Gift-Wrapped Governesses: Christmas at Blackhaven Castle / Governess to Christmas Bride / Duchess by Christmas

‘I fainted?’ Her query was laced with horror as she tried to sit up.

‘I would stay lying down for a moment if I was you.’

She ignored him. ‘Melusine?’

‘Is in the corner looking about as alarmed as you are. My son is tending to her.’

‘Thank you.’ The pulse at her wrist raced and Trey thought she might very well faint again. Placing her hand down, he stood.

‘Gareth, bring the hound to Miss Moorland, please. Pick her up. I am assured by this lady that she is the kindest of dogs.’

His youngest son pulled the small animal towards him by the collar, making his best attempt at lifting it, but just as he was about to secure it in his arms, the thing bounded straight out of them and on to the circular table next to the sofa, tipping both it and the ancient urn of Great-Uncle Tobias, with the ornate porcelain-twisted handles and painted woodland scenes, and sending them headlong to the floor.

A thousand pieces shattered around the room in a single loud explosion, causing the hound to simply draw into itself and urinate all over the rug, her whines of apprehension becoming more insistent as a hush fell in the library.

Then Terence began to laugh, a sound Trey had not heard him make in three long years and so foreign that he could not believe he was hearing it. The dog, understanding that one member of the human population in the room was not about to kill it, sidled immediately up to his middle son and waited patiently to be lifted into a careful embrace.

A miracle.

A wonder.

The answer to his prayers.

Though Miss Sarah Moorland, newly arrived from London and now sitting open mouthed on his burgundy-velour chaise-longue, looked very much as if she was going to be violently sick.

Chapter Two

‘Is she a Christmas fairy, Papa? Is that how she mended Terry’s voice?’

The smallest boy stood in front of her, dark eyes watching warily. The oldest child joined him.

‘Did she bring us the dog as a present?’ His voice was imbued with the hope that only children knew how to engender. Even the one who held Melusine looked interested in her answer, though the spell was broken as the Duke of Blackhaven shepherded them away to a further distance.

‘This is your new governess, Miss Moorland, and her dog, Melusine.’

‘How old is she?’ The finger pointed at her puppy looked decidedly grubby, a large and untended cut across the skin above the thumb and Seraphina sat forwards, her mind clearer and the dizziness in her head lessened now, though nausea still roiled in her stomach.

‘A year old. She was born in late November and I found her on my bed on Christmas Day.’

‘Who put her there?’

She had never quite understood how Melusine had come to be asleep in her chamber with a spotted ribbon tied beneath her chin as the sun had come up. Certainly it would not have been her father’s or her brother’s doing and her mama had been a long time dead.

‘Someone who knew I needed her, I think,’ she replied, and left it at that. She suspected it to be the cook at Moreton Manor, for the woman had always been a faithful servant.

Blackhaven was watching her carefully, measuring her person, weighing her up. After such a start, Seraphina was afraid that she would be thrown out on her head before the night fell properly, the darkened freezing landscape of Essex completely foreign. If this was to be the case, then it had all been for nothing, this flight, this subterfuge, this foolish dash into the countryside with terror on her heels and freedom on the horizon. The wet patch on the rug seemed to be growing before her eyes.

She had failed. Miserably.

‘Did you come down the chimney, then?’ The oldest child observed her person as though she might disappear, and looking at her smudged white gown Seraphina could see how such a thought could occur. The part of her personality that found a story in everything resurfaced, surprising her, for it had been a long while since the joy of fantasy had taken her in its grip, and she could not understand how, in the middle of one of her darkest hours, such a trait might flourish.

‘No, for I would have been much dirtier if I had, of course. Real fairies would make themselves so tiny so that not a single spot of grime might spoil their dresses because everyone knows that fairy wings are very accurate in the art of flying.’ Trey Stanford looked away, though not before she saw the waning hopes of her teaching the exact sciences to his sons written on his face in a heavy frown. But she could not care. Imagination had a place, too, in the minds of small boys such as these ones.

‘Miss Moorland will be here until you go up to Eton after the Yuletide season and I expect the best of manners from each of you.’

Lord Stanford sounded as if he had had enough of conjecture, a man who dealt only in facts and reason, and when an old woman came to the door he instructed her to take his children along to their room despite all amount of protest. As the portal shut the silence lengthened.

Melusine had gone with them, trailing behind the boys with a decided interest. Seraphina hoped her dog would be safe, but under the circumstances thought it unwise to voice her worries. Finally, the duke spoke.

‘My son Terence has been mute since his mother died. A laugh was a good start, I think.’

Seraphina was left speechless at the enormity of this confession.

‘I had not thought of a pet, you see, but your dog seems to have broken through his reserve. My children have had a great loss and their reactions to it have all been different.’

Given the tone of his voice, she thought that the loss had been his as well, a man left now struggling with the remains of life. Lord, and how well she understood that difficulty, the tattered remnants of her own torn into shreds.

Trey Stanford was tall, much taller than she had first thought him to be; as the light scent of spice filled the air between them she breathed in, a feeling of safety garnered in the action. His library was filled to brimming with books and a piano stood to one end of the room, ivory keys well used and worn—a home that was not just a showpiece. Did he play? He did not give the impression of a man who spent a lot of time indoors, his body hewn into the hardness of much exercise. She looked away quickly as she noticed he watched her.

Shards of porcelain beneath her boot brought her back to reality. Would wages be docked for the breakage of such an expensive treasure and should she as ‘help’ be offering to clear away this mess?

The rules had changed around her as well and she chastised herself for not taking more notice of the hierarchy of service in her father’s house. The place of a governess was undoubtedly strictly observed in a ducal mansion such as this one. Another problem to overcome. She had not foreseen the enormity or the complexity of her change in station when she had decided upon it. Sitting here, she wondered if she should have run for the port of London instead and jumped on the first ship on an outgoing tide.

A trolley heavily laden with food arrived, the aroma of chicken and coffee and newly baked bread making her mouth water.

‘I can take it from here, Mrs Thomas.’

The servant’s eyes flicked across to her own, curiosity and regard written within them, the ghost of a smile on her lips before she bobbed and turned towards the door. Another younger maid came to quickly tidy the broken urn and mop up the unfortunate puddle, finishing the task in less than a moment and following the older woman out.

Lord Blackhaven indicated the fare on the table. ‘After you help yourself we will talk, Miss Moorland. Your dog shall be fed in the kitchen.’

Relieved that Melusine was to be given a meal, Seraphina piled her plate with food as high as she deemed polite and sat down.

‘What was your brother’s name?’ His lack of small talk made caution surface, his presence filling the room to bursting.

‘Andrew.’

‘Andrew Moorland? Which regiment did he serve with?’

‘The 18th Light Dragoons, sir.’ Lord, pray that the duke was not a soldier within those ranks as well or her ruse would be up.

When he shrugged his shoulders and leant back against the chair, she relaxed. In another life she might have asked what regiment he marched with and what the conditions had been like on the Peninsula at that particular time, just to give herself a better idea of the place where her beloved brother had fallen. But that life was long lost to her and a servant who had come to care for children would have no place in the asking of it. So instead she stayed silent. She was aware that he was observing her most closely.

‘Have we met before? You look … somewhat familiar.’

She reddened again, the curse of her fair skin and blonde hair. She remembered him, of course, for she had seen him once a good seven years ago, before he was injured and when his wife Catherine had conquered the ton with her beauty. Seraphina had been thirteen and gauche when he had stopped her wayward mount from bolting across a newly laid garden off the Row in Hyde Park. She had thought then that he was like the princes in her storybooks, handsome, kind, brave and wonderful.

He would not remember. It was her mother he would have some recall of. Elizabeth Moreton. A rival of his wife. An Original. Every man who had ever laid his eyes upon her was entranced by her beauty and kindness, except for her husband, Seth Moreton.