Governess for a Week by Barbara Miller

Author:Barbara Miller [Barbara Miller]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nov. Rom
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

The next morning Frobisher’s horse was standing saddled in the stable yard when the party came out the back entrance. Wyle strode to them saying, “You will have to ride with Hill and the groom. I must go to Woolwich.”

“What has happened?”

“I just got word from Frobisher that they need my help at the military college.”

Marian felt her heart jump. “They are recalling you.”

“I can no longer pretend I am not fit for duty. I am merely to help train artillery officers and gun crews. Frobisher will be with me.”

Marian did not ask the question but it hung in the air between them like a large unanswerable gaffe. Would he go to war again? She rather thought duty would drag him there rather than the excitement but no matter. He would be gone all the same.

And that answered the other question of whether she should marry him or not.

He looked up at her and said. “They need the new ordinance now. There isn’t much time to get it ready. I shall have to do what I can. Will you take care of the children?”

She nodded but said nothing. There had never been any real choice for her, never a decision to make. Always the power was taken away from her—by the fortunes of war, by a cousin seeking to enslave her and now by a man she held dear.

After Wyle and Frobisher rode off, Hill mounted Charlotte’s hack now that her mare had arrived from Fair Oaks. The two paired off to trot abreast toward the park and Marian came again to think the shy young man would be perfect for the girl. He might be a country parson but he rode well and indulged her without patronizing her.

When they reached their favorite track, they ventured to go as fast as a jog and nothing untoward happened. After they returned to a sedate walk, Hill complimented Charlotte on her handling of the mare and Marian listened patiently to the catalogue of all the horses Henry meant to buy when he was old enough. She knew in her heart that she could not leave these two but that did not tell her whether to marry or no.

When she ran the catalog of Wyle’s flaws through her mind the only one that stood out as important was his reluctance to give up military life. Beyond her fears for him lay something else that had been festering in her heart from the time she was a child. What was it? Yes, the sure knowledge that something was more important to her father than her mother and her. So Wyle also put duty before family.

Then she thought about what a difficult choice that must be for him, especially now that he was enjoying the children. Perhaps she was the one who was being selfish. Neither man needed to have fought in the war and had done it out of what? Obligation, perhaps pride and not a little out of the need for action. But to go back into it must take all the courage a man could muster knowing what he might lose.

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