Free All I Want Is You by Elizabeth Anthony Page B

Beatrice had been asked to assist the Duchess with one of her enormous flower arrangements. She’d gone downstairs and left me in her sitting room with a day-gown that needed hemming, but my fingers were shaking so much I could not even thread the needle.
    She’d said that the American had wanted to bed me, and no doubt there would have been a reward for me, like the coins Margaret had bestowed. That would make me a whore. All my plans, all my dreams – and the onlyopportunity that had presented itself so far was to become a whore.
    Bitterness welled up inside me.
    People judge you by the value you place on yourself, Sophie.
    I suddenly let the sewing fall; I pressed my hands to my burning cheeks. If I was going to end up a whore, I preferred to choose my own clients and name my own price. But when Lady Beatrice came back an hour later, she looked excited, almost feverish.
    ‘The Duke is more ill than I thought, Sophie!’ Eagerly Beatrice sat on the settee and patted it for me to sit beside her. ‘Ah, the old witch will be furious – her husband’s not supposed to die till they’ve dealt with Lord Ashley. And I’ve found out the Duke and Duchess’s plan. They’re going to try and make out that he’s not who he says he is!’
    My mouth must have dropped open. ‘
What?
’
    She lit a cigarette and waved her hand impatiently. ‘They’re going to claim that he’s a changeling – was substituted at birth, in other words.’
    I laughed aloud. ‘That’s ridiculous. Like a fairy tale…’ My laughter suddenly faded at the look on her face.
    ‘I agree with you – but that’s what the Duke and Duchess are saying.’ She’d drawn closer. ‘Come along, now. I know how servants talk. What do you know about the new heir, Sophie?’
    I tried to remember what Cook had said. ‘His father was an English lord who lived abroad, and his mother was a French lady.’
    ‘That’s right. Ash’s father was an impoverished English baron who fancied himself an artist. His French wife – a nobody – gave birth to Ash in utter obscurity, somewhere in the French countryside.’
    She leaned closer. ‘When an important heir’s born, Sophie, there are always doctors and independent witnesses present to verify that the child is really the mother’s. But in Ash’s case, there was no birth certificate, there are no reliable witnesses to be called upon, and both Ash’s parents are dead. After all, who would have thought that Ash might one day be heir to a dukedom? Lord Charlwood was born within the first year of the Duke and Duchess’s marriage, and they could have been expected to have many more children. But they didn’t.’
    Her eyes gleamed. ‘The Duke and his Duchess are fighting tooth and nail to get Ash’s claim annulled. But Ash
will
inherit, he will!’ Suddenly her mood shifted again. She was like that, was Beatrice: you would even see her eyes change from dark to light; you would see her pointed chin lift in defiance. ‘Let’s have some music,’ she declared. She’d already jumped to her feet and was putting on her favourite, ‘Alexander’s Ragtime Band’.
    With the music my earlier despair began to dissipate. Things
were
happening, my world
was
changing. She couldn’t make me do anything I didn’t want to do. But I would learn from her, oh, I would learn.
    She’d started opening up a trunk of new gowns, each of them folded and wrapped in tissue paper, and was pulling them out to show me. ‘Sophie, I’ve broughtthese from London – look at them, do.’ Then she started dancing dreamily to the music by herself. The gowns were exquisite, but I preferred to look at her. She grabbed my arms to sweep me up. We danced together, and I laughed with pleasure. I don’t know what dance it was, I didn’t care; my feet just worked, and it was like flying.
    ‘Oh, Sophie,’ she breathed. ‘Little Sophie. You’re adorable.’ She drew me to a halt. ‘Take your horrid maid’s things off.’
    She’d asked me