The Baroness and the Preacher (ePub)

In the late 1700's Baron Augustus MacTavish invested in a Fur Trading Company in the Pacific Northwest. After several difficulties arose he sent his young son Baronet Robert MacTavish to New York City to hire a Solicitor and investigate. Robert became embroiled in the society of the city and had an affair with a young prostitute called Miss Julie, and hires a professional trapper to go to the NW in his stead. It worked fine for two years, Then Miss Julie became pregnant, his father found out about his doings, and Robert was ordered home to Scotland. Miss Julie fared poorly walking the streets of NYC after the landlord threw her out for rejecting his advances. In December, her string ran out and she fell into the mud, snow, and manure of a NY street. She whispered the Solicitor's name to the policeman who found her. Two Nuns nursed her back to reasonable health and the lawyer gave her some money. She sets a course across Pennsylvania to find her sister's home in the mountains of NW Va. Three days after arriving there, she gives birth to a baby girl and tells her sister the baby's name is to be Mary Catherine, and dies; and this is her baby's story; how she marries a mountain preacher, raises a family of five children, discovers she is really a Baroness, and quite wealthy. It is also about a backwoods preacher who suddenly finds himself married to a person of royal heritage, and a wealthy one to boot. It tells of the events that befall them, the lives of the children, and how they all have to learn to deal with unexpected fame and fortune.