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Chapter 1

Virginia Riverfront

September, 1803

The rain enclosed the little tavern, darkening it so that the lantern’s golden light made eerie shadows on the wall The late fall sunshine that had warone now and the tavern was als was a woht in a whitenow and then and showing a dimple in one cheek

The side door, not the door for patrons, opened and in a gust of cold, ind a girl slipped into the rooht The barust, hurried forward

“Leah, you look worse every time I see you Sit down here while I heat a toddy for you,” the pluirl into a chair and went to set the poker in the fire, all the while surreptitiously studying her younger sister If possible, Leah had lost weight Her unfleshed bones seeh her dirty, mended dress; her eyes were sunken, the skin under the There were three bloody scratches running the length of one side of her face, and a long bluish-green bruise on the other side

“He give you that?” the bar of flip

Leah erly put her hands out toward the hot beer and molasses drink

“He give any reason for hittin’ you?”

“Nohalf the contents of theback in the chair

“Leah, why don’t you—?”

Leah opened her eyes and gave her sister a hard look “Don’t start on h this before You do what you must and I’ll take care of me and the kids”

Bess stiffened for just aaway “Layin’ on entlemen is a lot easier ’n what you have to do”

Leah didn’t even wince at Bess’s crudity They’d had this arguo, Bess had had her fill of their crazy father who beat theirl had left their poor backwater farm to find herself a job, and, on the side, she was “friendly” to a few men Leah, of course, had been beaten for Bess’s sins Now, Bess was always trying to get Leah to leave their father’s shack of a house But Leah reer brothers and sisters She plowed, planted, harvested, cooked, repaired the house, and, most of all, she protected the little ones from their father’s wrath