Read Online Hero, Come Back by Stephanie Laurens - Free Book Online

sake—he’s your sister’s boy.”
    “Angela’s?” Hugh looked stunned.
    “But…” Thomas blinked. “Good God. That was why she ran away?”
    “Angela? But—” Now it was Imogen who was confused. She looked at Hugh. “I thought she married an American and sailed to America?”
    Portsmouth grunted, his expression serious and sorrowful. “I’m sorry, my dear. That was a fiction we concocted at the time, for the family’s sake.” He looked at Reggie, then Anne. “Miss Ashford, I feel you deserve to hear the truth, and indeed, you may need to know. I’m not sure how these things operate, but I assume Benjy is presently legally in your care?”
    Anne nodded. “In the care of the Foundling House, which I represent.”
    Portsmouth nodded. “Exactly so.” He hesitated, then said, “I trust you will treat what I tell you with the utmost confidence. There is no one the truth can help, and Benjy’s future will be much less problematical if it remains buried as it has for the past ten years.”
    Both Reggie and Anne murmured assurances.
    Nodding in acceptance, Portsmouth drew a deep breath. “My daughter, Angela—she was older than Hugh here…”
    Step by steady step, he told the story of a strong and determined young woman who had refused to marry any of the eager young gentlemen who had vied for her hand.
    “She always said they were only after her for the money and the connection—the name.”
    She’d clung to her refusal, and then quite unexpectedly fallen in love with some man in station far beneath her.
    “Never told us who he was, not a hint.” Portsmouth sighed, looking back on the past. “She was afraid of what I’d do.”
    After a moment, he went on, relating how his daughter had simply vanished one night, leaving a note saying she had gone off to live her life as she wished, warning them not to try following her.
    They’d tried, but she’d disappeared into the teeming streets of London, and no word of her did they find.
    “We put out the story of the trip to America and the shipboard romance—it wasn’t unusual. Families like ours often sent our less-obedient young ladies off for a sojourn in Boston. We kept looking, of course, but eventually we were forced to accept she’d disappeared as she’d said she would.”
    He looked at Anne. “I’d always hoped that someday, especially if she had children, she’d make contact again.”
    Anne smiled gently, leaned forward, and laid a comforting hand on his sleeve. “I’ve read the reports—the notes we make when we take in a new child. She died very suddenly of a virulent fever—she had no time to make any arrangements.”
    Portsmouth nodded. After a moment, Anne added, “If it’s any help, I’ve seen the street she—they—lived in. It’s a poorer area but respectable, not the slums. She made her living by sewing and fine emboridery. I gather her husband died before Benjy was born.”
    Portsmouth raised a brow, but when Anne held his gaze steadily, he refrained from asking how she knew that.
    She drew back, sitting straighter. “It seems abundantly clear that Benjy’s your grandson. If you will give me a letter stating as much, and your intention of taking him in and seeing to his welfare henceforth, I believe I can have our solicitor deal with the legalities in short order.”
    Drawing breath, she fixed her gaze on Portsmouth’s face. “I realize you might not have thought far ahead, but it would help to know what your plans for Benjy are.”
    “Plans?” Portsmouth blinked at her, his incomprehension quite plain. “No need to think ! He’ll go to Eton, then Oxford, just like all the Caverlocks. Neville’s tutor can polish him up—” He broke off, frowned, then looked at Anne. “Incidentally, who taught him Latin? Never would have thought to hear such fluency coming from…well, no point making any bones of it, a child from the streets.”
    Anne beamed. “The Latin you may lay at my sister Penelope’s door.” She