Miss Fanshawe's Fortune - Linore Rose Burkard Page 0,1
his head, “I beg your pardon. Edward Arundell, at your service.”
“Miss Fanshawe,” said Frannie with a nod of the head. “Pleased to meet you.” Normally she would have left it at that. Normally she wasn’t given to a display of emotions but the excitement and danger of her situation must have had her in its grip, for she added in a gush, “But oh, Mr. Arundell, you’ve no notion of my troubles! I have endured the most horrifying experience!”
Edward looked at her fairly amazed. “It’s but nine o’clock. Have you already had the most horrifying experience?”
She nodded, with large, pained eyes. “Yesterday. I’m afraid I’ve been at sixes and sevens ever since, wandering in town like—like a nomad.”
“Surely you didn’t wander the streets all night,” he said, half in disbelief and half in awe.
She shook her head, resulting in a ripple of curls that framed the bonnet. “I lodged at an inn, but I left this morning determined to return to my father’s house and—”
“You didn’t run from home!” Edward pronounced. Such an impropriety on the part of a proper looking young woman quite astonished him.
“No, indeed!” she said imploringly, her large eyes pinned upon his. “But my only relations that I know of—I suppose it was my aunt—turned me away!”
“Do ye’ not know your aunt?” Edward asked, with narrowed eyes.
“I never laid eyes on her before yesterday. You see, I was brought up by my mother and Mrs. Baxter,” she explained. “But they are both gone now, and I have suffered the very worst sort of ill usage by—by this lady! It is quite abominable.”
“Bad luck,” he said feelingly, regarding her now with a benign expression, his entire sympathies instantly on her part. Miss Fanshawe was certainly under the hatches. He’d found himself at the bottom end of deep scrapes for most of his eighteen years, so that a fellow sufferer he regarded almost as a fellow in arms, though he wasn’t a military man.
“Not to fret,” he assured her. “My uncle’s a baronet,” he said importantly, “and my brother’s his heir.” Miss Fanshawe’s eyes widened.
This satisfied Edward, who had yet to discover a commoner who wasn’t impressed with a tie to nobility, whether high or low as to the scale of titles. Sir Hugo would scarcely know him by sight, but that was not to the point. The connexion was real, but tenuous because of an ancient feud between Sir Hugo Arundell and his mama; a mysterious affair that remained shrouded in reticence, with the result that Edward’s family rarely saw the baronet. Nevertheless, claiming the relation was social proof that Edward found uncommonly useful and irresistible, therefore, to make known.
He nodded toward King Street. “Whatever your troubles, Sebastian’ll sort them out.”
“Is that the brother you spoke of?”
Edward nodded. “My elder by nine years.” In a disgruntled voice he added, “Thinks he’s my father, I daresay.”
Frannie’s large eyes filled with hope. “Could it be—do you indeed think he will champion my cause? I find myself quite friendless. I own it is a nasty kettle of fish and I haven’t the faintest idea how to proceed in it. But I prayed earnestly for divine assistance. I believe it was Providence that brought you to me!”
Edward would not have put it that way, but he gave her a wry glance while slapping the ribbons lightly to start off. “What sort of trouble is it?”
She swallowed, and said emphatically, “A mystery. Which I must get to the bottom of as soon as possible! My future, my entire fortune is at stake!”
Respectfully, and trying not to appear too curious, Edward asked, “And is that fortune very large?”
“Quite large, I am told.” She paused and said philosophically, “Mrs. Baxter assured me that it must be in excess of £30,000 by now.”
“Lud, that is a fortune,” he acknowledged gravely, and rather in awe. “Mrs. Baxter?”
“The dear lady who raised me after my mama died.” At this, Frannie blinked back tears. “She has only gone to her rest a fortnight ago.”
“I say,” Edward mumbled, sincerely. “Poor Miss Fanshawe.”
Frannie stifled her tears with a handkerchief, turning to give him a look of gratitude for his understanding, her eyes large and dark and long-lashed. Edward sucked in his breath. Miss Fanshawe was first-rate, his friends would say. A pearl of the first water.
“But that is only part of my trouble. The worst of it is what happened since her passing!”
He turned the final corner onto King Street. With any luck they’d be in the house before Sebastian