Page 41 of The Heiress's Daughter
“Y—No, that wasn’t it at all.” But it was too late. It was clear her mind was made up.
“Thank you for your concern, Lord Randall, but indeed there is no need to concern yourself about my welfare—”
“It’s not that. I am cour—”
“Clarissa! I just seen Lady Thornton’s paintings and they were—oh!” A young girl burst into the summerhouse, saw him and broke off.
Race rose to his feet, staring. She was a younger version of Leo’s wife, Izzy.
The girl gave Clarissa a guilty glance. “Désolée,” she began but Clarissa stood and said composedly, “Lord Randall, this is my cousin from France, Mademoiselle Zoë Benoît. Zoë, this is Lord Randall, a friend of Izzy’s husband.”
The girl curtsied and greeted him in French.
Race narrowed his eyes. Her French was good—colloquial and aristocratic, but the few words she’d spoken in English had sounded distinctly lower-class.
He bowed. “Delighted to meet you, mademoiselle. What were you saying about Lady Thornton’s paintings?”
She gave him a bewildered look, then shook her head as if she hadn’t understood. She looked at Clarissa again, said, “Désolée, Clarissa,” picked up her skirts and fled.
“Forgive my young cousin, she is shy,” Clarissa began.
“Young cousin, my foot,” Race said pleasantly. “She’s another half sister, isn’t she? Not only is she the spitting image of Izzy, her English accent reveals at least half her upbringing, and it’s less than genteel. The quality of her French, though, is a mystery.”
“Her English governess was sadly—”
“Invented?”
Clarissa bit her lip, said nothing for a long time, then sat down with a sigh. “Can I ask for your discretion?”
He inclined his head and resumed his seat. “Of course. It goes without saying.”
“Thank you.”
“Care to explain?”
She told him how she’d discovered Zoë in an orphanage—an English orphanage, where she had been given the name of Susan Bennet.
“And so, instead of a maid, you discovered a half sister.” It explained her jumpiness when he’d asked her about finding a maid the other day.
She nodded. “But Zoë is reluctant to believe it. She insists on proof, and is worried her existence will cause problems for Izzy and me.”
“Wise girl.” Producing an illegitimate half sister would revive the rumors still faintly circulating about Izzy’s legitimacy. Her marriage to Leo had all but quashed them, but society loved a scandal and it would not be hard to reinvigorate this one. And that would affect Clarissa as well.
The girl’s caution about embracing this potential sisterhood also impressed him. From the sounds of things she hadn’t had an easy life and, related or not, it would be understandable if she jumped at the opportunity to raise her status and increase her security. But it seemed she hadn’t.
“I don’t care whether it’s wise or not. She’s my sister and I’m keeping her!” Clarissa declared fiercely.
Race smiled. Of course she was. Loyalty and love were Clarissa’s two driving forces. “Then we’d better devise a plan for enabling you to do so.”
She frowned.“We?”
“Yes of course. I am entirely at your service.”
“Oh.”
He waited a moment, then said, “It was clever of you to introduce her as a French cousin.”
She grimaced. “That was Zoë’s idea. I didn’t much like it at first, but it will probably be easier to get people to accept it than to convince them that Izzy and I have a youngersister who’s been away at school, which is what I’d planned to do.”
