Page 2 of The Heiress in Disguise
No. They were wrong. There had been a mistake. This was a nightmare. Something. It couldn’t be true that her parents had been killed. They couldn’t be gone, just like that.
They promised they would always come back to me.
“Bring our things inside, please,” Aunt Wilhelmina directed the footmen. “We’ll be staying here now—someone has to raise young Angelique.”
“Don’t worry,” Uncle Clive said, resting a hand briefly on the top of her head. “We’ll be here for you.”
But Angelique couldn’t even think.
She knelt on the ground, watching in shock as the footmen carried her aunt and uncle’s things into the house.
Mother, Father… where are you?
***
Time seemed to pass in a fog. At some point, Angelique realized that she was inside, though she wasn’t sure if someone had brought her in or if she had come on her own. She was in the sitting room, which was sometimes full of people and sometimes empty. People spoke to her, but she didn’t answer them, and eventually they all went away.
Aunt Wilhelmina and her family, on the other hand, did not go away. Angelique had hoped, at first, that she had misunderstood their intentions and that they didn’t really mean to stay, butit was clear now that they weren’t going anywhere. Aunt Wilhelmina and Uncle Clive had moved into her parents’ rooms, and Marcus, Gwyneth, and Grace had taken rooms of their own.
Angelique hadn’t left the sitting room in what must have been days, so she wasn’t sure which rooms they were in, but it didn’t matter. What mattered was that they were in the house. She ached for them to leave, but it seemed there was no chance of that happening.
At least for now she had the sitting room to herself. Someone had lit a fire and she sat watching it burn, wishing that she could simply do this for the rest of her days—that she would never be called upon to move from this spot or to speak to anyone again.
“I’m so sorry, Angelique.”
The voice was familiar, and for the first time since all this had happened, it wasn’t the voice of someone unwelcome to her. It was enough to lift her out of the fog of her shocked grief, and she looked up at the familiar face. “Antoine.”
It was so strange to see her eleven-year-old neighbor now, in the midst of all this. She had always admired him, but their relationship had been more like that of a brother and a sister. Ordinarily, though, the sight of him would have set butterflies off in the pit of her stomach. Right now, all she could feel was a quiet sense of comfort—at least someone she liked was here.
He sat down beside her. “They say you haven’t moved from this spot,” he said softly. “They say you’ve had nothing to eat.”
“Who says?”
“The staff,” he said. He held out a sandwich. “Would you eat this?”
She took it and bit into it mechanically. It tasted like sawdust, but she knew he was right—she did need to eat. She chewed the sandwich slowly. “I thought perhaps my aunt and uncle might have been the ones to tell you I hadn’t eaten,” she said.
He frowned. “Yes, I would have expected that too,” he said. “I suppose they’re so caught up in their grief that they aren’t noticing things properly.”
“I think they’re more caught up in the fact that they’ve finally been able to move into Somerset Manor,” Angelique said darkly. “Aunt Wilhelmina has always wanted this house. I’ll bet she was thrilled when she heard my mother and father had died.”
“Oh, Angelique,” Antoine said sadly, but he didn’t argue with her, and Angelique supposed he thought she was right and simply didn’t wish to say so.
“Have you seen them?” she asked Antoine.
“Yes,” he said. “My parents are with them now, but I was given permission to come and talk to you. I thought perhaps you could use a friend right now.”
“I don’t have anyone,” Angelique whispered.
“You do,” he corrected her. “You’ll always have me. I know this is awful, Angelique, and I’m so sorry that it’s happening, but I’ll be here for you. My whole family will be here for you. You know that your parents and mine were always good friends.”
“I wish that I could come and live with your family, instead of being cared for by my aunt and uncle,” Angelique said wistfully. “I would be so much happier there. It would be almost like…”
She trailed off. What she’d been thinking was that it would be almost like having her own parents back. But she couldn’t speak the words, because that would be an acknowledgement that they were really gone. It would be the first time she’d said it aloud, and she couldn’t help feeling as though speaking the words would make it real, somehow. As long as she didn’t say it, there was a chance it wasn’t true.
Antoine seemed to understand without her having to say it. “I know,” he said. “I know that would be better for you, and Iwish it was something we could do. But theyareyour family, Angelique. They care for you a great deal.”
Angelique didn’t think so, somehow, but she didn’t want to argue with him, so she said nothing.
