frustrations and anger. He remembered how dismally she had greeted the fact of that last pregnancy and how disappointed she had been to produce a girl. One daughter had been quite enough for her; she had no interest in her own sex and considered sons the only children worth producing, and even they not overly welcomed, but rather a duty. It was an ugly vision of her and of himself that Caton saw now. He did love Alex; she was his elfin child and for too long he had allowed her to be used as the buffer between himself and Margaret’s discontent.

Virginia saw the resolution grow in his eyes and the set of his mouth and thought that he was an attractive man after all when he was roused out of his usual befuddled state. The bones of his face were faintly reminiscent of Trahern’s strong visage as were the green lights in his hazel eyes. And his thick brown-blond hair just touched with gray was the color her own had been. Not so lost a cause after all if only he would keep to the course of helping his daughter.

Alex began to think that surely her mother knew her well, else she could not have devised so keen a punishment. To have nothing to do was the worst sort of torment. Ma