Summer's Awakening Read Online Free PDF

meet my niece and take responsibility for her until she can look after herself.'
    Summer blinked at him incredulously. This was a turn of events she hadn't envisaged. She couldn't believe he was serious.
    'How can you disclaim the title?'
    'Easily. Lord Home disclaimed his in order to become Prime Minister. So did Lord Hailsham when he wanted to sit in the House of Commons. All that has to be done is to send an instrument of disclaimer to the Lord Chancellor. I shall do that later today.'
    'But why? What's wrong with a title? What's wrong with tradition?' she protested, still too shocked to think before she spoke. 'If you don't want to use it, you needn't. But to throw it away... to reject it—'
    'I don't think what I choose to do is your concern,' he said coldly. 'And I don't expect you to discuss it with anyone else. I particularly want to avoid the kind of sensational publicity drummed up by the tabloids. No public announcement will be made until after I've left the country. Meantime, in private, I prefer to be called by the name I'm known by in America. James Gardiner. Spelt G-a-r-d-i-n-e-r.'
    When she didn't speak, he went on, 'It's been my name for ten years. I adopted it as my legal surname before I became an American citizen.'
    Summer found her voice. 'What made you choose the name Gardiner?'
    The broad shoulders shrugged. 'It was the name of a man I admired when I was a boy. An English military engineer who went to America as a colonist in the seventeenth century.'
    She said huskily, 'Lion Gardiner of Gardiner's Island.'
    'Yes—how do you know about him?'
    'There's a book up on the gallery— Lion Gardiner And His Descendants. Emily has read it. He's rather a hero of hers.' She refrained from adding—and of mine.
    'Is that so?' His expression was warmer than it had been some moments earlier. 'I should think she and I are probably the only people who have opened it since it found its way here. I must—' He was interrupted by the telephone. 'Excuse me.'
    She was already on her feet when, putting his hand over the mouthpiece, he said to her, 'This is a long distance call which may take quite a while. We'll continue our conversation later.'
    On her way back to Emily's room, Summer still found it hard to credit his intention to repudiate his heritage.
    Clearly he had done well for himself in America. Equally clearly he still felt resentment and bitterness towards his father. Perhaps he had been harshly treated. But it was a long time ago—too long to bear a grudge. There had been times, in her teens, when she had hated her aunt. Now that she was older, she pitied her.
    Madame de Staël, the brilliant society hostess whom Napoleon had banished from Paris, had been correct when she wrote, Tout comprendre c'est tout pardonner. To understand all is to forgive all.
    It had been old Dr Dyer, the local GP, who had been her aunt's medical adviser, who had made Summer understand her aunt's sour, relentless nature and, understanding it, forgive its effect on her own life.
    As it happened, later that day Dr Dyer came to Cranmere, first to attend to a housemaid who had scalded her arm, and then to give Emily a polio booster.
    He was semi-retired; the practice being run by his son except for a few special patients and calls to Cranmere.
    When Emily told him about her uncle's arrival, which perhaps he had already heard about while he was downstairs, he said, 'I wouldn't mind having a pound for every time I patched up Lord James, as he was then. He was always risking his neck in some foolhardy escapade.'
    Emily's hazel eyes widened. 'What sort of escapades?
    The old man chuckled. 'You'll have to ask him. I can't tell you. A doctor must respect his patients' confidences.'
    As he spoke there was a knock at the door and the subject of their conversation joined them.
    He had lunched with his niece and her tutor, but had spent the afternoon in conclave with the senior partner of his family's lawyers, whom he had summoned from London