Free The Other Daughter by Lauren Willig

delectation of this inscrutable stranger.
    â€œThere’s no need to study me so intently,” said Mr. Montfort lazily. “If I had designs on your person, I would hardly be plying you with tea.”
    Despite herself, Rachel smiled. In her dilapidated hat and boxy suit, she was hardly the stuff of men’s wanton fancies. “Don’t forget the walnut cake.”
    â€œFood of the gods. The more vengeful sort. Ah, thank you.” That last was to the waitress, who set down the tea and the despised walnut cake. “Shall you be mother or shall I?”
    Rachel appropriated the teapot. “I’ll pour.”
    â€œTo prevent me putting mysterious powders into your tea?”
    â€œI can’t imagine what you read, Mr. Montfort,” Rachel said coolly. “Sugar?”
    â€œOnly on alternate Tuesdays.” Mr. Montfort nodded to the plate. “Eat your cake. You’ll feel better.”
    Rachel dug her fork into the cake; refusing to eat merely because Mr. Montfort was being provoking would be foolish. And, whatever she might have said to Mr. Montfort, Fuller’s walnut had always been a favorite.
    Across from her, Mr. Montfort sat calmly smoking his cigarette. In half an hour, they would go their separate ways; Rachel to her train, Mr. Montfort to wherever it was that he belonged. It was unlikely their paths would cross again.
    And he knew her father. Not well, perhaps, but he knew him.
    Quickly, before she could think better of it, Rachel set down her fork. “What can you tell me about my father?”
    Mr. Montfort raised a brow.
    â€œYou say you know him. I’m unlikely to meet anyone else who does.” It was a disconcerting thought, but true. But for that clipping, she might have gone her whole life never knowing, never guessing. “You have to admit, anyone would be curious. In my circumstances.”
    â€œIn your circumstances.” Mr. Montfort stretched out his long legs, those midnight eyes on Rachel’s face, taking in her dowdy hat and tousled hair. “Yes, I imagine one would be.”
    Rachel could feel the color rising in her cheeks. “I’m not after his money. I just want—” What? To know who he was? Why he’d done what he’d done? She reached for her bag. “Oh, never mind. It doesn’t matter. And I’ve a train to catch. How much do I owe you for the tea?”
    â€œI’ll send the bill to your cousin.” Mr. Montfort’s hand, on hers, sent a momentary jolt of electricity through her. “As for your father … Ardmore is held up as the perfect example of an English gentleman. A lord to a lord and a man to a man.”
    There was an edge to his voice. Rachel paused in fussing with her purse, looking sharply at him. “Do you not share that view?”
    â€œYou’re here, aren’t you?” The insult was delivered so casually that it took Rachel a moment to feel the sting of it. “You wouldn’t be quite so shocking if Ardmore didn’t have such a reputation as a pillar of virtue.”
    â€œI could be an imposter.”
    Mr. Montfort assumed a meditative pose. “ I should think this a gull but that the white-bearded fellow speaks it. Much Ado About Nothing .”
    â€œYes, I know.” Her father had read Shakespeare to her on winter evenings. Back in the days when she had believed they were a family.
    â€œIn plain words,” said Mr. Montfort, lounging back in his chair, “David says it, ergo it must be true. He wouldn’t lie.”
    The cake tasted like ash on Rachel’s tongue. “Oh, wouldn’t he?”
    Mr. Montfort flicked ash from his cigarette. “We are most likely cousins—in the twentieth degree or thereabouts. Your family and mine came over with the Conqueror together and haven’t stopped reminding anyone since.”
    â€œIn other words,” said Rachel smartly, “hangers-on in the train of an