Read An Improper Situation (Sanborn-Malloy Historical Romance Series, Book One) for Free Online Page B

the guardianship when you drew up the will.”
    Reed shrugged. “Ann Connors had assured me that she’d asked you beforehand, which was why my letter may seem indelicate to you now. I suppose she was worried that you would turn her down. Be that as it may, these children are your relations. How can you think of putting them out?”
    His sapphiric eyes bore into hers as if he was personally affronted by her seeming callousness.
    Her fists clenched under the table in frustration. Was the man such a thick-headed coot? She knew she could tell him until she was blue in the face that she was not a suitable parent and he would just blindly carry on trying to enforce her cousin’s wishes. Even his words, attempting to play on her conscience and her sympathies, were nothing short of aggravating.
    “ The Randalls thought nothing of putting my family out when my mother married my father,” she told him, thinking of Regina Randall Sanborn’s proud sorrow when she was cut off from her family.
    Indeed, her mother had referred to herself with bitter humor as an orphan on more than one occasion, all because she married “beneath her” according to some outdated class code. No one from the east had ever sent cards of congratulations on Charlotte’s and Thaddeus’s births, nor invited them to be a part of their world.
    “ And so you repay the insult by shunning little children?” His eyebrows were up in exaggerated disbelief before forming that infuriatingly straight line of disapproval.
    “ Don’t be ridiculous,” she countered. “I merely bring it up to show that . . . that I am not without understanding of their plight, though the circumstances are different. My mother was an adult, marrying a suitable man whom she loved and who loved her back.”
    That was perhaps a slight misrepresentation of the odd and somewhat tempestuous marriage of her parents. “But these are children coming to my care when I am neither skilled in parenting, nor willing to adjust my life for such a reason at this time.”
    “ But you raised your brother,” Reed Malloy said quietly.
    Her eyes darted to his. How much did the man know about her anyway? His expression was closed now—no condemnation, no judgment.
    “I was forced to,” she said, her voice sounding dry. She smoothed her napkin between her fingers and swallowed. “We were poor as Job’s turkey, but I did the best I could under the circumstances. I will not be forced again.”
    A wave of melancholy washed over her, and she felt as if, against all reason, she might cry. Resentment over her parents’ death, the hardship she and her brother had endured for so long, the pressure on her at such a young age as she’d struggled to keep them both clothed and fed, and then Teddy leaving her all alone—it had been so difficult.
    Finally, she was moderately successful at the one thing that she cared about and that demanded all her time and concentration—only to find another horrible death had caused the cycle to begin again. Why did she always get the little end of the horn? Why must the lot fall on her to pick up the pieces? But then there was the very real dilemma of Thomas and Lily.
    She wanted to have a conniption fit right then and there! Instead, Charlotte stood up, not looking at Reed’s face, which she was sure would hold only contempt for what he thought was outright selfishness. “I have errands I must attend to.”
    She should have returned to her writing, but she couldn’t. Forgetting her bonnet until it was too late to go back for it, she headed to Spring City on foot at a leisurely pace to clear her head. She walked barely noticing where she was, sorting out what adjustments would have to be made if the children stayed, thinking ahead to when they came of age and left her, probably to head east. She knew how that would feel.
    Teddy had left at seventeen, and she had walked around the house for days wondering how she would cope with so much time on her hands, with no one to