One Night in London Read Online Free PDF Page B

thoughtful set to his lips. Then he sat forward in his chair. “Explain to me the family situation in detail. How did your niece come to be in the care of this woman?”
    She had his interest. Francesca breathed deeply to control her leaping pulse. “Several years ago my half sister, Giuliana, came to visit me from Italy. She had grown up there with our mother, while I was reared in England by my father’s sister. My mother,” she added quickly as a thin line creased his brow, “was Marcella Rescati, the Italian soprano. She married my father while in England, but after his death returned to Italy, where she married again, to Giuliana’s father.”
    “Ah,” he said, his expression turning keen. “I heard her sing in Florence, some years ago. Armida , I believe.”
    Francesca smiled in real pleasure. “One of her particular favorites!”
    “So,” he said briskly, returning to the main point, “you and your sister have different fathers.”
    She nodded. “Yes. Her life was quite different from mine, but I was very content here in England. I married and settled in London, and soon after, my sister came to visit. She was just seventeen, beautiful and vivacious. Within a month she had received several marriage proposals, and to my surprise she accepted one from Mr. John Haywood.”
    “Surprise?”
    “Because she was so new to England; her grasp of English was not complete, and although Mr. Haywood was an eligible match, he was several years older than she,” Francesca explained. “But she was determined, and Giuliana asked for and received her parents’ blessing. She married Mr. Haywood and had a child, her daughter Georgina, a year later.”
    “Haywood had money?” Wittiers queried.
    Francesca shook her head. “No, quite the contrary. He had connections, but little fortune of his own. Giuliana’s father was a very wealthy man, though, and had no other children; on her marriage he granted her a large allowance. At Georgina’s birth, he changed his will so that all the funds were settled on Georgina, with the income to Giuliana during her lifetime.”
    “No marriage settlement?”
    “There was one, of course, but I do not know the size. I suspect Giuseppe—Giuliana’s father—was wary of Mr. Haywood’s management. Mr. Haywood did not have a head for money.” That was putting it mildly, and Francesca had proof of her brother-in-law’s inability to account for his spending. Her sister had mentioned it often in letters. “Fortunately, Giuliana did,” she went on. “They lived a happy, comfortable life for some years. Georgina grew into a beautiful, unspoiled child. I was named godmother to her and visited often.”
    “Excellent,” he murmured.
    “Unfortunately their happiness was short-lived.” She had to steady her voice for this part of the story, a litany of deaths. “Giuliana died two years ago in childbed. I did my best to provide a maternal influence on Georgina, but my own husband died unexpectedly at the same time. Within a few months of my sister’s death, Mr. Haywood had married again, to a woman named Ellen Watts, so Georgina would have a mother. I was welcome in their home, and still visited as often as I could.”
    “Was this woman unkind to the girl?” Wittiers queried. “Was she cold?”
    Francesca hesitated. “Not that I could see,” she admitted. “Georgina did not seem neglected or unhappy. But then her father was killed in a riding accident last summer, and suddenly things changed.”
    “Not surprising, given the death of the father,” Wittiers pointed out. “How did his will leave the girl’s custody?”
    “He had not changed his will since my sister’s death. Giuliana was still named as the caretaker of their daughter, and Mr. Haywood’s brother as guardian—but he had also passed away. The Haywoods, it seems, have a tendency toward mortality. The court has not appointed anyone else yet. I believe, if there had been more money left to her, Mrs. Haywood would