The Cinderella Governess. Georgie Lee

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СКАЧАТЬ his belt. Joanna tried not to notice, but it was difficult for his white breeches obscured very little.

      ‘Excuse me, Miss Radcliff.’ He bowed to Joanna, then bolted out of the room, leaving Frances to face her fate alone.

      Joanna opened and closed her sweaty fingers over the cover of the book. She hoped this taught Frances something about the man and made her realise her mistake. She was about to say so when Frances, cheeks red with anger instead of shame, fixed on Joanna.

      ‘How dare you barge in on me?’

      ‘I didn’t barge, I was already in the room when you and Lieutenant Foreman—’

      ‘Don’t you dare speak of it, not to me or anyone, do you understand?’ She flew upon Joanna and slapped the book out of her hands. It landed with a thud on the floor between them.

      ‘No, of course not,’ Joanna stammered, startled by the command. She was supposed to be the one in charge. She remained silent, afraid to point out this fact and make things worse.

      ‘Good, because if you do, I’ll see to it you’re dismissed without a reference.’ Frances threw back her head of light blonde curls and strode from the room as if it was she and not her father, Sir Rodger, who owned the house. Like all four Huntford girls, Frances was spoiled by her parents. All of them had treated Joanna with nothing but contempt since her arrival.

      Joanna found the arm of the chair behind her and gripped it tightly as she sank into the dusty cushions. This wasn’t how being a governess was supposed to be. The girls were supposed to look to her for education and guidance, and keeping Frances’s secret should’ve brought her and Frances closer, like it had with her, Rachel, Isabel and Grace. It shouldn’t have garnered spite from a young lady clearly in the wrong. She should tell Sir Rodger and Lady Huntford about their daughter’s compromising behaviour, but if she did, they might blame her.

      I wish Rachel were here. She had a gift for dealing with the young children and even some of the older girls at the school. She’d know what to do, but she wasn’t here, none of her friends or Madame Dubois or Miss Fanworth could help her. She was on her own, just as she’d been until she was nine and Grace, Rachel and Isabel had first arrived at the school. She wished she had a copy of the drawing of the four of them Grace had done last Christmas. It would lessen her loneliness to remember how happy they’d been together and make them seem closer instead of hundreds of miles away.

      She stood and plucked the book from the floor, refusing to wallow in self-pity. Her friends weren’t here and, despite Frances’s threats, it was Joanna’s duty to guide and chaperon the young lady. She’d have to find a more subtle way to go about it. There was little else she could do.

      * * *

      Luke strode up the steps of the Mayfair town house. The must and damp of the ship which had brought him back from France permeated the wool of his red coat. He rubbed his hand over the stubble on his chin. He should have stopped at the Army Service Club to bathe and shave, but the moment he’d landed in Greenwich, all he’d wanted to do was see Diana Tomalin, his fiancée.

      He’d been brought home with instructions to marry and produce an heir for the family. The faster he made things final with Diana, the sooner he might achieve this goal and return to his regiment in Spain. It had hurt like hell to sell his commission four months after he’d risked his life to earn it and he’d be damned if he let it go for good.

      Collins, the Tomalin family’s butler, pulled open the front door. His small eyes in his soft face widened at the sight of Luke. ‘Major Preston.’

      ‘Morning, Collins. Is Miss Tomalin here?’ Luke removed his shako and handed it to the man as he strode into the Tomalin family entrance hall.

      ‘She is, sir, but—’ He fumbled the army headdress, making the feather in the front waver like his voice.

      ‘Collins, who is it?’ Diana called from the sitting room.

      ‘It’s me.’ Luke strode into the sunlit room and jerked to a halt. His excitement drifted out of him like smoke out of a cannon.

      Diana stood in the middle of the rug, her eyes not meeting his as she ran her hand over her round belly. The gold band on her ring finger clicked over the small buttons along the front of her voluminous morning dress. ‘Welcome home, Major Preston.’

      The pendulum on the clock beside him swung back and forth with an irritatingly precise click.

      ‘When did you intend to tell me we were no longer engaged?’ Luke demanded. ‘Or were you hoping Napoleon would solve the matter for you?’

      She twisted the wedding band, the large stone set in the gold too big for her delicate fingers. ‘Mother said I shouldn’t trouble you, not when you had so many other things to worry about. She also said I shouldn’t wait any longer for you, that five years was enough, and you might die in battle and then my youth and all my chances to marry would be lost.’

      ‘Yes, your mother was always very practical in the matter of our betrothal.’ It’s why he’d agreed to keep their engagement a secret until he could return from Spain with a fuller purse and a higher rank. Heaven forbid Mrs Tomalin endure the horror of a lowly lieutenant, an earl’s mere second son, for a son-in-law. ‘Who’s the lucky gentleman?’

      ‘Lord Follett,’ she whispered, more ashamed than enamoured by her choice of mate.

      ‘I see.’ Like nearly all the women he’d encountered before he’d enlisted, and whenever he’d come home on leave, she’d run after a man with more title and land than him. He watched the pendulum swing back and forth in the clock case, wanting to knock the grand thing over and silence it. ‘So it’s Lady Follett now. Where is your distinguished husband? In Bath, taking the waters for his rheumatism?’

      ‘With Father’s mounting bills and you possibly never coming back, I didn’t have a choice but to accept him,’ she cried out against his sarcasm. ‘So much has changed in England since you’ve been gone. The cold winters have taken their toll and, with crops failing year after year, Father began to fall into debt like so many others.’

      No doubt his gambling habit helped increase it, Luke bit back, holding more sympathy for her than he should have. Her family wasn’t the only one facing ruin and struggling to hide it. His father and grandfather had spent years rebuilding Pensum Manor after his feckless great-grandfather had nearly gambled it away. The continued crop failures were threatening to send it spiralling back into insolvency. Like Diana, Luke needed to marry and well. He hated to be so mercenary in his choice of bride, but it was a reality he couldn’t ignore. However, it didn’t mean he had to wed the first merchant’s daughter with five thousand a year who threw herself at him in an effort to be the mother of the next Earl of Ingham. ‘Surely you could’ve chosen someone better suited to you than that old man.’

      ‘My first duty is to my father and my family, not to you, not to even myself.’ She settled back into her chair, her brown eyes at last meeting his and filled with a silent plea for understanding. He couldn’t withhold it. He’d abandoned his men and his military career to come home and do his duty for his family. He couldn’t blame her for doing the same.

      ‘It seems we’re both obliged to make sacrifices. You with Lord Follett, me as the heir.’

      ‘But your brother and his wife?’

      ‘After ten years, there’s been no child. If things stay as they are—’

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