The Governess Was Wicked Read online

  The woman he had deduced was Mrs. Salver frowned. “She took on a new position as a lady’s companion.”

  From governess to lady’s companion. He could almost breathe easier knowing that at least she had a place to live and an income. Almost—for she should never have had to worry about finding a new position in the first place.

  “Mrs. Salver, can you tell me whom she works for now?”

  He could feel a dozen pairs of eyes narrow as the ladies in the room watched him quite openly. He didn’t blame them. It couldn’t have been every day that a man came crashing into their pale-peach tearoom trimmed with eyelet curtains and demanded to know where one of the patrons resided.

  “I’m not in the business of speaking about my patrons to strangers,” said Mrs. Salver, drawing herself up to her full height.

  This was not going at all to plan. He could see the future with Elizabeth he’d dared to imagine slipping away. “I wronged the lady. I must make amends.”

  Mrs. Salver’s eyes narrowed to slits. “If you wronged her, why should I tell you anything at all?”

  “Because I love her,” he said.

  For a moment he thought he had her, but the proprietress shook her head. “I’m sorry, sir. You’re welcome to come back on Wednesday to see if Miss Porter is here, but I’ll not have you bothering her if she has no wish to see you.”

  Edward’s hands balled up into fists around the brim of his hat, and he fought to keep his composure. He didn’t want to wait until Wednesday. Elizabeth needed to hear what he had to say yesterday. Three weeks ago. Three years ago.

  And yet Mrs. Salver would brook no protest.

  Frustrated, Edward bit out as polite a good-bye as he could muster and pushed out to the street, leaving behind him only the jangle of the bells above the doors.

  He would find her. He had to find her. He just didn’t know how he would achieve it before Wednesday.

  He was halfway down the block when he heard a shout behind him. He turned and saw a young woman wearing a flour-covered apron racing after him.

  “Sir!” she exclaimed as he came to a stop. “Sir, I know where she is!”

  His heartbeat quickened. “You do?”

  “You really love her?” she asked.

  Just as he understood the bones of the human body and the way that the blood circulated through the veins, he knew that he loved Elizabeth. She might still reject him, punishing him for the time he’d stayed away—or even because she didn’t favor him—but he would not back down without telling her that he loved her. She needed to hear it just as much as he needed to say it.

  “More than anything in the world.”

  “Good,” said the girl. “I’m glad to hear it, because she was so very unhappy about something the other day, and I can only assume that you were it.”

  It had better be me. The possessive thought gripped him, warming him through and through.

  “I overheard her tell the other ladies that she’s taken a position with Lady Crosby. They were talking about her very grand house on Eaton Square when I was pouring.”

  This young blond girl had to be heaven-sent. He clasped the girl’s hands and laughed. “Thank you.”

  The girl cocked her head to one side. “They spoke of you. She seemed to miss you.”

  He thanked her again and watched her race back to the tea shop before jumping into his third cab that day. He told the driver to speed to Belgravia. There was a woman whose good favor he needed to win back. And then maybe—just maybe—he could convince her to give love a chance.

  The bell jangled just before two in the afternoon. Elizabeth and Lady Crosby looked up at the same time. In the short week they’d been together, they’d fallen into stride with one another, and it seemed more often than not that they did things in tandem.

  Elizabeth shot Lady Crosby a look, and the lady said, “If that’s Sandon, he’s far too early for his weekly visit. If he’s going to insist on seeing that my health is woefully robust, I wish he would do so at a consistent time.”

  Elizabeth strained to hear the sound of the outer door opening and closing. Then came the soft pad of Gardner’s shoes as he came into the room carrying the silver tray on which he delivered Lady Crosby her visitors’ cards. “A Dr. Fellows, madam.”

  Elizabeth’s blood went cold. Dr. Jesup tended to Lady Crosby. That must mean . . .

  “I’m not acquainted with a Dr. Fellows,” said Lady Crosby with a frown at the cream-colored card on the tray. Then she glanced at Elizabeth. “Do you know a Dr. Fellows?”

  “I do,” she said, her voice remarkably level for all that her body threatened to shake. “He was the Nortons’ family doctor when I was governess to their daughters.”

  Lady Crosby’s eyes narrowed, but rather than inquire further she simply said, “Then I suppose you must show him up, Gardner.”

  Elizabeth’s hands clasped in her lap as she fought the warring emotions that ruled her every day. She wanted to believe that he’d come after her, but at the same time she couldn’t help the hint of doubt that stirred in her stomach. He hadn’t told her of his affection or made it known that he believed her to be anything other than a diversion from the regular grind of his day. True, she hadn’t felt as though the doctor believed she was just some light-skirt he could toy with. Yet he’d left the Nortons’ house after trying to save her position, saying nothing of his affection for her. Surely if he felt anything real for her, he would’ve told her.

  The door opened again, and there he was. Edward seemed to fill the room, commanding respect rather than demanding it. His short black hair was brushed perfectly from his brow, and she wished she could muss it just as she’d done weeks ago in those intimate moments she would never forget even if she wanted to.

  His hair was making her miserable. What was wrong with her?

  “Lady Crosby,” said Edward with a sharp bow.

  “Dr. Fellows, I don’t know that we have been introduced.”

  The faintest hint of a smile touched his lips. “You must forgive me for such a breach of etiquette. I have a rather pressing matter I must speak to Miss Porter about.”

  “Well,” said Lady Crosby, absentmindedly tapping the staff of her cane with her nail. “You certainly wouldn’t mind sharing it with me as well. I couldn’t in good conscience allow a gentleman I don’t know to speak with my companion unattended. It wouldn’t be proper. Besides, what if you upset her? I need Miss Porter at the very sharpest wit so that she can help me in dealing with these wretched relatives of mine.”

  Edward appeared pained as he looked at Elizabeth for the first time since he walked into the room. Her breath caught in her throat, but she forced herself to remain still.

  “Elizabeth—”

  “You’re rather familiar, sir,” observed Lady Crosby.

  His eyes never left Elizabeth’s face. “That’s because I love her.”

  He loved her. Edward Fellows, brilliant physician, loved her. It was all too much, too overwhelming. She couldn’t be here with all of them staring at her, waiting for her to act, waiting for her to say something.

  “Well, this is certainly interesting,” said Lady Crosby.

  At the same time, Elizabeth asked, “How can you love me?”

  He took a step closer to her and brushed a stray curl that had worked its way out of her chignon off her face. “How could I not love you? I think I have since the first time we met; it just took me a shamefully long time to realize it.”

  Her heart slammed against her chest, and for a moment she thought she might faint, except that governesses and companions and army captain’s daughters do not faint. They’re wrought from stronger stuff than that.

  “You never gave me any indication,” she whispered.

  “This is even more entertaining than Drury Lane,” said Lady Crosby. Elizabeth shot her a look, but it did nothing to wipe
the grin off the lady’s face.

  “I didn’t think I was worthy of you,” he said.

  “Not worthy of me?” She laughed at the absurdity of it all. “I’m a governess, Dr. Fellows!”

  “I asked you to call me Edward.”

  “I am choosing not to indulge that request.”

  He pursed his lips and nodded once. His fingers slipped from her arm. She could see hurt in his eyes. Good. She wanted him to feel what she had felt these last weeks.

  “I should have gone after you,” he said.

  “Yes, you should have.” And despite all of her high-minded scolding about how she wouldn’t hold him back from his research fellowship, she knew that it was the truth. She wanted him more than anything, and now that he stood in front of her, she couldn’t understand how she’d denied herself him for nearly a month.

  “Is it too late now? Have I ruined any chance of happiness we might have together?”

  “You don’t want a wife. You’re going to New York.”

  “No, actually, I’m not.”

  All the breath rushed from her body, but she managed to choke out, “You’re not?”

  “I’m not sailing for America,” he said. “I’m taking a teaching fellowship here in London. I want the life that I never thought I would, with a house and a family. I want you by my side to be my partner on this journey, Elizabeth. I can name for you every part of the human body we know. I can patch people up. I can cure diseases. But I couldn’t see what was happening in my own heart. Please tell me there’s a chance for us.”

  He had sacrificed the one thing that mattered most to him—his passion. She should have felt guilty, and yet she realized she was glad. Finally, for the first time in her life, someone was choosing her. Someone was putting her first. Even her own father hadn’t done that, leaving her destitute and alone with no provisions for her welfare after he died.

  Edward Fellows wanted her love over all else, and all he asked in return was that she give him her heart.

  A low cough behind them yanked her back to Lady Crosby’s drawing room. The woman stood, leaning on her cane. “I think I shall retire to my sitting room for a good long spell. Perhaps an hour.”

  Elizabeth nodded, her cheeks flaming. “Thank you, Lady Crosby.”

  The old woman glared at Edward. “You’d do well not to leave this room until she says yes. Fight her if you have to, because if I ever hear that you’ve given up so easily on a woman of Miss Porter’s caliber again, I shall knock you between the eyes with my stick.”

  Edward made a muffled choking sound that might have been laughter or fear. “I’ll bear that in mind, Lady Crosby.”

  “See that you do.”

  The two of them watched as Lady Crosby let herself out of the drawing room. Then Edward turned back to Elizabeth almost cautiously and said, “This is not quite how I planned my declaration of love for you.”

  “Do you truly love me?”

  He gathered up her hands in his. “More than I love anything else in this world.”

  “I was so unhappy with you,” she said, her thumb toying over his wrist. “I knew that it was my fault for letting us get caught, and I didn’t want to force you to marry me. I knew that you’re the sort of man who would do the honorable thing.”

  “It might have been honorable, but it’s what I wanted too. I was an idiot to let you out of my sight that evening. I tried to write to you and tell you all of this, never realizing that you weren’t at the Nortons’ to receive those letters.”

  “I wanted you beside me, Edward. I wanted to know that someone stood up for me when no one else has.”

  His arms went around her waist and he pulled her in close. “I thought for so long that you could never love a man like me.”

  “Why is that?” she asked into the fine wool of his jacket.

  “I’m a stodgy physician who obsesses over his work. I can go days without eating a proper meal when I’m mulling something over. I dream in Latin half the time. You deserve someone who is going to entertain you, who will take you to New York and do everything on your list.”

  “Do you know what I want more than anything else?” she asked, turning her gaze up at him.

  “What’s that?”

  “I want a man who will look at me every day and say to himself, ‘That’s the woman I want to spend my life with. That’s the woman I want to raise my children with. That’s the woman I love.’ Can you do that?”

  He dipped his head so that their lips hovered mere fractions apart. “I can do that, and I can be grateful that my wife is as brilliant as she is beautiful. If you’ll take me as your husband.”

  Rather than answer, she went up on her tiptoes to press a long, deep kiss to those lips that had tormented her dreams these last weeks. The slide of his mouth over hers and the weight of his hands on her waist sent heat flaring through her body once again. This was what she had been craving. This was the man she wanted.

  Edward eased her down to the sofa and then sprinted over to the drawing room door and locked it. “Can’t be too careful.”

  Elizabeth laughed as he dropped onto the sofa next to her and pulled her into his lap. But then his lips were on her neck, and she wasn’t laughing any longer. Instead, she gasped as he nipped at her earlobe.

  “Mine,” he growled.

  “I haven’t said I would marry you yet,” she said as he sucked at the sensitive skin along her jaw. Her hands edged his jacket open. “Besides, you wear far too much clothing.”

  “You’re going to ruin me,” he groaned.

  “You have to promise me that we can have a library, and we’ll do wicked things in there.”

  “I’ll take you anywhere you want.”

  She ran her hands down the hard muscle of his arms, feeling what was now hers. “Perhaps I’ll take you sometimes too.”

  He lifted his head to find her lips. “Marry me,” he murmured.

  “I’ll marry you, Edward. Yes.” And she kissed him, tracing her tongue along the seam of his lips until he opened for her. She missed this, the taste of his mouth and his fingers dancing across her back.

  “I suppose that I’ll have to give Lady Crosby my notice,” she said as Edward ran his fingers down the hooks of her dress, tempting her.

  His fingers paused on the small of her back. “If you wish.”

  Laughing, she turned in his lap to lay her head on his shoulder. “If I never have to spend another day in someone else’s employ, I’ll be a happy woman.”

  “I plan to make it my life’s work to make you very, very happy, Elizabeth.”

  “And I’ll do the same.”

  As she kissed the man who would become her husband, Elizabeth thought to herself how happy she was that she’d once been wicked.

  Acknowledgments

  Every writer needs her people. Alexis Anne, Alyssa Cole, Mary Chris Escobar, Alexandra Haughton, and Laura von Holt, thank you for being mine.

  I couldn’t have wished for a better editor in Marla Daniels. Her gentle nudges here and there made this book—and me as a writer—more than I could have imagined.

  Emily Sylvan Kim, my wonderful agent, plucked me out of her query inbox and promised me everything was going to work out. Thank you so many times over.

  Female friendship is a powerful thing, and I’m lucky enough to have Katherine, Christy, Jackie, Sonia, Allison, and Jenn in my life. Ben, Sean, Bryan, and Mat are pretty great too.

  And finally, thank you to Mum, Dad, Justine, and Mark, who have been listening to me talk about this book for what I’m sure feels like years. I love you all.

  Keep reading for a sneak peek at Mary’s story, the next installment in Julia Kelly’s Governess series

  The Governess Was Wanton

  Coming Fall 2016 from Pocket Star Books!

  Chapter One

  L
ondon 1857

  Mary Woodward sat in the middle of what she could only assume was just one of No. 12 Belgrave Square’s impressive drawing rooms, awaiting her fate. She wasn’t anxious—she’d never admit to being flustered—but she was beginning to think that taking a new position as governess to the Earl of Asten’s daughter sight unseen might have been a grave mistake indeed, for both the earl and his daughter seemed to have forgotten her very existence.

  Just a month before, she’d watched Lady Caroline, daughter of the Viscount and Viscountess Eyling, walk down the aisle at St. Paul’s Knightsbridge and out of her life. She’d told the family she intended to leave her position as soon as the engagement had been announced, cutting short any awkward explanations of how the soon-to-be-married Lady Caroline would no longer need the services of a governess. Then Mary had packed her bags and decamped to the home of her dear friend Elizabeth and her new husband Dr. Edward Fellows with little more than a second thought. She was already on the hunt for a new position.

  A few carefully worded letters to her former charges spread the word around London’s elite that she was once again available. The initial flood of responses was of little interest to her. Then, ten days ago, a letter written in a man’s strong, slashing script had come in the morning post. The Lord Asten wanted her to educate his daughter, Lady Eleanora, a young woman of seventeen who had just been presented to the queen.

  “I know, as surely every parent in London does, of your reputation for educating young ladies not entirely at ease in society,” Lord Asten had written. “In the past year, my daughter has become rather retiring, and I hope your guidance may help restore her natural vivacity as she navigates her first season and secures a suitable match. Eleanora has not been herself for some months, and I worry for her happiness.”

  Something about the earl’s letter gave her pause. It was polite, but the faintest hint of a father’s frustration came through the lines. It was so contrary to the man she’d read about in the papers. Lord Asten was known for his political prowess in the House of Lords, and everyone who had the good sense to study their Debrett’s surely knew of his reputation as steadfast and moral—a rare combination among the peerage. This wasn’t the sort of man who ever needed to ask for help, because he never seemed to have problems in the first place.