Janice Preston - The Governess's Secret Baby

There were also very compelling reasons why he would not send Grace Bertram packing. She was pleasant and she was warm-hearted. With a young child, that must be a bonus. He refused to relinquish the care and upbringing of his two-year-old niece to a strict governess who could not—or would not—show her affection. More importantly, Clara appeared to like Miss Bertram. Besides, if he was honest, there was no one else. He had no other option. He had interviewed two women whilst he was still at Ravenwell Manor, hoping to find someone immediately. Neither wanted the job. And that other woman, Miss Browne, had not even arrived for her interview.

He eyed Grace Bertram as she faced him, head high. Despite her youth, he recognised her unexpected core of steel as she threw her metaphorical gauntlet upon the ground. She wanted to stay. Her eyes shone with determination as she held his gaze.

She does not recoil at my appearance.

She had not flinched once, nor stared, nor even averted her gaze. It was as though his scars did not matter to her.

Of course they do not, you fool. You are interviewing her for the post of a governess, not a wife or a mistress.

That thought decided him. They would spend little time together, but her acceptance of his appearance was a definite point in her favour.

‘Come,’ he said. ‘I will introduce you to Mrs Sharp and she will show you around the house.’

He swung Clara up on to his shoulders, revelling in her squeal of delight, and led the way to the kitchen, awareness of the young woman following silently at his heels prickling under his skin. He needed to be alone; he needed time to adjust. By the time they reached the door into the kitchen, his nerves were strained so tight he feared one wrong word from his housekeeper or from Miss Bertram might snap them with disastrous consequences. He pushed the door wide, ducking his knees as he walked through the opening, to protect Clara’s head. Mrs Sharp paused in the act of slicing apples.

‘Was she suitable, milord?’

Miss Bertram was still behind Nathaniel; he stepped aside to allow her to enter the kitchen.

‘Yes. Mrs Sharp—Miss Bertram.’

Mrs Sharp’s lips thinned as she looked the new governess up and down. ‘Where are your shoes?’

Nathaniel felt rather than saw Miss Bertram’s sideways glance at him. He should ease her way with Mrs Sharp, but he felt the urge to be gone. Miss Bertram must learn to have no expectations of him: he had his own life to live and she would get used to hers. He lifted Clara from his shoulders, silently excusing himself for his lack of manners. She was only a governess, after all. He would be paying her wages and providing her with food and board. He need not consider her feelings.

‘I’ll leave you to show Miss Bertram the house: where she is to sleep, the child’s new quarters and so forth.’

He turned abruptly and strode from the kitchen, quashing the regret that snaked through him at the realisation of how much less he would now see of Clara. The past few weeks, although worrying and time-consuming, had also revived the simple pleasure of human company, even though Clara was only two. She’d been restless at night and he’d put her to sleep in the room next to his, needing to know someone would hear her and go to her if she cried. Although the Sharps and Alice, the young housemaid who had travelled back with him from Ravenwell, had helped, he could not expect them to care for Clara’s welfare as he did. Now, that would no longer be necessary. A suite of rooms had already been prepared for when a governess was appointed and Clara would sleep in her new room—at the far side of the house from his—tonight.

He snagged his greatcoat from a hook by the back door and shrugged into it as he strode along the path to the barns. The dogs heard him coming and milled around him, leaping, tails wagging frantically, panting in excitement.

‘Steady on, lads,’ he muttered, his agitation settling as he smoothed the head of first one, then another. His favourite, Brack—a black-and-tan hound of indeterminate breeding—shouldered his way through the pack to butt at Nathaniel’s hand, demanding attention. He paused, taking Brack’s head between his hands and kneading his mismatched ears—one pendulous and shaggy, the other a mere stump following a bite when he was a pup—watching as the dog half-closed his eyes in ecstasy. Dogs were so simple. They offered unconditional love. He carried on walking, entering the barn. Ned, his groom, emerged from the feed store at the far end.

‘Be riding, milord?’ Ned was a simple man of few words who lived alone in a loft above the carriage house.

‘Not now, Ned. How’s the mare?’

‘She’ll do.’ One of the native ponies they kept for working the sheep that grazed on the fells had a swollen fetlock.

Nathaniel entered the stall where she was tethered, smoothing a hand down her sleek shoulder and on down her foreleg.

‘Steady, lass. Steady, Peg,’ he murmured. There was still a hint of heat in the fetlock, but it was nowhere near as fiery as it had been the previous day. He straightened. ‘That feels better,’ he said. ‘Keep on with the good work. I’m off up to the mews.’

‘Right you are, milord.’

The dogs, calmer now, trotted by his side as he walked past the barn and turned on to the track that led up to the mews where he kept his birds, cared for by Tam. There was no sign of Tam, who lived in a cottage a few hundred yards further along the track with his wife, Annie. The enclosures that housed his falcons—three peregrine falcons, a buzzard, and a kestrel—came into view and Nathaniel cast a critical eye over the occupants as he approached. They looked, without exception, bright-eyed, their feathers glossy, as they sat on their perches. He had flown two of them earlier and now they were fed up and settled.

Loath to disturb the birds, he did not linger, but rounded the enclosures to enter the old barn against which they were built, shutting the door behind him to keep the dogs out. Light filtered in through gaps in the walls and the two small, unglazed windows, penetrating the gloomy interior. A flap and a shuffle sounded from the large enclosure built in one corner, where a golden eagle—a young female, they thought, owing to her size—perched on a thick branch.

The eagle had been found with a broken wing by Tam’s cousin, who had sent her down from Scotland, knowing of Nathaniel’s expertise with birds of prey. Between them, he and Tam had nursed the bird back to health and were now teaching her to fly again. Nathaniel had named her Amber, even though he knew he must eventually release her back into the wild. His other birds had been raised in captivity and would have no chance of survival on their own. Amber, however, was different and, much as Nathaniel longed to keep her, he knew it would be unfair to cage her when she should be soaring free over the mountains and glens of her homeland.

Nathaniel selected a chunk of meat from a plate of fresh rabbit on Tam’s bench, then crossed to the cage, unbolted the door, and reached inside. His soft call alerted the bird, who swivelled her head and fixed her piercing, golden eyes on Nathaniel’s hand. With a deft flick of his wrist, Nathaniel lobbed the meat to the eagle, who snatched it out of the air and gulped it down.

Nathaniel withdrew his arm and bolted the door, but did not move away. He should return to the house. He had business to deal with: correspondence to read and to write, bills to pay, decisions to make over the countless issues that arose concerning his estates. He rested his forehead against the upright wooden slats of Amber’s cage. The bird contemplated him, unblinking. At least she wasn’t as petrified as she had been in the first few days following her journey from Scotland.