This Side of Heaven Read Online Free PDF Page B

wed.”
    “You preferred instead to leave hearth and country and undertake a perilous journey to a wilderness to make your home with strangers?” His eyebrows lifted skeptically.
    “Elizabeth is—was—the only family remaining to me. I wished to see her, to be with her. So I came. Had I known that—had I known of her death, I would have made other arrangements.”
    “I see. So now we come to the heart of the matter. Having made up your mind to come, you chose to pay for your passage with worthless jewelry. What I would know is whether you knew the gems were paste.”
    Caroline’s eyes flickered. “No.”
    “The truth, mind. I have no love for liars.”
    “I am not a liar!”
    Matt looked at her reflectively. “Tobias showed me the brooch. ’Tis a lovely thing, most distinctive. So distinctive, in fact, that it called to mind a memory: years ago Elizabeth told me of a fine-looking brooch made in the same shape of a peacock as yours that your father used to wager in his games of chance when he was low on funds. ’Twas a good thing he usually won, she said, because the gems were fake, and he’d have been hanged had he been found out. That both brooches should be fashioned alike is quite a coincidence, wouldn’t you say?”
    His eyes seemed to be burning a hole through her. Caroline had to fight the urge to close her lids against that searing look. Instead she gritted her teeth and lifted her chin at him.
    “Very well, then. I knew,” she said abruptly.
    “Ah.”
    “What exactly does that mean?” Her question was fierce.
    “It means that you had better tell me the whole story whilst you still may. My inclination is to washmy hands of all responsibility for you. I told you I have no love for liars, and I have even less for thieves.”
    Bitterness twisted her mouth. “You want the whole story? All right, I’ll tell you. For the last two years of his life my father was ill, and unable to provide for us. I took in sewing for what little income we had, but it was scarce enough to pay for a roof over our heads, much less feed us. We had to sell everything we possessed of value, but still there wasn’t enough. The landlord—the man who owned the rooms we stayed in—took a fancy to me, and stopped asking for the rent the last few months. When my father died, he demanded to be paid. With—with my person.”
    Caroline stopped, unable to go on as the dreadful memories washed over her. Simon Denker’s hands running over her body, his mouth, fetid and wet, forcing kisses on her. Fists clenching, she fought back the tears that burned at the back of her eyes. She had demeaned herself enough; she would not cry.
    Matt’s lips were pursed, his eyes thoughtful as they surveyed her.
    “You need not look at me like that!” she burst out. “What would you have done in my shoes? Using Papa’s lucky brooch would not seem so dreadful had the choice faced you. ”
    He seemed to weigh her words. Then he nodded. “Presented with two evils, you chose the lesser. Although it would have been better had you not lied about it when asked.”
    Caroline drew a deep, shaken breath. As always happened when the recollections of that day assaulted her mind, she felt curiously weak and sick. She swayedonce, then caught herself, resting a hand against the side of the barn for support. Resentment blazed in her eyes as she looked at her brother-in-law where he stood passing judgment on her. It was easy to take the moral high ground when one was not in desperate need!
    “Does being sanctimonious come naturally to you, Mr. Mathieson, or do you have to work at it?”
    “I would control that vixen’s tongue, were I you.” Faint amusement suddenly lightened his expression. “And don’t bother fainting, if that’s the next trick you mean to employ to win my sympathy. I have already decided to reimburse Tobias for your passage.”
    “How very kind of you.” Sarcasm turned the polite words cold. Abandoning the support of the wall, she