Zipporah's Daughter (Knave of Hearts) by Philippa Carr Read Free Book Online Page A

know.’
    ‘I hope you won’t.
    He looked at me steadily. ‘I think, Lottie, that you and I understand each other well. We stepped easily into the roles of father and daughter.’
    ‘I suppose we did.’
    ‘I am going to tell you something. I have written to your mother asking her to marry me and she has consented.’
    I stared at him in amazement. ‘But …’ I stammered. ‘Her … her home is at Eversleigh.’
    ‘When a woman marries she leaves her home and goes to that of her husband.’
    ‘You mean she will come to live here?’
    He nodded. ‘And it is your home too,’ he added.
    This was bewildering. First a father appearing, then the scenes I had witnessed during the last weeks, and now … my mother was going to marry the Comte.
    ‘But …’ I said because I had to go on talking in the hope of collecting my wits meanwhile …‘you … er … you haven’t seen each other … for years before you came to England.’
    ‘We loved each other long ago.’
    ‘And then … nothing happened.’
    ‘Nothing happened! You happened. Moreover we are both free now. Neither of us was then.’
    ‘It seems to me so very sudden.’
    ‘Sometimes one knows these things at once. We did. You don’t seem very pleased. Are you wondering about yourself? Lottie, it is my earnest wish and that of your mother that you will be with us. This is your home now.’
    ‘No … My home is in England. You know about Dickon.’
    ‘My dear, you are so young. You know there can be no thought of a marriage yet.’
    ‘But I do know I love Dickon and he loves me.’
    ‘Well, you have to grow up a little, don’t you? Why shouldn’t you do that growing up here?’
    I could not think of anything to say. I wanted to be alone to ponder this new turn in affairs and to ask myself what effect it was going to have on my life.
    The Comte was saying: ‘Your mother is making arrangements to come to France.’
    ‘She can’t leave Eversleigh.’
    ‘Arrangements will have to be made. In fact she has been making them for some time. We agreed to this two weeks ago. We both decided that having found each other we were not going to risk losing each other again. Lottie, I can never explain what a joy it has been to find you … and your mother. I thought of her over the years and it seems she did of me. What is between us is something which rarely comes.’
    I nodded and he smiled at me fondly, realizing that I was thinking of Dickon; and although he believed that I could not possibly understand, he did not say so.
    ‘Now we have a chance to regain what we have lost. We both realize that. Nothing is going to stand in our way. Your mother will be coming here soon. We shall be married then. I wanted you to hear it first from me. When your mother comes she will tell you what arrangements have been made. In the meantime we must prepare for the wedding.’
    He put his arms about me and, drawing me to him, kissed me. I clung to him. I was very fond of him and proud that he was my father. But when I tried to look into the future, it seemed very misty to me.
    The news that my father was to be married was received in his household with consternation, I think, although no one said very much to me. Armand shrugged his shoulders and seemed cynically amused because the bride was to be my mother, and the romantic plans were clearly the outcome of an old love-affair.
    ‘So we have a sister and belle mère at one stroke,’ he said, and I was sure he went off to laugh about it with his cronies—worldly young gentlemen like himself.
    Sophie was inclined to be pleased. ‘He will be so taken up with his own marriage that he won’t think about arranging one for me,’ she confided to me.
    I replied: ‘You worry too much. If you don’t want to marry the man they choose for you, just say so. Be firm. They can’t drag you screaming to the altar.’
    She laughed with me and it occurred to me that we were beginning to get on very well.
    Lisette talked excitedly of the