An Unexpected Pleasure. Candace Camp

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СКАЧАТЬ of Englishwomen who would take the job—and who would have references right here in London.”

      Mulcahey grinned. “Seems they’ve already run through most of the lot. Got a certain reputation, these lads have.”

      Megan looked at him doubtfully. “What are you saying? They’re such hellions they’ve frightened off all their other governesses?”

      “Governesses, then tutors when they got too old for governesses.”

      “Too old? How old are they?”

      Frank shrugged. “Old enough that Paul was saying any other family’d send ’em off to Eton soon, but the Morelands are an odd lot. I think they must be twelve or thirteen.”

      “Thirteen-year-old hellions? What am I supposed to do with them?”

      “Ah, you’ll have no trouble. You’re no prissy English-woman. You grew up with boys. Just handle ’em like you did Sean and Robert—give ’em a good knock on the head when they get too rowdy.”

      “Da…they’re English aristocrats. You can’t just go knocking their heads together when you feel like it.”

      “Come, now, Megan. I’d back you against a couple of spoiled adolescents any day. You’ll do just fine.”

      “They wouldn’t hire a woman to teach their precious sons,” Megan argued. “Not when the boys are that old.”

      “I’m tellin’ you, they’re desperate. Besides, it appears that the Duchess is an odd one. A free thinker, according to Paul. Believes in women’s suffrage. Equality of the sexes and all that.”

      Megan cast her father a disbelieving look. “A Duchess? Da, I think this fellow was pulling your leg.”

      “Well, only one way to find out, isn’t there?” Mulcahey smiled at his daughter challengingly.

      Never one to ignore a dare when she saw it, Megan squared her shoulders.

      “True. Well, I had best get to bed, hadn’t I, if I’m going to be interviewing for a position as a tutor tomorrow?”

      2

      Megan arrived at Broughton House early in the afternoon the following day. When she reached the bottom of the steps leading up to the front door, she hesitated for a moment, gazing up at the grand edifice. Her stomach was a knot of nerves. Soon she would meet the man whom she had hated for ten years. All her grief, all her regret had been channeled into fury, and the fact that the villain had gotten away had only served to increase that anger. Megan wasn’t sure how she would be able to face Moreland without revealing how much she despised him. It was going to take every bit of skill she had.

      She clasped her hands together, pushing up her gloves in a nervous gesture. She would never have admitted it to anyone, least of all her father, but she could not help but be a trifle intimidated by the task ahead of her. She had bluffed her way through many a situation in search of a story, but no story had ever been as important to her as this one, and never had she felt so afraid of failing. She could not help but think that the duchess was going to take one look at her and send her packing.

      She tugged down her dark blue jacket, quite plain except for its rather large silver buttons. She hoped it would be sober enough to make up for the small straw bonnet perched atop her head, which, with the brim curling jauntily to one side and the cunning cluster of cherries pinned there, was really too stylish for a tutor. Megan had a weakness for hats, and, frankly, she did not possess one that was dowdy enough to suit a governess. Standing here now, she wished that she had gone to a millinery this morning and bought the plainest dark bonnet she could find.

      It was too late to do anything else now, she told herself, and, quelling the sudden flutter of nerves in her stomach, she reached up and brought down the heavy brass door knocker.

      A moment later, a footman opened the door.

      “May I help you?”

      “I am here to see the Duchess of Broughton,” Megan said calmly, looking the man squarely in the eyes.

      Once she began, as always, her nervousness receded, turning into a sort of low-level hum that kept her alert and ready for anything.

      She saw the footman sweep her with a quick, assessing glance, taking in everything about her and no doubt classifying her immediately as to social status, dress and country of origin.

      “May I ask if you have an appointment?”

      “Yes,” Megan lied. She had always found it best to go on the offensive. Boldness generally won the day. “I am here concerning the tutoring position.”

      The man’s expression changed from aloof and faintly forbidding to almost eager. “Yes, of course. Let me see if her grace is ready to receive you.”

      He stepped back, and Megan entered the house. She found herself in a large formal entryway. It was floored in marble, and across from her, elegant stairs rose to the second floor. A hallway stretched in either direction, with another leading toward the rear of the house.

      “If you will be so kind as to give me your name?” The footman said politely, directing Megan toward a low velvet-cushioned bench that stood beneath an enormous gold-framed mirror.

      “Miss Megan Henderson,” Megan responded. She had decided that it would be too risky to use her real last name, as there was a chance that Moreland would connect it with the man he had known ten years earlier.

      “Very good, Miss Henderson.” The man turned to go, and just then a shriek echoed from down one of the hallways.

      Both Megan and the footman turned toward the sound. As they watched, a young woman ran out of one of the doorways, followed a fraction of a second later by another, older, woman. Both were richly dressed—rather overdressed, to Megan’s sense of taste—with intricately coiffed hair, and there was about them a tangible air of privilege and wealth.

      That appearance was somewhat spoiled at the moment by the fact that both women were emitting high, piercing squeals, holding up their skirts and almost dancing about as they peered down at the floor around them.

      Megan stared, and the footman let out a groan. As they stood watching, a number of small furry creatures scurried out of the doorway behind the women and raced off down the hall toward the front door, followed an instant later by two adolescent boys and a dog.

      The women’s shrieks grew louder and higher, if that was possible, and they ran and jumped up onto benches on either side of the hallway. The mice, obviously the object of all the hysteria, scampered along the elegant marble hallway, darting behind vases and under tables in their dash toward freedom.

      The dog added to the noise, barking excitedly and jumping up to snap at the enticing ruffles on one of the women’s skirts, then darting after the fleeing mice, then whirling back to leap again at the ruffles, which were fluttering as the woman jittered agitatedly atop the bench.

      One of the boys dived under a narrow hallway table to grab one of the mice and knocked against one of the legs. The vase of flowers on top of the table wobbled and overturned with a crash, spilling blossoms and water. The boy let go of his quarry and whirled around, reaching out just in the nick of time to catch the vase as it rolled off the table. He СКАЧАТЬ