Free Tangled by Mary Balogh Page B

mother, she dipped the pen in the inkwell three separate times but could think of not a word to write. Except "David is home." But she could not begin a letter with those words. It would seem that the fact of his homecom-

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    ing was of immense significance to her. It was not. She set the pen down and got to her feet with a sigh after ten minutes when the paper was still blank.
    She glanced through the window. Clouds had covered the sky since morning. It looked chilly. It would be more comfortable to stay inside where it was warm. She had nothing to go out for. She had made her visit that morning and had got enough air and exercise for the day. It was too late to go with Louisa. She would stay in.
    And yet a scant two minutes later she had hurried into her dressing room and was tying the ribbons of her bonnet resolutely beneath her chin. She wrapped a shawl about her shoulders—she would need it this afternoon.
    She was going to have a word with Flora.

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    David had not followed Rebecca back to the house. Instead he had turned and walked back the way they had come together and the way she had come alone. He had been to Flora Ellis's cottage only once, with his father. It had been before the birth of her son.

    He knocked on the door and then looked down as it was opened almost immediately by a small boy. Yes, the child was dark, like himself—and like his mother. He had Julian's gray eyes.
    "My lord?" Flora Ellis came up behind her son and curtsied awkwardly. She looked startled.
    "Flora?" he said. "May I come in?"
    She drew her son out of the doorway and motioned for David to come inside. She led the way into a small yet cozy parlor, snatching a book off one chair and some sewing ofF another as she went. She asked him to be seated.
    "May I offer you some refreshments, my lord?" she asked.
    He had forgotten how lovely she was, how voluptuous her figure.
    How very much Julian's type, physically speaking. He had loved Rebecca, of course. There could be no doubt about that. But Rebecca was a lady and a refined one at that. Julian had always needed more than beauty and refinement and love.
    "No, thank you," he said. "Flora, how are you?" She might be voluptuous to look at, but she was a lady
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    too. She had been a happy, high-spirited girl, as often in trouble with her straitlaced father as he ever was with his.
    "I am well, my lord," she said, "as you see. And you? I am glad you came back safely from the war. I was happy to hear that you were coming home."
    "Thank you," he said. He looked at the little boy, who was standing beside her chair, clinging to her sleeve and staring at him.
    "You have a beautiful son."
    "Yes." She smiled at the child. "He is my pride and joy."
    "You are managing, Flora?" he asked. "You have enough of everything?''
    "Yes," she said hastily. "I am very well blessed, thanks to you and his lordship. We have everything we need."
    "He will go to the village school?" he said. "We will talk about further education when he is older. And about a suitable career for him."
    "Yes," she said, "thank you. You are most kind."
    He looked at her broodingly for a few silent moments and at the child. "I want Rebecca to marry me," he said and watched her eyes widen. "She wants to know why I did not marry you."
    Flora blushed. "I said at the time it was madness," she said. "I said it would come back to haunt you. I should have insisted on the truth being told, I suppose, but at the time I was in no state to make sensible decisions. I allowed you to talk me into something I should never have agreed to."
    "At the time," he said, "it seemed the only thing to do. The wedding was all arranged and the guests had all been invited. There would have been a dreadful scandal. And you said yourself that you realized Julian would never marry you."
    Flora bent over her child suddenly and whispered in his ear. "You may go and take a