Miss Fanshawe's Fortune - Linore Rose Burkard Page 0,89

Sebastian and Frannie stood there, staring in with such expressions! Frannie was torn between joy and sheer astonishment—if Sir Hugo was lawfully married to her mother then he was her father! The man she’d been trying so hard to avoid—her father! But indignation too coloured her expression, for here was Mrs. Fanshawe trying to pull the wool over his eyes!

The lady rose from her seat in alarm, but her features became granite as she settled her eyes upon Frannie. “I was only telling ‘is Lordship what we did for ye all these years,” she said coldly.

Sebastian almost spoke. The words, “Sir, ’tis all a fetch and a gamon!” were at the tip of his tongue, but he waited to see what Frannie would do. She said, looking sorrowfully at her aunt. “Did for me?” She turned to the baronet. “What she told you is a humbug! I lived with Mama until her passing a year ago August. I only met Mrs. Fanshawe in my search for—why, I believe, for you, sir!”

Mrs. Fanshawe’s face scrunched in anger. She put a hand to her hip and cried, “My ‘usband did exactly what your mother told him! Had he revealed your whereabouts –and he might easily ‘ave done so—then you!” She pointed at Sir Hugo. “You would have been out at the pockets! This fine estate,” she said, turning her head to take in the dimensions of the room, “entailed! You’d ’ave had debt to yer ears! My ’usband did you a favour, sir, in keeping the agreement; all so’s this one ’ere”—she turned and pointed at Frannie—“could come into the trust! I only aimed to ask for sommat for our trouble! My daughter’s to be wed to Lord Whitby! If there’s no trust for her, she’ll not be equipt! The wedding’ll be off!”

The baronet stared at Mrs. Fanshawe, his mind turning. Looking back at Frannie, he said, “Did your mother remarry? How are you Miss Baxter?”

Sebastian spoke up. “Her name is Miss Fanshawe, sir; I apologize for the confusion. Tracing Frannie’s heritage has been our sole difficulty because her father’s name—your name, sir—at Sir Malcolm’s insistence, I gather, was blotted out on her birth record. Miss Baxter is an alias we hoped to use in society only until we understood the circumstances of her birth better.” He gave his cousin a wry grin. “We had no idea, sir, that her real name could mean anything to you!” He motioned to Mrs. Fanshawe. “We have been searching for Mr. Fanshawe for weeks to get to the bottom of the mystery. This lady, however, was enraptured with the notion that the trust should be given to her natural daughter.”

With large eyes, Frannie listened, nodding in agreement with what Sebastian said. Looking tremulously at the baronet she said, “I never should have asked the Arundells to disguise my name, sir. It was badly done. I beg your pardon. I am Frances Fanshawe.” Her heart pounded in her ears and it seemed as though her hands shook.

With a look of sorrow mixed with dawning amazement, the baronet extended a hand toward Frannie. “Come here, child.”

Frannie hesitated, but Sebastian gave her the smallest nudge. She went forward then, staring at Sir Hugo with a wholly different expression on her face than she had ever worn when looking at him in the past. She felt suddenly overcome with shyness—how could it be true? That Sir Hugo—Sebastian’s cousin once removed, the man she’d done everything in her power to avoid—was her father!

His eyes were full with emotion, and he took her hand when she drew near.

“I knew it had to be. I knew from the moment I saw you that you had to be, you could only be Margaret’s child. You are your mother’s mirror image!”

“Then ‘tis true?” she asked, while her heart beat strangely. “That you are my—my father?”

“I think it must be true. How old are you, my girl?” he asked.

“Nineteen, sir.”

Tears sprang into his eyes. With compressed lips, blinking, he nodded at her, his eyes brimming with emotion. “Your mother was my lawful wife. You are my child!”

Frannie shot a brief glance of shining relief at Sebastian, even as Sir Hugo took her in his great big arms for a heartfelt hug. When he released her enough to stand back and meet her gaze, tears shone in his eyes. “I married your mother secretly on account of the baronet, my father. The plan was to give him time to accept the marriage. In the meantime, you