The Guardian's Dilemma

The young lady introduced as Miss Gresham glanced briefly at the cluster of women in the room, but she did not smile, nor did she respond to a whispered comment made by the gentleman beside her. She kept her eyes on the floor, refusing to look up or even to acknowledge him.

Helen bit her lip. She wished with all her heart that she could smile, but her face was frozen from top to bottom. Dear heavens, was the gentleman truly the young woman’s father? She would not have thought him old enough…

‘I would also like to introduce Mr Oliver Brandon, Miss Gresham’s guardian,’ Mrs Guarding went on to say. ‘Mr Brandon has been good enough to donate an excellent selection of books from his own library for our use, and we are exceedingly grateful to him for his kindness. And now, Miss Gresham, Mr Brandon, if you would be so good as to follow me, I shall introduce you to the members of my staff.’

Helen nervously clasped her hands in front of her as the three began their perambulation. She kept her eyes down, wishing with all her heart that she could turn and run from the room, but she knew she dare not. Mrs Guarding would never forgive such a breach of etiquette from a member of her staff. Worse, it would only serve to draw attention to herself, and that was the last thing Helen wished to do. Which meant that she would just have to stay and see it through.

Perhaps he would not recognise her, she thought with sudden hope. After all, it had been nearly twelve years since he had last seen her and her appearance had certainly changed from the time she was a young woman of nineteen. There was also the possibility that he might not remember her, given that the room in which he’d found her had been very dark. And considering the awkwardness of the situation, he could have had only the briefest glimpse of her before—

‘And this is Miss Helen de Coverdale,’ she heard Mrs Guarding say. ‘Miss de Coverdale has been with us for two years and instructs the girls in the areas of watercolours and Italian.’

Helen was aware of Miss Gresham and her guardian stopping in front of her and knew there was nothing she could do but acknowledge the introduction. She slowly raised her head and smiled tentatively at the young woman. ‘Good morning, Miss Gresham.’

‘Good morning,’ came the lack-lustre reply.

Finally, with a reluctance borne of fear, Helen turned her head and looked at Oliver Brandon, trying all the while to ignore the butterflies swirling madly inside her stomach.

He, too, had changed over the past twelve years. His face, a striking mixture of lines and angles, was no longer that of a youth but of a man; one who had experienced life, both the good and the bad of it. He had a slender nose poised above a firm chin, a beautifully sculpted mouth and eyes that glowed a rich shade of brown. His hair was so dark as to appear almost black, as were his brows and lashes.

And he was tall. Helen had to tilt her head back to look into his face. Unfortunately, as she did, she saw the change in his expression, and felt her breath catch painfully in her throat. She recognised a brief flicker of surprise, followed by confusion, and then disbelief as forgotten memories stirred to life like the cold ashes of a long dead fire.

Helen’s heart plummeted. It seemed that her hopes of escaping recognition were to be dashed. The man knew exactly who she was. And it was clear from the look on his face that time notwithstanding, he thought no better of her now than he had all those years ago.

Oliver stared at the young woman standing before him and felt as though he’d gone tumbling backwards in time.

Good God, was it really her? After all these years, could it possibly be the same woman?

He blinked hard, wondering if it was just his memory playing tricks on him. It had, after all, been years since he’d last seen her, and what he had seen of her at the time hadn’t been all that much. But if it wasn’t the same woman, it could surely have been her twin. The resemblance was uncanny. She had the same dark, lustrous hair and the same exotic beauty of the woman he had encountered so briefly all those years ago. But if it was the same woman, what the hell was she doing here?

How had a nobleman’s whore become a teacher at a private girls’ school?

‘Mrs Guarding, might I have a word with you in your study?’ Oliver said finally.

The headmistress glanced briefly at Miss de Coverdale, and then nodded. ‘By all means, Mr Brandon. Miss Emerson, would you be so kind as to show Miss Gresham to her room?’

‘Yes, Mrs Guarding.’

‘Thank you, ladies. You may all return to your classes.’

As silent as little grey mice, the teachers filed out. Oliver saw a few cast surreptitious glances his way, but he noticed that none of them met his eye. And Helen de Coverdale did not look at him at all. She turned and walked away, not scurrying as the others had, but seeming to float across the floor, her movements slow and graceful, indicative of a poise and refinement he would not have expected in one of her class. At the door, she hesitated.

Oliver held his breath. Would she turn and look at him? If she did, it would be tantamount to an admission of familiarity. He waited as the seconds seemed to drag into hours.

In the end, she did not turn. Helen de Coverdale left the room and quietly closed the door behind her. She did not look back at him once.

Oliver slowly let go the breath he’d been holding. It had to be her. He’d seen the tell-tale flash of recognition in her eyes. She’d known who he was as surely as he’d known who she was. Which meant that his suspicions had to be right.

Helen de Coverdale was the young woman he’d stumbled upon in a darkened library, clutched in the passionate embrace of the married lord who had employed her.

Helen sat on the stone bench in the rose garden and thought back to the one and only time she had seen Oliver Brandon. It seemed a lifetime ago now, and in many ways, it was. She had been employed as a governess to Lord and Lady Talbot at the time. A dreadful position, and one which, had she had a choice, she would have turned and run away from as far and as fast as her legs would have carried her. Unfortunately, she hadn’t had a choice. She had taken the job because she’d needed money to live on after her father had died. But she had seen the look in Lord Talbot’s eyes the first time he had spoken to her, and had known what it would portend. Men had been looking at her like that since she was a child of thirteen, their hungry eyes lingering on her face and on her already ripening body.

Helen hadn’t always had to worry about her appearance, of course. Before her father had died, her life had been very different. Robert de Coverdale had been a barrister, and as his only daughter, Helen had been a most eligible young lady. Indeed, her father had held out great hopes of her achieving a respectable marriage, perhaps even to a titled gentleman of some fortune.

What he had not expected was to see his only daughter fall in love with an impoverished clergyman who had come to the village during the summer of her seventeenth year.

Helen shuddered as she cast her mind back to her youth. Her father had refused to countenance an alliance between his daughter and Thomas Grant, the young vicar who’d claimed to love her. He’d said it was so far beneath her as to be laughable, and he had forbidden Helen to see him. And dutiful daughter that she was, Helen had obeyed. But it had taken years to recover from the heartache of losing Thomas. He had been her first true love, and the loss of that love had nearly destroyed her.

Over the next two years, more unhappiness had plagued Helen’s life. Her mother had died in a freak riding accident, and her father, devastated by the loss of the woman he had loved more than life itself, had fallen into a series of personal and financial disasters. Unable to cope with a life in ruin, he had eventually taken his own life, and suddenly, Helen had discovered what it was to be dependent upon others. She’d had no relations in England. Her mother’s family was still in Italy, and her father’s only brother had been killed in the Americas. She’d had no one to turn to and no reputable avenues left open to her. It was then she started trying to disguise her natural beauty. She’d had no wish to appear attractive to the men who passed her in the street, or desirable to the husbands of other women.

Unfortunately, not even the wearing of plain clothes or the scraping back of her hair into a matronly style had been enough to disguise the true loveliness of her features. Helen had not been able to make her heavily lashed eyes appear any the less noticeable, or her full-lipped mouth any the less appealing. She hadn’t been able to hide the fact that she wasn’t as slim and dainty as were so many of the English ladies she met. She had inherited her mother’s lush, exotic beauty, and it was that lushness which men found so attractive, Lord Talbot included. He had been hosting a shooting party at his country estate in Somerset that fateful weekend. The huge house had been filled with guests, many of whom had come all the way from Scotland to partake of the sport and to enjoy the lavish entertainments Lady Talbot had planned for the evenings.

Helen had not been invited to enjoy any of the amusements, of course. She had been included in the outing to Grovesend Hall simply to look after the children, but as a lowly governess she was not expected to participate in any of the festivities. So after tucking her two little girls into bed, she had gone down to the kitchen for a glass of warm milk and had then headed for the library. Lady Talbot had told Helen she could avail herself of his lordship’s libraries. She had discovered Helen’s passion for reading, and had assured her that as long as the master was not about, she was welcome to browse through his extensive selection of books.

Helen often wondered if Lady Talbot had known of her husband’s philandering ways and had simply turned a blind eye to it. Whatever the case, Helen had made a terrible mistake that night. Believing that Lord Talbot would be busy entertaining his guests, she had made her way to the library—which was located well away from the source of the revelry—and had begun to look for something to read.

That was where Lord Talbot had found her.

Helen shivered as she went over it again in her mind. She remembered turning around at the sound of the door opening and seeing the look on his face; a look that had caused her to immediately forget all about books. Like most of the gentlemen, Lord Talbot had been drinking since noon and was well on his way to being in his cups. Knowing that, she had pulled her shawl more closely around her, had quickly retrieved her candle and her drink, and had gone to move past him.

For a drunkard, Lord Talbot had moved with terrifying speed. The milk and the candle had gone flying as Talbot pulled her roughly into his arms and started kissing her.

Repulsed, Helen had struggled against him, fighting to avoid the wet, slobbering kisses he had pressed upon her neck and mouth. She’d sensed that her struggles were only adding to his excitement, however, and given that he had the advantage of both size and weight, Helen had been left in no doubt as to the outcome. He pushed her back towards the settee, his mouth smothering the scream that left her throat as his other hand closed painfully over her breast.

At that precise moment, the door to the library had opened and Oliver Brandon had walked in.

Helen hadn’t known who he was at the time. He had simply been a guest in her employer’s home. But during the long, agonising moments in which he’d stood frozen in the doorway, Helen had seen the look of shock on his face. And she had watched it change to one of disgust as he’d placed his own interpretation upon the scene before him. He’d muttered an apology and abruptly withdrawn, not even guessing at the true nature of the horror taking place.

Helen closed her eyes as the humiliating memories came flooding back. The only good thing about it was that Mr Brandon’s appearance—however brief—had given her the chance she’d needed to escape. Distracted by the sound of the intrusion, Lord Talbot had momentarily looked up, and in doing so, had loosened his grip. In that blessed moment, Helen had broken free and bolted for the door. She had raced towards the stairs as tears of anger and humiliation had streamed down her face and had run all the way to her room. Once inside, she’d turned the key in the lock, wedged a small writing-table against the door and pushed the bed against that. She hadn’t slept a wink all night.

The next morning, she’d left Grovesend Hall for ever. She had returned to London, where she had lived off her wits until she had been able to secure another position in the south of England. She had never seen Lord or Lady Talbot again. She hadn’t seen Oliver Brandon either. Until this morning, when he had brought his sixteen-year-old ward to be a student at Mrs Guarding’s Academy.

But it had been clear from the look on his face that he had not forgotten who she was. And he would surely be wondering how and why a woman of such loose morals had ended up becoming a teacher in a private girls’ school. Especially one where he was intending to leave his own stepsister as a pupil.

Chapter Three

Oliver was silent as he accompanied the headmistress back to her study. His mind was spinning, turning over in ever-increasing detail the memories of that fateful night so very long ago.

He had never forgotten what he had seen in the library at Grovesend Hall. He remembered with distaste the sight of Lord Talbot’s hand clutching the young woman’s breast, and the lustful expression on his face when he’d turned around and seen Oliver standing there. Even now, the memory of it repulsed him.

The problem was, Oliver hadn’t known William Talbot well at the time. Yes, they had frequented the same clubs, and they’d often run into one another at social occasions, but the difference in their ages had prevented them from forming any kind of a close friendship. But for whatever reason, Talbot had taken a liking to him and Oliver had been young enough to be flattered by his regard. So when the wealthy peer had invited him to come to his country house for a weekend shooting party, Oliver had accepted with alacrity.

He shook his head now, as he so often did when he thought back to the naïveté of his youth. He hadn’t known that Talbot was such a reprobate. But even if he had, Oliver would never have expected the man to flaunt his mistress in front of his guests during a crowded soirée. What would his wife have said if she’d been the one to discover them in the library?

Fortunately, or unfortunately, it hadn’t been Lord Talbot’s wife who had stumbled upon that sorry sight, but Oliver himself. He had opened the door to the library, wanting only to escape from the noise and revelry going on in the other rooms, and had come face to face with his host and a young woman locked in a passionate embrace. Obviously, the sound of his arrival had immediately served to catch the young woman’s attention, if not Talbot’s, and she had glanced up and stared at him across the darkened room.

For the space of moments, Oliver had been treated to the sight of one of the loveliest faces he had ever seen. A cascade of thick, black hair fell nearly to her waist, framing a face of such arresting beauty that he felt as though he was staring into the face of an angel. Her dark eyes had reached into his soul, tugging at the very core of who he was.

The memory of those eyes had stayed with him for years.