Sheri Cobb South Read Online Free PDF Page A

“What, pray, do you think you’re doing?”
    “Why, trying to make your sister feel at home,” she said, baffled by his odd behavior.
    “I ‘aven’t got a sister,” he informed her.
    “I don’t understand you, Ethan. I should have thought you would want a family of your own.”
    “I’ve all the family I need in you, ‘elen,” he said, more gently this time.
    “But your sister—”
    “‘elen, five years ago, I in’erited a cotton mill. Overnight I was a wealthy man, and suddenly I’d more relatives than I could count—each with an ‘ard-luck story and an ‘and ‘eld out.”
    Lady Helen’s green eyes grew round. “You think Miss Crump is lying?”
    “I don’t just think it, love. I know she is.”
    “But she knew your birth name—something your own wife didn’t know, for that matter,” she reminded him.
    “Oh, she’s thorough, I’ll grant ‘er that. I’d give a monkey to know where she got ‘er information.”
    “But Ethan, we can hardly toss her out into the street!”
    “Watch me,” said Mr. Brundy, reaching for the doorknob.
    “Wait!” Moving quickly to block his path, Lady Helen grasped the lapels of his baggy coat. “Darling, I haven’t forgotten how perfectly dreadful I was to you when you first came to Town. I don’t want to make the same mistake with your sister.”
    “That girl is no more me sister than you are!” he insisted. “Tell me, ‘ow old would you sayme ‘sister’ is?”
    Lady Helen considered the question. “Very nearly my own age, I should say. Perhaps a little younger—nineteen or twenty.”
    “Which would mean she must be at least eight years younger than I am,” he concluded. “But me mum died when I was six. Unless she found a way to bear a child two years after ‘er death—”
    “But what if your mother didn’t die, Ethan?” asked Lady Helen as a new thought struck her. “What if she discovered she was to have another child, and hoped to prevail upon the father to marry her, so—”                                  
    Mr. Brundy stared at his wife as if she had just struck him. “You’re saying me mum put me in the work’ouse because I was in the way!”
    Seeing his stricken look, she quickly backed away from a suggestion that could only bring her husband pain. Although she still did not consider such a scenario beyond the realm of possibility, she would not hurt him for the world. “Or perhaps she was not dead,” she added hastily. “Perhaps she was very ill, or—or injured, and only recovered after you had already been taken from   her—”
    “Or per’aps I’m being taken advantage of by a scheming little adventuress ‘oo wants to get ‘er ‘ands on me money,” he finished for her.
    “But what could she possibly hope to gain by such a deception?”
    “Think of it, love: I’m a rich man, probably the only such in England with no way of disproving her claims, and me wife is the daughter of a dook. Depend on it, she thinks she’s found a way to foist ‘erself onto Society.”
    “Like you did, in other words,” was Lady Helen’s observation.
    “At least I paid me own way!” pointed out her husband.
    “And could do the same for a dozen others, if you wished!”
    “Aye, but I don’t wish!” retorted Mr. Brundy.
    “No, you would deny your sister the same privileges that you take for granted! I never knew you could be so—so selfish!”
    “I am not selfish, and that girl is not me sister! For God’s sake, look at ‘er! We don’t look anything alike!”
    Until that moment, Lady Helen had never heard her husband raise his voice, and was momentarily taken aback by his vehemence. “Shhh! She’ll hear you!” she urged, glancing furtively at the closed door. “In any case, Ethan, many people bear little resemblance to their siblings. Perhaps she resembles your mother instead.”
    “ I resemble me mother! That’s why she could never be certain ‘oo me father was.”
    “Well,