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The pale eyes, very like Rafe’s, Sam realised, were now fixed on her with a totally different quality But then they went utterly flat Edge , but he e

‘No, he was not happy The Duke said the child’s death was ordained thanks to Edward’s disrespect to the Edgerton name’

Saasped in shock

‘He did not He could not have said such a thing’

The Duchess didn’t answer

‘He said thatto Edge? To his face?’

‘Yes’

Sam leaned forward, then sat back She could not sit still

‘I have never heard anything so cruel, so ignorantso brutal To say so like that when they had just lost their child’

‘They?’

‘Edge and Dora It is too cruel They must have been devastated’

‘Dora was not at the burial, naturally She had been ill and ith her mother in Bath for some months The child was very poorly that last year He never did recover after the rheuive out much hope the child would live to adulthood, you see He could hardly even crawl So naturally they recommended Dora not expose herself to the worry of her son’s ailiven her delicate constitution The Duke felt that, too, was a sign He felt it best to place the child in the care of a woed Dora’sher to return to Cheshaain’