Make Her Wish Come True Collection. Ann Lethbridge
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the previous evening had been strained to say the least. Still, she could not help hoping he’d arrived home safely. During the long hours of the night she’d come to terms with his rejection and her respect for him had grown. A scoundrel would have taken advantage of her loneliness. And yet she had the feeling he, too, was lonely.
She shook off her fit of the doldrums and carefully wrapped a pair of candles in brown paper and tied them with string. The batch must be ready for Mr Driver when he came at the first of the year. Hopefully he would get a good price for them, since she and the girls would need a new place to live.
She didn’t want to leave. But Adam’s warning must not be ignored.
‘Mama!’ Lucy came running into the potting shed. ‘There’s a man coming up the garden path.’
Adam? Her heart clenched. Joy sparkled through her veins. He had come to bid her farewell after all. Oh, how could she face him? How could she not, when seeing him one last time would give her so much pleasure? A painful pleasure.
Lucy clenched her hands together in front of her chest, her eyes wide. ‘I think it’s Herbert.’
Cassie’s heart stopped, then staggered to life with an unsteady rhythm. ‘Herbert?’
Lucy made a face of distaste. ‘I think so.’
‘Take your sister indoors and remain upstairs.’
Lucy dashed off.
Heart pounding in her ears, Cassie removed her apron and strode for the door. As she opened it, she almost collided with the stocky man standing on the threshold. The brown scarf wrapped around his neck and pulled up over his chin, exposed only the skin of his wind-reddened cheeks, drawn-down sandy eyebrows and his distinctive retroussé nose.
Her stomach fell away. She took a breath. Squared her shoulders. ‘Herbert,’ she said coldly. ‘To what do I owe this pleasure?’
Herbert slowly unwound his scarf, looking about him. He gave her a rueful smile. ‘Is that any way to greet your only stepson? How are you, dear Lady Cassandra? At last I find you.’ He wagged a reproving finger with a teasing smile. ‘Good wheeze that, changing your name. Took me for ever to track you down.’
Too bad he had succeeded. ‘Why are you here?’
‘Come now. I know you were on the outs with me and Bridget over a trifle, but there’s no need to cut up so stiff.’
He sounded so placatory, it gave her a sensation of dread in her stomach. ‘I don’t call your wife locking Diana in her bedroom and threatening to beat Lucy a trifle, Herbert.’
He gave a sorrowful shake of his head. ‘Bad form. Bridget should not have flown into a temper. It won’t happen again. I promise.’ He gave her a blinding smile. ‘Now, pack up their things and come along. We’ll rent a carriage, be off in the shake of a cat’s tail and all be comfortable at home in a trice. What do you say?’
Comfortable was not how she would describe the Norton household beneath Bridget’s autocratic rule. But Herbert seemed genuinely sorry for his wife’s behaviour.
While he waited for her answer, Herbert strolled around her little shed, poking a finger among the things on the table. He picked up a pair of candles ready for wrapping and tossed them from hand to hand. ‘Did you make these yourself?’
‘It is how we have been supporting ourselves this past year.’
‘Very industrious, dear Stepmama. Not the sort of thing one generally expects of a lady.’ He tossed them again. Fumbled.
She gasped.
He managed to catch them before they fell to the granite floor. ‘Oops,’ he said with a smile that bordered on sly. He put the candles down with exaggerated care. ‘Wouldn’t want to break them.’
Wouldn’t he? Her nape prickled.
He turned to face her full on. ‘Ready to go? Tally ho, what?’
He thought he was a gentleman, but compared to Lord Portmaine’s steward, Adam Royston, he was nothing but a caricature.
‘I should have thought you would be glad to be rid of the expense of keeping us,’ she said, holding her ground. ‘You were always grumbling about the cost.’
His shoulders stiffened. He hated resistance. ‘I am their brother. Their legal guardian. Of course I am not glad they’ve run off. How do you think that makes me look? The Vicar…’
Understanding dawned. ‘Old Mr Pettigrew wants to know what became of us, doesn’t he? Poor Herbert.’ Vicar Pettigrew had been a friend of his father’s and not backward in his criticisms of Herbert’s wild behaviour. He would see it as his duty to haul Herbert over the coals if he thought he’d neglected his duty to his sisters.
‘Nosy old buzzard,’ Herbert said. He gave her a wheedling smile. ‘What do you say, old thing? Bury the hatchet and come home?’
With Ivy Cottage no longer available, it almost seemed like the best thing they could do. Almost.
‘And you promise Bridget will leave me fully in charge of your sisters?’ In addition to being their unpaid housekeeper. ‘No more punishments?’
‘Promise.’
Cassie glimpsed a hint of triumph his expression, though he quickly hid it. Unease slid down her spine. ‘Why now, Herbert? After more than a year? What has happened to set you haring off after us now? You receive the allowance your father arranged for the girls. Surely you are better off without them.’
‘Better off?’ His smile faltered, though he tried hard to hang on to it. ‘We miss you.’
She did not believe him.
He must have seen it on her face. ‘Pettigrew wrote to the solicitor Papa used in London about not seeing the girls. He’s travelling to Nottingham, despite my assurances all is well. Wants to see them for himself before he hands over any more blunt next quarter-day.’
Finally, the truth. ‘Why do you care? It’s a pittance compared to your income from the mills.’
He glared at her, picked up the knife she used to cut her wicks and turned the blade so it caught the light. ‘The factories are not doing too well. No demand for cloth now the war is over.’ He grimaced. ‘I had a run of bad luck at the tables.’ He put the knife down with a lift of one shoulder. ‘Debts of honour. A gentleman always pays his debts.’
A true gentleman looked after his womenfolk. But Herbert wouldn’t see it that way. His concern had always been for himself. For his standing with the men he called friends. He didn’t give sixpence for the welfare of his sisters. ‘I’m sorry for your troubles, Herbert, but I think we are better off here.’
He lunged for her. Quick as a snake. Grabbed her arm. ‘You will tell my sisters to come with me now if you know what is good for you.’
She pulled her arm free. Backed away. ‘What are you talking about?’
Cheeks red, he glowered. ‘If you don’t, I’ll be swearing out a warrant for your arrest.’
Her heart thundered. ‘For what crime? Stealing your sisters? I am sure the solicitor will be interested to hear how you misappropriated their funds.’
He waved off her accusation as if it was nothing. ‘For stealing the family jewels.’
She gasped. Stared at him. ‘I took nothing that was not mine.’
‘The jewels you sold were my mother’s. I have a hundred witnesses to say they were. Including old Pettigrew.’
‘They were my bride gift from your father to me personally.’
‘Prove it.’
She couldn’t. The jewels had not been mentioned in her husband’s will. Nor had Pettigrew known Clifford’s first wife.
Triumph