Elisabeth Fairchild Read Online Free PDF Page A

time to insist Felicity must not stick her head out . He told her yes he meant to go and see if dear Miss Deering meant to come with them. He turned away to find his subject watched them from the arch of the entryway--her gaze fixed on them--measuring him--as Penny had measured him that day he rode toward her across the lonely fells--the empty fells.
    Penny, pretty Penny,” he had said. “You wanted me?”
    He had twisted the words, her reason for coming to see him.
    She had looked about uneasily, at the empty road, afraid, as he had never meant to make her fear him--as this governess feared him. So pale she looked in unremarkable black wool. A cape. A bonnet. She carried a heavy, well-stuffed valise in each hand.
    Through the soft fall of rain he went to her, the question on his lips silenced by the question in her eyes, so solemn that gaze, so serious.
    “Is this everything?” he asked, assuming she meant to join them.
    She glanced toward the dark, motionless coach, then to his own mud-splattered vehicle, where Felicity sat, nose pressed to glass.
    She drew herself up, clutching the bags fiercely, the angry resolve in her eyes outshining the mist of rain that beaded the edge of her bonnet.
    “He wanted more than a governess, my lord.”
    But of course he did .
    “Do you?”
    So fierce the look in her eyes, the hard edge to her voice.
    “I will turn you down as soundly as he if . . .”
    He stopped her with a look, the slightest gesture, knowing her fear, knowing what she had heard of him, why she stood searching his eyes with the frozen stance of a trapped rabbit.
    “I made the mistake once, Miss Deering,” he said carefully, gently, afraid that with a single wrong word or gesture she might bolt. “--of assuming the dreadful gossip I had heard in connection with a young woman of my acquaintance was true.”
    She blinked, digesting this.
    “I hope you will not refuse this position assuming all the dreadful gossip you have heard in connection with me is also true,” he said.
    She studied his face as if she might read his history there, the trustworthiness of his character. The demons within.
    A good thing she could not hear the chorus of women in his head, the women of his past. Penny had seen the good in him, but the bad had drawn so many other women--flies to honey.
    He studied this prim, rather aloof tabby-cat of a governess, unblinking, wondering if curiosity might draw her to him, wondering what his life might have been like had he always played the role of gentleman, no danger posed to any of the skirts he so skillfully lifted.
    He had resolved to learn the difference, for his daughter’s sake--for his own.
    She asked, “Where in Wales do you mean to go, my lord?”
    He schooled his features, reluctant to reveal the sudden surge of hope that welled within.
    “St. David’s. Do you know it?”
    She shook her head, still doubtful, still confused. He felt a pang of pity and regret for all the women he had confused throughout the course--or was it the curse?--of his life.
    “A friend of King Arthur, was he not? St. David?”
    How much the governess she sounded. How like a lost child she glanced at Palmer’s coach.
    “Patron saint of Wales,” he said.
    She dragged her gaze away. “Why there?”
    He looked up, at dragons spitting rain, and remembered the sun, the warmth, the difference within himself, the sound of his father’s voice, the carefree innocence of early childhood, seashells in a bucket, sand between his toes, the rush of the tide.
    “I’ve fond memories. Of the sea. The islands. Seals. Shells. Gannets by the score.”
    Something changed in her eyes. She seemed, in some way to see him for the first time, to see part of him that longed to be recognized, that part that clung to innocence, to childhood, to seashells in a bucket. It startled him, her delving look. He had not expected it.
    He tipped his head, closing his eyes, seeing it in his mind. “There is an island . . . where they nest.”