Read Online Call Down the Moon by Katherine Kingsley - Free Book Online

walking into the next room to confer with his partner. Hugo pressed his hands to his eyes, wishing himself dead. There had to be another way. There just had to be…
    The murmur of voices rose and fell through the open doorway as the two partners conferred, but Hugo paid no attention until he heard a certain name mentioned.
    “A Margaret Bloom of Ramsholt, Suffolk, you say?” Mr. Gostrain repeated. “I suppose we can try to track her down, despite the passage of so many years. What do we have to go on?”
    Hugo rose and quietly moved closer to listen.
    “It says here that David Russell knew Margaret Bloom to be with child when he left the country for India twenty-three years ago,” Mr. Jenkins replied. “His will states most specifically that he wishes the fortune he made to be left to Margaret Bloom and any lineal descendant born in the year 1799, and we have been retained to investigate the matter. Four hundred thousand pounds is no small sum. Extraordinary, really—all accumulated in India through his business in sea trade.”
    Hugo nearly fell over in shock. Four hundred thousand pounds? Just floating around while they looked for a descendant of a certain Margaret Bloom?
    “What if we should not discover the heir? What then?” Mr. Gostrain asked.
    “Then the money is to be left to charity,” his partner replied. “Again, Mr. Russell was very specific about how it is to be distributed in that event. However, he apparently had great confidence that this Margaret Bloom did give birth in the summer of 1799, which would make the child now twenty-three years of age.”
    Hugo pressed his cheek against the wall in disbelief.
    “Mr. Russell attempted many years ago through investigators to discover the whereabouts of mother and child, but with no success. In any case, if the child is still alive—indeed if he or she ever existed at all, he or she would be Mr. Russell’s only immediate relative and legally entitled to the entire sum, as he wished. The funds now sit in a London bank waiting resolution.”
    Hugo’s mind raced a million miles a minute, landing directly at the Woodbridge Sanitarium and the image of an insane girl with the face of an angel. It couldn’t be her —could it? Woodbridge was only a stone’s throw from Ramsholt, and Meggie Bloom was just the right age to fit the story. The name … the name alone was nearly identical to the mother’s.
    He knew Meggie Bloom’s mother had died in childbirth, and if he was right—and how could he be wrong—Meggie herself was now worth four hundred thousand pounds. Four hundred thousand pounds. He couldn’t bloody well believe it! It was the most incredible coincidence he’d ever come across.
    Four hundred thousand was more than enough to get him out of all his difficulties with lots to spare. It would be his for the taking. All he had to do was marry the girl before Gostrain, Jenkins, and Waterville found her. Best of all, he had the jump on them, since he already knew where she was. It would take them at least a fortnight before they could track her down, if they could manage it at all when a previous team of investigators had been unsuccessful.
    Hugo suppressed a wild desire to shriek with hysterical delight. It was perfect—perfect! A fortune like that would mean nothing to someone like Meggie Bloom—what would a crazy girl do with money? She couldn’t function as it was.
    He sobered for a moment, realizing that this meant he’d be taking a lunatic for a wife. But then, really, didn’t the situation solve all of his problems?
    He could get over his little problem with lunacy. How hard could it be? The nun herself had said that Meggie was harmless enough.
    The only real responsibility he’d have to her would be to install her at Lyden Hall and discreetly hire a keeper to look after her. He could always pretend that he had met and married her on impulse, if anyone asked.
    Who would blame him for his rash action after they’d seen her? She was a