Free The Ideal Wife by Mary Balogh Page B

wiser, would she? She would not know that she was deceiving him.
    “No,” she said, “there is more. There are more of us.”
    “More like you?” he said, reaching across the table for her hand and squeezing it. She had not realized until he touched her that her hands were like blocks of ice. “You are one of triplets? Quadruplets?”
    “Oh, heaven save the world,” she said. “No. But there are Boris and Bea and Clara.”
    “Tell me about them,” he said. He was using his fatherly voice again, talking to her as if she were a child. He sat back in his chair, rested his elbows on the table, and steepled his fingers beneath his chin.
    “Boris is my brother,” she said, and swallowed. That was not quite the truth, but she no longer had the courage to tell him the truth. She should have done it, if she was going to do so, as soon as she had sat down at the table and before looking at him. “Beatrice and Clara are my half-sisters. They are still just children. They are Papa’s and my stepmother’s, but she . . .” She picked up a fork from the table and played absently with it. “She passed on.” That was not a total untruth, she thought.
    “Where are these children now?” he asked.
    “Bea and Clara?” she said. “They are with a great-aunt in Bath. Their great-aunt, not mine. But they are not happy there. She took them in only because there was no alternative, and she subscribes to the ridiculous notion that children are to be seen and not heard.”
    “You are fond of them?” he asked.
    She glanced down at her hands and replaced the fork beside her plate. She was surprised to see that the plate was empty of all except a few crumbs.
    “They are almost like my own children,” she said. “After their mother lef . . . er, was gone, I had the full care of them because Papa was . . . well, indisposed. It broke my heart when I had to set them on the stage and see them on their way to Bath. They have never had a happy life, but at least I used to be there to love them and to allow them to get dirty and to shout and run once in a while.”
    “Your brother inherited,” he said, frowning, “and would not care for either you or your sisters?”
    “Oh, there was nothing to inherit,” she said, “except debts. Papa was . . . ill, you know, for a long time and was unable to pay his debts. We sold everything and still did not pay them all. Boris is here in London somewhere—I rarely see him. He is determined to make his fortune the quick way.”
    “Gambling?” he asked.
    “He wants to pay our debts,” she said. “He always wanted something better than Papa would . . . Well, Papa was ill and Boris did not have a chance to do any of the things he would have liked to do.”
    He looked at her without speaking.
    “Miles,” she said. She was fidgeting with her fork again and set it down. “I thought . . . When you asked me to marry you, that is, I thought . . . That is, everyone knows that you are as rich as Croesus.” She looked up at him in dismay and flushed. “And that is something else you should know about me. I sometimes do not hear the words I am going to speak until my audience is hearing them too. I did not mean to say that. It is none of my concern.”
    “It is,” he said. “You are married to a man whom everyone knows to be as rich as Croesus. What do you want me to do for your brother and your sisters, Abby?”
    “Oh,” she said, looking up at him in an agony, “I want them to live with me, Miles. The girls, that is. I want them back with me. Is there a large house at Severn Park? I will wager there is. You need never see them. I will keep them out of your way. And they will not be overly expensive, I promise you. They are not accustomed to wealth and will not be demanding. And I will not expect any expensive schooling for them. Indeed, I would not want them away from home to go to school. I would teach them myself.”
    “Abby.” His hand was over hers again, his fingers curled under