Midnight Star (Star Quartet 2)

“I am delighted to find you in good health.”

“I am always in good health, sir.”

“Elizabeth, I will not tell you again,” Aunt Augusta said, her jaw clenched. “Go to your room. Owen, see your cousin upstairs.”

“Aunt,” Chauncey said, stiffening beside her rescuer, “I have no intention of going anywhere with any of you. I am leaving this house.”

“Mr. Gillette,” Aunt Augusta said, her voice supplicating, even pleading, “my niece is not herself. I pray you will ignore her disordered outburst and come with me into the salon. We will call the doctor for her immediately.”

Money, Mr. Gillette thought, not overly surprised at what had obviously been transpiring—what it does to perfectly sane people! He was a fool, he realized belatedly, to have confided his purpose to this woman. “Madam,” he said calmly to Aunt Augusta, “I am come to see Miss FitzHugh. Now, if all of you will excuse us, we will take our leave.”

“You are going nowhere, Elizabeth!” Aunt Augusta shouted, so frustrated she was trembling. “If you dare to leave this house, miss, you will starve in the street! We will provide you no more of our generous bounty!”

“But then again, Aunt Augusta,” Chauncey said, drawing herself up straight, “I won’t have to worry about being ravished by Owen, will I?”

“Liar! She is lying, Mr. Gillette! Pay her no heed!”

“Mr. Gillette, may I fetch my valise—’tis already packed—and my maid?”

“Certainly, my dear. If I am correct, I believe I saw a young woman who could be your maid waiting on the corner, with her bag. I will await you here.” He touched her shoulder. “Miss FitzHugh,” he said very softly, “you will not starve, I promise you that.

“Mrs. Penworthy,” he continued to Aunt Augusta, “I will call the watch if the young lady isn’t allowed to leave with me.”

“No,” Uncle Alfred said sternly, wiping his hand across his sweating forehead, “there will be no need for that. Augusta, you and Owen will go into the salon. It is over.” He added almost as an afterthought, “I never really believed that Elizabeth could be coerced. She is too strong-willed.” He turned away with those words, only to be brought up short by Cranke, who said in a faltering voice, “But, sir, what am I to do with the minister? He is drinking his third cup of coffee.”

“Good God, man, set him to polishing the silver! I don’t care!”

4

“A legacy! I have a legacy? I . . . I don’t believe it,” Chauncey whispered, her eyes wide on Mr. Gillette’s face. They were seated opposite each other in Chauncey’s small sitting room in the Bradford Hotel. “Oh, I had figured out that all their machi

nations must have something to do with money, but I had no real expectations, you understand. You have said, Mr. Gillette, that you in no way represent my father. Then where does this legacy to me come from?”

“I believe you now recovered enough from your ordeal,” he said, smiling at her. “Here is the whole story, Miss FitzHugh. Your godfather, Sir Jasper Dunkirk—do you remember him?”

“Why, of course I do, though it has been at least ten years since I’ve seen him.”

“I am, rather was, Sir Jasper’s solicitor. For the past nine years, he has resided in India. In fact, he made a great deal of money there. But, unfortunately, he lost both his wife and his son in one of the native uprisings. As a result, he made your father his heir, for there was no other family, either there or here in England. Sir Jasper died of a fever some months after your father. He had, evidently, read your father’s obituary in a newspaper, for I received instructions from him shortly before his death. I suppose he knew of your family ties, for his instructions were quite clear. I was not to contact you about your inheritance until you turned twenty-one. You see, he wanted no relatives or guardians to have control of your wealth. I paid a visit to Heath House on your twenty-first birthday. I showed a lamentable lack of judgment, however. I told your aunt of my mission, then blithely accepted her word that you were ill and could see no one for a while. I was a fool, and I beg you to accept my profound apologies.”

Chauncey gave him a twisted smile. “Had they not been so very ungracious to me before, I might not have seen through their ruse. You see, they became so utterly devoted to my welfare that I would have had to be a perfect ninny not to see through them.” But at first I didn’t want to believe badly of them. “And Owen. They wanted me to marry him, of course.”

“Of course,” Mr. Gillette agreed. “As your husband, he would have had complete control over your inheritance.”

“Mr. Gillette, will my inheritance make me independent? It doesn’t have to be too much, of course, just enough to keep me and my maid in simple lodgings.”

To her surprise, Mr. Gillette leaned forward in his chair and laughed heartily. For a moment Chauncey gazed at his nearly bald head, contrasting the pitiful few dark hairs that were combed carefully over the top of his plentiful side whiskers. “I have said something amusing, sir?”

“Miss FitzHugh,” he managed at last, “not only are you independent, you are likely now one of the premier heiresses in all of England. My dear, you have inherited some two hundred thousand pounds.”

Chauncey could only stare at him. “Two hundred thousand pounds,” she repeated stupidly.

“Yes, my dear. At least I was wise enough not to tell your aunt and uncle the amount of your inheritance. I told them only that it was sizable. I imagine if I let slip the true amount, they would have whisked you willy-nilly to Gretna Green with their obnoxious son in tow.”

“Two hundred thousand pounds,” Chauncey said yet again. She rose jerkily to her feet. “It . . . it is too much! Oh dear, whatever am I to do?”

Frank Gillette was silent for a moment, watching the lovely young lady pace in front of him. “I believe you are an intelligent young woman,” he said. “And you are twenty-one and in entire control of the money. I would suggest, my dear, that you have two alternatives: you can either find yourself a husband to control your holdings, or you can learn to manage for yourself.”

“But I have never even seen one hundred pounds!”