~cov0001.jpg (2 page)

A
licia, Lady Ashbourne wrung her hands nervously. “Luke, I have wonderful news. We have found a governess for Emma. She's splendid young woman; intelligent, beautifully mannered...perfect in every way. You must meet her at once and see for yourself.”

Lucas, Lord Stokehurst looked up with an ironic smile. “So that's why you invited me here this afternoon. And I thought it was for my charming company.”

For half an hour he had been plied with tea and small talk in the drawing room of the Ashbournes' Queen's Square estate. He had been close friends with Charles Ashbourne since their days at Eton. Charles was a sociable man who had the rare gift of always seeing the best in people—a gift that Luke did not share. Discovering that Luke would be in London for the day, Charles had invited him to take tea when his business was concluded. As soon as Luke entered the drawing room, he had known from the Ashbournes' expressions that they were going to ask a favor.

“She's perfect,” Alicia repeated. “Isn't she, Charles?”

Charles agreed with enthusiasm. “I would say so, m'dear.”

“Since you had such poor luck with the previous governess,” Alicia continued, “I've kept an eye out for a suitable replacement. You know how fond I've always been of your daughter, and since she has no mother of her own...” She hesitated. “Oh, dear. I didn't mean to remind you of Mary.”

Luke's dark face was expressionless. Several years had passed since the death of his wife, but it still hurt to hear her name. It would hurt until the day he died. “Go on,” he said evenly. “Tell me about this paragon.”

“Her name is Karen Billings. Although she has lived most of her life abroad, she recently decided to make her home in England. She's staying with us until we can find her suitable employment. In my opinion, she's mature enough to provide the discipline Emma needs, but also young enough to befriend the child. I'm certain that once you meet her, you'll see how right she is for the position.”

“Fine.” Luke finished his tea and shifted on the brocade settee, stretching his long legs. “Send her references to me. I'll look through them when I have time.”

“I would, but...there's a little problem.”

“Little problem,” Luke repeated, lifting one dark brow.

“She has no references.”

“
None
?”

A touch of color rose from the lace collar at Alicia's throat. “She prefers not to answer questions about her past. I'm afraid I can't tell you the reason. It's a very good reason, though. You must trust me on that point.”

After a short silence, Luke began to laugh. He was a handsome man in his mid-thirties, with black hair and vivid blue eyes. His face was more notable for its masculinity than its beauty, with a stern mouth and a nose that was well-shaped but a little too long. The smile he wore most often was that of a man who mocked his own importance. He had an air of cynical charm that others strove to copy. When he laughed, as he was doing now, the laughter never quite reached his eyes.

“Enough said, Alicia. I'm sure she's a fine governess. A treasure. We'll let some other family have the good fortune of employing her.”

“Before you refuse, you must at least talk to her—”

“No,” he said flatly. “Emma is all I have. I want the best for my daughter.”

“Miss Billings
is
the best.”

“She's your latest charity project,” Luke countered sardonically.

“Charles,” Alicia pleaded, and her husband joined in the debate.

“Stokehurst,” he said mildly, “what harm would it do to meet the girl?”

“It would be a waste of time.” There was no mistaking the finality in Luke's tone.

The Ashbournes exchanged a glance of dismay. Gathering her courage, Alicia approached him in a few halting footsteps. “Luke, for the sake of your daughter, won't you meet this woman? Emma is twelve years old…on the verge of some rather wonderful and terrifying changes. She needs someone to help her understand herself and the world around her. You know I would never suggest someone who was unsuited for the position. And Miss Billings is such a
special
person. Let me run upstairs and fetch her. I promise it won't take long. Please.”

Luke scowled, pulling his arm away from her hand. In light of her insistence, he couldn't very well refuse. “Bring her down before I change my mind.”

“You darling man.” Alicia hurried out of the room, the elaborate draperies of her skirts swishing behind her.

Charles went to pour him a brandy. “Thank you. It's kind of you to indulge my wife in this matter. I don't think you'll regret meeting Miss Billings.”

“I'll meet her, but I won't hire her.”

“You might change your mind.”

“Not a chance in hell.” Luke stood and made his way past a multitude of tables cluttered with handmade ornaments and posy vases. He joined his friend at the carved mahogany sideboard and accepted the brandy snifter. Gently he swirled the amber liquid and gave Charles a wry sideways smile. “What's going on, Charles?”

“I don't really know,” came the uncomfortable reply. “Miss Billings is a complete stranger to me. She appeared on our doorstep a week ago. No belongings, no baggage, not a shilling as far as I can tell. Alicia welcomed her with open arms, and won't tell me a deuced thing about the girl. My guess is that she's a poor relation of Alicia's who encountered some sort of trouble. I wouldn't be surprised if her last employer forced his attentions on her. She's young and quite easy on the eye.” Charles paused and added, “Prays a lot.”

“Wonderful. Exactly what I had in mind when I said I wanted a governess for Emma.”

Charles ignored the sarcasm. “There's something about her…” he said thoughtfully. “I can't quite explain it. I'm convinced that she has lived through something extraordinary.”

Luke's eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

Alicia reappeared before Charles could reply. She was followed by a wraithlike figure dressed in gray. “Lord Stokehurst, may I present Miss Karen Billings?”

Luke acknowledged her curtsy with a short nod. He wasn't going to make it easy for her. She might as well learn right now that no one would hire a woman with her lack of credentials. “Miss Billings, I'd like to make something clear—”

A pair of catlike eyes lifted to his. They were pale grayish-blue, like light shining through frosted glass. Her lashes were unusually heavy, framing her eyes with inky blackness. Suddenly Luke lost his train of thought. She waited patiently while he stared at her, as if this reaction was a common occurrence.

“Easy on the eye,” as Charles had put it, was a massive understatement. Her beauty was riveting. The severity of her hairstyle, pulled back and pinned tightly at the nape of her neck, would have been unflattering to any other woman on earth. But it became her, revealing a face as delicate as porcelain sculpture. Her eyebrows were straight, dark slashes across her white skin. Her mouth, shaped in passionate, sad curves, was a wonder to behold. No man could look at that face and remain unaffected.

“My lord,” she said, finally breaking the silence. “Thank you for taking the time to meet me,”

Recovering himself, Luke gestured casually with his half-empty glass. “I never leave without finishing my brandy.” Out of the corner of his eye he saw Alicia frown at his rudeness. Miss Billings watched him calmly. Her posture was perfect: reedlike body held straight, chin lowered a respectful notch. Nevertheless, there was a spinetingling tension in the room, like the wariness of two cats circling each other.

Luke took another swallow of brandy. “How old are you?” he asked bluntly.

“Two and twenty, sir.”

“Really.” Luke gave her a skeptical glance, but let the answer pass unchallenged. “And you claim to be competent to teach my daughter?”

“I am well-versed in literature, history, mathematics, and all the social aspects of a young lady's education.”

“What about music?”

“I play the pianoforte.”

“And languages?”

“French…and some German.”

Luke let the silence draw out while he pondered the hint of strangeness in her accent. “And Russian,” he finally said.

There was a flicker of surprise in her gaze. “Also Russian,” she admitted. “How did you guess that, my lord?”

“You've lived there for some part of your life. Your accent isn't quite perfect.”

She inclined her head like a princess acknowledging an impudent subject. Luke couldn't help but be impressed with her bearing. His rapid volley of questions hadn't disconcerted her. Reluctantly he acknowledged that his daughter, with her wild red hair and the manner of a cheerful savage, could use a lesson or two in this steely decorum. “Have you been employed as a governess before?”

“No, my lord.”

“Then you have little experience with children.”

“That is correct,” she admitted. “But your daughter isn't precisely a child. Thirteen, as I understand it?”

“Twelve.”

“A difficult age,” she commented. “Not a child, not quite a woman.”

“It's especially difficult for Emma. Her mother passed away a long time ago. There's been no one to show Emma how a proper young lady should behave. Over the past year she's been developing what the doctors call a nervous condition. She needs a mature, motherly figure to help her overcome it.” Luke gave the words “mature” and “motherly” special emphasis. They were the last two words anyone would use to describe the fine-boned woman in front of him.

“Nervous condition?” she repeated softly.

Luke didn't want to talk to her any longer. He hadn't intended to discuss Emma's problems with a stranger. But as he met her clear gaze, he was compelled to go on, as if the words were being squeezed from his chest. “She cries easily. There are occasional tantrums. She's nearly a head taller than you, and she despairs at the fact that she hasn't finished growing yet. Lately it's been impossible to talk to her. She claims I wouldn't understand if she tried to explain her feelings, and God knows—” He broke off, realizing how much he had told her. It wasn't at all like him.

She filled the silence immediately. “My lord, I think that to call this a nervous condition is nonsense.”

“Why do you say that?”

“When I was younger, I experienced something similar to what you've described, as did my female cousins. It is normal behavior for a girl Emma's age.”

Her quiet conviction almost convinced him she was right. Luke wanted desperately to believe it. He had gone through months of dire and mysterious warnings from physicians who had prescribed tonics that Emma refused to take, special diets she wouldn't follow. Worse, he had suffered the end-less hand-wringing of his elderly mother and her gray-haired cronies, and the pangs of his own guilt for not having remarried. “You've failed her,” his mother had said. “Every girl needs a mother. She'll grow up to be so impossible that no one will want her. She'll be a spinster, all because you never desired anyone but Mary.”

“Miss Billings,” he said brusquely, “I'm glad to hear your opinion that Emma's problems are not serious. However—”

“I didn't say they weren't serious, my lord. I said that they were normal.”

She had breached the uncrossable line between employer and servant, talking to him as if they were equals. Luke scowled as he wondered if her insolence had been unconscious or deliberate.

The room was smothered in silence. Luke realized he had forgotten the Ashbournes were there until he saw Alicia fidgeting with the needlepoint pillows on the settee. Charles, meanwhile, appeared to have found something extraordinarily interesting to watch through the window. Luke looked back at Miss Billings. Having excelled for years at the art of staring people down, he waited for her to blush, stammer, erupt into tears. Instead she returned his stare, her eyes pale and piercing.

Finally her gaze dropped, traveling down the length of his arm. Luke was accustomed to such glances from people…some startled, some repelled. There was a gleaming silver hook in place of his left hand. The hand had been injured nine years ago, and amputated to save him from a life-threatening infection. Only his stubborn nature had been able to keep him from wallowing in fury and self-pity. If this was the lot that life had given him, he would do his best with it. He had become accustomed to it, made the thousands of adjustments in his life that it required. Many people found the hook threatening, a fact he didn't mind using to his advantage. He watched for Miss Billings's reaction, hoping he made her uncomfortable. She showed nothing except a detached interest that stunned him. No one looked at him that way. No one.

“My lord,” she said gravely. “I have decided to accept the position. I will collect my belongings now.”

She turned and walked away from him with a crisp rustle of gray muslin skirts. Alicia beamed at Luke before hurrying after her protegée.

Luke stared at the empty doorway with his mouth half-open. He slid a disbelieving glance to Charles. “She's decided to accept the position.”

“Congratulations,” Charles said tentatively.

A dark smile crossed Luke's face. “Call her back.”

Charles looked at him in alarm. “Wait a moment, Stokehurst! I know what you're planning to do. You'll tear Miss Billings to shreds and have my wife in tears, and leave me to deal with the aftermath! But you must take Miss Billings for a few weeks until I can find another situation for her. As a friend, I ask you—”

“I'm no fool, Charles. Tell me the truth. Who is she, and why
must
I take her off your hands?”

Charles folded and unfolded his arms and paced around the room. It was rare to see him in such a state of agitation. “She's in…well, let's call it a difficult situation. The longer she stays with us, the more danger there is for her. I'd hoped you would take her this afternoon and keep her safely in the country for a while.”

“She's hiding from someone, then. Why?”

“That's all I can tell you.”

“What is her real name?”

“It's not important. Please don't ask.”

“
Don't ask
? And you expect me to allow her around my daughter?”

“There'll be no danger for Emma,” Charles said hastily. “Not one damned bit. Good Lord, knowing the way Alicia and I feel about your daughter, how could you think we would expose her to any harm?”