The Foundling Bride. Helen Dickson

I find your inquisitorial and aggressive manner both unreasonable and unacceptable. You are playing the role of an outraged father whose honour has been besmirched a little too well for my liking—casting accusations and demanding explanations. A lot has happened to me in your absence. I am no longer the complaisant, naïve, pathetic young girl you remember.’

      ‘You were many things, Lowena, but you were never pathetic,’ he countered softly.

      She stared at him, momentarily thrown by the sudden softening in his eyes. ‘Oh—thank you. But you see I am my own person now, and I answer to no one.’

      Looking at the tempestuous young woman standing before him, her eyes flashing like angry jewels and her breasts rising and falling with suppressed emotion, Marcus felt a stirring of reluctant admiration for her courage and daring to speak out so plainly.

      ‘Thank you for that edifying piece of information.’

      ‘Think nothing of it,’ she retorted.

      Drawing a deep, suffocating breath, she fought with all her strength to keep back the tears which had started to her eyes and to ignore a heart beating hard with a mixture of so many emotions that they almost overwhelmed her.

      ‘Am I to reside at the cottage indefinitely?’ she ventured to ask, when she was confident she could speak calmly. She was bewildered by the night’s events and did not really know what she wanted to do at that moment.

      ‘For now. I’ll speak to my mother in the morning. Now, come along. The hour is late and I think we could both do with some sleep.’

      Clutching her bundle close to her chest, Lowena followed Marcus out of the house and down the drive in the direction of the cottage. She stared at his broad back. Silly, girlish tears pricked her eyes. She blinked and set her mouth in a determined line before they reached the cottage.

      They were not surprised to find it in darkness. Marcus hammered on the door and after a few minutes a woman in her night attire, carrying a lighted candle, opened it a crack.

      ‘Who is it?’ she enquired, clearly afraid that it might be someone up to no good.

      ‘It’s me, Mrs Seagrove—Lowena,’ she said quickly, in order to allay the housekeeper’s fears. ‘Mr Marcus is with me.’

      Mrs Seagrove opened the door to let them in. Marcus quickly explained the situation, and in no time at all Mrs Seagrove was showing them to their rooms. Marcus insisted that he did not want his mother disturbed. Time enough for her to welcome him home in the morning.