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Back The Ninth Daughter
Chapters (37)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Page
  3. Dedication
  4. One
  5. Two
  6. Three
  7. Four
  8. Five
  9. Six
  10. Seven
  11. Eight
  12. Nine
  13. Ten
  14. Eleven
  15. Twelve
  16. Thirteen
  17. Fourteen
  18. Fifteen
  19. Sixteen
  20. Seventeen
  21. Eighteen
  22. Nineteen
  23. Twenty
  24. Twenty-one
  25. Twenty-two
  26. Twenty-three
  27. Twenty-four
  28. Twenty-five
  29. Twenty-six
  30. Twenty-seven
  31. Twenty-eight
  32. Twenty-nine
  33. Thirty
  34. Thirty-one
  35. Thirty-two
  36. Thirty-three
  37. Thirty-four

And the three of them stood framed, suddenly, in the door of the study—Mistress Tamar in her pink and silver ball dress, her maid a step behind with her arms full of cloaks and her black hair disheveled, handsome Jeffrey with the laughter dying out of his face as they took in the pile of letters on the table, the open box, the grim set of their father’s mouth. Tamar took a half step into the room, said, “Papa—?” and cast an uncertain glance at Abigail, then another at the box, and the letters from Jeffrey that lay beside her father’s hand.

Then she turned back to her father, tears welling to her eyes, streaming down her face. “Oh, Papa, I can explain! I knew I shouldn’t have kept them, but—”

“We’ll speak in the morning, child.” Malvern held up the letters in Piers Woodruff’s Italianate hand. “And before you protest on the subject of whose correspondence is whose business in this house, please be prepared to explain how you came to have possession of letters written to your stepmother by her brother and her father. I trust you enjoyed Mrs. Fluckner’s rout-party?” He unpocketed and held out to her a large, clean handkerchief as she began to cry, and his eyes, as he studied her face in the servant’s candlelight, held not pity, but a weary disgust and disbelief.

“Please, Papa, please, it was Oonaugh who made me keep them! Oonaugh said she’d—”

“I never!” protested the servant girl, genuinely indignant, and Abigail, watching Jeffrey’s face, saw the young man’s expression go from surprise to bemusement to sudden, earnest concern.

“Father, I must say that I’ve long deplored—”

“We’ll talk of it in the morning,” Malvern repeated, as Tamar showed signs of dissolving into hysterical tears. “Jeffrey, take your sister to her room. Oonaugh, if you’d be so good as to stay?”

“Papa, don’t believe her! Please don’t believe her! When I found she was forging those letters from Jeffrey—”

“I never!” protested the maid, as Abigail closed the study door behind Jeffrey and Tamar.

“Of course you never forged these things, girl,” said Malvern harshly. “Don’t you think I know you can barely write your own name?” From the litter on the table he picked up a handful of the spicier billets-doux Scipio had told her of, addressed to Tamar by a variety of young gentlemen and containing nothing more incriminating than some of the worst sonnets Abigail had ever read. “And I take it you have no idea how these came into my daughter’s possession either?”

“Sorr, I can explain—”