LITMIR.BIZ

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      ‘Say you won’t rather and why not for heaven’s sake?’

      ‘Because I don’t know myself,’ the lawyer said.

      Chloe thought he was telling the truth, but given Mr Poulson’s acting skills it was difficult to tell.

      ‘Then it will be impossible to recruit him to Virginia’s happy band of heroes.’

      ‘I was given four envelopes, my lord. Three have your names on and they will be handed to Mrs Wheaton when she asks for them. Lady Virginia included one with a question mark on and told me Mrs Wheaton will tell me who is to have it when she has instructions to begin his part of the task. You will be the first to have that secret in your keeping, ma’am, and I’m sorry to hand you so much responsibility,’ Mr Poulson said with a frown of what looked genuine concern.

      ‘Lady Virginia would never leave me with a task I couldn’t carry out.’

      ‘She did insist you would succeed in any venture you set your mind to,’ he admitted.

      Lord Mantaigne laughed, then smiled wryly to invite her not to take offence. ‘I suspect that’s a tactful way of saying you’re stubborn as a mule and sharp as a knife, Mrs Wheaton,’ he said with a knowing nod at Lord Farenze’s thunderous frown.

      ‘If I was that clever, I wouldn’t be working as housekeeper here, Lord Mantaigne,’ she told him with a repressive frown, but he let his smile stretch into a mocking grin and shook his head.

      ‘Nobody found out you were here though, did they?’ he said as if that was an achievement in itself. Chloe supposed it was and held her head a little higher.

      ‘Never mind fawning on her, man, let Mrs Wheaton read Virginia’s letter so I can get this fiasco over and get back to everything else I should be worrying about instead,’ Lord Farenze grumbled, but his eyes met Chloe’s with a myriad of complex emotions under the cool control he was trying to show the rest of the world.

      ‘And the sooner I read my letter, the sooner you can have yours, my lord.’

      ‘Eager to be rid of me?’ he murmured as he rose to walk past her, indicating to the others it was time to let her and Mr Poulson begin this rackety affair.

      ‘Of course,’ she said with eyebrows raised as if it was obvious.

      ‘Liar,’ he whispered so intimately she felt his tongue flick shockingly into the intricate curls of her ear before he stood watching with all sorts of threats and promises in his darkened grey gaze.

      ‘I know,’ she let herself mouth once he’d finally left the room with his half-brother, his best friend and the mysterious Mr Peters in his wake.

      ‘I shall leave you to read this missive, Lady Chloe,’ Mr Poulson said with one of his best bland looks. ‘I trust you will not be disturbed.’

      ‘Little chance of that,’ Chloe muttered as the echo of the door softly closing behind the little lawyer died and she eyed the thick packet dubiously.

      No point sitting here and hoping the whole business would go away if she avoided it long enough. She broke the familiar seal of Virgil and Virginia’s entwined initials and peered at the closely written missive, half-longing for and half-dreading whatever her late employer had to say to her.

      ‘Dearest girl...’ it began, in Virginia’s familiar, elegant hand and tears blurred Chloe’s eyes until she forced them back and made herself concentrate on what her late employer and friend had to say, instead of missing her so deeply a gulf yawned inside her that would never be filled.

      You have become the daughter of my heart, or perhaps I should call you my granddaughter as you are so much younger than I am. I never could give my Virgil a child, but with you and Verity in the house these last few years it has felt as if he approved of your presence here. Would he was truly here to play great-grandfather to your daughter, for he would have delighted in her quickness and mischief even more than I have done.

      Chloe blinked and stared blankly out of the window for several minutes until she had control of her emotions and could carry on reading.

      I knew you were born to a higher sphere than the country vicarage you admitted to when you first came to the Lodge. Since I disliked all the other candidates the agency sent me, I overlooked the fact you were clearly lying and settled down to be amused by you and your babe, when Verity came back from the wet nurse. That really was a giveaway, by the way, my darling Chloe, since you would never let your child be nursed by another woman unless you had no milk yourself and you certainly didn’t have any of that, now did you?

      Again Chloe had to stop reading with a shake of her head at the turmoil her late employer’s words sent racing in her head. She’d suspected Virginia had doubts about her made-up ancestry at times, but never Verity’s.

      You have been very wary about giving me the smallest clue to your true identity and it wasn’t until I took notice of a tale Lady Tiverley whispered to me a few months ago about Rupert Thessaly’s outrageous brood that I realised who you really are. Now, if I happened to be a good woman, I would have delved deeper there and then and found a way to force your brother to admit he and his father and that milksop brother of his conspired to throw his own flesh and blood to the dogs three times over, then make restitution to his surviving sister and niece. I fear I am not that noble and have come to love you and your supposed child far too much to find the idea of living without you at all comfortable, so I managed not to see how I was compounding damage already done to you both for as long as I could.

      During the last few weeks I have come to realise how deep an injury I did you by not doing or saying anything to restore you to your true place in life. I love you and my great-nephew as far as I am capable of loving anyone, but apparently I love myself more than both of you. I can see you shaking your head and refusing to believe Luke has anything to do with you even now, my dear, but take a deeper look into your stubborn heart and I pray you’ll see there what you two have ignored far too long.

      Since Chloe was shaking her head at the very moment her late employer accused her of being stubborn, she stared round the room as if her wraith might be watching. If Virginia was born in another age to poorer parents, she might have been accused of witchcraft, she decided with a shudder. Dare she look hard at her feelings for Luke Winterley? Something told her she might have to soon, but for now she had the distraction of Virginia’s letter to shake her head over instead. Not that it did much good, since every other word seemed to be of him.

      If you ever do decide to lay down that stout armour of yours and consider what you and dear Luke could be to one another, please forget the petty details and seize your happiness at last, my dear Chloe. It is for your brothers and the Thessaly connection to talk their way out of what they did, or didn’t do, by leaving you to raise your sister’s child as your own. Such things have been managed well enough in other noble families for centuries. Since it sounds as if you two girls were left to more or less bring yourselves up, such neglect was sure to end in trouble.

      I hope your brothers have spent the last ten years feeling deeply ashamed of themselves after you proved better and stronger than either of them, but somehow I doubt it. You have a tender conscience and a good heart, Chloe, and the rest of the Thessaly family were ready to commit murder by leaving poor Verity on a freezing doorstep well away from their own nest. I’m quite sure they would have done so if you hadn’t stolen away like a thief in the night as well.

      Penelope Tiverley is a sad rattle-pate, but she was your sister’s godmother and I’m sure she has told her tale to nobody else. She only wanted to ease her conscience by telling her mother’s old friend how uneasy she felt about the affair. My years seem to bring confidences, whether I want them or not, and please don’t think the story is common currency in society. I know it is not so and have kept the promise I made Penelope not to repeat it. Given she did not see who was under her nose, I doubt you were ever close to your sister’s godmother, but I wish your mama had picked one for you who might have helped when you had to disappear.

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