Not Just a Governess (8 page)

Elena matched her action, equally as elegantly. ‘I believe I might also retire, my lord.’

Adam studied her beneath lowered lids, the cream gown she wore seeming to give a moon-glow to the ivory of her skin. With an ebony sheen to the dark arrangement of her hair and her cheeks a pale rose, she was a vision of loveliness that had taunted and tempted Adam all the evening, her every move increasing the throb of his desire, to a degree that he had grown more and more silent and surly as the time passed.

‘I, too, am fatigued from my long journey today,’ he made his own excuses, only to then find himself irritated by the expression of relief Elena was not quick enough to mask as she quickly turned away. ‘Unless Mrs Leighton finds the hour too early for sleeping?’ Adam gave an internal grin of satisfaction as she stiffened. ‘In which case, I will, of course, offer to act as her escort if she wishes to take a stroll outside before bedtime?’

‘Is it not a little cold and late for strolling outside, Adam?’ His grandmother glanced out into the darkened garden.

Adam kept his gaze firmly fixed on the tense and still Elena. ‘I will happily wait here while Mrs Leighton goes upstairs to collect her bonnet and cloak.’

Elena was totally at a loss to know how to deal with a conversation that seemed to have progressed to the acceptance of her strolling outside in the moonlight with Adam Hawthorne, without the inclusion of so much as a single word of encouragement or agreement from her!

A totally inappropriate and improper stroll…‘I really would prefer to go straight to my bedchamber,’ she refused primly. ‘But I thank you for the offer, my lord,’ she added awkwardly.

‘I will do my best to bear the disappointment, Mrs Leighton,’ he drawled, a derisive smile tilting his lips as those dark-grey eyes met hers mockingly.

Telling Elena more clearly than anything else could have done that he had not been serious in his offer, but simply playing with her all along. A part of her longed to wipe that mocking smile from his lips by telling him
that she had changed her mind, and would, after all, like to go for a stroll outside. But another part of her, the more sensible part, warned that she would be playing with fire by daring to challenge this gentleman when he was in this dangerously unpredictable mood.

‘Shall we go upstairs together then, Mrs Leighton?’ Lady Cicely linked her arm with Elena’s. ‘Adam?’ She offered her cheek to her grandson.

As a consequence Elena was standing far too close when he bent down to pay his respects to his grandmother. So close that she could not mistake the challenge in those dark-grey eyes when he continued to look down at her as he lingered over kissing Lady Cicely’s powdered cheek.

‘Darling boy.’ His grandmother patted his own cheek affectionately when he finally straightened. ‘I am so glad I decided to visit you.’

‘As are we, Grandmama,’ Adam replied noncommittally.

‘Am I not the most blessed of grandmothers, Mrs Leighton?’ Lady Cicely turned to beam at Elena as the two of them crossed the room together to where the door was even now being opened by the attentive Jeffries.

Adam could almost have laughed out loud as he witnessed the way in which Elena’s natural frankness warred with the politeness expected of her as a member of his household staff; those blue-green eyes glittered at him briefly with that scathing honesty as she stepped aside to allow his grandmother to walk out into the hallway first. ‘You are indeed blessed in many ways, Lady Cicely,’ Adam heard her murmur ambiguously as the door was closed softly behind them both.

An answer that had no doubt pleased his grandmother, but did not fool Adam for a moment; Elena obviously did not number
him
amongst Lady Cicely’s many blessings.

Adam sighed deeply as he turned to stare sightlessly out at the moonlight gardens beyond the windows, becoming lost in thought as the silence of the night covered him like a shroud.

He would have to talk to Elena in private, and at the earliest opportunity. Not necessarily with a view to asking her to become his mistress—not only because, as things stood between the two of them, she would no doubt deliver a sharp and painful blow to his cheek for even daring to voice such a suggestion—but because Adam now felt that he should ask
Elena to tell him more about herself before thinking in such terms, as well as attempt to clear the air between them.

For Amanda’s sake, nothing more, Adam assured himself briskly as he moved to the window to stare out at the dark starlit sky. It would not do for Amanda’s father and her governess to be constantly at odds with each other—

Adam turned sharply as he heard the door softly open behind him, his eyes widening as he saw that Elena had returned.

Alone…

‘O
h!’ Elena felt consternation as she stepped back into the green salon and found herself face to face with Adam. ‘I did not mean to interrupt, my lord—I thought you would have retired to your rooms by now,’ she hurried to excuse.

‘As you can clearly see, I have not,’ he drawled softly in reply, arms behind his back.

‘Yes.’ Elena avoided looking at the man whose very presence disturbed and yet somehow excited her. ‘I believe I may have dropped my handkerchief earlier.’ She began to look about the furniture and floor for the missing scrap of silk and lace, given to her as a gift by her late grandfather, with her initials,
MM
, damningly sewn into one of the corners—a
realisation which had thrown her into something of a panic once she reached her bedchamber and noticed it was missing from the pocket concealed in her gown.

She should never have kept the scrap of silk and lace, of course, should have left that behind with all the other personal effects which identified her as Lady Magdelena Matthews. But she had wanted to keep something with her which had been given to her by her grandfather, and it was such a tiny piece of silk and lace…

‘Ah.’ Adam rocked back on his heels. ‘Perhaps I might be of assistance—’

‘No! No, I have found it now.’ She straightened swiftly, the handkerchief crushed in her hand before being pushed into the pocket of her gown.

‘Perhaps—’ he broke off to look enquiringly towards the door.

Jeffries entered the room. ‘May I get you anything further this evening, my lord?’

‘No, that will be all for tonight, thank you, Jeffries.’ Adam Hawthorne nodded dismissal of the other man.

Elena felt the jolt of alarm in her chest as she looked across at him sharply even as Jeffries bowed out of the room, leaving her alone
with him, the very air between them seeming to crackle and dance in a manner that made her tremble. She cleared her throat before speaking. ‘I am sorry for disturbing you—’

‘Are you?’

‘Of course.’ Elena eyed him warily, not sure they were talking on the same subject. ‘If you will excuse me, my lord, it has been a very long day.’

‘Then a few minutes more should make little difference.’ He eyed her calmly. ‘I wish to speak with you, Elena,’ he added huskily as she stared at him uncomprehendingly.

Elena’s gaze dropped under the intensity of that unblinking grey one. ‘Yes, my lord.’

Adam took a calming breath. ‘You may safely dispense with your air of deference, Elena, when my grandmother is no longer present to witness it.’

She regarded him warily. ‘My lord…?’

Adam had spent the past two hours or more, sitting at the head of his dining table, as he broodingly contemplated this woman from between narrowed lids. Had watched as she ate very little of the food placed before her. Listened as she added only the odd comment to the conversation between his grandmother
and Amanda. Noted the way in which she rarely glanced in his direction.

And he had drawn but one conclusion from those observations. ‘I have no idea how it may have occurred, but I am nevertheless of the opinion that you somehow overheard at least part of my grandmother’s remarks to me earlier this evening concerning yourself?’

Her chin rose slightly. ‘I don’t know what you mean, my lord.’

Adam gave an impatient snort. ‘Do not insult my intelligence by attempting to pretend otherwise!’

Those blue-green eyes snapped with her own impatience before she lowered dark lashes to veil those enticing orbs. ‘I would not be so presumptuous, my lord.’

‘Hah, every demure word you speak only confirms my suspicions!’ he pronounced triumphantly.

A frown appeared on her brow. ‘Just because I am being mindful of my manners—’

‘Just because you are behaving in a most un-Elenalike manner,’ he corrected derisively. ‘The Elena Leighton I have come to know was not the woman who sat calmly silent during dinner this evening, her gaze lowered as much as it was a few minutes ago, adding
very little to the conversation, and offering not a single opinion, despite the fact that I know she has many.’

Elena frowned her irritation with this summing up of her character. ‘You make me sound like an unpleasant cross between a harridan and a blue-stocking!’

Better, Adam noted with satisfaction, deciding that he liked this indignantly flushed Elena much better than the beautiful but mainly silent statue which had sat at his dinner table this evening. ‘Whatever you may have decided to the contrary, I assure you that my grandmother was merely expressing her curiosity and did not mean to be in the least derogatory towards you in our conversation earlier.’

Elena raised dark brows. ‘And I can assure both of you that far from being illegitimate my mother and my father had been married—to each other!—for almost two years on the day that I was born.’

‘And in which part of England might that have been, Elena?’ he prompted curiously.

‘Subtlety is not your forte, is it, my lord?’ she commented ruefully, the tension leaving her shoulders.

‘Apparently not,’ Adam muttered before he
chuckled throatily. ‘I have no idea how it is you always manage to do that…’ He gave a slightly dazed shake of his head as he looked at her admiringly.

‘Do what, my lord?’

He spread his hands. ‘I can be in the blackest mood possible, feel beleaguered on all sides, by my family and other circumstances, and yet you nevertheless manage to say or do something which succeeds in making me smile or openly laugh. It is…a gift I had not expected.’

She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue before answering him, not in artful invitation, Adam realised, but more in the way of a nervous gesture. ‘It is a gift I had not known I possessed either until now, but if it has succeeded in lightening your lot in life then—then I am glad of it.’

Adam stared across at her for long, timeless seconds, aware that the very air seemed to have stilled between them. ‘Will you stay and join me in a glass of brandy before retiring, Elena?’ he finally requested. ‘It would be pleasant to…linger together here awhile longer.’

Elena looked at him searchingly, knowing she should say no and straight away go upstairs
to her bedchamber. Far away from the temptation of this gentleman’s compelling handsomeness. And yet…‘Perhaps a very small glass, my lord.’

He smiled, not in triumph but in pleasure as he strolled across to the where the decanter and glasses sat upon a silver tray. ‘My grandmother really did not mean any insult to you by her remarks earlier,’ he assured as he poured the brandy into the glasses before carrying them across the room and offering one to Elena. ‘She was merely voicing the fact that she finds you a woman of unexplainable contrasts. A puzzle, in fact. As do I,’ he added softly.

Elena tensed warily, careful not to let her gloved fingers come into contact with his as she took the glass he offered. ‘I am no puzzle, my lord, just a widow fallen on hard times who is in need of work in order to support myself.’

‘You are a lady who has fallen upon hard times,’ he corrected huskily.

She eyed him. ‘I am not sure I care for that description, my lord. It sounds…somehow indecent.’

It was the perfect opportunity for Adam to put forward his offer, the ideal opening for
him to ask this woman if she would consider becoming his mistress.

And yet he found he could not do so. Oh, he assured himself that it was because he now wished—needed—to find out all there was to know about her, before he considered entering into a relationship of intimacy with her. He told himself that. But the truth of the matter was, he did not wish to spoil the delicate ease that currently existed between the two of them…at the same time as he hungered to taste once again the perfect bow of her lips!

So much for his earlier concerns regarding the effect this woman had upon his selfcontrol, the caution he had earlier decided he should practise with regard to her. If this was a lack of control, a weakness, then for the moment he knew he had no guard against it!

The top of Elena’s silky black curls barely reached his shoulder, a delicate blush adding rose to her cheeks as she looked up at him with those luminous blue-green eyes through sooty dark lashes, her pulse pounding rapidly at the base of her long and slender throat, her breasts—oh lord, her breasts!

All of Adam’s good intentions, all of those inner warnings for caution seemed to evaporate
into mist as he gazed upon the wonderful swell of her breasts.

Besides which, there was a distinct possibility that Elena would turn down such an offer from him and that she might then leave his home altogether. Something which Adam currently found He did not even wish to contemplate.

‘I toast you, Elena.’ He touched his brandy glass gently against hers. ‘You have worked wonders with Amanda,’ he explained as she looked a little confused.

Elena made no effort to sip the brandy. ‘She was very upset after you had departed last week.’

‘And I, as a consequence, was just as upset when I departed,’ he returned.

‘You were?’ She looked surprised.

Adam sighed. ‘Contrary to what you so obviously believe, I do not enjoy being at odds with my daughter. But, conversely—’ his mouth firmed ‘—I will not allow myself to be manipulated by emotional blackmail of the kind Amanda demonstrated that day. That sort of behaviour is too much like her mother’s to be tolerated.’

Elena’s curiosity quickened at Adam’s mention of his wife. A lapse he already regretted
if the bleakness of his expression was an indication. ‘Amanda never mentions her mother—is it possible that she has memories of her?’ she asked gently.

‘Lord, I hope not!’ A scowl darkened Adam’s wide brow. ‘No, I am sure not. She was not quite two when her mother died, could not possibly remember how Fanny screamed and ranted when she could not get her own way by persuasion or trickery.’

‘My lord…?’ Elena quietly gasped her shock.

Adam focused on her with effort—almost as if he had forgotten for a moment that she was there—before his jaw tightened. ‘I do not believe it has ever been a secret in society that my marriage was far from a happy one.’

It had been to Elena because she had never had the chance to be a part of London society. Indeed, she had found herself wondering these past few weeks if Adam might have remained a bachelor after his wife died because he was still in love with her.

Elena admitted to feeling curious at the lack of conversation in the household, above or below stairs, in regard to the late Lady Fanny, as well as Lady Cicely’s enigmatic comment earlier this evening, but there was
no escaping the fact that Adam was a compellingly handsome gentleman of wealth and title, a gentleman in need of a male heir, who might take his pick of any of the young and beautiful single ladies of society as his second wife.

His remark just now would seem to imply his reason for not marrying again was not because he was still in love with his first wife, but because that marriage had been such an unhappy one he had no desire to repeat the experience.

‘That is regrettable, my lord,’ she murmured, only to open her eyes wide as Adam, after remaining silent for several seconds, now gave a loud shout of laughter.

Despite her confusion, she could not stop herself from once again appreciating how much younger, how much more compellingly attractive this man looked when he laughed or smiled.

Adam’s shoulders shook as he took her brandy glass from her gloved fingers and placed it on the table with his own. He turned back to her, clasping both her hands in his own as he continued to grin widely. ‘Do not look so offended, Elena,’ he said as he saw her expression. ‘It is only that “regrettable”
does not even begin to describe my disastrous marriage to Fanny.’ He could never remember finding that marriage a subject of mirth until Elena’s understatement had made him see it as such. His fingers tightened about hers. ‘For you see, Fanny, I am ashamed to say, was already two months along with my child when we married.’

‘Are you sure you should be confiding any of this to me, my lord?’ Elena looked alarmed as she tried to pull her fingers free of his.

Adam refused to release her. ‘It is not a matter of should I tell you, but whether or not you wish to hear it?’

Did she wish to hear it? Miss Magdelena Matthews, granddaughter of a duke, and therefore Lord Hawthorne’s equal, very much wished to know more of what had made him into the reserved gentleman he now was. But Elena Leighton, young and widowed governess of his young daughter, surely should not be made privy to such personal information as to the reason for her employer’s hasty marriage and Amanda’s subsequent birth seven months later.

Those two personalities warred inside Elena for several long seconds. But after all, she had been Miss Magdelena Matthews for
far longer than she had been Mrs Elena Leighton…‘If you wish to tell me, then I will, of course, listen.’

He quirked a teasing brow. ‘And not comment?’

A smile curved her lips. ‘Oh I could not promise that, I am afraid.’

‘I did not think so!’ Adam eyed her ruefully. ‘Nor do I think you a woman who is afraid of anything.’

In that he would be wrong, Elena acknowledged sadly. For she had been frightened in the past, and still was. Very frightened. Her cousin’s forced attentions upon her had sickened her. His coercion, and then threats, when she had refused him, had terrified her. And hardly a moment had passed since that time when she was not afraid of Neville, still. Of someone discovering who she really was, then finding herself returned to Neville to pay for the crimes of which she was innocent, but which he had accused her of publicly as a cover to his own crimes against her.

She gave a shiver of revulsion. ‘Everyone is afraid of something, my lord.’

He eyed her searchingly. ‘Elena, what is it…?’

Elena gave herself a mental shake; Adam
was a man of deep sensitivity as well as sharp intelligence—it would not do to alert his suspicions. She attempted a reassuring smile. ‘I, for example, do not care for spiders.’

‘Spiders…?’ Adam echoed doubtfully.

She met his gaze unblinkingly. ‘Yes, my lord, spiders.’