Chapter 7

Correspondence from Archie, your beloved son. Each letter beginning, ‘Dearest Mother…’

Authur marvelled at his brother’s ability to lie with a straight face and no tremor in the script from the laughter as he’d written those words. But Archie had no doubt been asking for money, and that was never a laughing matter to him.

No bundle of letters from himself, he noticed. Not that the heart warming letters he was prone to send would have been cherished by the dowager.

Letters from the lawyers, arranging estate matters. She’d been well prepared to go when the time had come.

And, on the bottom, a small stack of letters in a heavy, cream envelope .

Dearest Andrea,

It has been many years, nearly forty, since last we saw

each other at Miss Farthing’s school, and I have

thought of you often. I read of your marriage to the late

duke, and of the births of your sons. At the time, I’d

thought to send congratulations, but you can under-

stand why this would have been unwise. Still, I thought

of you