Dorothy Eden Read Online Free PDF Page A

the moment. For she, too, had her triumph. Now she could return to Mallow Hall. How soon, she wondered, could she tactfully request her son to pay her debts?
    ‘Blane, my dear, I’m so happy! Not that I doubted for a moment. Truth must be acknowledged.’
    ‘It can also be twisted. My cousin Ambrose would have liked to do that.’
    ‘With his crafty legal mind! And you realise I might have lost my home to him?’
    ‘Yes, we all realise what you haven’t lost, Mamma.’
    The deep voice, full of amusement and significance, made Lady Malvina lift her head haughtily.
    ‘And you, too, my son.’
    Blane began to laugh, his head thrown back, his laughter hearty and uninhibited. Reluctantly, because she was still so unsure of him, she joined in. Then the humour of the situation struck her, and her raucous voice sounded above him.
    ‘What are we laughing at?’ she demanded at last.
    ‘The fact that all our differences are over. You’ve forgotten what an unpleasant child I was, and you’re truly happy to have me home.’
    Lady Malvina nodded, quiet for a moment.
    Then she asked, ‘Have you told your wife?’
    ‘Not yet.’
    ‘But you must. She must be even more anxious than I. Bring her up here. We must have a celebration. Ask Tomkins to put some champagne on ice. We might give Titus a glass. It wouldn’t hurt the child.’
    ‘Lord, no. It wouldn’t hurt him. And he shares the celebration. After all, he’s the heir.’
    ‘Yes,’ said Lady Malvina with intense satisfaction. ‘The heir.’
    ‘You won’t have him running off to sea, Mamma.’
    ‘Not if I can help it. Not that it doesn’t seem to have done you some good.’ She put her head on one side, studying his splendid figure. He wore his black frock coat and striped neckcloth just that much better than any other man she had seen, with a certain casual air that suggested the clothes were important, but subtly less important than the form they covered. He would have all the young women swooning. Did he make his wife swoon? One couldn’t tell what went on behind her secretive face. It was a pity she was not some nice English girl to whom one could talk and grow fond of.
    ‘Do you remember Maria?’ she asked suddenly, at random.
    ‘Maria?’
    ‘The gamekeeper’s daughter. With the fair curls.’
    She saw that he did not remember. His eyes had gone blank.
    ‘Although you were only fourteen you wanted to marry her,’ she said slowly. ‘You loved her deeply, you said.’
    ‘Mamma, if I remembered all the girls I’ve imagined myself in love with—’
    She shook her head stubbornly.
    ‘One usually remembers the first. But it was before your accident, certainly.’
    ‘Then let’s not think of Maria when Amalie’s waiting impatiently.’
    ‘No, go and get her and Titus. I want to see my grandchild.’
    He turned to obey. He had reached the door before she called to him. He paused, standing there in the richly appointed room that had been built exactly to her late husband’s requirements, with marble sculptured in Italy for the fireplace, an elaborately carved and gilded ceiling, and woodwork of the finest mahogany. A great deal of money, time and loving care had been put into this house. It would not be pleasant, Lady Malvina was thinking involuntarily, if it were to be occupied by an impostor.
    ‘What is it, Mamma? You wanted to ask me something?’
    ‘Are you—’ her voice was thick and uneasy. ‘Tell me, are you really my son?’
    He came to kneel before her. He offered his face to the full glow of the gaslight. She could look as closely as she wished at the unfamiliar lean brown cheeks, the superb brows, the long high-bridged nose.
    The nose was her own, surely…The boy she remembered had had dark eyes. But had they been of such intense brilliant darkness as these? Had that unformed sixteen-year-old face given promise of this bony splendid structure? The colouring, the scar beneath the left ear, the look of arrogance—that was all. It was