Julia Justiss - The Tempting Of The Governess

Despite his rage at having this charge foisted on him, he felt an inadvertent pang of sympathy for the two girls. They’d lost their own mother upon the younger child’s birth and now, so soon after the death of their father, they’d been exiled from the only home they’d ever known.

He’d have to scour his London papers tonight and find an agency to provide him a governess with all possible speed.

By now, his guests had risen, obligating him to rise as well.

‘We’ll be going now, girls,’ Mrs Allen said, kneeling to embrace the two in turn. ‘You must be as good for your new guardian as you’ve been for us.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ the two said in unison, while the older added, ‘Thank you for watching over us on the journey, Mrs Allen.’

Walking with the Allens to the door—very conscious of the two pairs of small eyes following his movements—Hugh said, ‘I wish you a safe homecoming.’

‘Very kind of you, Colonel,’ Mr Allen said. ‘We’ll be that glad to see our little stone cottage again, won’t we, my dear?’

So, with a handshake and a murmured goodbye from the wife, the Allens departed.

Hugh lingered in the doorway, but there still was no sign of an approaching housekeeper. If the damned woman didn’t show up in the next few minutes, he was going to have to escort the girls down to the kitchen himself.

Taking a deep breath, Hugh turned around, the wave of anguish that washed through him as he forced himself to look at the girls less sharp than the first time, when he’d been taken unawares. Every step a painful duty, he paced towards the children, who were still standing silently by the sofa.

Halfway there, it suddenly occurred to him that he should approach more slowly and put a smile on his face. A man as large as he was probably would look frightening, wearing the frown that usually furrowed his brow.

As disturbed as he was about this unwanted burden, the two little girls must be even more upset. Tired and hungry, probably still grieving for their Papa, feeling lost and possibly terrified at having been plucked from everything that was familiar, ferried across an ocean and deposited like an unwanted parcel on the doorstep of someone they’d never met.

He knew a little something about feeling tired, lost and grieving.

Halting before them, he knelt, bringing his face almost down to the level of theirs. Despite his attempt to make his movements as unthreatening as possible, the younger girl shrank back against her sister.

‘Elizabeth and Sophie, isn’t it?’ he asked. ‘Your papa used to come here and play with me when we were boys. I know it must look very different from home, but I hope to make you comfortable here.’

Until I can make alternative arrangements—the sooner, the better.

Adding another curse on the head of the still-absent housekeeper, he continued, ‘Shall we go to the kitchen and get you something to eat? Then Mrs Wallace, my housekeeper, will take you up to the nursery and get you settled. It hasn’t been used since my brother and I were boys, so you will have to help her make it presentable again.’

For a moment, the two simply stared at him—two pairs of large, bright blue eyes in frightened faces. Then the elder said, ‘You don’t want us either, do you?’

In a flash, he remembered how honest children were, spitting out exactly what they thought with no subterfuge. Accurate as that statement was, he didn’t mean to make the situation worse by confirming it.

‘Well, it wasn’t—ideal, sending you here unannounced, with no time for us to prepare for you, was it? But we shall all muddle through.’

‘She didn’t want us either. Madame Julienne, Papa’s new wife. She was nice to us before baby Richard came. But after...’ The child took a shuddering breath. ‘She wouldn’t even let us see Papa after he got so sick.’

His cousin had died of some tropical fever, Hugh vaguely remembered. ‘Probably because she didn’t want you to get sick, too.’

‘Papa told us you were his best cousin. That you were a brave soldier in In-dee-yah. When Madame Julienne sent us away, she said you would w-want us.’ Tears welled up in Elizabeth’s eyes and little Sophie was already soundlessly weeping.

Hugh knew he ought to embrace the girls—if they’d let him. Reassure them. But as much as he felt for their pain and loss, he couldn’t quite force himself to touch them.

So, trying to summon soothing words, he said, ‘You mustn’t be afraid. I was a soldier, just like your papa told you, so I know all about protecting. You’ll be safe here and we will look after you.’

He hadn’t done such a wonderful job of protecting his own child, he thought, another wave of anger rolling through him. But this was England, not a hot, exotic land full of poisonous plants, reptiles and dangerous diseases that could snuff out a child’s life between sunset and midnight. Though he’d sworn he’d never take responsibility for a child again, surely he could tolerate watching over them until he could turn them over to a suitable female.

At last, Mrs Wallace’s tall, austere figure appeared at the door. After rapping, she walked over to peer down at where he still knelt beside the children—whom she swept with a disapproving glance.

‘Mansfield said you wanted me, Colonel?’

Rising, Hugh bit back a sharp reply. No point taking his aggravation out on the housekeeper, even though he knew Mansfield would have already told her about the Allens and what had transpired in the library. Hugh had no doubt she knew full well what he wanted.

‘Mrs Wallace, may I present Elizabeth and Sophie Glendenning, my late cousin’s daughters. They are to be staying with us at Somers Abbey for a time. They’ve had a long journey and, I’m sure, could do with some bread and soup before they go up to bed. Take them to the kitchen, please, and see to them.’

The housekeeper’s gaze swept from the huddled children back to Hugh. ‘I don’t deal with children, Colonel.’

The last of his patience unravelling, Hugh snapped, ‘Well, you’re going to have to, at least until I can hire a governess. See them fed and settled in, at once!’

‘Very well.’ Glowering, the housekeeper curtsied to him. ‘Come along, children.’

Though Hugh didn’t much like turning the girls over to a cold stick like Mrs Wallace, his skeleton-staffed bachelor household didn’t offer many alternatives.

He’d write to a hiring agency at once. Fortunately, Robert had left ample funds for his children’s care, so Hugh could demand their most superior candidate and pay extra to have her travel by private coach, so she might arrive at Somers Abbey with all possible speed.

It was the best he could do, under the circumstances. Stalking back to his desk, he flung himself into the chair, noting grimly that his hands were trembling. Doubtless from the shock of having a raw wound ripped open. Drawing in a shaky breath, he took out the bottle of Scotch and poured himself a full glass.

Slightly more than a week later, as the evening shadows blurred the view from her coach window, Olivia craned her neck to catch a glimpse of her new employer’s residence. ‘Somers Abbey’, she’d read on the note of introduction the agency had given her—and the pile of grey stone she could just perceive in the hazy distance certainly looked the part of a medieval manor wrenched from the grip of a religious community by a greedy monarch.

She had to shiver, just looking at it. Not a very welcoming appearance. Perhaps the two orphaned girls she had been sent to care for found it a place of wonders, with priest’s holes to hide in and long, rambling corridors to run through.

She’d never been around children much. Stirring uneasily, she hoped they would get along.