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‘How good it is to see you again, and looking so well,’ he said softly.
All the time he was peering down intently at each delicate feature in turn, as though to assure himself that the boy-girl who had trailed about after him over the estate like some adoring puppy all those many years ago and this self- assured young woman now standing before him were indeed one and the same person.
.....
‘Yes, yes, you’re right,’ Philip acknowledged, his mind’s eye conjuring up images from the past. Memories, almost forgotten in recent years, came flooding back of a girl dressed in breeches, galloping, astride her horse, across the estate at his side. She had been more boy than girl in those years before Lady Henrietta Barfield had taken a very necessary hand in her niece’s upbringing. The transformation from sad romp had eventually been achieved. He seemed to remember that before she had left the Grange she bore all the trappings of a young lady; suddenly recalled, too, that he had not altogether approved of the changes that had taken place in her. But that was then, he reminded himself. What was she like now? Might she be a wife and mother?
For some reason that escaped him completely, he found the thought faintly disturbing, and consulted once again with his gatekeeper. ‘Was she travelling alone, Dodd, or with a protector?’
.....
