She stopped him. ‘I have very few real friends, Tristan. I hope we can persuade Mrs Ancrum to travel here. There is just time for it to be arranged. But what of your family?’
‘Mama is currently with my sister and—!’ He broke off and raked a hand through his hair. ‘Good God, Freddie! How am I going to explain to him that I have stolen you for myself?’
A little gurgle of laughter escaped her.
‘You have not stolen me at all, my lord. Freddie was well on the way to falling out of love with me before I was abducted.’ She twinkled up at him. ‘The Grishams are already in town and I think, if we can persuade them to come to the wedding and to bring Jane, you will see that your nephew’s affections are already turning elsewhere.’
‘Truly? Then I am very relieved to hear it! As I was saying, Mama, Katherine and Freddie are currently at Frimley, which is barely thirty miles from London so they will most definitely attend.’ He hesitated. ‘And what of the Pridhams?’
Natalya’s smile slipped a little.
‘As my guardians for so many years they should be invited, although I find it hard to forgive them for telling me nothing about my origins!’
‘Ah, but if Pridham had defied his instructions, I might not have thought it necessary to come to Bath and see Freddie’s mysterious Miss Fairchild.’
She looked up at him, her eyes wide with horror. ‘We might never have met! Oh, Tris, it doesn’t bear thinking of.’
‘Then don’t,’ he told her, pulling her into his arms. ‘Stop thinking and kiss me.’
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Keep reading for an excerpt from The Master’s New Governess by Eliza Redgold.
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The Master’s New Governess
by Eliza Redgold
Chapter One
‘She is near, she is near;’
—Alfred, Lord Tennyson: Maud (1855)
Cornwall, 1855—
‘Once upon a time...’
The words blurred in front of Maud Wilmot’s eyes. Before she could stop it, a tear trembled at the edge of her lashes, but she blinked it away.
With shaking fingers, she closed the book of fairy tales and laid the worn blue leather volume with its faded gilt lettering on her lap. She traced her gloved finger over the title: Fairy Tales for Children.
Even the familiar stories couldn’t comfort her.
Another tear splashed on to the blue leather.
Leaning her bonnet against the back of the leather carriage seat, she pressed her eyes shut, her shaking fingers still clutched around the book.
‘This will never do,’ she told herself, in her firmest governess voice.
One deep breath.
Then another.
She wouldn’t cry. She mustn’t. She hadn’t let herself so far, and if she started now, seated in the train carriage bearing her nearer and nearer an unknown situation—her last, desperate chance—she might never stop. She hauled a third breath from deep inside her corset as the tears threatened to overcome her.
No matter how anxious she felt, she wouldn’t let it get the better of her.
Another breath. She let the motion of the locomotive lull her. She’d always loved travelling by train, not that she did it often, but it didn’t ease her agitation. She hadn’t managed to sleep the night before, tossing and turning, worrying about what lay ahead.
What else could she do? It went against every fibre of her being, but she had no choice.
Lord Melville’s voice jeered inside her head.
No one will believe your story.
As the train rolled along the tracks, her thoughts went back to the last few dreadful weeks.
‘Oh, Maud.’ Her sister, Martha, had hugged her. ‘How is it possible you have been dismissed? You’re the best governess I know.’
‘Thank you, Martha,’ Maud choked out. ‘But I have been dismissed without pay and without references, too.’
She had applied for funds from the Governesses’ Benevolent Institution and was in lodgings; but the money wouldn’t last long.
Martha hugged her again. ‘Perhaps I can talk to Albert—you can come and live with us.’
‘Absolutely not,’ Maud had replied, even as her heart was sinking. She was running out of time. Soon she would be on the street. ‘You’re newlyweds, Martha. I have no intention of making myself a nuisance.’
‘You’d never be a nuisance,’ said Martha. ‘That’s why this is all so unfair!’
‘Unfair or not, I must find a way out of it.’ Maud knew she sounded braver than she felt, but she wasn’t going to burden Martha, not when her sister had just found happiness with Albert. And she hadn’t told Martha the full story.
She could not.
It was unspeakable.
‘What will you do now?’ Martha asked, her soft brown eyes wide and worried.
Maud bit her lip. ‘I must find another position as a governess. It will be difficult, without references. Perhaps impossible. But I have no other means of supporting myself and I love teaching children. But after what happened—’ she clenched her hands ‘—no one will employ Miss Maud Wilmot.’
It was then the idea had struck her. ‘Martha. Didn’t you tell me you had been offered a situation in Cornwall?’
Martha nodded. ‘Yes, it was before Albert proposed. I applied and it took ever so long for them to get back to me. But then I got a letter, saying that they would be pleased to employ me at Pendragon Hall.’
‘Have you written back to them?’ Maud asked, hardly daring to voice the other question that came to mind. Of course, Martha would say no and that would be that. It was an absurd idea anyway.
Martha shook the blonde ringlets on either side of her head. ‘Not yet.’
‘So they are still expecting a Miss Wilmot,’ Maud said slowly.
She
