A Preacher's daughter for the smitten Duke (Regency Romance) (Regency Tales Book 6) by Regina Darcy Page A

his brow, that Jacob would not make their time in this peaceful place unpleasant. He was not ashamed of how he made his living, nor sorry for his decision to leave the Church of England, but he did wish that he could reach his youngest child, and show Jacob that his decisions did not stem from lack of love for his family.
    His heavy sigh must have carried on the evening breeze that fluffed his overlong hair, because a quiet voice stopped him in his tracks.
    “That is a ponderous sigh, Papa,” his youngest daughter Amy observed, coming up to kiss his cheek. “How fare you this eve?”
    He took a deep sigh and then admitted, “I worry about your brother Jacob.” Of all his children, Amy was the one he found himself most able to share his concerns with. She embodied the spirit of his dead wife: calm, intelligent, sweet natured, and deeply concerned for the welfare of others. She was a beautiful young lady, fair of face and form. He worried that her innocence of spirit would bring her to great ruin if he did not watch her like a hawk. There were bounders everywhere, in every class, and though they were poor, he would not have his daughter’s good name, nor his own, sullied by an impure alliance.
    Amy put her arm through his and sighed. “He will come round, Papa,” she said. “He just needs more time to discover what it is he wants out of life, and what is important. He is not Matthew.”
    “That he is not,” her father agreed. “A more amenable soul that your older brother I have yet to meet. He has such a meek and quiet spirit. And he is so full of faith and good works, he will make some woman a stalwart husband.”
    “Dinner will be ready soon, Papa,” she said. “You should have a wash before then. Mary Anne has set up a basin of water for you to use.”
    Nodding his thanks, Mr Williams walked into the stable, and climbed the ladder to the loft above, where he and his sons would live until they could find better lodgings at reasonable rates. The space was clean, airy, the two cots supplied with clean sheets. The farmer had left the maintenance of his two plough horses to Mr Williams and his sons, so as to reduce the likelihood of the family being disturbed by outsiders. His daughters had been given the small attic room in the farmhouse, for which he was grateful.
     
    While Kenneth Williams and his children partook of a warm supper with their hosts, his tent was being observed and frowned upon with much disdain by Michael Hayward, steward to the young Duke of Ashton, Percival Lockhart. The Lord whose lands the tent had been erected. In fact, it was just inside the border of his lands, in clear breach of trespassing laws. Mr Hayward was not a forgiving man, being of the mind that laws were meant to be upheld and that lawbreakers were to be punished to the fullest extent of the law, or at the very least, chased off the land they illegally occupied. His Grace would be apprised of this infraction as soon as Mr Hayward returned to the Manor. This...he looked keenly at the sign posted in front of the tent...this Kenneth Williams would soon get his comeuppance. The cheek of the man, to presume to hawk his poor man’s gospel on the lands of a God-fearing Anglican. Mr Hayward rode off in high dudgeon, full of righteous indignation against the blasphemous dissenter.
    The evening meal was in full swing by the time Mr Hayward returned, and he took himself off to have his own with the servants in the kitchen, where he informed them of his discovery. Mr Black, the butler, was of the opinion that these wandering preachers should be treated as the outlaws they were, and arrested and imprisoned. Mrs Tobias, the housekeeper wondered when things had come to such a pass that men could no longer stand by their beliefs without fear of imprisonment.
    “After all, the days of the Inquisition are long gone, aren’t they?” she commented, her Scottish accent heavy. “And if we canna be true Protestants, why did we bother to break