Not Just a Governess (12 page)

Allowing Adam to admire the alabaster perfection of her face in profile, similar to the beauty of a cameo brooch once owned and worn by his mother…He drew in a sharp breath. ‘I regret that you obviously overheard at least some of my conversation with my grandmother—’

‘Do you?’ Elena turned slowly to look at him with cool blue-green eyes.

Adam gave a small frown at that unwelcome coolness. ‘Of course I regret it. It was not the way in which I wished for you to hear of my concerns about the change that recently occurred in our relationship.’

Elena choked back a bitter laugh at this
major understatement. As she saw it, Adam’s only ‘concern’ amounted to nothing more than a desire to have her removed from his sight, and his home, as quickly as was humanly possible! So that was what she was going to do.

Her mouth firmed. ‘Perhaps, after all, it was for the best that I overheard. It has achieved what you wished it to achieve, in that I am now leaving your household tomorrow morning, without any further embarrassment, or for the need for you to tell me to go.’

He stepped forwards quickly. ‘Have you considered that we might perhaps come to some other sort of arrangement agreeable to both of us? A discreet house in London, perhaps, paid for by me, of course,’ he added hastily. ‘Where we might meet when I am in town—’

‘No!’ Elena gasped her shock.

And her outrage.

She had believed this man cared for her—had truly thought last night to be beautiful and sincere.

How foolish of her. How utterly, utterly foolish of her to have ever thought their love-making last night meant anything to him at all; he might just as well have called her a
whore just now, with his insulting suggestion of setting her up in a house in London. His own personal whore, whose bed he proposed visiting whenever he was in London.

How strange it was, that the man who had raped her had wished to make her his wife, and the man who had made love to her only wished to make her his mistress…

‘No, my lord,’ she repeated flatly.

‘Why the hell not?’ He glared his irritation at her intransigence to what he could see was an ideal solution to their dilemma.

Elena gave him a pitying glance. ‘I am sure I must have made many mistakes in my life, my lord, but I would hope that they are mistakes I will have learnt from. And never repeated,’ she added stingingly.

A nerve pulsed in his tightly clenched jaw. ‘You consider last night to be one of those mistakes?’

She nodded distantly. ‘I am sure that we both do.’

‘You will not even try to understand the awkwardness of this situation from my point of view—’

‘If I might be permitted to interrupt, my lord…?’

Adam turned fiercely to face his butler
as Jeffries stood in the doorway. ‘What is it, man? Whatever it is, can it not wait until I have finished speaking with Mrs Leighton?’

Jeffries looked unruffled by Adam’s aggression. ‘There is a person outside, wishing to speak with you, my lord. He says you are expecting him.’

Adam scowled. ‘Who is he?’ The condescending tone of his butler’s voice clearly implied that Jeffries did not consider the visitor to be of any note at all.

‘A groom, my lord. He says he is—’

‘I know who he is,’ Adam cut in wearily; he knew exactly who the other man was, and why he was here, but the events of these past few hours had put the matter completely from his mind. ‘Ask him to go round to the stables and inform him I will join him there shortly.’

‘Yes, my lord.’ Jeffries remained stoic as he quietly left the room.

Elena waited only long enough for the door to close behind the butler before turning to look coolly at Adam. ‘I really should go and begin my packing—’

‘You will remain exactly where you are!’ he instructed succinctly, halting Elena’s escape as she came to an abrupt halt, her back
stiffly unyielding as she continued to face away from him.

‘Elena…’ his voice gentled ‘…we need to discuss this situation without allowing emotion, either yours or my own, to cloud the situation—’

‘Emotions?’ Her eyes glittered as she whirled to face him, angry colour in her otherwise pale cheeks. ‘I confess, I no longer believe you to be capable of such frivolity as experiencing genuine emotions!’

‘Just a minute—’

‘I do not intend to waste so much as another second of my time on a man such as you, my lord, let alone a minute.’ Elena gave a scathing snort.

‘What do you mean, a man such as me?’ he exclaimed indignantly.

Elena spread her hands. ‘What sort of man is it that would discuss one woman’s virtue so openly with another? Moreover, a kind and gentle woman whose respect and liking I valued?’ Her voice broke emotionally. ‘You have humiliated me in the worst way possible, have allowed Lady Cicely to believe you have ruined me. I shall never forgive you for that. Never!’ She turned on her heel and almost ran to the door.

‘Elena!’

‘Leave me alone, Adam.’ She wrenched the door open before glancing at him over her shoulder. ‘I shall accept your grandmother’s offer to share her carriage when she leaves tomorrow for London. After which you will never have to see or hear from me again.’

‘Damn it, I want—’

‘I have heard what it is you want from me, my lord.’ Elena fought to contain the tears, refusing to allow the final humiliation of actually crying in front of him. ‘And I have informed
you
that such an arrangement is completely unacceptable to me. Now, if you will excuse me—I advise that you remove your hand from my arm this instant, sir!’ she instructed levelly as, having crossed the room in pursuit, Adam had his fingers now curled about her upper arm. She was not at all sure how much longer she could hold back those tears, or be forced to employ some other method of expressing her anger and disappointment.

She had believed Adam to be a better man that this. Had thought him so much
more
. And instead he was no better than Neville Matthews. Worse, in fact, because Neville
had at least offered her marriage. Or the asylum…

Those had been the choices Neville had offered to Elena two months ago. A loveless marriage to him, her cruel and sadistic cousin, or for Neville, as her closest male relative and guardian, to have her placed in an asylum for the rest of her life.

Elena had searched for and found a third option, which was to assume another identity and run away, as far and as fast as she could, from Yorkshire. From Neville.

Only to now find herself the victim of her own heart. A heart that had cried out for love, for protection, only to learn that she had instead found a desire equally as selfish as Neville’s had been.

Her chin rose proudly. ‘I do not believe we have anything more to say to each other, on this subject, or any other, my lord.’

Adam continued to grasp her arm as he stared down at her in frustration. he freely admitted he had handled this situation badly, from start to finish. For it was the finish, he could see that clearly in Elena’s contemptuous gaze as she looked up at him unblinkingly, and leaving him in no doubt that she now utterly despised him.

He had been expecting cajoling or threats, a demand in one form or another, that Adam must now provide for her. Instead Elena had turned down his suggestion—a suggestion Adam could still not believe he had made, considering his earlier decision to remove her from his household as soon as possible—that he set her up in a discreet house in London.

He frowned in bewilderment. ‘What is it you want from me?’

She blinked long lashes at last. ‘I have told you, I wish for you to release me—’

‘I do not mean this exact moment!’ He scowled.

‘If it is not too much trouble, I would appreciate it if you would give me a reference so that I might find another situation.’

‘I meant, what is it you want from me as recompense?’ he grated impatiently. ‘For last night?’

Elena did not wait any longer for Adam to release her, but instead wrenched her arm out of his grasp, no doubt bruising herself in the process, although she did not seem concerned by this, her face now as pale as snow, her eyes dark unreadable pools as she shook her head violently. ‘You are without doubt the most
despicable—’

‘Papa? Papa!’ Amanda burst into the room unannounced, her face alight with excitement as she ran to him. ‘Papa there is a man come into the stables leading the most beautiful pony you ever saw!’ She bounced up and down on her heels in her excitement. ‘Come and see, Papa! Oh, Mrs Leighton…’ she turned to grasp Elena by the hand ‘…do come and see!’

Elena’s expression softened at the complete lack of the reserve Amanda had so often shown in her father’s presence in the past. ‘I am sure your father would love to come and see the pony, but I have something else I need to do—’

‘You must come, Mrs Leighton…’ Some of Amanda’s excitement faded as she now looked up appealingly at Elena.

‘Yes, do come and see the pony, Mrs Leighton,’ Adam drawled, feeling stung, both by Elena’s dismissal of his ability to feel emotion, as well as the tirade of names she had obviously been about to inflict upon him before Amanda interrupted them.

He freely admitted—to himself, at least—that he appeared to have seriously misjudged Elena; despite what he had assumed, she appeared to want nothing from him. Except
never to see him again once she had departed from here tomorrow…

Which made absolutely no sense to him. He shouldn’t have made love to a woman employed in his household and it was a mistake Adam had fully expected to be made to pay for, in one way or another. As he had learnt the hard way, no woman gave of herself without expectation of payment, of some kind. Admittedly Elena was not a member of the highest society, but she was a respectable widow and the wife of a dead soldier. Yet she maintained she wanted nothing from him except a reference before she left so that she might seek other employment.

She perplexed Adam totally.

He straightened. ‘Yes, Mrs Leighton, as you had a hand in its appearance, you must certainly come and see Amanda’s pony.’

‘My pony, Papa?’ Amanda was the one to answer him in awed breathlessness. ‘Is it really mine?’

Adam’s expression softened as he looked down at his daughter. ‘It is really yours, pet,’ he confirmed tenderly.

Elena took the opportunity of Amanda’s launching herself into her father’s arms,
amidst squeals of excitement, in which to edge closer towards the doorway.

Only to have that progress halted as Adam reached out to once again grasp the top of her arm to prevent her from going any further. ‘You will accompany us to the stables, Mrs Leighton,’ he commanded in a voice that brooked no further argument.

No argument that Elena could put forwards in front of Amanda, at least. And so, with Adam’s fingers still curled firmly about her arm, as he carried Amanda in his other arm, Elena was left with no other choice but to accompany father and daughter out of the house and round to the stables where Lady Cicely stood in conversation with the head groom, and another man who was holding the leading rein of the pony.

Elena was pleased for Amanda that her father had obviously acquired a pony for the little girl during the days he had been away from the estate. It truly was a beautiful little mare, with a gleaming coat of golden honey and a mane and tail of pale cream, its eyes the softest brown as it gazed down adoringly at Amanda as, having squirmed to be put down by her father, she hurried forwards to pet its silky soft nose.

‘Ah, there you are, Adam.’ Lady Cicely turned towards them, allowing a better view of the two men she had been conversing with—and at the same time allowing the two men to have a better view of Elena…

Adam’s visitor, the man holding the leading rein of the pony, stared at her in disbelief and recognition.

Elena gasped with horror. Darkness eclipsed the sun and the world went completely black.

‘I
appreciate you catching Mrs Leighton as she fell and carrying her up to her bedchamber, Adam, but you really cannot continue to remain in the room now!’

‘I can and damn well will! I apologise for swearing, Grandmama.’ There was the sound of a heavy sigh. ‘But I am sure you will admit, it has been something of a trying day.’

‘I realise that. And I am sure we are all anxious to know why Mrs Leighton fainted, but I really do feel it is best if I am the one to continue to sit with her rather than you. As you instructed, Bristol is giving Amanda her first riding lesson and Jeffries has taken the visiting groom to the servants’ hall for some
tea, but I am sure the young man will wish to be on his way soon.’

‘Not until after I have questioned him.’

Elena had been awake for the past several minutes, but had continued to keep her lids firmly closed, so as not to alert grandmother and grandson to the fact that she was no longer lying unconscious upon the bed. In truth, also in an effort to delay having to face the questions which were sure to be asked of her.

She had fainted because she had recognised the ‘visiting groom’ and, despite the changes in her appearance and circumstances, she knew that Jeremiah had recognised her, too, as Magdelena Matthews.

What was she going to do? What
could
she do to avert further disaster? And disaster it most certainly would be, once Adam Hawthorne and Lady Cicely learnt she was the runaway granddaughter of the Duke of Sheffield. The same young woman accused by her own cousin of murder and theft. A claim Elena could not disprove, and which had given Neville the leverage to threaten her with the choice of marrying him or being sent to an asylum. Needless to say, she had chosen to escape than suffer either of those horrors.

Jeremiah’s appearance at Hawthorne Park
would seem to have put an end to that escape…

There was another sigh, from Lady Cicely this time. ‘I did try to talk to the groom myself before coming upstairs, but the poor man refused to answer any of my questions. I do believe he may be suffering from some sort of shock.’

‘I shall shake the answers out of him if I have to!’

Elena had heard enough. ‘There will be no need for any physical violence towards Jeremiah,’ she murmured huskily, opening her eyes at the same time as she moved up the bed to sit back against the pillows; thankfully someone had removed her bonnet. ‘I fear that poor young man will have thought he was seeing a ghost, Lady Cicely,’ she added as she looked up at the older woman, not feeling strong enough as yet to face the cold accusation she knew would be in Adam’s haughtily aristocratic face.

‘A ghost…?’ the older lady repeated uncertainly.

Elena nodded. ‘Until he saw me here, no doubt Jeremiah believed me either dead or, as so many others were also led to believe, that
I had gone abroad somewhere I would never be found.’

Lady Cicely frowned her confusion. ‘You and the young groom are acquainted, then?’

Elena would hardly call Jeremiah young, at aged thirty or so, but no doubt he seemed so to the much older Lady Cicely. ‘Yes,’ she confirmed.

Adam gave a disgusted snort. ‘What eclectic taste you appear to have in your choice of male friends, Elena! First a groom and now a lord—will a duke be the next to share your bed, I wonder?’

‘Adam!’ His grandmother widened scandalised eyes even as Elena felt her face go even paler.

These past few minutes since Elena had fainted had been decidedly unpleasant ones for Adam as his imagination had run amok and he speculated wildly as to the nature of the acquaintance between her and the young man she had just referred to so familiarly as Jeremiah.

A familiarity Adam found less than pleasing following the intimacies they had shared the previous evening. ‘Then perhaps Mrs Leighton would care to explain how it is that she and Lord Stapleton’s groom come to be
so well acquainted that she refers to him by his first name?’

Elena blinked. ‘I beg your pardon?’

Adam gave her a confused look. ‘It was from his estate in Warwick that I purchased the pony for Amanda, which his own daughter had outgrown.’

She stared at him with puzzled blue-green eyes. ‘Jeremiah now works for Lord Stapleton?’

‘Have I not just said so?’ Adam snapped his impatience with what to him seemed merely a delaying tactic in answering his previous question.

She frowned. ‘When I knew him before he worked for—’ She broke off abruptly, her lips clamping firmly together.

‘Who? Who did he work for?’ Adam prompted, still unaccountably jealous that she’d known the good-looking groom at all.

‘Someone else.’ That blue-green gaze no longer met his as she stared down at the coverlet her fingers were nervously plucking. ‘I—I should like the opportunity to talk with him before he leaves, if that is permitted?’

‘What the—!’ Adam broke off his angry tirade to glare down at her in disbelieving exasperation. ‘If you are expecting me to allow
that young man to come up to your bedchamber then you are sorely mistaken.’ He looked down the length of his nose at her. ‘You may talk with whom you wish, where you wish, once you have left my household, but until that time you will behave in a manner befitting that of my daughter’s governess.’

She gave him an exasperated glare. ‘I do not believe that I either requested or implied that I wished to speak to Jeremiah here in my bedchamber.’

‘No, I do not believe that she did either, Adam,’ his grandmother joined in the conversation. ‘Now, might I suggest that we all calm down,’ she added soothingly, ‘so that Mrs Leighton may explain to us why seeing the groom Jeremiah—what a charmingly old-fashioned name that is!—should have such an effect upon her that she fainted dead away?’

Elena almost laughed at the disgusted expression on Adam’s face at his grandmother’s aside concerning the charm of the groom’s name. Almost. Because there really was nothing in the least amusing about her present situation…

She would have liked nothing better than to be able to just continue to lie here with her eyes closed until all of this just went away.
All of it. The love-making of last night. The scene with Adam earlier. Her dismissal and departure tomorrow. Jeremiah’s unexpected arrival. The disclosure as to who she really was that must surely follow…

Most of all Elena wished that she did not have to witness the disgust in Adam and Lady Cicely’s expression and demeanours once they learnt the truth about her.

But she knew it was unavoidable. Just as Adam’s actions, following that disclosure, would be just as unavoidable…in that he would have no choice but to call the local authority and have her arrested. After which, she would surely find herself transported to the gaol closest to her grandfather’s estate, where she would then be accused and tried by the local magistrate. Who just so happened to be Neville Matthews, the evil eleventh Duke of Sheffield.

Elena feared being at Neville’s mercy as much as she dreaded seeing the disgust and dislike in Adam’s face once it was made known to him who she really was.

‘Well?’

Elena blinked as she glanced up at Adam, her breath catching in her throat as she saw the bleak expression in his unyielding grey
eyes, assuring her that she should expect no mercy there! She moistened the dryness of her lips before speaking. ‘Once Jeremiah has had chance to drink his tea and recover from his shock, then he will no doubt tell you that—that my name is not, and never has been, Mrs Elena Leighton.’ She inwardly trembled even as she forced herself not to flinch under the sudden fierceness of his gaze.

‘Not Mrs Elena Leighton…?’ Adam’s tone was dangerously soft.

She swallowed hard. ‘No.’

‘You are not the widow of Corporal Leighton, late of his Majesty’s Royal Dragoons?’

‘No.’

Adam breathed deeply in an effort to hold on to his rapidly rising temper. A temper he had not truly lost in all the years since Fanny died. ‘Then perhaps you would care to tell us what your real name is and exactly who you are?’

The slenderness of her throat moved as she swallowed, her face now as pale as alabaster. ‘Once I have told you my name, I doubt there will be any need for me to tell you who I am.’

‘Adam—’

‘Leave this to me, Grandmama,’ he instructed
tautly, his gaze remaining fixed on Elena.

‘But—’

‘Grandmother!’ He turned sharply to glare her into silence. ‘Please allow Mrs—this person to tell us who she is and exactly what she is doing in my household masquerading as someone else!’ Adam’s voice rose on those last two words, as he could no longer hold his anger in check. He turned to scowl that displeasure down at the woman on the bed. ‘Are you even a governess?’

‘No.’

‘I do not see what difference it makes as to whether or not she is a governess,’ his grandmother put in mildly.

‘It makes a difference to me!’

‘I do not see why, Adam,’ Lady Cicely soothed. ‘When Mrs—this young lady has obviously done such a wonders for Amanda’s education and social demeanour.’ She beamed at Elena approvingly.

An approval, Elena recognised heavily, which must surely turn to the same anger and suspicion with which Adam now viewed her once Lady Cicely knew the truth.

‘It will make a great deal of difference if this young woman is someone less than suited
to being companion to my daughter,’ Adam insisted stiffly.

Elena noted that he’d said ‘woman’ rather than ‘lady’ as Lady Cicely had.

‘Perhaps you should leave me to talk with Mrs—er—the young lady?’ Lady Cicely suggested lightly. ‘I have always considered myself a good judge of character, and I believe that Elena—is that your real name, dear?’ She looked down kindly at Elena.

‘Yes…well, sort of.’

The older woman nodded before turning back to her grandson. ‘I am sure that this is all just a misunderstanding, Adam.’

‘The only misunderstanding made was by this person, when she came into my household falsely masquerading as the governess she is not.’ He looked down his aristocratic nose at Elena. ‘Now, madam, you will tell me exactly who you are and what your association is with this Jeremiah.’

Elena gave a start. ‘I do not have an “association”, as such, with Jeremiah—’

‘So you would have me believe that you fainted at the sight of him because he is merely a past and casual acquaintance, then?’ he scorned.

Elena frowned; if anything, Adam seemed
more angry about Jeremiah than he was about her working for him under a false identity. ‘I only know Jeremiah because he worked for—he worked for my—’

‘I do believe that Mrs—Elena is in danger of fainting again, Adam; perhaps you should go and get some of your best brandy to revive her?’ Lady Cicely gently pushed her grandson aside so that she might sit on the side of the bed before taking one of Elena’s hands into both of hers.

Elena gave the older woman a searching glance, sure she detected something more than casual concern in Lady Cicely’s gently lined face—sympathy for her plight in those faded grey eyes, perhaps?

A suspicion that seemed to be borne out as the other woman gave Elena’s fingers a reassuring squeeze before she looked up at her grandson. ‘Adam?’

He crossed his arms across his muscled chest. ‘I am not going anywhere until El—this young woman has answered my questions to my satisfaction.’

‘I admit to feeling a little in need of a restorative myself, after all this upset,’ his grandmother murmured weakly.

‘And I repeat, I am going nowhere, Grandmama,
until this puzzle has been solved,’ Adam repeated firmly, his gaze remaining stubbornly fixed on Elena.

In truth, his imagination was once again running amok at Elena’s obvious reluctance to reveal her identity. Who, or what, was she that she had lied in order to obtain a position in his household?

If she was merely a woman left alone in the world and desperate to find a way of supporting herself, then it should not have been necessary for her to lie about her name. Unless she was, after all, that runaway wife Adam had once suspected her of being?

The mere thought that she was another man’s wife was enough to drive him completely insane.

Adam needed to know—
now
—exactly who she was and what she was doing here! ‘Well?’ he demanded.

Her lashes lowered. ‘If I might be allowed to sit up, Lady Cicely…?’

‘Of course.’ The older woman stood up so that Elena might sit up on the side of the bed.

Her face was a pale oval against her dark and dishevelled hair as she looked up at Adam. ‘My name is Magdelena Matthews.’

Adam’s face remained a blank following
Elena’s announcement, but she heard a slight gasp of recognition from Lady Cicely’s direction. Needing every ounce of courage she possessed, in order to continue, Elena did not so much as glance in the direction of that lady, but continued to look up at the stony-faced man standing in front of her. ‘My grandfather was—’ Her voice broke emotionally as she talked of her grandfather in the past tense. ‘He was George Matthews, the late Duke of Sheffield.’

Adam recoiled away from her as realisation of her identity finally dawned on him. ‘You are the same granddaughter suspected of murdering that gentleman and robbing his home?’

Elena’s vision blurred as the tears came readily to her eyes. ‘Yes.’

‘Good God…!’ Adam exclaimed in horror; this was worse, so much worse than he had even imagined. He had been harbouring a murderess in his household! A young woman who had cold-bloodedly done away with her own grandfather before then stripping his home bare of every jewel she could carry.

Good God, she might have murdered them all in their beds this past month before robbing them too!

‘
That
is why—You have your father’s eyes, my dear,’ Lady Cicely murmured.

‘Yes.’

Adam turned to his grandmother incredulously. ‘How can you stand there and talk of the colour of her eyes when she is nothing more than a murderess—?’

‘I believe you just stated she was a suspected murderess,’ his grandmother reproached him. ‘Personally, I have always had my suspicions as to the validity of that claim—’

‘The only reason she is not presently in a prison cell awaiting sentence is because she ran away before the authorities could charge her with such!’ Adam growled, pinning her to the bed with his piercing gaze. ‘You were about to tell us who the man Jeremiah is?’