Free The Other Daughter by Lauren Willig Page B

point being?”
    Mr. Montfort sighed. “If it gets around that I’m exposing old scandals, no one will invite me anywhere. And if I’m not invited, I have no copy. It’s as simple as that. Your cousin asked me to see you safely to the train. That’s all.”
    Rachel looked at him through narrowed eyes. “I thought he asked you to give me a cup of tea.”
    â€œThat as well,” said Mr. Montfort easily.
    She wasn’t entirely sure she believed him. But if she didn’t? There was little she could do about it. Mr. Montfort looked like a man who did what he pleased and bothered about the consequences later.
    Part of her was tempted to tell him to publish and be damned. A lord to a lord, Mr. Montfort had called her father. The perfect example of an English gentleman. What would the world say if they knew he had a daughter tucked away in Norfolk?
    For a moment, Rachel wallowed in the vengeful fantasy of newspaper headlines, black and screaming. Earl’s Abandoned Daughter Seeks Justice!
    But who would it hurt in the end? Not her father. Reality stared Rachel in the face, grim and uncompromising. Even if there was a scandal, he had his estates to retire to. He could wrap himself up in his wife’s money. Oh, perhaps there would be an obligatory exile, a villa in Venice or an apartment in Paris, just until the scandal died down, but it wouldn’t touch him, not really. An earl was an earl was an earl.
    Mr. Montfort glanced casually at his watch. “I don’t want to chivy you, but I’d best be getting on. I’m due at a house party this evening. Can I give you a lift anywhere? My motor is in the Clarendon Yard.”
    She might at least get a ride out of it. “If you could drop me at the station…”
    Mr. Montfort scattered a few coins on the table. “I can do better than that. Where are you bound?”
    â€œNorfolk.” She had promised Alice she would join them for supper. What was she to tell Alice? “But you needn’t bother.”
    Mr. Montfort ignored her. “I can’t take you as far as that, but I can save you a change, at least. I can drop you at”—a moment of quick calculation—“Loughborough. That should take you direct to King’s Lynn.”
    â€œThat’s very kind of you,” Rachel said warily.
    Mr. Montfort shrugged. “It’s on my way.”
    The rain had lifted to a light mizzle, but the clouds were still heavy in the sky, creating an early dusk. Rachel followed Mr. Montfort blindly through the twisting byways of Oxford, so beautiful from a distance, so dark and narrow when one was in the middle.
    If Alice were to find out— Something tightened in Rachel’s chest. Alice was the doctor’s wife, the vicar’s daughter, respectability personified. How would Alice feel knowing that her daughter’s godmother was nothing more than an earl’s by-blow?
    Alice would hug her and tell her it didn’t matter, because Alice was like that. But it would matter. It was a small enough village. There would be whispers and mutterings, and all the people Rachel loved would be tainted by her shame.
    Her shame. The phrase caught in Rachel’s throat. As if she had done something shameful, when all she had done was be born to the wrong father. All these years, going to church on Sundays, working for good marks in school, working and working to send money home—all of that, now, gone for nothing.
    While her father merrily draped his other daughter in diamonds.
    â€œThis is my bus.” Rachel was so lost in her own thoughts, she nearly walked right into the door that Mr. Montfort held open for her. The car was black, with a bonnet that seemed to go on forever and bulbous lamps on either side.
    Old habits died hard. Rachel found herself hesitating at the door, knowing what her mother would say about accepting a ride with a strange man. It didn’t matter that he was Cousin