The Earl's Countess Of Convenience. Marguerite Kaye

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      ‘And I’ve told you several times,’ Kate retorted, ‘that it is not an easy thing to do, to secure a platonic marriage. I was the perfect solution to your Uncle Daniel’s problems when his father died. By that time, my poor ailing papa had been forced to delegate almost all of his duties as estate manager to me. Having grown up on the estate, I knew the lands better than anyone else.’ Kate gazed out of the morning room window to the view of the back gardens rolling gently down to the lake. ‘Old Lord Elmswood, Daniel’s father, had let this house fall into a sad state of neglect by the time he died. I think the whole sorry business with your mother affected him greatly. When I was a girl, I used to dream of living here. I had all sorts of plans for restoring the place to its former glory.’

      ‘So when my uncle proposed, it was a wish come true?’

      Kate shook her head. ‘What I’m trying to say, Estelle, is that your uncle didn’t propose to me. Daniel balked at the idea of depriving me of children—I was only twenty-two at the time. So I proposed to him.’

      ‘You have never told us that before,’ Phoebe exclaimed, startled.

      ‘It has never been relevant until now.’ Kate laughed at the twins’ identical expressions. ‘That is what comes of being practical and pragmatic, my dears. As I pointed out to Daniel at the time, it was an eminently sensible arrangement, with both of us gaining. I would secure my independence, I’d be free to carry on doing the work I loved and I’d be able to restore this beautiful house, while he was free to pursue his career abroad, knowing that his estates were in the best possible hands.’

      ‘And you have never regretted it?’ Eloise asked, though she was fairly certain she knew the answer to the question.

      ‘Never,’ Kate said firmly. ‘As it happens I would have liked children. But I got them, didn’t I, only a year after I was married? All three of you at once.’

      ‘We were hardly children,’ Eloise said drily. ‘I was nineteen, the twinnies were fifteen.’

      ‘And you were all three of you quite devastated.’ Kate shook her head. ‘Even now, to think of what you’d been through, losing both your parents and your poor little brother in one tragic accident, with all of them lost at sea. As if that was not bad enough, to be evicted from the only home you had ever known, and packed off from Ireland to come all the way here to live with a complete stranger who happened to be your only relative’s wife. If I hadn’t already been married to Daniel, I’d have married him then, just to give you all a home. Now for heaven’s sake, there is no need...’

      But Kate’s voice was muffled as the three sisters enveloped her in a hug, and it was some time before they separated, to return to their seats. ‘Goodness,’ she said, emerging very ruffled, ‘I did not mean to upset everyone, dredging up the past. I was trying to explain why I thought that Lord Fearnoch had chosen to speak to Eloise rather than any other woman, wasn’t I?’

      ‘Let me, because I think the explanation is quite simple. Think about it,’ Eloise said, addressing her sisters. ‘We know from our uncle’s letter that when he met Lord Fearnoch in Egypt five months ago, he had only just heard of his brother’s death and the terms of the will. It will have taken him some time to secure return passage to England, no doubt to become embroiled in a legal wrangle to avoid the need to marry, because we also know from our uncle that he had no wish for a wife. And now, having realised that he either marries or loses his fortune, he’s up against the clock and since Uncle Daniel has already presented him with a potentially suitable candidate...’

      ‘Who, thanks to the poor example set for us by our dear departed parents, has absolutely no desire whatsoever to become either a wife or a mother,’ Estelle interjected grimly.

      ‘No one who witnessed what we did would ever want to marry.’ Phoebe clasped her twin’s hand. ‘Do you remember, Estelle, how we used to pretend we had been adopted, and that one day our real parents would arrive to claim us?’

      ‘And how we vowed we wouldn’t leave unless they promised to take Eloise too?’

      ‘We did. We vowed we would never, ever leave you behind.’

      Phoebe’s tragic little smile touched Eloise’s heart. She had tried so hard to protect the twins from the worst of her parents’ vicious bickering and confrontations, and in turn they had tried to protect her, pretending that she’d succeeded. They almost never talked of those days, but they all three of them bore the scars, buried deep. She thought she knew everything about her sisters, but she hadn’t heard this sad little story before. ‘Thank you,’ she said, swallowing the large lump which had risen in her throat and trying for a watery smile. ‘I am touched that you were so intent on keeping me with you, though you were by implication disowning me as your sister.’

      ‘No!’ the twins called in unison.

      ‘And to think that just a moment ago, you were telling me that no one would ever mistake us for anything but sisters too.’

      ‘We didn’t mean...’

      ‘She’s teasing,’ Estelle said sheepishly. ‘Anyway, Phoebe, we knew at the time it was just a pipe dream.’

      ‘Yes. Though we also knew that if someone did come along to claim us, our actual real parents would probably have handed us over gladly,’ Phoebe said bitterly.

      ‘Or they wouldn’t have noticed we’d gone.’

      There was no denying the truth of this, and Eloise felt no inclination to defend the indefensible as she inspected the stocking she had been darning before snipping the cotton and tying it off. But nor was she about to let those skeletons creep back out of the closet and colour the present. ‘I think that’s enough talk of those times.’

      ‘I agree. Let’s talk instead about what it will be like when you are rich beyond our wildest dreams,’ Estelle said, taking her cue and rubbing her hands together gleefully.

      Phoebe giggled. ‘You will be able to buy up a whole warehouse of silks to make gowns.’

      ‘She’ll be far too much a lady of leisure to sew. Besides, I’m not sure it’s the done thing for a countess to make her own gowns. Do you know how to attach a sprinkling of diamonds to a décolleté, Eloise?’

      ‘Oh, I’ll have a maid for that sort of thing. I shall be too busy, just like Cleopatra, bathing in asses’ milk.’

      ‘A rather rare commodity in London, I should think,’ Kate interjected wryly.

      ‘London!’ Phoebe clapped her hands together, her eyes shining. ‘And you’ll be a countess. To think of our big sister being a countess! Will you go to lots of parties, do you think? And will you live in a palace?’

      ‘A town house,’ Estelle said reprovingly. ‘Though a very large town house. With—oh, I should think at least a hundred bedchambers, and a thousand servants, and a French chef.’

      ‘Who will never be able to bake a cake as delicious as Phoebe can,’ Eloise said. She stuck her darning needle into the pin cushion and closed the lid of her sewing box. ‘One thing is certain, I will never have to darn another stocking. As for the rest—I am not particularly interested in draping myself in ermine and diamonds.’

      ‘No,’ Estelle agreed, ‘you’re more likely to spend a portion of your immense fortune on your own loom.’

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