B00BWX9H30 EBOK Read Online Free PDF

the bed and stretched as she got up. “I didn’t think I needed to rest, but it does seem to have revived me. Now to supper, at home we would have called it dinner.”
    “Here dinner is at noon or one o’clock and supper is in the evening. You’ll get used to the different names for things. I did.”
    “You? But weren’t you raised here?”
    “No, my father was from Philadelphia. A lawyer out here for a hunt. To make a long story short, he met and fell in love with my mother, but my grandfather, my mother’s father, refused to let them marry. Father went back to Philadelphia not knowing Mother was pregnant with me. When he returned a year later and found out, he again wanted to marry her, but she had already married my stepfather.”
    “So, why did your father wait so long to take you with him?”
    He shrugged his shoulders. “It was an agreement they made. Father was adamant that I learn both worlds. It was agreed that when I was fifteen I would go with him. He came every year, so it wasn’t like he was a stranger to me. It was difficult, but he overcame all the obstacles, not the least of which was my grandfather, in order to be with me. In the end, because I was a man, it was my choice to go with my father. I could have refused, despite the agreement that was made.”
    “He sounds like a good man.”
    “He is. That’s why I went with him. Why I chose to know the people he is a part of.”
    “Your father is still living?”
    “Yes. Still in Philadelphia and he still comes out every year. He’ll be coming back in a couple of months.”
    “Does he know you married?”
    “Not yet. Figured I’d surprise him.”
    “Oh, I’m sure he’ll be surprised when he sees me. He’ll wonder if you were blind when you said ‘I do’.”
    Nathan took a deep breath. “I wish you would not disparage yourself so. I’ve told you, you are a beautiful woman.”
    “And I know better.” She circled the air in front of her face with her hand. “I see this face in the mirror every day. I remember the reactions of the people who saw me the first time I went out after my bandages were removed. There was horror on their faces and in their eyes. That’s how most people see me, Nathan. I don’t understand why you don’t.”
    He stood to the side of the door never really coming into the room. Now he leaned onto the door jamb. “And everyone sees me as a breed, a savage. My mother’s people are not savages. I’m as much a savage as you are.”
    She smiled hesitantly, her hands locked in the shirt she held. “I can see that. I have to admit I read some dime novels on the way here and they may have clouded my judgment, some.”
    He shook his head in disgust. But there was something else in his eyes. Was it fear? Did he think she’d believe those novels? Did she?
    “I can only imagine what’s in those things. Exaggerations at best and outright lies at worst. I would bet more of the latter.”
    Ella fingered the shirt she’d brought out of the closet. “I’m sure you’re right. I wanted to ask you if I can borrow one of your shirts.”
    “Why?”
    “I want to make you a shirt and I need it for measurements. I can make a pattern from it.”
    “You sew?” Then he got a twinkle in his eye and said, “I thought all spoiled rich girls did was drink tea with their pinkie in the air.”
    “Oh, I do that too.” She held her pinkie in the air like she had a cup of tea and laughed. “But I like to sew. I’d also like to take the bedroom closest to the foyer and turn it into a sewing room and a place to put some of the things that will arrive with my trunks.”
    He leaned against the door jam, his arms crossed in front of him. “How many trunks are you expecting?”
    “Six. Assuming Joshua didn’t add anything.”
    “Six! How many clothes do you have?”
    She shook her head. “Oh no, it’s not just clothes, though there are plenty of those. It’s quilts and bed linens and my mother’s china, my entire hope chest.