He smiled apologetically. “An invitation to the Marshalls, somewhere I can catch them in the act of stealing. It would need, I think, to be a chance they couldn’t refuse, with an enticement such as a likely, highly advantageous match for Anne.”
Henrietta’s eyes widened. Thoughts flitted across her expressive face, and then she smiled. “And the perfect solution, I suppose, would be to contrive this invitation to a place near where Miss Milsom is employed? Without being in the same house.”
“Ideally,” Marcus agreed. “If it could be managed.”
“Do you know,” Henrietta said happily, “I think it just might?”
Chapter Eighteen
It was mid-January when Helen found herself in a stagecoach to the city of Lincoln. Christmas with her aunt and cousins had not been an unqualified success. With her aunt much recovered from her previous visit there in November, Helen’s presence was clearly regarded as being as much of a financial burden as a family pleasure. She had felt obliged to hand over more money than would have paid for her keep over the three weeks she was there, retaining only enough to pay for correspondence to find a new position and for transport to get there.
The London agency she had previously used wrote back at once to tell her there was little hope of a position with a respectable household of the upper echelons without a reference from Lady Overton. But just when she had resigned herself to going to a school she had never heard of for a vastly reduced salary, she received a letter from Henrietta Cromarty.
Henrietta expressed sorrow at her departure from Audley Park and assured her she would go there and spend some time with Eliza when her brothers had gone back to school. And on that subject of education, Henrietta wrote, a friend of her sister’s in Lincolnshire had two small girls who had outgrown—and outrun—their aging nurse. Although they were not yet five years old, their mother believed they would benefit from the teachings of a governess. Henrietta supplied the address, along with the advice to write to Mrs. Carluke at once, mentioning her name and that of her sister, the Duchess of Alvan.
Helen was surprised to have been accepted so quickly, without even meeting the Carlukes. Clearly, the duchess had spoken for her. It was some comfort to know that her previous employer’s daughters still believed in her and had, in fact, gone out of their way to help her.
It began to snow lightly in the final hours to Lincoln. Helen hoped the weather would not slow the carriage supposed to meet her, or hold up the journey to Ingolby, which she understood to be a village an hour or so from the city.
She had very little information about her new home or her new employers. She did not even know it was who would meet her in Lincoln, or what kind of vehicle it would be.
Fortunately, the snow did not stick to the ground, and as she stepped stiffly down from the coach outside the George Inn, a slightly stooped gentleman in a dark gray greatcoat walked up to her at once.
“Miss Milsom?” He peered at her with the concentration of the short-sighted.
“Yes, I am Helen Milsom. Are you from Mrs. Carluke?”
He beamed, and she realized he was much younger than she had first thought. “Indeed I am.” He gave a quick bow and held out his hand. “George Carluke, at your service. Let me take your bag.”
Grateful for the courtesy, she gave it up and hurried after him across the inn yard to a slightly battered gig. A large, shaggy dog reared up from the floor, wagging its tail but growling faintly.
“Don’t be alarmed,” Mr. Carluke said cheerfully. “He’s perfectly friendly once he knows you, so if you’ll allow me to hand you in, he’ll accept you, and we’ll all be comfortable.”
Helen doubted that, for even though the dog sniffed her in friendly fashion when she climbed in, he took up so much space that she knew there would be little room for his master. Mr. Carluke climbed up and lifted the reins, causing the dog to squash in against her knees.
“Sorry, he’s a bit large,” Mr. Carluke observed. “But in fact, he’s quite useful in keeping you warm. Here, wrap this blanket about you, and we’ll share the other over our knees. With those and Bounder here, we’ll be warm as toast.”
Despite the snow flurries, she was certainly warmer than she expected to be in an open carriage for more than an hour.
“You are Mrs. Carluke’s husband?” Helen hazarded as they drove through the town. “The father of my new charges?”
“I have that good fortune.” He cast her a quick grin. “I double as the coachman.”
“So I gather.” She rather liked this eccentricity, although she couldn’t help wondering how, without carriage and coachman, he was in a position to employ a governess at not very much below the salary she had received from Lord Overton. “Um, do you have a large establishment, sir?”
He appeared to consider this. “Cozy,” he pronounced.
She wasn’t quite sure what to make of this, especially when she discovered that her employer was a scholar. “Meant to make my life in Cambridge,” he confided. “Only then I met Eleanor, who for some reason, is prepared to put up with me and the books.”
During the journey, she guessed the reason for Mrs. Carluke’s generosity. There was something very charming about the scholar. Despite peering short-sightedly at approaching vehicles—“Forgot my glasses,” he told Helen—he entertained her with amusing anecdotes and self-deprecating wit all the way to Ingolby, which turned out to be a decent-sized village with a few shops and a church built around a square and a few streets leading off it.
Although it was dark by then, Mr. Carluke drove straight through at alarming speed—perhaps the villagers had learned to look out for him—and turned through a pair of open gates at the edge of the village. The driveway turned sharply, and a house suddenly appeared in Helen’s view.
Well-lit outside, with various other lights showing in the windows, it was a good-sized building of two stories with a neat garden. It did not look like the home of a poor scholar who had to drive himself in a tatty gig.
However, Bounder suddenly woke up and leaped off Helen’s feet, barking, before the horse had come to a standstill. And then all hell broke loose.
A boy loped round from the side of the house and ran to hold the horse while Mr. Carluke alighted. The front door of the house flew open, and two children charged down the steps to be bowled right over by the huge dog. While they crowed with delight and the brute stood over them, licking their faces, a middle-aged servant who might have been a nurse, rushed down after them, clicking her tongue and scolding and shouting at the dog to get off them. “Vile, smelly beast!” she yelled.
As if he understood the insult, the dog looked up, then bounded toward her. The nurse screamed and fled back up the steps, the dog barking at her heels. They streaked past a young woman with a baby in her arms, who said nothing in protest, merely stood aside to get out of their way.
“Welcome to the madhouse,” Mr. Carluke said cheerfully, holding up his hand to help Helen climb out of the gig.
“The dog won’t hurt her, will he?” she asked anxiously, obeying the unspoken command.
“Lord, no, he loves her to bits. But she’s convinced he carries all the diseases known to man and hates him to be anywhere near the children.”