Anne Barbour Read Free Page B

is not encouragement, I should very much like to know what is.”
    “Oh, don’t be stupid,” retorted Miss Blayne, and Thorne felt himself swell with indignation.
    “I tell you, I have no recollection of ever having met your ward. Apparently, I did write to her, but I write to hundreds of people, particularly young girls, in response to letters written to me. Now, do be quiet and let me think.”
    Thorne stiffened. No female in his adult life had ever spoken to him thus. “Confound it—” he began, but Miss Blayne merely lifted her hand. To his own astonishment, he subsided into his chair. He watched her, disgruntled.
    “I rather think,” she said at last, “that I do remember Miss Venable. As I recall, she wrote to me sometime last spring. She told me my book had changed her life.” She broke into a wide smile, and Thorne caught his breath at the sheer magic of it. Her cheeks pinkened, her eyes sparkled, and her face was transformed instantly from that of a rather plain spinster to that of a woodland sprite.
    “No writer can resist those words, my lord. She wrote that she was visiting in the area and very much wished to see me, but was being prevented from doing so by her family. In my response, I thanked her for her kind words and added something polite to the effect that I should be pleased to see her should she ever be in the neighborhood.” She paused, frowning. “Where is that girl?” Rising, she went to the sideboard and rang the bell once more. She turned again to the earl. “And that, I’m afraid, is all I can tell you about your ward, my lord. I’m sorry she has run away, but I cannot help you.”
    Thorne slumped in his chair, deflated. He had been so sure he would find Chloe in the clutches of the female rabble-rouser that he could only stare at her blankly, unmoving. She cleared her throat.
    “I said, my lord, that I cannot help you.”
    Thorne started.
    “Yes,” he said petulantly. “That’s all very well. I shall take your word for it that she is not here, but I cannot help but feel it is all your fault that she has put me in this uncomfortable situation.”
    Miss Blayne gasped. “Well, of all the—” She drew herself up. “It concerns me not in the slightest what you feel, you arrogant—” She clenched her jaw, then moved to the door and wrenched it open. “I think it is high time you—”
    She was halted by the hurried entrance of a young woman dressed in servant’s garb.
    “Oh, I am so sorry,” said the girl breathlessly. “I did not hear the bell at first, and—
    “Chloe!” bellowed Thorne. The maid whirled about, white-faced, and catching sight of the earl, uttered a sound of choked horror.
    “Uncle Thorne!” she gasped.
    It was a good fifteen minutes before the chaos of the ensuing scene subsided.
    “All right,” said Thorne at last, sinking once more into the chair from which he had leaped a few moments before. “I will accept. Miss Blayne, that you had no knowledge that your new serving maid was my recalcitrant ward—although one would think that it would behoove a female living alone to at least question the background of a young girl who appears suddenly on one’s doorstep asking for work.”
    “I told you, my lord,” snapped Miss Blayne, “it was my companion who hired her. I have scarcely laid eyes on her since she arrived this morning.”
    Remedying this omission, Hester turned to survey the young girl. She was a pretty little thing, all flying golden curls and blue eyes that were presently filled with apprehension. With a pang of guilt, Hester absorbed the fact that Miss Venable could not have presented to a prospective employer the impression that here was a competent maid-of-all-work. Those slender fingers had obviously never completed a task more onerous then embroidering a fine stitch and her roses-and-cream complexion bespoke a pampered existence. How could Larkie have hired her so unquestioningly?
    As she spoke the name in her mind, the lady