Today's Reading
Managing to step back just in time, Giselle hurried over to the settee to take a seat beside her mother. The maid nodded to them as she entered and bustled over to set down the tray before bustling out again.
"Shall I pour the tea, Maman?" Giselle asked.
"There's no coffee?" her mother asked.
"The English mostly drink tea," Giselle reminded her.
"Bah, I hate tea," her mother complained.
"I know you do. But English tea is stronger than French, so you might enjoy it more."
As Giselle poured her a cup, her mother said, "Hmm. We shall see."
Giselle added the same amount of sugar that her mother preferred to have in coffee. "The English even prepare their tea differently. Fortunately, my sister has taught me how to make a proper English tea."
"The duke's wife, you mean. Your half sister."
Giselle sighed. "Yes, Maman. My half sister." Whose father was your lover once, the man whom you refused to marry.
No, she could never say that to her mother, who grew more ashamed of her past the older she got. At least she had borne Giselle within the confines of a legitimate marriage, with only Maman—and eventually Giselle's real father, Monsieur Morris—knowing Giselle had not been conceived within the marriage.
So, the world thought Giselle was legitimate, and Giselle had thought the same. Until she had met Monsieur Morris. After that, she had come to England and acquired her wonderful English family—Tory and her little brother Cyril and the rest of them—who had accepted her and been kind to her and made her feel welcome in her new home. Now that she had them, she never wanted to lose them.
Fine. She would do whatever she must to gain the earl's help, short of letting him take her innocence. Because if he could not help them, all was lost, anyway.
And she did not think she could bear that loss this time.
CHAPTER TWO
After showing Pitney out, Heathbrook climbed the steps of his town house, fighting to regain control of his anger as he unfolded the piece of paper Pitney had scribbled on and passed to him on their way out.
Yates rides with the lads in Hyde Park every afternoon at 3:30.
As I told you, I have my own spies.
Heathbrook blinked, then shook his head ruefully. Pitney was proving to be a very helpful attorney, even if he 'was' going a bit far to keep his information from being overheard.
Well, the least Heathbrook could do was follow the man's advice and strive for better regulation of his own emotions. To be fair, however, he'd had two reasons for anger: not only his late father's refusal to trust him, but also Yates's idiocy. Yates could have just handed guardianship over to him, but no, the arse had insisted on hanging on to it ... and in the process, hanging on to the boys' property until at least Evan, the oldest, came of age. That alone made him suspect in Heathbrook's eyes.
All right, so the man 'was' Mother's cousin. Still, Heathbrook refused to call Frederick Yates "my cousin" himself, although technically the man was his first cousin once removed. Until Father had listed Yates as guardian in his will, Heathbrook had only known him by the moniker Mother had given him: Frigid Freddy. Heathbrook's image of the man had been of a cold fish who'd never married because no woman could warm to him.
So far, Heathbrook's limited dealings with the older fellow had confirmed that image. Was such a man, with the inability to show even familial affection, fit to look after Evan, Kit, and Zachary? Not bloody likely. Heathbrook's very occasional spates of bad temper—or his youthful mistakes—did not compare.
The worst of it was that even if Pitney's investigators could discover how Yates was looting the boys' property, the Court of Chancery would still have to do their own due diligence to make sure Yates was unfit. And as Pitney had said, the court wasn't known for their speed.
Well, at least he had a chance now at seeing how the boys looked. Perhaps he could go riding in Hyde Park and pretend to encounter them by chance.
He entered the house. Or should he just—
"My lord," his new butler said. Good God, the fellow had been hovering about ever since he and Pitney had left the study.
This excerpt ends on page 12 of the paperback edition.
Monday we begin the book A Latte Like Love by Michelle C. Harris.
Join the Library's Online Book Clubs and start receiving chapters from popular books in your daily email. Every day, Monday through Friday, we'll send you a portion of a book that takes only five minutes to read. Each Monday we begin a new book and by Friday you will have the chance to read 2 or 3 chapters, enough to know if it's a book you want to finish. You can read a wide variety of books including fiction, nonfiction, romance, business, teen and mystery books. Just give us your email address and five minutes a day, and we'll give you an exciting world of reading.