“I won’t be going anywhere.”
“But you just said—”
“I’m not going anywhere. But Miss Perkins and the children will be going to Southend. I’ll make all of the arrangements.” Edgar leapt up from his desk. “There’s no time like the present.”
Grafton gave him a skeptical look. “Sending her away won’t make your feelings for her disappear.”
“Who said anything about feelings? This is mere physical attraction. Out of sight, out of mind.”
“Absence makes the heart grow fonder.”
Edgar groaned. “Grafton, are we spouting proverbs at each other?”
“It appears that way.”
“She leaves, Grafton.” Edgar swept a pile of shattered pencils into the bin. “The sooner the better.”
Chapter 14
Mari’s heart hammered as she read the sign.
Arthur Shadwell, Esquire. Engraved on an ordinary plate on an ordinary door on one of the endless rows of brick buildings in Cheapside.
This was her first off day, and she was going to make the most of it. The quest that had begun after Mrs. Crowley made her confession had led her here, to this door, this possibility. The knowledge she craved more than anything. The true reason she was here in London.
The tendrils of connection forming between her and the children were undeniable, and she very much hoped she would have the chance to nurture them into fruition.
But the connection she felt with the duke? An utter impossibility. She mustn’t go around thinking that she and Banksford shared anything other than his roof.
Yesterday, he’d made it very clear that he thought of her as an inconvenience.
All of these desires he evoked in her were dangerous in the extreme.
If visiting this lawyer became an opportunity for her, she must take it.
This could change everything. Could she be an heiress? That wasn’t likely, but it did happen in novels, sometimes. But if she were an heiress, then the lawyer had been searching for her because someone had died.
She hoped that wasn’t the case, because what she longed for most of all was a connection with her past, someone who might be able to tell her the story of her birth, and why she had been left at the orphanage.
Yes, a person would be far preferable to a fortune.
She wouldn’t find out anything if she didn’t go inside.
Either she would find answers, or she wouldn’t. Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst; that way she wouldn’t be disappointed.
She adjusted Lady India’s blue velvet-lined bonnet so that the brim sat farther back on her head. She needed a full range of vision. Her life may be about to change forever.
A young man with a sloppy cravat and rumpled hair answered her ring. “Yes? May I help you?” he asked.
“Mr. Arthur Shadwell?”
“Yes.”
She’d expected someone older, she didn’t know why. Probably because the lawyer had visited the orphanage several years past and this fellow looked barely out of university, his face spotted with red blemishes.
“May I come in and speak with you for a moment, Mr. Shadwell?”
He eyed the gold buttons on her pelisse and seemed to make up his mind that she was well worth his time. His manner changed completely. “Miss...?”