... the minor child you all want.
I daresay you love her.
I find for Lieutenant Colonel and Mrs. Bennington as the parents of the child and therefore her natural guardians.
Perhaps only seconds passed before Gil loosened his hold on Abigail and became fully aware again of his surroundings. The Pascoes were still behind their table. The general was saying something to their lawyer, but they were all beginning to turn away. Beauty still sat beside their own table, her tongue lolling, her tail thumping on the floor. The Westcotts were turning to one another, shaking hands, hugging. The Marchioness of Dorchester was making her way toward Harry. And...
At the back of the room stood a stranger, tall, dark, though his hair was silvering, probably in his mid- to late fifties. A stranger Gil was seeing for the first time. A stranger whose voice he had heard for the first time a short while ago.
He stared at his father for the span of a few seconds before movement caught the corner of his eye and he turned his attention back to the Pascoes, who were following their lawyer from the room. Gil grasped Abigail’s hand just as Grimes began to address some remark to them, and they moved away from the table together, stepping around Beauty.
“General,” Gil called in the voice that had always made itself heard on a parade ground.
“Lady Pascoe,” Abby called at the same moment.
They turned back, their faces masks of hauteur.
“Sir. Ma’am,” Gil said, not even noticing that silence had fallen upon the rest of the room. “I believe we should hold that private meeting Judge Burroughs suggested.”
“For what purpose, Bennington?” the general asked. “You have got what you want. What more is there to be said? You wish to gloat?”
Abby answered before Gil could. “You are Katy’s grandparents,” she said. “You have loved her and cared for her for two years. She knows you and loves you. She must continue to do so. Family is... oh, it is more important than anything else in this world. A child’s affections should not be torn between her parents and her grandparents. She ought not to be made to choose, and no one should choose for her. Please let us sit down and talk, remembering that this is all about Katy far more than it is about any of us. Come to the Pulteney Hotel, where we are staying. Come for tea this evening or tomorrow morning or afternoon if you would prefer.”
Lady Pascoe glared back at them, her chin high, her eyes cold, her mouth a thin line—an expression that was all too familiar to her son-in-law. General Pascoe looked long and hard at Abby and then in the same way at Gil.
“Tomorrow morning,” he said curtly, holding Gil’s gaze. “At ten o’clock.”
“At our home,” his wife added.
Both of them turned away again and left the room without looking back.
Gil released Abby’s hand and swung about to look at the other people in the room. All Westcotts. No one else.
His father was gone.
He held up a staying hand when it looked as though Abby’s mother was about to come hurrying toward them.
“I believed,” he said, “indeed I still believe, that I did you all a wrong by allowing you to befriend me during that week at Hinsford when I did not explain to you who I was or where or how I grew up. It did not seem a very terriblewrong, however, as I expected never to see any of you again. But then I compounded it infinitely by marrying Abby. When I came here to London and refused to attend the family celebration Lord and Lady Hodges wished to arrange for us, I did so not out of any fear that I would be rejected and made to feel my social inferiority, but out of a concern that I would be stretching your good nature beyond a limit. It seemed to me that Abby could remain on good terms with her family while I kept my proper distance. It would appear I have been wrong about everything and that Abby has been right about her family all along. You are not going to let me go, are you?”
“I believe, Lieutenant Colonel Bennington,” Lady Matilda Westcott said. “No, enough of that cumbersome title when you are family. I believe,Gilbert, that we might all have been here today even if you hadnotmarried Abigail. You were extraordinarily kind to Harry, and you were every bit the courteous gentleman when we all went to visit him. You were patient and good with the children. We all noticed it. Mama, do sit down and allow me to wrap your shawl more closely about your shoulders. There was a draft when—when someone opened the door behind us a short while ago.”
Anna came toward Abby then to hug her, and the Marquess of Dorchester came to shake Gil by the hand and inform him that he and his wife were delighted that they were soon going to be able to welcome yet another grandchild into their family in the form of young Katy. The marchioness was demanding of Harry why on earth he had risked his health by coming all the way to London in person when a letter would surely have done just as well. Beauty, released at last from the command to both sit and stay, did a couple of exuberant dashes about the room before accepting the invitation to become acquaintedwith Lady Hodges and better acquainted with Lady Jessica Archer.
And reality struck Gil again with the force of a bolt of lightning.
I find for Lieutenant Colonel and Mrs. Bennington as the parents of the child and therefore her natural guardians.
He was going to seeKatyagain. Soon. He and Abby were going to take herhomewith them. He was going toseeher. And hear her voice.
Hisdaughter.
But—
“Who invited Viscount Dirkson here?” he asked of no one in particular. “How did he evenknowabout this?”
Quiet prevailed again while everyone waited for someone else to answer.
“I believe perhaps it was I,” young Bertrand said. “I happened to hear that his son—I mean Adrian,anotherson—was in town and I thought I would go and see him. We were quite close friends at Oxford, though he finished there the year before I did. I called on him and we talked. His father was there too. I suppose I happened to mention your name, Lieutenant Colonel. In connection with Abby, perhaps. And I daresay I mentionedthis.” He gestured vaguely at the room about them.
