A Strange Likeness by Paula Marshall Read Free Book Online Page B

Consequently, the next afternoon Eleanor took the Stantons’ carriage and was driven to Russell Square, where the Lorings, Alan’s cousins, lived.
    They were all at home: tea was just being served. Victor, who had been about to go out, put down his gloves, hat and cane when she was announced, and returned to the drawing room.
    â€˜I’ve decided to stay for tea after all,’ he said.
    He was already half in love with Eleanor, and the fact that she was Sir Hartley Hatton’s granddaughter, and would have a good dowry when she married and stood to inherit even more when the old man died, was an attraction to a man whose family was perennially short of money.
    Eleanor was not sure how much she liked Victor. At first she had been drawn to him, because he was not only tall and dark, but handsome as well. Unfortunately he did not improve on further acquaintance, and if she was not sure whether or not she wished to marry Stacy she had no doubt that Victor would not do as a husband. Hismanner to his mother and his sister was frequently unpleasant and dismissive.
    That his manner to Eleanor was always charming and courteous somehow made matters worse, not better. Only pity for Caroline kept her friendly with the Lorings at all. Victor, armoured in conceit, was quite unaware of her aversion to him.
    Today the conversation turned immediately to the question of Hester Dilhorne’s claim to the Waring fortune and estates. It was like a sore tooth to Victor, and to a lesser extent to his mother and sister. Their father had already succumbed—at a relatively early age—to his dissolute life. He had been a boon companion of Ned Hatton’s father and uncle.
    Before Eleanor had time to tell them that she had met Hester Dilhorne’s son, Victor exclaimed viciously, in the middle of a long tirade, ‘How do we know that the dam’d woman, her felon husband, and the whole Dilhorne family aren’t gross impostors anyway?’
    â€˜Oh, Victor, we’ve been over all this before,’ said his mother wearily. ‘You know that the lawyers have affidavits from Sir Patrick Ramsay and Colonel Frank Wright testifying that they knew your great-uncle Fred, and Hester. Colonel Wright was even a guest at her wedding to Tom Dilhorne. There’s no real cause for doubt, I’m sorry to say.’
    â€˜Then why did your cousin Hester forget herself and marry a dam’d ex-felon is what I want to know?’ said Victor ferociously, forgetting his manners and his speech before ladies. ‘And why did Sir John lose his mind and settle everything on her?’
    â€˜I expect that there were few others she could marry,’ said Caroline quietly.
    â€˜Well, she should have had nothing to do with thebrute, remained a spinster and not done us out of what we had come to expect.’
    Eleanor decided that this was one of the days when she disliked Victor. She was remembering the pride and affection with which Alan Dilhorne had spoken of his father, the man Victor was calling a brute.
    â€˜I met Hester Dilhorne’s son last night,’ she said at last, when Victor had run down.
    Victor was incredulous. ‘Met him? Here? In London?’
    â€˜Well, I could hardly have met him in Sydney, Australia, could I?’ asked Eleanor reasonably, unable to resist teasing Victor a little, even at this serious juncture. ‘Ned met him by accident at the theatre the other evening and brought him home to dinner last night. Only fancy. He is Ned’s double, but bigger, I think. His name is Alan Dilhorne.’
    â€˜Looks like Ned, only bigger, named Dilhorne, and here in England. The whole thing grows more unlikely every minute—which I have already told you, Mama.’
    Really, thought Eleanor, Victor can be very wearisome at times.
    â€˜He can scarcely be a gentleman if he comes from Botany Bay and is an ex-felon’s son,’ ranted Victor. ‘How in the world did Lady Stanton