Free A Liverpool Legacy by Anne Baker Page A

painfully young.’
    ‘It doesn’t have to be marriage,’ she said, daring again. ‘Not with me. You must know I’d settle for less.’
    ‘Millie!’ He jerked upright in his chair. ‘Do you think I would allow you to do that?’
    The silence stretched between them endlessly while Millie tried to think. At last she said, ‘So the problem is my age? Don’t I seem a lot older than Valerie? Hasn’t my life made me grow up more quickly?’
    ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘you seem very much older than Valerie, but not old enough to get entangled with an old man like me.’
    Pete felt no less embarrassed than he had the last time. He had to get away from her before he committed himself too far. Of course he was in love with her but how stupid could he get? James would laugh at him and so would all his friends. He daren’t touch her, because once started he’d never stop. Yet it was taking more strength than he had to keep his hands away from her. The law would say he’d enslaved a girl too young to resist his persuasion. She was already cooking for him and handling his laundry; if he took her into his arms and showed his love, they’d call her Lolita.
    He’d seen her breast-feeding her baby with a tranquil Madonna-like smile on her face and that would set any man’s emotions on fire. He wanted to marry her, make it all legal and above board, but she was a minor. She’d need permission from a parent or guardian before she could marry. She’d told him when and how she’d discovered she’d been an illegitimate baby. Millie had said she knew of no other relatives and sobbed that she was afraid her mother had been turned out of the family home when her pregnancy became noticeable, and how she wished she’d been able to talk about that with her. But by the time she knew about it her mother had been too ill to open her mind to her. That had wrung his heart.
    It seemed Millie’s mother had brought her up single-handed and he’d seen the close relationship they had, but now when Millie needed her permission to marry, she was no longer alive. She’d said she knew of no other relatives. Pete had no official status as her guardian though he’d inferred to Hattie and the girls that he was acting in that capacity, but that wouldn’t give him any legal rights and as he was thinking of marrying her himself he’d be laughed at. Perhaps also he’d be seen as taking advantage of a vulnerable young girl who had no one else to turn to.
    Pete told himself he was several sorts of an old fool, but yes, it was what he wanted. He wasn’t sure how it could be done or even if it could be done, but there must be some way. Millie seemed very sure of her feelings and he was too old to waste the years waiting until she was twenty-one.
    He gave the matter a good deal of thought over the next few days, and then in the office where Millie could not possibly overhear him he telephoned Alec Douglas, the solicitor who had acted for his family for years, and to whom he paid a fee to help with any legal problems that might arise in his business.
    ‘Alec,’ he said, ‘I need your advice on a personal matter.’ He outlined his problem.
    ‘Not a common problem,’ he was told. ‘More people have difficulties breaking up a marriage than putting one together. Well, I can’t deal with that myself, it’s not my field, but I can recommend somebody who can.’
    Peter rang the person whose name he’d been given. ‘Yes, it’s perfectly possible. The young lady will need to apply to the Court of Summary Jurisdiction for permission. I can handle that for her if you would make an appointment for her to come in, and she gives me the details.’
    ‘Is this permission easy to get?’
    ‘They’re unlikely to withhold it unless there’s good reason.’
    Pete sank back in his office chair. Now that the difficulties seemed surmountable, he felt he could seriously consider marrying for a second time. It was seven years since Esme had died and he’d been in