Miss Fanshawe's Fortune - Linore Rose Burkard Page 0,60
skirted by the captains of such ships. Their treasures were tempting prizes for enemy military vessels and privateers if, by bad luck, they crossed paths at sea. The newspaper assured its readers that Britain had lost fortunes during the war, and that no ship set sail without the horror of capture hovering about its masts. Even in peacetime, pirates roamed the ocean waters in search of civilian vessels to commandeer and strip clean. Frannie sent up a prayer that no such disaster had waylaid Golden Sovereign.
Eventually the others joined her. The whole household, it seemed, had risen early. Frannie could not help glancing often at the clock, thinking of whether or not the ship had come in. At length Mrs. Arundell said, while buttering a slice of toasted bread, “Watching the time won’t bring your news back any sooner, dearest. Why do you not amuse yourself in the library as you like to do? I’ll see you have a nice fire and perhaps I’ll join you shortly.”
Frannie thanked her and was soon in her favourite room with a book, but the morning crept by with excruciating slowness. She might have enjoyed knowing that the library was completely hers for the day with no worry about keeping Sebastian from it. But she continued to check the clock often. Mrs. Arundell came in after an hour with a sewing basket, claiming she had the headache and would make no morning calls that day. “I’ve had one of my prodigious inklings!” she announced at length, her eyes intently upon her sewing. She turned and looked at Frannie with bright eyes.
“Indeed, ma’am?” asked Frannie politely.
The lady smiled. “I was reading this morning’s collect—you do recall that I am fond of the prayer book of a morning?”
Frannie nodded and smiled. “Yes, ma’am. I admire that in you.”
Mrs. Arundell said, “Of course; because you, too, read it, do you not?”
Frannie nodded. The little black book with its wispy, delicate pages, was a cherished keepsake of any devout Anglican, and she was no exception. In the past she had attended chapel with her mother and Mrs. Baxter, and was happy to find that Mrs. Arundell and Sebastian were church-goers.
“Well, as I was reading, I had a prodigious inkling,” she said, jabbing a needle into the seam of a cast-off chemise, destined for the poor box. “You know I have remarkably accurate inklings. Things are going to turn up trumps for you, my dear. When Beau returns—or perhaps soon afterward—he will have the best of news for you, I am certain!”
Frannie’s eyes lit with hope. “Was that your inkling? About me?”
Mrs. Arundell nodded. “You could not be so sweet and genteel for nothing, and such a blessing to me with my hearing device! You must be the daughter of a nobleman just as your mama said, and a fortune awaits you, I am sure.”
Frannie thanked her, swallowed, and returned to her book. Mrs. Arundell would be disappointed indeed if things did not turn out so felicitously. But the older lady continued to chat of what she’d read in the morning paper, the Regent’s recent scandalous expenditures, how shamefully cruel he was to his estranged wife, and even his daughter. Any mention of Princess Charlotte always got Frannie’s attention, so that the chatter proved an effective distraction to stop the flow of worries that eddied around her soul like water bubbling over stones in a riverbed, ceaseless and unrelenting. But soon the older lady left the library saying she must lie down in her bedchamber until her horrid headache passed, and that no, there was nothing Frannie could do for her.
In minutes, Frannie’s earlier apprehensions returned in force, clouded about her brain like a flock of noisy birds settling all in one tree. By late afternoon she was on tenterhooks, and almost considered that she too, had the headache.
Finally, she heard the sounds of an arrival and, knowing it must be Sebastian, hurried to meet him in the corridor. She stood at the top of the stairs and waited as he gave Sykes his things, her face a picture of tragic certainty that only bad news was to come. Mrs. Arundell’s “prodigious inkling,” had lost its reassuring sound in the midst of her fears. Sebastian saw her, stopped for a second, then lowered his head and quickly ascended the steps. At the top, he took her hand and said, “I’m afraid we failed you. We never laid eyes on Mr. Fanshawe.”
He motioned her into the parlour. Frannie sat across