The Secret Desires of a Governess Read Online Free PDF

liquid sloshed over the side and scalded her hand. She yanked it away and wiped it on her skirts. The pain was nothing compared with her thoughts.
    He?
    A boy?
    What was she to do with a boy? She had no experience with boys. None. Why in the all the world had they hired a governess instead of a tutor? Didn’t little boys, and heirs to earldoms, receive an education from the finest tutors and later attend the finest schools throughout En gland?
    “I did not realize I’d be teaching Lord Brendall’s son.”
    She busied her hands by smoothing her braids against her head. She’d been duped into coming here. She felt foolish.
    Naive.
    Was there a possibility that the boy was from the wrong side of the sheets? Did bastards go to the finest schools?
    She wasn’t sure since she’d never been to a school before.
    Since she’d never met a bastard before.
    “We discussed it in our correspondence.” Martha looked at her with her innocent round face, with her dark brown eyes and a heavy fist to another batch of dough.
    Abby was positive she’d never been told so. She would have remembered, and probably would have refused the job had she been given that knowledge to begin with. As soon as she retrieved her luggage, she could prove that fact.
    Yet proving she’d never been made aware she was to educate a boy would not change her mind on taking this post. She could not leave. She didn’t want to go home. She needed to make this work. If it turned out terribly, she’d advertise in the paper for another position. If she ran home to her sisters at the first hint of a problem, she’d never make the kind of life she wanted for herself.
    Not that she knew exactly what she wanted for herself.
    Maybe she was merely amusing herself till her dowry could be released to her. Maybe she wanted only to escape the love and joy that her sisters indulged so openly in. Was she jealous of her sisters?
    Oh, what an awful thought to have. She adored her sisters, and was happy that they had found loving, adoring, disgustingly smitten husbands for themselves. Oh, dear, she was jealous.
    She focused on Martha, wanting to concentrate her thoughts elsewhere, like on the fact that she’d never been told about educating a boy.
    One skill that Abby had honed well, since she liked to wager on a great many things, was that she was an accomplished liar. She’d pretend she was not caught off guard by this small quandary, despite her earlier reaction belying that fact. She was determined to have her in dependence, and Martha would not have her tucking her tail between her legs and running home. And she’d not be thrown off course after coming this far.
    “I hadn’t thought to check the stables for the boy.” Abby tapped her mouth in thought. “Speaking of stables, is there someone who can take me to the train station? I need to retrieve the rest of my belongings today. I did not mean to help myself to the clothes in the wardrobe, but the dress I wore on my trudge up to the castle is still quite damp.”
    Abby didn’t mind repeating that she’d been all but forgotten at the train station. For some reason, Martha didn’t seem to like her. Maybe given her youthful appearance, the older woman thought she’d been duped into hiring her. She’d have to prove Martha wrong.
    “Thomas will be out helping the master. They’ll be working on the west wall. Been out there most
    of the summer to fix what tumbled down some decades ago.”
    Interesting that Lord Brendall was the one maintaining the castle and not the local tradesmen. Unless he was overseeing the workers? Come to think of it, she doubted that to be the case with his brawny physique. The man was built like a laborer who worked in the fields at her sister’s home.
    She shook her head as though it would clear the unwanted thoughts. She must stop admiring her employer’s most exceptional physique.
    Martha placed the last bit of dough in a pan, clapped her hands to remove most of the fl our from them,