The Governess Affair

“Without a position,” Serena snapped. “With no hope of a character reference.”

“All your fine plans,” Freddy said, half scolding, half comforting, “and they’ve come to naught. Best not to dream, dear. If you don’t, there’s nothing that can be taken from you.”

Pure cowardice, that. Freddy fretted when she had to cross the street to purchase milk. When she’d gone to meet Serena at the yard where the stagecoach had left her, she’d been white-lipped and trembling. She’d complained of pains in her chest all the way home. Freddy didn’t handle change well, and nothing changed so often as the world outside her door.

There was a reason that Serena had signed away her portion of their father’s bequest. Freddy could not have survived on her half, and she was incapable of making up the shortfall.

“All of your fine plans,” Freddy repeated gently, “and here you are. With nothing. Less than nothing.”

“No,” she said thickly. “Not…not nothing.”

“With nightmares and a babe on the way.”

Serena kept her eyes wide open. Her hands trembled; she forced them to stillness, pushing them against her skirts until they grew steady. She imagined the spark of life growing inside her, gestating next to her bitter fury. Sometimes, she feared that all of that cold, trembling anger would eat her child alive. Not after I win. Then I’ll be safe, and I’ll never be hurt again.

“I told you already,” she said. To her own ear, her voice seemed to come from very far away. “I don’t have nightmares. I don’t have time to be frightened of anything.”

At her last position, the Wolvertons had obtained a microscope for their children’s instruction in the natural world. They’d magnified everything. Sometimes, the memory that played itself through her dreams seemed like those enlarged images. The edges danced, overhung with the chromatic effect of a dark, shadowing halo. She felt as if she were looking at something very small, something very far away. So distant that it almost wasn’t happening.

She had felt so helpless then, so utterly without recourse. She should have screamed. She should have bashed the duke over the head. She should have fought. In her memory of that night, her own silence mocked her most of all.

She hadn’t screamed, and because she hadn’t, she’d felt silent ever since.

Freddy simply sighed. “When you’re ready to give up,” she said, “I’ll be here. But I don’t know what you hope to accomplish, except to bring that horrid wolf-man down on both our heads.”

This, at least, Serena could answer. “I have it on the best of authority,” she said, “that he’s a thickheaded fellow. All brawn and no brains. When it comes down to it, I’ll simply outsmart him.”

“Oh, dear.” Freddy leaned over and tapped Serena’s cheek. “When you fail, I’ll be here to pick up the pieces. As usual.”

HUGO HAD MORE THAN enough to do the following day. Nonetheless, thoughts of the governess followed him throughout his work. He sent out a man to discover what had really happened between his employer and Miss Serena Barton at Wolverton Hall. If she wouldn’t tell him and Clermont wouldn’t say, he’d have to find out on his own.

He spent the morning attempting to banish thoughts of her—of that chestnut hair, bound into a loose knot, waiting to become unpinned. Her eyes were gray and still, like water too long undisturbed. Her hands had been quiet—unmoving.

By the afternoon, he gave up the cause of work as hopeless and wandered to the window. He’d caught glimpses of her sitting on her bench all morning. Now, she sat still as a statue, scarcely moving, scarcely breathing, and yet somehow completely alive.

She wasn’t what he would have called pretty. Handsome, yes. And there was something about her eyes… He shook his head; her appearance was hardly relevant.

He’d been testing her yesterday, mentioning rape. It was…horrifyingly possible. He wasn’t sure what he would have done if she’d confirmed his fears. He’d done a great many things on Clermont’s behalf, but he’d never hurt a woman. Even his wounded conscience had its limits.

But she’d not even flinched when he’d said the word. She hadn’t reacted to anything at all.

And therein lay his second problem. When he’d introduced himself, he’d assumed that she would recognize his name. But she had apparently gleaned his reputation entirely through gossip columns, and they only ever referred to him as the Wolf of Clermont. There was no reason anyone who had just arrived in London would know his name.

He should have corrected her misapprehension.

He hadn’t, and he wasn’t sure why. Just an instinct. For all the duke’s blasé reassurances, he suspected that whatever was at the heart of this quarrel was a scandal—and one that could undo all of Hugo’s fine work. He couldn’t fix the problem if he didn’t know what he was facing, and if she worked herself up into a fear of him, he might never learn the truth—not until he saw it on the front page of a newspaper.

Still, he didn’t like lying. Not even by implication.

“Whatever you are up to, Miss Barton,” he whispered, “you will not cost me my five hundred pounds. I have worked too hard for it.”

Fifty yards on the other side of the pane of glass, she swung her head, startling him with the sudden movement. He stepped back—but she was only watching a bird that had landed on the ground in front of her.

With a sigh, Hugo pushed the rest of his papers aside. No sense wasting any more time wondering, when he could be finding out.

He exited the house via the servants’ door, tromped back through the mews, and then back ’round to the street. Miss Barton was still sitting there when he crossed into the square. She gave him a smile, this one a little warmer than the one he’d received yesterday.

There was something about her that drew his eye.

“Mr. Marshall,” she said. “I did say you wouldn’t be successful in your quest for gossip, did I not?”

“You wound me.” He didn’t smile, and her own expression fluttered uncertainly. “You assume that I only have interest in gossip, when in fact, I might just be searching out your company for the sheer pleasure of it.”

She thought this over, tilting her head to one side. Then: “I have now considered that possibility. I reject it. Come, Mr. Marshall. Tell me you didn’t come out here hoping for some sordid story.”