Free The Lost And Found Girl by Catherine King

but there are others who do.’
    ‘And the money has all gone,’ Mrs Collins replied sourly.
    ‘I am the heir to Lord Redfern, Mama. I have access to means. Just write and ask for what you need.’
    ‘Will you not live here, Edgar?’
    ‘High Fell is too isolated. Milo has his living just outside Leeds. I shall stay with him until I find suitable lodgings. Why don’t you move to Settle, Mama? The Golden Lion is very comfortable.’
    Mrs Collins’s eyes became alert at this idea. ‘His lordshipwill surely change his mind about you when you have a son. I believe there is a Dower House on the estate.’
    ‘It will be yours, Mama.’
    Beth saw the obsession take over Mrs Collins’s eyes as she receded into her dream.
    ‘If I have a son,’ Edgar continued, ‘we shall both be installed in Redfern Abbey. Everything rests on a son.’ He glanced in Beth’s direction. ‘The girl is well? Mama! I asked you about the girl.’
    ‘I can speak for myself, Edgar, if you take the trouble to ask me.’
    He raised his eyebrows. ‘Barden was not totally honest about you. You are wilful. I should not wish to present you to Lord Redfern. However, I shall not need you once the infant is born.’
    Will not need her when her child is born?
What was he thinking of doing with her? Banishing her to a convent or worse?
    ‘Unless my child is a girl,’ Beth said. Even as she said it she wished she hadn’t. She would rather be in a nunnery than be forced to share Edgar’s bed again. In fact the harsh Blackstone regime would be more welcome to her than any more of Edgar’s assaults on her body.
    Edgar shrugged. ‘You have proved yourself fertile and in robust health. You will give me a son eventually.’ He walked over to her, tweaked her nose between his knuckles and bent close to whisper in her ear, ‘The bedchamber will be my consolation.’
    Beth felt a blush rise in her cheeks and wondered if she could put him off until after the birth. ‘How long will you be staying at High Fell,’ she asked.
    ‘I shall be here for the birth,’ he replied. ‘His lordship has expressed a wish that he witness the birth.’
    Beth’s eyes widened. ‘His lordship will journey here?’
    Mrs Collins, too, recovered and expressed surprise. ‘Surely he will not visit!’
    Edgar addressed his mother. ‘He has insisted that a trusted servant attend the girl. Where the bloodline is concerned he will not leave things to chance. The birth will be observed.’
    Beth had ceased to be shocked by the ways of the gentry, but that did not stop her protesting. ‘I will not have some stranger at my confinement!’
    ‘You will be quiet and do as you are told.’
    ‘I shall not, sir, not when you speak so of my well-being! You would do well to remember that my child will need a mother.’
    ‘Dear God, she is impudent as well as wilful.’
    Mrs Collins advised her son, ‘You must take the strap to her after the child is born. I shall do the same.’
    To Beth’s horror, he appeared to consider this. He stroked his mouth with his fingers and nodded thoughtfully.
    She responded, ‘You would be wise to take great care of me, sir. Even if my child is a girl, you will need me to remain in good health.’ But these words made Beth realise that she was as anxious as he for her child to be a boy. Heaven forbid that she would have to lie with him for years until she produced the necessary heir.
    ‘His lordship is sending his own surgeon, a loyal and trusted gentleman who has served the family all his life. He is advanced in years but his lordship is insisting that he sees the mother and delivers the child himself.’
    Beth felt a sense of relief that the servant would be a medical man, but Mrs Collins seemed affronted by thisexplanation. ‘I do not see the need. Does he not acknowledge that you are the child’s father?’
    ‘He does. Milo presented the evidence to his lawyers and clergy,’ Edgar shrugged. ‘However, his lordship believes that if the child is