Beneath it came a solemn list.
Must not mind questions. Must know how to plait hair properly. Must let me stay up at night. Must remember the song about the blackbird. Must like Papa even when he comes home late.
“That is a demanding post,” he said softly.
She startled, blotting the page with ink. “Papa!” Those tiny alabaster arms flung around him, almost knocking the breath from his lungs.
Chuckling, he murmured, “I pity the next applicant already.”
“It is not for a nursemaid,” she said, her cheeks turning pink.
“No?”
She looked down at the list, suddenly younger than eight. “Nursemaids always leave—”
“Because you drive them away,” he reminded with a curled brow.
After a moment, she added, almost politely, “Well, I thought perhaps a mother would have to stay.”
Not this again…
CHAPTER TWO
Isadora tried not to notice how openly the other passengers were ogling her.
A young woman in a wedding gown was curiosity enough. One traveling alone, a carpet bag in her lap and no ring on her finger, was a feast. The farmer’s wife opposite had almost certainly been watching her since Tadcaster.
She kept one hand folded over the worn handle of her bag, the other on the yellow silk at her knee. The evening had cooled by the time the coach lurched to a halt in the village nearest the estate, and the air smelled of dust, horses, and rain not yet fallen.
“Closest I can get you, ma’am,” the driver called down. “About a mile the rest of the way.”
A mile. She could walk that, and the dry weather would spare her hem. A small mercy, but she thanked her fortune for it.
As Mama would say, count your blessings where you find them…
Carpet bag in hand, she began the long trek down the single road to the Duke of Winchester’s home. Though in truth, it was more of an avenue, lime trees arching on either side like a watercolor landscape, drawing her in like a church procession, yet beautiful enough to make her feel all the more out of place.
Ahead, beyond the bright gleam of a lake, the palatial house emerged, pale sandstone set off by the fresh green trees, its many windows glittering at her like all-seeing eyes.
By the time she crossed onto the gravel her shoes were powdered white and her courage worn thin. What could a man who possessed all this want with the dress on her back?
All she knew of the secretive Duke was that his reputation hadn’t a blemish—unlike the lordlings her second cousins snorted about over dinner. Cold and reclusive, the locals said, but one who ‘knew what was afforded his position.’ By which, she presumed, he patronized them with the appropriate amount of attention as befitted their rank.
Hardly auspicious. But I cannot afford to think like that. This is my only chance.
The last dozen yards across the large gravel courtyard took an eternity. Pale marble reflected the dying sun as a fountain at the center speckled the haze of a rainbow, and over the door a carved coat of arms in which several stern beasts appeared to be judging her.
Composing herself with a breath, she rapped three times. After a ponderously long wait—long enough to consider fleeing and living out her days under an assumed name in a bookshop—the door opened on a butler of perhaps fifty, graying hair brushed neatly back, brows heavyset. His gaze dropped to her gown, and a muscle twitched at the corner of his mouth.
“Good… afternoon,” she managed. “I am Miss Isadora Fairbourne, come to see His Grace.”
Thick brows furrowed like two slugs. “Alone, miss?”
“As you see.”
“His Grace is not accustomed to receiving young ladies without introduction.”
“Then I shall be the first of many disappointments today.”
