She rolled her eyes, more embarrassed than peeved, and began to scramble around the room for her discarded clothes and it seemed rude not to watch such a splendid sight. Once her disappearing nightgown was back on and her robe knotted, she gathered up his clothes and threw them at him. “No smart remarks when we get downstairs. Leave me to handle Vee. At least in the short term.” She smiled as she patted her burning cheeks. “Although you should probably polish your pistols in case she has already summoned the cavalry.”
“I’ve never owned a pistol. I told you, Giles Sinclair is a lover not a fighter. A very thorough and diligent lover, too, as I hope you would agree.”
Her green eyes smoldered for a moment at the memory. “You could always borrow Dalton’s.” And with that she left to face the firing squad first.
“I suppose you want an explanation?” Diana edged into the estate office where Vee was bashing about with ledgers, cringing from head to foot.
“There is no ‘suppose’ about it, Diana!” Another ledger slammed onto the pile, releasing a puff of ancient dust from the pages. “Seeing as you have apparently decided to ignore all my warnings and give all your apple tarts away gratis!” Her sister stomped to another shelf to destroy, refusing to look at her.
“I love him.” Vee’s fingers paused on the spine of a ledger. “I wish I didn’t, I’m not quite sure how I allowed myself, but there it is. It seems I am not so immune to the opposite sex as I always believed. He claims to love me, too.”
“He does.” Vee sighed and turned, a wistful smile on her blushing face. “That is obvious and has been the entire time we’ve known him, but trust you to doubt it.”
“I don’t.” Even though her suspicious head cautioned her against such folly. “Or at least I don’t want to.”
“Old habits die hard.” Vee gestured to the table and they sat, smiling as they both patted their blushing cheeks. “You’ve always been a tough nut to crack. Harder than both me and Minerva when we all had the same upbringing.”
“I am not entirely sure that we did.”
Her little sister frowned then nodded. “That is a fair comment. You both shielded me from the worst of it.”
“Perhaps too much, as you thought our father walked on water.” If they had to have an awkward conversation, it might as well be painfully awkward. She and Vee had always clashed a little. They had always been as different as chalk and cheese.
Vee digested that for a moment before shaking her head. “Iwantedhim to walk on water, Diana. But deep down I always knew that he didn’t. That he was a wastrel with no morals and even fewer principles. The way he left you and Minerva to cope with everything always bothered me, and if I willed him back it was to relieve that burden. I foolishly thought that if I wished it hard enough, mined through all his flaws to the good that I prayed lurked beneath them somewhere, I could redeem him into becoming the father I always dreamed of.”
“That is where we differ. Where we have always differed. I always wanted him gone.”
“I know that, too.” Vee reached across the table to take her hand. “And it turns out your way was better for all of us although I didn’t see it at the time and resented you for it. Blamed you for it.” At Diana’s frown she shrugged. “I know about the man in the alleyway and the threats you made to Papa afterward.” She smiled without humor. “The walls were thin in Clerkenwell, and I have always been a light sleeper.”
“You knew I sent him away.” That certainly explained why she and Vee had always butted heads.
Her sister’s ragged laughter surprised her. “Even then I knew he just needed an excuse to justify leaving. I tried not to believe he was that mercenary, tried to give him the benefit of the doubt because that is what I do—or what I did because I was young and immature and so desperate for us to be a family that it was easier to ignore the truth than acknowledge it and grow up. For years I tried to convince myself that I had misheard that altercation despite remembering it verbatim. When that didn’t work, I convinced myself that his denial that night was sincere and that you only refused to hear it because you and he had never got on. But then I also saw how bad you felt for Minerva and me afterward, how hard you worked to support us all, and I knew, deep down and despite all my childish and desperate denial, that you acted in our best interests. Unlike him, you have always acted in our best interests. For a long time now I’ve wanted to thank you for it. For being brave enough to stand up to him and to save us. Our father was a hideous man—a lying, cheating, shameful excuse of one—but I have also long been of the opinion that you shouldn’t use that as an excuse to guard your heart against allmen. You deserve to be happy, Diana. And despite my mortification at catching you both…” She flapped her hand blushing furiously. “I am also delighted that you have found the man of your dreams. Giles is a good one.”
Diana couldn’t help smiling. “He is exceptional.”
“He is. And I cannot wait to be your bridesmaid!” Vee giggled. “At the moment, I am always the bridesmaid and never the bride.”
Diana winced. “About that…”
Chapter Thirty-Two
“It was something Gervais said.” A bright-red Vee couldn’t meet his eyes as she deposited another ledger on the pile. “About your father’s love of Welsh cake and his particular weakness for Ffion Jones.” She kept glaring at Diana, though, as the sisters had clearly had words. So many they had been sequestered in the estate office for an hour while he paced in purgatory outside. “And I knew I had seen the name somewhere in one of the staff lists. But here’s the thing…”
She tapped the entry, accidentally glanced at him, and then clearly wished she were dead. Or he was. “Diana asked me to search back a decade, but the first mention of Ffion goes back farther. She started working at Harpenden Hall as a kitchen maid in 1777, straight from the orphanage in Presteigne when she was apparently only fourteen and was dismissed at the age of twenty-one. Gervais did say your father had always wanted poor little orphaned Ffion Jones—even as a boy.”
“He did.” It was obvious the find had piqued Diana’s inquisitive, suspicious mind as she went to fetch her own pile of copious notes to rifle through them. “You might be onto something, Vee…” Shequickly scanned several pages then slapped one with the back of her hand. “It fits!”
“What fits?” As per usual he was struggling to keep up. Although in his defense Giles hadn’t slept a wink thanks to his splendiferous roll around his mattress with the most vexing Merriwell. He was still basking in the afterglow and so undone by the miraculous knowledge that she loved him that he could barely focus on anything else.
Diana loved him.
She.
Loved.
Him.
That was just…
