Free His Unusual Governess by Anne Herries Page A

set up a search to find her.
    Closing her eyes, Sarah drifted off to sleep, though her dreams were unaccountably disturbed by the look on a man’s face.
    ‘Who are you?’ he asked. ‘I shall find you out … you cannot hide from me …’
    Rupert frowned as he brooded over his glass of wine after the governess had gone up. The shadows seemed to fold about him and he was aware that the room seemed empty. He was a fool to allow the woman under his skin, because very likely she would turn out to be the adventuress he’d imagined her at first. Yet something about her had captured his interest and he’d wanted her to stay after the children had gone up.
    It was years since Rupert had enjoyed feminine company—other than in bed. Most society women bored him and he was wary of foolish young misses who were out to capture a husband. To have sat talking into the night with an intelligent woman would be pleasant, he thought.
    In London he was seldom aware that he was lonely because he spent his evenings either at his club in the company of male friends, drinking, gambling or talking of politics and the price of stocks, or with his mistress. Had his uncle been here he might not have realised hislack, but in this situation it had come to him forcibly that his life was far from satisfactory.
    As a young man Rupert had imagined that he would fall in love, marry and rear a large family, but a woman who preferred money and a superior title had shattered those dreams. He’d taken his bruised heart and damaged pride off to war and had for a time found content with his fellow officers—but when they turned against him …
    Rupert’s mind shied away from the memories. Mixed with the pain of seeing his men broken and dying, their blood spilling out on the hot dry earth, what happened later was too painful to contemplate. He’d shut away his pain and hurt, just as he’d shut out the humiliation he’d received at a woman’s hands, determined to rise above the petty spite of others. And he’d succeeded so well that he’d come to be what he wanted others to think him—careless, stern and reserved. Rupert needed no one’s approval. He was his own man, ruled by principles of iron and he answered to no one. Only a few ever saw the other side of him—a side he had almost forgotten.
    Once he’d known how to enjoy the small pleasures in life. He’d known how to love, to show caring and to give and take joy from being intimate with another.
    That was years ago, before he’d learned that no woman was to be trusted. They were all the same—greedy, grabbing, jealous little kittens that liked to be stroked and given a saucer of cream, but would scratch you if you annoyed them.
    Undoubtedly, the governess was exactly the same, though for the moment he confessed to being more than a little intrigued, if only by the mystery he sensed in her past.
    Yet she had reached out to him in a way few other women ever had, arousing feelings of need and desire with just one flash of her gorgeous eyes.
    Sarah awoke when a maid drew back the curtains. She yawned and stretched, her mind still lost in dreams as she said, ‘Good morning, Tilly. Have you brought my chocolate?’
    ‘It’s Agnes, Miss Goodrum—and you told Mrs Brancaster you would take breakfast downstairs.’
    ‘Yes, of course,’ Sarah said, the realisation of where she was returning with a rush. She had given herself away and could only hope the maid would not repeat her words to others. ‘If I go down immediately I shall be finished by the time the family is up. I do not see why you should wait on me.’
    ‘I’ve brought your hot water, miss—as Mrs Brancaster told me.’
    ‘Thank you, that was kind.’ Sarah threw back the covers. On waking she’d thought she was at home and her own maid was bringing her the hot chocolate she took every morning before she rose.
    It would be a while before she accustomed herself to the life she had chosen—a very different life, but one that had