“How did you survive?”
“They left me for dead, but I was carried by some kind people to Tangiers and nursed in the Mission.”
“It is the most fascinating story I have ever heard!” Sir Christopher said.
Atayla looked towards the top of the table to where the Earl sat looking, she thought, almost as if he himself was Royal.
Without asking herself why, she said to Sir Christopher,
“Please don’t say anything to anybody here – will you promise me? – as to who I am and where I come from.”
“Are you telling me that our host does not know that your father was Gordon Lindsay?”
“He just thinks I am a Governess chosen by Felicity’s mother,” Atayla said, “and that is how I would like to leave it.”
She did not know why she wanted to be so secretive about it. But perhaps she was afraid that the Ea
