“Tomorrow,” she replied, apparently in surprise. “Is that not why you are here?”
“Of course it is,” Durward lied, nodding as Bethany appeared at his side. The Grandisons had already told him of her presence.
“Durward,” she said ominously, “what have you done with Duncan?”
“Duncan?” he repeated vaguely, for Carina had just slipped into the room and remained just inside the doorway as thoughtrying to blend in with the furniture. “Collected him from Eton and brought him with me since he behaved for the final fortnight of school. He’s being entertained in the nursery where I think he has been smitten by first love. Ah, we’re going in. Miss Cole?”
He offered her his arm, and the lady laid her fingers upon it. By the time they reached the doorway, Carina had vanished.
FROM A RATHER CHARMINGand eccentric place of refuge, Grand Court had suddenly become a nightmare for Carina. Confronted by the man who had broken her heart and forced into the kind of huge social gathering she had no experience of and less desire to pursue, she already felt as if she were walking on the edge of a knife.
Lady Grandison, Sanderly and Harriet stood with Durward and his sister. And then her view was blocked by another gentleman.
“Miss Jasper,” purred Sir Hugh Mansel.
Oh perfect! She almost screamed with vexation. He and his wife could destroy everything she had found here—supposing she survived Durward’s reckless presence—with just a few well-placed words. She remembered Lady Mansel’s accusations about setting her cap at Durward, her own rejection of Sir Hugh’s unsubtle advances, and she felt intolerably trapped.
“Sir Hugh.” She lowered her eyes and curtsied. “How do you do? I hope you will give my regards to Lady Mansel, if that won’t be too presumptuous. Please don’t feel you must acknowledge me. I am only the governess.”
While that might have dissuaded his wife, it had the opposite effect on Mansel. His eyes gleamed in that grubby, oily way that had always made her flesh crawl.
“I know,” he murmured. “Perhaps I would even feel insulted by being allocated such a partner for the evening, butgovernesses are not usually quite so...alluring. I believe Lady Grandison was showing me favour.”
Suspicion caused her to snap her gaze back to his face. “What do you mean?”
Lady Grandison was leading the way to the dining room, on the arm of a tall, haughty-looking young gentleman.
Oh no...
Mansel smiled. “I have been asked to escort you to dinner.”
Behind her ladyship, Harriet was on Durward’s arm. Was he entertaining her with tales of the tugboat captain’s daughter? A world of humiliation seemed to be closing in on Carina, ready to explode.
Just walking across the hall on Mansel’s arm felt like a nightmare. He tried to press her hand into his body, and she kept shifting it until she barely touched him at all. He bent his head nearer, as though listening intently to her silence. She could smell the brandy already on his breath.
“So, do you have your own room, Miss Governess?”
“Yes.”
“Oh good. I’ll drop by, shall I?”
She pretended not to hear that, though her blood ran cold. Her room was nearest to the nursery, and the door had no lock. It had never seemed to matter before. She removed her hand from his arm as soon as they entered the dining room. She hoped he would not deign to hold the chair for a mere governess, but he did, using it as an excuse to lean too closely over her—and no doubt to peer down the front of her gown.
Across the table, near the head, Durward’s head was turned toward her, or perhaps just to Harriet at his side. Either way, shame crept over her. And despair. If anything was needed to point out the impossibility of happiness with Durward, it was that sight. She was not worthy of Durward who, bizarrely, she understood and ached for. Instead, it seemed, she deservedthe adulterous leers of Hugh Mansel who would destroy the remnants of her life without a qualm, just because he could...
“Jonathan Berry,” said the young man on her other side. “Friend of the groom’s.”
“Carina Jasper,” she replied gratefully, “governess to the bride’s sisters.”
“Delighted to meet you. I haven’t been much in Society, and I hardly know anyone here.”
“Neither do I,” Carina admitted, delighted by his open-ness. In fact, there was something oddly steadfast as well as likeable about him, something in his watchful gaze that told her he would be a good friend and a formidable enemy.
The brief, friendly exchange with him revived her spirits. She would accept neither ruin nor libel from Mansel, whose conversation ran along predictable lines.
“How charming you look, quite the fashionable young lady.”
“Thank you.”
