When a Duke Loves a Governess

by Olivia Drake

  And the duke wasn’t helping matters.

  He had taken the seat opposite hers when she would have liked to have him beside her, holding her hand to lend her courage. That was an impossible wish, of course. Their romantic liaison could not continue. Though a short drive through Mayfair was hardly the time to discuss it, she suspected that Carlin shared that view, judging by his detached manner today.

  This morning, he was once again the granite-faced duke. Elegant in a slate-blue coat and fawn breeches, a snowy white cravat at his throat, he sat frowning out the window at the passing houses. One would never guess that his fine clothing concealed a tender lover who had whispered such marvelous things to her, who had taken her to heights of glory.

  The previous evening, they had parted ways after a lingering kiss. She had been in such an agitated state over identifying her sire that it hadn’t occurred to her until later, lying in bed and remembering that wonderful joining, that he had never said a word about prolonging their affair.

  And why should he? Carlin had striven to avoid the entanglement from the start. She was one who had pursued him. She was the one who had abandoned all restraint. Even now, Tessa felt a desperate longing to hurl herself across the carriage and into his arms. Only the impossibility of the circumstances kept her anchored in place.

  She had entered into the assignation with her eyes wide open, knowing that he could never wed a baseborn commoner who had been raised in a workhouse. A woman who was not even qualified to be governess to his daughter. As for all their whimsical banter about Cinderella, well, that had been merely a product of wine, firelight, desire … and Guy.

  Never again must she address him so familiarly. In the throes of lovemaking they had been equals, two people drawn together to fulfill a mutual passion. But in the cold light of day she knew it was best to accept reality.

  You are a duke, and I am a governess. And it is no use pretending otherwise.

  Her soft sigh was lost to the rattle of the carriage wheels. Tessa rallied herself with the reminder that she would soon regain her spirits. Once she persuaded Lord Marbury to give her the funding, she finally would have the means to set up her shop and fulfill her dream of becoming the premier milliner in London. There was no reason at all to feel low.

  It was just that things had happened so fast. She hadn’t had time to absorb all the changes in her life. And now she was hurtling headlong into another change without having fully settled the last one.

  For that reason, it would be best to reestablish her former footing with the duke. “I owe you an apology, Carlin.”

  His gaze swung to hers. “Why?”

  “I’m keeping you from searching for the stolen diaries. Truly, I could have visited my father on my own.”

  “I’ve hired a Runner to assist me in the investigation, so there’s no time lost. As for this meeting…” He shook his head. “I would never leave you to face Marbury alone.”

  The keenness of his stare, the firmness of his tone, caused a treacherous warming in her bosom. “Surely you can’t think I’ll need protection from him.”

  “My presence will ensure that you’re allowed through the front door. Marbury is a crotchety old fellow who doesn’t care much for visitors. Luckily, in response to my note, he has agreed to receive me.” Carlin smiled slightly. “Of course, I mentioned nothing about bringing his long-lost daughter.”

  She summoned a small smile of her own. “Thank you for not warning him. If he were prepared, it would have been too easy for him to hide the truth.” Tessa paused. “If I may add, I would greatly appreciate you allowing me to do the talking. This is my concern, after all, not yours.”

  “As you wish.” He paused, eyeing her. “Have you considered what you’ll do if Marbury doubts your story about the pendant? After all, you were only a little girl when your mother died. He could say that your memory is playing tricks.”

  That dreadful scene unfolded in Tessa’s mind as if it had just happened. The speeding carriage. Mama falling onto the cobblestones. The blood pooling beneath her head. “My memory is clear as crystal. She placed the necklace around my neck and said, Hide this … find him … father. And … pain. That was the last word she ever uttered.”

  Tessa swallowed. It was hard to reflect on the agony her mother must have suffered. But she wanted Carlin to understand why this was so very important to her.

  “Pain?” he repeated in an odd tone.

  “Of course. She was struck down and … and she’d hit her head.”

  His harsh expression eased slightly, though he still gazed intently at her. After a moment’s silence, he said, “I don’t mean to upset you, Tessa. It’s just that I’m acquainted a little with Marbury since he was a friend of my grandfather’s. I must warn you, I find it difficult to view him as a man who carries on with chambermaids.”

  “It would have occurred some twenty-three years ago, when he was younger.” Tilting her head, Tessa dared to add, “And I should think any man could be tempted into an indiscretion.”

  At that, Carlin’s veil of reserve vanished. His coal-dark eyes lit with a scorching gleam, a look that turned her insides to molten lava. Though he wasn’t touching her, he might as well have been, so swiftly did her blood race.

  “A fair point,” he said silkily. “We shall have to wait and see, then.”

  Tessa had the distinct impression Carlin was referring to more than this meeting, that he wished to revisit their intimate relationship. The raw erotic hunger that emanated from him seemed to fill the confines of the carriage. She could feel it in the air, wrapping around her like an embrace. Her breasts tightened, heat suffused her limbs, and passion pulsed in her depths. Since she’d already concluded the affair was at an end, this latest development threw her off kilter.

  What did he want out of this? What did she want?

  Before Tessa could answer those questions, the carriage came to a halt and a footman opened the door, offering his gloved hand to help her alight. In something of a daze, she found herself standing in front of a brick town house in the damp autumn chill. The familiar coat of arms etched into the triangular pediment above the entry brought her crashing back to reality.

  She was about to meet her father.

  Her skin prickled from a shiver. Carlin appeared at her side and tucked her fingers in the crook of his arm. “Chin up, Cinderella,” he murmured. “You have more pluck than any woman I know.”

  “Then why does my spine have all the substance of a cream bun?”

  “Even the brave feel fear. Courage is taking necessary action in spite of that fear.”

  As he escorted her into the house, she raised her chin and found that it did indeed bolster her confidence. The entrance hall featured a curved staircase that was lit by a domed skylight. Despite the elegant architecture, the decor had a tired look and the pistachio-green wallpaper had seen better days.

  A footman accepted Carlin’s hat and gloves. Tessa kept her shawl and the chip-straw bonnet with the blue ribbons that went well with her best gown, the same one she’d worn to the rendezvous with Carlin. A stylish hat of her own design was a fitting reminder of her purpose here.

  The footman slid a glance at Tessa. “Might I inquire as to the lady’s name, Your Grace?”

  “No,” Carlin said. “Pray inform Lord Marbury that I’m here.”

  The fellow trotted away and returned a moment later to lead them down a corridor and through a doorway. They entered a library, smaller than the one at Carlin House, but comfortable with stuffed leather chairs and a desk at the far end. Most impressive of all were the many books. They filled every nook and cranny and were crammed on shelves, stacked on tables, and piled here and there on the worn Oriental carpet.

  Beside a hissing fire sat a white-haired man who was employing a silver-knobbed cane to lever himself out of his seat. Carlin sprang forward to offer assistance and was soundly rejected.

  “I’m no invalid,” Lord Marbury grumbled. “It’s this demmed rheumatism, always acts
up when the weather turns chill.”

  He achieved his feet and held himself so proudly that Tessa didn’t notice for a moment that he was no more than an inch or two taller than herself. Lines of age carved his face into a majestic visage that brought to mind a sketch she’d once seen of Moses parting the Red Sea.

  She felt numb rather than angry or resentful. So this was the Marquess of Marbury. The man who had abandoned Mama. The man who had rejected his bastard daughter and left them to live in poverty.

  Carlin’s stride having carried him a few steps ahead of her, he bowed to the marquess. “It’s an honor to see you again, sir. I hope you are otherwise well.”

  “Never mind all that nonsense,” Lord Marbury snapped as he looked the duke up and down. “Well, well. So you are Carlin now. You’re the spit of your grandfather in his younger days. I hope it isn’t just skin-deep and you can adequately fill his shoes. You were a great disappointment to him, you know, when you sailed away from England on a whim.”

  Even with Carlin’s back to her, Tessa sensed his stiffness. A tide of antipathy swept away her stupor as she stepped to his side and made an obligatory curtsy to Lord Marbury. “It was no whim, milord. His Grace was conducting important research and making scientific discoveries. And he intends to write a book about his travels, too.”

  Carlin fixed her with a warning frown. “We’ll discuss this later.”

  “Tell that to Lord Marbury, not me.”

  Tessa braced herself for a lecture from the old sourpuss and belatedly realized that contentiousness was no way to butter him up for a loan. He’d likely toss her out on her ear as he’d done her mother.

  But to her surprise, Lord Marbury didn’t appear irked. Rather, his mouth hung open and his wrinkled face had turned as white as bleached linen. He wore a peculiar expression that seemed to be equal parts shock, disbelief, and, strangely, joy.

  In a strangled voice, he uttered, “Flossie…? Flossie?”

  Leaning heavily on his cane, the marquess attempted to step toward her but swayed on his feet. Carlin hastened to guide him back into his chair. Then the duke poured a measure of brandy into a glass and held it to the man’s pale lips. It was a testament to Lord Marbury’s weakened state that he didn’t fuss, but meekly swallowed the liquor.

  Tessa ventured closer. He had clearly mistaken her for her mother, she realized, and it had given him a nasty start. Her anger evaporated, leaving remorse in its place, for she could not wish to be the cause of him suffering a heart spasm. “I beg your pardon. Are you all right, milord?”

  He looked up at Tessa, then passed a gnarled hand over his face. “You’re not Flossie. Don’t know what I was thinking. Your hair’s too light. Couldn’t see it for that demmed bonnet. And she’d be older now, past forty.”

  “Flossie, was that what you called her?” Tessa asked, hoping to coax the story out of him. “I daresay you thought Florence too grand a name for a maidservant.”

  “Maidservant? What the deuce are you babbling about?” Recovering a measure of vinegar, he shook his cane at her. “Who are you to malign Lady Florence in so vile a manner and under her own roof?”

  She blinked in confusion. “Lady Florence? Lady Florence James?”

  “Payne,” he corrected impatiently. “Lady Florence Payne. That is my family name.”

  “Oh! But-but how can that be? I know her surname to have been James.” Utterly confused, she looked at Carlin. “It is the same coat of arms.”

  “Indeed,” he said slowly, glancing from her to the marquess. “I believe what Lord Marbury is saying is that Lady Florence was his daughter.”

  “You!” Lord Marbury turned a bitter scowl on Carlin. “What is your role in this piece of treachery? Did you unearth that ancient scandal and devise a trick to play on an old man by presenting an imposter as my daughter? I would never have thought Carlin’s grandson could be so cruel.”

  “Rather than cruel, sir, I hope you will find this a blessing,” he said. “If I may introduce you to your granddaughter, Miss Tessa James.”

  Tessa had been standing with her feet rooted to the floor as she struggled to absorb this new revelation. But now her legs weakened, and she sank down before Lord Marbury’s chair to gaze earnestly at him. He looked as stunned as she felt. Her grandfather! That truth whirled in her mind. She’d been wrong all these years. Mama had been referring to her father, not to Tessa’s.

  “It can’t be,” he muttered brokenly. “This is some ploy.”

  “No, it isn’t,” she said in a strained voice. “Florence was my mother. Lady Florence, it would seem, though she never breathed a word of that. Look, I have her pendant.”

  Opening her shawl, Tessa lifted the dainty gold necklace and held it out to Lord Marbury. The acrimony faded from his features as he took it into his trembling hands and ran a knobby finger over the engraving. “I gave this to Flossie on her eighteenth birthday. ’Twas shortly before she ran away. I never saw her again. How did you come by this?”

  The quaver in his voice touched her heart, and she realized he didn’t even know his daughter was long dead. Kneeling before him, she gave an abbreviated account of what little she could recall of her early life, including her mother’s death and glossing over her days in the foundling home. “I worked in a millinery shop for a time, then took a post as governess to His Grace’s daughter. Carlin is the one who identified the coat of arms on the pendant.”

  “Then who was your papa?” Lord Marbury asked.

  “I-I don’t know. I thought you were, milord. You see, when she gave me the pendant, her last words were, Hide this … find him … father…”

  “And pain,” the duke added. “She was telling you her family name was P-a-y-n-e, though given the circumstances, it’s understandable why you would misinterpret it.”

  “Lud, Carlin, you’re right!” Thunderstruck, she glanced up at him, then returned her gaze to her grandfather. “Then where did James come from?”

  “James is my given name,” Lord Marbury said, his gaze absorbing her features as if to make up for all the lost years. “Perhaps that is why Flossie chose it. And if she was living under an alias, it explains why I was never able to find her.”

  “But … why did Mama run away? Why would she turn her back on a lady’s life to become a maidservant?”

  “I fear ’twas entirely my fault,” the marquess admitted. He glanced into the fire, the flames lighting his stark features. “As a girl, Flossie always had a wayward streak. Her mama had died young and I left her at my country seat in the care of servants. She grew up charming and lovely, but she was also saucy and strong-willed. Rather than allow her a London season where I feared she might embroil herself in scandal, I deemed it best for her to have a solid, dependable husband in the hope that bearing children might settle her down. But the marriage I arranged to Bucklesby wasn’t to her liking.”

  “The Earl of Bucklesby?” Carlin asked, one eyebrow cocked. “He must have been thirty years her senior—and as dull a dog as they come.”

  “Forty is a perfectly respectable age for a nobleman to wed, as I myself did.” Then Marbury’s brusqueness dissolved into a look of wretched remorse. “Ah, but Flossie would have nothing of him. And though she begged and pleaded, I was foolish enough to be adamant. On the morning of her wedding, she went missing. Her bed hadn’t been slept in. I searched for years, but she’d vanished from the face of the earth. Had I heeded her wishes, found a man more to her liking, I would never have lost her.”

  The fire whispered into the silence. Tessa imagined her mother as a spirited young lady, pressured to wed a man old enough to be her father. Poor Mama! She must have been truly horrified by the match to prefer servitude over it. And once she’d borne a child out of wedlock, it would have been impossible for her to return home.

  Lord Marbury’s bony hand sought Tessa’s. “But now you have come to me in my old age. My granddaughter. I never envisioned such a miracle.”

  The misty look in his eyes touched her deeply. Ne
ver had she imagined having a grandfather. “It’s truly a marvelous dream,” Tessa murmured.

  He studied her closely for another moment; then he gained his feet with the help of the cane. “Come, there is something you must see.”

  He led them slowly up two flights of stairs and into a dim bedchamber. Carlin strode to the window and opened the blinds. Sunlight bathed the room in brightness, and Tessa could see feminine touches in the rose print wallpaper and the daintiness of the furniture that was shrouded in cloth.

  “This was Flossie’s room,” Lord Marbury said, touching a set of mother-of-pearl brushes on a dressing table. “I left everything exactly as it was.”

  In case she ever returned. Those words hovered unspoken in the stale air of a room kept closed for over two decades. Tessa’s breast ached to envisage her mother living here, a girl full of hopes and dreams.

  And then suddenly, there she was.

  “Mama,” Tessa breathed as she made haste to the painting that hung above the marble mantel. It was the portrait of a slender young lady with toffee-brown hair, standing at a window, smiling dreamily out at a green vista. She wore a gauzy white gown with the dainty gold pendant at her throat.

  “I can see why you mistook Tessa for her,” Carlin told the marquess.

  Stepping protectively to her side, Lord Marbury gave him a sharp look. “You address your governess in familiar terms, Duke.”

  “There is something of a question as to how she ought to be addressed,” Carlin said adroitly. “Shall I call her Miss James? Or Miss Payne?”

  “Miss Payne, of course,” Lord Marbury said, easily distracted by such a pertinent issue. “My granddaughter is a rightful member of this family. And as such, she can no longer be employed by you. It would be proper for her to remove from your house and to live here instead.”

  Startled, Tessa spun around. “I beg your pardon?”

  “You heard me. You are Lady Florence’s daughter. I have no other living children, so you are all I have left to continue the line.”