Small Town Girl (43 page)

It hadn't appeared in the years that Mora had perused the book, but she refrained from saying that aloud, or from mentioning that her mother had been too poor to buy lemons. The duchess talked with ghosts. Perhaps she could read ghost writing as well.

Years of upbringing in the Church of England had failed to dispel Mora's fascination with supernatural subjects. Her mother's voice had faded over time, perhaps because Mora had been forced so often to deny its existence. Her adopted parents had disapproved of the spell book, also, but they had not objected to her experimenting with the book's herbal recipes. By selling her possets and potions, she had helped keep the table full in times of scarcity. Making scented lotions wasn't the same as performing magic, however.

Needing the faded words to be the answer to her prayers, and afraid that they wouldn't be, Mora left the book in Christina's hands. "What does it say?"

"It's an inscription. 'To Brighid Gabriel upon the birth of our daughter, Morwenna, named after our common ancestor. With love and adoration, your husband, Gilbert.' Is Gabriel your real name? If so, your father may have given this to your mother as a christening present."

Struck dumb by the suggestion, Mora stumbled to a kitchen chair and sat down with a thump. The chair skidded a little, but she failed to notice.

She had never known the name of her father, had never been certain that her mother was married. Could she possibly have had a real father all these years?

If this inscription was meant for her mother, she'd been named after a
common ancestor
. She might have a family. The world as she knew it had just turned upside down. She was so rattled she didn't think she could stand again.

Mighty heavens, was this the answer to the spell she'd conjured? Had she performed magic and found a solution to her problem?

Christina laid the book in front of her. The invisible ink hadn't disappeared. The writing was still there. Her name might be Gabriel. Her brain froze.

"Gilbert Gabriel, isn't that the name of the viscount who lives in the north?"

"I don't know," Mora whispered, staring at the yellowed ink. "My adopted father didn't believe in reading about the material world. We seldom had newssheets." She caressed the page her
real
father may have held. "I had no idea—"

"You said Brighid was your mother's name, didn't you?" Christina asked blithely, settling on a chair with her tea as if prepared for a cozy gossip.

"Her name was Brighid Morgan, or so I thought."

Mora had used Abbott, the surname of her adopted parents, all these years, but she'd always thought her real name was Morgan. It was a common name in Wales. She'd thought her given name had come from the author of the book. Her mother was eccentric enough to name a child after an author she admired. But to change her last name from Gabriel to Morgan? Why? None of the possible reasons were good ones, and Mora shivered even while staring at the writing with rapt interest.

She was aware her past was mysterious, that her foster parents often whispered about her origins when she had been particularly defiant in those early years. But she remembered her real mother as having loving arms and laughing eyes and a blithe acceptance of her childish foibles. That was the last time she'd felt truly loved for who she really was, and why she so desperately wanted to find family now. The book had to be an answer to her prayers. Or her spell.

"Brighid and Morwenna are unusual names. Surely it refers to my mother and me," she murmured.

Christina raised her golden brown eyebrows. "I've always thought of Gabriel as a Scots name, I thought the vicar adopted you in Wales."

"He did," Mora murmured, still dizzy with new knowledge. "I'm Welsh. Morwenna is Welsh, isn't it?"

"Not necessarily. Morgan is certainly Welsh. Gabriel is biblical, so it could be also." She frowned at the inscription. "Didn't you say the book was saved from a fire? I wonder why the writing did not appear then."

"The book was kept in an iron box in the vegetable cellar," Mora said, her mind racing over the improbable. "The heat never reached it." Perhaps if it had, her life might have turned out differently. Instead of being the adopted daughter of a village vicar and his wife, trying desperately to fit her wayward nature into their unassuming lives, what might she have been with her real family—if they could have been located?

Christina looked at her with curiosity. "Mora? What is wrong? Your aura is quivering."

That bit of nonsense brought a smile to Mora's lips. "I never thought I had a legal father. How would I find out if this Gilbert Gabriel is still alive?" She didn't dare express all her hopes aloud.

But the duchess understood. Her eyes widened. "If your father is still alive, you may have family to go to!" Her expression changed to one of dismay. "Surely you would not desert Somerset? How would we get along without you?"

This was the only home Mora had really known. She had spent a lifetime watching the children of the village grow up, marry, and have children of their own. She had nursed the elderly and babies alike, laughed with their joy and wept with their sadness.

Yet, she had never, ever been one of them.

Such aching longing ballooned inside her that it was all Mora could do to hold back tears. "A real family might accept me as I am, wouldn't they?"

Christina chuckled. "Families don't necessarily accept one's faults, but I cannot imagine any family not welcoming a calm, prudent, orderly woman of rare practicality such as yourself."

But in her heart of hearts, Mora knew that wasn't who she really was. That was who the Abbotts had wanted her to be, and she had tried very hard not to disappoint them. So, in the eyes of the world, she was a staid old maid. In her heart, she was a terrible, wicked person who wanted to fling off her cap and dance beneath the stars with her hair blowing unbound. To sing with joy without people staring. To practice magic, experiment with herbs, think odd thoughts. In her very deepest, darkest soul, she longed to
live
.

Fingering the starched linen covering the tight plaits that held her unruly hair, Mora dared open her mind to the immensity of the world beyond the village.

"The village," she said, abruptly brought back to earth. "There is none left to help. And I have no means to go looking for a family that may not exist."

The duchess waved her hand as if it contained a magic wand. "Nonsense. You've devoted your life to Somerset. If this is what you wish to do. we owe you the opportunity to seek your family. Now that the weather is improving, Harry and I must go to London to round up my nieces and nephews and take them to Wystan. That is very near Scotland and the only Gilbert Gabriel I'm aware of. You shall go with us!"

The tiny spark that was Mora's inner self flared and spoke in her mothers voice.
You must go, my love. Without you, he may die
.

"Who will die?" she protested aloud, startled and badly shaken by the sudden clarity of a voice that sadly had diminished since childhood. Had she really just heard her mother's voice after all these years of silence? And was her mother telling her that someone was in danger? Who?

Her father?

Instead of looking shocked, the duchess grinned. "The children are going to love you. Just think, your rather could be a wealthy viscount. You could be the long lost daughter whom he has mourned for years."

Which would mean that Mora's mother had run away from him, for a reason or reasons unknown. That was not necessarily a possibility she wished to explore.