“I will look after you,” the Earl said, “and so will my mother who is in Edinburgh.”
Tara’s face was alight with excitement.
Then she turned nervously to the Duke.
“Can – I – go?” she asked. “Please, Your Grace, can – I – go?”
He looked at her and she saw that his eyes were as dark and scowling as they had been when she first met him.
“Why not?” he replied coldly. “There is nothing to keep you here.”
*
Tara stood looking at herself in the mirror and thought that it was impossible to believe that she was the same miserable, underfed orphan who had struggled to keep order in the Orphanage and had at times collapsed from lack of food.
Wearing the beautiful gown that her grandmother had bought for her of white tulle over a rich white satin, it was hard to remember the threadbare grey c
