Chesapeake Destiny

In book three of Terry L. White's Chesapeake Heritage series,

CHESAPEAKE DESTINY;

we meet Jane Fitzjohn, a woman who rebels against social custom and a brutal husband to find her true destiny on Maryland's Eastern Shore. Jane's life is decorated with hope and illustrated by the work of a handsome itinerant artist who teaches her the true meaning of love.

ISBN 1-59431-733-1 Historical / Romance/ Adventure

Chapter One

My name is Jane Elliot and I am to be married to my true love tomorrow.

Mother said she will be glad to see the end of me for I was always too active and adventurous for her taste. Papa wept when I told him I would have Thomas Fitzjohn and no other man of his acquaintance. Thomas was the grown-up idol of my girlhood, and I was sure he was the love of my life by the time I reached a marriageable age.

Tom’s father, Thomas Fitzjohn the elder, was my father’s overseer, a man Father had known and respected for years. Old Thomas kept the plantation going, for my father was a physician and always busy with those who needed his help rather than the state of his plantation.

There are those who would call me ‘Daddy’s girl,’ for his living children were the fruit of father’s old age, but I was his oldest girl and I think he favored me above all the others. I have an idea he did not like my match with Thomas Fitzjohn the junior at all, but I was besotted by the kisses and the attention Tom gave me when no chaperone was near. What do young women know, after all?

Father said Tom was too old for me, and he was a dozen years my senior, but I had known him all my life and could see no other – no matter how many marriageable young men my mother placed in my path.

My sister Katie was always jealous of my place as eldest child so I suppose she was glad I declared I was set to marry and leave the house. My sister Katie hated me from the time she realized I was her sister and the greatest rival for our parent’s attention. I think such a competition is natural, but there were times I would have liked her friendship rather than the rivalry that truly existed between us.

My brothers, Ted and Lawrence, were not as interested in which child was more important to our parents – they had their own places in Father’s heart. Naturally the boys received more of his attention as they went about the business of being males. In the end, I think Father raised them to be too independent, for they both left the farm in their youth and never did come home. Ted died and Lawrence simply disappeared into the west.

I might mention here that Father raised all of his offspring to be independent and to speak our minds. This openness was not considered a pretty trait for a gentle-raised young woman, but there it was. I suppose I was outspoken as they come, and sometimes I suffered for it.

Father called me to his study the night before I was to wed, saying he wanted one last private moment before he lost me to Thomas Fitzjohn. The room smelled of the medicines he compounded, of the lavender Mother folded between his linens, and decay from the skeletons of large and small animals that crowded every shelf and hung on wires from every beam in the high ceiling. The room was entirely out of place compared to the elegant grace of the rest of our home and Mother often complained about it. She said if she had her way, she would discard the whole collection, but Father simply chuckled and let her rant.

A scientist from his earliest days, Father spent his life looking for ways to help others. He took his duty to his children seriously, and did his best to see that we were raised to be serious about the choices we made for our lives. When we did choose a course of action, Father was there to cheer our victories and bind the wounds of defeat. I loved him more than any other soul I knew, and in my innocence – and total ignorance – I believed I was about to marry a man who would be exactly like him.

“Ah! Janie.” My father called from his desk when he saw me in the doorway of his study the night before the wedding. “There’s my pet. Are you ready for tomorrow? Are you happy?” He was a short, muscular man with sensitive hands and piercing blue eyes. Those eyes met mine, and it seemed as if he searched for the truth in the very depths of my soul. “Are you sure about what you are about to do?”

I knew my father loved me, for he always had time to discuss the events of my life, no matter how small. Father fostered my interest in science and healing, and never pushed me away when he was busy with his books. He looked at me with love, and I loved him right back. In that instant, I wondered if I was completely ready to leave the shelter of his love, but I had made my troth to Tomas Fitzjohn and so I pushed the thought away and put on my brightest smile for his sake.

“I’m ready, Father,” I said quickly, before he could see I had the smallest doubt, which I did not. I wanted everyone to be as happy as I was that evening. “And I am so happy.” With that, I ran and scrambled into his lap and wondered if it was to be for the last time.

A properly married woman would surely never sit upon her father’s lap after all! For all of that, I knew time was growing short. Tomorrow I would marry and then I would go away from all I held dear to live in a strange new house with a husband who suddenly seemed a stranger. I, still a child in more ways than I could admit, believed the wedding would remove me from my childhood home and thrust me into a new world of adult wonders.

“Do you love him, Pet, really love him?” Father asked for the hundredth time. “There is still time to change your mind. Thomas is not of the gentry, for all of his learning. You may find you will regret this choice in the fullness of time . . .”

I knew Father was telling the truth for I was a little afraid of this great change in my life, but I could just imagine the expression on my mother’s face if I should suddenly decide to leave Thomas at the altar. Mother would cause a commotion, to put it mildly. I was nearly as afraid of her anger as I was of the disappointment I would cause Tom if I changed my mind.