Lord Somerton's Heir Read Free Page B

made the dream a reality.
    He screwed his eyes tighter. He didn’t want reality. In the dark of his fever, Inez had come to him, her long hair falling around her shoulders like dark satin, and her brown eyes full of love. He had begged her to come back to him and she had replied in English ‘I am here’. But he knew it had been a dream. Inez lay buried in the brown earth of her native Portugal, her death forever on his conscience.
    He opened his eyes and found himself looking up at an embroidered bed hanging. He picked out a myriad of brightly coloured flowers jostling together in a heavenly cluster above him. When he turned his head he saw an elegant tallboy standing against richly patterned wallpaper beside a heavy, mahogany door. Perhaps he had died and this was heaven.
    The sound of familiar whistling from outside the door caused a smile to catch at the corners of his mouth. No. Heaven would never admit Corporal Bennet.
    ‘Oh, so you’re awake?’ Bennet entered the room carrying a tray. ‘Doctors said now the fever’s broken you’d be hungry, so I took the liberty of bringing up some broth for you.’
    He whipped the cloth from a steaming bowl. The scent of chicken broth rose into the air. Sebastian’s stomach growled in anticipation and he tried to pull himself up in bed, realising that his efforts were as pathetic as those of a newborn lamb.
    Without fuss, Bennet was there to assist. A custard of some nondescript appearance and taste followed the broth.
    Invalid pap.
    He told Bennet next time he wanted real food.
    Bennet just clicked his tongue. ‘Doctor’s orders, Cap’n,’ he said. ‘We nearly lost you and it’s goin’ to take some time to build up your strength again.’
    ‘It will if you keep feeding me that swill,’ Sebastian observed. He looked around the room, noting the expensive furniture and thick rugs on the floor. ‘Where am I?’
    ‘You’re at Somerton House in Hanover Square and very grand it is too. I’ve counted twenty bedrooms.’
    ‘Why am I here?’
    ‘Don’t you remember?’
    ‘Some strange woman with a tale about me being Lord Somerton?’
    ‘Aye, that’s right. Seems like she’s right too. You is Lord Somerton.’
    Sebastian lay back on his pillows and looked up at the bed hangings again.
    ‘I cannot possibly be Lord Somerton. I’ve never even heard of Lord Somerton.’
    Bennet shrugged. ‘Well, her ladyship’s got the proof. So you’d better start getting used to it…m’lord.’
    Bennet swept him a deep bow and, had he been stronger, Sebastian would have thrown a pillow at him. As it was, he could do nothing except suggest in strident terms that Bennet leave him in peace.
    A few minutes later, the door opened again. Sebastian gathered his strength to snarl at Bennet but subsided when he saw his visitor was a woman — a woman who looked vaguely familiar.
    ‘Good morning, my lord,’ she said.
    He managed a smile. ‘Good morning, madam. You will forgive me not standing but I fear I would fall over.’
    ‘As you undoubtedly would. You have been very ill, Captain Alder…my lord…but it seems you are now on the mend and as soon as your strength is sufficiently recovered, you will travel to the Somerton estate at Brantstone in Lincolnshire.’
    Somerton estate? Oh yes, he remembered her now. The woman from the hospital.
    He pulled himself up in the bed, flinching as the wound caught. ‘Ah, so I didn’t dream it. Please remind me — who are you, madam?’
    She advanced and stood at the end of the bed. ‘I am the dowager Lady Somerton, the widow of your cousin, Anthony, who died in an accident just before Christmas.’
    Sebastian looked away, absently pleating the heavy linen sheet between his fingers. ‘I recall you mentioned that at the hospital. My father…’ his voice cracked as he corrected himself, ‘my stepfather was the late Reverend Alder of Little Benning. My mother never…’
    His mother had never breathed a word about the identity of his real