My Lady Governess (Zebra Regency Romance)

  A COMFORTING KISS

  “Miss Palmer? Elinor, has something upset you?”

  Was she upset? Of course not. Her whole life was disintegrating, but the intrepid Elinor Richards was not upset.

  “No, my lord.” She managed to keep her voice calm. “I was merely indulging in a moment of self-pity.”

  “Somehow that does not seem in character for you.” Without invitation, he sat next to her and put an arm around her shoulder in a friendly gesture. “If there is anything I can do, you’ve only to ask, you know.”

  “Th-thank you, my lord.” She wanted to nestle into the warmth of his encircling arm, but steeled herself against doing so. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand in a childlike gesture. “I’ll be all right. You must not concern yourself.”

  “I thought we agreed on ‘Elinor’ and ‘Adrian’ in private,” he said softly. He lifted her chin and forced her to look at him. The expression in his eyes deepened with compassion—and something else. “Please let me help,” he whispered.

  He held her gaze for a long moment. Sympathy, questioning, a degree of pain shone in his eyes. Then with a soft groan, he lowered his mouth to hers....

  Books by Wilma Counts

  WILLED TO WED

  MY LADY GOVERNESS

  Published by Zebra Books

  MY LADY GOVERNESS

  Wilma Counts

  Zebra Books

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  http://www.zebrabooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  A COMFORTING KISS

  Books by Wilma Counts

  Title Page

  Dedication

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Copyright Page

  For Bill and Dottie and John,

  who also know what friendship is all about.

  One

  “I tell you, Ellie, I heard the two of them talking in the stable. They didn’t know I was in Jupiter’s stall. Uncle Brompton is planning to turn old Chicken Legs loose on you.”

  Lady Elinor Richards noted the anxiety in her brother’s voice.

  “You must not be disrespectful, Peter,” she said automatically, trying to calm the young man as much as correct his all-too-accurate description of their uncle’s unattractive friend. “Now tell me exactly what you heard.”

  “I don’t remember the exact words, but Uncle said he would get the housekeeper’s key to your chamber. Baron Pennington will enter your room and then Uncle will rouse the other guests and you’ll be compromised. He said you’d have no choice but to marry the baron once Lady Hempton noised the word around the ton.”

  “So that was the reason for our rather odd assortment of house guests,” she said. “I knew Uncle Brompton had something afoot. He was most unhappy when I refused the baron’s offer.”

  This last was an understatement. Her uncle had been furious, threatening to lock her in her room until she came to her senses. She, in turn, had threatened to acquaint society with his behavior and his creditors with a true accounting of his finances. The old reprobate had backed down.

  Now, however, he had come up with a frightening scheme to achieve his goal.

  “Never mind, Peter,” she said with more assurance than she felt. “I have expected something like this. Uncle Martin has become more and more insistent that I marry Pennington.”

  “Because Pennington has agreed to give him half your fortune once you’re tied right and tight,” her brother asserted. “I heard that, too.”

  “Is that it? I knew it had to do with Uncle’s wanting to get his hands on my money, for lord knows Pennington really does have enough of his own.”

  “A fortune the size of yours ain’t nothing to whistle away, though. What can you do? You are a year away from being five and twenty.”

  “I know. I will just have to find a way to hide until I can control my fortune myself. The trust is set up so that the only way he could possibly touch those funds would be through such an accomplice as he’s chosen.”

  “Hide? What do you mean, hide?”

  “If I am not here, they can hardly force me to the altar, can they?”

  “Ellie! This is serious. You’re not planning one of your harebrained schemes, are you?” Peter’s tone sounded more like their late father’s than that of a youngster of only fifteen years. “You remember what happened when you tried to make that frisky mare jump the stile.”

  “I remember.” She touched her head where the bump had been.

  “So, what are you planning then?”

  “I’ll not tell you more than I must, Peter. That way you will not have to lie outrageously. I shall disappear for a while, but I will write you once you return to school, so you are not to worry. You are not to try to contact me, either. Is that clear?”

  “I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all.”

  “I know,” she said, placating him, “but I must do this. I have some money of my own saved from last quarter’s allowance, but I shall need all you can spare as well. Also, some of your clothing.”

  Elinor considered the guests milling about in the drawing room that now technically belonged to her brother Peter, the new Earl of Ostwick. However, she thought, a stranger happening on this scene would assume Uncle Brompton and his avaricious wife were the lord and lady of the manor.

  When he drew up his will over a decade ago the previous earl had inexplicably named his only sister’s husband guardian to his two children. In the intervening years, he had apparently forgotten that he had done so. Elinor had been traveling in Italy when her father died. Martin Brompton had lost no time establishing himself as head of the household, especially since the new earl was a schoolboy away at Eton most of the year. By the time Elinor returned, a new regime had been firmly installed.

  She had tried to reassert the pattern of living at Ostwick Manor that she and Peter had known in previous years, but she was constrained by the fact that her uncle now gave the orders. Moreover, he not only had control of household accounts, he had also contrived to have most of the old familiar servants dismissed in her absence. He had once even denied her access to the stables to punish her for what he termed her “lack of cooperation.” Still mourning her father, Elinor had refused to lend her presence to her aunt’s proposal that they partake of the entertainments offered in London. Then there had been the matter of the Bromptons’ pressing Baron Pennington’s suit.

  Pennington was five years older than her father would have been. Balding and wearing an ill-fitting wig, he was a relic of a previous generation. His watery blue eyes seemed always to be stripping away her clothing layer by layer. He had a pot belly and spindly legs on which his stockings forever wrinkled. Once the man had caught her alone in the hall and tried to kiss her. His breath had been foul.

  Undiscouraged by her polite but firm refusal, he had continued his suit through his friend, her uncle. Now Brompton and his wife had assembled this interesting collection of people, mostly hangers-on with the ton. Few of them were readily welcomed in the most select homes, but neither were they totally unacceptable. Elinor knew that more than one of her aunt’s chosen guests used gossip as an entre to society.

  The seating plan at dinner tonight had again placed Elinor next to the baron
, but this time she was ready for him. Last night when his hand had surreptitiously strayed to her knee, she had pointedly removed it and twisted her legs as far away from him as possible.

  Tonight when he attempted the same familiarity, she jabbed a hat pin into the back of his hand. He gasped, but recovered himself and quickly jerked his hand away.

  “You vixen,” he muttered, bending toward her. “You are long overdue for a few lessons in decorum.”

  “Perhaps. But I doubt you could qualify to teach such,” she replied in a low voice and smiled blandly.

  “We shall see.” He turned his attention to the roast beef on his plate. She suspected from her uncle’s angry glare that he had an idea of what had just transpired.

  Not long after the gentlemen rejoined the ladies in the drawing room later, Elinor excused herself, pleading a headache. As she did she saw her uncle and the baron exchange a knowing look.

  Before going down for dinner, she had packed a small bag with the plainest of her gowns and other essentials. Now she hastily dressed in the clothing her brother had secured for her, first winding a cloth tightly over her too-generous breasts to try to give herself a more masculine outline. An unfashionably large coat would serve to conceal her feminine waist. She pinned up her shoulder-length chestnut locks. A large floppy hat—also decidedly unfashionable—and serviceable boots completed her transformation from an elegant lady of the ton to a nondescript country lad.

  After checking to see that she had the hall to herself, Elinor made her way carefully down the back stairs. She was certain the servants would be occupied elsewhere, but she breathed a sigh of relief when she was outside, having encountered no one.

  Peter was waiting for her behind the stable with a saddled horse.

  “Did anyone see you?” she asked, her voice low.

  “No. The servants were all at their supper when I came out.”

  She secured the bag to the saddle and hugged Peter briefly before he gave her a hand to hoist herself astride the horse. It was not the first time she had ridden astride, but it felt strange all the same.

  “I will turn her loose to find her way home later.” She patted the mare’s neck.

  “Be careful, Ellie.” Peter’s eyes seemed unusually bright in the muted illumination of a clear summer evening.

  “Good-bye, Peter. I’ll be all right. I promise.”

  She rode for what she thought to be three or four hours, allowing the mare to pick her way carefully in country lanes and leaving the paths whenever any other traffic seemed in the offing. Sometime in the hours before dawn, she knew she was on the outskirts of Upper Netherford, a village some distance from Ostwick Manor. She turned the horse loose and settled herself under a huge elm to await daylight and the arrival of a public coach at the inn nearby. She was cold and uncomfortable, but to seek shelter at such an hour would attract undue attention.

  The coach journey was relatively uneventful. She avoided others at stops and feigned sleep much of the time in the coach. There had been only one incident that threatened to undo her. She nearly dissolved into a fit of giggles when a young lady traveling with her mama had flirted outrageously with the young “man” in the opposite seat, casting him exaggeratedly seductive glances despite a stern reprimand from her long-suffering parent.

  Two days later, Lady Elinor Richards was sipping tea in London with her former governess.

  Miss Harriet Palmer, who would have been surprised to find any lady of the ton on her doorstep, was flabbergasted to find her former charge there, dressed as a male. She quickly recovered herself and saw to it that Lady Elinor was given opportunity to refresh herself.

  Now she offered her unexpected guest a restorative cup of tea. Elinor apprised Miss Palmer of all that had taken place.

  “I needed to get away quickly,” she ended, “and I could think of nowhere else to go on such short notice that might not immediately occur to Uncle.”

  “Of course, dear,” Miss Palmer soothed, “I am flattered that you thought of me. And of course you may stay here as long as need be.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Mrs. Garrison—my sister, you know—is visiting in the north so we may accommodate you easily. We have only the Hendersons to serve us, so it will not be the elegance you are accustomed to, but you are ever so welcome.”

  This little speech brought a lump to Elinor’s throat. She knew the retired Miss Palmer and her widowed sister lived on very meager combined incomes and that an extra person was likely to pose a serious drain on their resources.

  “I shall not impose on you overlong, I hope,” Elinor said. “I spent the entire two days on that awful coach thinking about this situation. I have very little money—certainly not enough to sustain me until I can attain access to my inheritance at the age of five and twenty! So ... it is imperative I find some way to make a living for myself.”

  “Oh, my dear, what can a woman of your station do to make her own way?” Genuine concern and worry shone in both her tone and her eyes as Miss Palmer patted her guest’s hand.

  “Exactly what you did once,” Elinor said firmly. “I intend to find a position as a governess. I thought you might help me. I was a fairly apt pupil, was I not?”

  “You were the best. But do you truly think you could carry it off, my dear? You have no idea how difficult that life can be in some households. Particularly for a young, pretty woman like you. I would not advise it. There must be some other way.”

  “I am open to suggestion, of course, but I have wracked my brain for an alternative. I cannot go to relatives. They would just turn me over to Uncle Brompton.”

  “What about your godmother? Surely she would help you.”

  “She is in Italy with the Princess of Wales and lord knows when she is likely to return to England. And quite honestly, I have no funds for such a trip. My brother’s allowance is insufficient to satisfy his needs and mine, too. I can see no other way.”

  “But you will need references.... And there is still the matter of your appearance,” Miss Palmer insisted.

  “References can be forged. I shall pull my hair back into an unfashionable bun—or plait it. I can add some freckles to those I already have. I will certainly not dress as a lady of the ton. And look ...” She reached for her reticule lying on a nearby chair and dug around in it. “I found these in a shop in one of the villages when the coach stopped.”

  She pulled out a pair of eyeglasses and put them on.

  “Oh, my goodness,” Miss Palmer said.

  “People rarely see any more than they expect to see, you know,” said Elinor. “They will expect to see a governess in my person and that is what they will see. It is not as though I shall be attending balls and routs with former schoolmates or would-be suitors.”

  “You do have a point there, my lady,” Miss Palmer conceded. “But what about your name? And you would have to assume the demeanor of someone less than gentry, you know. You will not be allowed to go about voicing your own opinion and correcting your so-called betters—even when they are wrong. A governess is caught in limbo between being an ignorant servant and equal to her employers.” There was a tinge of bitterness in her tone.

  Elinor laughed. “Miss Palmer, you know me too well. But with your help, I think I can do this.” Her tone became more serious. “Indeed, I must do it. I will not marry that repulsive old man!”

  Since she could come up with no alternative herself, Miss Palmer finally acquiesced and entered fully into helping Elinor plan. She spent hours each day training the younger woman for a new way of life. The most serious obstacle—aside from curbing the fierce independence Lady Elinor had always exhibited—was obtaining the necessary documents, proof of proper training and adequate references. One day, as Miss Palmer entered the room that served as drawing room, morning room, and library for her and her sister, she was in a high state of excitement.

  “See what I have found!” She thrust a sheaf of papers into Elinor’s hand. “References. We need only alter the d
ates and you have genuine papers to show.”

  “But these are your own references,” Elinor said, skimming through them. “Changing the dates would be simple enough, I think, but what about the name?”

  “I see no reason why you cannot be Miss Harriet E. Palmer. After all, I am not going to seek another position at this time of my life. Nor am I likely to be moving in such circles as would recognize the name you use. And these papers are genuine—they have the seals used by my former employers and everything.”

  “It does seem the perfect solution,” Elinor mused.

  “It is perfect, my dear,” Miss Palmer exulted. “None of them contains a direct reference to my age. The E could be Elinor as well as the Elizabeth my mother christened me.”

  “Yes, I can see that.”

  “My last employers, the Spensers, gave me a very good reference, indeed. What is more, I happen to know that they are on an extended visit to their son with the army in Belgium, though they were never wont to go into society much anyway. Any prospective employer would find it difficult to check your references too closely.”

  “Well, if you are sure you will not mind ...” Elinor was dubious about using Miss Palmer’s name, but could find no reasonable argument against it. Except simple honesty, she chastised herself. But then, any assumed name is going to be dishonest, is it not?

  Adrian Whitson, Marquis of Trenville, sat at his desk with a satisfied smile on his face though there was no one else in the room to share his triumph. “There.” He sealed a document. “That should put finis to the leaking of information to the wrong people in Paris and Vienna!”

  A soft rap at the door interrupted this thought.

  “Miss Palmer, my lord.”

  “Ah, yes. The governess.” Adrian came from behind his desk, bowed perfunctorily over the hand of the young woman shown into his library, and motioned her to a chair near the unlit fireplace.