Simply Love

A

He behaved rather like one, though, when they stepped inside and could see that the marquess was coming down the stairs to meet them, gri

A

“Lad,” the marquess said, setting David back down on his feet, “you must have a few bricks in the sole of each shoe. You weigh a ton. Or maybe it is just that you are growing up. Let me see now. You must be…twelve?”

“No!” David chuckled gleefully.

“Never tell me you are thirteen?”

“No! I am nine!”

“Nine? Only nine? I am speechless with amazement.” The marquess ruffled David’s hair with one hand and turned his smile on A

“Joshua,” she said, “how good it is to see you.”

He was a tall, well-formed man, with blond hair, a handsome, good-natured face, and blue eyes that almost constantly smiled. A

Besides, she had loved another man when she first became acquainted with Joshua Moore. She had even had an understanding with that man and considered herself betrothed to him.

“A

“It does,” she assured him. “How is Lady Hallmere? And how are the children?”

“Freyja is in the drawing room,” he said. “You will see her in a moment. Daniel and Emily are with their nurse upstairs. You must see them before you leave. Daniel has declared at least two dozen times in the last hour that he simply ca

“I would love to play with him, sir,” David said.

“Good lad.” Joshua ruffled his hair again. “But come and pay your respects in the drawing room first. It is only very young children who are whisked off straight to the nursery and you certainly do not fall into that category, do you?”

“No, sir,” David said as Joshua offered A

Lady Potford received them graciously in the drawing room, and Lady Hallmere got to her feet to nod in acknowledgment of David’s bow and to look assessingly at A

“You look well, Miss Jewell,” she said.

“Thank you, Lady Hallmere,” A

She had always found the marchioness rather intimidating, with her small stature and strange, rather harsh, rather handsome features. She had disliked her on first acquaintance and considered her quite unsuited to the kindhearted, easygoing Joshua. But then she had discovered that her former pupil, Lady Prudence Moore, Joshua’s mentally handicapped cousin, adored Lady Freyja, who had been unexpectedly kind to her. Prue had always been a good judge of character. And then Lady Freyja, recognizing that A

If Claudia Martin ever discovered that truth, there would be trouble! A

She had grown to respect, like, and even admire Lady Hallmere-and her marriage to Joshua appeared to be a love match.

For several minutes David was the focus of attention as he answered questions, seated beside Joshua and gazing almost worshipfully up at his hero. Then, just before the tea tray was brought in, he was sent up to the nursery, where he was promised fairy cakes and lemonade.

“We have just come from Lindsey Hall,” Joshua explained to A

“I trust he is a healthy child,” A

“Both.” Joshua gri

“And now,” Lady Hallmere added, “we are all on our way to Wales for a month. Bewcastle has an estate there and was pla

“A holiday by the sea is a pleasant prospect,” Joshua said with a grin, “despite the fact that we live within a stone’s throw of it in Cornwall. But the Bedwyns are not often all together, and all our children were in such transports of delight at having one another with whom to play and quarrel at Lindsey Hall that it seemed almost cruel to deprive them of one another’s company for a month or so longer.”

How lovely it must be, A

“School has finished for the year, Miss Jewell?” Lady Potford asked.

“Most of the girls went home yesterday, ma’am,” A

“And will you be going home too?” Lady Potford asked.

“No, ma’am,” A

Of course, there was no need for Claudia, Susa

“You still have not been home, then, A

“No,” she said.

Not since the year before David was born-more than ten years ago now. It was a long time. She had been only nineteen then, her sister Sarah, seventeen. Matthew, their brother, now a clergyman, a mere twenty-year-old, had still been up at Oxford. Henry Arnold had just turned twenty at that time too-she had been home for his birthday. They had spoken of his coming-of-age birthday the following year, and she had felt no premonition at all of the fact that she would not be there for that occasion-or ever see him again, in fact.

“We have a request to make of you, A

“Oh?” A

“I am increasingly aware,” Joshua said with a sigh, “that David is my blood relative, A

“No!” A

“And he would have had my title too,” Joshua continued, “and everything that came along with it, if Albert had married you.”

A

“David is my son,” she said.

“Of course he is,” Lady Hallmere said, sounding haughty and even somewhat bored, though her eyes regarded A