Today we’re hosting Elspeth Lawrence, the heroine of A Cherished Betrothal, for a cup of tea. We catch up with her partway through her story as told in Book Three of the Scouts of the Georgia Frontier, the latest series launched by Denise Weimer and Wild Heart Books.
Right now, we’re sitting down in Ninety-Six, South Carolina. It’s a national park in the countryside in 2024, but in 1775, it was a crossroads of trade and commerce in the Carolina backcountry. Elspeth, do you live in Ninety-Six?
Elspeth: No, I live with my father, who is a minister, on our mission to Cherokee children between here and Fort Charlotte, which sits on the Savannah River and the border between South Carolina and Georgia. I’m in Ninety-Six visiting Roger Bailey and his mother for the celebration of my birthday.
The Baileys must be very good friends of your family, then?
Elspeth: Yes. My father has great respect for Roger Bailey, a planter and justice of the peace. He’s known to be a moderate in these parts. Folks are divided ever since South Carolina established a Council of Safety and started talking about forming their own government against the king. After the fighting at Lexington and Concord, you know. The truth is, at twenty-two, I’m getting older, and Father would like to see me settled with a respectable man.
Your father thinks you should wed this Roger Bailey, this moderate?
Elspeth: Well, if he can convince me to consider it. After my birthday dinner, I’m not so certain where Roger stands. He had a guest that night, this awful man named Thomas Brown, who railed against what the Sons of Liberty had done to him when he refused to sign their Association. Frankly, both sides seemed to bear some fault. Father and I want to stay out of the trouble between the patriots and the loyalists. We are here to be a bridge between the settlers and the Cherokees who live just the other side of the river.
Elspeth, I read your back story (see below), and I must say, I’m perplexed about your work at your father’s mission. Did you not lose your mother and sister in a brutal attack in 1760 by the Cherokees?
Elspeth: That’s true. Well, my mother died and my sister was taken captive at the Long Canes massacre. I only survived because Alex Morris hid me in the canes by the creek. Alex’s brother and father died in that attack, and Alex was terribly wounded. But together, we survived. It almost killed me, though, when his mother took him to live on the Georgia coast near her family. I’ve always wondered what happened to him, and when he showed up with the South Carolina Rangers when the patriots took over Fort Charlotte, I couldn’t believe my eyes.
Alex must have been delighted to see you after so long.
Elspeth: Actually…he didn’t even remember me. Or the attack. It’s as though he’s blocked it all out. But I think God has brought him here to face his past and heal from it. I know it’s possible because it took me a long time, but God has helped me to do so. Maybe He will use me to reach Alex. He has to forgive the Cherokees if he’s going to fulfill his duty to the rangers. Both the patriots and the loyalists want the Cherokees on their side. And folks are saying fighting could break out any day. Maybe right here, in Ninety-Six.
Patriots, loyalists, Cherokees…this seems like a volatile situation. Not to mention, it sounds as though you have two men in your life. You say Alex doesn’t remember you, but you light up at the mere mention of his name. How can you consider Roger as a suitor if you have feelings for Alex?
Elspeth: I can’t tell him this. Don’t tell him this. Don’t tell my father either. But I’ve always loved Alex. You can’t survive something together like we did and not have a bond. But right now, he seems to want to avoid me almost as much as he’s drawn to me. I can tell he still feels the need to protect me. To find out what happened to my sister if he can. So yes, I’m stuck in the middle. Of two men. Of two sides on a coming war. And I know I’ll have to make my choices soon. I pray to God I make the right ones. Because not only my own future but the fate of a nation could hang in the balance.
More about A Cherished Betrothal – Book Three of the Scouts of the Georgia Frontier
1775
Alexander Morris bears the childhood scars of the Long Canes massacre that killed his brother and father. His dark past forces him into the lonely life of Georgia Ranger, and eventually, to join the bordering South Carolina Rangers that revolt against the Crown. When he’s posted to the fort erected to defend the community once decimated by the massacre, duty demands he court the loyalty of his sworn enemies, the fierce Cherokee warriors.
Elspeth Lawrence never forgot the boy who sacrificed himself for her at Long Canes—any more than she forgot the younger sister taken captive. She’s learned to not only forgive but help minister to the Cherokees at her father’s mission. Alex Morris’s arrival at nearby Fort Charlotte stirs Elsie’s memories and her emotions. He doesn’t even remember her…or the long-ago attack. But the bitterness that simmers just beneath his stoic exterior—as well as her courtship by a local landowner—challenge their undeniable bond.
When Alex uncovers a long-held secret and a plot to sabotage patriot talks with the Cherokees, he must choose between his desire for revenge and his love for the girl he saved long ago
Denise Weimer writes historical and contemporary romance from her home in North Georgia and also serves as a freelance editor and the Acquisitions & Editorial Liaison for Wild Heart Books. A wife and mother of two daughters, she always pauses for coffee, chocolate, and old houses.
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