“Thank you.” Diana watched in quietly amused relief as the children fell on the offerings with their customary appetites. She glanced at Gallagher and smiled. “We’ll ring if we need anything more.”
Plainly pleased, Gallagher bowed and departed.
Diana poured tea for herself and Toby, then looked inquiringly at Helga.
The maid had retreated to an armchair on the other side of the fireplace. While the children had read their letter, she’d read hers. Now she caught Diana’s eyes and shook her head. “None for me, miss.” Helga smiled gently. “Not really the thing, either, now we’re back in a normal household.” Her gaze fell to the children. “But having read what Mr. Fellows had to say to me, I’m thinking you and Mr. Cynster need to read the letters sent for you. Once these hungry tykes have had their fill, perhaps I can go with them to explore the house and gardens.”
That suggestion sparked immediate interest from all three children, and after clearing the tray of cakes and biscuits and draining the glasses of milk, they happily departed in Helga’s care to explore the house that bore their name.
The instant the door closed behind the little band, Diana and Toby set aside their cups and reached for their respective letters.
“One’s from Fellows himself,” Toby observed, turning the packets over. “The other’s from his solicitor in London.”
“Adrian’s letter first, then.” Diana set the other letter aside and broke the familiar seal.
The clock on the mantelpiece ticked on as they read through their respective letters from Adrian. Stunned anew by the revelations and arrangements hers detailed, Diana reached the end, raised her head, and stared at Toby.
He was still reading—Adrian’s letter to him was four pages against the three she had received—but when he reached the last paragraph, raised his gaze, and met her eyes, he was equally stunned and amazed.
Stupefied, in fact.
They stared at each other for a long, silent moment, then Toby nodded at the other letter beside her. “Best we learn the legal view of this before we start trying to cope with it all.”
“Indeed.” Diana lifted her second letter, broke the seal, spread the stiff sheets, and started to read.
The solicitor’s communication was blissfully direct and to the point, clarifying the legal position regarding Adrian Fellows’s will and how the clauses within it stood in terms of the English legal system. It concluded with a fairly clear summation of the current situation as the solicitor believed it to be.
Diana reread that conclusion, then looked at Toby.
He was sitting slumped in the corner of the settee. “My head is spinning.” He lifted the solicitor’s letter. “Can this really be true?”
Equally amazed, she shook her head. “There is no way Adrian could have known…”
“Isn’t there?” He raised the other letter, the one from Adrian, and waved it at her. “He might not have known, but he definitely suspected and, indeed, hoped.”
She frowned. “Let me see that.”
They exchanged their letters from Adrian. Diana skimmed over much of what she already knew, then focused on a paragraph on the last page. She read it through, then huffed. “I had no idea Adrian was such a romantic.”
Handing back her letter, Toby shrugged. “Whether he was a romantic or whether encroaching death sharpened his insightfulness, who knows? The fact of the matter is, he was right.” He grinned at her. “We are going to marry.”
She tipped her head. “True.” She retrieved her letter and handed his back to him. “And that being so, there’s no reason we can’t fulfill his last wishes.”
Adrian Fellows had named them as joint guardians to his three children. He had also left Fellows Hall, the attached estate, and the income deriving from it to them jointly for their lifetimes, ultimately to be passed on in equal measure to Roland, Bryce, and Evelyn after their deaths.
Diana thought of the next steps, then focused on Toby. “We only discussed our future in general terms. We made no decision about where we would live.” She tipped her head, studying him. “Could we… Would it work for us to live down here?” She cast her gaze around the room. “It seems a very… welcoming house.”
He nodded. “It does. And as I mentioned, I have no house that belongs to me, and none in the offing, so there’s no reason I can see that we can’t make this our primary residence.” He paused, then added, “Our home.”
“And taking on the responsibility for those three?”
He grinned. “The truth is that we—you and I—would have assumed that regardless. Even if Fellows’s aunt had still been alive, even if we’d reached here never wanting to set eyes on each other again, we would each have continued to hold ourselves responsible for them and their welfare. By his machinations, in that regard, Fellows has just made our lives much easier.”
She smiled. “I must admit I’ve grown rather accustomed to being hailed as ‘Mama.’”
Toby chuckled. “And no doubt much to my family’s shock, I believe I can handle becoming an instant ‘Papa.’”
In fact, he was looking forward to it, to introducing his three children to the rest of his large family.
