Gallant Waif. Anne Gracie

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СКАЧАТЬ Cahill released Kate’s chin and looked around her again. “Are you going to offer me a seat or not, young woman?”

      This old lady knew her mother? It was more than Kate did. The subject had been forbidden in the Vicarage.

      “I’m sorry, Lady Cahill, you took me by surprise. Please take a seat.” Kate gestured to the worn settee. “I’m afraid I can’t offer you any refresh—”

      “Never mind about that. I didn’t come here for refreshments,” said the old lady briskly. “I’m travelling and I can’t abide food when I’m travelling.”

      “Why did you come here, ma’am?” Kate asked. “You’ve had little contact with my family for a great many years. I am sure it cannot be chance that has brought you here just now.”

      Shrewd blue eyes appraised her. “Hmm. You don’t beat around the bush, do you, young woman? But I like a bit of plain speaking myself, so I’ll put it to you directly. You need my help, my girl.”

      The grey-green eyes flashed, but Kate said quietly enough, “What makes you think that, Lady Cahill?”

      “Don’t be foolish, girl, for I can’t abide it! It’s clear as the nose on your face that you haven’t a farthing to call your own. You’re dressed in a gown I wouldn’t let my maid use as a duster. This house is empty of any comfort, you can’t offer me refreshment—No, sit down, girl!”

      Kate jumped to her feet, her eyes blazing. “Thank you for your visit, Lady Cahill. I have no need to hear any more of this. You have no claim on me and no right to push your way into my home and speak to me in this grossly insulting way. I will thank you to leave!”

      “Sit down, I said!” The diminutive old lady spoke with freezing authority, her eyes snapping with anger. For a few moments they glared at each other. Slowly Kate sat, her thin body rigid with fury.

      “I will listen to what you have to say, Lady Cahill, but only because good manners leave me no alternative. Since you refuse to leave, I must endure your company, it being unfitting for a girl of my years to lay hands on a woman so much my elder!”

      The old lady glared back at her for a minute then, to Kate’s astonishment, she burst into laughter, chuckling until the tears ran down her withered, carefully painted face.

      “Oh, my dear, you’ve inherited you mother’s temper as well as her eyes.” Lady Cahill groped in her reticule, and found a delicate lace-edged wisp which she patted against her eyes, still chuckling.

      The rigidity died out of Kate’s pose, but she continued to watch her visitor rather stonily. Kate hated her eyes. She knew they were just like her mother’s. Her father had taught her that…her father, whose daughter reminded him only that his beloved wife had died giving birth to a baby—a baby with grey-green eyes.

      “Now, my child, don’t be so stiff-necked and silly,” Lady Cahill began. “I know all about the fix you are in—”

      “May I ask how, ma’am?”

      “I received a letter from a Martha Betts, informing me in a roundabout and illiterate fashion that you were orphaned, destitute and without prospects.”

      Kate’s knuckles whitened. Her chin rose proudly. “You’ve been misinformed, ma’am. Martha means well, ma’am, but she doesn’t know the whole story.”

      Lady Cahill eyed her shrewdly. “So you are not, in fact, orphaned, destitute and without prospects.”

      “I am indeed orphaned, ma’am, my father having died abroad several months since. My two brothers also died close to that time.” Kate looked away, blinking fiercely to hide the sheen of tears.

      “Accept my condolences, child.” Lady Cahill leaned forward and gently patted her knee.

      Kate nodded. “But I am not without prospects, ma’am, so I thank you for your kind concern and bid you farewell.”

      “I think not,” said Lady Cahill softly. “I would hear more of your circumstances.”

      Kate’s head came up at this. “By what right do you concern yourself in my private affairs?”

      “By right of a promise I made to your mother.”

      Kate paused. Her mother. The mother whose life Kate had stolen. The mother who had taken her husband’s heart to the grave with her…For a moment it seemed that Kate would argue, then she inclined her head in grudging acquiescence. “I suppose I must accept that, then.”

      “You are most gracious,” said Lady Cahill dryly.

      “Lady Cahill, it is really no concern of yours. I am well able to look after myself—”

      “Pah! Mrs Midgely!”

      “Yes, but—”

      “Now, don’t eat me, child!” said Lady Cahill. “I know I’m an outspoken old woman, but when one is my age one becomes accustomed to having one’s own way. Child, try to use the brains God gave you. It is obvious to the meanest intelligence that any position offered by a Mrs Midgely is no suitable choice for Maria Farleigh’s daughter. A maidservant, indeed! Faugh! It’s not to be thought of. There’s no help for it. You must come and live with me.”

      Come and live with an aristocratic old lady? Who from all appearances moved in the upper echelons of the ton? Who would take her to balls, masquerades, the opera—it had long been a dream, a dream for the old Kate…

      It was the new Kate’s nightmare.

      For the offer to come now, when it was too late—it was a painful irony in a life she had already found too full of both pain and irony.

      “I thank you for your kind offer, Lady Cahill, but I would not dream of so incommoding you.”

      “Foolish child! What maggot has got into your head? It’s not an invitation you should throw back in my face without thought. Consider what such a proposal would involve. You will have a life appropriate to your birth and take your rightful position in society. I am not offering you a life of servitude and drudgery.”

      “I realise that, ma’am,” said Kate in a low voice. Her rightful position in society was forfeited long ago, in Spain. “None the less, though I thank you for your concern, I cannot accept your very generous invitation.”

      “Don’t you realise what I am offering you, you stupid girl?”

      “Charity,” said Kate baldly.

      “Ah, tush!” said the old lady, angrily waving her hand. “What is charity but a foolish word?”

      “Whether we name it or not, ma’am, the act remains the same,” said the girl with quiet dignity. “I prefer to be beholden to no one. I will earn my own living, but I thank you for your offer.”

      Lady Cahill shook her head in disgust. “Gels of good family earnin’ their own living, indeed! What rubbish! In my day, a gel did what her parents told her and not a peep out of her—and a demmed good whipping if there was!”

      “But, Lady Cahill, you are not my parent. I don’t have to listen СКАЧАТЬ