A Valentine for Prudence © 1999 by Barbour Publishing
From Famine to Feast © 2006 by Pamela Kaye Tracy
Armed and Dangerous © 2006 by Dianne Christner
The Richest Knight © 2006 by Nancy J. Farrier
Shelter from the Storm © 2006 by Darlene Mindrup
Olympic Hopes © 2004 by Lynn A. Coleman
Beyond the Memories © 2007 by DiAnn Mills
Finding Yesterday © 2013 by Jennifer Rogers Spinola
Goodie Goodie © 2002 by Tamela Hancock Murray
Print ISBN 978-1-63409-329-3
eBook Editions:
Adobe Digital Edition (.epub) 978-1-63409-547-1
Kindle and MobiPocket Edition (.prc) 978-1-63409-548-8
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted for commercial purposes, except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without written permission of the publisher.
All scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual people, organizations, and/or events is purely coincidental.
Published by Barbour Books, an imprint of Barbour Publishing, Inc., P.O. Box 719, Uhrichsville, OH 44683, www.barbourbooks.com
Our mission is to publish and distribute inspirational products offering exceptional value and biblical encouragement to the masses.
Printed in Canada.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
A Valentine for Prudence
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
From Famine to Feast
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Armed and Dangerous
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Epilogue
The Richest Knight
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Shelter in the Storm
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Epilogue
Olympic Hopes
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Beyond the Memories
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Finding Yesterday
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Goodie Goodie
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
A VALENTINE FOR PRUDENCE
by Darlene Mindrup
Chapter 1
Good morrow! ’tis St. Valentine’s Day
All in the morning betime,
And I a maid at your window,
To be your Valentine.
– SHAKESPEARE
Prudence Hilliard stared out the window at the bleak winter Boston landscape. Snow was falling steadily, giving the streets a pureness that reached a chord deep inside the not-so-young girl watching it as it flaked steadily downward. Blowing upon the pane, she smiled at the round frost on the glass before quickly drawing a heart with an arrow slashing through it.
“Did you know that in Italy, an unmarried woman stands at the window on Valentine’s morn and watches the roads until a man appears? Supposedly, the first man she sees will be the one she marries, or at least someone who looks like him, within the year,” Prudence told Constance, her sister, who was glowering at her from across the room.
“Oh, really, Prudence. Stop mooning around the window and help me get ready. Devlin will be here soon.” Constance struggled a moment with her whalebone hoops before glaring in exasperation at Prudence, still standing at the window, obviously not having heard a word she had said.
“Did you know that in England, they believe the birds will choose their mates this day?” Prudence asked.
“You’ve been at Papa’s library again! Now give me a hand with this thing! You’re a hopeless romantic.”
“And you’re not?” Prudence asked, still watching the road below.
“A romantic, certainly. But not, I trust, hopeless.”
Suddenly, two figures came into view from around the corner, their derbies the only things visible above their morning coats. From this distance, they both struck Prudence as fine figures, though one stood out more than the other, due mainly, she supposed, to the fact that he was against fashion and was clean shaven. While Prudence studied him, he suddenly looked up at the window as though he knew he was being watched, and Prudence caught her breath in a slight gasp.
“What is it?” Constance wanted to know, momentarily forgetting her fight with the stays on her petticoat.
“N–nothing,” Prudence told her, quickly coming to give her sister an assist. “Devlin is here.”
“What!” Squealing, Constance turned this way and that, suddenly in a furor over what to do next.
Taking her sister by the shoulders, Prudence pulled her to a stop. “Be still, do.”
“But I’m not ready,” her sister wailed, and Prudence was hard put getting the lively young woman to stay in one position.
Pushing Constance’s hands aside, Prudence began to tighten the ribbons on her sister’s slip after having adjusted it over the hoop below. Although Prudence preferred the newer, more tailored look with the front flat and the back more full, Constance still preferred the rounder look of previous years.
She helped her sister lift her morning dress over her head, all the while murmuring soothingly as she fastened the tiny pearl buttons in the back.
“Aren’t you the one who says that one must keep a man waiting so as not to show too much eagerness?” Prudence asked.
Constance fixed her sister with an eloquent look. “And what, pray tell, do you know about men?” she asked, not meaning to be unkind.
Refusing to answer, Prudence stood back and eyed her sister critically. Constance surely knew how to choose her clothes. The blue satin of her dress set off to perfection the golden blond of her curls hanging down her back, and her ice blue eyes glowed back, awaiting the appreciation she knew was sure to come. She was not disappointed.
&nbs
p; “You are truly a vision,” Prudence told her, handing her sister her fingerless white lace gloves.
Smiling, Constance slid them over her hands. “Let us hope Devlin thinks so.”
Prudence would have remained behind, but Constance took her firmly by the arm and propelled her not so gently down to the parlor. Sighing in resignation to another morning of playing gooseberry, Prudence tried to arrange her features into some sort of acceptable greeting.
As they made their entrance—it was the only way to describe how Constance entered a room—Prudence became aware of another man waiting with Devlin. When she had seen them from the window, she had not realized that the other man was coming in with Devlin. She had assumed they were only acquaintances who had met on the street and happened to be going in the same direction.
Devlin’s dark, good looks brought a little thump to Prudence’s heart, which she quickly quelled. She had no hope of attracting such a handsome man, even if she had desired to do so. Besides, Devlin belonged to Constance.
Simultaneously, both men rose to their feet, and Prudence took the time to covertly study the other man. He was young, probably younger than Devlin’s twenty-five years, but he had a bearing of confidence that gave an impression of early manhood. Unlike Devlin, this man had succumbed to the fashion of the times and was sporting both a beard and a mustache. His hair was the color of wheat, whereas Devlin’s was as dark as the coal that filled their coal scuttle. Both men were incredibly handsome.
Constance sailed forth, fluttering her fan demurely. “Why, Devlin, you’ve brought company.”
Devlin bowed low, taking one of her hands into his, raising it to his lips, and bestowing a kiss upon it. “I hope you don’t mind. This is my cousin, Terence Scott, just arrived from England. I thought it only polite to introduce him around Boston, and I could think of no finer beginning than to have him make the acquaintance of three of the loveliest ladies this side of the Atlantic Ocean.”
Constance dropped her lashes before extending her hand to Terence. “Devlin, how gallant. The pleasure is surely mine, Mr. Scott.”
“Oh, Terence, please.” Devlin turned to Prudence who hastily placed her hands behind her back. Lips twitching with amusement, he introduced his cousin.
Terence stared from Constance to Prudence in what could only be considered unflattering amazement. Prudence was used to the reaction, for her own dark brown locks, pug nose, and too-wide mouth had nothing in the way of beauty. Whereas her two sisters favored their mother, Prudence was the image of her father, in more ways than one.
Nodding her head, she gave him a brief curtsy. “Mr. Scott.”
No one heard the footsteps descending the stairs, so it came as a surprise when a cool voice spoke to them from the doorway. “Company so early in the morning?” Jessica, their sister, asked.
Constance colored hotly at the rudeness of the remark, while Prudence sighed with impatience. Jessica was in one of her moods. She must have attended another suffragette rally last evening, for every time she did, she found fault with all men and with any woman willing to yield to their charms. Fortunately, her moods did not last long, but they were trying nonetheless.
Trying to head off the confrontation she knew was surely to come, Prudence slipped to Jessica’s side, giving her a slight pinch. “Father is in his study,” she warned softly, and watched the storm clouds gather in her sister’s eyes. Still, even Jessica would not dare to make a scene with Father around. He had told them more than once that they were still not too old to turn over his knee, and even though Constance was seventeen, Jessica eighteen, and Prudence twenty-two, none of them doubted that he would do it.
Jessica’s lovely blue eyes, a replica of her younger sister’s, glared first at Devlin, then at Terence. The younger man’s eyebrows lifted in surprise, obviously wondering at Jessica’s antagonism toward him when they had only just met.
Prudence pulled Jessica forward, introducing her.
“I say, Devlin, you were certainly right about these young ladies. I have never seen lovelier,” Terence offered.
Prudence flinched, knowing that was the wrong thing to say when Jessica was in one of her feminist moods. Jessica’s eyes took on fire, but when she opened her mouth to retort, Prudence hastily interrupted her. “May I offer you gentlemen some refreshments?”
Devlin’s eyes were alight with laughter and Prudence realized he was secretly amused by the exchange. After all, Devlin had been seeing Constance for some time now, and knew fairly well the temperaments of all in the household. It irritated her that they seemed to amuse him.
“No, thank you,” Devlin answered for both of them. “We stopped by only to see if perchance we could prevail upon your mother to allow my cousin to attend her Valentine’s party this eve. I know it’s very poor manners to ask, but—”
Constance came at once to his assistance. “Of course not.” Touching a bellpull by the fireplace, she turned to the servant who answered her summons. “Please ask Mrs. Hilliard if she could possibly come to the parlor.”
Bowing, he left. As soon as he disappeared, Jessica turned to her sister angrily. “What Valentine’s party? I have heard nothing of it!”
“Neither have I,” Prudence agreed.
Constance, fanning herself with her little ivory fan, flushed a becoming red, but she refused to answer, studiously avoiding her sisters’ eyes. It was then that Prudence realized that Constance and their mother had deliberately evaded any mention of a party.
Brows knitting in confusion, Devlin turned to Constance. “I’m sorry. Have I made a mistake?”
Before Constance could answer, Mrs. Hilliard swept gracefully into the room. At forty-three years of age, she was still a beautiful woman. Her blond hair was parted in the middle and pulled back into a lace snood whose color matched the burgundy of her morning gown. As with Constance, Mrs. Hilliard preferred the rounder look of skirts.
“Devlin,” she smiled, lifting her hand for his kiss.
Bowing low, he clicked his heels together. “Mrs. Hilliard. May I present my cousin, Mr. Terence Scott?”
Terence took her hand and performed the same act, though Prudence thought privately that Devlin’s greeting had more panache.
Jessica took her mother to task immediately. “What is this about a Valentine’s party, and why weren’t Prudence and I informed?”
Mrs. Hilliard gave her young daughter such a look of disdain it would have quelled a lesser individual.
“Knowing how much you and your sister dislike parties, why should I bother you with the details of helping to arrange one?”
“Mother!”
Devlin cleared his throat and everyone turned his way. “My apologies, Mrs. Hilliard, but I came only to beg your favor in letting my cousin attend your affair. Of course, you have already received my acceptance, but I feel honor bound to attend to my cousin who has just arrived from England.”
“Oh, see here,” Terence interrupted, “I can take care of myself for one evening, Dev.”
“Not at all,” Mrs. Hilliard told him. “We shall be pleased to have such a handsome gentleman attend our little function.”
“In that case,” Devlin told her, glancing uneasily from one sister to another, “we shall see you at seven.” There were undercurrents here he did not quite understand, but he recognized the need to get his cousin away from the gathering storm.
All four women watched silently as the men made their departure. The door had no more than closed behind them when Jessica launched her verbal attack.
“You planned this deliberately, didn’t you, Mother? You knew I wouldn’t want to go! I hate going to parties and having to watch all the men fawn and preen to get a woman’s attention!” She glared at her parent. “But you expect me to attend, don’t you?”
“Of course,” her mother told her, walking over and seating herself on the chaise near the fire.
Stamping her foot slightly, Jessica gritted through clenched teeth. “I won’t go!”
Unpert
urbed, her mother silently awaited her acquiescence.
“I won’t, Mother! Do you hear me?”
The voice that answered her was not feminine. “I hear you just fine,” Mr. Hilliard said.
Prudence saw her mother settle back in relief. Reinforcements had arrived.
Mr. Hilliard glared at his daughter. “You will apologize to your mother.”
Although he had not raised his voice, the color left Jessica’s face. If there was one thing their father had never tolerated, it was disrespect to their mother.
Jessica stared mutinously back at him before finally dropping her eyes. “I’m sorry for yelling, Mother.”
Prudence noticed that Jessica had not apologized for what she had said, merely for raising her voice. Would Father accept such an apology? She saw her father’s shoulders relax slightly.
Her mother hastily intervened. “Thank you for apologizing, Jessica.”
Mr. Hilliard’s eyes went from Jessica to Prudence. “Your mother and I have discussed this matter, and we are agreed. All of our daughters will attend. Your mother has spent much time and money on this affair, and though I see no reason to interfere in your lives, I have allowed her this concession.” His glance rested on Jessica. “I think you would agree that your mother and I have not been overly strict and we have allowed you more than your share of escapades. We have not interfered unduly with your wants and desires, although at times my own inclination has been strongly to do so.” His look became fierce. “You will allow your mother this moment of your life.”
Prudence dropped her gaze to the floor. Her father was right. Jessica and she had flaunted many of the conventions of their time and had been allowed more freedom than many of their contemporaries. Father had always felt that they should be allowed to live their own lives, within reason. He had never cared whether the gossiping tongues clicked over him or not. It was important to him that his daughters be allowed to grow and reach out. Feeling more than a little guilty, Prudence glanced at her sister. Jessica must have been feeling much of the same thing, for her manner was subdued.
“Yes, Father,” Jessica told him meekly.
After glancing from one to another, his eyes rested on his wife. There was just the slightest softening there. “I will leave you to explain this soiree, my dear,” he told his wife.
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