Three Novelettes

By Margaret Lake

Sweet Savage Charity – Plymouth Colony 1621
Within months of stepping off the Mayflower, Charity Williams buried her husband. Within hours, she was told whom she would marry. But Charity has other ideas. Aided by the Wampanoag brave she meets in the forest, she plans to defy the governor, the council and the whole colony.

Of Love and War – July 4, 1943
John Jameson is home from the war. The Fourth of July has always been his favorite holiday, but now he finds himself alone on the boardwalk in his New Jersey home town. It seems like everyone he knew is either off to war or working in the factories producing the armaments of war. Along comes Julie to offer him a cold drink. Happy to have someone to spend the day with, especially one so young and beautiful, he accepts her invitation for a backyard picnic. He has no idea what is behind Julie's seemingly innocent invitation. He has no idea that the afternoon will force him to face what he has lost and find his heart at last.

Only In My Dreams -
Delia Cummings isn't dissatisfied with her life. She doesn't think she has a life to be dissatisfied with. She works in a bakery, decorating cakes and bagging up rolls and pastries. Her husband, Charlie, as often as not falls asleep in front of the TV. Her children are grown and married, with not even a hint of a grandchild to give her purpose. After nearly thirty years of marriage and little to show for it, Delia is tired; just plain tired. And it is only in her dreams that she begins to find a reason to go on living.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jobree Publishing
• Release date: Feb 6, 2014
• ISBN: 9781497722002

Margaret Lake

Margaret Lake was born in New Jersey, but moved to Florida in her early teens and has lived there ever since. Reading has been her favorite activity since she was ten years old. Even after purchasing a Kindle, she still had seven large bookcases filled with paper books. It took years for her to part with the majority of them. Her other passion is history, especially English History, dating from when she first read "Katherine" by Anya Seton. When the inspiration came to write her first novel, she naturally gravitated to the Wars of the Roses because of that book. Her favorite author is Susan Howatch, her favorite book is "Outlander" and her favorite series is Harry Potter. She led a Harry Potter book club at the elementary school and helped with the chess club at both the elementary and high schools. Margaret rescued a nine-year old Jack Russell Terrier named Angelo who passed at the age of 15 on December 3, 2017. Now she has Mikey, a teeny-tiny two year old chihuahua mix (actually 50% chihuahua, 25% miniature poodle, 12.5% maltese and 12.5% terrier according to his DNA), adopted from the Humane Society on March 7, 2018. Mikey has gone a long way toward filling the empty space in her heart left by the loss of Angelo.

Book preview

Three Novelettes

By Margaret Lake

AUTHOR OF

historical, contemporary,

and fantasy romance

illustrated children’s books

graphic novels

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http://www.margaretannlake.com

DESCRIPTION

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Sweet Savage Charity – Plymouth Colony 1621

Within months of stepping off the Mayflower, Charity Williams buried her husband. Within hours, she was told whom she would marry. But Charity has other ideas. Aided by the Wampanoag brave she meets in the forest, she plans to defy the governor, the council and the whole colony.

Of Love and War – July 4, 1943

John Jameson is home from the war. The Fourth of July has always been his favorite holiday, but now he finds himself alone on the boardwalk in his New Jersey home town. It seems like everyone he knew is either off to war or working in the factories producing the armaments of war. Along comes Julie to offer him a cold drink. Happy to have someone to spend the day with, especially one so young and beautiful, he accepts her invitation for a backyard picnic. He has no idea what is behind Julie’s seemingly innocent invitation. He has no idea that the afternoon will force him to face what he has lost and find his heart at last.

Only In My Dreams -

Delia Cummings isn't dissatisfied with her life. She doesn't think she has a life to be dissatisfied with. She works in a bakery, decorating cakes and bagging up rolls and pastries. Her husband, Charlie, as often as not falls asleep in front of the TV. Her children are grown and married, with not even a hint of a grandchild to give her purpose. After nearly thirty years of marriage and little to show for it, Delia is tired; just plain tired. And it is only in her dreams that she begins to find a reason to go on living.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Description

Sweet Savage Charity

Of Love and War

Only In My Dreams

Contact

Copyright

SWEET SAVAGE CHARITY

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Plymouth Colony - 1621

She didn't want to be here in this savage land. She wanted to be home in her warm, cozy room in London. But when Roger said they were going to follow the Puritans to the New World so they could practice their faith free from persecution, she had no choice but to pack up their things and follow him. Just as she'd had no choice when he converted to this strict religion that kept her in somber clothes and wouldn't let her laugh or smile or sing.

Now Roger was dead along with so many others; buried in this unforgiving land so far from home. Now she was called before the Governor's council to hear her fate. Her future was to be decided by these seven stern men whom she was sure had never smiled or loved in their lives.

Charity Williams, Governor Bradford intoned. Stand forth and hear the will of the Council.

Charity moved slowly and with dignity to stand in front of the Council. Whatever they decided, she would keep her pride and accept with as good grace as she could muster. But, oh, how shamed she felt. Her beloved Roger had only been buried this morning and by tomorrow, she would be wed to another.

Bradford looked at her with approval. She was strong, this one. The kind of woman needed if they were to survive in this country. And as the Governor of the colony, it was up to him to see that she received immediate protection. This was a hard land and he had to make hard decisions.

Goody Williams, he said not unkindly, the Council and indeed the whole colony wishes to extend our deepest sympathies on the loss of your husband. He was a good man and a good Puritan and will be missed.

But we would be disrespectful to his memory and remiss in our duty towards you if we did not take immediate action to provide you with a husband to care for you.

Get on with it, she fumed silently. With whom will I be sharing my bed?

We did not come to this decision lightly. Much thought was given to your future welfare and so we chose Josiah Pettibone to be your husband. We hope you are pleased.

I'm damned well not pleased! she screamed to herself. Why do I have to marry the only lecherous scab in this entire continent? And then she knew why. He was a member of the council and had added a goodly amount of supplies in addition to that furnished by the Merchant Adventurers.

His wife had died just a few days before sailing and there hadn't been time to find a new one. At least not one that would take on his four brats and undertake a perilous journey to an unknown future.

Her heart sank even further when she thought about the oldest boy. Samuel. Fifteen and already an eye for the women. Not that there were many women left. He'd cast greedy eyes at her more than once. If throwing her into that den of lechery was protection, she'd be better off with Daniel and his lions.

But like a good little Puritan wife, she cast down her eyes, curtsied to the Council and thanked them politely.

"The marriage ceremony will take place on Saturday but between now and then, you will move in with Henry Billings and his family. It won't do for you to be alone.

Charity thanked them again and took her seat on the bench along the wall of the common house. Five days of relative freedom. Five days to build a raft and paddle all the way back to England, she thought bitterly.

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She spent the next morning doing the wash and spreading the clean linen on the bushes to dry. It would give her some time alone and she badly needed time to grieve for Roger. Hell and damnation, she thought savagely, I need time to grieve for myself.

Charity snapped the sheets furiously, spreading them out to dry, while she wiped hot tears from her cheeks. She was grateful no one was there to see her weakness. Anger was one of the seven deadly sins and, even though she was not a Puritan in her heart, she knew it was wrong.

But she wasn't alone. She could feel it in her bones. Someone was watching her. If it was that horrid Samuel Pettibone, she'd give him what for and to hell with what the Council thought.

She stared straight at the trees, shading her eyes from the sun. When her eyes became used to the gloom of the forest, she could see it wasn't Samuel at all. It was one of those half-naked Indians. She never understood how they could stand so still for hours at a time like a bronze statue.

She couldn't see his features clearly, but he made a very impressive figure. She smiled and lifted her hand to wave him over ... the Indians here were friendly ... when he suddenly shifted his stance and melted back into the trees. She never understood how the savages were able to do that, either, or walk so silently even a sparrow wouldn't hear them.

She would liked to have talked to him. Right now, she felt like she had more in common with the natives than she did with her fellow Puritans. In actuality, she thought bitterly, she had never really been one of them. Now she was doomed to spend her life here with a husband she couldn't love and half-grown children that weren't hers.

Angrily, her hands curled into fists and she wanted to scream and cry and rail against Roger for leaving her like this. Her body shaking from head to foot, she stared at the place in the trees where the Indian had stood watching her, as if she could find an answer in the cool depths of the forest.

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One day gone, Charity thought miserably. She wished she could have stayed awake all night, but the heavy work they had to do in the fields added to the daily chores sent all of them exhausted to their beds. She should have been grateful for the respite from her thoughts but all she could think was that she had slept away ten hours of freedom.

The men went early to the fields so the women and children had to be up even earlier to build up the cookfires and fetch the water. Then they took the morning to attend to household tasks. When they brought the midday meal to the men, most of them stayed to work. It was a grueling life.

Charity didn't mind. It gave her time to be alone and to think about her life; past, present and future.

The past was the easy part. She was an orphan, dependent on the parish for her daily bread since she was seven years old. She was sent to work in the fields with the other children who had lost their families to the plague.

Being the youngest, the other children taunted her and stole her food. It was poor enough fare, bread and butter, peas and beans and maybe a scrap of bacon on feast days. Still, it was all they had and they were constantly hungry from the hard work.

By the time she was ten, she had learned to stand up for herself. Roger was the biggest of the boys, and when she bloodied his nose for him, she won his respect. After that, he became her protector and constant