Read Behind the Mask (House of Lords) for Free Online

understand. My father and I were not on the best of terms either, and there were many times when it would perhaps have been better to have a whole continent in between us.”
    Out in the hall, the bell to dress for supper rang. Colin rose and Charles called a footman to escort him to his rooms. As he went towards the door, however, the duke said, “It’s my fault, you know, that Leo had to stay in town.”
    “Is it?”
    “I wanted to get my wife home before she gives birth to our child. Otherwise I would probably have stayed to deliver the Lord Chancellor’s plan. But you will take good care of the ladies, won’t you?”
    Colin smiled. “I give you my word.”
     
    “Oh, good,” Eleanor’s mother said when they gathered in the hall for supper. “I’m glad you chose that gown, dear. It is one of your most becoming.”
    Eleanor stifled a groan. If she was going to have to put up with several more days of this she might run mad. “I chose it specifically for Lord Pierce,” she said.
    “I’m pleased to hear it,” Lady Sidney replied, ignoring her daughter’s sarcastic tone. “Are your sisters on their way?”
    “I’m here,” Georgina said, coming down the stairs. As usual, she was dressed quite conservatively. Eleanor was certain that when Maris appeared her gown would be the polar opposite of Georgina’s staid pale green frock with its high neckline. But that was Georgina, always the willing counterpoint to her twin. Sometimes Eleanor wondered why she bothered minding their vivacious sister. Georgina had prevented far more disasters than she, and Maris always forgave her.
    The duke and duchess came down next, Danforth holding his wife’s arm securely as she descended. She looked rather embarrassed by his attentions, but she bore them admirably. It was their first child, after all, and Eleanor knew that Cynthia longed for the baby as much as her husband, and nearly as much as her father, the Earl of Sheridan, though he was prevented from openly rejoicing in the impending birth by the fact that Cynthia was his natural daughter, a child he could not publicly acknowledge. It didn’t prevent him from doting on her, of course, but it did mean that he had to be more circumspect than other men expecting their first grandchild might be.
    That afternoon as they sat in the parlor, Eleanor had asked whether the earl would be traveling up to Starling Court for the birth. Of the dozen or so people who knew the truth of the Duchess of Danforth’s parentage, Eleanor and her mother and sisters were four, and their brother a fifth. Indeed, they had learned the truth only hours after Cynthia herself, just before her marriage to the duke back in January.
    Cynthia had smiled. “He will be here next week,” she said. “No doubt he will torment Charles to no end—he does enjoy a joke now and then, and unfortunately my husband does not have the keenest sense of humor. But it will be good to have him here.”
    “And when we journey back down to London after Christmas we will be able to see your new son or daughter,” Maris had said cheerily.
    “Will you stay in Norfolk the whole autumn, then?”
    “Maris and Georgina and I will,” Lady Sidney said. “But Eleanor insists on going back down to London to help with the school.”
    Cynthia took Eleanor’s hand. “And I am grateful for it, Lady Sidney. Since I will not be able to be of much assistance, I am fortunate to have friends like Eleanor to help me. The school was, after all, my idea.”
    “And we are all so glad that you thought of it,” Eleanor said earnestly. When Cynthia had come to her in the spring and said that she and Charles were purchasing a house in Knightsbridge with a view to turning it into a school for impoverished and abandoned children, she had jumped at the chance to help, to do something rather than idling uselessly for the remainder of the season, attending parties and balls and the theatre. The idea of having meaningful work appealed to her