A Lady Becomes a Governess by Diane Gaston

Author:Diane Gaston [Gaston, Diane]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2018-04-13T18:27:32+00:00

Chapter Twelve

Garret felt like another person walked in his skin. From the moment Lady Agnes stepped from the carriage, he’d felt like an automaton, going through the motions. He’d walked Lady Agnes and her companion, an adoring aunt, into the house and called for Mrs Dodd to make rooms ready for them and serve them tea in the drawing room. All the while, his spirit was with Miss Tilson, wanting to explain that he hadn’t known Lady Agnes was coming, that he would have warned her had he known.

Lady Agnes kept up enough chatter that he needed only to nod or speak one or two words.

Mrs Dodd readied Garret’s sister-in-law’s room. He trusted the housekeeper would remove Maryanne’s personal items, items he must save for his nieces.

When the room was ready, he parted from Agnes and went to his room to change for dinner. He’d still had the mud from the shearing on his boots and bits of sheep’s wool clung to his buckskin breeches. No doubt she’d been appalled.

As Brant dressed him, his mind whirled. Why had Lady Agnes come? The trip from London was a journey of at least five days in a private coach. She’d made it clear she disliked travel. He’d never expected she would make such a journey.

Garret hurried down the stairs and knocked at his sister-in-law’s bedchamber door.

Lady Agnes’s maid answered.

‘Come in, Brookmore, dear,’ Lady Agnes trilled. ‘I am almost ready.’

She sat at the dressing table putting sapphire earrings in her ears. She wore a blue-silk gown and looked as if she’d be gracing a London dining room.

He remained standing.

‘This room is charming,’ she went on. ‘All this oak wainscoting quite transports me to an earlier era.’

‘Most of the house is panelled in oak,’ he said.

‘It is quaint, is it not?’ She rose from her chair. ‘Aunt Theodora will not be joining us. She is very fatigued.’ She took his arm. ‘So it is just you and me.’

His insides plummeted. What about Miss Tilson?

When he and Lady Agnes reached the dining room, Miss Tilson was not there and the table was set only for two. But for which two? For him and Lady Agnes? Or him and Miss Tilson?

Agnes surveyed the room. ‘Now I do feel transported. Spanish leather wall covering!’

The wall covering had been on these walls since the sixteenth century.

* * *

Lady Agnes managed to keep conversation flowing throughout dinner, even though he could offer few words and his eyes kept wandering to the door wondering if Miss Tilson would appear, wondering why she had not.

She finally asked something about him. ‘Tell me, Brookmore, what has been occupying you here?’

It took him a moment to focus his thoughts enough to answer. ‘Estate business.’

She pressed for more. Why not answer her? If he were to share his life with her, why not tell her how he’d spent his time. At least some of his time.

‘I’ve been meeting with the tenants and the workers, asking their needs, taking their complaints and planning to address them.

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