Lady Midnight (8 page)

And depriving him of Mrs. Brown's rose-scented presence. Somehow, that thought was deeply disappointing.

But Mrs. Brown betrayed her thoughts not at all, remaining as serene and polite as anyone could possibly be. She nodded as he pointed out the various establishments, the modiste and the bookstore and a tea shop, and asked a few questions. Yet she didn't seem to want to jump out of the curricle and run away, which was surely a good sign.

They soon left Suddley behind and turned onto a winding, narrowing lane. The sign pointing the way to Ross Lodge drifted past, and they encountered farmers in their fields who called out greetings and doffed their hats. Mrs. Brown smiled and nodded to all of them, as gracious as a princess with her subjects.

All too soon, they moved through the open gates of Thorn Hill, passing the ivy-covered gatehouse and jolting along the treelined drive. He slowed the horse so she could get a good view of her new home. "And this is Thorn Hill, Mrs. Brown. I hope you will like it."

Thorn Hill was not like the grand country mansions of many of Michael's old friends, or like Darcy Hall, the seat of his brother's earldom. It was a working manor house, added on to as necessity dictated until the original Tudor house became a hopeless jumble of architectural styles and building materials. It could not be called elegant. But to Michael, Thorn Hill had been a refuge in the terrible time after Caroline's death. A comfortable haven where his family could heal and build a new life. He loved its strong walls, its livable rooms and overgrown gardens. It was his home.

But through the eyes of someone fresh from London, it must seem a mess. And very small and dark.

Mrs. Brown took in the house with her large, lustrous eyes. Her face remained cool and expressionless. Michael found himself almost holding his breath waiting for her reaction, as if her words would decide the fate of the world.

Finally, she looked from the house to him, a wide smile tugging at her lips. "Oh, Mr. Lindley. It is lovely! Just what I hoped for."

He felt a rush of absurd pleasure that she admired Thorn Hill, as if he had built the place with his own hands especially for her. Before he could answer, the door flew open. Christina dashed down the front steps, her long brown hair streaming behind her. Her skirts weren't muddy for once, but she did Wear a stained apron over her sprigged muslin gown.

"Michael!" she called out. Belatedly, she realized she still wore the apron, and ripped it off to shove it behind a shrub. "Here you are at last! You've been gone an age. Is this Mrs. Brown? Mother heard from one of the tenants that the post chaise driver was at the Tudor Arms talking about how his carriage crashed or something."

"Indeed, this
is
Mrs. Brown, Christina," he answered. He gave the reins to a footman and jumped down, going around to help Mrs. Brown alight. She leaned against his arm for a second to steady herself, and as it had before, her scent surrounded his senses, drew him in, beckoned to him like a siren song. He longed to draw her closer, to taste the soft skin just below her ear....

But Christina was watching, and the servants. And nothing about their situation had changed—or ever would.

Mrs. Brown stepped away from him, and he reached up to retrieve her valise. He remembered then the mysterious sapphire brooch, the secrets in Mrs. Brown's eyes.

No. Their careful situation was never likely to change.

"Mrs. Brown," he said, "this hoyden who is so obviously in need of your tutelage is my sister, Lady Christina Lindley."

"Michael!" Christina cried in protest. "How dare you call me a
hoyden?
Mrs. Brown will get the wrong impression of me right off. Perhaps
you
could do with some lessons in manners." She turned to the new governess with a polite nod. "How do you do, Mrs. Brown?"

"How do
you
do, Lady Christina?" Mrs. Brown answered, and moved away from him entirely to greet his sister. Her warmth and rose perfume were gone.

And he would have to go to work in the fields all afternoon to forget them.

Chapter 4

"And this will be your room." Thorn Hill's housekeeper, a tall, gray-haired, formidable woman in rustling black taffeta, opened a door and stepped aside. "Mrs. Brown," she added, the unspoken words "if that is indeed your true name" hovering in the air. She had been behaving in a suspicious manner ever since Kate arrived, though Kate could not see why. Perhaps the woman saw a governess as a threat to her housekeeperly authority.

Kate gave the annoying woman a cool smile, stepped past her into the room—and stopped in her tracks. "I—are you
sure
this is my room, Mrs. Jenkins?" She hated to betray any hint of uncertainty, but she just had to be sure. It would be so embarrassing if she settled in and then was told to move.

Kate had very little experience with governesses, especially English ones. Her own childhood lessons were overseen by a series of tutors and experts, and her one personal servant was more lady's maid than nursemaid. But Kate read a great deal before she embarked on this course, and she knew that governesses were not usually given accommodations like these.

For one thing, the chamber was not up in the attics, but along the same wide, carpeted corridor as the family's rooms. It was large and sunny, with tall windows, and window draperies and bed-curtains of yellow silk. A cheerful seascape hung over the polished fireplace, and a flowering plant bloomed on a windowsill, a yellow ribbon tied around its clay pot.

It was not as sumptuous as her blue satin bedroom in Venice, carefully decorated in colors meant to flatter her complexion and hair. But it was very pretty and inviting, and a veritable palace compared to her dusty little room in London.

She glanced toward the impassive housekeeper.
"Is
it meant to be my room, Mrs. Jenkins?" she asked again.

Mrs. Jenkins looked very much as if she wondered that exact same question. Her face was pinched, as if she had just bit into a lemon. "Of course. My instructions came directly from Lady Darcy. Miss Amelia's room is right next door, and you're meant to stay close to her. Through that door there is a sitting room which will be set up as your schoolroom."

"Oh," Kate said. For once in her life she was at a loss as to what the correct words might be. So the child had no proper nursery, either? Even Kate's mother's friends, with their highly unconventional lifestyles, had set up tidy little rooms far away from the lives of the grown-ups for their children. Here, the child was situated directly in the main part of the house.

Not that Kate
minded.
Oh, no. This cozy space suited her far better than some drafty garret. It just seemed too good to be true.

And usually, when something seemed that way, it was.

"I see," she murmured.

"The Lindleys are fine people," Mrs. Jenkins said tightly, doling out her words as if they were gold coins. "The finest people in the neighborhood to work for. But they are rather unusual in some respects."

Really?
Now,
that
sounded intriguing. "Indeed?" she said brightly, turning toward Mrs. Jenkins in hope of more information.

But the housekeeper obviously felt she had said quite enough. She shook her head sternly, the lace lappets of her cap quivering. "Is the room to your satisfaction, Mrs. Brown?"

"Oh, yes. It's quite lovely."

Mrs. Jenkins gave Kate's shabby valise a sour stare. "Will you be needing any assistance in unpacking?"

Oh, yes,
Kate thought wryly.
Just as soon as the wagon arrives with my twenty trunks and thirty bandboxes.
"No, thank you, Mrs. Jenkins, I'm sure I can manage. But some water for washing would be most welcome."

"I will send up one of the
under
housemaids," the housekeeper answered. With a nod, she backed quickly out of the room, her skirts rustling again with sharp disapproval.

The door clicked, and Kate was alone.

She drifted over to the small, yellow-draped dressing table and took off her bonnet, dropping it onto the table's bare surface. At home in Venice, her dressing table was littered with scent bottles, powder boxes, jewel cases, and silver-backed brushes. Here there was not a single object.

And
her hair was a windblown mess, she saw as she glimpsed herself in the oval mirror. The dark strands escaped every which way from their pins, looking like nothing so much as a bird's nest on her head.

Her mother would be appalled, Kate thought with a grin. She reached for her valise and dug out the plain new hairbrush and pin box.

So the Lindleys were
unusual,
she mused as she set about tidying her coiffure. She could well believe that. Of course, she had not yet met the Dowager Lady Darcy or little Miss Amelia, but she rather doubted many titled young English ladies dashed about wearing stained aprons and sporting dirt under their fingernails. Kate had her work cut out making a lady of
her!
But she did rather like Lady Christina. The girl had an open curiosity and intelligence that was rare in English society—and even rarer in the Venetian demimonde.

And as for Mr. Michael Lindley—well, he was not at all what she had expected.

Her hands paused in twisting her hair up in a neat knot. She was not really sure what she had been expecting. Someone older, almost fatherly, as her mother's Edward had been? A bluff, hearty country gentleman, with a red face and hunting hounds tussling at his feet? Someone pale and scholarly?

Perhaps a combination of all of those. They were sorts she had met before, and knew how to handle. Working for one of them would have been comparatively easy, expected.

She had
not
expected to find a handsome young man living out here in the wild north. A man tall and strong, with eyes like the sky, and not a hint of red bluster or pale chinlessness about him. He was the younger brother of an earl, and had the easy manners, the light flirtatiousness, of someone accustomed to living in Society. Just like her admirer Sir Julian Kirk wood.

Kate felt a sharp twist as she thought of Sir Julian—Julian, who was lost to the cold waters just as her mother was. He had also been handsome, even more handsome than Mr. Lindley, and had a similar way of joking politely, of giving admiring glances. Julian's glances, though, had a way of unpleasantly piercing through her, an air of possessiveness and need.

Mr. Lindley had something Sir Julian had not possessed. He had hidden depths of kindness in his sky-blue eyes, eyes that could look at her and see her very soul if she let him. Julian compared her always to Beatrice and Renaissance princesses, as if he did not see
her
at all. Mr. Lindley seemed like a man well acquainted with secrets and dark depths.

How she would love to know what those secrets of his were! But only if she didn't have to give up hers in return.

No, she was not expecting this when she agreed to come to Yorkshire. She was expecting something peaceful, easy, respectable.

But when had life
ever
been peaceful for Katerina Bruni? It wouldn't be for Kate Brown, either.

She would have to watch herself around Mr. Lindley, that was all. No hints of attraction, or flirtatiousness, or—

Her thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door. For one instant, she hoped—
feared
—it was him, summoned by her thoughts. Her hairbrush fell from her suddenly numb fingers, clattering onto the dressing table.

Don't be silly!
she told herself sternly.
Of course he would not be so improper as to come to the governess's chamber.

Unless it was to denounce her, to say he knew every sordid detail of her past and she had to leave immediately.

That
was silly, too. Despite the depths of his gaze, there was no way he could know the truth, unless Kate herself told him. Which she never, ever would. The past was dead. She just had to remember that.

"Come in," she called.

But of course, it was not Mr. Lindley at the door. It was not a maid sent by Mrs. Jenkins, either, but Lady Christina herself, with a large pitcher of water in her hands. She gave Kate a shy smile, so at odds with her earlier bold demeanor.

Kate well remembered what it felt like to be Christina's age. To never be sure of oneself, or one's right place in the world. She gave the girl a welcoming smile in return. "Lady Christina! Such a surprise."

"I hope I'm not interrupting, Mrs. Brown. I just saw one of the maids coming to bring you this water, and I told her I would do it."