“Something like that. Then I moved here, because letting a place in Richmond would be much less, and there weren’t so much competition.”
“Where were you when you met the duke?”
Rosamund’s back stiffened. “Is it a requirement of receiving the legacy for me to give my whole history?” She regretted how snappish she sounded.
Mrs. Radnor seemed not to notice. “Goodness no. I, for one, was most grateful for that. I did not mean to pry.” She removed two more cards from her reticule. “Here is the solicitor you must see to obtain the inheritance. This is my personal card. We are sisters of a sort, aren’t we, as two women to whom the late duke gave unexpected gifts? When you come up to Town, please call on me if I can aid you in any way. In fact, if you write to me when you are coming, I will invite you to stay with me.”
Rosamund took the cards with unsteady fingers.
“Are you in such shock that you are not even curious about the amount of the legacy?” her guest asked gently.
“Whatever it be will be more than I’ve got now.” Maybe it would be enough to open that London shop she dreamed of, though. Or even to help with her sister’s future. Those ideas gave her thinking firmer legs. “It would be nice to know if it comes close to a hundred. That would go far with some plans I have.”
“It is a good deal more than that, Miss Jameson. You have inherited many thousands of pounds.”
Thousands of pounds.Rosamund had to concentrate on breathing in order to get any air inside her body.
“Furthermore, there is a business in which the duke was a half owner. He left his half to you.”
“The duke . . . had a millinery shop?”
Mrs. Radnor reached over with a smile and laid her hand on Rosamund’s. “Not a millinery business. Quite different. Please arrange to come up to London as soon as possible. I will help you settle all of this in a timely way.”
Rosamund let out a laugh, and then had the horrible suspicion that she was about to burst into tears. Instead she grasped Rosamund’s hand with both of hers and said, “I will leave for London as soon as I can stand without fainting.”
Chapter Two
Two weeks later, Kevin Radnor again rode his horse through Mayfair to his cousin Chase’s house. Despite his agitation, which more than equaled that on his last visit, his progress was slow. Society had begun arriving in Town for the Season and roads that had been blissfully peaceful for months were now clogged with wagons and carriages.
He jumped off his horse upon arrival, threw the reins to a groom, and showed no more ceremony than the last time in entering. The butler merely pointed him toward the morning room.
Chase and Minerva had only moved here recently, so he strode through chambers sparsely furnished until he arrived at the light and airy morning room that overlooked the garden.
“Where is she?” he asked by way of announcing his abrupt arrival.
His cousin Chase glanced at him, then finished drinking the coffee in the cup at his mouth.
“How good to see you, Kevin. And so early too.” Minerva made a display of turning to look at a clock on a small corner table. “Why, it isn’t even ten o’clock.”
He was in no mood for Minerva’s sarcasm. “Chase wrote that Miss Jameson was coming up to Town yesterday, and that you had offered her hospitality, so I know the woman is in this house.”
“She is at that,” Minerva said. “Only she came two days ago and yesterday visited the solicitor. Right now she is in her chamber, probably sleeping.”
He pivoted toward the door.
“Stop.” Chase’s command caught him in mid stride.
Chase’s blue eyes glared when Kevin looked back at him.
“Sit.You cannot go up there, throw open a door, and have the conversation you want,” Chase said. “I understand your impatience, but you will have to wait a little longer.”
“I have waited a year, damn it. AndI found her.”Hehad. Not Chase, the investigator charged with finding these mystery women their uncle had bequeathed fortunes to. Not Chase, whose profession was to conduct inquiries. Not Minerva either, who also had that profession, peculiar as that was.
Minerva gave him a sympathetic look that reminded him of the kind a nurse gives a tired child throwing a tantrum. “Why don’t you have some breakfast?”
He grudgingly went to the sideboard and made a plate of eggs and cakes for himself. The footman brought coffee when he sat across from Chase. His mind, however, was preoccupied with the upper floors of the house, where the woman who held his future in her hands slept peacefully, unlike his own sleepless nights of late.
The food helped him find some equanimity.
