Free Marigold's Marriages by Sandra Heath Page A

happened at the reading of your father’s will. Sit down too,” she urged, removing her gloves and then patting the grass beside her.
    Perry obeyed, and then looked in astonishment at her left hand as he noticed her new ring. “Mama, are you and Lord Avenbury ... ?”
    “To be married? Yes, Perry, we are, but please don’t leap to conclusions, for once you hear about the will, I’m sure you will understand. At least, I hope you will. Will you hear me out?”
    He put his hand quickly on her arm. “Mama, you know how much I love you, and how much I despised my father and all the Arnolds for the way they treated you. Of course I will hear you out, but there is just one thing.”
    “Yes?”
    “Isn’t Lord Avenbury connected with ... ? I mean, aren’t he and Aunt Alauda... ?” He colored and fell silent.
    Marigold felt herself go a little pink too. “Well, yes, I believe they are, but that has nothing to do with this.”
    “Aunt Alauda won’t see it that way,” Perry replied shrewdly.
    “No, she probably won’t, but that is Lord Avenbury’s concern, not mine, or yours.”
    “She’s a true Arnold, and therefore not someone to cross. I’m an Arnold too, but not through and through like the rest of them.”
    “I should hope not, for you are my son too,” Marigold replied with a smile.
    He grinned. “Anyway, tell me everything, Mama.”
    Taking a deep breath, she related all that had happened that dreadful day at Castell Arnold. Perry’s eyes at first widened, and then grew steadily more stormy. “I—I am declared illegitimate?” he interrupted, shock widening his eyes and draining his face of color.
    Her hand still rested over his, and she squeezed his fingers in an attempt to reassure. “Yes, I fear that for the moment you are, just as I am branded a fallen woman, but your Uncle Falk admitted to me in private that the will Mr. Crowe read out was not genuine. Lord Avenbury is to instruct his own lawyer to make every possible investigation. If it is possible to prove their villainy, it will be done, I promise you that. In the meantime, my marriage to Lord Avenbury will offer us both protection. You do understand what I’m saying, don’t you?”
    “Yes, I—I believe so.”
    She went on, but when he learned how she had been forcibly ejected from Castell Arnold, it was too much. He leapt angrily to his feet. “Uncle Falk did that to you? I will call him out! I will make him pay for treating you so foully!” he cried, his hands clenched into furious fists. He startled Sir Francis, who awoke with a surprised quack.
    Marigold put a soothing hand up to her son. She could see how he trembled with emotion, and her heart surged with pride and love. How fine a son he was to want to defend her. “It’s all right, Perry. Please sit down again, so I can tell you how things have arrived at their present situation. Oh, be quiet, you foolish duck!” she added as Sir Francis continued to register protests at being awoken.
    The mallard clacked its bill, but subsided once more into the daisies, and after a moment tucked his head under his wing again. Then Perry resumed his place beside her as well, and she went on with her extraordinary tale. At last she finished. “There, now you know why I am about to become Lady Avenbury,” she said.
    Perry plucked at the daisies. “But you don’t really know why he is entering into it?”
    “No.”
    “Isn’t that a little risky? I mean, you hadn’t even met him before last night, and it seems to me he should be on Falk’s side, not ours.”
    “I wondered that, but I trust him completely.” She did, although when she had stepped over that particular threshold, she really didn’t know.
    “Do you love him?” Perry asked.
    She was aware of hesitating before answering. “No, of course not. How can I possibly love him in so short a time?”
    “So you’re only doing it because of me?” Resolve suddenly blazed in his eyes. “I cannot let that happen! I will leave Eton