or when their duties were done. No one was here today. Perhaps it would’ve been better if he’d had company. Anything but concentrate on the thoughts spinning in his mind.
His life was never going to be as filled with promise as he’d thought on rising this morning. He wouldn’t have Jennifer with him. She would never be his partner, the mother of his children, the one person he trusted among others.
Loving her was wrong. His brain told his heart that, but his emotions hadn’t yet caught up.
How could his life have changed in an instant? Yet it had happened that way five years ago. One moment he was at Adaire Hall, filled with amorphous plans to make something of his life. The next he was shown the door, a carriage bearing him away. Unwelcome, unwanted, and homeless.
Yet it had been the best thing that could have happened to him. He’d been forced to put his effort into all those plans he’d made. He’d remade himself. He could do it again. Except that this time it would be more of a challenge. Instead of a hill, Fate had given him a mountain the size of Ben Nevis to climb.
The sun warmed his back, but he still felt the chill of the day. He should go back to the cottage, gather up his belongings, and leave for London. No one at Adaire Hall would understand his abrupt departure, but he didn’t think he could sit with Sean one more minute.
He’d never understood why Sean was so impatient, why he didn’t seem to have any fatherly feelings. Everything was beginning to make sense, like a pattern that had been blurry and was just now coming into focus.
Although Sean had sworn that he hadn’t known about the switch until Betty’s death, Gordon wasn’t sure he believed him. Something must have made Sean suspicious.
Betty’s interest and constant praise of Harrison was now understandable. Every time Harrison did something wrong, she was predisposed to instantly forgive him. For years Gordon had resented that preferential treatment, thinking that it was because Harrison was the earl. No, it was because Harrison was Betty’s child.
She’d been lucky; everything had conspired to aid Betty in her ruse. There weren’t any portraits remaining of the Adaire family since the portrait gallery had been housed in the north wing and had also been destroyed in the fire.
The wet nurse had perished that night. What about the other girl, the nursery maid? Where was she?
He hadn’t asked Sean if there was anyone else who knew that the babies had been switched, anyone who could provide testimony as to what Betty had done. For that matter, he would need to record Sean’s confession, at least have it witnessed by someone in addition to himself.
Without proof, he had nothing. Without proof, he had to believe Sean.
First of all, he would go back to the cottage, ask Sally to sit with him, and have Sean repeat what he’d learned from Betty. Then he would see if he could find the nursery maid. She’d still been employed at the Hall when he lived there, but he wasn’t certain where she was now.
After that he’d seek out the oldest members of the staff to see if any of them recalled that night so many years ago. There, something he could accomplish. A few tasks to do rather than sit and mull over Sean’s confession. Anything but think about the future he wouldn’t have.
Gordon was sitting on the end of the dock, just as he had so many times in the past when she’d met him here. Once in a while she’d threatened to push him off the end of the dock. Once he’d done the exact same thing to her. Then he’d been so apologetic at her tears that he’d never done it again.
She’d gotten into trouble that day. It wasn’t her mother who’d chastised her for acting like a hoyden. It had been Ellen, who had been visiting.
“Whatever have you done, Jennifer?”
“We were playing,” she’d said.
That had not been enough of an explanation for her godmother.
“I don’t know what game you are playing, Jennifer Adaire, but you’ll soon be a young lady. You must remember your manners at all times. After all, you’re Lady Jennifer.”
That day had marked a change, not in Gordon’s treatment of her, but in her realization that they were growing up. There wouldn’t be too many more days like these in which they could play or meet each other to plot some way