Page 23 of Return Ticket

“Cohen. You’ve got a visitor.”

Ben opened up, frowned, then frowned even more deeply at the sight of Gabriella. “Gabby.” Then he smiled his sweet smile. “Come in.”

She had to sidle around the young man who’d shown her the way. “Thanks for the help.”

He nodded, eyes still bright with interest. “Well, cheers.”

Ben closed the door and shook his head. “I’ll have a thousand questions now.”

Gabriella grinned. “Don’t get a lot of visitors?”

“Don’t get a lot of visitors,” Ben agreed. “But particularly not beautiful young women visitors.”

Gabriella laughed at that, and still shaking her head, sat down in his visitor’s chair.

Ben went to a little side desk, switched on the kettle there and found two mugs and some tea bags. “No coffee, sorry. And no milk. We’ve run out.”

“Don’t worry about it, I’m fine.” She hated black tea.

He switched off the kettle and sat down. “Why are you here? You’ll be seeing me tomorrow night with the rest of the group, won’t you?”

“Of course, I never miss.” At the start of her move to London, Ben, Dominique and Trevor, the three Australians who’d been her cabin mates on the ship over, were the only people she’d known. None of them had ever missed the catch-up they organized every two weeks.

“But this couldn’t wait?” Ben asked.

“I want to hire you,” she said. “And I didn’t want to necessarily discuss it tomorrow at our usual meetup.”

“Hire me?” He almost swallowed the words. “You know I’m only a junior?”

“I know. Does that mean you can’t look into something for me?”

“No.” He steepled his fingers. “I usually get the grunt work from my senior. Looking up case law, drafting submissions, that sort of thing. I’m not expected to get my own work yet. But I can look into something for you. Of course I can.”

“All right.” She set her handbag on the desk and pulled out the sheet of paper she’d worked on this morning before coming in. “I think I might have found my father, but I need to check this is correct before I approach him. As you’ll see, it’s a lot more complicated now.”

She pushed the paper across to him and he looked down at it for so long, she started to fidget.

“Gabriella.” He looked up, eyes wide. “If this is right . . .”

“I’m the Honorable Someone-or-another, I know.” She grimaced.

“Not just that . . .” He shook his head. “Your father’s son from the result of his bigamy isnotthe Honorable So-and-So, as he no doubt thinks he is. And that will be a very bitter pill to swallow.” He got up and took a massive tome off his shelf.

She read the title as he set it down on the desk. “Who’s Who?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Gives a list of all the nobs and their offspring, so you can keep track of who to doff your cap to.”

“I don’t know if he has any other children, although obviously it’s possible.” She hadn’t really run the thread of her father’s betrayal all the way through to its logical conclusion. But if he’d married her mother and then someone else, his offspring other than her were illegitimate in the eyes of British law. And had no claim to the ancestral estate.

That would hurt.

“This is explosive.” Ben flipped to a page, and his finger stopped at an entry. “One son, two daughters.”

Gabriella leaned back.

“How sure of this are you?” Ben asked. “Because this will cause a massive stir, and I’ll tell you now, if it comes down to what they’d rather be true, the snobs here would prefer you to be lying, and would love it if you were the illegitimate one.”

“I’m pretty sure.” She pulled out the documents that Ruby had sourced for her, and then placed her parents’ marriage certificate and her birth certificate on top of them.

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