Mrs Kimble’s eyes sparked beneath the spectacles. “He said as he would adopt you, duck, to make up for what he’d done. I thought as he meant to take you into his home and bring you up like a proper lady. That’s what he said to the magistrate when he heard he’d left you an orphan. Him being a lord and all, Sir Bernard approved it. He was the magistrate then and he heard the case at Marlborough.”
“Was that Sir Bernard Pitshanger?” asked Raoul.
“Did you know him, my lord?”
“I’ve heard of him. My home is not very far from here.” Felicity caught his glance. “We might visit him, Miss Temple.”
But Nanny waved this away. “You can’t, my lord. He’s dead and gone now and all.”
Felicity’s brain was reeling. “But did this man give order for me to go with Lord Maskery?”
“Not as such, duck. He recommended it and he told me private it was likely the best for you. There wasn’t no one else, you see. Or I didn’t know of anyone then.” A darkling look accompanied this last.
The pitter-patter started up again in Felicity’s breast. “Then? Do you mean someone came for me afterwards?”
The frill to Nanny’s cap rippled as she nodded with vehemence. “Oh, yes, Flissie, he came all right. I hoped he’d found you and taken you back to where you rightfully belonged.”
Her heart sounded loud in her ears. “The Beast! Could it have been the Beast himself?”
Mrs Kimble’s astonishment was plain. “Beast, duck? Whatever do you mean?”
“It is what Papa called him in his journal. I’ve been reading it, you see. I don’t know who he was, but perhaps a relative of some kind?”
“Well, it wasn’t he who came. It was that Mr Rusper, as your pa were in the habit of popping off to see come quarter day.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Felicity’s gaze flew to Raoul, whose brows were raised in the very same realisation. “The very man we hoped to find!”
“Is that what you came for, duck? To find Mr Rusper?”
“And you, Nanny,” Felicity said, warmly clasping her hand between both her own. “You most of all. I knew you would be able to help me, if anyone could. You are the only person with whom I can talk of Papa, and you were the one who looked after me when he died.”
“I’d have kept you with me, duck, if you’d not been born a lady.”
“I wish you had, Nanny.”
“If that isn’t your sweet nature to say so, duck, but it wouldn’t have done, now, would it? Though it fair broke my heart to let you go, poor little mite, that I will say.” Wrung, Felicity could only press her hand, her throat tight. Mrs Kimble was obliged to remove her spectacles and wipe her eyes again. “You’ll forgive an old woman’s sensibility, I hope, my lord. I’m knocked acock with seeing my little Flissie again.”
“Very understandable, ma’am.” Raoul was at his blandest. “But here is your granddaughter with the coffee.”
The advent of Cissy bearing a tray afforded a much-needed respite, giving Felicity an opportunity to pull herself together and gather her wits. Under her grandmother’s direction, Cissy put the tray down on a sideboard and set about serving the visitors. By the time everyone, including Mrs Kimble, had been provided with a cup of coffee and Cissy dismissed, she was sufficiently mistress of herself to ask the questions burning on her tongue.
“What did Mr Rusper say when he found me gone, Nanny?”
Raoul intervened. “Just a moment. Why was not this fellow Rusper at the inquest, Mrs Kimble? If Mr Temple went to him at quarter day, he must have had an interest in the business.”
Nanny Kimble sighed. “It was most unfortunate timing, he said, for he was away on his round of visits to his clients. He only heard of the accident when he got back to Marlborough.”
“Ah, so that is where we can find him, is it?”
“I should think so, my lord. You see, poor Mr Temple’s accident was only reported in the local papers, and Mr Rusper said his clerk hadn’t the wit to send to him. Not that he’d have got back any the quicker, he said.”
“But when he found me gone, Nanny?”
Mrs Kimble sighed. “I don’t know, duck. He’s one of them closed types, who don’t show nothing of what they’re thinking, if you know what I mean.”
Felicity could not help throwing a significant glance at Raoul. “Yes, I know exactly what you mean.”
