The Tempting of the Governess
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‘She lost her child,’ Olivia filled in.
‘The letter my mistress received about it was the shortest, saddest account one could imagine,’ the woman continued, tears sheening her eyes. ‘Just “Drew’s gone. A fever. Slipped away between sunset and midnight.” Broke my poor mistress’s heart as surely as it did his mama’s and papa’s. Miss Lydia passed the very next month and my mistress two months later.’
‘How awful for everyone,’ Olivia said, her heart aching for the whole family, but most especially for the Colonel. She’d found it devastating, losing just one person dear to her. She couldn’t imagine losing your entire family.
Shaking her head, Travers continued, ‘After all her parents’ insistence that Miss Lydia was not suited to live in India, I fear that Master Hugh blamed himself for her death. And for his son’s. He’s been kind enough to visit me several times, but he is so different from the happy, optimistic young soldier who left here seven years ago, I can scarcely believe it’s the same man. He looks so weary and heavy-laden. Almost...haunted.’
‘The poor man,’ Olivia whispered, the woman’s observations underscoring what she’d already noted about the Colonel’s behaviour. ‘What a terrible burden to carry—and how unfair! His wife accompanied him of her own free will. Surely he knows he has no control over life and death.’
‘Ah, but who of us can resist, when tragedy strikes, rethinking every decision and wondering If only I hadn’t...’
‘I suppose you’re right.’
‘After my mistress died, our housekeeper retired. I promised Master Charles I’d stay on until he hired a replacement. Then, after he did, the whole household changed.’ Her manner turning suddenly guarded, Travers said, ‘Do you...have many dealings with Mrs Wallace?’
Olivia grimaced. ‘As few as possible. We...do not get on.’
‘Then I can speak plainly about her. I... I wouldn’t normally repeat gossip, but as you are living in the Abbey, you need to be especially watchful. Though I’d never meant to stay on permanently in the household, after Mrs Wallace arrived, she made it quite clear that she didn’t want me at the Abbey. I can’t confirm for certain, but it was rumoured that she had a...more intimate relationship with the master than was proper. In any event, she did her best to rid the Abbey of any females to whom Master Charles might feel some attachment or loyalty. I was thrilled to be able to retire here and escape her! Then, after Master Charles’s sudden passing, when the Colonel returned from India, I heard she tried to make up to him, too, wanting to achieve the same...position with the new master that she’d reportedly held for his late brother.’
Travers gave a short laugh. ‘Not that there was much chance he’d be tempted to respond to her inducements, even if he weren’t still grieving! What an ethereal, golden-haired angel Miss Lydia was! The Colonel adored her. I doubt he’ll ever allow anyone to take her place.’
So much for her foolish imaginings, Olivia thought, embarrassed and angry at herself for her silly illusions. Imagining that the Colonel wished to kiss her, indeed! Thank heaven their respective positions as employer and employee had restrained her from giving any indication that she would welcome his advances.
It made her ill to think of putting herself on the same level as the devious Mrs Wallace.
‘In any event,’ Travers was saying, ‘I’d be wary around Mrs Wallace, especially if she suspects the Colonel is coming to value you—which he well might, with you helping to ease the burden of caring for his wards. She’ll do whatever she can to undermine you.’
She’d already had evidence of that, Olivia thought, suddenly remembering how the woman had subtly encouraged her to confront the Colonel over his wards. Knowing well how her master’s loss would make any discussion of the children who’d been foisted on him acutely painful, she’d expected the governess to be given precisely the furious dressing-down she initially received. Only Olivia’s persistence—and the Colonel’s innate sense of fairness—had righted a relationship that would otherwise have gone awry from the very beginning.
‘I suspected as much, but thanks for the warning,’ Olivia said at last. ‘I’m willing to keep the peace between us, as long as she does not interfere with the children’s proper care.’
‘Just be careful around her,’ Travers said. ‘Well, I expect you must be getting back. Thank you so much for stopping by! It’s been such a treat to talk with someone from the Abbey who has some sense. That maid, Mary, usually brings me the fine work, but she’s afraid of her own shadow and hardly utters a syllable the whole time she’s here. I learn more about what’s going on at the Abbey when I visit the village shopkeepers who supply them meat and consumables!’
‘Perhaps I could bring the girls to visit one day,’ Olivia said as she walked to the door. ‘I know they would love any tales you could relate about their papa or their guardian when they were boys.’
‘I would love to see them,’ Travers said, beaming. ‘How I enjoyed watching the young masters grow up! Nothing brightens an old lady’s day so much as the chatter of children. Their observations are so entertaining!’
‘They certainly can be,’ Olivia said, smiling as she recalled Elizabeth’s eager questions and commentary during their walk this morning. How attached she was becoming to the girls already!
‘Thank you again for sharing what you learned about the Colonel’s sad loss. I’ll know not to inform him every time one of the girls takes a tumble or develops some trifling ailment.’
‘Goodness, I should hope not. What awful memories that would stir!’
After bidding the woman goodbye, Olivia walked back to the manor in a pensive mood. She should be glad that Travers’s depiction of the Colonel’s adoration for his late wife must bring to a halt any further speculation about an attraction between them—an attraction the woman’s revelations demonstrated must have been entirely one-sided. The idea that a tall, plain, managing woman might appear enticing to a man who’d loved ‘an ethereal, golden angel’ was ludicrous.
So why did she feel so...dispirited?
She must be fatigued from her second long walk of the day, she concluded. Surely she was too intelligent and practical to mourn the loss of a connection that had never really existed. Even if the illusion of it had made her feel so...feminine and desirable.
But a governess neither needed nor should wish to be found ‘feminine and desirable’ by the man who employed her. Such an appeal in a female who possessed neither the dowry nor the family connections to make her marriageable could lead only to dishonourable offers and disgrace.
She could establish a better, more honourable and lasting relationship with the Colonel by working with him and for him on behalf of his wards, she reminded herself. After all, what few daydreams of suitors and wedlock she’d not given up years ago should have been extinguished for good once she chose a life in service over a marriage of convenience.
Feeling more positive and resolute about the way going forward, she entered the manor and walked up to her bedchamber, intending to tidy herself before meeting the girls for dinner. She’d just poured fresh water into the washbasin on her dresser when she noticed a note propped against the candle on her bedside table.
Wondering what it could be, she opened the missive. And discovered, to her astonishment, that her employer had invited her to join him and a visiting guest for dinner.
* * *
Later that evening, after seeing her charges to bed, Olivia returned to her room to dress for a meal in the formal dining room.
She’d been halfway tempted to refuse her employer’s invitation. Despite what she’d learned from Travers about the Colonel’s abiding love for his late wife, with her proven susceptibility to the man’s appeal, it was probably the height of folly to meet him at a social occasion on which she would be, if not truly his equal, at least an invited guest. Not quite the lady of stature she used to be, but not simply an employee eith
er.
But to refuse might give offence and, if she wanted to continue to nudge the guardian into a closer relationship with his wards, she needed to be on good terms with him.
There was also the allure of dining in company again. Olivia had never thought of herself as particularly gregarious, but in all her life, she’d only dined alone in her chamber on the rare occasions when she was ill. There was something especially depressing about taking the evening meal, which had always been an event shared with friends and family, without any companionship whatsoever. She’d decided that, in future, she would share all her meals in the schoolroom with her charges.
Then, too, the Colonel had written that she would be doing him a favour if she would attend and help him brighten the evening for his visitor in a house that provided few opportunities for entertainment.
So she’d capitulated and sent back an acceptance.
She gazed at herself in the glass, thinking she ought to simply freshen her dull black gown. But when she’d been preparing to leave Overton House, her tearful maid, upset at the prospect of losing her long-term mistress and perhaps not entirely understanding the drastic change in Olivia’s circumstances, had packed not just the new black mourning gowns, but several of her dinner dresses.
When she’d discovered them upon arrival, she’d consigned them to the back of her wardrobe, certain she would not have any opportunity to wear them and thinking perhaps at some point she might sell them for the little extra money they would bring.
Now she hesitated, knowing it would be wiser to wear sober black... Were she in London, it would be too soon after her mother’s death to appear in anything but mourning attire. Somehow, her radical change of circumstance made that unhappy event, and everything else about her life that no longer was, seem as if it had happened to someone else, wholly unconnected to who she was now. Besides, there was no one from London society here to be scandalised if she failed to always go about in black.
The copper-hued gown, with its off-the-shoulder bodice trimmed with lace, had been her most flattering. Foolish as it was, some inner feminine sense craved the chance to let the Colonel see her in it.
Which should be all the evidence she needed to leave the gown in the back of the wardrobe.
And yet... What harm would it do? This might be her only opportunity for the next six months to wear something that brought her back a tiny piece of that vanished life.
The Colonel’s friend had also served in India, he’d written—a land about which she’d read extensively, fuelled by the enthusiasm of Emma’s good friend, Temperance. Being gowned like a lady rather than a sober governess, a servant designed to fade unnoticed into the background, would boost her confidence. Make it easier for her to engage the guest in conversation, as the Colonel clearly wished her to. She had to admit she was curious to have the visitor describe his experiences, so she might see how they matched with the accounts she’d read.
His friend’s reminiscences might even lure the Colonel into sharing some of his own. One part of her brain warned that it would be wiser not to get to know any better a man who, she had to acknowledge, still attracted her far more than she should allow. But another part countered that the more she knew of his time in India, the better she would be able to navigate around the shoals of his private grief, gradually involving him in the lives of his wards while awakening as few unhappy memories as possible.
Wasn’t her primary duty to see to the needs of his wards? And wasn’t the greatest of their needs to once again have the security of knowing a close family member was fully committed to looking after them?
Besides, it would only be one night. After the shocks and loss of the last month, surely she could allow herself one night of pleasure. One night to escape from the reality of her new life and savour a small taste of what life had once been.
Prudence fought against the strength of that longing and lost handily. Pulling the gown out and laying it on her bed, Olivia went in search of the maid to help her into it.
Chapter Nine
Standing before the hearth in the parlour, only half-listening to his friend’s comments as they awaited the arrival of Miss Overton, Hugh glanced at his image in the mirror over the side table. He probably shouldn’t have dragged out his old regimentals.
But having Stephen here, a witness to how much still needed to be done to restore Somers Abbey, and fighting, as always, the familiar downward spiral of grief, anger and loss—along with the temptation posed by Miss Overton—he’d craved the reassurance of donning garb that reminded him of the time when he’d first met his friend. Newly arrived in India and so sure of himself, eager to be challenged, convinced he was capable of mastering any circumstance.
Of course, he’d still been wearing this uniform when later events proved he wasn’t capable of controlling everything.
Even so, tonight he wanted to look more like the confident young officer he’d been than the overworked, always weary master of a struggling estate he’d become. And it was impossible to look less than commanding and accomplished in this brilliant, gold-braided red coat.
He wondered what Miss Overton would make of him in it. With a wisp of a smile, he recalled her tart reply during a previous conversation—‘You may be a colonel, but this is not the army and I am not your corporal.’
She still wasn’t his corporal. Would his wearing this symbol of military authority provoke her to challenge him?
Or would the appeal of the uniform—the ladies in India always assured him every man looked more handsome in a uniform—attract her and deepen the sensual connection between them?
He was warning himself that was not a result to be wished for when, a rare smile brightening his face, Mansfield opened the door. ‘Gentlemen, Miss Overton.’
The woman who stood on the threshold made his eyes widen as shock pulsed through him. If he hadn’t heard her name announced, he wasn’t sure he would have recognised this elegant creature as Somers Abbey’s dowdy, black-gowned governess.
Miss Overton glided into the room in a shimmering bronze gown that bared her shoulders, moulded over voluptuous breasts and narrowed to a small waist before billowing out in a sweep of skirt. A wisp of lace trimming teased the eye, revealing tantalising glimpses of the low décolletage and of the slender arms above her long gloves. She halted and looked up at him, her chin slightly raised, as if in challenge.
He ought to greet her and perform the introductions, but at that moment, he couldn’t utter a syllable. As her gaze met his, she drew in a sharp breath. Her expression went from wary to wondering as she inspected him from chin to boot tops, her obvious admiration sending a ripple of gratification through him. When her eyes came back to focus on his face with the same intensity that he was gazing at her, some wordless flash of sheer energy pulsed between them.
Before he could unfreeze his tongue, Stephen turned to him, his expression indignant. ‘Hugh Glendenning, you rascal! You told me Miss Overton was a lady, but you neglected to mention she was dazzling!’
His friend hastened over and bowed, then clasped the governess’s hand and brought it to his lips. ‘In such a small gathering, we need not stand on ceremony. I’m Saulter, a former army comrade of Colonel Glendenning, and I count myself his best friend. Delighted to make your acquaintance, Miss Overton!’
He wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or annoyed that Stephen’s approach to Miss Overton ended the fraught moment between them. Looking startled at first when Saulter seized her hand, she recovered quickly and dipped his friend a curtsy.
‘Very pleased to meet you, too, Mr Saulter. And good evening, Colonel. How fine you look in your uniform.’
Dropping her hand, Saulter laughed. ‘Trying to show us all up in your gilded magnificence, were you, Glendenning? Sorry, but you can’t hold a candle to the lady!’
Olivia blushed and shook her head. ‘You exaggerate shamefully, Mr Saulter.’
Before he could say more, Mansfield reappeared to announce that dinner was ready. Noting drily that Stephen immediately tucked Miss Overton’s hand on his arm to lead her in, Hugh motioned them onward. ‘Please proceed. As Saulter said, we’ll not stand on ceremony, Miss Overton.’
Once they entered the dining room, he continued, ‘Won’t you both be seated? I saw no reason for us to shout at each other from opposite ends of the table, so I had Mansfield group us all together.’
‘Allow me,’ Stephen said, pulling out a chair for her.
Hugh winced, Saulter’s action underscoring Somers Abbey’s lack of the footman who would normally have performed that service for a lady. ‘Not that we could stand on ceremony, even had I wished to. As you see, Saulter, we’re lightly staffed enough to be almost dining en famille.’
‘Dinner will be much more pleasant without having hordes of servants hovering about,’ Stephen replied graciously, making him feel a little better. ‘Goodness, Glendenning, remember all those grand dinners at durbars and cantonment dining outs? So many servers bobbing about, offering you this and that and refilling your glass, that you hardly had time to eat!’
‘Dinners in India did tend to be sumptuous—and long. Though as dining in company was our major entertainment, it needed to last a long time.’
‘Yes, and even then it was often not long enough. After the meal, and a short round of tea with the ladies, came the drinking—the real business of the evening for too many.’
‘Though the courses will be far fewer, I don’t propose that we drink each other under the table afterwards, so dinner will be the main entertainment I can offer you.’