So Enchanting Read Online Free PDF

value.

    “There is no possible way anyone would willingly put an impressionable child in my care,” she murmured. Looking up to find Colonel Chase’s gaze on her, she added, “You should look elsewhere for your daughter ’s companion.”

    He studied her intently for a few moments before his expression relaxed. “I think not,” he said. “I long ago discovered that experience is the best teacher. You have had experiences that can help guide my daughter. Imagine, Mrs. Walcott, if you had had the benefit of your current knowledge at Amelie’s age. What would you do differently?”

    Never, ever allow anyone to know what I am .

    He saw her indecision. “You will be well compensated, I assure you. I am a very wealthy man, and when your term of employment is ended, you will have the wherewithal to do whatever you want with the rest of your life. Come now, Mrs. Walcott. You are still a very young woman. Barely a decade older than my daughter. Think of your future.”

    She was, but she also was thinking of Amelie Chase’s future. “Colonel Chase, you cannot want your daughter’s prospects tainted through an association with me.”

    “Bah.” He waved his hand dismissively. “Give London a new sensation and you will be forgotten. Why, in a few years no one will even recall your name. Time will have its way, Mrs. Walcott. I guarantee it. I’m counting on it. Come, my dear. Name your price.”

    A few years? How dearly Fanny would like to have a reprieve from her past. Some time to figure out her options. Time to start again. She was still young. Barely twenty-one.

    She hesitated. Colonel Chase’s proposal had planted a seed of hope in her heart. If he agreed to her price.

    “I tell you what,” he cajoled. “Give me your terms and I’ll consider them while we go meet Amelie. If, having met my daughter, you decide you won’t suit, then that’s the end of it. That’s fair, isn’t it?”

    She nodded.

    “Now, tell me what it is you want.” His eyes were kindly interested, but there was a resolute determination there, too. He would have his way. “Anything. You have but to name it.”

    “A clean slate.”

    He blinked, then grinned broadly. “My dear, as far as I’m concerned the past few years never happened.”

    “No. I mean, a clean slate to present to the world. Should I agree, from this day on I am an unremarkable woman without a hint of anything unusual in my past. No one is to know to whom I was wed, my maiden name, or any part of my history other than that which I, and I alone, choose to disclose.” The waiter came over to replenish their coffee. She waited until he’d left before continuing.

    “So that if I accept your offer, when the time comes for us to part, I shall have established an identity that begins today, as . . . ” She hesitated, making it up as she went along. “As the widow of one of your junior officers, Fanny Walcott. Francesca Burns, your neighbor ’s fey child, will be no more.”

    “Done!” he agreed, slapping his palm against the table. “You’ll find Amelie a most discreet child.”

    She shook her head, holding his gaze. “The list of those exempt from knowing my past includes your daughter.” She would not set herself up as some sort of mystical mentor, some Merlin in modern dress. If she were to have any chance for a normal existence, she must start now to re-create herself as a normal woman. She must be a normal woman.

    He frowned. “But that will defeat the entire purpose of retaining you,” he argued. “If she doesn’t know that you share a similar condition to her own, how can you help her understand it?”

    “I won’t because I can’t. Colonel Chase, you have been forthright with me. I will be equally so with you. I have no understanding of why animals respond to me. You want the advice that comes from experience? Your daughter should not seek to comprehend this thing that besets her, but ignore it and focus instead on those things she has