“Only at night,” Tessa said.The child became quite clingy at night and seemed anxious not to be left alone.Tessa usually lulled her to sleep, cuddled on her lap, and then Marcus would carry her to bed, accompanied by Clothilde.
“She’ll soon learn that we’re not going to abandon her,” Marcus said.
“Do you think it’s true, what that man said, about her sleeping with the dog?”
He shrugged.“No way to know.But it’s all in the past now.At least she’s talking more.Even some words in English.”He looked at her.“No regrets?”
“Never,” she assured him, her arms wrapped around the little girl.“You?”
“None.”
“I wonder what your aunt will say when she sees her.”
Marcus gave a half-smile.“We’ll just have to wait and see.”
“She won’t be nasty about it, will she?I would hate Flora to be upset.”It was a worry.Lady Gosforth was a terrible snob.Tessa hated to imagine what she would think of her nephew—the head of his family—arriving home from his honeymoon with a strange child.
Herniece, Tessa reminded herself.They must never reveal how they’d actually found her.An illegitimate, half-English foundling—in the home of an earl?Unthinkable!
No, she was the legitimate daughter of Tessa’s late brother, Louis.
Tessa smoothed Flora’s hair.In Genappe she had tidied Flora’s haircut with her nail scissors and she looked quite sweet.And she was clean now, and not so scrawny as she had been.
She was a bright, pretty little girl, with big blue eyes and pale blonde hair that would curl when it grew.And when she smiled—which happened more frequently every day—it lit up her little face.How could anyone be nasty to her?And if Lady Gosforth dared...Well, Tessa would show her!
#
“THERE THEY ARE, THEwhite cliffs of Dover.”Marcus stood at the rail of his yacht, Flora held firmly against his chest, the other arm around Tessa.The voyage had, thankfully, been quite swift, but to Tessa’s dismay, the sea had been rough and she had been miserably ill, only recovering slightly in the last hour when Marcus brought her on deck.The fresh air helped but she was still unsteady on her feet.
“They’re more gray than white, aren't they?”She leaned against him, still feeling a trifle queasy.
“It depends on the light.In some lights they can be positively dazzling, but when it’s overcast, as it is today, they’re less so.But for most Englishmen it’s their first sight of home, and a very welcome one.”
They disembarked, made a very swift pass through Customs—the benefit of being married to an earl—and found Marcus’s carriage waiting for them.Soon they’d be in London.
Tessa wasn’t sure whether she was excited or not.It all depended on how Lady Gosforth treated Flora.
