The Wanton Governess. Barbara Monajem

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СКАЧАТЬ Grant, don’t be frightened. I mean you no harm.” Perhaps not, but his voice was impatient, and rightly so.

      “I’m not afraid, Sir James,” she said. “I am ashamed.” She went to the clothes press and flung it open. Perhaps if she kept busy, this wouldn’t be quite so bad. “It is I who have done you harm, although I didn’t mean to.”

      She removed her pitiful pile of garments from the clothes press, laid them on the bed, and reached underneath it to pull out her valise. “Fortunately, it will not be difficult to lay the blame for everything on me. You need merely say I am an adventuress who took advantage of your family’s generosity.” Rapidly, she stowed patched nightgowns and stockings into the valise. “No blame will fall upon Sally, and she will still get the vouchers and go to Almack’s.”

      “Sally can go to the devil. What are you doing?” he demanded.

      “Preparing to leave, of course.” It was embarrassing to fold her shifts in front of him, although the Wanton Within, needless to say, detected titillation in his considering gaze. “I must hurry, as it’s a long walk to the King’s Arms.”

      There was a brief silence. “You can’t walk, what, nine or ten miles to the inn!”

      “Indeed I can. I walked here, and I can walk back.” She unearthed her two ugly, brown, stuff gowns, the ones she wore as a governess, from the bottom of the clothes press.

      “You walked here?” Exasperation suffused his voice. “Miss Grant, I don’t know what brought you here, but I can’t just let you walk away. You could encounter any kind of danger, and even if you arrived safely, I doubt they would give an unaccompanied woman a room.”

      She clutched the gowns to her chest. “I shan’t ask them to, as I cannot afford to stay there. I only have enough for the stagecoach fare.”

      “Enough to go where?”

      “To my aunt’s house in Berkshire,” she said wearily. She laid the gowns on the bed and spread the first one for folding.

      “You live there?” In that case, his tone clearly implied, what was she doing here impersonating his non-existent wife?

      “Between positions as a governess.” Why must he ask all these questions? She didn’t want him to know all the sordid details of her miserable life. Why couldn’t he just let her go? “I shall be safe enough outdoors if I remain out of sight.” That sounded absurd even to herself.

      “Nonsense,” he said. “I cannot possibly let you go. You are in my house and therefore my responsibility.”

      She rounded on him. “I perpetrated a fraud! I pretended to be your wife. You have no obligation to me whatsoever, Sir James. Please, just let me leave.”

      “Can you not understand,” he said, “that I wish to protect you?”

      She knew better than to believe that. Years of bitter experience had taught her what sort of protection men usually meant to offer her, but perhaps he was still one of that rare species, a true gentleman. He’d proven to be one all those years ago, when he’d visited friends near the village where she lived. He’d shown as much interest and admiration as the other men, flirting and courting her, often with that deliciously wicked look in his eye. That was when she’d discovered the existence of the Wanton inside her, who set up an insistent clamour every time Sir James came near: want him want him want him.

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