Page 70 of One Night with an Earl

“Oh, yes. Did she tell you that I once read her cup?”

“No. Never.” Ana’s mother had avoided cup reading, especially from the skilled Queenie. Ana never knew if it was because her mother did not believe in the superstition or if she believed too much.

“This happened back in Lebanon when Silva was a young woman. I told her she would meet a white man, an Englishman.”

“You did?”

“My reading wasn’t kind toward him. It said he would take from her and leave devastation in her path. Silva was upset.”

Ana gaped. “My mother never told me. I assume the Englishman was my father.”

“Yes. My fortune was not wrong.”

“But my father adored my mother!”

Queenie clucked her tongue. “Silva understood fortunes are tricky. Lord Woodbridge did leave devastation in his wake. Silva’s father, your grandfather, never approved of the match.”

Ana had never met her grandfather. He’d never come to England and had died in Lebanon. “I was told he enjoyed searching for antiquities, just like my father, and that he offered him part of his vast fig orchard.”

“Silva told this story to her children. The truth is your grandfather threatened to kill your father and disowned Silva. She fled to London without her large dowry to marry your father.”

“That cannot be true! Father used Mother’s dowry to purchase Rosedown.”

“No. Silva stole one of your grandfather’s antiquities before leaving, a valuable Byzantine gold cross, and the funds from the sale were used to purchase the estate.”

Ana’s pulse leaped, and her hand flew to her own gold cross at her neck.

“Not that one, my child, but a much larger solid gold cross. One that could sit upon a mantel. I assume the gold was melted down for money.”

“I had no idea. Mother hid this story from me.”

“She had planned to tell you, but illness took her first. So you see, my fortune was true. But one can still seize happiness. Your parents loved each other, and your mother would not have been happy with another man.”

Ana sat quiet, Queenie’s words thundering through her mind. Everything she’d thought about her parents’ marriage had been turned on its head. What did all of this mean when it came to her own life?

Queenie squeezed her hand. “Your future lies in your hands, not in a coffee cup. What will you decide?”

She’d told Oliver she’d meet his carriage at midnight. Could she be as brave as her mother?

Yes, she could.

She had no illusions of a future with the earl. Unlike her father, Oliver had not proposed marriage. Rather, he’d proposed something much more dangerous. Something more enticing and intoxicating than the finest wine.

Pleasure.

She still feared her fortune, but she feared a bleak, unadventurous life more.

“Trust yourself, Anahit,” Queenie said.

Ana sniffled. “How will I go on without you?”

Queenie reached out to smooth a wisp of hair from Ana’s face. “You will be fine. You are strong, just like your mother.”

Ana’s heart bottomed out, a dull ache of despair in her chest. She wanted to hold onto the older woman’s hand forever and not let go. She’d lost her mother too young. Now she was to lose another mother-figure. How would she bear it?

Chapter Twenty-Five

“Your lady agreed to a liaison?” The Duke of Warwick eyed Oliver with keen interest over his glass. “How did you manage that?”