The Housekeeper's Daughter by Christine Flynn

Author:Christine Flynn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Silhouette
Published: 2004-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

“Oh, Addie. Thank heaven I caught you. I left a quiche in the oven so I only have a minute, but you really don’t want to go anywhere near the main house right now. You especially don’t want to go anywhere near the breakfast room windows.”

Addie lowered her wheelbarrow. The hedges across from those windows were precisely where she was headed. “I don’t?”

Olivia shook her head so hard her tight salt-and-pepper curls almost moved. “Definitely not. Mr. Kendrick is in the breakfast room yelling at Mrs. Kendrick about something in the morning paper. About you and Gabe,” she rushed to explain, eyes wide with worry and warning. “When Marie took in the coffee he was absolutely purple with rage. Well, it was actually more of a deep pink,” the loquacious cook quickly qualified, “but I caught a glimpse of him and I swear that man was about to pop a vein.”

Addie slowly lowered the handles of her wheelbarrow and stared at the woman shivering in the cold morning air. Olivia hadn’t bothered to throw on the hot-pink jacket she kept in the closet by the back door. From the way she’d rushed out with her news, it seemed apparent that she’d seen Addie emerge from the path with her tools and simply flown out the door.

“There’s an article in the paper? What does it say?”

“I haven’t seen the paper yet. I never do until Marie clears it away with the dishes when the Kendricks are finished with their meal. But whatever it is, Mr. Kendrick was in there demanding to know what’s gotten into Gabe. The direct quote,” she supplied, determined to be accurate, “was ‘What in the bloody hell has gotten into him.’ If you don’t mind my asking, Addie, what’s gotten into you?”

The last person to ask her that question had been her mother. That had been last night after Rose had asked her what Gabe had wanted that morning. Addie had told her the truth, that he’d wanted to know who she’d talked to about the rumor and who had talked to her. She had also reiterated that she and Gabe were just friends—not that she’d had any better luck convincing her mom of that than she’d had the first time she’d mentioned it.

Gabe had apparently told his mother the same thing.

At least, that was what Ina had overheard as she’d cleaned the room next to the atrium where Gabe had talked to Mrs. Kendrick yesterday. Ina had confided that conversation to Olivia, who’d confided it to Rose, who’d then stood outside her daughter’s closed bedroom door last night for a full minute before sharing that unremarkable bit of information with her.

Addie knew her mom had hesitated that long because she’d seen the shadow of her feet beneath the door. And the information had been unremarkable. To Addie, anyway. It was the truth, after all.

Her mother had merely seen what he’d said as exactly what she expected from him.

Of course he denied the affair, she’d insisted. It’s what a man in his position does.

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