A Lady Becomes A Governess

Rebecca swivelled around to see the packet boat crash against the rocks. At that same moment the rowing boat hit something and tipped.

Rebecca plunged into icy water.

Chapter Two (#ue0fdbedf-ebae-5e54-b9aa-db93f814d1f8)

Garret Brookmore, the new Viscount Brookmore, received word of the shipwreck off the coast of Moelfre while he waited in an inn in Holyhead. This was the packet he was to meet, the one on which the governess was to arrive. There were survivors of the wreck, he was told, and Garret felt obligated to travel to Moelfre to see if Miss Claire Tilson was one of them.

None of this was remotely within his experience. A year ago he’d been in Brussels with his regiment awaiting what became the Battle of Waterloo. For the past ten years he’d battled the French. Then word came that his brother and his brother’s wife had been killed in a carriage accident and he needed to return to England to inherit his brother’s title and all the new responsibilities that accompanied it, responsibilities over which he had no preparation. His older brother had been groomed from birth to be the Viscount. John was the family’s fair-haired boy, able to do no wrong in their father’s eyes, whereas not much was expected of Garret so he’d always been bound for the army.

Now the son from whom the family expected little had an estate to run, Parliament to attend and two little girls, his orphaned nieces, to tend to. Pamela and Ellen, only nine and seven, had been securely in the care of their governess, a long-time retainer of their mother’s family, but fate had not finished being cruel. That woman, too, died.

How much could two little girls take? Their mother. Their father. Their governess. Left with a strange uncle whose heart remained with his regiment. Garret had witnessed thousands of deaths, but these seemed the cruellest.

When notified that his nieces’ governess had died, Garret had been in London attempting to meet society’s expectations of a viscount. He contacted an agency in town to hire a new governess and left his obligations there to travel back to Westmorland to the family’s principal estate, to see to his nieces and await the new governess. He’d barely arrived at Brookmore when the agency sent word to expect Miss Tilson to arrive in Holyhead from Ireland.

What if Miss Tilson had drowned in this shipwreck, though? What was Garret to tell the little girls? That another person who was supposed to care for them had died?

He rode to Moelfre and enquired where the shipwreck survivors might be found. He was directed to the Pheasant Inn, a place bustling with activity.

The innkeeper greeted him. ‘Welcome. Do you seek a room?’

‘I am looking for a survivor of the shipwreck,’ Garret responded.

The man frowned and shook his head. ‘Such a tragedy. Almost forty people lost, I’m afraid. Only eleven made it through.’

That did not sound hopeful. ‘I am looking for Miss Tilson. Miss Claire Tilson.’

The innkeeper broke into a smile. ‘Ah, Miss Tilson! Yes. Yes. She is here.’

Relief washed through Garret. ‘May I see her?’

‘Of course.’ The innkeeper gestured for him to follow. He followed the man up two sets of stairs. ‘She’s been feverish since the rescue. Some men pulled her from the water, we were told. She seemed better today, our maid said. Might not be awake.’

‘I understand.’

The innkeeper knocked and a maid answered. ‘Someone to see Miss Tilson.’

The woman smiled and opened the door wider. Neither she nor the innkeeper asked who he was.

He approached the bed and gazed down in surprise. He’d expected an elderly woman like the previous governess. Miss Tilson hardly looked old enough to be out of the schoolroom herself. Her skin was smooth and flawless; her features strong, not delicate. Her hair, the colour of Kentish cobnuts, fell loose over the white pillow. Would her face fulfil the promise of character shown in her repose? He was intrigued.

He looked over at the innkeeper. ‘I do need a room.’

‘Yes, sir, I can accommodate you,’ the man answered. ‘Would you like to come with me now? I will show you to the room.’

Now that he’d found Miss Tilson, he was reluctant to leave her. ‘I will stay until she wakes up. So she knows I am here.’

She was bound to experience distress, waking in a strange place, after nearly drowning.

The innkeeper reached for Garret’s valise. ‘I’ll take this to the room and come back with your key, if you like.’

Garret nodded his thanks.

The maid spoke up. ‘May I leave, sir? I am very hungry. May I get food?’

The innkeeper glanced towards Garret.

‘I have no objection.’ Far be it from Garret to deny a hungry girl, so he wound up alone, seated at the bedside of a beauty he did not know, but for whom he was now responsible.

* * *

An hour passed, an hour spent with swirling thoughts of all he must remember to do, of all he’d learned needed his attention at the estate and even more demands in London and how much he wished he were simply marching with his men on some foreign road bound for the next battle. He missed his men. Worried about how they were faring. The war was over. Napoleon was on St Helena. Regiments were disbanding.

What was the use of wishing for what could not be? Even if his brother had not died, his army life would have changed drastically.

He had to admit he’d travelled to Holyhead mostly to give himself time away from these duties and regrets. Time to think. He could have easily sent a servant to escort her to the estate.

He rose when the innkeeper brought his key. As he settled back in the chair next to the bed, Miss Tilson’s eyes—unexpectedly hazel—fluttered open.

‘Where?’ she managed, her voice cracking.

He poured her a glass of water from a pitcher on the bed table. ‘You are safe, Miss Tilson,’ he told her. ‘You are at an inn in Moelfre.’

Her brow creased as if she were puzzled. ‘Miss Tilson,’ she whispered. ‘Claire.’

He helped her to sit and held the glass as she drank. ‘I am Lord Brookmore.’ It still sounded strange on his tongue. In his mind Brookmore was still his brother. ‘Your employer.’

She stared at him a long time and it seemed as if he could see a range of emotions flit through her eyes. Puzzlement, horror, grief and, finally, understanding.

* * *

Rebecca’s heart pounded in her chest. This was not another fever-filled vision, but a real man touching her, helping her drink. Once she quenched her considerable thirst, she became acutely aware that she wore only a thin nightdress. From where? From whom? Had even the clothes she’d worn—Claire Tilson’s clothes—been lost? Her throat tightened again, but this time from grief. Claire. Nolan. All those poor people.

She shrank away from the man and he sat back in his chair, placing the glass on the side table.

He was Claire’s new employer, he’d said, and he thought she was the poor governess who’d been swept away by that killing wave. He did not look like a man who would hire a governess. His rugged face and muscular frame made him look untamed. His piercing blue eyes seemed a thin shield against painful remembrances. Dark hair, longer than fashionable, was as windswept as a man who’d galloped over fields on a wild stallion. The shadow of a beard covering a strong jaw gave him a rakish air.

Her eyes darted around the room. Why was such a man alone with her? She certainly had never before been alone with a man in her bedchamber, in her night clothes.

‘Why—?’ Her throat closed again and she swallowed. ‘Why are you here?’

His blue eyes fixed on her. ‘I waited at Holyhead. News came of the shipwreck so I rode here to see if you’d...survived.’

The shipwreck. Again she watched the wave consume Claire. Again she felt the rowing boat smash against rocks and plunge her into the water.

She shivered with the memory and he rose again, this time to wrap a blanket around her shoulders. Her skin heated at his touch.

She looked up into his face. ‘How many? How many survived?’