Much Ado About Jack by Christy English

Author:Christy English
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, mobi
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.
Published: 2013-12-11T16:00:00+00:00

Twenty-one

Angelique swallowed hard, her nerves suddenly fluttering like birds. “Thank you, Jerrod. Please bring her in.”

Looking only slightly scandalized, the older man moved to obey. If her Greek butler Anton had an opposite, it was this man. Staid and set in his ways, Jerrod was a holdover from her husband’s days as Earl of Devonshire.

In spite of his very strict ideas about a lady’s place in the world, the elderly butler had been won over by Angelique’s charm early in her disastrous marriage to his lord, and his affections had been assured by the assiduous care she had taken of the house. Aeronwynn’s Gate had not looked so well in a hundred years, and as he was close friends with her estate steward, Billings, Jerrod knew exactly how much money Angelique had lavished on the place to reclaim it from ruin. So Jerrod said not a word of censure, nor did he even lift an eyebrow as he left to escort his lord’s bastard daughter into his lady’s presence.

Angelique stood and smoothed her gown. James caught her hand and squeezed it. “She will love it here,” he said. “She will come to love you.”

For once in her life, she did not try to hide her old losses. She knew their shadow must be visible in her face, along with her hope. “I hope so,” she answered.

Sara Burr entered the room behind the butler, her blue eyes wide with fright. Angelique saw pride in the tilt of the girl’s chin, but she also saw the pale, drawn look around her eyes. The child had not slept last night. Angelique remembered her own youth, how she had been left alone with her ailing mother, a sailing ship, and her beauty her only dowry when she was seventeen. Angelique had been forced to become a woman, and quickly. She would see to it that this girl got to be a child for a little while longer.

Angelique pushed aside her own memories and crossed the room to the girl, extending her hand. “Welcome, Sara. Come and have some breakfast.”

Sara did not take the offered hand. She curtsied prettily but did not meet Angelique’s eyes.

“I ate at the inn, my lady. I thank you.”

The girl stared around the well-appointed room as if it were a den of lions and she expected to be torn apart. Angelique withdrew the hand she held out and gestured to a chair.

“Well, if you’re not hungry, please join us for a cup of tea. Or would you prefer a cup of chocolate?”

Sara’s blue eyes flitted about the room like a bird that did not mean to roost, finally coming to settle on Angelique’s face. “Yes, my lady. I mean, no, my lady. I have never had chocolate.”

Angelique smiled in an effort to bolster the child’s spirits as well as her own. “Today you shall try it then. We will all have a cup.”

Jerrod nodded to one of the footmen, who stepped out to take the order to the kitchen. A second footman stepped forward and drew out a chair.

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