Private Research: An Erotic Novella
Page 21
The Governess Club series continues with Miss Bonnie Hodges. She is desperately trying to hold it together. Tragedy has struck, and she is the sole person left to be strong for the two little boys in her care. When the new guardian, Sir Stephen Montgomery, arrives, she hopes that things will get better. She wasn’t expecting her new employer to be the most frustrating, overbearing, and . . . handsome man she’s ever seen.
When he reached the water’s edge, Stephen stopped. Staring at the wreckage that used to be the wooden bridge, he was acutely aware that he was looking at the site of his friends’ death.
Images from the story Miss Hodges had told him flashed through his mind—the waving parents, the bridge shuddering before it collapsed, the falling planks and horses, the coach splintering, George’s neck snapping, and Roslyn—God, Roslyn lying in that mangled coach, her blood pouring out of her body. How had she survived long enough for anyone to come and see her still breathing?
Nausea roiled in his stomach, and bile forced its way up his throat. Heaving, Stephen bent over a nearby bush and lost the contents of his stomach. Minutes later, he crouched down at the river’s edge and splashed the cold water on his face.
From where he crouched, Stephen turned his gaze down the river, away from the ruined bridge. He could make out an area ideal for swimming: a small stretch of sandy bank surrounded by a few large, flat rocks. Indeed, an excellent place for a governess to take her charges for a cooling swim on a hot summer day.
Stephen straightened and made his way along the bank to the swimming area. A well-worn path weaved through the bush, connecting the small beach to the hill beyond and Darrowgate. The bridge was seventy meters upstream; not only would the governess and the boys have had a good view of the collapse, the blood from the incident would have flowed right by them.
No wonder they barely spoke.
Tearing his gaze from the bridge, he focused on the water, trying to imagine the trio enjoying their swim, with no inkling or threat of danger. The boys in the water, laughing and splashing each other, showing off their swimming skills to their laughing governess.
Stephen looked at the closest flat rock, the thought of the laughing governess in his mind. She had said she preferred dangling her feet instead of swimming.
His mind’s eye put Miss Hodges on the rock, much as she had been the previous night. The look on her face after seeing his own flour-covered face. Her smile had been so wide it had been difficult to see anything else about her. He knew her eyes and hair were certain colors, but he was damned if he could name them—the eyes were some light shade and the hair was brown, that he knew for certain.
And her laugh—it was the last thing he had expected from her. He was in a difficult situation—not quite master but regarded as such until Henry’s majority. For a servant, even a governess, to laugh as she had was entirely unpredictable.
He shouldn’t think too much about how that unexpected laughter had settled in his gut.
The image of Miss Hodges sitting on the rock rose again in his mind. The sun would have warmed the rock beneath her hands, and she would have looked down at the clear water. She would laugh at the boys’ antics, he had no doubt, perhaps even kick water in their direction if they ventured too close. Her stockings would be folded into her shoes to keep them from blowing away in the breeze.
Good Lord, he could almost see it. The stockings protected in the nearby shoes, her naked feet dangling in the water, her skirts raised to keep them from getting wet, exposing her trim ankles. The clear water would do nothing to hide either her feet or her ankles, and Stephen found himself staring unabashedly at something that wasn’t even there. He gazed at the empty water, imagining exactly what Miss Hodges’s ankles would look like. They would be slim, they would be bonny, they would—
Thankfully, a passing cart made enough noise to break him out of this ridiculously schoolboy moment. Inhaling deeply through his nose, Stephen left the swimming area and made his way back for a closer look at the ruins.
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Excerpt from The Governess Club: Claire copyright © 2013 by Heather Johnson.
Excerpt from Ashes, Ashes, They All Fall Dead copyright © 2013 by Lena Diaz.
Excerpt from The Governess Club: Bonnie copyright © 2013 by Heather Johnson.
PRIVATE RESEARCH. Copyright © 2013 by Sabrina Darby. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition NOVEMBER 2013 ISBN: 9780062304476
Print Edition ISBN: 9780062304841
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Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
About the Author
Also by Sabrina Darby
An Excerpt from The Governess Club: Claire by Ellie Macdonald
An Excerpt from Ashes, Ashes, They All Fall Dead by Lena Diaz
An Excerpt from The Governess Club: Bonnie by Ellie Macdonald
Copyright
About the Publisher