Not Just a Governess Read Online Free PDF Page B

entered hisstudy a few minutes ago. So much so that the material of his pantaloons was now stretched uncomfortably tight across the throb of his swollen shaft beneath his desk.
    He stood up to try to ease that discomfort before realising what he had done and turning away to hide the evidence of his arousal, gazing out of the window into the garden at the back of his London home. ‘I do not recall making any such remark.’
    ‘You implied it when you questioned my lack of years—’
    ‘Mrs Leighton!’ Adam turned back sharply, linking his hands in front of him to hide that telltale bulge as he observed her through narrowed lids. ‘I believe we have already discussed my views regarding you making assumptions about any of my comments or actions. If I have something to say, then be assured I will not hesitate to say it. How long will it take you to make ready to leave Hawthorne House?’
    Elena stepped back with a gasp, her face paling as she raised her hand in an effort to calm her rapidly beating heart at the mere thought of being cast out alone into the world once again. ‘You are dismissing me…?’
    ‘For heaven’s sake, woman, will you stopreading meanings into my every word, meanings that are simply not there!’ Adam exploded as he scowled down the length of his aristocratic nose at her. ‘I have several things in need of my attention on my estate in Cambridgeshire, and it is my wish for you and Amanda to accompany me there.’
    ‘To Cambridgeshire?’
    He nodded tersely. ‘That is what I have just said, yes.’
    ‘Oh…’
    He flicked a black brow. ‘There is some problem with that course of action?
    It was a county in England that Elena had never visited before, but of course she had no objection to accompanying Lord Hawthorne and his daughter there.
    Not as such…
    The truth of the matter was that Elena had made a conscious decision to move to London after her grandfather had died so suddenly, and following the terrible scene with her cousin, which had occurred after the funeral.
    Her grandfather, once a soldier, had told her that the best way to hide from the enemy was in plain sight, which was the reason Elena had chosen to change her appearance as far as shewas able and adopt an assumed name, before accepting the post as governess to Amanda Hawthorne, a post that largely involved staying inside the house with her charge. Even if Neville Matthews, her cousin and abuser, and the new Duke of Sheffield, did decide to come to town, then he was unlikely to accept any but private invitations following the recent death of their grandfather.
    She did not believe that she had any acquaintances living in Cambridgeshire, but she nevertheless felt safer in the anonymity of London…
    ‘Perhaps,’ Adam continued relentlessly as he saw the uncertainty in her expression, ‘it is that you have…acquaintances, here in London, you would be reluctant to be parted from, even for a week or so…?’ Just because the woman had been widowed for almost two years, and she still wore her black clothes as a sign of her continued mourning, did not mean that she had not taken a lover during that time. Several, in fact.
    Indeed, Adam had heard it said that physical closeness was one of the things most lamented when one’s husband or wife died. Not true in his case, of course; he and Fanny had not shared so much as a brief kiss from themoment he had learnt of her first infidelity just a month after their wedding.
    But Elena Leighton was a young and beautiful woman, and she had already explained that she still wore her widow’s attire for financial reasons rather than emotional ones. It was naïve on Adam’s part to assume that she had not taken a lover. Quite when she met with that lover—perhaps on her one afternoon off a week?—he had no wish to know!
    ‘We would only be gone for a week?’ Her expression had brightened considerably.
    Irritating Adam immensely. Which was in itself ridiculous; the woman’s obvious