"Not yet." Adorna accepted her tea and confessed the least of her problems. "My grandchildren have lived abroad all their lives."
"Abroad?" Lady Charlotte arched her brows.
Adorna ignored the delicate inquiry as to the place. "They are, I'm afraid…savages."
Miss Setterington looked startled at such an ungrandmotherly statement, but Lady Charlotte said, "Of course they must be. The lack of a stabilizing English influence will have worked against them. As the eldest, I suppose the son is the worst."
"Actually, no. Leila is…" Adorna thought of that wild child and words failed her.
Lady Charlotte nodded. "The demands on a girl in the ton are much more extensive, while the freedoms are much curtailed. She's probably rebellious."
Her insights astounded Adorna, and Adorna began to see how this Lady Charlotte had tamed and trained so many defiant youths. "Rebellious. Yes. And angry, I think, to have left her home."
"Is there something she liked to do there she could do here that would help with her adjustment?"
"She rode horses, apparently very well, but not sidesaddle, and she will not allow us to seat her without her legs astride. She says it is a stupid position."
Charlotte nibbled at her lip. "How about the boy? What does he like to do?"
"He likes to throw knives." Adorna pleated her skirt. "Into my imported French wallpaper."
"Why?" Miss Setterington asked, looking properly appalled.
"Because the decorative roses made a proper good target."
To Charlotte's credit, she didn't show a flicker of amusement. "He's good with a knife, then."
"Excellent," Adorna said gloomily. "As their governess, Lady Charlotte, you'll be in charge of explaining our ways to the children, helping them adjust, teaching them manners and, as you said, reading and geography, and"—Adorna took a breath—"all must be done quickly."
Lady Charlotte sipped her tea, her little finger crooked at the perfect angle. "How quickly?"
"Before the end of the season, I am to host a reception for the Sereminian royal family during their official visit to England, and the royal children will participate. Therefore, my grandchildren must participate."
Miss Setterington's teacup rattled as she set it down. "That's three months."
"So it is." Lady Charlotte set down her cup, also, but it did not rattle. "So let me understand you, Lady Ruskin. If I train your grandchildren to behave like civilized Englishpeople in three months, your plan is to keep me on as their governess until Leila makes her bow."
"That is correct."
"That's ten years."
"So it is, but this first three months will irrevocably try your patience."
The slightest of a patronizing smile touched Lady Charlotte's lips. "With all due respect, Lady Ruskin, I believe I am capable of handling two small children."
Adorna knew she ought to tell the rest. She ought to. But really, Lady Charlotte would find out soon enough, Adorna needed her too much—and besides, Lady Charlotte's vainglorious smile made Adorna itch to remove it.
Adorna knew how to salve her guilty conscience, and she did so by offering a magnificent salary.
In this matter, Miss Setterington proved her worth, asking for a finder's fee which took Adorna's breath away.
"This guarantees your complete discretion?" Adorna asked.
"This guarantees everything."
Adorna rose, and the other women rose with her. "Lady Charlotte, I'll send a carriage for you at eleven. We go to Surrey, so we shall arrive by late afternoon."
Adorna had not thought it possible, yet Lady Charlotte stiffened more.
But she said only, "I look forward to the journey, my lady." And she curtsied as Adorna took her leave.
Charlotte and Hannah stood silent and listening as Lady Ruskin's footsteps crossed the foyer. They waited as Cusheon fetched her wrap and bowed her out the front door. Even after the door shut behind her, they lingered, wanting to make sure she had truly gone. Then—
Hannah released a whoop. Wrapping her arms around Charlotte's stiff back, she danced her across the room in an excess of joy.
Charlotte laughed, a creaking and seldom-used reflex, and let Hannah whirl her around.
From the back of the house, they heard the patter of running feet, and Lady Temperly burst in. But while this Lady Temperly wore the same heavy clothing, she held the veil in her hand, and her face was that of a young and handsome woman. "Did we do it?"
"We've done it. We've done it!" Hannah sang.
"She hired Charlotte? She's going to pay the placement fee?"
"Yes, Pamela, she did and she is." Charlotte still smiled. "A hundred pounds! Hannah never even flinched when she asked for it."
Miss Pamela Lockhart tossed the veil in the air and joined in the dance.
Still sober and proper, Cusheon entered and when they halted, out of breath, he said, "If madams are ready, I would be happy to pour the celebratory toast."
"Yes, oh, thank you, Cusheon." Hannah's brown eyes sparkled as the old butler dusted off the bottle of brandy, opened it and poured them each a ladylike measure. "Please take some yourself. We never could have done this without your help."
Bowing, Cusheon complied. "Thank you, madam, but you know Cook and I are most hopeful your venture will succeed. At our ages it would be difficult to find another position."
"We will succeed. I know it," Pamela said.
"I know it, too, madam." Cusheon lifted his glass to them, then took a drink and slipped out.
They imitated Cusheon, lifting their glasses.
"Here's to the real Lady Temperly," Hannah said. "God rest her generous soul."
"Here, here." Charlotte took a sip and grimaced. "I hate brandy."
"Drink it anyway," Hannah said. "It builds blood."
Pamela laughed at Hannah. "That's an old wives' tale, and you are neither old nor a wife."
Now Hannah grimaced.
Charlotte's gaze grew troubled as it swept Pamela's deceptive garb, and she picked up the veil and fingered it. "Are you sure this artifice was necessary?"
Among the three friends, Charlotte was always a stickler for absolute truthfulness. Hannah and Pamela exchanged glances, then together went to work on once again convincing Charlotte they had done the right thing.
Pamela began. "You know we agreed on this. We simply gave the illusion of success to ease any uneasiness our first client may have experienced."
"We're starting a new venture, and we must succeed or we'll lose this townhouse." Hannah gestured around her. "Lady Temperly left it to me, but there's no money. Do you want me to have to sell from lack of funds?"
"No, but—"
"We have seized our good fortune." Hannah wrapped her arm around Charlotte's shoulder and walked with her toward the fire. "In this house, we have a place to train and place other women who have need of a position. As proprietresses of the Distinguished Academy of Governesses, we pass on our knowledge and entice the ton into paying us a placement fee for our students."
Charlotte sank into the chair. "But we're not who we say we are."
"We are, too. You are Lady Charlotte Dalrumple, also known as Miss Priss for your mastery in teaching adolescents the proprieties. She is Miss Hannah Setterington, companion to the much-traveled Lady Temperly until her death a mere month ago." Pamela struck a pose. "And I am Miss Pamela Lockhart—or will be once I'm out of these clothes."
Charlotte still looked doubtful.
"Charlotte, I have ten years of experience with children," Pamela said earnestly. "Hannah really was Lady Temperly's companion. We have the qualifications to do what we plan to do."
"Once we find employment for ourselves and build up a few fees, we'll be able to help other women who, like us, have nowhere to go when the term of their employment is finished." Hannah knew that would clinch the argument for Charlotte. It clinched the argument for all of them. "Such a small deception as we visited on Lady Ruskin is worth that, surely."
"Yes." Charlotte squared her shoulders. "When this business is established, everyone will benefit."
"That's right. And I'm sure your megrims are because—" Hannah broke off.
Pamela couldn't leave it at that. "Because why?"
Taking a gulp of the despised brandy, Charlotte said, "Because my new position is in Surrey."
"Oh, no." Pamela sat down hard on the footstool. "Of all the places in England!"
"It's of no importance," Charlotte said, although they all knew it was. "As always, I will do my duty, and all will be well."
CHAPTER 2
Cool, fresh air blew into Charlotte's face as the open carriage bounced down the turnpike, and she inhaled the scents of Surrey's North Downs. Surrey smelled like roses climbing an ancient trellis, like laughter and comfort, like winters spent riding her hobbyhorse, like summer afternoons lolling on a branch of her favorite walnut tree reading. Like home.
Charlotte had hoped never to breathe the scents of Surrey again.
"Is this your first trip to the North Downs, my lady?"
Charlotte turned to her new employer and suffered a pang, just one, of envy. Without being told, Charlotte knew men still fought over the widowed Lady Ruskin. A stylish hat perched atop her blond hair, her voice dipped and rose in husky gentility and her complexion would have done honor to a much younger woman. Her large blue eyes were guileless, and she had been the most amiable of companions on the two-hour trip down from London. Yet Charlotte found it hard to believe she had two grandchildren in need of a governess.
And without railing against fate—Charlotte considered railing against fate a waste of time—she wondered what god had guided Adorna into the newly founded school with a position tailor-made for Charlotte herself. "I was raised not far from here, my lady," she said steadily.
"You are a relative of the Dalrumples of Porterbridge Hall, then."
The curiosity was inevitable, Charlotte knew, yet the truth tasted bitter on her tongue. "The Earl of Porterbridge is my uncle."
Lady Ruskin nodded. "I thought you must be that Lady Charlotte Dalrumple." Picking up Charlotte's gloved hand in her own, she squeezed it. "Your father, God rest his soul, was the earl before. My husband knew him and called him a gentleman of distinction."
To hear her father spoken of, and in such a kindly manner, gave Charlotte a wrench which she hastily covered. "It's pleasant to be back after so many years." Nine years, to be exact, since the occasion of Charlotte's disastrous and decisive seventeenth birthday.
"Yes, Surrey is pleasant, and so close to London. Ruskin and I purchased the estate not long after our son was born so he could be raised in a healthy country atmosphere. Austinpark Manor is a quiet spot."
As she spoke, a brougham barreled around the bend toward them. Their coachman swerved to avoid a collision, slamming Lady Ruskin into the side of their carriage and Charlotte into Lady Ruskin. Charlotte's trunk, hooked to the back, swayed dangerously outward, and Charlotte's precious carpetbag banged against her ankles. The brougham raced on. As they passed, Charlotte heard through the open window a woman's high, scolding voice.
Skeets pulled the horses off the turnpike onto the grassy shoulder and turned to Lady Ruskin. "Beg yer pardon, m'lady. Be ye hurt?"
Charlotte, too, murmured her regrets as she untangled herself from Lady Ruskin's fringed shawl.
"Nonsense, don't apologize, either of you." Lady Ruskin's melodious voice turned tart, and she gestured to Skeets to go on. As the carriage jolted back onto the turnpike, she said, "Some people have more money than sense. Although truly, my lady, such incidents are rare in this neighborhood."
"If it would please you, Lady Ruskin, I seldom use my title. Call me Charlotte in private, and Miss Dalrumple in front of the children."
Lady Ruskin's eyes warmed, and she took Charlotte's gloved hand in her own. "Thank you, my dear. And you shall call me Adorna, because everyone does."
That was not at all what Charlotte meant to happen, although she suspected that in Lady Ruskin's vicinity, matters seldom happened as they should. "My lady, while I appreciate the invitation and the kindness that it represents, such a liberty would be misinterpreted as a lack of respect on my part, or even insolence."
"In private, then."
"Not in front of the children—"
"Not in front of the children, either, although I fear they will never comprehend the complexities of English society." Adorna sighed, a lift and fall of her generous bosom. Her spring-green brocade gown nipped in at her narrow waist and her crinolines spread wide, overlapping the smoke-gray of Charlotte's plain gown. "They were raised, you see, in El Bahar."
"El Bahar," Charlotte repeated in awe. The country existed east of Egypt and south of Turkey, and evoked images of camels trudging across the undulating sand, of Bedouins and Arabian nights. She couldn't imagine English children raised in such an environment, and for the first time she understood Adorna's use of the word "savages" to describe her grandchildren. "How did they get there? And how did they get home?"
"Rather, ask how my son Wynter got there."
She looked so forlorn Charlotte ached to comfort her. So Adorna had lost her son. What a tragedy. Then the unusual name struck Charlotte. "Wynter?"
A mental portrait rose before her, one she had not brought to mind since she'd left Porterbridge Hall. The lad Wynter at a country dance, tall and blond, so handsome the girls swooned. Aunt Piper had scornfully proclaimed, He imagines himself a young blond Byron. Looking back, Charlotte rather thought he had, for a hank of blond hair hung over his forehead, his odd, dark lashes and brows had set him apart from the crowd of obnoxious adolescents and his brown eyes had been alternating fierce and brooding. Twelve-year-old Charlotte had fallen desperately in love with him, but separated from her by the distance of two years, he hadn't noticed her, and she hadn't seen him again.
"Wynter…is your son?" Charlotte asked.
Adorna looked delighted. "Did you know him?"
"I suspect I once met him, yes. But I thought he had—"
"Run away. So he did. He took his father's death badly," she said. "Viscount Ruskin, you know, was my elder by many years."
Vaguely Charlotte recalled the gossip. Viscount Ruskin had been a shrewd man of business, just the type the aristocracy scorned. But in his old age, he had done a great favor for the crown and the king, assuming such an old man would not beget children, gave him a title. A title when Viscount Ruskin promptly passed on to his son by marrying the beautiful, aristocratic, youthful Adorna.
Viscount Ruskin had been ninety at the time of his death, his marriage a perpetual scandal…yet Ruskin and Adorna had been so wealthy no one dared snub them.
"And although my husband lived a full and happy life, he left us on the day after Wynter's fifteenth birthday. Wynter was so angry at losing him. He had a fight with some other boys after the funeral."
Charlotte remembered that, too. Her cousin Orford, as weaselly a creature as had ever lived, had come home bloodied but smirking, and he had snickered when Wynter had disappeared.
Adorna turned to look out the side of the carriage. "The next day Wynter was gone."
Charlotte could see only the wing of her bonnet, but she heard the pain of loss in Adorna's voice.
"He went looking for adventure." The bonnet shook from side to side as Adorna contemplated her son's foolishness. "He certainly found it. After many escapades, he was sold as a slave to some lowly caravan leader."
Charlotte didn't know whether she wanted to laugh or swoon. That young, brooding Adonis had been a slave? She paid little attention as another carriage raced past them. "Dear heavens, my lady, did you know what had happened to him?"
"Adorna," she corrected absently. "Not at all. Stewart—he is my husband's cousin's son—traced him to Arabia, then lost him. Years passed with no word, but I knew he wasn't dead."
Another carriage raced past them, and although Charlotte paid it little heed, Adorna's brow wrinkled in concern.
Then she turn
ed her wide blue eyes toward Charlotte. "Aunt Jane says I'm a romantic, but I know that when someone you love dies, you sense the tearing of the curtain between this world and the next. Charlotte, I suppose you agree with my aunt."
"No. No, I don't agree with your aunt." Charlotte's parents had died not far from this very spot, and for a moment Charlotte was a bewildered eleven-year-old again, hiding under her bed at Porterbridge Hall, flinching with each flash of lightning.
"I didn't expect to like you." Adorna placed her hand on Charlotte's shoulder. "I feared you would be rather stiff and haughty, but beneath that you're quite sensitive, aren't you?"
Though Charlotte had been sensitive when she was young, she didn't consider herself sensitive anymore. "I believe the word you seek is 'sensible.' "
Adorna smiled and nodded, but before Charlotte could speak again, she saw beyond Adorna a landmark she recognized, the crossroads marker for Wesford Village.
Wesford Village. Charlotte had hoped that Adorna's home would be at the far end of the North Downs, away from Porterbridge Hall, Uncle Shelby, Aunt Piper and her cousins. Fate, however, had ruled against her.
And if—no, when!—the gentry discovered Lady Charlotte Dalrumple had returned…ah, that would put the cat among the pigeons.
Adorna look around and saw the signpost, and assured Charlotte, "Austinpark Manor is just ahead, so you needn't worry you shall be totally cut off from civilization."
"Such a thought would never cross my mind."
Adorna lavished a smile on her, the kind of smile that would make pudding of the average male and produced in Charlotte the uncomfortable sensation of having been transparent. "Of course not, dear. You are the type of female who finds frivolity unnecessary."
"I…that's true." So true, but Adorna made a simple virtue sound…tedious. "But my lady…Adorna…you must tell me what happened to your son, how your grandchildren were returned to you. The children must be devastated by their loss."