A Family for the Widowed Governess by Ann Lethbridge

Author:Ann Lethbridge
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2019-05-30T18:00:15+00:00

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Jack always enjoyed his dinners with Lady Marguerite. Before she came, he mostly ate from a tray in his study and often couldn’t recall what he had ingested. There was nothing extraordinary about the meals or their conversation. Indeed, it seemed ordinary in the extreme. They were polite to each other. They spoke of nothing of great import apart from his children and the issues reported in the London and local newspapers. Oddly, Lady Marguerite rarely spoke of anything personal. He knew as much about her now as he had the day she first arrived here. And yet he felt as if he knew her very well indeed.

She was a lovely, kind-hearted woman, who, while she was always calm and collected, had the shadows of sadness in her eyes.

Something inside him ached to lift her spirits He longed to make her laugh out loud with happiness. A foolish thing indeed.

He waved off the decanter of port offered by Laughton. He did not want to sit alone at the table or in his study. ‘I plan to retire.’ There would be brandy in his chamber and a cosy fire.

He rose and went upstairs, where his valet readied him for bed and left him to it.

He couldn’t help thinking about Lady Marguerite as he sipped his brandy in the armchair beside the fire. She had very decided ideas about how he should raise his daughters and wasn’t afraid to voice them.

He liked her spirit, the fact that she would care enough about his girls to try to impose her will upon him. He recalled his own boyhood. He had been free to wander the estate either with friends or by himself when he wasn’t at his lessons or being taught the duties of an earl by his father.

Part of learning those duties had been riding out with his papa and listening to him talk to his tenants. Or joining him on a hunt. Or assisting him with the ledgers. Each year his father had let him take on more and more of the responsibility for some aspect of the estate.

He’d learned by doing. And it had not been all work. They had hacked out together and, yes, he recalled several occasions where he and his papa had flown a kite.

A very fine kite, if he recalled correctly. He had not seen it for years. His mother must have put it in the attic. He would send someone to look for it in the morning.

He swirled the brandy in his glass. Better yet, he would look for it himself.

He rose and tightened the belt of his dressing gown. The stairs to the attic storage were in the other wing of the house, the old wing. The attic in this wing housed the servants and though the two wings were joined he certainly wasn’t going to go prowling around where the servants slept. That domain belonged to the butler and the housekeeper.

But there was no reason he could not see if he was right about that kite.

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