The Governess's Secret Baby. Janice Preston

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СКАЧАТЬ track she had followed from the village of Shivercombe—past the church, across a meadow and a river, and then through that spooky wood—emerged on to the edge of bleak moorland and she stopped to catch her breath, and look around.

      Moorland—or, more correctly, fells according to the local villagers who had tried so hard to dissuade her from venturing to Shiverstone Hall—rose ahead of her before merging mistily with the overcast sky. She could just about make out the slate roof and tall chimneys of a house squatting in a fold of land ahead, the only sign of human habitation in that forbidding landscape.

      Grace’s pulse accelerated in a fusion of anticipation and fear. That must be it. Shiverstone Hall. And there, beneath those glistening black slates, was Clara. Her baby, who now lived in this isolated place with—according to those same villagers—a man who was fearful to behold and who breathed fire and brimstone on any who ventured on to his land: the Marquess of Ravenwell. Grace would not...could not...allow those warnings to deter her. She had survived that creepy forest and she would survive Lord Ravenwell’s wrath. She would not turn back from the task she had set herself two years ago.

      She owed that much to the daughter she had given away at birth.

      Grace swapped her portmanteau into her left hand and glanced down at her muddied half-boots in disgust. Her left foot already squelched in her boot and the right felt suspiciously damp too. What sort of lord lived out here in the middle of nowhere and did not even take the trouble to build a bridge over the river between the village and his house? An uncivilised sort, that was who, in Grace’s opinion. There was a ford for horses and vehicles, but the only place for a person to cross the river was by using huge, wet, slippery rocks set in the riverbed as stepping stones. She was fortunate it was only her left foot that had been submerged.

      Grace trudged on, muttering under her breath, still following the same track. At seventeen, and a pupil at a school for governesses, she’d had no choice but to give her baby away, but she had regretted it each and every day since then. She had promised herself that one day she would track her daughter down and make sure she was happy and loved and living the life she deserved. And now it was even more urgent that she find her daughter and make sure she was well cared for—and wanted—since her discovery that the couple who had adopted Clara as their own had perished in a carriage accident.

      But doubts still plagued her as she walked, despite her resolve to see her mission through. She might be bold, but she was not stupid. What if this Marquess would not allow her to see Clara? What reason could she give him for seeking out the child? Not the truth. He would send her packing. No. She must find another reason.

      And what if Clara is not happy and loved?

      What on earth could she—a nineteen-year-old newly trained governess with no home and little money in her pocket—actually do? She pushed the thought aside with an impatient tut.

      She would deal with that when and if it became necessary.

      She plodded on, skirting the worst of the puddles that dotted the track. Finally, she crested the rise ahead of her and there it was. She paused. It was bigger than that first glimpse had suggested, but its appearance—grim and grey with creepers adorning the walls—and location were hardly that of a dwelling in which one might expect a wealthy lord to reside.

      A shrill cry echoed through the air and she whirled around.

      Nothing.

      At least she wasn’t still in the forest—that unearthly sound would then indeed have unnerved her. She scanned the bleak landscape, but nothing moved. Another plaintive cry brought her heart into her mouth. She looked up and caught sight of a huge bird—bigger than any she had ever seen—gliding and soaring. It then circled once, before pitching into a dive: a dark blur silhouetted against the low clouds until it disappeared behind the hill that rose behind the house.

      Grace swallowed, hunched her shoulders, swapped her portmanteau over again, and soldiered on. Her upbringing at her uncle’s house in Wiltshire and, since the age of nine, at Madame Dubois’s School for Young Ladies in Salisbury had ill-prepared her for such nature in the raw.

      * * *

      Twenty minutes later the track passed through a gateway in a stone wall, at which point the surface was reinforced with gravel. A broad drive curved away to the left, only to then sweep around and across the front of Shiverstone Hall. A footpath, paved with stone setts, led from this point in a straight line to the house, bisecting a lawn. Grace followed the path until, directly opposite the front door, it rejoined the gravelled carriageway.

      She paused, her heart thudding as she scanned the stone-built Hall with its blank, forbidding windows, and its massive timber door, just visible in the gloomy depths of a central, gabled porch.

      There was no sound. Anywhere. Even the air was still and silent.

      It is as though the house is lying in wait for me—an enchanted castle, sleeping until the fairy princess awakens it and frees the inhabitants. Or a monster’s lair, awaiting the unwary traveller.

      Grace bit her lip, shivering a little, castigating herself for such fanciful thoughts, worthy of one of those Gothic novels Isabel used to smuggle into school and then pass around for her awestruck friends to read. A wave of homesickness hit Grace at the thought of Isabel, Joanna, and Rachel. Her dearest friends. What were they doing now? Were they happy? Grace shook her head free of her memories: the three friends she might never see again and her heartache when the time had come for her to leave Madame Dubois’s school. For a few years she had belonged and she had been loved, valued, and wanted—a rare feeling in her life thus far.

      Resisting the urge to flee back the way she had come, Grace crossed the carriageway, wincing as the crunch of the gravel beneath her boots split the silence. She stepped through the arched entrance to the porch and hesitated, staring with trepidation at the door looming above her.

      I have come this far...I cannot give up now.

      She sucked in a deep breath and reached for the huge iron knocker. She would make her enquiries, set her mind at rest and return to the village. She had no wish to walk through that forest as the light began to fade, as it would do all too early at this time of year. She only had to knock. And state her business. Still she hesitated, her fingers curled around the cold metal. It felt stiff, as though it was rarely used. She released it, nerves fluttering.

      Before she could gather her courage again, a loud bark, followed by a sudden rush of feet, had her spinning on the spot. A pack of dogs, all colours and sizes, leapt and woofed and panted around her. Heart in mouth, she backed against the door, her bag clutched up to her chest for protection. A pair of wet, muddy paws were planted in the region of her stomach, and a grinning mouth, full of teeth and lolling tongue, was thrust at her face, snuffling and sniffing. A whimper of terror escaped Grace despite her efforts to silence it. In desperation, she bent her leg at the knee and drummed her heel against the door behind her. Surely the human inhabitants of this Godforsaken place couldn’t be as scary as the animals?

      After what felt like an hour, she heard the welcome sound of bolts being drawn and the creak of hinges as the door was opened.

      ‘Get down, Brack!’ The voice was deep and brooked no disobedience. ‘Get away, the lot of you.’

      Grace turned slowly. She looked up...and up. And swallowed. Hard. A powerfully built man towered over her, his face averted, only the left side of it visible. His dark brown hair was unfashionably long, his shoulders and chest broad, and his expression—what she could see of it—grim.

      She could not have run if she СКАЧАТЬ