One unique feature of this story is that Dimity Scott is deaf from scarlet fever and the setting is colonial America. Another unusual twist, former Shawnee captive and white warrior, Corwin Whitfield, would rather return to his adopted people and the frontier than inherit a costly estate. Until he meets Dimity. Then he’s in a quandary.
After wealthy Uncle Randolph reclaims Corwin following a treaty with the Indians that requires the return of white captives, he’s given a swift course in etiquette and hustled back into the fashionable world of colonial high society—a life that holds little appeal for Corwin. Expectations that he will learn to manage and ultimately inherit the family estate and undertake the care of his uncle’s ward, Dimity Scott, clash with his restless desire to return to the frontier. Any hope that he might take the unexpectedly desirable Dimity with him dissipate when he realizes the risk for her in a hard land where every sense must be tuned to danger. And Dimity won’t allow him to sacrifice his happiness for her. Nor can she abide pity, and he isn’t the only man who finds her worth winning.
If you wonder how Dimity and Corwin communicate in an age before sign language and other advances for the deaf existed, so did I. But the results are surprising and not a little bit wonderful. And then there are the charming traditions of celebrating Christmas in colonial America. A Warrior for Christmas is a story I much enjoyed researching and writing. I hope you will enjoy it too.
Blurb: Reclaimed by his wealthy uncle, former Shawnee captive Corwin Whitfield finds life with his adopted people at an end and reluctantly enters the social world of 1764. His one aim is to run back to the colonial frontier at his first opportunity––until he meets Uncle Randolph’s ward, Dimity Scott.
Resolved to be cherished for herself, not her guardian’s purse, Dimity resigns herself to spinsterhood. Then the rugged newcomer arrives, unlike any man she’s ever known. But can she expect love and marriage from Corwin who longs to return to the wild with dangers a deaf woman dares not share?
Excerpt: “There she is,” Uncle Randolph said with the hint of a smile in his normally reluctant features. “My ward, Miss Dimity Scott. The little Quaker as I call her.”
Corwin thought it highly doubtful this staunch Anglican had taken in an actual Quaker. Looking past assorted tables, gilt-covered chairs and a gold couch, he spotted the feminine figure seated before the glowing hearth. A padded armchair the color of ripe berries hid much of her slender form. His first impression was of fair curls, like corn silk, piled on her head beneath a circle of lace; his second, that the young woman bent over her embroidery seemed oblivious of all else. One this unaware would never survive in the frontier. He’d been taught to move with the silence of a winged owl while observing all around him.
“Why does she not look up at our coming?”
“Ah, well, that’s a matter I’ve been meaning to discuss with you.” The hesitancy in his uncle’s tone was unlike this man who knew his own mind and was swift to instruct others.
He squinted at Corwin with his good eye; the other perpetually squinted from an injury he’d received in a duel. “I trust you’ll not hold it against the poor girl as a sign of weakness, my boy. Warriors sometimes do and you’ve kept company with those savages far too long.”
“What are you saying, Uncle?”
He rubbed his fingers over a chin grizzled with whiskers. “Dimity cannot hear us.”
“At all?”
“Not a sound, unfortunately. Though she is able to detect the vibrations of music. Odd, that.”
Like the beating of Indian drums.~
Like the beating of Indian drums.~
A Warrior for Christmas historical romance novella is available in ebook formats from the Wild Rose Press, Kindle, Nookbook, All Romance eBooks, and other online booksellers.
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