Free For Her Love by Paula Reed Page B

it, sir. Grace does intend to stay with the girl, all night, if need be, and I intend to stay with her. I came here to inform you of that fact.”
    “Well!” Mistress Welbourne exclaimed haughtily. “You dare accept our hospitality and then chastise us over a matter you know nothing about? What are you? A sailor! What do you know of managing a fine estate and nearly a hundred-and-fifty workers?”
    “Iolanthe!” Edmund bellowed. “Keep quiet!”
    His wife looked back and forth between the two men, gritting her brown teeth, her perfect porcelain skin turning a mottled red. “I will not tolerate this! You!” She glared at Giles. “You can have that horrid little beast. I wish you the joy of her. You two barbarians should be well suited, after all. But I promise, you will look back upon this day and know yourself for the fool you are.” She spun on her heel and marched up the stairs, her hips swaying and skirts rustling with each step.
    Giles didn’t look at Edmund. If the wife was this venomously angry, he dreaded to see the husband’s reaction, and at the moment, he could hardly trust his own response to it.
    In the end, he was more stunned by Edmund’s composure than Iolanthe’s vehemence. “Well, I suppose we’ve not made the best impression,” Welbourne said dryly, picking up his glass and sipping from it.
    Giles’s natural sense of diplomacy warred with his moral outrage. At last, he said, “A little girl is dying, Mister Welbourne, and Grace has committed no greater sin than to care. Have you no pity?”
    Edmund nodded distractedly. “Aye, ‘tis unfortunate, the child.”
    Unfortunate. Giles shook his head grimly. “At any rate, I find Grace’s response quite admirable.”
    Edmund gave up on sipping. He swallowed half the glass in a smooth gulp, then said, “I’m sure she’ll welcome your company.”
    “You’ll not be coming?” Giles asked, more as a prompt than an actual question, but Welbourne just shook his head and finished his rum. “Well, then, I’ll look after her.”
    “Knew I could count on you, Courtney,” Edmund said. The words were mildly slurred, and he sat down in one of the upholstered chairs.
    Giles eyed the half-empty rum bottle and wondered if it might not have been full just a short time ago. Sweet Jesus, what a family! He spun and strode to the rear door, then stopped, emotions churning inside of him, gnawing at him. He wanted out of this place. But even more, he wanted to make sure that Grace never again had to attend the bedside of a dying child, or know another person whose tongue had been cut out, or had to listen to her mother insult and belittle her. God knew, if he never saw Edmund Welbourne in his cups again, it would be too soon.
    He was a fool. A complete idiot. He thought of Jonathan Cooper’s advice about not weaving himself into this family’s problems. He reminded himself that he had yet to accomplish his goal of getting to know Grace at all.
    Then, he thought of Grace, alone in the slaves’ hut. If he were not here now, what would have happened? With whom would she have shared the burden? If he left her here, how many more times would such a scenario as this play itself out, and what terrible toll would it exact from her? He could not bear to think about the answers to any of these questions. Each one led to a future of hopelessness for a woman he was coming to admire more and more with each minute spent in her company.
    At last, he threw all caution, all judiciousness aside and said, “One more thing, Mister Welbourne.”
    Welbourne looked up at Giles with a vaguely befuddled scowl. “What?”
    “I’d like permission to marry your daughter.”
    Edmund’s face split in an ear-to-ear grin. “How soon?”
    Today wasn’t soon enough.
    “Three weeks from Sunday?” Giles suggested. Time to cry the banns, no more.
    Edmund lifted his glass in a toast. “Three weeks from Sunday,” he agreed.
     
    *
     
    The stench in the slaves’ hut was