Free The Rake Enraptured by Amelia Hart Page A

as the gentry persist in sending their sons there. There is a climate of hazing and almost ritualized abuse.”
    “ How awful. You went to Eton?”
    “ Yes, to my sorrow.” He said it lightly, and she did not know how to react. The thought of him tormented as a child was vastly uncomfortable, and very different from her knowledge of him.
    “ Was it so horrid?” she said, tentative. “I don’t like to think of poor Bertie suffering.” Would Mr Holbrook have been as comparatively large or athletic as his peers when he was a boy? Perhaps he had once been small and vulnerable.
    “ Not so bad when you have the way of it. And certainly some thrive. I was fortunate enough. But the induction process is harsh. If it’s any satisfaction, your Bertie will miss you more than you can imagine.”
    “ No, it’s no comfort. Poor boy.” It was not only Albert she spoke of, but also that imagined little boy. Colin.
    “ It must be difficult to care for children and watch them go out of your hands without having any say.”
    “ It is the nature of things, for governesses.”
    “ I imagine you’d prefer to teach your own children.”
    She tilted her head towards him, puzzled by this turn of conversation. “ I think that would be very pleasant,” she said slowly.
    He met her eyes, and smiled a crooked, rueful smile, and shrugged. “ I find I don’t like to think of you as sad.”
    “ Then pray don’t, Mr Holbrook. I am quite content, I assure you.”
    A small breeze lifted and turned the pages of her book, and she transfer red a hand to still them before they could reveal the letter folded inside, from her grandmother. She closed the book and set it aside. “You are in a very different sort of mood tonight.” She had never heard him speak of his past to anyone at all.
    “ I could say the same for you.”
    Perhaps that was true. The day had gone well and swiftly, and with duties finished and a light meal eaten alone in her room, she had then enjoyed a good hour to herself here in the fresh air, reading the letter sent to her. L etters from Grandmere always lifted her spirits. “The lovely evening, as I said,” she excused her unnatural tolerance of him. “An aberration.” After reading even glancing references to Grandmere’s current affaire with Lord Admiral Horton, it was difficult to condemn him so thoroughly for his philandering. He was a product of his world.
    “ The evening or your easy mood?”
    “ Both, I’m sure,” she said, and smiled. “Was your day amusing?”
    “ I find I am weary of picnics and promenades around the flower beds.”
    “ Good heavens. Mrs Trent would be horrified if she knew. I suppose she imagined the wealth of young women would assuage any pangs of boredom among the gentlemen.”
    “ Miss Preston!” He pretended shock.
    “ I didn’t specify what you might do with those women to stave off boredom. You supplied that detail yourself, in your own mind.”
    “ I did. That’s true,” he confessed readily. “The impropriety is all mine.”
    “ Speaking of impropriety, you are doing this too often. Seeking me out, I mean.” She lifted her chin, determined to correct him despite that traitorous, well-hidden liking she had for his attentions. Best he halt this flirtation, strange product of her midnight visit to his room. “It has been noticed, and it is an embarrassment to me.”
    “ Are you so easily influenced by the opinions of others?”
    “ Of course. There is no place in the world for a scandalous governess.”
    “ Are you always sensible? Can I not lure you into a little impulsiveness?” His tone was whimsical.
    “ No.” Not more than she had already indulged in.
    “ So unequivocal?”
    “ Of course. I have no leeway to be foolish. This is my livelihood-”
    “ You are too serious. Life is too short to live with the regret of experiences missed.” He picked several strands of grass and rolled them between his fingertips.
    She could not help watching the movement,