What the Fates Decree: The Caversham Chronicles-The Titans of the Revolution Read Online Free PDF

remembered how people gossiped about her and Beverly, and knew her daughter and goddaughters suffered the same. “And it’s always a good feeling to be out of sight from those judgmental harridans who gossip.”
    “I believe them to be as safe there as they would be at Woodhenge, Haldenwood, or Fenwicke Hall,” Michael assured her.
    She was unable to meet his gaze, knowing he was likely right. But it did nothing to ease the fear she had that Charlotte might get her heart broken and she wouldn’t be there to comfort her. There were so many times when she was younger that she wished her mother, or Amelia, had still been alive. Because she had no mother to talk to when Michael had broken her heart. At the time, she was afraid to burden her grandmother who was already frail. And all she had were her friends, Beverly and Lia.
    To this very day, Elise regretted her rudeness to Lia when they were first introduced. She remembered thinking Lia an interloper looking to change everything at Haldenwood, everyone else be damned. But Elise had been so very wrong about her. Lia had been a young lady in need of a friend, as much as she and Beverly were in need of a friend who thought about things in a more rational way—something she had been incapable of doing at the time.
    Too, Lia had always been a much better judge of character than Elise.
    She stared into her glass trying not to cry. “You have more faith in people than I do,” she whispered.
    He gave her a sympathetic little smile, one that told her he understood where her sentiment came from. When he spoke, his voice was soft and sincere. “Even with all that has happened to our family and friends, and the queen, I still believe in the inherent goodness of mankind.”
    Elise remembered how she had gone against her initial instinct and trusted the man who abducted her. She’d been a bad judge of his character and made a mental note to talk to her daughter about heeding the warnings of the other women, including Beverly, who would be chaperoning them.
    And also about trusting your gut when it came to men.

That which a mother does for her daughter.
----
    B everly lifted the quill to begin her nightly letter to her husband. It was how they stayed in touch with the day-to-day events in each others’ lives. After leaving his commission in the army upon ascending to his title and marrying her, he had begun a life in the Foreign Service as a diplomat for the Crown, at the recommendation of her father, who’d done the same up until his passing. She’d wanted to travel with Kip when Penelope was young, but he thought it more important for their daughter to be raised and educated at home in England.
    She envied Lia and Elise that their husbands were home with them virtually every night and that they were able to have siblings for their children. Kip had been traumatized by Penelope’s birth. Especially when he thought Beverly was going to die. After she’d recovered he’d told her he loved her too much to put her through that again.
    Then he began to take assignments out of the country. And if Beverly hadn’t hated the Foreign Service before for taking her father from her for most of her life, she hated it now. But her husband wasn’t happy living the life of a landless nobleman. He’d wanted to effect change in the world through the diplomatic channels that had opened up to him because of his military training, and her father’s urging. Her husband was a happier diplomat, than he was an idle gentleman. Beverly couldn’t deny him that which made him feel fulfilled, just as he would never deny her that which made her happy—her daughter, her friendship with Elise and Lia, and her horses.
    When he’d first begun to travel, gossips whispered behind her back that her husband was unhappy with his decision to marry her. She remembered the night he surprised her, having arrived from Dublin unplanned. Her maid informed him where she was, and he’d arrived at the Rutherford’s