The size of her room had pleased her. The walls had been done in robin egg blue and furnished with fine and elegant furniture of rare beauty and exquisite design. It had pleased her to see that her chamber was so well positioned she could stand by the floor-to-ceiling windows and see the lake and several gazebos scattered about the lawns.
Sarah had freshened up after her journey and had even slept for an hour before heading to the drawing room to meet her employer. She was shown inside by a maid and offered tea and delicacies. She was munching on a lemon tart when a lady sauntered into the room with two little girls marched before her.
They were all rather lovely. Sarah hurriedly stood and smiled.
“Miss Bellamy, I do hope we have not kept you waiting! My brother is tied up with some missing matters with his steward and should be along shortly. I was quite out of good humor and patience with him, working at such a time. I am Lady Esther Kittridge, and may I present your charges, my nieces, Lady Caroline and Lady Charlotte.”
They were dressed neatly in yellow dresses with a pink ribbon tied above their waist; their dark hair was caught up with sweet, natural curls kissing their cheeks. Their eyes were bright golden brown, and something about their pretty appearance seemed familiar.
Sarah stepped forward and dipped into a curtsy. “Lady Esther, how lovely to meet you. Lady Caroline and Lady Charlotte.”
Lady Esther smiled while the children returned her curtsy.
“Mr. Johnson spoke highly of you and your abilities,” Lady Esther said. “It was not a light decision for the duke to select you as their governess. However, you met with what the duchess had wanted for her girls.”
Mr. Johnson was the solicitor who had interviewed Sarah on three different occasions, and each round had been rigorous and exhaustive. Each time, he'd had a series of questions from his employer, whom he had declared could not meet her because of his responsibilities. Her father being a viscount, worked immensely in her favor, for the duke and duchess only wanted a lady of refined education and connections to work with their twin daughters. To their benefit, Sarah was rather poor and without much in the way of connections or protection and so had to fend for herself.
After her ‘fiancé’s’ jilting her forced her to a harsh existence, there had been few choices available to her but to seek work. At first, she had tried acting as a companion to her mother’s friend, Lady Charleston. However, the pity murmurs that would dodge her footstep soon became unbearable. She had decided it was best to start afresh and far from town life. Lady Charleston herself mentioned that the Duke of Bainbridge sought a governess and put her on to the duke’s man of affairs.
“Let me show you their schoolroom,” Lady Esther said.
Sarah frowned. She hadn’t thought to have her young charges in such a formal setting. The letter from the duke had said his daughters were six years of age only a few weeks past. He wanted a governess to continue their lessons in propriety, teach them watercolors, needlework, French and perhaps some Greek. Next year they would have a tutor to assist with other subjects.
The girls followed obediently with their aunt as they were led to the second floor and a rather large and cheery room with the walls decorated with images of the night sky. There were two desks and several chairs, a large bookcase, a globe on a stand, a blackboard, a cupboard, and two plush sofas near the hearth.
“It is a comfortable room,” she said with a smile. “However, as I teach the girls, we will take most of our lessons outdoor, especially when the weather is wonderful.”
Lady Esther frowned, but the two girls showed some animation and glanced at each other for the first time, clearly trying to repress their smiles. Sarah winked when they looked at her, and Lady Caroline giggled, the sound sweet and infectious.
That longing for her own family twisted her heart, and she looked away briefly to gather herself.
“The duchess prepared a very specific curriculum for the girls, and based on your credentials and education, Miss Bellamy, you are theperfectperson for the job.” Lady Esther patted her elegantly coiffed hair. “I tried my best to take the girls in hand, but I daresay they are a handful and are easily distracted from their lessons,” she said fondly.
“Thank you; I am thankful for the opportunity,” she murmured. “I will not disappoint the duke or the duchess.” Sarah supposed she would meet them soon and a surge of anxiety went through her.
“You are such a mousey little thing, aren’t you?” Lady Esther said with a tinkling laugh. “Still, it is our fortune that you did not manage to make a match in London.”
Sarah fought the blush of mortification. All her life, people had described her as mousey. She supposed it was given her petite form, her brown hair, and brown eyes. Everything was just sobrown. And clearly, when others saw brown, they thought a mouse? Sarah did not think they only referred to her quiet manner. At times, people overlooked her whenever she entered a room. Once a vicar tripped himself over her and was quite astonished to know she had been in the parlor with her cousin the entire time.
She refrained from snorting, even hating that her ex-fiancé usually called her mouse as a term of endearment, and she had not brought him to task. ‘My dear mouse, my sweet mouse.’For five years, she had swallowed her cringe every time he said it, for it always brought to mind a mouse with its cute nose and whiskers sniffing after a piece of cheese. Often times she would glance in the dressing table mirror, looking for a resemblance, only to laugh at her ridiculousness.
“Inform Mr. Wainwright he may call upon me tomorrow,” a voice said from outside the schoolroom.
Sarah flinched at the sound of the familiar masculine voice.
“Good, the duke is coming.”
Dear God. “Theduke?”
Lady Esther frowned. “Yes.”
With a peculiar sense of dread, she slowly turned and walked toward the door to stare at the man walking down the hallway. It was he, her midnight lover, who had devastated her senses and for one blissful night turned her, prim and shy Sarah Bellamy, into a wicked wanton.
“Forgive me, I…I must leave,” she said, painfully aware of her suddenly damp palms inside her gloves and the pounding of her heart.
“Leave? What do you mean?” Lady Esther said, her eyes widening. “The duke is here.”
It was even worse than she thought. Her lover was her employerandthe Duke of Bainbridge. To complement the duke was a duchess. Bile rose in her throat. While his wife was in the countryside, this man…this man who she had already built-up impossible fantasies around, had been unfaithful with Sarah. However would she face the duchess?