Surrender the Dawn Read Online Free PDF Page A

over from yesterday’s meal.”
    “And some fresh biscuits, Mama,” Hannah piped in.
    “Yes, dear, but hardly enough for a proper supper.”
    Darlene lowered her chin. “I’m sorry, Mama.” Her loose hair fell in a tangle around her face. “I thought the frog was hungry.”
    The slight edge of humor in her voice—barely perceptible to most—told Cassandra that her sister was not sorry at all.
    Her mother tightened her lips. “Hungry indeed.” Her voice soundedso much like the creatures in question that Cassandra once again had to force down a laugh.
    “Oh, where is my tea? My poor head.” Lifting jeweled fingers to rub her temple, her mother studied Cassandra. “She takes after you, my dear.”
    Cassandra kissed the top of Hannah’s head and tried to shove aside the rebuke. Mainly because it was true. She had always been the difficult child—the rebellious one. Always questioning, investigating, wanting to figure things out on her own, do things on her own. Now, as she looked at Darlene, she saw the same free spirit.
    “Perhaps if you punished her more often, Mother?”
    “Punish? She doesn’t listen to me. She never has. She only listened to her father and he is …”
    Mrs. Northrop entered with a tray of tea.
    “Oh, thank goodness, my tea.”
    The housekeeper set the tray down on the walnut table that stretched between the sofas and chairs. Brown strands sprang from beneath the servant’s white mobcap, which seemed barely able to restrain her thick hair. With her small head, pointed nose, long neck, and round figure, the woman reminded Cassandra of an ostrich she’d once seen in a painting. After she poured tea for Cassandra and her mother, she swung the pot toward the girls’ cups.
    “No.” Cassandra’s mother touched the housekeeper’s arm, staying her. “Please put the girls to bed, Mrs. Northrop.”
    “Aye, mum.” The woman’s smile slipped slightly, but she quickly brought it back into position. Turning, she gestured for the girls to follow her.
    After a bout of complaints, Darlene trudged from the room while Hannah scrambled from Cassandra’s lap to follow her.
    “I’ll be up later to kiss you good night,” Cassandra said. “Oh, Mrs. Northrop, have the girls clean up the mess they made in the library, if you please.”
    The housekeeper nodded in reply.
    After the girls left, Cassandra leaned back in her chair and sipped her tea.
    Her mother pressed down the folds of her silk gown then shot worried blues eyes her way. “Please tell me, Cassandra, that you did not throw away the rest of our money on a privateer?”
    “No, I did not, Mother.”
    “Thank goodness.”
    “They wouldn’t accept a woman investor.” Cassandra chafed at the memory.
    Her mother dabbed her forehead with her handkerchief. “At least there’s some sense left in the world.”
    Setting down her cup, Cassandra rose and held out her hands to the flames crackling in the fireplace. “Sense? This kind of sense, Mother, will put us in the poorhouse.”
    “Oh, please do not speak of such gloomy things, dear.”
    Cassandra spun around. She wanted to be angry at her mother for her nonchalant attitude toward their financial woes, but the look of pain on her aged face stopped her. “I must speak of them, Mother. For I have to find a way to make a living for us.”
    “No doubt this war will end soon, and your brothers will return.” Her mother’s forlorn gaze drifted to the window as if searching for her missing offspring.
    Outside, darkness gripped the city, much like England gripped America. Cassandra released a heavy sigh. “As much as I’d love for our country to defeat Britain and send those pompous redcoats home in shame, we cannot count on that happening anytime soon.”
    “But your brothers said they’d return in a year.”
    “And it’s been a year, Mother. We have no idea where they are.” An ache formed in Cassandra’s heart. Or
if
they are. Yet she wouldn’t voice her deepest fears to her