Chapter One
Rounding the bend in the drive, Miss Helen Milsom was dismayed to see the shutters closed over every window in the house.
She halted, dropping her bag on the frosty path. “Oh, no.”
Well, that explained the failure of the coach to meet her at Finsborough and her need to accept the spare seat in Jake Tapper’s ancient gig in order to reach the gates of Audley Park. The family had gone somewhere else without telling her.
There were, she reminded herself, many advantages to her position as governess to Lord and Lady Overton’s children. The most important were her charges, the slightly strange but lovable Eliza Maybury, and her brothers when they were home from school. Remuneration was as reasonable as her duties in a house of careless good nature, and she knew only too well that her position could be decidedly worse.
But today, after a leave of absence to nurse her sick aunt, she had returned at exactly the date and time agreed, only to discover they had forgotten her. That was less appealing, their impulsive behavior a little less charming.
Determinedly, she picked up the carpetbag once more and trudged on to the front door where, as she’d suspected, there was no answer to her vigorous knocking. With fading hope, she walked around to the coach house and stables, wondering rather wildly if she could sleep in a horse stall until morning, for it would be dark soon.
It was with sheer relief she saw the bent figure of Old John, John Coachman’s father, emerge from the stables.
“Ah, there you are, Miss,” he greeted her, touching his floppy hat. “Welcome back! Got a letter for you from her ladyship.”
“Thank you,” she returned mechanically, unfolding the short missive he produced from the depths of his overcoat.
It was short and dashed, explaining they had gone to the Earl of Silford’s house for a couple of weeks, and that she should join them there. Lord Silford was the grandfather-in-law of their daughter, Henrietta, who was recently married. Presumably, all the children had gone with them since Helen was required. She knew the boys were back from school early for Christmas.
“Um—I don’t suppose her ladyship told you how I was to get to Steynings?” she asked Old John, who grinned.
“I’ll drive you in the old carriage.”
Helen groaned aloud. She had spent the last two days and a night squashed inside two different but equally overcrowded stagecoaches. The idea of spending this night, when she was dog-tired and travel-bruised, traveling further in a bone-shaker of a vehicle that was liable to lose a wheel at any moment was entirely unappealing.
“Not tonight,” he said apologetically. “Don’t see too well in the dark. But if we start first thing, we’ll make Steynings easily before dark.”
“Then where can I spend tonight? Would your wife have a spare bed?”
“Oh, no, Miss, wouldn’t be suitable at all. Take you to the Hart. Just let me harness the horses.”
Three hours later, her body aching, even her teeth, Helen staggered down from the coach and walked stiffly up to the inn’s front door. All she required of life in that moment was a hot drink, a warm bed, and blessed stillness.
The house was busy. A wall of loud voices and laughter surged from behind the taproom door on her right. There were even a few men deep in conversation in the coffee room.
Lily Villin, the innkeeper’s daughter, came tripping out of the private parlor at the far end of the hall and caught sight of her. At once, she swerved toward her, smiling in welcome. “Good evening, Miss! Have you brought the children for supper before they go home to bed?”
Lily and her parents were quite familiar with Helen, who had stayed at the inn last summer with a bout of influenza—while her charges got into all sorts of mischief, a guilty memory Helen still struggled with.
“Oh, no, the children are with the family at Steynings. I will join them there, but the house is shut up, so I shall stay here tonight.”
“Oh, dear,” Lily said uneasily.
Helen’s heart sank. “You’re not telling me you have no bedchambers free?”
“I’m sharing with the scullery maid,” Lily confided.
“Drat,” Helen said, all but sinking to her knees with weariness. “I have nowhere else to go. I suppose Lady Verne might take pity on me.”
“The Vernes have gone to Steynings, too,” Lily said. “And the Laceys. I suppose the vicar might…but bless you, Miss, you look exhausted, fit for nothing but a bowl of soup and bed.”
Helen rubbed her forehead, trying to think. She didn’t even know if Old John was driving home in the dark or staying at the inn. He would be comfortable enough bedding down with the ostlers, but unfortunately such accommodation wasn’t open to her. She wished she had stuck with her original plan to share one of the horse stalls at Audley Park.
But Lily brightened suddenly. “Let me speak to this gentleman. I am sure he will be moved by your plight.”
With a surge of hope, Helen followed her to the parlor door, more than happy to plead her own case. But Lily stood in the doorway, bobbing a curtsey to the occupant, and Helen simply dropped her bag at her feet and waited.
“Excuse me, sir,” Lily began. “I was wondering, since you know how busy we are, if you’d mind very much if I made you up a bed here in the parlor? We’d see you were quite private and comfortable, with—”
“Yes, I would mind,” snapped a deep, male voice. “We agreed, I believe, on the private parlor and a bedchamber.”
“Indeed, we did, sir, but I have a young lady here, quite alone and in need of a bedchamber, and I thought that you, being a gentleman—”
“—might give my bed up to some wench I neither know nor wish to and who is clearly no better than she should be? Well, I won’t.”
Helen’s cheeks burned with indignation. How dare he make such assumptions, let alone, voice them to the innkeeper’s daughter?
Lily, too, seemed stunned. “But, sir—”
“I’ve answered you, girl. Be gone!”
“Come away, Lily,” Helen commanded before she could bite her tongue. “The wench may be no better than she should be, but she still refuses to demean herself by pleading for common civility from any rude person who miscalls himself a gentleman.”
Lily jumped back out of the room, looking as if she didn’t know whether to be terrified or burst into laughter. Helen bent and picked up her bag.
A pair of shining black boots appeared in front of it.
Helen straightened, taking in the strong, muscled legs within the skin-tight pantaloons, the well-cut blue coat above, worn over a plain buff waistcoat, and then the snowy white cravat, plainly tied, and the dark, sardonic face above. He was very tall.
Her heart skipped a beat, though she refused to be intimidated. The “rude person” stood just outside the doorway, his hard-grey eyes unblinking as they met hers. He was not a particularly handsome man. His features were too harsh, his mouth too uncompromising, and the shadowy stubble around his jaw gave him an air of rakish carelessness. Nor was he particularly young, perhaps just on the wrong side of forty. But he did have an undeniable presence.
“Madam,” he said curtly. “I perceive you expect an apology of me.”
“On the contrary, I expect nothing of you except further incivility. Good evening.”