LITMIR.BIZ

      Dearest Alice,

      I am sorry I had to leave without saying goodbye to you. I will always remember you and think of you. Please understand that not everyone who has to leave you wishes to do so.

      With all my love, your ‘adopted aunt’.

      * * *

      They had not brought much with them, for the cottage had been rented furnished and Laura’s pose as a widow in mourning meant she could manage with a limited wardrobe. By the time Michael arrived in the coach—the one she had chosen specifically because it had no crest on the doors—she and Mab had the trunk filled and a neat row of portmanteaux lined up in the hall.

      It was not a good time of day to leave, for they could not get back to London in daylight and would have to put up at an inn overnight, but Laura dared not risk staying another day. As it was, there seemed little chance that Avery could discover who she was, even if he wanted to. The cottage had been rented through her man of business in her false name, she had received no post and Michael had told no one who his employer was.

      The note for Alice was dropped off at the inn for delivery the next morning. By then Laura would be on the road again, heading for London, the Curzon Street house, appointments with modistes and milliners, the re-entry into her world—the world of the Season and the haut ton and oblivion in a whirl of pleasure.

      Avery Falconer could advertise for a governess and then pack his bags and go back to arranging the affairs of Europe wherever the government chose to use his undoubted talents for autocratically directing the lives and destinies of others.

      He had cared for his cousin Piers and yet, when the young man had crossed Avery’s line of what constituted honour and duty, he had bent him ruthlessly to his will. He loved Alice: Laura told herself that she just had to believe he would never break her daughter’s heart because he thought he was doing the right thing.

      * * *

      For two weeks Avery kept the tightest rein on his temper he ever had in his life. He interviewed governesses and found none to his liking, he arranged for the Berkeley Square house to be put in readiness and he dealt with a weeping child who could not understand why her new Aunt Caroline had vanished. And that was difficult to endure because he had the nagging conviction on his conscience that she had fled his kisses and Alice’s distress was therefore all his fault.

      After a few days of tears, followed by clinging, Alice seemed to settle down. After all, as she confided in Avery, poor Aunt Caroline had been sad, so perhaps it was best that she had gone home to her friends, the only excuse he had been able to come up with.

      Now all he had to do was to find Alice a stepmama who would love her and she could forget a mother who had sent her away and a mysterious aunt who had vanished. He found he was quite looking forward to it. There would be no work, no worries, no sudden crises, simply a process of sociable, pleasurable wife-hunting and then marriage.

      Must be getting old, he thought, studying himself in the pier glass and tightening the muscles of an already flat stomach. No sign of grey hairs yet, but the prospect of a wife is surprisingly attractive. There would be none of the expenses and tantrums associated with mistresses. And none of the tension and guilt associated with respectable widows either, his conscience added. But it was good that Caroline had gone, for an earl with diplomatic responsibilities could not offer marriage to the widow of some middling gentleman and the alternative would not have been honourable. Yes, it was fortunate that he would never see Mrs Caroline Jordan again. But he missed her.