Not Just a Governess Read Online Free PDF Page A

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 obviouslynot 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, hehad 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