Free Cherished by Jill Gregory

it sail
upward into the night. He smiled to himself in the dark.
    Juliana, meanwhile, holding her skirts in one
hand, dashed through the parlour without pausing and hurried
straight upstairs to her room. She was mentally reviewing the
entire conversation with John Breen while a dreadful icy fear slid
over her.
    How could Breen act so smug, so sure of
himself, and behave with such odious presumption? It was as if he
had no fear whatsoever of censure, as if Uncle Edward had given him
carte blanche to do as he wished ...
    But that was impossible. Wasn’t it?
    In an agony of uncertainty she kicked off her
satin dancing slippers and threw herself down in the chair before
the dressing table. Her fingers plucked ten gold hairpins from her
hair and a riot of curls cascaded down, but Juliana ignored the
fetchingly tousled image in the mirror, biting her lip instead as
she concentrated on the situation facing her.
    She knew Uncle Edward wanted these business
contracts very badly. But would he actually make a bargain like the
one she was envisioning? John Breen had practically told her he was
in the market for a wife—and he had hinted that she was the most
eligible candidate—but surely Uncle Edward wouldn’t have arranged a
marriage for her to a man she didn’t even know—a man like John
Breen.
    Yet, as Juliana sat there facing her
reflection, she realized with a creeping horror that Uncle Edward
would not share in her opinion of John Breen. To him, Breen
represented the perfect husband for his vexatious niece, the
perfect solution to a thorny problem. He could secure his business
relationship with one of the richest men in the country, and at the
same time rid himself of the girl he’d been forced by duty to raise
since childhood.
    It wasn’t as if she had any prospects for
marriage awaiting her in St. Louis, Juliana reflected tremblingly.
Mama’s past as a dance-hall girl had somehow leaked out into polite
society—and that, combined with Juliana’s own feisty spirit and
sometimes unorthodox ways, had branded her as ineligible marriage
material—perfectly acceptable at parties, of course, thanks to Aunt
Katharine and Uncle Edward’s sponsorship—but certainly not as a
prospective wife for any young man of good background. If word got
out about Wade and Tommy’s infamous exploits, Juliana knew, even
social engagements might become scarce ...
    She had realized this for sometime, and lived
with the hurt of it. But Juliana would rather die than let anyone
see her rage over the way she was deemed “inferior stock.” Pride
got her through those parties and teas and balls, pride kept her
head high and her smile brilliant while she endured the compliments
and attentions of smitten young men too weak-spined to defy their
parents by courting her seriously, yet too enamored of her charms
to leave her alone. Even though the sting of overheard words and
superior glances bit through her tender heart, she never let a
trace of pain reveal itself in her face or manner. So far, she
hadn’t met a young man she truly cared for, so she hadn’t yet had
to suffer because of the stigma attached to her, but she knew that
if some day she did meet someone who mattered to her, he had better
not come from the ranks of St. Louis society, or she would be
doomed to unhappiness.
    It was possible, she reflected with a
wrenching of the heart, that Uncle Edward, casting about for a
solution to the problem of his unmarriageable niece, might indeed
have jumped at John Breen’s offer—if an offer had been made.
Sitting before the mirror, with the fiddler’s music just reaching
her ears, she began to shiver uncontrollably. Dear Lord, had she
been sold to that man down there? Bartered and sold to that tall,
handsome John Breen with his strange eyes and a touch that
inexplicably made her skin crawl? A wild throbbing born of panic
began in her chest and spiraled upward to her temples until she
thought her head would burst.
    She jumped up from the chair