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‘Not at all. I am most pleased to make your uncle’s acquaintance,’ he said to her.
She noted that he was perhaps avoiding referring to her by name. She was now ‘Lady Katherine,’ of course, but to say so in front of Uncle John would no doubt cause a reaction better avoided until the man had had the chance to take in the truth of her identity.
Lady Katherine. Me. How preposterous.
And yet there would be no avoiding it.
A part of her delighted in the title, and yet it felt like being a child and playacting. She was just Kate, after all. How could she possibly put on such airs in real life?
‘We should not keep Lieutenant Alden any longer, Uncle,’ Kate said after a few minutes more had passed and her uncle remained speechless.
‘Oh,’ he said now, starting upright in his chair and looking from Kate to Lt. Alden in confusion. ‘Oh, my. Well, it’s out of the question to send you off now, sir. I shall have a bed made up.’
‘Oh, no, I really couldn’t impose—’
Uncle John, having found a cause, would not be dissuaded, however. ‘Nonsense. We shan’t send you out at this hour, all the way to Berkshire, heaven forfend.’
He roused the maid-of-all-work and soon enough they were bidding Lt. Alden goodnight at the door of the guest room.
‘Well, from one uncle to another, I suppose,’ Lt. Alden said cheerfully. ‘Goodnight to you as well, sir.’
Lt. Alden gave Kate a smile and then retired.
Uncle John was blinking at the door as it shut, then he turned a startled gaze on Kate. ‘From one uncle to another?’
Kate mustered what strength she had left. ‘Indeed, Uncle. Lieutenant Alden is the earl’s brother, so he is my uncle, as well.’
Uncle John wrung his hands. ‘More so than I, I daresay. If what he says is true, I am no true relation of yours at all, dear girl.’
Sorrow pierced Kate’s heart to hear him say so. ‘You are the only family I have known in all the world, save for Aunt Mary and Mama. That shan’t change, dear Uncle. I shan’t allow it.’
He gave her a sad look then, and Kate was most distressed to see it.
‘’Tis very late,’ he said. ‘Let us not linger any longer, but go to bed. Everything will be clearer in the morning.’
Chapter 8
James
‘Alden, at last!’ James said as he stood at the window in the blue parlour and watched the gig travel up the drive.
Hurriedly he went out to meet his friend, feeling unaccountably agitated.
Alden gave the reins to a groomsman and joined James, falling into step beside him for a walk neither of them needed to say anything to set into motion.
‘Well, how did it go? You must have spoken with the farmer, surely?’
Alden nodded. ‘Indeed I did. He struck me as an honest fellow. Most respectable.’
‘I met him as well, you may recall. I found him, and his wife, most agreeable,’ James said.
‘Indeed! I had forgotten Miss—that is to say,LadyKatherine is one and the same with your farmgirl. The one who rescued you in the bog!’
Alden laughed in delight.
James did not know how to respond to this. The revelations had shaken him profoundly, and he felt he was not himself. Never had he experienced such energy. He had hardly slept, and yet he felt no fatigue. His mind was alert and his body electrified. He only suffered a great sense of longing—Lady Katherine was now so very far away, and he wanted very much to see her and speak with her and assure himself that she was well.
‘How was she when you left this morning?’ he asked Alden.
