The Tempting Of The Governess. Julia Justiss

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ your conscience to stay with us, just until Emma and Lord Theo return from Italy? I’m sure, among the three of us, we could work something out. Become a governess in some out-of-the-way manor in the back of beyond and you may be lost to us for ever.’

      ‘It’s always possible I could find a position here in London.’

      ‘In London—where you would inevitably run into the friends of your employers, all of them well aware of your humiliating loss of status?’ Lady Patterson said.

      Olivia sighed. ‘Not London, then.’ Having her acquaintances looking down on her with scorn and pity would be intolerable.

      Her mind whirling, Olivia felt driven to halt the dizzying, out-of-control spin of her life by making a decision here and now.

      It wasn’t as if her options would change upon longer reflection.

      A lady’s only other alternative was to become some genteel female’s companion. Not being much given to taking orders, it would probably be preferable to earn her pittance as a governess, where she would be giving them.

      So, it appeared, a governess she would be.

      She’d always longed to be independent, in charge of her own destiny, not forced to depend upon a father or brother or husband. Well, this ironic twist of fate had certainly granted that wish, she thought blackly. Just not at all in the way she’d envisaged.

      ‘A position as a governess in an out-of-the-way manor might be preferable,’ she said, pulling herself from those reflections to confirm her decision. ‘Lady Patterson, do you know of an agency to which I could apply for such a position? And would you be kind enough to write me a character?’

      Lady Patterson sat quietly for a moment. ‘I suppose there isn’t time for me to enquire among my friends and relations to discover someone in need of a governess.’

      ‘Lady Overton could show up on the doorstep of Upper Brook Street tomorrow.’

      ‘Surely you could stay with us long enough for my aunt to find you a position with someone she knows,’ Sara pleaded. ‘Somewhere we’d be assured you would be treated with kindness and respect.’

      Though touched by her friend’s concern, Olivia said, ‘Sara, I know you mean well. But can you even imagine how it would be? Everyone in society would know. I wouldn’t be invited anywhere. I’d have no funds to borrow books or even for the paper and ink we use to write letters for the Ladies’ Committee. I’d have to hide myself here just...existing. Suspended in some awful void between the life I’ve always known and the reality of my life now. I... I don’t think I could bear it. Since the break must happen, I’d rather it be swift and clean.’

      Her eyes filling with tears, Sara nodded. ‘I suppose I can understand. I just...hate to lose you.’

      Unable to respond without giving in to tears of her own, Olivia pulled her friend close for a hug. For a long moment, they clung together.

      Pushing away the friend who, for the first time in their lives, was unable to help her solve a dilemma seemed to symbolically echo today’s events in her life.

      ‘Well, I’d best go and pack up my things. Lady Patterson, if you would be so kind as to give me the name of that agency?’

      Even Sara’s gruff aunt had tears in her eyes. ‘I’m afraid I’ve forgotten. Let me go to my sitting room and ask my maid, and I’ll send you a note. I am sorry, my dear.’ After rising to give Olivia a quick, most unusual hug, the older woman walked out.

      ‘Promise me one thing,’ Sara insisted as she escorted Olivia to the door. ‘Don’t accept a contract for more than six months. You know the three of us—you, me and Emma—have always been able to solve whatever problem has arisen in our lives. I don’t expect that will change just because Emma married Lord Theo. Promise me, when they return from their Grand Tour, you will come back to London and let us all re-examine your situation, together.’

      Olivia knew that, unless some unknown benefactor had left her funds of which not even the family solicitor was aware, nothing about her circumstances would change in six months. Nor would she be any more able to accept charity from Emma than she could from Sara. But her friend looked so distraught, silent tears slipping down her cheeks, that Olivia didn’t have the heart to refuse her.

      ‘Very well. I’ll not sign a contract for employment that lasts longer than six months and I promise to return to London and speak with all of you when Emma and Lord Theo come back from Italy.’

      In the hallway, the two clung to each other, Olivia fighting back tears once more after being informed by the butler that Lady Patterson had ordered the family carriage to bear her home.

      Perhaps her last journey as a well-born member of society.

      ‘Don’t you dare leave London without saying goodbye!’ Sara said, giving her one last hug.

      ‘I will let you know my situation as soon as everything is arranged,’ Olivia promised. Then, as the butler held open the door for her, she walked out of her past and grimly set her face towards the future.

       Chapter Two

      Meanwhile, as the afternoon light faded in Somerset, Colonel Hugh Glendenning, late of his Majesty’s Second Imperial Foot, sat down at his desk in the shabby library of Somers Abbey, his family’s ancient home. His back ached from a long day of riding the tenant farms, occasionally dismounting to help some elderly householder with the pollarding of the willow trees that would enable him to cure the branches and weave them into the baskets that produced most of the estate’s revenue.

      The Abbey was still far from recovered from the shambles it had been when he inherited it from his wastrel elder brother, he thought, with a pained glance at the faded curtains and the threadbare carpet on the floor. But a year and a half of determined toil had at least built back up the estate’s traditional trade in baskets and, if the apple crop were good this year, the additional income from selling cider might finally tip his finances, long tottering between solvency and disaster, firmly on to the positive side.

      He was stretching out his back and thinking that a quick whisky before dinner might be just the trick when a knock came at the door, followed by the entrance of the elderly butler.

      ‘Sorry to disturb you, Colonel, but a Mr and Mrs Allen are here, demanding to see you.’

      ‘Mr and Mrs Allen?’ Hugh repeated. After a rapid review of his memory, he shook his head. ‘I don’t believe I’m acquainted with a Mr Allen.’ Hoping the man wasn’t another of the numerous unpaid creditors his brother had left behind, he said, ‘Did they indicate what they wanted to see me about, Mansfield?’

      The butler shook his head. ‘Only that they’d just arrived from St Kitts in the Caribbean and must see you at once on a delicate matter of grave importance.’

      Hugh sighed. ‘If they are from St Kitts, it must have something to do with my late cousin’s estate. I thought his solicitor had already informed me of everything I needed to know, but I suppose I shall have to see them.’

      ‘Very well, Colonel.’

      Resisting the urge to jump up and help СКАЧАТЬ