Then you are leaving because of me,Watson thought with devastation. His heart clenched and threatened to explode right out of his chest as he blurted, “What am I to do without you? What of Amy?”
At that, Watson saw the governess’ shoulders tense and she half-turned her face to look at him. There were definite tears in her eyes now and he was sure he saw her bottom lip trembling as though it was all she could do to stop herself from weeping.
“Neither of you have need of me anymore,” she said finally and she turned to look at him as if she wished for him to hear every syllable in what she was about to say, yet there were definitely tears in her eyes.
“What Amy needs now is a mother figure, a woman in her life who will be her mother and your wife, and you can be a united family together. It is perfectly clear that will never be me and I shall only get in the way.”
For several seconds, the two of them stared into each other’s eyes. Watson wanted so desperately to blurt everything, to tell her how he truly felt, and just as he was about to do so there was a loud banging on the door behind him. Even before he could call for the person to enter, the door swung open and a very excitable Amy flooded into the room quickly followed by the flustered Miss Stuart.
“Forgive me, Your Grace, I tried to make her wait outside but Lady Amy was adamant that she must speak with Miss Percival right away about her lessons,” the lady’s maid explained and upon seeing the looks on both Matilda’s and Watson’s faces, she quickly fell silent, looking stunned and quite guilty as if she knew she had walked in on something important.
Knowing that he had missed his chance entirely, unable to speak the truth in the face of his daughter and with the lady’s maid watching, Watson decided that fate had spoken. “Miss Stuart, Amy, I am afraid I have some sad news to impart on you.”
Both the little girl and the woman looked from the Duke to the governess and back again. Amy was the first to speak up, “Has somebody died?”
Watson could not help but smile sadly at that. In truth, he had begun to feel as though a part of him was dying at Matilda’s determination to leave. He quickly shook his head and turned to Matilda, “Are you to tell them or am I?”
“I shall,” Matilda responded, and Watson saw a tear break free of her eyelashes, rolling down her cheek as she crossed the room to drop down into a crouch before Amy. “Lady Amy, I am afraid that I have to depart from Thistledown Manor.”
“What? No! You cannot!” Amy protested immediately. Watson’s heart threatened to shatter even as his daughter rushed forward and threw her arms around the governess’ neck. “I will not allow you to.”
“Is there no way around it?” Miss Stuart asked, sounding almost as heartbroken as Watson felt. He had to bite the inside of his lip to stop himself from telling the lady’s maid that there was absolutely a way around it if Matilda would simply stop being so damned stubborn.
“I am afraid something has come up at home,” Matilda said over Amy’s shoulder where the girl still refused to let go of her. “A family member has taken ill.”
Watson’s stomach clenched and he willed himself to believe her. Maybe then he might feel less guilty at having chased her away. Knowing that if he stood by and did nothing, he would make a total fool of himself, Watson crossed the room to the fireplace and pulled on the cord that would ring the bell in the kitchens below. Almost immediately, Mr Burns and Quintin came running to join them and from the looks on their faces it was clear that they believed something was wrong. They continued to fall when they saw the scene in the drawing room.
“Mr Burns, please have a couple of the grooms go up to Miss Percival’s bedroom for her trunk and another sent to the stables for the carriage,” he instructed the butler who looked agog at them all.
Matilda pulled back just enough from Amy’s embrace to tell him, “Mr Burns, thank you for all you have done during my stay here, but I must return home to be with my family.”
“Of course, Miss,” Mr Burns, looking quite awkward at all the emotion in the room, quickly bowed and hurried off to do as he had been bid.
“Amy, say your goodbyes,” Watson suggested, stepping forward to rest his hand on his daughter’s shoulder, knowing that the longer she remained with her arms around the woman the harder it would be to get her to let go.
“No! I do not want to!” Amy cried and Watson saw the tears begin to streak down Matilda’s face.
“You do not have to go,” Watson said, hoping that one final try during her tearful moment might be all it took to convince her to remain.
“Papa is right,” Amy insisted, pulling back with her hands on Matilda’s shoulders, “You do not have to go.”
“I do,” Matilda responded tearfully, and she lifted a hand to stroke a flyaway strand of hair from Amy’s face and cup her cheek in her palm, “though I will miss you terribly.”
Again, Amy threw herself at the governess, and Matilda looked as though she might well tumble right over. Feeling his own heart breaking all over again, Watson gripped hold of his daughter’s hand and began to drag her away from the governess.
“Come, Amy, let us go for a walk while Matilda says her goodbyes,” he suggested, knowing that not even a walk or a trip down to the pond to skim stones could take either of their minds of what was happening.
With one final, longing look over his shoulder at the beautiful young woman who had changed his life remarkably, Watson left the room so that Matilda could say goodbye to the other people who had slowly become her family.
I have torn our entire family apart,Watson thought with guilt clawing at his insides, knowing that when he returned from the gardens, Matilda would likely be gone.
Chapter 17
Arriving home unannounced was one of the most humiliating things that Matilda had ever had to do in her life. It was clear from the looks on her parents' faces that they did not believe her when she said she had simply returned home because she found that her job at Thistledown Manor was too far away and she wished to look for somewhere closer.
The only upside to returning home was that once her parents had gotten over the shock of finding her on their doorstep, they were warm and welcoming and it was a huge relief to be home after all the drama that had occurred while she had been away.
Several times in the days that followed her return, her parents tried to pry the truth from her, but she continued to hold to her story, refusing to badmouth the Duke or his daughter, even when her mother tried to insist that they had to have done something terrible for someone like her to give up on such a job.