The Tudor Signet Read Online Free PDF

She is drowsy, in no state for conversation.”
    “Not conversation. I wanted to speak to her about...the poacher.”
    “Oh, I asked her if she had seen the poacher who shot her. She was a little confused but she said quite clearly she had not. I fear we shall never discover the culprit.”
    Malcolm sincerely hoped not. The less anyone found out about the incident the better for all concerned.
    “She asked after her horse. I told her your groom had seen to it.”
    “He has,” agreed her brother a trifle grimly. He still was not sure how to get out of this mess of Jessup’s making.
    “Emily,” said Lilian, turning to her daughter, “pray go and practise your music, my love. Your uncle will excuse you.”
    “Yes, Mama.”
    She curtsied to Malcolm, who leaned forward and whispered in her ear, “Don’t forget to retrieve your needle before someone sits on it.”
    With a grateful glance for the reminder Emily went to the sofa and picked up her tambour. After a brief search and a pricked finger, she found the needle, held it up in triumph to her uncle, and left the room.
    Lilian watched with indulgence. “She is a good girl, Malcolm, and still a child in so many ways. That is what worries me. Of course I am glad you found Miss Bertrand and it was our duty to take her in, but she is not at all a suitable acquaintance for Emily, I fear.”
    “That was obvious from her dress,” he said curtly with the old, familiar feeling that nothing he did would ever win wholehearted approval from his family. The distant tinkle of a Clementi sonatina drove home the difference between his niece and the would-be highwayman. “I’m sorry to have imposed her upon you, but I saw no alternative.”
    “Indeed, there was none.” She wrinkled her nose at him, a youthful grimace which reminded him that she was the most sympathetic of his siblings as well as the closest in age. “I promise I do not mean to carp at you in an odious elder-sisterish way. Nor do I mean to imply that Miss Bertrand is in any way immoral or...or vicious. I should have heard if she were, for such tales circulate fast in the country. But there is no denying she has not the least notion of decorum, or even of propriety.”
    “How should she when--according to Emily at least--she has had no one to teach her?”
    “I don’t hold her to blame, Malcolm! In fact, I blame myself to some degree. When first I learned she had no female companion but the servants, I felt I ought to suggest to Mr. Barwith that he hire a governess. I shall always regret that I did not speak.”
    “Why did you not?”
    “I let Frederick persuade me that interference would be impertinent, and of course in those days we were seldom here.” She sighed. “When he died and I came to live here, first there was all the fuss with Mama and Papa over whether I should go home to Ashminster...”
    “And since then you have been fully occupied in overseeing the estate and bringing up your daughter,” he said gently. “Miss Bertrand must have been too old for a governess by then in any case. You are no more to blame than she is herself.”
    “Perhaps not. That is little comfort in my present predicament.”
    “Surely it will not be difficult to keep her and Emily apart? Emily strikes me as a biddable young lady. Tell her not to visit Miss Bertrand’s bedside.” He had no intention of being likewise banned from the girl’s chamber. “When your patient is fit to leave her room, you may send her home.”
    By then he’d have worked out how to give back the signet ring without arousing her suspicions.
    “Yes.” Lilian sounded doubtful. “Only I am afraid she will be able to leave before she is fully healed and she will not get proper care at home.”
    “This Barwith sounds like a curst rum touch!”
    “Oh no, merely excessively absentminded. It was generous of him to give Miss Bertrand a home. Emily told you he is her uncle? She is not actually related by blood, you know.”
    “She’s