Lady Lovett's Little Dilemma by Beverley Oakley Page A

affairs to his wife. Cressida’s wise counsel would have helped ensure he was dealing with the matter as sensitively as possible.
    God, he certainly needed a lesson in that!
    His overtures to Cressida last night only proved how utterly lacking in sensitivity he was. He’d completely misread the situation between them.
    Impatiently, he pushed aside the document, desperate suddenly to leave Mariah’s sitting room. He needed to return home so he could confront Cressida and learn why she ran hot and cold with him these days.
    Why had she followed him to Mrs Plumb’s and enticed him so overtly only to reject him later?
    “It is never possible to predict a person’s desire to know another,” he said, hoping to do justice to Mariah’s question while his thoughts remained with his wife. “This other young woman whose identity I discovered yesterday was removed from the orphanage the same day and it is possible the two names were confused. I can tell you this, however—she lives in desperate poverty and your patronage would be gratefully received, I’m sure.” He hesitated, then pressed on, his voice tinged with doubt. “However, the initial subject of my inquiries—”
    “You mean Madeleine Hardwicke? Please suspend the lawyer speak, Justin.”
    Mariah’s voice was bleak as she crossed the room to stand before Justin, forcing him to look her in the eye. “If it is Madeleine Hardwicke she won’t want to know me…” she drew out the pause, adding quietly, “will she?”
    Taking Justin’s lack of response as confirmation for her worst fears, Mariah whispered, “Then my daughter is as lost to me as she ever was.”
    She turned away, saying brokenly, “I know I am being selfish and unreasonable. Would I wish her to have spent her life in poverty? Of course not. But what can I offer…someone like that…in my current position when I was so hoping my suspicion to be entirely off the mark and that you would discover a young woman to whom I could be of some small use?”
    Insensible to his soothing answer, her agitation increased as she paced. “I just cannot believe it of Robert’s family. They wanted nothing to do with me. Robert, himself, abandoned me! Now this! Surely the risk would be too great if the truth were discovered?”
    Justin tapped the desk with his fingers, mulling over everything he had learned during the past weeks. He’d spent hours studying the Sedleywich orphans register and following the complex chain of events that had obscured the origins of the child later presented to the world as the legitimate daughter of one of London’s leading families. The daughter Mariah believed was her own.
    “It’s all in my report, Mariah,” he said, indicating the document on the desk. “Soon I shall receive information which will confirm, I suspect, that this second girl has no relevance to my investigation. As I’ve told you, Miss Hardwicke’s family has gone to great lengths, and expense, to guard against any possibility of discovery, making my task so difficult. The only thing they could not factor into the equation was family resemblance and a mother’s need to know.”
    Mariah appeared not to have heard him. Only the rise and fall of her bosom revealed her feelings as she stared through the window into the street. “After all these years to finally discover my child…” Her voice trailed away before she added bitterly, “A child I can never claim!”
    Her pain sliced at him but he had nothing to offer except platitudes. She spoke the truth.
    Turning back to him, Mariah gave a wry laugh. “Only yesterday I told a young woman I was childless. Indeed, it is the truth, for I have never known my daughter and, now, it appears, I never will.” Dropping her eyes, she added, “In a twist of irony, this poor young woman’s anguish was caused by her ever-growing brood. Five, she said she’d had, in eight years, and suffering torments because she believed a sixth would kill her.”
    Justin watched her