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the tears away. Too many people were watching.
    “Let me look at you,” Lady McGovern said, turning her full scrutiny on Skye. “You’re even more beautiful than your mother. But the colour of your hair is exactly the same. The same radiant blue eyes full of expression. She would have been very proud of you.”
    “Oh, I hope so!” Skye released a fluttery breath. “But I wouldn’t be where I am today without you , Lady McGovern. I will never forget that.”
    “Enough of the Lady McGovern!” The old lady spoke as if she were heartily sick of the title. “I want you to call me Margaret, or Lady Margaret if you feel more comfortable with that. Margaret is my name. It’s a name long in my own family. I would like you to use it. I rarely hear it any more. It’s Gran and Nan, Aunt and Great-Aunt and, I dare say, the Old Dragon. Don’t try to tell me you can’t do it. I look on you as family, Skye.”
    That touched a finger to an open wound. Some things would seem to be hidden, but they couldn’t be hidden for ever. “I’ve always felt something of it,” she confessed. “But why? Can’t you tell me?” The plea came straight from the heart. “Who was my mother really? I never knew her, which is the tragedy of my life. Dad always said she was an orphan.” Skye’s frown deepened. “He said she spoke beautifully. Not an educated Australian accent, but an English voice. Like you. Was she English?” There was something in Lady McGovern’s fine dark eyes that was making Skye very uneasy.
    “As a solicitor, Skye, you’ve made no attempt to trace your mother’s background?” Lady McGovern asked with a grim smile. Could it be pain or disapproval?
    “Very oddly, no , Lady Margaret.” Now that she had said it, “Lady Margaret” came surprisingly easily to her tongue.
    “You had concerns about what you might find?” Again the piercing regard.
    Skye shook her head. “After all, my mother had a connection to you.” Though she didn’t expect to be answered, Skye prepared herself for whatever might come.
    In vain. “I was very fond of her,” Lady McGovern said briefly, then changed the subject. “Your use of my name comes sweetly to my ear. Kindly continue to use it, no matter what. I’m fully aware my granddaughter has always been jealous of you. Jealous of Keefe’s affection for you. That is her nature. She’s going to find it very hard to find a husband if she’s expecting someone like Keefe to come along. It won’t happen.”
    “No,” Skye agreed quietly. “Rachelle loves both her brothers, but she adores Keefe.”
    “Exactly.” Lady McGovern brushed the topic aside. “I want you to know Cathy herself chose your father.”
    “But of course!” Skye was startled. “She fell in love with him.” She knew she was supposed to hold her tongue but it got away from her. “But how did they find the opportunities to meet? She stayed at the house on her visits. My father at the time was a stockman. Times have changed somewhat, but there was a huge social divide.”
    “Of course,” Lady McGovern acknowledged, as if the divide was still firmly in place. “Nevertheless, Cathy knew Jack McCory was the man for her. And a fine man he is too. He mourns your mother to this day. As do I. Let’s not talk any more about this, Skye. It upsets me. I don’t know if Jack ever told you, but Cathy knew the baby she was carrying was a girl. She had the name Skye already picked out for you. And doesn’t it suit you! Somehow she knew you would have her beautiful sky-blue eyes.”
     
    Skye stayed a few minutes more talking to Lady McGovern, but it was obvious others wanted the opportunity to express a few words of sympathy to the McGovern matriarch. She no sooner moved away than Robert Sullivan made a bee-line to her side.
    “I don’t really know why but you and my great-aunt look more comfortable together than she and Rachelle,” he announced. “Why is that, do you suppose?”
    “I have no idea, Robert,”