It was one thing for them to agree that they were destined to follow separate paths, that this affaire or whatever the hell it was, had a very finite life, but it was quite another to act on this knowledge. He was not only playing with fire, he was playing with his very future, but he could find no appetite to halt the charade, no matter how many very sound reasons there were. Holding her now, soothing her violent sobs, he felt a fierce desire to protect her, to fight whatever battle it was she needed help fighting. It was not his battle though, and she would likely spurn his assistance for his own good. And hers. Whatever that may turn out to be.
Joanna had stopped crying. Her breathing had slowed. She sat up, and before he could offer his kerchief, had retrieved her own, a small, practical square of cotton, which she used ruthlessly on her red-rimmed eyes and nose. ‘I’ve made your shirt damp, I’m afraid,’ she said in a small voice.
‘I’ve plenty other shirts.’ He covered her hands with his. ‘I take it that Her Grace did not offer you satisfactory terms?’
‘Oh, she offered me extremely generous terms,’ Joanna said bitterly, ‘but the one thing she has not offered me is justice. She merely wishes to buy my silence and that is grossly unfair, no matter how generous the settlement. The problem is, I’ve no option but to accede, if I wish to prosper. There, we have that in common too, though I fervently wish we did not.’
Recovering her composure, she folded her kerchief away and pushed herself upright. ‘The two people who owe me a grovelling apology are quite notable by their absence,’ she said, her eyes sparkling, not with tears now, but with fire. ‘Her Grace is merely the intermediary. I was so excited when the invitation to Brockmore came, I didn’t think about the fact that it should have been preceded by a letter from another.’ She pushed a damp tendril of hair back from her cheek and sighed. ‘I didn’t want to tell you the about the whole sordid episode until it was satisfactorily resolved, but now it can have no happy ending—or at least, not the happy ending I’d hoped for.’
‘Then you better tell me now, for if you don’t, how am I supposed to help?’
He was rewarded with a tremulous smile. ‘That is very gallant of you, but I fear my situation is beyond rescuing, even by you.’
‘I’ll be the judge of that, once I know what we’re dealing with.’
‘It’s a long story, Drummond.’
‘The one thing I’m not currently short of is time. Fire away!’
‘Well, if you are sure.’ Joanna clasped her hands together, angling herself to face him. ‘About three years ago, I was employed by Lady Christina Robertson to act as governess to her eldest daughter. Lottie was then sixteen, and due to make her debut the following year. Lady Christina is...’
‘A doyenne of society,’ Drummond said drily. ‘I was introduced to her at the Richmond ball actually, on the eve of Waterloo. Her husband was at that time a bigwig in the Foreign Office. You were mixing in rarefied circles.’
Joanna snorted. ‘A governess does not exactly mix but—yes, I had by any standards secured a prestigious position and Lottie was, unlike some of my previous charges, an excellent pupil. I was—am—very fond of her.’ She bit her lip. ‘That is why it hurt so much when she betrayed me.’
Drummond frowned. ‘What did she do?’
‘I trusted her. It was naïve of me, to think that such an excellent pupil would have maturity of judgement to match her intelligence. She was very pretty, indulged, popular, and where there are young girls like Lottie, there are always young men. I knew the signs to look for, having prevented just such foolishness with another of my charges, but with Lottie I was complacent. It didn’t occur to me that she was capable of being deceitful, and she therefore found it easy enough to go behind my back.’
‘To meet with a beau?’
Joanna nodded. ‘I don’t know how many times—I still can’t quite believe she had the nerve. I was not in the habit of checking on her once she retired, she was sixteen years old after all, and eligible to be married within a year. But that particular night, for some reason I did. The Robertsons had intended to spend the night with friends, but his lordship took ill on the journey, and they came back about eleven. The noise woke me, I had this—this odd feeling, and went to Lottie’s room and she wasn’t there.’
She felt sick, remembering it. She’d slumped down on Lottie’s bed. The girl hadn’t even tried to make it look slept in. Her first thought had been to question the maid, but before she had reached for the bell, the signs she had been ignoring for weeks fell into place like the pieces of a puzzle.
‘I didn’t know what to do, save to wait up for her. It was an interminable night, Drummond. I have always thought that pacing the floor was something only characters in books do, but I paced and paced, until I began to worry about the floorboards squeaking. She eventually turned up at about three, and as you can imagine, just about leapt out of her skin to find me waiting. All I cared about at first was that she was safe. Such a little innocent, she could have been ruined before she was even out in society!’
‘Little hussy, more like,’ Drummond exclaimed. ‘At sixteen, she should damned well have known better.’
‘Precisely. As her governess, I should have made sure that she did, but I...’
‘Joanna, you cannot possibly blame yourself.’
‘But I was at fault, Drummond, and though I knew that I’d most likely be dismissed for my lack of vigilance, I also knew that I could not possibly keep Lottie’s behaviour a secret from Lady Christina. I told her that unless she confessed to her mama first thing in the morning, I would tell her myself.’ Joanna shuddered. ‘She begged and she pleaded and she threatened, and she cried—how she cried, I’m surprised she did not wake the household. In the end, I thought I had persuaded her to do the right thing. I should have known better. The next day...’
‘The next day?’ Drummond prompted. ‘Take a deep breath and tell me precisely what happened.’
She did as he bid, though her voice was shaky. ‘Lottie had “borrowed” her mother’s emerald necklace to impress her beau. I assumed she would hand it over when she confessed to her foolish behaviour, but in the event, she did neither. When the necklace was discovered to be missing the next day, it was found in my bedchamber when a search was made of the house.’
‘And your employers duly accused you of theft,’ Drummond said heavily. ‘Why the devil didn’t you tell them the truth?’
She flinched at the anger in his tone, though she couldn’t blame him. ‘I tried to, but Lottie flatly denied everything, and Lady Christina accused me of trying to ruin her daughter’s character in order to save my own skin.’
‘When in fact the opposite was the case?’
‘Yes. It was a nightmare. I kept thinking that Lottie would eventually speak up and take responsibility, but she wouldn’t even look at me. I should have—no, not expected it, but I shouldn’t have been so surprised. A young person of Lottie’s age, in Lottie’s position, was bound to think only of saving her own skin. She was young and spoilt and selfish, and she had her back to the wall. So she acted both rashly and wrongly.’
‘That, I do understand,’ Drummond said. His expression darkened. His hand, which was resting on his knee, clenched into such a tight fist that his knuckles turned white. ‘I understand that better than anyone.’
The bleakness in his eyes made her shiver, but before Joanna could ask what he was thinking, he gave himself a shake. ‘I think I can guess the outcome.’
‘It