Season Of Secrets: Not Just a Seduction

He frowned as he saw the look of consternation on the governess’s face. ‘I repeat, is there some objection to your travelling into Cambridgeshire with myself and Amanda?’

Elena drew herself up stiffly. ‘No, of course there is not. And to answer your earlier question, I can have my own and Amanda’s things packed and ready for departure in a matter of hours.’

Adam gave a tight smile. ‘It is not necessary that you be quite so hasty,’ he drawled. ‘I have a dinner engagement this evening. First thing tomorrow morning will be quite soon enough. I trust that will give you sufficient time in which to…inform any relatives and friends that you are to be absent from Town for the next week?’

‘Approximately.’

‘Indeed,’ he conceded drily.

The only relative Elena had left in the world was Neville and the moment he learnt of her whereabouts he would no doubt call for her immediate arrest!

And Elena had decided at the onset that the less she involved her friends in her current unhappy situation—and she did have several who still believed in her innocence—the better it would be for them.

She necessarily had to accept a small amount of financial help from her closest friend, Lizzie Carlton, after fleeing the duke’s estate in Yorkshire in late February, and she had also informed Lizzie by letter that she had safely reached London and secured suitable lodgings. But Elena could not, in all conscience, allow her friend to become embroiled in this situation any further than that.

Indeed, she had resolved to completely become the widowed Mrs Elena Leighton, a schooled young lady who had fallen on hard times since her husband’s untimely death. As she must, if she were to be successful in her endeavour of hiding in full view of the populace of England’s capital; it was sad, but true, that the ton rarely noticed the existence of the people whom they employed, let alone those employed by the other members of England’s aristocracy.

‘There is no one whom I would wish to inform, my lord,’ she answered her employer coolly. ‘If I might be allowed to return to the schoolroom now?’

‘Of course.’

‘Thank you, my lord.’

Adam tapped his cheek thoughtfully as he watched her quietly exit the study before closing the door behind her, irritated at the realisation that she had once again avoided revealing anything about herself or her connections. As she was perfectly entitled to do, he allowed; her family connections, or even her romantic ones, had been of no significance to him at the commencement of her employment with him, and they should not be of any import now.

Except he could not prevent himself from wondering—despite her denial of the need for her to inform anyone of her imminent departure for Cambridgeshire—as to which gentleman might currently be the lucky recipient of the ministrations of those full and sensuous lips…

Chapter Four (#ulink_917a6f91-e92d-52c7-84b8-ca82e4524c20)

‘She is merely ill from travelling in the carriage.’ Elena looked up at Adam apologetically as he opened the door of the carriage just in time for Amanda to lean out and be violently sick on his black, brown-topped Hessians already covered in dust from where he had ridden on horseback all day beside the carriage. ‘Oh, dear.’ Elena moved forwards on her seat to help her distressed charge down the steps on to the cobbled courtyard of the inn they were to stay in for the night, cuddling Amanda against her before turning her attention to those now ruined boots. ‘Perhaps—’

‘Perhaps if you had informed me of Amanda’s discomfort earlier it would not have come to this.’ Adam glowered down at her.

Elena gasped her incredulity at an accusation she believed completely unfair. ‘Amanda was perfectly all right until a short time ago and has only found this last few bumpy miles something of a trial. Also, my lord, as you had ridden on ahead I could not inform you of anything…’

‘Yes. Yes,’ Adam snapped, waving his hand impatiently. ‘I suggest you take Amanda upstairs to our rooms while I speak to the innkeeper about organising some water to be brought up for her bath.’

Elena kept her arm about the now quietly sobbing Amanda. ‘And some food, my lord. Some dry bread and fresh water will perhaps settle Amanda’s stomach before bedtime.’

‘Of course.’ Adam turned his attention away from his ruined boots to instead look down at his distressed daughter. Amanda’s face was a pasty white, her eyes dark and cloudy smudges of blue in that pallor, her usually lustrous gold hair damp about her face. Nor had her own clothing escaped being spattered, her little shoes and hose in as sorry a state as his boots. ‘There, there, Amanda, it is not the end of the world—You are soiling your clothing now, Mrs Leighton,’ he warned sharply as Elena ignored the results of Amanda’s nausea, moving down on her haunches beside the little girl and gently wiping the tears from her face with her own lace-edged handkerchief.

‘My clothes are of no importance at this moment, sir.’ Her eyes flashed up at him in stormy warning, before she returned her attention to the cleansing of Amanda’s face, murmuring soft assurances to the little girl.

Adam clamped down on his feelings of inadequacy. ‘I was merely pointing out—’

‘If you will excuse us?’ She straightened, obvious indignation rolling off her in waves. ‘I should like to see to Amanda’s needs before considering my own.’

A praiseworthy sentiment, Adam admitted as he stood in the courtyard and watched her walk away, her back ramrod straight as she entered the inn, her arms about Amanda.

Except for the fact that he knew that parting comment had been made as a deliberate set down for what she perceived as his lack of concern for his young daughter…

A totally erroneous assumption for her to have made; Adam knew his behaviour to be yet another example of his own lack of understanding in how to relate to a six-year-old girl, rather than the lack of concern Elena Leighton had assumed it to be. No excuse, of course, but Adam had no idea how to even go about healing the distance which seemed to yawn wider with each passing day between himself and Amanda.

Nor had the governess’s anger towards him abated in the slightest, Adam realised an hour or so later when she joined him for dinner in the private parlour of the inn, as he had requested when the maid went to deliver food and drink to Amanda. her eyes sparkled a deep and fiery green-blue as she swept into the room, with a deep flush to her cheeks and her whole demeanour, in yet another of those dratted black gowns, one of bristly disapproval and resentment—the former no doubt still on Amanda’s behalf, the resentment possibly due to the peremptory instruction to join him for dinner.

‘Would you care for a glass of Madeira, Mrs Leighton…?’ Adam attempted civility. Bathed and dressed in clean clothes and a fresh pair of boots, he felt far more human; he tried not to think about the fact that his man Reynolds was probably upstairs even now, crying as he attempted to salvage the first pair!

‘No, thank you.’

‘Then perhaps you would prefer sherry or wine?’

She looked at him coolly. ‘I do not care for strong liquor at all.’

Adam frowned. ‘I do not believe any of the refreshments I offered can be referred to as “strong liquor”.’

‘Nevertheless…’

‘Then perhaps we should just sit down and eat?’ He could barely restrain his frustration with her frostiness as he moved forwards to politely pull back a chair for her.

‘I had expected to dine in my bedchamber with Amanda,’ she stated.

‘And I would prefer that you dine here with me,’ he countered, looking pointedly towards the chair.

She frowned as she stepped forwards. ‘Thank you.’ She sat rigidly in the chair, her body stiff and unyielding, ensuring that her spine did not come into contact with the back of the chair.

Adam gave a rueful grimace as he moved around the table and took his own seat opposite her, waiting until the innkeeper himself had served their food—a thick steaming stew accompanied by fresh crusty bread—before speaking again. ‘Should I expect to be subjected to this wall of ice throughout the whole of dinner, or would you perhaps prefer to castigate me now and get it over with?’ He quirked one dark brow enquiringly.

‘Castigate you, my lord?’ She kept her head bowed as she studiously arranged her napkin across her knees.

Adam gave a weary sigh. ‘Mrs Leighton, I am a widower in my late twenties, with no previous experience of children, let alone six-year-old females. As such, I admit I know naught of how to deal with the day-to-day upsets of my young daughter.’

Elena slowly looked up to consider him across the table, ignoring his obvious handsomeness for the moment—difficult as that might be when he looked so very smart in a deep-blue superfine over a beige waistcoat—and instead trying to see the man he described. There was no disputing the fact that he was a widower in his late twenties. But Lord Adam Hawthorne was also a man whom senior politicians were reputed to hold in great regard, a man who ran his estates and a London household without so much as blinking an eye; it was impossible to think that such a man could find himself defeated by the needs of a six-year-old girl.

Or was it…?

He was a man who preferred to hold himself aloof from society. From all emotions. Why was it so impossible to believe he found it difficult to relate to his young daughter?

Some of the stiffness left Elena’s spine. ‘I think you will find that six-year-old young ladies have the same need to be loved as the older ones, my lord.’

He frowned. ‘“Older ones”, Mrs Leighton…?’

She became slightly flustered under that icy gaze. ‘I believe most ladies are desirous of that, yes, my lord.’

‘I see.’ His frown deepened. ‘And are you questioning my ability to feel that emotion, Mrs Leighton?’

‘Of course not.’ Elena gasped softly.

‘Then perhaps It is only my affection for my daughter you question…?’