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‘Yes?’
‘I make it a point of principle never to dally with married ladies,’ Royston declared.
His meaning was not lost on Adam as he answered cautiously. ‘That is a very good principle to have.’
‘I believe so, yes.’ The other man met Adam’s gaze briefly, meaningfully, before nodding to him in farewell, pausing only to briefly greet several acquaintances as he made his way out of the club.
Leaving Adam to mull over the predicament of how best to avoid his own grandmother’s machinations and to consider his unexpected, and totally inappropriate fantasy earlier regarding Elena Leighton’s sensuously plump lips and the uses they might be put to!
Elena assured herself of the neatness of her appearance one last time before knocking briskly on the door of her employer’s private study, having received the summons in the nursery a short time ago, delivered by Barnes, requesting she join Lord Hawthorne downstairs immediately.
‘Come.’
To say Elena was nervous about the reason for Lord Hawthorne’s summons would be putting it mildly—the sudden tension that had sprung up between them yesterday, and their unfinished conversation, were both still very much in her mind. She had no idea what she would say to him if, as she had suggested, he had decided to check her fake references and somehow found them wanting.
She did not see how he could have done so, when she had been so careful in her choice of an alias, her acquaintance with the Bambury family allowing her to write as accurate a reference as possible, considering she was not really Mrs Leighton. But that did not stop Elena from now chewing worriedly on her bottom lip. If Hawthorne chose to dismiss her—
‘I said come, damn it.’ There was no mistaking the impatient irritation in his lordship’s voice.
Elena’s cheeks felt flushed as she opened the door and stepped gingerly into a room lined with bookcases halfway up the mahogany-panelled walls, with several original paintings above them, and a huge mahogany desk dominating the room.
At least…it would have been the dominating feature of the study if the gentleman seated behind that desk had not so easily taken that honour for himself!
Tall and broad-shouldered in a superfine of the same dark grey as his eyes over a paler-grey waistcoat, his linen snowy white, the neckcloth at his throat arranged meticulously, his stylish hair dark as a raven’s wing above that austerely handsome face, Lord Adam Hawthorne effortlessly filled the room with his overwhelming presence.
But it was a presence that Elena did not find in the least frightening, as she did so many other men following her cousin Neville’s cruelty to her. Indeed, Adam Hawthorne, despite—or because of?—his air of detachment, was a man who inspired trust rather than fear…
His mouth thinned disapprovingly as he leant back his chair. ‘Did you have some difficulty just now in understanding my invitation to enter?’
‘No. I—’ She breathed out softly through her teeth before straightening her shoulders determinedly. ‘No, of course I did not,’ she answered more strongly. ‘I merely paused before entering in order to…to adjust my appearance.’ It took all of her considerable self-will to withstand that critical gaze as it swept over her slowly, from the neat and smoothly styled bun at her nape, the pallor of her face, down over the black of her gown, to the toes of her black ankle boots peeking out from beneath the hem of that gown, before once again returning to her now-flushed and discomforted face.
He observed her coolly. ‘Might I enquire why it is you still choose to wear your widow’s weeds when your husband died almost two years ago?’
Elena was visibly taken aback by the directness of his question. Nor did she intend—or, in the circumstances, was able—to explain that she chose to wear black out of respect for the death two months ago of her beloved grandfather, George Matthews, the previous Duke of Sheffield!
He raised a dark brow. ‘Perhaps it is that you loved your husband so much that you still mourn his loss?’
‘Or perhaps it is that I am simply too poor to be able to replace my mourning gowns with something more frivolous?’ Elena felt stung into replying as she easily heard the underlying scepticism in his derisive tone.
Adam eyed her thoughtfully. ‘If that should indeed be the situation, would it not have been prudent to ask me for an advance on your wages?’
Elena’s eyes widened. ‘I trust you are not about to insult me further by suggesting I might use your money with which to purchase new gowns, my lord?’
Adam frowned his irritation with this young woman’s prickliness. He tried to not remember Royston had accused him of having the very same fault only yesterday evening…
Adam owed his own withdrawal from society to the adulterous behaviour of his deceased wife. His fierce pride would not allow him to relax his guard when in the company of the ton. Elena Leighton’s surliness also appeared to be a matter of pride, but in her case, it was pride over her lack of finances. ‘It would be money you have earned in taking care of Amanda,’ he pointed out calmly.
‘Except, as I suggested might be the case yesterday, I believe you may be dissatisfied with my services…?’
Damn it, Adam wished she would not use such words as that!
The word ‘service’ once again conjured up images of this woman performing all manner of intimacies he would rather not be allowed to distract him at this moment…
Adam found had already been distracted—and aroused—enough already by the pretty pout of her reddened lips when she entered his study a few minutes ago. So much so that the material of his pantaloons was now stretched uncomfortably tight across the throb of his swollen shaft beneath his desk.
He stood up to try to ease that discomfort before realising what he had done and turning away to hide the evidence of his arousal, gazing out of the window into the garden at the back of his London home. ‘I do not recall making any such remark.’
‘You implied it when you questioned my lack of years—’
‘Mrs Leighton!’ Adam turned back sharply, linking his hands in front of him to hide that telltale bulge as he observed her through narrowed lids. ‘I believe we have already discussed my views regarding you making assumptions about any of my comments or actions. If I have something to say, then be assured I will not hesitate to say it. How long will it take you to make ready to leave Hawthorne House?’
Elena stepped back with a gasp, her face paling as she raised her hand in an effort to calm her rapidly beating heart at the mere thought of being cast out alone into the world once again. ‘You are dismissing me…?’
‘For heaven’s sake, woman, will you stop reading meanings into my every word, meanings that are simply not there!’ Adam exploded as he scowled down the length of his aristocratic nose at her. ‘I have several things in need of my attention on my estate in Cambridgeshire, and it is my wish for you and Amanda to accompany me there.’
‘To Cambridgeshire?’
He nodded tersely. ‘That is what I have just said, yes.’
‘Oh…’
He flicked a black brow. ‘There is some problem with that course of action?
It was a county in England that Elena had never visited before, but of course she had no objection to accompanying Lord Hawthorne and his daughter there.
Not as such…
The truth of the matter was that Elena had made a conscious decision to move to London after her grandfather had died so suddenly, and following the terrible scene with her cousin, which had occurred after the funeral.
Her grandfather, once a soldier, had told her that the best way to hide from the enemy was in plain sight, which was the reason Elena had chosen to change her appearance as far as she was able and adopt an assumed name, before accepting the post as governess to Amanda Hawthorne, a post that largely involved staying inside the house with her charge. Even if Neville Matthews, her cousin and abuser, and the new Duke of Sheffield, did decide to come to town, then he was unlikely to accept any but private invitations following the recent death of their grandfather.
She did not believe that she had any acquaintances living in Cambridgeshire, but she nevertheless felt safer in the anonymity of London…
‘Perhaps,’ Adam continued relentlessly as he saw the uncertainty in her expression, ‘it is that you have…acquaintances, here in London, you would be reluctant to be parted from, even for a week or so…?’ Just because the woman had been widowed for almost two years, and she still wore her black clothes as a sign of her continued mourning, did not mean that she had not taken a lover during that time. Several, in fact.
Indeed, Adam had heard it said that physical closeness was one of the things most lamented when one’s husband or wife died. Not true in his case, of course; he and Fanny had not shared so much as a brief kiss from the moment he had learnt of her first infidelity just a month after their wedding.
But Elena Leighton was a young and beautiful woman, and she had already explained that she still wore her widow’s attire for financial reasons rather than emotional ones. It was naïve on Adam’s part to assume that she had not taken a lover. Quite when she met with that lover—perhaps on her one afternoon off a week?—he had no wish to know!
‘We would only be gone for a week?’ Her expression had brightened considerably.
Irritating Adam immensely. Which was in itself ridiculous; the woman’s obvious eagerness not to be parted from her lover for any length of time was of absolutely no consequence or interest to him. ‘Approximately,’ he qualified. ‘At the moment, the exact length of time I will need to stay in Cambridgeshire is undecided.’ Mainly because Adam felt a certain inner discomfort about this departure for Cambridgeshire at all.
It was true that there were several matters there in need of his attention, but he had no doubts they were matters he could have settled by the sending of a letter to his man who managed the estate in his absence. His decision to visit the estate in person had more to do with his conversation with Royston last night, than any real urgency to deal with those matters himself.
Not because Adam was in any real fear of his grandmother being successful in her endeavours to procure him a suitable wife—that, he had vowed long ago, would never happen!—but because, much as his grandmother might irritate him on occasion, he did have a genuine affection for her, and as such he had no wish to hurt her. Like Royston, removing himself from London, far away from his relative’s machinations, seemed the best way for him to avoid doing that.
However, he could not avoid having dinner at Lady Cecily’s home this evening, when no doubt a suitable number of eligible young ladies would be produced for his approval—or otherwise, as he absolutely knew would be the case!—but as it would also give Adam the opportunity of telling his grandmother in person of his imminent departure for Cambridgeshire, he was willing to suffer through that particular inconvenience.
He frowned as he saw the look of consternation on the governess’s face. ‘I repeat, is there some objection to your travelling into Cambridgeshire with myself and Amanda?’
Elena drew herself up stiffly. ‘No, of course there is not. And to answer your earlier question, I can have my own and Amanda’s things packed and ready for departure in a matter of hours.’
Adam gave a tight smile. ‘It is not necessary that you be quite so hasty,’ he drawled. ‘I have a dinner engagement this evening. First thing tomorrow morning will be quite soon enough. I trust that will give you sufficient time in which to…inform any relatives and friends that you are to be absent from Town for the next week?’
‘Approximately.’
‘Indeed,’ he conceded drily.
The only relative Elena had left in the world was Neville and the moment he learnt of her whereabouts he would no doubt call for her immediate arrest!
And Elena had decided at the onset that the less she involved her friends in her current unhappy situation—and she did have several who still believed in her innocence—the better it would be for them.
She necessarily had to accept a small amount of financial help from her closest friend, Lizzie Carlton, after fleeing the duke’s estate in Yorkshire in late February, and she had also informed Lizzie by letter that she had safely reached London and secured suitable lodgings. But Elena could not, in all conscience, allow her friend to become embroiled in this situation any further than that.
Indeed, she had resolved to completely become the widowed Mrs Elena Leighton, a schooled young lady who had fallen on hard times since her husband’s untimely death. As she must, if she were to be successful in her endeavour of hiding in full view of the populace of England’s capital; it was sad, but true, that the ton rarely noticed the existence of the people whom they employed, let alone those employed by the other members of England’s aristocracy.
‘There is no one whom I would wish to inform, my lord,’ she answered her employer coolly. ‘If I might be allowed to return to the schoolroom now?’
‘Of course.’
‘Thank you, my lord.’
Adam tapped his cheek thoughtfully as he watched her quietly exit the study before closing the door behind her, irritated at the realisation that she had once again avoided revealing anything about herself or her connections. As she was perfectly entitled to do, he allowed; her family connections, or even her romantic ones, had been of no significance to him at the commencement of her employment with him, and they should not be of any import now.
Except he could not prevent himself from wondering—despite her denial of the need for her to inform anyone of her imminent departure for Cambridgeshire—as to which gentleman might currently be the lucky recipient of the ministrations of those full and sensuous lips…
Chapter Four (#ulink_917a6f91-e92d-52c7-84b8-ca82e4524c20)
‘She is merely ill from travelling in the carriage.’ Elena looked up at Adam apologetically as he opened the door of the carriage just in time for Amanda to lean out and be violently sick on his black, brown-topped Hessians already covered in dust from where he had ridden on horseback all day beside the carriage. ‘Oh, dear.’ Elena moved forwards on her seat to help her distressed charge down the steps on to the cobbled courtyard of the inn they were to stay in for the night, cuddling Amanda against her before turning her attention to those now ruined boots. ‘Perhaps—’
‘Perhaps if you had informed me of Amanda’s discomfort earlier it would not have come to this.’ Adam glowered down at her.
Elena gasped her incredulity at an accusation she believed completely unfair. ‘Amanda was perfectly all right until a short time ago and has only found this last few bumpy miles something of a trial. Also, my lord, as you had ridden on ahead I could not inform you of anything…’
‘Yes. Yes,’ Adam snapped, waving his hand impatiently. ‘I suggest you take Amanda upstairs to our rooms while I speak to the innkeeper about organising some water to be brought up for her bath.’
Elena kept her arm about the now quietly sobbing Amanda. ‘And some food, my lord. Some dry bread and fresh water will perhaps settle Amanda’s stomach before bedtime.’
‘Of course.’ Adam turned his attention away from his ruined boots to instead look down at his distressed daughter. Amanda’s face was a pasty white, her eyes dark and cloudy smudges of blue in that pallor, her usually lustrous gold hair damp about her face. Nor had her own clothing escaped being spattered, her little shoes and hose in as sorry a state as his boots. ‘There, there, Amanda, it is not the end of the world—You are soiling your clothing now, Mrs Leighton,’ he warned sharply as Elena ignored the results of Amanda’s nausea, moving down on her haunches beside the little girl and gently wiping the tears from her face with her own lace-edged handkerchief.
‘My clothes are of no importance at this moment, sir.’ Her eyes flashed up at him in stormy warning, before she returned her attention to the cleansing of Amanda’s face, murmuring soft assurances to the little girl.
Adam clamped down on his feelings of inadequacy. ‘I was merely pointing out—’
‘If you will excuse us?’ She straightened, obvious indignation rolling off her in waves. ‘I should like to see to Amanda’s needs before considering my own.’
A praiseworthy sentiment, Adam admitted as he stood in the courtyard and watched her walk away, her back ramrod straight as she entered the inn, her arms about Amanda.
Except for the fact that he knew that parting comment had been made as a deliberate set down for what she perceived as his lack of concern for his young daughter…
A totally erroneous assumption for her to have made; Adam knew his behaviour to be yet another example of his own lack of understanding in how to relate to a six-year-old girl, rather than the lack of concern Elena Leighton had assumed it to be. No excuse, of course, but Adam had no idea how to even go about healing the distance which seemed to yawn wider with each passing day between himself and Amanda.
Nor had the governess’s anger towards him abated in the slightest, Adam realised an hour or so later when she joined him for dinner in the private parlour of the inn, as he had requested when the maid went to deliver food and drink to Amanda. her eyes sparkled a deep and fiery green-blue as she swept into the room, with a deep flush to her cheeks and her whole demeanour, in yet another of those dratted black gowns, one of bristly disapproval and resentment—the former no doubt still on Amanda’s behalf, the resentment possibly due to the peremptory instruction to join him for dinner.
‘Would you care for a glass of Madeira, Mrs Leighton…?’ Adam attempted civility. Bathed and dressed in clean clothes and a fresh pair of boots, he felt far more human; he tried not to think about the fact that his man Reynolds was probably upstairs even now, crying as he attempted to salvage the first pair!
‘No, thank you.’
‘Then perhaps you would prefer sherry or wine?’
She looked at him coolly. ‘I do not care for strong liquor at all.’
Adam frowned. ‘I do not believe any of the refreshments I offered can be referred to as “strong liquor”.’
‘Nevertheless…’
‘Then perhaps we should just sit down and eat?’ He could barely restrain his frustration with her frostiness as he moved forwards to politely pull back a chair for her.
‘I had expected to dine in my bedchamber with Amanda,’ she stated.
‘And I would prefer that you dine here with me,’ he countered, looking pointedly towards the chair.
She frowned as she stepped forwards. ‘Thank you.’ She sat rigidly in the chair, her body stiff and unyielding, ensuring that her spine did not come into contact with the back of the chair.
Adam gave a rueful grimace as he moved around the table and took his own seat opposite her, waiting until the innkeeper himself had served their food—a thick steaming stew accompanied by fresh crusty bread—before speaking again. ‘Should I expect to be subjected to this wall of ice throughout the whole of dinner, or would you perhaps prefer to castigate me now and get it over with?’ He quirked one dark brow enquiringly.
‘Castigate you, my lord?’ She kept her head bowed as she studiously arranged her napkin across her knees.
Adam gave a weary sigh. ‘Mrs Leighton, I am a widower in my late twenties, with no previous experience of children, let alone six-year-old females. As such, I admit I know naught of how to deal with the day-to-day upsets of my young daughter.’
Elena slowly looked up to consider him across the table, ignoring his obvious handsomeness for the moment—difficult as that might be when he looked so very smart in a deep-blue superfine over a beige waistcoat—and instead trying to see the man he described. There was no disputing the fact that he was a widower in his late twenties. But Lord Adam Hawthorne was also a man whom senior politicians were reputed to hold in great regard, a man who ran his estates and a London household without so much as blinking an eye; it was impossible to think that such a man could find himself defeated by the needs of a six-year-old girl.
Or was it…?
He was a man who preferred to hold himself aloof from society. From all emotions. Why was it so impossible to believe he found it difficult to relate to his young daughter?
Some of the stiffness left Elena’s spine. ‘I think you will find that six-year-old young ladies have the same need to be loved as the older ones, my lord.’
He frowned. ‘“Older ones”, Mrs Leighton…?’
She became slightly flustered under that icy gaze. ‘I believe most ladies are desirous of that, yes, my lord.’
‘I see.’ His frown deepened. ‘And are you questioning my ability to feel that emotion, Mrs Leighton?’
‘Of course not.’ Elena gasped softly.
‘Then perhaps It is only my affection for my daughter you question…?’
