Marrying the Mistress Read Online Free PDF Page B

an heir. You obliged. And I fell for it like an idiot. Like a resentful birthday-gift-starved fool. I paid for it, too.’
    â€˜You got Jamie. He was what you wanted. Don’t deny it.’
    â€˜But one does like to have a say, nowadays, in who the father is to be. Even mistresses appreciate some warning of that event.’
    â€˜Think about it,’ he snapped. ‘Had you been warned , as you put it, there’d have been no Jamie, would there?’
    â€˜No, my lord. There most certainly would not.’ I had to admit defeat on that brief skirmish, and I had no stomach for a prolonged argument on the topic. I closed my eyes with a sigh, holding a gloved hand to my forehead. ‘This will not do,’ I whispered. ‘It’s too soon for recriminations. Or too late. I’m tired. It’s time I went home.’
    He watched me, saying nothing as I recovered.
    â€˜I know there will be changes,’ I said. ‘I’ve had time to prepare for them, whatever they are. And thank you for your offer of a loan, but I think we shall manage for the time being. I also owe you thanks for allowing me access to Linas at the end. That was generous too, and…and appreciated…’ My voice wavered and caught at the back of my throat, dissolving the last word. I took some deep breaths to steady it.
    â€˜It was no more than you deserve. It was your careful nursing that kept him alive longer than his doctors had predicted.’
    â€˜I think it’s more likely to be Jamie who did that.’
    â€˜Yes, that too. Jamie was your other gift to him. Linas was a very fortunate man. He told me so more than once.’
    â€˜Did he?’ I remarked, tonelessly, wistfully.
    â€˜Did he never tell you so?’
    â€˜No. Not even at the end. I think the pain made him forgetful. Or perhaps he thought I was the fortunateone. I don’t know. It doesn’t really matter now, does it? But I mean what I say about not hearing the will read, my lord. I would be out of place. I am not family and I have few expectations, except for Jamie, having fulfilled the role I was employed to do, to everyone’s satisfaction.’
    â€˜You were not employed in any capacity, Miss Follet. You were my brother’s partner. It was his decision not to marry when he discovered he had so few years to live, and our family agreed that for him to do so would serve no useful purpose.’
    â€˜Rather like good farm management, I suppose. You see, I am well able to think it out for myself, Lord Winterson. Having a mistress to support for just a few years was safer than taking on a wife. Linas preferred an illegitimate heir able to legally inherit and keep his estate intact, to a widow who would remarry and siphon it off into another man’s pockets. But don’t tell me that I was not employed, for that is certainly what I was, and I shall not sit with you round a table to be told that my golden goose has gone and left me nothing except my bastard child to care for. You may be very sure I shall guard my only treasure against any attempt to siphon him off into another man’s pocket. He may be the Monkton heir, but he is also my only legacy. Mine , my lord.’
    I should not have said it, not then when emotions were so raw, Linas barely out of earshot, and both of us so tired. But my resentments were begging for release, freeing up words that I should have kept tightly controlled, as I had always done. I could have blamed my outspokenness on my northern roots, but that wastoo easy an excuse. So I held my breath and waited for him to retaliate in the usual Winterson fashion, with a set-down meant to silence me for months. Which he had every right to do.
    His reply, when it emerged, was a calm reiteration of his claim. ‘And he is mine too, Helene. Linas has made me his legal guardian and you will have to get used to the idea, like it or not.’
    â€˜I don’t like it.’
    â€˜But I