“Really? What did you find out?” Megan leaned forward.
“First of all, I found out that Lord Raine is in residence at Broughton House.”
“Lord Raine? Who’s that?”
“Seems that’s Himself.”
“I thought his name was Moreland,” Megan said.
“Aye, well, ’tis, except it seems he gets a title, see, because he’s next in line to be the Duke of Broughton. While his da’s alive, he’s another sort of lord. The Marquess of Raine. Don’t ask me to explain it. It took me a bit even to figure out that our Paul was talkin’ about the very villain I was interested in. Anyway, he’s at home, which is our good luck—for I’ll tell you, girl, I was worried we might get here and find that he was off in Timbuktu or some such place.”
“Yes, it concerned me somewhat, too.”
“But according to the gossip, the man’s not looking to go off on one of his adventures for a few months yet.”
“That’s good.”
“Even better is what else he told me. Seems they’re in terrible need of a tutor for two of the boys of the family.”
“A teacher?” Megan looked at him, puzzled. “Da! Are you saying I should go there as a tutor? You can’t be serious!”
“Why not? You’ve a much better chance of convincing them you’re a teacher than a scrub maid.”
“You were always first in your class,” Deirdre pointed out, adding, “Well, I mean, your grades were. It was just because you kept getting in trouble with the nuns that kept you from taking honors.”
“Aye, and you went to the best convent school in New York,” Frank added. “You learned Latin and history and all those high muckety-muck writers you’re always quoting, didn’t ye? All you need is enough to get by for a few weeks. ’Tisn’t as if ye’re actually going to be a teacher.”
“Yes, but—I don’t have any training, any experience. No qualifications, in short. They won’t accept me.”
Her father waved away her objections. “Easy enough to make up, now, aren’t they, when all your references are thousands of miles away in America? It’d take weeks to get a reply from any name you put down. And they can’t wait. They need someone now.”
“But even if I made up the grandest qualifications for myself, why would they hire an American? There must be plenty of Englishwomen who would take the job—and who would have references right here in London.”
Mulcahey grinned. “Seems they’ve already run through most of the lot. Got a certain reputation, these lads have.”
Megan looked at him doubtfully. “What are you saying? They’re such hellions they’ve frightened off all their other governesses?”
“Governesses, then tutors when they got too old for governesses.”
“Too old? How old are they?”
Frank shrugged. “Old enough that Paul was saying any other family’d send ’em off to Eton soon, but the Morelands are an odd lot. I think they must be twelve or thirteen.”
“Thirteen-year-old hellions? What am I supposed to do with them?”
“Ah, you’ll have no trouble. You’re no prissy English-woman. You grew up with boys. Just handle ’em like you did Sean and Robert—give ’em a good knock on the head when they get too rowdy.”
“Da…they’re English aristocrats. You can’t just go knocking their heads together when you feel like it.”
“Come, now, Megan. I’d back you against a couple of spoiled adolescents any day. You’ll do just fine.”
“They wouldn’t hire a woman to teach their precious sons,” Megan argued. “Not when the boys are that old.”
“I’m tellin’ you, they’re desperate. Besides, it appears that the Duchess is an odd one. A free thinker, according to Paul. Believes in women’s suffrage. Equality of the sexes and all that.”
Megan cast her father a disbelieving look. “A Duchess? Da, I think this fellow was pulling your leg.”
“Well, only one way to find out, isn’t there?” Mulcahey smiled at his daughter challengingly.
Never one to ignore a dare when she saw it, Megan squared her shoulders.
“True. Well, I had best get to bed, hadn’t I, if I’m going to be interviewing for a position as a tutor tomorrow?”
2
Megan arrived at Broughton House early in the afternoon the following day. When she reached the bottom of the steps leading up to the front door, she hesitated for a moment, gazing up at the grand edifice. Her stomach was a knot of nerves. Soon she would meet the man whom she had hated for ten years. All her grief, all her regret had been channeled into fury, and the fact that the villain had gotten away had only served to increase that anger. Megan wasn’t sure how she would be able to face Moreland without revealing how much she despised him. It was going to take every bit of skill she had.
She clasped her hands together, pushing up her gloves in a nervous gesture. She would never have admitted it to anyone, least of all her father, but she could not help but be a trifle intimidated by the task ahead of her. She had bluffed her way through many a situation in search of a story, but no story had ever been as important to her as this one, and never had she felt so afraid of failing. She could not help but think that the duchess was going to take one look at her and send her packing.
She tugged down her dark blue jacket, quite plain except for its rather large silver buttons. She hoped it would be sober enough to make up for the small straw bonnet perched atop her head, which, with the brim curling jauntily to one side and the cunning cluster of cherries pinned there, was really too stylish for a tutor. Megan had a weakness for hats, and, frankly, she did not possess one that was dowdy enough to suit a governess. Standing here now, she wished that she had gone to a millinery this morning and bought the plainest dark bonnet she could find.
It was too late to do anything else now, she told herself, and, quelling the sudden flutter of nerves in her stomach, she reached up and brought down the heavy brass door knocker.
A moment later, a footman opened the door.
“May I help you?”
“I am here to see the Duchess of Broughton,” Megan said calmly, looking the man squarely in the eyes.
Once she began, as always, her nervousness receded, turning into a sort of low-level hum that kept her alert and ready for anything.
She saw the footman sweep her with a quick, assessing glance, taking in everything about her and no doubt classifying her immediately as to social status, dress and country of origin.
“May I ask if you have an appointment?”
“Yes,” Megan lied. She had always found it best to go on the offensive. Boldness generally won the day. “I am here concerning the tutoring position.”
The man’s expression changed from aloof and faintly forbidding to almost eager. “Yes, of course. Let me see if her grace is ready to receive you.”
He stepped back, and Megan entered the house. She found herself in a large formal entryway. It was floored in marble, and across from her, elegant stairs rose to the second floor. A hallway stretched in either direction, with another leading toward the rear of the house.
“If you will be so kind as to give me your name?” The footman said politely, directing Megan toward a low velvet-cushioned bench that stood beneath an enormous gold-framed mirror.
“Miss Megan Henderson,” Megan responded. She had decided that it would be too risky to use her real last name, as there was