The Vow Read Online Free PDF Page A

does Hannah think of marrying a stranger?” he asked.
    “Doesn’t know yet.”
    “You think she’ll agree to the match?”
    “Doesn’t matter. She’ll do what she’s told. She’s eighteen. Time she wed.”
    Bickford studied him out of those small, dark eyes. “Any objections to her?”
    Reiver thought of her delicate ivory features and supple young body so sweetly rounded and inviting. It wouldn’t be a chore to bed her even if he didn’t love her.

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    Lindsay Chase
    Suddenly a thought occurred to him. “Has one of the boys had her already?”
    Bickford shook his head. “Not yet. But boys are boys. If I don’t get her out of the house, no telling what’ll happen to her. You’d be doing her a favor.”
    And getting the land he wanted.
    But still he hesitated. He thought of Cecelia Layton, the young sea captain’s widow who had been his mistress for the past year. She was the woman he loved and had intended to marry as soon as he established his silk mill. How could he give her up?
    With supreme male arrogance, he was confident that he wouldn’t have to.
    Cecelia loved him and knew how important his silk mill was to him. She would understand why he had to betray her.
    Reiver grinned, rose, and extended his hand. “You’ve got a deal, Bickford.
    The Racebrook land for seventeen dollars an acre, and your niece’s hand in marriage.”
    Bickford rose and shook Reiver’s hand, a pained expression on his face.
    “Hate to lose that land, but I’ve got to do right by my niece.”
    “I’ll treat her well.”
    But he’d never love her. That wasn’t part of the deal.
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    Chapter Two
    The following morning after breakfast, when the boys left to pick tobacco and Aunt Naomi went to the cobbler to buy new shoes, Uncle Ezra interrupted Hannah’s dusting and called her into the parlor, where he told her that she was going to marry Reiver Shaw.
    Hannah stood there as if rooted to the spot. “You want me to what?”
    “You heard me.”
    The dustrag slipped from her nerveless fingers and her knees buckled, forcing her to sink down onto the parlor’s hard settee. Her whirling brain tried to reconcile an image of the stocky, forceful man who had rescued her from heat prostration with that of the man who would be her husband, with all the intimacies that state entailed, and failed.
    “I can’t marry him. I won’t!”
    Ezra’s thin lips hardened into an implacable line. “You will. It’s all arranged.”
    Hannah pressed her hands against her cold cheeks. “But—but I only met Mr.
    Shaw several days ago. I know nothing about him. I can’t possibly marry a—a stranger.”
    “Happens all the time to girls your age. Don’t need to know him. Marriage’ll take care of that.”
    “There must be dozens of women in Coldwater who want to marry him.
    Why would he want to marry me?” She didn’t delude herself for an instant that Shaw was smitten with her beauty. “I’m a poor orphan. I have no dowry.”

    Lindsay Chase
    “You do now.”
    Bewildered, Hannah stared at him.
    “Shaw wants some land I own. That land’s your dowry. Drove a hard bargain for it, he did.”
    Hannah breathed deeply to quell her growing panic and desperation as the room shrank, the walls closing in on her. She rose and crossed the parlor to where her uncle stood before the cold fireplace. Placing a supplicating hand on his scrawny arm, she said. “Please don’t force me to do this. I promise I’ll work harder. I won’t annoy Aunt Naomi. I—”
    “No use begging. My mind’s made up.”
    “You promised my mother you’d take care of me. Is this how you honor your promises?”
    Her uncle glowered at her and brushed her hand away as if she were some troublesome horsefly. “Didn’t promise to take care of you forever.”
    Hannah knew it was pointless to argue or try to appeal to her uncle’s finer sensibilities, for he had none. She turned before he could see her eyes fill