“She had a huge head start before we realized she was missing. I doubt I could have caught her, and even if I had, she’s very stubborn. She’d have told me to sod off and allow her to continue on her merry way.”
“She’s just doing what you did all those years ago. You recognize that, don’t you?”
“Of course, but it doesn’t make the debacle anymore palatable.”
“The damage is done, so you have to figure out how to deal with it. I can’t see you fighting with them. Nor can I picture you cutting ties.”
“No, I never would.”
“Look on the bright side. Maybe she’ll be happy forever with Simon. She wouldn’t have been with Lord Barrett, so maybe this is a blessing in disguise. Simon is a good boy—when he’s not swindling someone—and Penny will have the most dashing husband of all her acquaintances. I’m betting she’ll be delighted.”
“Until it dawns on her that this was a terrible mistake.”
Fish couldn’t muster any concern for rich, spoiled Penny Pendleton. “If it crashes down later on, you’ll be there to pick up the pieces.”
“I suppose.”
“It’s not the end of the world, Charles. Daughters wed the wrong men all the time. Even when the father selects a stellar candidate, it can wind up in disaster. Let’s hope for the best.”
He nodded firmly. “That has to be my attitude, doesn’t it?”
His misery was painful to observe, and she’d always been a sap when confronted by a distraught male. She always leapt to their rescue, which had caused her countless problems in her life. She had to stop behaving like such an idiot.
She changed the subject. “I have to show you something.”
She went to the desk where the box of Harry’s letters lay like a bomb ready to explode. She brought it over and placed it on the table.
“Open it,” she said.
“Why? What’s in it?”
“It’s the letters Libby stumbled on after Harry died—the ones that clear up her past.”
Charles didn’t reach for it, but glared as if wishing he had magical eyes that could peer into the wood. “I can’t fuss with this right now.”
“If not now, when?” she asked.
The question hung in the air between them, and still, he didn’t move. He was frozen, almost fearful over what he was about to learn, and she bristled with aggravation, then shifted to sit next to him on the sofa. She lifted the lid and began reading them to him.
Initially, he wouldn’t glance at them, but as she commenced the third one—written by Amanda to Harry—he peeked down and gasped.
“That’s Amanda’s handwriting,” he said. “I’d recognize it anywhere.”
He took the stack from her and perused the others on his own. She nestled by his side, watching the emotions that swept over his face. The facts he’d sought for so long about what had happened to Henrietta were finally revealed.
Amanda had vanished from London with her lover, but the oaf had perished in Italy. Amanda had been penniless, friendless, and alone. She’d met Harry’s brother, gullible Kit Carstairs, who’d been a university student on a tour of the country.
Poor Kit had believed Amanda’s story about being an abused wife who was fleeing her brutish husband, and he’d been determined to save her. While Charles had fruitlessly searched for Amanda in Europe, she and Kit had sailed for the Caribbean. Their ship had sunk in a storm and the rest, as they say, was history.
As Charles finished the last letter, posted from the Canary Islands before the sinful pair continued across the Atlantic, he put them back in the box and secured the lid so they were shielded from his sight.
He sat like a marble statue, and they dawdled in the silence. Eventually, he said, “Libby is my daughter, isn’t she? She’s Little Henrietta.”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Did Harry leave any explanation as to why he hid her from me?”
“Not that we’ve found. It will probably always be a mystery, but he was incredibly fond of her, Charles. He truly was. Perhaps it’s no more complicated than that.”
“Oh, my Lord, she’s Henrietta, and I kicked her out of my house!”
Fish didn’t have a reply to that remark, so she kept her mouth shut. He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands. An eternity ticked by, and after a lengthy interval, he straightened and turned to her.
“Will she ever forgive me?” he asked.
“I think she will. She’s a kind girl. She’s stubborn—sort of like Penny, so maybe obstinacy is a family trait—but she’s kind. I can’t guess if you’ll ever have the relationship with her you’re hoping, but I expect some type of connection will form.”
“What should I do?”
“Invite her to Roland for an extended stay. Spend some time getting acquainted. Simon and Penny will be back from Scotland soon, and they’ll want to live with you. Libby and Simon are affectionately close, so it might help to have her there to smooth things over.”
On mentioning the idea, Fish felt sick at heart. Libby and Simon were her family, the children she’d never had. If she allowed Charles to have them, if they joined his life rather than hers, she’d be all alone. If they left her to become Pendletons, where would she be?
After another excruciating interval, he said, “If I invite Libby to come, would you come with her?”
Her pulse fluttered as if she were a gushing debutante. Apparently, she was still so smitten that she’d jump at the chance to be humiliated all over again. Where was her pride? Where was her sense of self-preservation?
“I don’t know, Charles. I’d have to think about it long and hard.”
“I’ve sent Millicent away—if that’s what is worrying you.”
“You sent her away? I thought the two of you were attached at the hip.”
“When I discovered her mischief toward you and Libby, I was so incensed. I finally had to accept that she isn’t the person I deemed her to be.”
“I told you so,” Fish mumbled under her
