‘I had the pleasure of teaching Lord Chesterholm’s younger sister several years ago … before I departed for Italy.’
‘That is true. You were my sister’s governess, among other things.’ His fingers tightened and caressed the soft inside of her wrist where her glove gapped.
Louisa tugged at her hand. Surely he had to let her go. It was beyond the bounds of all propriety. He knew why she had left. The coward. He had not even bothered to answer her letters—not the one after the dismissal or the other even more desperate one four months later informing him of her delicate condition. Instead he had left the task of irrevocably severing relations to his stepmother.
She could hear Venetia Ponsby-Smythe’s cut-glass tones echoing down the years. Her relationship with Jonathon was a misalliance. Mrs Ponsby-Smythe daily expected the announcement of her stepson’s forthcoming marriage to the Honourable Clarissa Newton to whom he had been betrothed since they were in the cradle. Louisa and the child she carried must stand aside and forge a new life … for the good of everyone. Venetia Ponsby-Smythe had said that while she sympathised with Louisa’s plight, such things happened when women behaved lewdly. The knowledge of a child would not bring him back, Mrs Ponsby-Smythe had advised, and could Louisa even prove the babe she said she carried was Jonny’s. Then, when Louisa had been ready to storm out, Venetia Ponsby-Smythe had waved her hand and offered to provide Louisa passage to Italy as she did feel responsible for her stepson ruining one of her former employees. Her one condition was that Louisa should never return, never contact her again. Faced with starvation, Louisa had accepted the offer with tearful gratitude. She had even kissed the woman’s hand.
‘Fancy you knowing Aunt Daphne’s delightful friend, Chesterholm.’ Lord Furniss’s voice rang out, recalling her to the present. ‘Who’d have supposed it? Miss Sibson, you have been keeping secrets from me.’
‘Miss Sibson keeps her secrets very well.’ Jonathon’s eyes pinned her. ‘Some day, Miss Sibson, you must tell me how one can rise from the dead. I visited your grave not more than three months ago.’
Miss Daphne and Lord Furniss exchanged shocked glances as the entire Assembly Hall fell silent. Louisa wanted to sink down beneath the floorboards and hide. Everyone was looking at her as if this mess was somehow her fault.
Dead? A gravestone with her name? Louisa fought against a wave of dizziness. She had suffered a sort of death. She had even forbidden her friend Daisy Milton to tell Jonathon where she was if he should ever ask. But it was not what Jonathon meant. He had thought her dead. In the ground. Buried.
‘But you are gravely mistaken, Chesterholm. Miss Sibson is happily very much alive,’ Lord Furniss boomed into the silent void. ‘She nursed my late great-aunt through her last illness. She is a pillar of strength to Aunt Daphne. Words fail me to think of her dead. Who could have been so cruel as to give you misinformation? You must have had the wrong person.’
As Lord Furniss finished, suddenly the room was filled with noise.
Louisa shot Lord Furniss an admiring glance. He had taken her part. The tiny gesture meant so much. She was far from alone. She had friends.
‘Rumours of Miss Sibson’s demise appear to be without foundation,’ Jonathon said in a clipped tone. ‘They are to be regretted.’
‘I remain as I always have been—alive,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘I know nothing of a gravestone. It must belong to someone else.’
‘Nevertheless, it is a surprise.’
‘I trust a welcome surprise,’ Miss Daphne said, fluttering her fan. ‘Louisa is such a treasure. My sister looked on her as the daughter she never had.’
‘I had not expected to see Miss Sibson again in this lifetime.’ His eyes slowly examined her from the top of her carefully constructed crown of copper-brown plaits to the bottom of her mauve-silk evening gown, slowly, as if mentally taking off each garment.
Louisa fought against the rising tide of heat. She was over him. Every time she woke at night with the memory of their passion lingering in her brain, she gave the same promise—Jonathon meant nothing to her and her rules guarded her reputation. Never again would she be that impetuous woman who was so desperate for love that she believed a rake’s promise of love was for ever.
‘Nor I you, Lord Chesterholm.’ She graciously inclined her head. Two could play at this game. The rules for winning were simple—icy politeness and never to allow any of her inner turmoil to show.
‘Four years, Louisa,’ he said in that slow seductive voice of his, the one which even now made warm tingles run along her spine. ‘Where did you hide?’
With an effort, Louisa closed that particular door of her memory and concentrated on filling her lungs with life-giving air.
The woman she had once been was dead. Long live the reborn Louisa—the one who believed in schedules and rules, rather than following her desires. Jonathon—indeed none of the Ponsby-Smythes with their smug words and self-satisfied manner—had any power over her. This time she had money and a position of sorts in society, maybe not as grand as the one she had dreamt of in those halcyon days but it was one she had on her own merit and one she would keep as long she remembered the rules of conduct.
She tugged one last time and he let her go with such suddenness that she had to take a step backwards. A faint smile touched his lips. He had done it on purpose and was enjoying her discomfort. ‘In some ways, Lord Chesterholm, it has been but a moment, but in others a lifetime.’
‘You never speak, Louisa, about your past,’ Miss Daphne said, putting a frail hand on Louisa’s shoulder and looking at her with faintly accusatory eyes. Louisa shifted uncomfortably. The last thing she wanted was to cause Miss Daphne distress. ‘I had no idea you were friendly with the Ponsby-Smythes. Young Jonathon’s mother was the only niece of Arthur Fanshaw, the late Lord Chesterholm. Did Mattie know? She would have been very interested, I am sure.’
‘Did you offer references, Miss Sibson?’ Jonathon asked with an arrogant curl of his lip. ‘Or was it a little detail you neglected, Louisa? Miss Sibson was never very good on details.’
‘Your sister, Miss Daphne, was always considered an excellent judge of character. She interviewed me and was satisfied. More than satisfied.’ Louisa ignored Jonathon’s barb. She knew what game he was playing—trying to drive a wedge between her and Miss Daphne. Not content with ruining her once, he wanted to ruin her again. Hopefully Miss Daphne was not suddenly going to become difficult and demand particulars. Here. In public. The last thing Louisa desired was a reliving of her dismissal for improper behaviour with the very reason towering over her.
‘Mattie … yes, she had an instinct for character. One I sadly lack. I trusted her judgement on such things.’ Miss Daphne ducked her head like a child, her grey ringlets hanging in submission.
Louisa’s heart squeezed. She had been far too quick to judge. Miss Daphne had a kind heart, far kinder than most people’s. While Miss Mattie knew about the failed love affair and its aftermath, Louisa had never confided the full story to Miss Daphne. Obviously Miss Mattie had done as she had promised and kept the confidence. The thought made Louisa miss the elderly lady with her vinegar tongue all the more.
‘You have been in Italy,’ Jonathon said, his lips becoming a thin white line.
‘Yes, Italy. Sorrento, in the Kingdom of Two Sicilies, to be precise.’ Louisa fixed a polite smile. The next round in the match had begun. Italy had been his stepmother’s idea of precisely the right place for an inconvenient governess in a delicate condition to go. Within moments of Louisa agreeing, Mrs Ponsby-Smythe had produced a ticket for the mail coach and one for a packet leaving London and bound for Naples. And Venetia Ponsby-Smythe had been correct. Eventually Louisa had found a far better life than in the gutters of Warwick. ‘The air there has been more conducive to my health than Warwickshire’s.’
‘And now you have returned. Is England to have the benefit of your company for long?’
‘I