Her grandfather, once a soldier, had told her that the best way to hide from the enemy was in plain sight, which was the reason Elena had chosen to change her appearance as far as she was able and adopt an assumed name, before accepting the post as governess to Amanda Hawthorne, a post that largely involved staying inside the house with her charge. Even if Neville Matthews, her cousin and abuser, and the new Duke of Sheffield, did decide to come to town, then he was unlikely to accept any but private invitations following the recent death of their grandfather.
She did not believe that she had any acquaintances living in Cambridgeshire, but she nevertheless felt safer in the anonymity of London…
‘Perhaps,’ Adam continued relentlessly as he saw the uncertainty in her expression, ‘it is that you have…acquaintances, here in London, you would be reluctant to be parted from, even for a week or so…?’ Just because the woman had been widowed for almost two years, and she still wore her black clothes as a sign of her continued mourning, did not mean that she had not taken a lover during that time. Several, in fact.
Indeed, Adam had heard it said that physical closeness was one of the things most lamented when one’s husband or wife died. Not true in his case, of course; he and Fanny had not shared so much as a brief kiss from the moment he had learnt of her first infidelity just a month after their wedding.
But Elena Leighton was a young and beautiful woman, and she had already explained that she still wore her widow’s attire for financial reasons rather than emotional ones. It was naïve on Adam’s part to assume that she had not taken a lover. Quite when she met with that lover—perhaps on her one afternoon off a week?—he had no wish to know!
‘We would only be gone for a week?’ Her expression had brightened considerably.
Irritating Adam immensely. Which was in itself ridiculous; the woman’s obvious eagerness not to be parted from her lover for any length of time was of absolutely no consequence or interest to him. ‘Approximately,’ he qualified. ‘At the moment, the exact length of time I will need to stay in Cambridgeshire is undecided.’ Mainly because Adam felt a certain inner discomfort about this departure for Cambridgeshire at all.
It was true that there were several matters there in need of his attention, but he had no doubts they were matters he could have settled by the sending of a letter to his man who managed the estate in his absence. His decision to visit the estate in person had more to do with his conversation with Royston last night, than any real urgency to deal with those matters himself.
Not because Adam was in any real fear of his grandmother being successful in her endeavours to procure him a suitable wife—that, he had vowed long ago, would never happen!—but because, much as his grandmother might irritate him on occasion, he did have a genuine affection for her, and as such he had no wish to hurt her. Like Royston, removing himself from London, far away from his relative’s machinations, seemed the best way for him to avoid doing that.
However, he could not avoid having dinner at Lady Cecily’s home this evening, when no doubt a suitable number of eligible young ladies would be produced for his approval—or otherwise, as he absolutely knew would be the case!—but as it would also give Adam the opportunity of telling his grandmother in person of his imminent departure for Cambridgeshire, he was willing to suffer through that particular inconvenience.
He frowned as he saw the look of consternation on the governess’s face. ‘I repeat, is there some objection to your travelling into Cambridgeshire with myself and Amanda?’
Elena drew herself up stiffly. ‘No, of course there is not. And to answer your earlier question, I can have my own and Amanda’s things packed and ready for departure in a matter of hours.’
Adam gave a tight smile. ‘It is not necessary that you be quite so hasty,’ he drawled. ‘I have a dinner engagement this evening. First thing tomorrow morning will be quite soon enough. I trust that will give you sufficient time in which to…inform any relatives and friends that you are to be absent from Town for the next week?’
‘Approximately.’
‘Indeed,’ he conceded drily.
The only relative Elena had left in the world was Neville and the moment he learnt of her whereabouts he would no doubt call for her immediate arrest!
And Elena had decided at the onset that the less she involved her friends in her current unhappy situation—and she did have several who still believed in her innocence—the better it would be for them.
She necessarily had to accept a small amount of financial help from her closest friend, Lizzie Carlton, after fleeing the duke’s estate in Yorkshire in late February, and she had also informed Lizzie by letter that she had safely reached London and secured suitable lodgings. But Elena could not, in all conscience, allow her friend to become embroiled in this situation any further than that.
Indeed, she had resolved to completely become the widowed Mrs Elena Leighton, a schooled young lady who had fallen on hard times since her husband’s untimely death. As she must, if she were to be successful in her endeavour of hiding in full view of the populace of England’s capital; it was sad, but true, that the ton rarely noticed the existence of the people whom they employed, let alone those employed by the other members of England’s aristocracy.
‘There is no one whom I would wish to inform, my lord,’ she answered her employer coolly. ‘If I might be allowed to return to the schoolroom now?’
‘Of course.’
‘Thank you, my lord.’
Adam tapped his cheek thoughtfully as he watched her quietly exit the study before closing the door behind her, irritated at the realisation that she had once again avoided revealing anything about herself or her connections. As she was perfectly entitled to do, he allowed; her family connections, or even her romantic ones, had been of no significance to him at the commencement of her employment with him, and they should not be of any import now.
Except he could not prevent himself from wondering—despite her denial of the need for her to inform anyone of her imminent departure for Cambridgeshire—as to which gentleman might currently be the lucky recipient of the ministrations of those full and sensuous lips…
‘She is merely ill from travelling in the carriage.’ Elena looked up at Adam apologetically as he opened the door of the carriage just in time for Amanda to lean out and be violently sick on his black, brown-topped Hessians already covered in dust from where he had ridden on horseback all day beside the carriage. ‘Oh, dear.’ Elena moved forwards on her seat to help her distressed charge down the steps on to the cobbled courtyard of the inn they were to stay in for the night, cuddling Amanda against her before turning her attention to those now ruined boots. ‘Perhaps—’
‘Perhaps if you had informed me of Amanda’s discomfort earlier it would not have come to this.’ Adam glowered down at her.
Elena gasped her incredulity at an accusation she believed completely unfair. ‘Amanda was perfectly all right until a short time ago and has only found this last few bumpy miles something of a trial. Also, my lord, as you had ridden on ahead I could not inform you of anything…’
‘Yes. Yes,’ Adam snapped, waving his hand impatiently. ‘I suggest you take Amanda upstairs to our rooms while I speak to the innkeeper about organising some water to be brought up for her bath.’
Elena kept her arm about the now quietly sobbing Amanda. ‘And some food, my lord. Some dry bread and fresh water will perhaps settle Amanda’s stomach before bedtime.’
‘Of course.’ Adam turned his attention away from his ruined boots to instead look down at his distressed daughter. Amanda’s face was a pasty white, her eyes dark and cloudy smudges of blue in that pallor, her usually lustrous gold hair damp about her face. Nor