Free Forged by Love: Even Gods Fall in Love, Book 4 by Lynne Connolly Page B

a modest hoop, her mama regarded them closely. She closed the door quietly behind her. Then she curtseyed in response to Harry’s bow.
    “Why choose to reveal yourself now?” Harry demanded. Why would the woman come out of hiding at this time? To choose to work for the Olympians in the club?
    “It was time,” she said calmly, which explained precisely nothing.
    “I understand the relationship between you and the duchesse is not what you let the world believe,” he said.
    She nodded. “That is true, my lord, as far as it goes. We did not let the world believe anything. But I could not stand by and see my daughter shamed in such a way. That woman must be lying.”
    “Rhea Simpson?” Harry shook his head. “She is the daughter of one of my tenants, but I don’t know her any better than you do. I tend to believe her, although her method of exposing her secret was a trifle dramatic. I cannot understand what she believes she has won with this tactic.”
    “A duke,” Mrs. Davenport said. “She will win a duke.” She studied him, her face impassive. “You are an immortal.” Her voice held no query.
    “Yes,” Harry agreed. “And I will do what I can to support Virginie in this trial.”
    Mrs. Davenport’s eyes turned fiery. “She needs no help. She may do as she wishes. She’s a goddess. Who would argue with that, looking at her?”
    One dark brow went up. “We are not invulnerable, as the Titans proved in the past. We are not without enemies. Could one of these have sent Miss Simpson, or did she come of her own accord? At this stage we cannot know, although I intend to find out.”
    “Sir?”
    “She normally lives on my property. I will go north and discover what she is about.”
    Virginie turned her head sharply and met his steady gaze. “You would do that?”
    “And more,” he said quietly. “Mrs. Davenport, you know your daughter’s plans?”
    She folded her lips tightly together. “Yes, I do, and I do not approve. Gods should not flee in the face of human opposition. It is wrong.”
    He paused and studied her for a moment before his next remark. “Why, Mrs. Davenport, you are not suggesting your daughter fights this opprobrium, are you?”
    Mrs. Davenport folded her arms. “Of course. It is the natural thing to do.”
    “What do you plan to do?” he asked softly. Although he’d taken a step away from her, Virginie still felt his warmth. The minutes she’d been enclosed in his arms had felt the safest of her life—a novel sensation.
    “I will not leave my daughter again. Society knows the worst. Let it talk. It will anyway.”
    “Well said, ma’am. A new scandal will arise, no doubt.”
    “But there is no getting over this one,” Virginie said quietly.
    “Instead of going to France, why don’t we go into the country?” her mother said.
    Virginie found her mother’s proximity strange. She hadn’t seen her for ten years, ever since her marriage. Her mother must have kept away from her during Virginie’s stay at the club, which she found somewhat strange, but she had always found her mother an enigma and did not expect an explanation.
    The separation had been a stipulation of the late Duc de Clermont-Ferand, that her mother should live discreetly. He’d meant to pay for her to live in a private establishment. However Virginie’s mama had refused to do so and continued with the career she had begun after Virginie had been born. She liked it, she said, but Virginie wondered if she was not being perverse.
    And discovering secrets. Her mother loved secrets, especially when they belonged to someone else. That was exactly why society refused to allow domestic servants to have any legitimate relations with its sons and daughters. Servants knew too much. They had attended to their masters and mistresses in an embarrassingly intimate way, emptying their chamber pots, providing creams for skin blemishes, washing intimate garments.
    Virginie couldn’t face the censure of people she had