Not Just a Governess

Adam drew himself up stiffly, the two men of similar height. ‘I trust that, as a gentleman, you do not expect me to confirm or deny that question?’

‘Absolutely not,’ Royston drawled unapologetically. ‘You appear to have become something of a…recluse in recent years, Hawthorne.’

Adam’s gaze became glacial. ‘Did you have something specific you wished to discuss with me, or may I now be on my way?’

‘Damn, but you have become a prickly bastard!’ The duke’s expression turned to one of deep irritation. ‘Join me in a drink at one of the clubs so that we might talk in a less public arena?’ he added impatiently as several people jostled them in their haste to leave and received a legendary St Just scowl for their trouble.

Adam’s demeanour lightened slightly. ‘As it happens I was on my way to White’s.’

The other man grimaced. ‘I had a less…respectable club in mind, but certainly, White’s will do as a start to the evening. I have my carriage outside.’

‘As I have mine.’

The duke regarded him enigmatically for several long seconds before acquiescing. ‘Very well. We shall both travel in your coach and mine will follow. Unless you have it in mind to join me in visiting the other clubs later?’

‘No.’ Adam’s tone was uncompromising.

‘As you wish.’ Royston shrugged.

They did not speak again until they were safely ensconced at a secluded table at White’s and both nursing a large glass of brandy, the duke slumped comfortably in his chair, Adam sitting upright across from him.

The two men had met often in past years at one ton function or another. In truth, Adam had always liked the man’s arrogant disregard for society’s strictures. Indeed, his own reserve towards the man this past few years was caused by his doubts regarding any past involvement between Royston and Fanny; Fanny’s affairs had been so numerous during their marriage that Adam was sure even she had forgotten half her lovers’ names.

That Adam and Fanny had occupied separate bedchambers after the first month of their marriage had not been generally known and made Fanny’s adulterous behaviour, after Amanda was born, all the more of a humiliation. It would have been easier by far if they had occupied separate households, but that Fanny had refused to allow, preferring the shield of the two of them living together to hide her numerous affairs. Unfortunately, she had held the trump card, and had used the excuse of their baby daughter to enforce that decision. For, despite the awkwardness he often felt in being able to relax his emotions and draw close to Amanda as she grew older, Adam loved his young daughter deeply.

‘How does your grandmama seem to you nowadays?’

Adam’s eyes widened at the subject of Royston’s question; Lady Cicely had been the last thing he expected to be discussing this evening, with Royston or anyone else. ‘What do you mean?’

Royston stared down morosely into his brandy glass. ‘Mine’s acting deuced odd and I thought, as the two of them have always been in such cahoots, that I would see if yours was behaving oddly, too?’ He grimaced. ‘I hope to God it has nothing to do with this Sheffield business, because I am heartily sick of the subject! I liked Sheffield well enough, but all these weeks of speculation as to whether his granddaughter bumped him off, then stole the family jewels, has become an utter bore.’

The tension left Adam’s shoulders. ‘No, I do not believe Lady Cicely and the dowager duchess’s…current distraction have anything to do with the Sheffield affair.’

St Just perked up slightly. ‘No?’

‘No.’ Adam found himself smiling tightly. ‘I believe—and I only know this because Lady Cicely is obviously far less subtle in her intentions than the dowager duchess—that they have it in mind to somehow secure our future wives for us!’

The duke sat forwards abruptly. ‘You cannot be serious?’

Adam gave a mocking inclination of his head, enjoying the other’s man’s consternation. ‘They appear to be very serious, yes. Think about it, Royston—they are thick as thieves with the Dowager Countess of Chambourne, whose own grandson has just announced his wedding is to be next month.’

‘And you are saying our grandmothers are now plotting our own downfall?’

Adam could not help but let out a brief bark of laughter at Royston’s horrified expression. ‘The three ladies have always done things together. Their coming-out Season. Marriage. Motherhood. Even widowhood.’ He shrugged. ‘My own grandmother’s less-than-subtle attempts at matchmaking these past few months leads me to believe it is now their intention that their three grandsons shall be married in the same Season.’

‘Is it, by God?’ The duke slowly sank back in his chair. ‘And have you made any decision as to how you intend fending off this attack upon our bachelor state?’

‘I see no need to fend it off when my uninterest is so clear.’ Adam frowned.

Royston eyed him pityingly. ‘You are obviously not as well acquainted with my own grandmama as I!’

‘No,’ Adam stated, ‘but I am well acquainted with my own!’

‘And you agree that marriage for either of us is out of the question?’

His mouth tightened. ‘I can only speak for myself—but, yes, totally out of the question.’ His nostrils flared. ‘I have no intention of ever remarrying.’

‘And I have no intention of marrying at all—or, at least, not for years and years.’ Royston looked at Adam searchingly. ‘Even so, I cannot believe that even the dowager duchess would dare—yes, I can, damn it.’ He scowled darkly. ‘My grandmother would dare anything to ensure the succession of the line!’

Adam gave a slight inclination of his head. ‘My own grandmother has also expressed her concerns as to the fact that I have only a daughter and no son.’ Not that he had taken any heed of those concerns; Adam felt no qualms whatsoever about his third cousin Wilfred inheriting the title once he had shuffled off his own mortal coil.

‘But I take it you do not intend to just sit about waiting for the parson’s mousetrap to snap tight about your ankles?’

‘Certainly not!’ Adam gave a shiver of revulsion.

Royston tapped his chin distractedly. ‘There’s not much happening in the House for the next week, so now would seem to be as good a time as any for me to absent myself from town and go to the country for a while. I have it in mind to view a hunter Sedgewicke has put my way. With any luck the grandmothers will have lost the scent by the time I return.’

‘Highly unlikely,’ Adam drawled derisively.

‘But, as I am genuinely fond of the dowager duchess, and as such have no wish to be at loggerheads with her over this, it is definitely worth pursuing.’ Royston stood up decisively. ‘I advise you to do something similar, for I assure you, once my grandmama gets the bit between her teeth there’s no stopping her. Oh, and, Hawthorne…?’ He paused beside Adam’s chair.

‘Yes?’

‘I make it a point of principle never to dally with married ladies,’ Royston declared.

His meaning was not lost on Adam as he answered cautiously. ‘That is a very good principle to have.’

‘I believe so, yes.’ The other man met Adam’s gaze briefly, meaningfully, before nodding to him in farewell, pausing only to briefly greet several acquaintances as he made his way out of the club.

Leaving Adam to mull over the predicament of how best to avoid his own grandmother’s machinations and to consider his unexpected, and totally inappropriate fantasy earlier regarding Elena Leighton’s sensuously plump lips and the uses they might be put to!

Elena assured herself of the neatness of her appearance one last time before knocking briskly on the door of her employer’s private study, having received the summons in the nursery a short time ago, delivered by Barnes, requesting she join Lord Hawthorne downstairs immediately.

‘Come.’

To say Elena was nervous about the reason for Lord Hawthorne’s summons would be putting it mildly—the sudden tension that had sprung up between them yesterday, and their unfinished conversation, were both still very much in her mind. She had no idea what she would say to him if, as she had suggested, he had decided to check her fake references and somehow found them wanting.

She did not see how he could have done so, when she had been so careful in her choice of an alias, her acquaintance with the Bambury family allowing her to write as accurate a reference as possible, considering she was not really Mrs Leighton. But that did not stop Elena from now chewing worriedly on her bottom lip. If Hawthorne chose to dismiss her—

‘I said come, damn it.’ There was no mistaking the impatient irritation in his lordship’s voice.

Elena’s cheeks felt flushed as she opened the door and stepped gingerly into a room lined with bookcases halfway up the mahogany-panelled walls, with several original paintings above them, and a huge mahogany desk dominating the room.

At least…it would have been the dominating feature of the study if the gentleman seated behind that desk had not so easily taken that honour for himself!

Tall and broad-shouldered in a superfine of the same dark grey as his eyes over a paler-grey waistcoat, his linen snowy white, the neckcloth at his throat arranged meticulously, his stylish hair dark as a raven’s wing above that austerely handsome face, Lord Adam Hawthorne effortlessly filled the room with his overwhelming presence.

But it was a presence that Elena did not find in the least frightening, as she did so many other men following her cousin Neville’s cruelty to her. Indeed, Adam Hawthorne, despite—or because of?—his air of detachment, was a man who inspired trust rather than fear…