Today we’re sitting down with Tabitha Gage, the heroine of A Calculated Betrothal, in her cabin just south of Georgia’s Altamaha River. It’s 1776. Tabitha, more than a decade has passed since we met you in your twin sister’s story, Temperance Scott, of A Conflicted Betrothal. Your sister got into some trouble as a fledgling Daughter of Liberty during the Stamp Act Protests in Savannah.
Back then, you were a Loyalist being courted by Henry Gage, Lord Riley. Some readers found you a bit…spirited. You almost stole the ending of that book from your shy little sister—so much so that Denise Weimer felt she had to write your own story to resolve what happened to you. You took the blame for writing the Townsend Letters that accused prominent Loyalists of harboring the stamps or being the stamp master. Then you eloped with Lord Riley and sailed off in his schooner for his estate on the Altamaha River. So tell us, Tabitha, has life been all you dreamed of in the past decade?
*long silence*
Tabitha?
Yes, I’m just thinking how to answer that. The answer is no. I gave up everything for my sister…and to please my father. Not that he gave us many choices in life. He expected me to marry Lord Riley. Temperance got Ansel—a handsome, young officer—and I got a man my father’s age who lost what little regard he had for me when I did not produce an heir. An heir to what, I ask you? Henry sent everything he made to his wastrel brother in England, to prop up the family estate.
I’m so sorry to hear that your grand gesture—ahem, sacrifice led to such bitter disappointment. But now that Lord Riley has passed away, surely, your future looks brighter?
Brighter? Have you looked around? Henry sold River’s Bend to his greedy neighbor, Hugh Jackson. All he left me was this log cabin where his drover lived on the timberland for his free-range cattle. And the Loyalist East Florida Rangers keep stealing them.
Loyalist? Does that mean you are no longer of that persuasion?
Well, that remains to be seen. Now that I’ve had a cruel master myself, I’m much less fond of King George.
Might your change of heart also have something to do with a certain Patriot ranger who helped you round up your cattle?
Certainly, Sergeant Lassiter helped me—after he almost got me killed in a siege at Fort McIntosh down in the swamp. And he’s strangely bent on helping me make something of my land, if only to ensure the Jacksons don’t get their hands on it. He says it’s because Hugh Jackson did his father dirty in business. But when Edmond found out that Julian Jackson wanted to marry me… I tell you, there’s more to this story than Edmond is telling me.
How is Sergeant Lassiter proposing to help you?
He’s suggested I build a store for the settlers living on this side of the Altamaha, and that he approach the Scottish timbermen who live in Darien about logging my land. Then he would act as my manager.
Do you trust him that much? You said you fear he’s hiding something.
I don’t know. I’ve got to trust someone. Everything I try on my own is not working, and I refuse to go back to my father, only to be married off to one of his cronies again. Edmond is kind…humble. And he actually seems to admire my spirit—what little I’ve got left after being married to Henry. But one thing I vow—this is a business partnership only. Never again will I be shackled to a man I don’t love.
More About the Book:
South Georgia, 1776
The deathof her husband, Lord Riley,means that not only is Tabitha Gage no longer a lady—she’s abandoned on an isolated plantation on South Georgia’s Altamaha River on the eve of revolution. With the fine house and fields sold to a neighbor, she’s left with a log cabin on unsettled timber land. Rather than marry the neighbor’s son, Tabitha determines to make her own way—and never again be shackled to a man she doesn’t love.
Sergeant Edmond Lassiter is one assignment away from promotion when he comes to the aid of a red-haired beauty fending off Loyalist cattle rustlers. Thrown together during an attack at a nearby fort, the Patriot scout and Loyalist widow are surprised by the values they share. When Edmond learns the same man who ruined his family is after the little Tabitha has left, he convinces her they should work together to make her land profitable—all while fighting off the British from East Florida and her greedy neighbor, who sabotages their every effort to succeed. A business arrangement, nothing more. But as a British invasion threatens, Edmond finds he’s risking far more than his heart.
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 mother of two wonderful young adult daughters, she always pauses for coffee, chocolate, and old houses.
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