MacKinnon’s Rangers 03.5 - Upon A Winter's Night Read Online Free PDF

had.

    And Connor…

    She loved him more than she’d thought it was possible to love anyone. He had given her so much — his protection, his love, a son — and now she would give him something in return. She had arranged such surprises for him and for her new family that waiting for Christmas was proving to be most difficult, the anticipation almost more than she could bear. On the morning of Christmas Eve, her gifts for the family would arrive. She could scarce wait to see everyone’s faces.

    How strange it was to think that she hadn’t known them last Christmas. Now she was one of them.

    She glanced down at little William, who slept bundled in a blanket on a pallet of furs beside her yarn basket.

    "But what of your memories, Sarah?" Amalie asked. "Christmas must have been splendid at the British court."

    "My mother could not bear to be at court and only went when summoned by my grandmother." Her mother, a very strict Lutheran, had found the merriment surrounding Christmas to be sinful. "We spent Christmastide at my father’s estate outside London. Servants decorated with pine boughs, holly, and candles, but what I loved most was the music. They played the grandest music at church, and we all sang together."

    "And so shall we," Amalie said with a bright smile. "I do so love your playing."

    "Thank you." Sarah felt a rush of joy — and anticipation.

    Music had always been her great passion, a passion her mother had tried to squelch. Sarah’s desire to play for more than the thirty minutes a day her mother had allowed her had led to scandal that had gotten her exiled to the Colonies. But how blessed Sarah was now to be the wife of a man who encouraged her to play, to be part of a family that enjoyed her music. She still couldn’t believe Connor and his brothers had brought her harpsichord, a gift from Uncle William, all the way from Fort Edward to the farm.

    And it came to her that there was more good cheer and Christmas spirit in this family made up of people who ought to have been enemies — Protestants and Catholics, English and French, Jacobites and loyalists — than there had been in her parents’ wealthy and well-ordered home.

    Then she asked the question some part of her had been wanting to ask for weeks. "Does it trouble either of you to spend these sacred days with people who do not fully share your faith?"

    Amalie looked up from her needlework. "It is easier for me than it must be for the two of you. My husband and I are both Catholic. It does not upset me that you and Annie are Protestant. That is part of who you are, and I love you both."

    Amalie’s answer was as gracious as Sarah had known it would be.

    Annie set her sewing in her lap. "I spent my first Christmas Eve as Iain’s wife alone in the cabin on Ranger Island, while he went to Mass wi ’ Father Delavay . Then I realized my children would be raised as Catholics. If I didna join in, my husband would be deprived of his wife’s company and my children would grow up confused. Now I pray beside him. I have faith that I am meant to be wi ’ Iain, and that is enough for me."

    Annie made it all seem so simple.

    Sarah found herself smiling. "We shall have a merry Christmas, shall we not?"

    As long as Connor and his brothers made it safely home from Albany in time, this would be Sarah’s happiest Christmas ever.

    * * *

    Morgan and his brothers bided the night in one of the upstairs rooms that Miss Janssen let out to travelers. The fire was warm, even if the room itself was crowded with other men. They woke early the next morning as was their wont and broke their fast together below stairs, sharing a salver of warm bread, cheeses, and sausage and washing that down with ale and cups of hot coffee.

    Morgan ate quickly then bade Iain and Connor to take their time. "I’ve a matter to see to in town. I’ll be back afore it’s time to meet wi ’ Haviland ."

    Leaving his pack with his brothers, he slipped his coin purse into the