“I don’t understand. Wouldn’t he accept the letter I gave you?”
“He accepted it, but his manner was a dashed sight too havey-cavey for my money.”
“Havey-cavey?” To her surprise and consternation, Alex began to look a little uncomfortable. A horrid presentiment shot into Apple’s head and she spoke without thinking. “He told you I am not really John Greenaway’s daughter!”
Alex’s head shot up and he regarded her with wary eyes. “What makes you say that?”
She drew a shaky breath, unable to meet his gaze. “I suspected it a long time ago. I asked Papa if I was adopted, but he denied it. Only — only it always seemed to me there was something … secrets … things I wasn’t allowed to know. And I don’t look anything like Papa or even Mama’s picture, for I hardly remember what she looked like. She was fair and he had reddish hair and — and although he claimed there are dark ancestors, I’ve never seen a single portrait to support that.”
She stopped, wishing she’d held her tongue. She’d never spoken of these fears to anyone before. She dared to raise her eyes to Alex’s and found him looking both thoughtful and all too severe.
“Is it — is it true, Alex?”
The alarming look vanished and he smiled. With an effort, Apple thought.
“I’ve no notion, Apple. Vergette didn’t say so at all events.”
“What did he say? I wish you won’t try to hide anything.”
“I’m not, I promise you. Just that there’s so little to tell. It was his attitude that gave me to think. But he says he’ll tell you everything after your birthday.”
“Yes, but what did he say?”
Alex sighed. “Said he didn’t serve your father, only you. He also said the business about the trust coming to an end if you were wed while a minor is nonsense.”
“Is it? Then they had it wrong!”
“Looks like it. Vergette maintains the trust is purely for your benefit and it don’t matter what your status is. Said there are articles in it — don’t ask what, for he wouldn’t say — and you’ve only to decide what you want. Nothing to do with anyone else.”
The rhythm of Apple’s pulses became uneven, her heart jumping. “Then I will have an independence!”
“Seems so.”
Her burgeoning excitement dipped. “Seems?”
Alex threw up his hands. “Can’t be sure, Apple. Vergette let slip the word fortune, but retracted it at once.”
Her mind blanked. “Fortune?”
He laughed. “I took him just that way. Vergette insisted he meant it in terms of your future rather than funds, but I’m inclined to believe it is money.”
“Then I need only wait for my birthday to be free of the Greenaways forever!”
Alex frowned again. “Ain’t that simple, Apple. You have to live somewhere.”
“No, I don’t. At least,” she amended, “only until I can arrange what I mean to do. And if I have the funds, I can stay at an hotel.”
“Not without a chaperon you can’t.”
“Oh, I have that covered, don’t worry.”
Elation was rising within her. She’d never truly thought she might be able to carry out her scheme. The dreaming images she’d long carried flitted through her head, but for some reason they did not hold quite the same allure.
She came to herself to find Alex regarding her with suspicion. “What?”
“You have it covered, you said.”
She blinked. “Have what covered?”
