Gift-Wrapped Governess (3 page)

Sitting on the bed, she felt a cloud of comfort envelop her, the icy rain beating against the windows as though it might never cease. Everything here was a warm reminder of how her life had been once before…

No!

The only way she had survived the past weeks had been to not think. She shook her head, but with this small quiet amidst the larger chaos her mind returned again to the horror of her last days in London.

Lord Ralph Bonnington, the Earl of Cresswell. Even the name scared her. Her father had made certain that they were left alone in the front room of the London town house, no care given for her safety; the large florid-faced man with the balding pate and beady eyes telling her exactly what he wanted out of this unexpected opportunity. She had bitten his lip when he had pressed in unbidden, demanding much more than she was willing to give, his hands ripping the bodice of her best gown in a rough attempt to sample that offered by her father in an agreement to save Moreton Manor. The sight of her skin had sent the earl into frenzy and he had forced her to the couch and laid himself on top of her, his hand across her mouth to stifle noise.

The heavy metal ewer had come into her grip as she struggled against him and she had used it to good effect on the shiny top of his head. It had been easy then to simply open the window and escape.

Her father, Seth Moreton, the Earl of Banbury, had shot himself the next evening; she had seen it in the papers as she roamed the back streets of London, trying to decide what to do. Mrs Whittle's Agency for Prospective Governesses had solved the problem.

Lying back, Seraphina felt hot tears scald down the side of her eyes and disappear into her hair at the temple. ‘Mama,' she whispered softly, ‘Mama, I need you.'

 

Trey sat in his library, listening to the rhythms of his house: the creak against timber from the elm-tree branch too low on the eaves; the hiss of a spark in the grate where a final ember flared. Heavy rain slanted in from the west, widening the Crouch River, he supposed, as it made its way to the sea.

The natural progressions of nature on land held in the Stanford family name for centuries, and his sanctuary.

In the hallway outside the library a servant hummed a carol softly. Crossing to the piano, Trey laid his hands down on the ivory keys, letting them sink into other music to block out the Yuletide notes.

Once he had loved Christmas. The thought surprised him, but Catherine had found the season a burden with all the effort required and so it had been largely forgotten about altogether. He was certain that Lady Moreton would be the sort of woman who might attack the idea with vigour: the Christmas pudding, the decorations, the charity visits and the long table full of food and family.

Standing, he walked to the window, looking at the snow deep around the house, bands of rain slanting against the light from his library. Terence had made the jump from the land of the still and the silent and his governess had undone years of
aristocratic manoeuvring by mysteriously leaping backwards into an unexpected servitude. Uncertainly, he lifted his finger to the shadow of himself in the glass. He should send her back to London on the morrow, the trail of intrigue woven about her wearisome and unwanted, but there was something that stopped him.

She was Elizabeth Moreton's daughter and her ghost would not allow him to simply turf her out into the winter cold. Besides, there was something about his new governess that was beguiling. Swearing under his breath, he turned to find his best bottle of brandy.

20 December

T
he maid brought her down to the dining room in the morning and Seraphina saw that the duke sat there already, a plate of breakfast before him and no one else at the table.

Surely as a governess he did not wish for her to be joining him for the first meal of every day? She remained still as she gained the room, uncertain as to what was expected.

‘Please have a seat, Miss Moorland, for I would like to talk to you,' he said as he folded away the paper he had been reading. When she hesitated, he looked around. ‘I take it your dog has been whisked off by the boys. A jaunt through the park should do Melusine no harm and a full breakfast may do you some good.'

The servant held out her chair and Lord Blackhaven waited as she sat, his calm menace more easily seen in the new light of day. The scar across his eye was reddened, the angled planes of his cheek moving under a pull of muscle and there was a tick visible around the damage. As if by magic the two footmen who stood at attention to each side of the hearth disappeared, though she had seen no sign from him to make
this happen. Outside through the tall windows the day looked much brighter than it had yesterday.

‘Your references are more than salutary, Miss Moorland, though were I to guess their origin I would say that they all came from the same hand.'

The drink Seraphina had taken a sip of was swallowed with a gulp at his words, shock leaping where caution had lingered. ‘I do not know what you mean, sir.'

His dark-velvet eyes caught her own. ‘The hand of a woman who, by her own admitted necessity, took this position of governess and far from London?'

When she did not speak he went on regardless. ‘I worked in intelligence and part of my mission in Europe was deducing which written orders were fakes and which ones were original. The job requires a special attention to the sweep of letters, you understand, and the repeat of line. Put succinctly, I do know a forgery when I encounter one.'

‘I see.' Her heart was thumping wildly. ‘Under the circumstances, would you like me to leave then, my lord?'

He smiled. ‘And have Terence revert again into silence when your dog disappears with you? Oh, I think not…Lady Sarah?'

She stood at that, barely able to breathe. He knew her name and station as well? He knew exactly who she was? Would he turn her in as an impostor and send her back? Would he summon the law and have them deal with something he would have no mind for? A hundred questions surfaced and she wanted to run, but her feet seemed carved of wood. The reputation she had in London was hardly salubrious.

‘You could flee from this room and this house as certainly as you fled from London, my lady, or you could sit down and listen to what I have to say to you. Which is it to be?'

Seraphina sat, the sweat between her breasts building in fear.

‘Good, I had rather hoped that you might do that. We both
have our secrets, I would guess—undisclosed mysteries that tie us to a particular path or a preferred option. You need employment and I need a governess, for the probability of finding another with your long list of accomplishments would be slim until well after the Epiphany. So I propose a truce. You stay and tutor my boys until the end of January, after which I shall see to it that you are transported to the place you next wish to travel to and nothing more said of any of it. A month. Lodging. Food. A wage and no questions?'

She could only nod, for his terms were more than generous.

‘Is Sarah your first name or is that a lie, too?'

‘Seraphina. It can be shortened to Sera, though the spelling is different.'

‘Then can you promise me that the law shall not arrive on my doorstep any time soon demanding recompense for some ill doing on your behalf?'

Horror threaded her words. ‘If wrongdoing was committed, it was not my own, my lord.'

‘Your father's, then. Seth Moreton, the Earl of Banbury. I had heard that he was having money problems before he…died.'

He was kind in the description of death, she thought. ‘Lengthy card games tend to encourage bankruptcy, just as brandy addles the brain. He had a hankering for both.'

‘Such excesses had come to my attention.' His anger was evident. ‘My sister will arrive in three days' time, for as the daughter of an earl I should not wish your reputation to be ruined by the lack of a chaperone, even given your reduced circumstances. A letter has left this morning asking for her presence here.'

Ruined?
Sera looked up. There were some things the powerful Lord of Blackhaven had no notion of, after all.

‘Margaret is a stalwart for the correct and the acceptable. With her residence in the house your name shall stay safe.'

Safe?
As in the same argument of shutting the gate after a
rampaging stallion? At this moment all she wanted was to be in her sitting room at Moreton Manor, next to her beautiful mother, embroidery in hand. The way it used to be before everything changed. Instead, she was in the home of a duke who was as clever as he was dangerous, hiding from a miscreant who in all probability was even now prowling the streets trying to find her.

Time.

She was running out of it as fast as the Duke of Blackhaven was guessing every sordid detail. She couldn't breathe with the worry of it all, the woman she had been once replaced by a stranger she barely recognised.

To her alarm tears welled in her eyes, pooling and rolling down her cheeks to fall upon the soiled bodice of her much-too-big gown, and she could not stop them as all the horror of the past few weeks came crashing in upon her. Here, she was safe for one whole long month, no questions asked and board and wages given.

It was a miracle.

‘Essex is a long way from London, Lady Seraphina, and the heavy snows of winter are making themselves felt. If it is security you are worrying about…?'

She shook her head as he went to stand by the window, the furthest point in the room from her. He was embarrassed by such a show of emotion, probably. He wanted a competent governess for his boys; instead he had got a watering pot of a woman who was not only a bland copy of her beautiful mother, but a pauper to boot.

She must not forget her station again, so she was careful in her reply as she gathered her lost composure. ‘I should wish for anonymity here if this is at all possible, my lord?'

‘You prefer to stay as Miss Moorland, then?'

‘I do, sir.'

‘Sense tells me that there must be a further reason for your flight?'

The clock on the mantel ticked loudly as he waited, the caution in his eyes illuminated by the windows. Because he did not press her as he was justly entitled to, she found some of the truth to give him. ‘Moreton Manor, the Banbury country seat, was lost by my father on a single game of cards, so he tried to retrieve it by offering another inducement to the man with the winning hand.'

She saw the exact moment he worked it out.

‘You.'

When she nodded he swore.

‘Lord Ralph Bonnington was not one with any sense or honour, you understand.'

‘Did he hurt you?'

‘I left before he could.'

‘So you would hide for the rest of your life because of the poor judgement of your parent and the disgraceful behaviour of a card sharp?'

Some plane of guilt shifted inside Seraphina at his interpretation of the whole conundrum. She was penniless and homeless, but her father's demise had been of his own making and not of hers. Still, there were parts of her explanation that were missing and she had hit Bonnington hard.

‘No, my lord, but I would like a job that allowed me the time to consider my options.' She felt stronger already, more in charge, her more-familiar hopefulness reasserting itself at his calm and measured sense.

When he smiled she felt her cheeks flush. Even with his ruined cheek he was easily the most beautiful man she had ever seen, the lines in his face angled to perfection. Thankfully, though, a movement outside the window caught her attention. Melusine approached the house along the drive, two pink ribbons tied to her tail and three small boys jostling behind her. As she came closer Seraphina saw she carried a bird in her mouth.

Every motherly instinct surfaced and she was out of the room and away, hurrying to save the tiny prisoner before Melusine tired of it.

 

Trey watched her, running again and almost tripping on the hem of a gown that looked as though it had been made for a woman a good six inches taller than she was and at least two stone heavier.

She was so damned alone, save for the mongrel dog with the crooked tail. That was it. And now it looked as though she was after another soul to rescue. Lord, there would be a whole menagerie of creatures at Blackhaven for Christmas, he thought, like some emptying of the Holy Ark at the very end of a bleak and frozen world. Despite meaning not to, he called to his man to bring a blanket and followed.

 

The shoes she wore allowed her little traction on the ice though she regained her balance as she almost lost it and pressed forwards, shouting instructions to the dog who seemed to have no mind to obey.

She shouldn't have come outside in these satin slippers Seraphina thought, as she met the noisy incoming group, because already her feet were freezing and she was sliding on the ice.

‘Drop it,' she said, her voice as gruff as she could make it, though her hound seemed to have no intention of obeying her. ‘Drop it,' she said again, but Melusine simply ran the other way, the hysterical squawks of the bird egging the dog on. The boys tried to catch her, but missed as a flurry of snow from a nearby tree whitened the scene.

‘Stop.' Blackhaven's order.

For the first time ever the dog obeyed a command, sidling over to the voice of authority and laying the wet bird carefully at his feet.

‘Good dog.' The duke's hand came down to pat Melusine's
ears before he lifted the now-silent bird into his palm, his sons picking themselves up and gathering around him to look.

‘Melusine jumped into the pond, Papa. I think she was saving the bird because it was caught in the middle of the ice.'

‘There were no others there, either.' The youngest child joined in David's story. ‘And it was shivering and cold, like it is now.'

‘It…is…scared—' Terence had his own interpretation of events ‘—because its mother…is dead.'

Like his own, Seraphina thought, and saw the duke reach out to bring his second son closer, his hand curling around thin shoulders.

‘We shall make certain then that she is fed when we are back inside,' she said, ‘for all birds love mash, fruit and vegetables finely sliced. It is a known fact.'

Four sets of identical eyes fastened on to her own at this imparted knowledge.

‘Is she another girl, then?' Gareth asked the question.

‘I am not exactly certain.'

The small bird struggled suddenly, then stood and spread its wings before flying up into the air and away. Heartfelt laughter rang around the bowers of pines and bare oak branches as they watched its flight, ungainly at first, but growing in competence with practice. Such mirth echoed the spirit of the season, amusement softened by the deep snow of December.

Like a real family, happy at Christmas. Oh, how Seraphina wished it could have been true!

Her feet came from beneath her as she took a step to watch the trajectory of flight; finding a hidden ditch, she fell into a soft snow drift. When the duke turned and smiled she rolled a ball of the whiteness before she could stop herself and sent it straight at him. The missile exploded against his legs and he stooped to make his own projectile. The boys followed.
She was outnumbered and outclassed, but, as the sister of two older brothers who had perfected the art of martial attack, she was more than able to defend herself.

‘Do you surrender?' she shouted as one of her snowballs hit Gareth in the chest.

‘No,' he yelled back and came closer, rolling one huge missile. Both other boys followed suit, though she had Trey Stanford in her camp now, before her, sheltering her, the flurry of his shots matching his sons.

She could hardly speak for laughing, the barks of Melusine adding to the noise, and behind on the top step of the porch she noticed a row of servants observing the chaos.

Life.

This was how it should be.

Not hiding out for fear of what others might say about the loss of Moreton Manor and the death of her father, but living it regardless with laughter and energy and four days left until Christmas.

She would never forget this moment, she thought to herself: the joy of it and the fun, though drips of freezing ice down her back made her gasp.

‘That's enough, now.' The boys obeyed their father as surely as Melusine had and when he bent to help her up his hand was as cold as her own.

‘Do you surrender?' The same words she had used before, but said differently, and her heart beat in her throat as a sharp ache of want pierced her body, for him, for Trey Stanford and his steady, honest goodness and his offer of safety for a month. She could barely breathe with the promise of it and her grip tightened.

The moment was lost, however, as Terence moved forwards to give his help.

‘Thank you, kind sirs,' she said, threading her arms through each of theirs and, with Melusine and the other two children running in front, they repaired to the portico where
Mrs Thomas, the housekeeper, called out the enticing promise of hot chocolate and sugar-covered currant buns in the blue salon with a roaring fire.

 

Much later Trey lay down upon his bed fully clothed and booted, his valet dismissed for the evening whilst he mulled over the extraordinary day. His childhood had been dour and strict and he had let his own children go wild after their mother had died because of it. All advice had railed at him to send them up to school, but he had not wanted to let go of them.

He had revelled in seeing them as he had today in the snow, joyous, happy and carefree, the small dog yapping her head off and Seraphina Moreton aiming her snowballs like a professional.