Rebel. Bernard Cornwell

not be responsible for Sally Truslow’s pregnancy, but some impulse told him that such a naive protest would be met with a bitter scorn and so, not knowing what else to say, he sensibly said nothing.

      ‘She’s not like her mother,’ Truslow spoke on, more to himself than to Starbuck. ‘There’s a wildness in her, see? Maybe it’s mine, but it weren’t Emily’s. But she says it’s Robert Decker’s babe, so let it be so. And he believes her and says he’ll marry her, so let that be so too.’ Truslow stooped and plucked a weed from the grave. ‘That’s where Sally is now,’ he explained to Starbuck, ‘with the Deckers. She said she couldn’t abide me, but it was her mother’s pain and dying she couldn’t abide. Now she’s pregnant, so she needs to be married with a home of her own, not living on charity. I promised Emily I’d look after Sally, so that’s what I’m doing. I’ll give Sally and her boy this homestead, and they can raise the child here. They won’t want me. Sally and me have never seen eye to eye, so she and young Decker can take this place and be proper together. And that’s what I want you to do, Mister Starbuck. I want you to marry them proper. They’re on their way here now.’

      ‘But I can’t marry them!’ Starbuck protested.