The Lost Letter

by Mimi Matthews

  “Is it indeed.”

  “Yes. There is even a grim little pamphlet on the subject. A Young Governess’s Guide to Genteel Employment. My father’s solicitor gave it to me when I went to him for help after Papa died. It was written by a woman named Mrs. Bland, a former governess herself, I believe, and one whom I suspect was subjected to every sort of mistreatment during the course of her employment.” She gave a wholly unconscious smile. “I have often since considered writing an advice pamphlet of my own. Something a bit more hopeful. Though I daresay it would not sell half as well. Mrs. Bland had a distinct turn for the Gothic.”

  Sebastian did not appear to be amused by her attempt at a lighthearted story. Indeed, he was looking at her just as haughtily as he had since she first entered the room. “You will forgive me, Miss Stafford, but I find it hard to believe that you are perfectly content as some manner of superior servant.”

  Sylvia’s smile faded slowly. His words stung. Perhaps he had meant them to. Or perhaps, he genuinely could not fathom a person finding happiness after so much adversity?

  “No,” she said. “I cannot claim perfect contentment, my lord. I do not know many who can. But I am a good deal more content than I was in the months following Papa’s death. Those were very bleak days indeed. I might have been overwhelmed with grief if I had not had to immediately seek my living. In any case, I soon discovered that melancholy was no match for industry. The busier I kept myself, the easier it all became. And now, though I’m not perfectly content by any means, I can say that yes, I am happy in my new situation.”

  “Your new situation being a merchant’s house in Cheapside.” He made no effort to hide his disdain. “Tell me, Miss Stafford, did the scandal of your father’s death prevent you from finding employment with people of quality?”

  “People of quality?” she repeated, astonished. The Sebastian she remembered would never have used such a phrase. Had he become so toplofty now that he was the earl? Or was this yet another attempt to put her in her place? “As opposed to Mr. and Mrs. Dinwiddy, do you mean?”

  He gave a curt nod.

  “I don’t know, really,” she admitted. “I did not attempt to find employment amongst my former acquaintance.”

  “Too proud?”

  “Yes. Perhaps a little. But it was not only my pride. To own the truth, I can imagine nothing more uncomfortable for my former friends than having me in their home as a paid employee. Not that they would ever have considered hiring me. I’m accomplished enough to instruct the daughters of a merchant, but I doubt there are many parents of what you call the quality who would find my limited talents acceptable. And then there is the matter of Papa’s death…”

  “After which, all of your friends deserted you.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And all of your suitors, too, I imagine.”

  That startled her. “Suitors? What suitors? Do you mean…” She was sorely tempted to laugh. “Surely you do not intend to blame your behavior on my father’s unfortunate actions?”

  Sebastian frowned. “My behavior?”

  “If so, I suggest you reconsider the timing. You were in India nearly a year before my father took his own life. Nearly a year, my lord.”

  She would not have thought his gaze could grow any colder, but at the look he now gave her, Sylvia was astonished that she did not instantly transform into an icicle.

  “I am well aware of the time I spent in India, madam,” he said with awful civility. “Every minute of it. But what my service there can have to do with either you or your father is, I confess, a mystery to me.”

  She flushed. “You willfully misunderstand me, sir. It has nothing to do with your service and everything to do with—”

  “Oh dear! Is it half past already?” Lady Harker’s cheerful voice rang out from the doorway, bringing an abrupt and altogether merciful end to their conversation. “How thoroughly vexing,” she said, “when I made such an effort to be punctual!”

  Sebastian glowered at his sister. He knew very well that she had contrived to leave him alone with Miss Stafford. He suspected that Miss Stafford knew it too. And if her expression of relief was any indication, she had no more interest in renewing their relationship than he did.

  “I do hope you are hungry, Miss Stafford.” Julia entered the room, the servants close behind. “Though how you could not be, I do not know, for you scarcely touched your food at the inn.” She turned to address a footman. “Put the tea tray there, Thomas.” She gestured to the cluster of furniture near the fireplace. “Yes, that’s right. I shall ring if we need anything else.”

  Sebastian had risen at his sister’s arrival, but now resumed his seat. “You dined at a coaching inn?”

  “I would hardly call it dining,” Julia said. She fluffed her voluminous skirts out around her as she settled into her chair. “The man at the Bull could offer us no more than a cold pasty and some warm ale.”

  “The Bull?” His temper flared. “What in blazes were you thinking to stop at such a place?”

  “That we were hungry,” Julia said, adding candidly, “and we needed to use the necessary.”

  The color rose in Miss Stafford’s cheeks at Julia’s indelicate reply. “Your sister was in no danger, my lord,” she said. “I engaged a private parlor for us and we stayed only long enough for the coachman to tend to the horses.”

  “There, you see.” Julia occupied herself with pouring out their tea. “We were perfectly safe.” As she filled Sebastian’s cup, she glanced up at him, her lips parting as if to speak. He returned her gaze, silently daring her to mention his inability to drink in company. After a heavily weighted moment, Julia’s mouth closed again and she handed him his teacup.

  “Why in God’s name didn’t you take the train?” he asked.

  Julia shrugged. “Harker does not like it. Not after the derailment at Tottenham station in February.”

  Sebastian frowned. The derailment had claimed the lives of five passengers and two of the railway men. He could well imagine Harker forbidding his wife from train travel in the aftermath. Though how his brother-in-law thought that it was any safer for Julia to be careening around the countryside in a coach and four, Sebastian had no idea.

  “The Bull is suitable for changing out your horses and nothing more,” he said. “The Inn itself is far from respectable. No lady should ever cross its threshold.” He cast a stony glance at Miss Stafford. “Not even a governess.”

  Miss Stafford returned his gaze, her blue eyes flashing briefly with something very like indignation. Something very like hurt. It was gone before he could decipher it, her expression once again reverting into lines of polite indifference.

  What he wouldn’t give to see her rattled! She had almost lost her composure in the seconds before Julia’s arrival. A few moments longer and she might have dropped this infuriating mask of civility. She might have shouted at him. Slapped him. He had certainly given her ample reason. “I will instruct the coachman not to stop there on your return to Cheapside,” he said.

  “There is no need, my lord,” she replied. “I shall be quite happy to take the train.”

  Sebastian affected not to care, even as his brain conjured images of Miss Stafford, alone and vulnerable, in a crowded railway car. “As you wish.”

  Julia paused in the midst of slicing a piece of plum cake to scowl at him. “Miss Stafford is not returning to London for a month, at least. There is no reason for us to be discussing her journey back.” She turned to Miss Stafford, proffering the piece of cake on a small, painted porcelain plate. “He’s concerned for your safety, that’s all. Not that he will ever admit it.”

  Sebastian’s jaw hardened. He said nothing. What was there to say? Of course he was concerned for her safety. What gentleman wouldn’t be? She was an unmarried woman with neither family nor fortune.

  A beautiful unmarried woman.

 
; He looked at her now, just as he had looked at her when she appeared outside his rooms. He could not seem to stop looking at her. She was sitting primly on the edge of her chair, doing nothing more than drinking her tea and listening to Julia. Gone were the fashionable gowns, the delicate satin slippers, and the sapphire clips that had once held up her lustrous chestnut hair. In their place was the drab costume of a governess.

  Next to Julia, bedecked in her ribbons, ruffles, and that godawful wire crinoline, Miss Stafford’s clothing looked positively second-rate. Her dress was plain to the point of being severe, her wide skirts falling without a single flounce and her bodice lacking any trimming other than a row of very serviceable buttons which marched from her slender waist straight up to the ivory column of her throat.

  But it had never been about her finery. With or without rich fabrics and jewels, Sylvia Stafford still managed to shine like a diamond. She was lovelier now than in his memory—a fact which he would not have thought possible. And yet, one glimpse of her dimpled smile had nearly stopped his heart. And the sound of her voice…

  That soft, velvet voice.

  Three years ago, it had had the power to enthrall him. To bring him to his knees. And when she had walked into the library, when she had addressed him as Lord Radcliffe for the first time, he had realized that, if he was not careful, there was a very real danger it would do so again. The knowledge had only increased his bitterness toward her.

  “Besides,” Julia continued, “when you return home, Harker and I will accompany you. And perhaps my brother…” She cast another meaningful glance in his direction. “But it is too soon to speak of that. Better we should talk about all the amusements I have planned for us here at Pershing.”

  “Amusements?” Miss Stafford looked genuinely alarmed at the prospect. “I do hope you have not gone to any trouble on my account, Lady Harker.”

  “And why shouldn’t I? You are my guest. I would host a ball if Sebastian would allow it. But no. We shall have to content ourselves with country amusements. You once spent a good deal of time in the country, did you not, Miss Stafford? Before your father…That is to say, before all the unpleasantness?”

  “Yes. I grew up at Newell Park. I was there until I made my come out.”

  “Newell Park?”

  “The principal seat of the Stafford baronets in Kent. It’s occupied by the present baronet now. Sir George. He is a very distant cousin of my father.”

  Julia wrinkled her nose. “I do believe I’ve met him. It was last summer in London. At a party given by Lord and Lady Graves. It was an awful crush—” She broke off. “But that is neither here nor there. We were speaking of the countryside and country amusements. I expect you can ride, Miss Stafford?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  Julia took a bite of cake. “I keep one of my own favorite mares here year round. Regrettably, I know absolutely nothing about the other horses in the stable. Most of them were bought by my brother, Edmund, before he died. But no matter. I daresay Sebastian will be able to choose a satisfactory mount for you.”

  He saw Miss Stafford’s blue gaze flicker to his. She was embarrassed by his sister’s presumption, that much he could tell. But there was something else, too. Something in her eyes that he could not interpret. “How long has it been since you have ridden, Miss Stafford?” he asked.

  “Two years, my lord.”

  Since her father had died, then. No doubt her horse had been among the items lost in that final hand of cards. “If you are out of practice, you would do well on Ares. He is safe enough for a rider of moderate skill without being dead on all four legs.”

  Miss Stafford’s eyes met his briefly. She did not appear at all offended by his unjust characterization of her competence in the saddle. Quite the opposite, in fact. She seemed to believe him. “I hope I am still a rider of moderate skill.”

  “One does not forget how to ride, Miss Stafford.”

  “No, I suppose not. But it has been a very long time. I do not even have a riding costume anymore.”

  “You shall wear one of mine,” said Julia. “And I know just the one, too. It is dark blue and has the most divine little jacket with mousquetaire cuffs. The very latest style. My maid, Craddock, can make any adjustments necessary. She is a dab hand with a needle and thread.”

  “It is kind of you to offer, Lady Harker, but you needn’t lend me anything half so fine.”

  Sebastian regarded Miss Stafford from beneath lowered brows. Had she always been so excruciatingly polite? So damnably respectful? It grated on him. To think that the proud, vibrant creature he had known three years ago in London was reduced to such a state. It made him feel…almost guilty. But why should it? He was not responsible for her change in station. She had her father to blame for that. And herself, too. For if she had married him three years ago, she would be a countess now. Instead she had treated him appallingly. Rejecting him without so much as a by your leave.

  To say that she had broken his heart was maudlin romantic nonsense—besides being an understatement. Good God, her rejection had practically unmanned him! She was the first and only woman he had ever loved. And now she was here. Revealing herself as no better than the mercenary, grasping females who had once pursued his titled elder brother. Even worse, she was acting as if they had never been anything more to each other than the barest acquaintances. As if he had never held her in his arms. As if she had never touched him and kissed him.

  Unless her mysterious remark about his behavior was some allusion to that night in the Mainwaring’s garden.

  Could that be her game? To use his conduct of three years ago as some sort of leverage to wring a proposal out of him? His fingers tightened reflexively on the handle of his teacup, the hot liquid sloshing dangerously against the brim. He had always considered himself a good judge of character. As a soldier, he had had to be. And yet somehow, three years ago, he had managed to misjudge Sylvia Stafford completely.

  Oblivious to his escalating temper, Julia chattered on, telling Miss Stafford about the shops in the nearby village of Apsley Heath and opining on her favorite places to walk and to ride. She even launched into a brief—and wholly inaccurate—treatise on the history of Pershing Hall itself.

  Miss Stafford was not so blind to his mood as his sister. More than once he saw her glance in his direction, her face pale and her slim hands unsteady on her teacup. She had never been scared of him in the past, despite the fact that he towered over her and outweighed her by several stone. Was it the sight of his scars that unsettled her now? He knew they were repellant, but were they so monstrous that they genuinely frightened her?

  And if this was her reaction in the shadowy gloom of the library, what might she make of his ravaged face in the full light of day?

  A helpless fury stirred within him. He did not love her anymore. Indeed, he often felt as if he hated her. Even so, he could not bear the thought of her recoiling from him in horror.

  He looked at her sitting across from him now, so dainty and perfect and beautiful, and he cursed Julia for bringing her here. He cursed himself, too, for having kept that damned lock of her hair.

  “Are you an early riser in the country, Miss Stafford?” Julia was asking. “For if you are, I would have us ride before breakfast.”

  “Yes. If you like.”

  “Splendid,” Julia said brightly. “Naturally, you will want to become acquainted with your mount. Though, we needn’t wait until the morning for that. We can all go down to the stables after tea and—”

  “No,” Miss Stafford said, interrupting before he could voice an objection himself. She lowered her teacup into her saucer. “I am obliged to you, Lady Harker, but I think…If you do not mind it…I would rather rest in my room for a while. I’m a bit tired from our journey.”

  “Oh! How silly of me. Of course, you are. Shall I accompany you upstairs or—”

  Miss Staff
ord rose. “No. Please don’t disturb yourself on my account. I shall see myself up.”

  Sebastian stood, watching her intently. She was distracted. Upset. He brutally suppressed another frisson of guilt. “Is there anything you require?” he asked.

  “No, sir. Nothing.” She addressed herself to his cravat, clearly unable to bring herself to look at his ruin of a face.

  “I’ll send my maid to wake you before dinner,” Julia said.

  “Thank you, my lady. My lord. I bid you both good afternoon.”

  Sebastian remained standing until she had gone from the room. Only then did he resume his seat, his expression shuttered.

  “What did you say to her before I arrived?” Julia demanded.

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing? She looked as if she was about to cry. And she hardly said two words during tea.” Julia’s own eyes puddled in sympathy. “I worked so hard to find her and bring her here for you, Sebastian. And now you will ruin it with your temper. Just because you may threaten to wring my neck does not mean you may do so to Miss Stafford.”

  “I did not threaten to ring Miss Stafford’s neck,” he growled.

  “Well, whatever you said, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find her packing her things at this very moment!”

  Sebastian’s stomach clenched in alarm.

  “I shall have to go to her and tell her…Oh, but what can I tell her? That you’re pleased she’s here? That you wish her to stay? I know you must do, Sebastian, for you couldn’t stop staring at her all through tea. If you would only say something kind to her—”

  “The devil!” he swore under his breath. Was this to be a repeat of three years ago? Was he to humiliate himself? To beg and plead with Sylvia Stafford for some small crumb of her affection? He glared at his sister. “You are the one who invited her here.”

  “Yes, but—”