A Stranger in Honeyfield
Page 25
His voice broke and he fell silent for a moment, then stood up again, his face becoming expressionless. ‘I didn’t expect that, Georgie. I was going to divorce my wife and marry your mother. Only it wasn’t to be. I didn’t expect Spencer would live this long, either. So I insisted my wife raise you as hers, told her I’d divorce her if she didn’t and leave her penniless. I had evidence that she’d been unfaithful to me, you see.
‘With your real mother dead, making sure you weren’t considered bastards seemed important, the best way to give you a decent start in life. I was too upset to think it through. I no longer let myself be ruled by emotion, not in important matters.’ He sighed. ‘Once we’d started the charade, it wasn’t possible to stop it. Adeline acknowledged that as well as I did.’
He looked across at Isabella. ‘Thank you for making my son happy and for giving me a grandchild.’
‘I’m not letting you take the baby away from me,’ she warned him.
‘I wouldn’t try, but I hope you’ll let me visit him and get to know him.’
‘Or her.’
He managed a half-smile. ‘Or her. I am not good with children and I have no intention of marrying again, so my wife can stay my wife as long as she moves to her house in Malmesbury and causes no further trouble.’
‘Will she do that?’
‘Oh, yes. I’ll make sure of it. She’ll be upset about her son dying. She must be the only person to have loved Spencer. Not an amiable child, even when he was young, and he grew into a nasty human being.’
He turned as one of his men came to the door of the sitting room.
‘We’ve locked him up at the police station, sir.’
‘Good. We’ll arrange for him to be taken up to London and charged with kidnapping and whatever else the lawyers can throw at him.’
The housekeeper turned up then, pushing a trolley loaded with tea things.
Gerald stayed only long enough to have a cup of tea and something to eat. ‘Shall I send a car for you, Georgie? I need to get back immediately, but you’ll want to change your clothes, no doubt.’
‘I’ll find my own way to London. By train, probably.’
‘Very well. I’ll tell my housekeeper to expect you.’
He left as quietly as he did everything else, but suddenly popped his head back into the doorway to add, ‘I’ll visit a funeral director on the way out of town and send someone round here. No need for you to have anything further to do with Spencer’s body.’
‘Why is Cotterell so terrifying?’ Tez wondered when the sound of his car had vanished into the distance. ‘You wouldn’t want to get on his wrong side.’
Isabella considered this, then shrugged. ‘I don’t find him terrifying, exactly, but then I’m not one of his enemies. I do find him implacable, if that’s the word.’
Georgie put her cup down. ‘It was the first time he’s ever hugged me that I remember. I wonder who my real mother was?’
‘I don’t think he’ll ever tell you. He sounds to have loved her, though.’
‘I’ll make him tell me. I might have a whole family somewhere to replace the one I’ve lost.’
‘You’ve got us as well,’ Isabella said. ‘And you’ll have a nephew or niece in a few months. You can come and stay with us for a while, if you like, before you go up to London.’
‘Would you mind? I don’t really want to go there yet. I’d like some peaceful time first. But I will go and stay with my father in a few days, see how that works out.’
‘Of course we don’t mind. You can have what used to be Tez’s bedroom.’ She smiled at her husband and slipped her hand into his. Things would go well for them now, she was sure.
Epilogue
On a snowy morning the following January, Isabella gave birth to a baby boy.
When the midwife had cleaned everything up, Tez came in to sit beside her.
‘Mother will need a rest,’ the midwife told them severely.
‘Mother needs to see Father more than she needs to rest,’ Isabella said promptly. She might put up with a domestic tyrant like this woman to guide her through the mysteries of giving birth, but it hadn’t been a bad birthing, and she wanted her husband now.
‘I’ll be back in ten minutes,’ the midwife said, giving them a fierce look. ‘Then Mother must rest.’
When the woman had grumbled her way down to the kitchen, Tez kissed Isabella’s cheek. ‘Well done.’
Her eyes were on the tiny body in the cradle. ‘I wanted to cuddle him but she insisted on taking him away from me.’
‘That’s easily solved.’ Tez leant across and lifted the squirming infant out of the cradle, giving him a kiss on the forehead before passing him to Isabella.
‘Isn’t he wonderful?’
‘A miracle of beauty,’ he said solemnly, eyeing the red squalling face, which looked slightly squashed to him. ‘Still want to call him Philip?’
‘Yes, of course. Philip Aaron Tesworth after both his fathers.’ She gave Tez a glowing smile. ‘Thank you for looking after us both so well while I waited for him to emerge.’
‘That was my pleasure.’
‘You are a lovely man, Tez. And I love you very much.’
His face lit up. ‘Darling! That’s the first time you’ve said it.’
‘I mean it.’
‘I know. You don’t pretend about anything.’
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About the Author
ANNA JACOBS is the author of over seventy novels and is addicted to storytelling. She grew up in Lancashire, emigrated to Australia in the 1970s and writes stories set in both countries. She loves to return to England regularly to visit her family and soak up the history. She has two grown-up daughters and a grandson, and lives with her husband in a spacious home near the Swan Valley, the earliest wine-growing area in Western Australia. Her house is crammed with thousands of books.
annajacobs.com
By Anna Jacobs
THE HONEYFIELD SERIES
The Honeyfield Bequest
A Stranger in Honeyfield
THE GREYLADIES SERIES
Heir to Greyladies
Mistress of Greyladies
Legacy of Greyladies
THE WILTSHIRE GIRLS SERIES
Cherry Tree Lane
Elm Tree Road
Yew Tree Gardens
THE PEPPERCORN STREET SERIES
Peppercorn Street
Cinnamon Gardens
Winds of Change
Copyright
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First published in Great Britain by Allison & Busby in 2017.
This ebook edition published in Great Britain by Allison & Busby in 2017.
Copyright © 2017 by ANNA JACOBS
The moral right of the author is hereby asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All characters and events in this publication other than those clearly in the public domain are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent buy
er.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978–0–7490–2020–0