Surrender the Dawn Read Online Free PDF

mother, knowing how the possibility tormented her.
    “Then you must get married, Cassandra. It is our only hope. It’s the only way to ensure our survival.” The quiver in her mother’s voice brought Cassandra around to face her.
    “I don’t want to get married.”
    “What about Mr. Crane?” Her mother’s cultured brows rose in excitement as if she hadn’t heard Cassandra. “He’s made his interest known for many months. It’s fine time you gave him a little encouragement.”
    Cassandra shuddered at the thought of the overbearing man.
    “And he owns that successful newspaper, the
Baltimore Register.
Why, I imagine he makes over five hundred dollars a year.”
    “So, I’m to throw my life and my happiness out the door for five hundred dollars a year?”
    Tears glistened in her mother’s eyes, and she fell back into her chair. “Oh, why did Phillip leave us? And then my boys. Oh, what will befall us?”
    Cassandra eased beside her mother on the settee. “Never fear, Mother. We must plan for the worst and expect the best.”
    “How much money do we have left?”
    “One thousand.”
    “Is that all?” Sitting up straight, her mother waved her handkerchief over her face. “What of the money your brothers got from the sale of our merchant ship?”
    “We squandered it this past year, Mother.”
You squandered it.
“We can no longer afford luxuries: oriental rugs, the latest hats and gowns from Paris, expensive perfumes. We cannot attend theater each week. We are no longer successful merchants.”
    A look of confusion, or perhaps shock, claimed her mother’s features, though Cassandra had told her mother this same thing a dozen times.
    “I fear if I do not find a way to invest our money,” Cassandra continued, “it will be gone in just a few years.”
    “Oh dear, my head.” Her mother fell back onto the couch. “You know I cannot bear such burdens.”
    Cassandra clasped her mother’s trembling hands. “Don’t overset yourself, Mother. I’ll find a way.”
    “How? We are only women.”
    “I’ve a mind equal to any man’s.”
    She flashed Cassandra an incredulous look. “Surely you see that you must get married soon. In fact, I insist on it, Cassandra. Do you want to send us all to the poorhouse?”
    Tearing her gaze from the lack of confidence in her mother’s eyes, Cassandra turned instead to the portrait of her great-grandfather, Edward Milford Channing, hanging above the fireplace. The man had come to Baltimore in 1747 with barely a coin in his pocket. With nothing but his wit, persistence, and hard work, he’d started his own merchant business, which he had passed on to Cassandra’s father. The Channings were survivors. They were strong, independent, and hardworking. And Cassandra was as much a Channing as the men in the family. She rose from her chair and lifted her chin. “It will not come to that, Mother. Mark my words, whatever it takes, I will find a way for this family to survive.”

  CHAPTER 4  
    C rossing the rickety bridge that spanned Jones Falls River, Luke continued down Pratt Street. An odd lightness feathered his steps. Why, he could not fathom. It certainly couldn’t be Miss Channing. She’d done nothing but turn her pert little nose up at him. And after he’d saved her life! Luke smiled. What a treasure. What a spitfire! If he’d known it was Miss Channing he was rescuing he would have dispatched the villains sooner—if only to have more time alone with her.
    A sea breeze frosted around him as he turned down High Street. Tightening his grip on his overcoat, he hunched against the cold as laughter blared from a cluster of men under the porch overhang of Spears Tavern. Through the windows, an undulating sea of patrons made the small building seem like a living, ghoulish specter. Fiddle music accompanied by strident singing floated with the lantern light onto the street.
    “Is that you, Heaton? Come join us!” a man Luke recognized as Ackers, a local