Free A Scandalous Secret by Beth Andrews

conscience. Still, she knew that it was more than she normally employed. She rarely raised her voice to him, and had never had recourse to a spanking. No doubt it was the unusual severity of her scolding which caused him to swallow suspiciously before he could command himself well enough to reply.
    ‘What shall I do with my fish?’ he asked at last.
    ‘You had best give it to Cook,’ his aunt told him, trying to hide her amusement. ‘I am sure she will be grateful for so fine a catch.’
    ‘Thank you, Aunt Dorinda,’ he said, taking his leave of them with great dignity.
    ‘Poor boy,’ Dorinda said when he had gone. ‘He is not accustomed to such scolds from you, Lizzy. And he was so proud of his fish.’
    ‘He could well have drowned today,’ Elizabeth insisted stubbornly.
    ‘Well, all’s well that ends well. Thank Heaven for Mr Markham—’
    ‘Who should have had the sense to bring Nicky home instead of encouraging him in his tricks!’
    Dorinda seemed quite surprised at the sharpness of this retort. ‘I am sure Mr Markham meant no harm. Doubtless he did not fully understand the situation. He is not used to children, I daresay -having none of his own.’
    Elizabeth felt an unaccustomed and most unwelcome sensation in her breast at these words. No children of his own…. Oh, how wrong Dorinda was!
    ‘I suppose,’ she said slowly, ‘that one must make allowances. My nerves are a little overset, I fear.’
    ‘Naturally so.’ Dorinda smiled softly. ‘I am glad, though, that you do not blame Mr Markham too much. I was beginning to think that you did not like our new friend - though it seems that he has made a conquest of your son.’
    ‘So it seems.’
    Dorinda then went off to inform the servants that the search for the missing earl was now at an end, and to hasten back to her little girl’s sickroom. Elizabeth, too, traded one worry for another. While it was inevitable, she supposed, that Nicky and Mr Markham would meet, it could not but be unsettling. Surely the gentleman must have remarked the strong resemblance between himself and the boy. Or was it only her eyes which could so plainly perceive the father in the son?
    * * * *
    Unlike his new acquaintance, Dominick arrived home fishless but unscolded. Entering the spacious hall, he came upon his aunt, who was dusting a silver candlestick with a fine lace-edged handkerchief.
    ‘Really, Aunt Winnie,’ he remonstrated, placing an arm affectionately about her shoulders, ‘will you never allow the servants an opportunity to do their work for themselves?’
    Aunt Winifred ceased her dusting, but seemed in no way perturbed by his feigned reproach. ‘I never met a servant yet who did any job thoroughly. But why should they care much for what’s not their own?’
    ‘Perhaps,’ he suggested, with the lift of one expressive eyebrow, ‘because they are paid handsomely for doing so?’
    ‘Aye. Maybe.’ She turned to enter the drawing-room with him, adding, ‘You seem in much better spirits today, praise be. I was growing tired of your blue devils. Caught a trout, have you?’
    ‘No.’ He grinned. ‘A friend.’
    That’s a new set-out for a fisherman,’ his aunt said, settling herself on the edge of a chair.
    ‘Perhaps not.’ Dominick took the chair opposite. ‘Did not Christ promise to make his disciples “fishers of men”?’
    ‘And who might this new friend be?’
    ‘None other than the Earl of Dansmere.’
    Aunt Winnie was suitably startled. ‘What! The countess’s boy?’
    ‘The very same.’
    ‘How came you to meet him, then?’
    Dominick proceeded to entertain her with a lively description of his encounter with Nicholas, which had the old woman chuckling appreciatively.
    ‘He sounds a regular little scamp!’ she declared indulgently when he had finished.
    ‘I should have given him a proper dressing-down,’ Dominick admitted, ‘even if he is a member of the peerage. He probably had everyone at Merrywood hunting for