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“Well, thank you for your help,” Jenna replied. When she hung up the phone she was dancing. “I’ve found her! Just like that. A phone call and there she is!”
Tom smiled at her exuberance. “That’s good. You haven’t been here a full day and already found some of your kin.”
Jenna practically skipped up the stairs to her room. Her aunt hadn’t been listed so she may not have a phone. But it didn’t matter. She’d wait until midmorning tomorrow and visit her. Jenna could hardly wait to see her aunt’s face when she identified herself.
She had a difficult time falling to sleep that night.
By the next morning, Jenna was filled with anticipation, although she was nervous, as well. This was the day that she had been waiting for all these years. She could feel her heart thumping.
Jenna found the place with no trouble. She pulled up in front of her aunt’s row house and slowly got out of the car. She took a couple of deep breaths to relieve the constriction in her chest, then walked up to the door and knocked. When she heard no one stirring, she worried that her aunt might have moved. Wouldn’t that be ironic after Jenna had come so far to see her?
Jenna knocked again and waited.
A female voice yelled, “I’ll be there when I get there. Just hold on. And you’d better not be peddling anything because I’m not interested!” At her last words Morwenna Hoskins swung open the door. At least Jenna guessed this was her aunt, although seeing her didn’t trigger any memories.
The years had not been kind to Morwenna. Jenna knew that she was in her fifties and yet she looked considerably older. Morwenna leaned on a cane and looked at her with suspicion.
“Well? What do you want?”
“I, uh, I mean, hello,” Jenna said. “I’m not selling anything. Actually I came from Australia to find you. I’m your niece, Jenna.”
Whatever reaction Jenna had expected, she hadn’t thought she would be stared at with such distaste. Morwenna studied her without stepping back to invite Jenna inside. Instead, her aunt continued to stand in the doorway as though she had never heard of her.
Jenna didn’t know what to say. Why wasn’t her aunt more pleased to see her?
Finally, Morwenna spoke. “My niece? If you’re from Australia you must be Hedra and Tristan’s girl.”
Jenna relaxed a little and smiled. “Yes. Yes, I am.”
Morwenna scowled. “I told them and told them that nothing good was going to come of their moving halfway around the world. That’s exactly what I told them. ‘Nothing good will come of your move.’ And I was right, wasn’t I? They were there no more than two years before they were gone—swept away by floodwaters or some such fool thing. I always said they should have listened to me, but then, Tristan always thought he knew best about everything.” She eyed Jenna warily. “So what do you want?”
Dismay swept over Jenna. “I, uh, I just came by to introduce myself. I’m afraid I don’t have many memories of living in Cornwall, but since this was the place I was born, I came back to get to know the rest of my family.”
Morwenna was shaking her head before Jenna stopped speaking. “You’ve had a wasted trip, then. You don’t have family around here. I don’t know where Tristan found you—he would never say—but it wasn’t around here.”
Jenna stared at Morwenna, thinking she had misunderstood her. “Found me?”
“It’s like what I told that man from Edinburgh that came looking for you a few months ago…we’re not blood relatives. Who knows where they got you? Hedra showed up here one day with a newborn, proud as she could be. Tristan was beaming from ear to ear. I warned them about taking somebody else’s child to raise. You never can tell what’s in the blood, you know. Why, someone unknown like that can grow up to be thief or a murderer or something worse.”
Jenna stared at the woman, doubting her ears. Was the woman insane? What was she rattling on about…and what did Morwenna consider worse than murder?
“Am I understanding you correctly?” Jenna finally managed to say. This woman was shattering her world. “You’re telling me I was adopted?”
“Are you deaf or something? Yes, that’s what I’m telling you. You’re adopted.” Her eyes narrowed. “You didn’t know, huh?”
“No. I had no idea.”
“Well, somebody should’ve told you before now, to my way of thinking. I can remember when I got the news that Tristan was gone. That was an awful time for me. My only sibling and all. A terrible time. If he’d only listened to me, he might have been alive today.” Morwenna made a face. “I was real put out with them people calling from Australia, wanting me to take you in. I told them I had eight of my own to raise and I certainly didn’t need a seven-year-old underfoot, as well.”
Morwenna’s words beat at Jenna as though each one was a stone aimed at her heart. She had no way to protect herself, nothing to say. So the authorities had attempted to find a member of her family to take her before placing her in an orphanage.
Jenna stared at the woman in horror. She had to get away. Thank goodness she hadn’t been invited into the woman’s home. She would have felt suffocated by her anger and cruelty.
Despite the shock of discovering she’d been adopted, she was fervently grateful that she was no kin to this woman.
“Thank you for clearing up my confusion,” Jenna said quietly. “You mentioned a man from Edinburgh asking about me. Could you give me his name?”
“That’s been a few months ago. Let me think…I believe it started with a D. Something D…Davis, Dennis…no, that’s not right.”
“Could you describe him?”
“Why? You thinking about looking him up? He said he was from Edinburgh but he didn’t fool me. He had an American accent. No telling where he was from. Wait a minute. His name sounded French…Dumas! That’s it. Something Dumas. I don’t remember his first name. You look nothing like him, if that’s what you’re thinking. He has dark hair and eyes and he’s tall.” Morwenna flicked a glance up and down Jenna as though to emphasize her statement.
Jenna knew she was far from being tall, so she nodded her understanding. “I appreciate your help,” she said, wanting to run while Morwenna was drawing breath and before she continued talking.
She turned and walked back to her car, her shoulders back and her chin up.
Only after she entered the pub where she’d eaten the night before did she realize that she was trembling. She vaguely recognized that she was in shock. She asked for a cup of tea and when it was ready she went over to one of the back tables and sat down.
Nothing about her life was how she had thought it was. The Craddocks had adopted her. Why hadn’t she known? There was nothing in the papers her parents had left to have warned Jenna. Her birth certificate showed Hedra and Tristan as her parents and said that she was born at home. She didn’t have to look through them again to know that there had never been a mention of an adoption.
Jenna flashed back to the time when she’d been taken to the orphanage. She had never felt so bewildered or so alone. Jenna realized that the only constant in her life since then was that she had no one…no one at all.
So what was she going to do now? She’d come from Australia on a one-way ticket. She had enough money to live on while she searched for employment. With her references and skills, she expected to have little trouble finding a position.
Morwenna said that the man who had come looking for her had come from Scotland. She considered that information to be a lead of sorts. How strange. A man by the name of Dumas from Edinburgh knew who she was. Was it possible that she had been adopted there? What if the man was her father, trying to find his adult daughter? Maybe he’d moved to America since she was born. If so, that would explain his accent.
Now he was back and was looking for her. Did it matter that she bore no resemblance to him? Perhaps she looked like her mother.
Since meeting Morwenna, Jenna knew she didn’t want to stay in Cornwall. There was nothing to stop her from looking for work in Scotland. Perhaps she’d find Mr. Dumas there and he could explain his connection to her.
The thought calmed her. She didn’t have much of a lead, but it was something. Someone knew of her existence and had come searching for her. The thought gave her some comfort.
At the moment, it was the only comfort she had.
Chapter Two
“I see that you’re Australian, Ms. Craddock. What brings you to Scotland looking for work?”
Jenna sat before a Ms. Violet Spradlin, who ran an employment agency in Edinburgh.
“Actually, I was born in the U.K. and haven’t been back in several years. I decided to move to Scotland because I find it breathtakingly beautiful. Since I have no family, I can choose to live wherever I wish, so I chose this region.”
“I see.” Violet shuffled through several papers before she looked up. “You have an excellent work record according to this recommendation. I’m impressed with your skills for one your age—twenty-five, right? You must have started working quite young.”
“Yes.”
Violet sighed and said, “Unfortunately, we don’t have very much to offer at the moment. It’s the nature of the business, you know. I may get several calls in the morning needing someone immediately. One never knows. I hope that you aren’t depending on finding a position right away.”
“I understand.”
Violet peered over her glasses. “How can I contact you if something turns up?”
“I’m staying at a small inn on the outskirts of the city. If you like, I can check in with you every day or so.”
Violet glanced at the file and muttered to herself, “Ah, now I see. You put your present lodging down as your address.” She looked at Jenna thoughtfully, tapping her pen against the desk. “I don’t suppose you’d be interested in a position where room and board is offered, would you?” Before Jenna had a chance to respond, Violet continued. “No, probably not. The position isn’t here in Edinburgh and I can’t guarantee that you would find your working conditions all that pleasant.”
Intrigued by Ms. Spradlin’s manner, which seemed to be more discouraging than encouraging, Jenna said, “I wouldn’t mind relocating. And being offered lodging as well would make things considerably easier for me, at least, at first.”
Violet rose and went to a filing cabinet nearby. She thumbed through several files before saying, “Ah. I knew it was here somewhere.” She pulled out a thick manila file and returned to her desk. She looked at Jenna. “I’m not necessarily recommending this position to you, you understand.”
“Yes, I understand.” Jenna wondered what the position could be that it warranted such a warning from the woman.
Violet opened the file and began to read. “Sir Ian MacGowan needs a person with good secretarial skills to transcribe his dictation for his novel.”
“Oh. An author.”
“Well,” Violet said slowly, “I suppose you could call him that, although I don’t think he’s sold anything. He was in an automobile accident a few months ago. Normally he lives in London. However, he decided to return to his family home to rest and recuperate. I believe the process of writing is helping to keep him occupied.”
“Oh.” Jenna pictured a white-haired gentleman, possibly a little overweight, who wasn’t ready to retire quite yet. “You said you don’t necessarily recommend this position. I’d like to know why. It sounds like just the position for me. It probably isn’t a permanent one, but working for Sir Ian would give me time to get acquainted with the area.”
Violet sighed and removed her glasses. She massaged the bridge of her nose as she stared myopically at Jenna. Without saying anything, she carefully cleaned her glasses and replaced them. It was obvious to Jenna that the woman was trying to decide what to say. Was the man some kind of monster? she wondered.
Finally, Violet spoke. “Do you see these papers?” She waved her hand at the open file. “They represent the applicants I have sent Sir Ian during the past several weeks.”
“He didn’t hire any of them?” Jenna asked. What an odd man.
“After complaining incessantly about the lack of qualifications in the women he interviewed, he finally settled on one who stayed two weeks. The second left after three days.” She sighed and shook her head.
“Is he a sexual predator?”
Violet looked startled for a moment before she broke into laughter. “No, no, no. I didn’t mean to give you that impression. He’s just a very difficult man to work for.” She sorted through the papers, reading portions out loud. “‘He’s short-tempered and impossible to please,’ says one. The other says, ‘He set impossible time limits on the work I was doing. He’s really impossible.’”
“Ah,” said Jenna, nodding. “I know just the kind of boss he is.” She smiled. “My last employer was that way when I first started to work for him.”
Violet’s eyebrows rose. “Really. That surprises me. According to his letter of recommendation, he hated to lose you. In fact, if I didn’t know better, I would think this was a letter recommending you for sainthood,” she said archly.
“He was a very busy man, and until I was hired he hadn’t had much luck finding someone who could work with little direction. Once I got past his gruff exterior and convinced him I wasn’t a ‘lazy twit’—I believe his words were—we managed to work quite well together.”
Violet nodded, smiling slightly. “I see. Perhaps you will have more success with Sir Ian than the others.”
“When could we set up an interview?”
Violet’s brows rose. “Oh, he no longer interviews. He said it takes too much time out of his day. He told me to find someone who wouldn’t pester him to death with questions and comments and hire her.”
“Sight unseen?”
“If you think you might want the position, of course. Perhaps you might try it and see. If you don’t like it you will at least know you tried and perhaps by then something else will have turned up for you. So, what would you like to do?”
Jenna weighed her options. She didn’t want to spend any more of her reserves than necessary if she had an opportunity to work. “I would at least like to meet him. Perhaps we’ll both agree that I won’t suit it, but I dislike turning down the offer without meeting him.”
“Good. That’s good. If anyone can assist him, my money is on you, Jenna.” Violet reached for the phone and dialed a number from the file in front of her. She waited. Jenna could hear the quiet “brrring-brrring” of the phone at the other end. When it was answered, Violet said, “Good morning, Hazel. This is Violet Spradlin at the employment agency. How are you this morning?”
Jenna listened to the one-sided conversation with amusement. They sounded like old friends, which she supposed was possible considering the number of people Violet had sent there. She idly wondered if Hazel was Sir Ian’s wife.
“I’d like to speak to Sir Ian,” Violet said. “Yes, I know he’s busy. Yes. No, I’m not calling about his most recent help. Yes, I know. New employees can be quite trying at times. The reason I’m calling is to let him know that I have hired a secretary for him. I believe she will be just what he’s looking for. Yes, that’s right. Yes, I’ll hold.” She looked at Jenna and winked.
After a lengthy wait, Violet said, “Yes, good morn— Yes, I do— As a matter of fact, she’s right he—” She covered the phone and asked, “He wants to know when you can come. He seems to be a bit stressed at the moment.”
“I could come today if I can get directions how to get there.”
“Well, that might work. I did say the position is not here in Edinburgh, didn’t I? I would imagine you don’t have access to a car.”
“No. Will that be a problem?”
Violet spoke into the phone. “She doesn’t have transportation at the moment, Sir Ian. I could have her take the train to Stirling, if you— Oh. Yes. Well, that will work, I’m sure.” She glanced at Jenna. “She’s petite, with reddish blond hair. She’s wearing a dark green suit. I don’t think she’ll be hard to— Yes. I’ll tell her.”
Violet hung up the phone. “Well. That was certainly a short discussion. He wants you to take the train to Stirling. He’ll have his housekeeper, Hazel Pennington, meet you at the station. Once you’ve arrived he’ll discuss salary and days off with you.”
“All right,” Jenna said. Her question about Hazel had been answered. She stood. “I appreciate your willingness to hire me for the position.”
“Don’t thank me yet, dear. Wait until you’ve worked a few weeks with him. Then I’ll know you’re sincere. Sir Ian is abrupt, but according to Hazel, who’s worked for his family for years, he’s fair.”
“Have you met him?”
“Not in person, no. But I certainly recognize his voice when I hear it. It’s very distinctive.” Violet touched her throat with her fingers and Jenna could have sworn the older woman actually blushed. Aha. The plot thickens. Maybe Ms. Spradlin has some designs on the old gentleman. Good for her.
Jenna said, “I need to gather my belongings and check out of my room.” She held out her hand and Violet took it. “Regardless of how this turns out, I’ll still be grateful that you have given me this opportunity.”
“Don’t feel that I’m sending you off like a lamb to be slaughtered. I’ll be checking with you from time to time. If another position should open up, I’ll let you know.”
While Jenna packed the few items she’d unpacked since she’d arrived yesterday afternoon, she thought about what she was doing. She’d accepted a position without meeting her employer first. Given the experience she’d gained working with Basil, she hoped that she could deal with another curmudgeon with little difficulty. She would have to write an amusing letter to Basil and let him know how his training had been put to good use.
Besides, she could visit Edinburgh on her days off and continue her search for Mr. Dumas. As soon as she’d checked in to her room, Jenna had gone through the telephone directory in hopes of finding a listing for him.
There was none.
She’d called the telephone company for any new listings or possibly unlisted numbers. If his number was unlisted, she would at least know he actually lived in Edinburgh or nearby. She’d had no luck there, either. However, she didn’t intend to stop looking for the mysterious—at least to her—stranger. She’d hoped to find work in the city, which would make her search easier, but she’d manage.
Once on the train to Stirling, Jenna thought about her new position. She’d never met an author, published or unpublished. She was curious about what sort of stories he wrote. Perhaps he’d fought in one of the wars and was sharing his experiences. She might find his writing fascinating.
On the other hand, Sir Ian might be a terrible writer. Maybe that was why he was so brusque. Perhaps he was the sort of person who preferred to blame others for his own shortcomings.
What was really important, though, was that she was in Scotland and had a job.
When the train neared the station, Jenna gathered her rather cumbersome bags in preparation for getting off. She had gotten rid of most everything she owned before she came to the U.K. She’d had more than one twinge of regret to see the furniture and furnishings she’d carefully acquired go to strangers. However, the money she received from the sale helped her to feel more secure about her leap into the unknown.
One of the commuters helped with her third bag when she stepped off the train. She thanked him and turned to scan the area. Several people waited to board as others disembarked. Once the train pulled away, Jenna stood alone on the platform.
