The Governess's Secret Baby

He was happy with his life, dammit. He had his animals and his hawks—they did not judge him by how he looked.

His mother forked a morsel of roast grouse into her mouth and then placed her knife and fork on to her plate whilst she chewed, watching Nathaniel expectantly.

‘I am but thirty, Mother. There is more than enough time to produce an heir.’

‘Would you pour me another glass of wine, please, Nathaniel?’

He obliged. They were dining alone in the dining room at Ravenwell Manor, the servants having been dismissed by Lady Ravenwell as soon as the dishes had been served. That had prompted Nathaniel to suspect their conversation would prove uncomfortable and his defences were already well and truly in place.

‘Thank you.’ His mother sipped her wine, then placed her glass on the finely embroidered tablecloth. ‘Do not think I am ignorant of your plan, son,’ she said. ‘You arrive here after dark, at a time you know Clara will already be asleep. What is your intention? To snatch her from her bed before dawn and be away before you need to see anyone, or be seen?’

He hated the sympathy in her eyes but he also knew that behind that sympathy there existed a steely belief in duty. His duty: to the estate, to his family, to the memory of his father, and to the future of the marquessate. Her jibe about snatching Clara from her bed sailed too close to the truth.

‘I came as soon as I could after reading your letter, Mother. My late arrival was because I did not want to wait until tomorrow to travel, but I am afraid I must return in the morning.’

‘Must?’

‘It will not do to expect a two-year-old child to travel late into the night.’

‘Then stay for a few days. At least give the poor child a chance to remember you.’

He had last seen Clara four months before, when she had come up to Shiverstone with Hannah and David from their home in Gloucestershire. They had stayed with him for a week. Thinking of his sister and his friend brought that choking, aching lump into his throat once more. He bowed his head, staring unseeingly at the food in front of him, his appetite gone.

‘I could invite a few neighbours for dinner. Only people you already know, not strangers.’

I can’t... Bile rose, hot and bitter in his mouth.

He shoved his plate from him with a violent movement. Mother jumped, her fork clattering on to her plate and her face crumpled, the corners of her mouth jerking down as her eyes sheened. Guilt—familiar, all-encompassing—swept through him and he rounded the table to fold his mother into his arms as she sobbed.

‘I’m sorry, Mother.’ She had lost her precious daughter and he had been concerned only with his own selfish fears. ‘Of course I will stay for a few days.’ A few days would be all he could endure of his mother’s efforts to reintroduce him into local society, he was certain of that. ‘But no dinner parties, I beg of you. Do not forget we are in mourning.’

Mother’s shoulders trembled. ‘You are right,’ she whispered. ‘But...please...stay with me a short time.’

He dropped a kiss on her greying head. ‘I will.’

Poor Mother, left with only him out of her family. He was no substitute for Hannah. Why couldn’t it have been he who died? Hannah had so much to live for, whereas he... He batted that wicked thought away. No matter how black his future had seemed, he had never been tempted to take his own life. He was content enough with the life he led. The villagers avoided him and he had his dogs and his horses and his hawks: they provided all the company he needed.

Nathaniel resumed his seat, but did not draw his plate towards him again.

‘What about Clara’s nanny?’ He remembered the woman from Hannah’s last visit to Shiverstone. At least she was not a complete stranger. ‘I assume she is here and will stay with Clara?’

His mother’s gaze skittered past him. ‘I am afraid not. She has family in Gloucester and does not want to move so far away. You will need to appoint a new nanny and then, later, she will need a governess.’

He battled to hide his dismay, but some must have shown, for she continued, ‘You must put Clara’s needs first. She is two years old. What do you know about taking care of such a young child? Of any child? And Mrs Sharp has enough to do with running the Hall. You cannot expect her to take on more responsibility.’

She’s right. I know she’s right...and yet every fibre of his being rebelled against the notion of not one, but two, strangers coming into his home. He eyed his mother. Perhaps...

‘And do not think I shall yield if you try to persuade me to raise Clara on your behalf.’

His mother—one step ahead as usual. He must accept that, once again, he had no choice.

‘I will advertise for a governess,’ he said. One person—surely he could cope with one person. Once she was used to his appearance, all would be well. He need not see much of her. ‘Then Clara will not have to adapt to another person in her life later on. She needs consistency after losing her parents.’

Poor little soul. Unwanted by her own mother—an unfortunate girl in trouble—and now losing her adoptive parents. And she was a sweet little poppet. Too young to react with horror to his scars as other children had done in the past, Clara had accepted her uncle and she, in turn, had delighted him with her gurgles and her first attempts at speech. An unaccustomed tingle warmed his chest. She would be his. She might only be two, but she would provide some human contact apart from his servants.

‘You must do as you deem right for Clara.’ Mother’s sceptical expression, however, suggested that she was completely aware of his real reason for choosing a governess rather than a nanny. ‘And for darling Hannah.’

A lone tear spilled over and tracked down her lined cheek. How had he never been aware of those wrinkles before? His mother had aged. Grief, he thought, did that to a person and poor Mother had faced more grief than most.

‘I will,’ he vowed.

He owed it to his sister, who had tackled her own heartbreak of trying and failing to give birth to a healthy baby with such dignity and grace. She had been besotted by Clara from the very first moment she held her in her arms and impotent anger raged through Nathaniel that she would now miss the joy of seeing her adopted daughter grow and mature. Hannah had been one of the few constants in his life since the fire that had taken his father and changed Nathaniel’s life for ever. He would not let her down now. He would write to the editor of the York Herald, with instructions to run an advertisement for a trained governess who was willing to come and live at the Hall.

For the first time he felt a sliver of doubt—what sort of woman would agree to bury herself in such an isolated place?

Chapter One (#uf5b15403-1535-5ccd-bf52-6d0179233e7b)

Early November 1811

Grace Bertram breathed easier as she reached the edge of the dense woodland, with its mossy-trunked trees and its unfamiliar rustles and groans, and the barely glimpsed scurrying of invisible creatures through the undergrowth. The track she had followed from the village of Shivercombe—past the church, across a meadow and a river, and then through that spooky wood—emerged on to the edge of bleak moorland and she stopped to catch her breath, and look around.

Moorland—or, more correctly, fells according to the local villagers who had tried so hard to dissuade her from venturing to Shiverstone Hall—rose ahead of her before merging mistily with the overcast sky. She could just about make out the slate roof and tall chimneys of a house squatting in a fold of land ahead, the only sign of human habitation in that forbidding landscape.

Grace’s pulse accelerated in a fusion of anticipation and fear. That must be it. Shiverstone Hall. And there, beneath those glistening black slates, was Clara. Her baby, who now lived in this isolated place with—according to those same villagers—a man who was fearful to behold and who breathed fire and brimstone on any who ventured on to his land: the Marquess of Ravenwell. Grace would not...could not...allow those warnings to deter her. She had survived that creepy forest and she would survive Lord Ravenwell’s wrath. She would not turn back from the task she had set herself two years ago.

She owed that much to the daughter she had given away at birth.

Grace swapped her portmanteau into her left hand and glanced down at her muddied half-boots in disgust. Her left foot already squelched in her boot and the right felt suspiciously damp too. What sort of lord lived out here in the middle of nowhere and did not even take the trouble to build a bridge over the river between the village and his house? An uncivilised sort, that was who, in Grace’s opinion. There was a ford for horses and vehicles, but the only place for a person to cross the river was by using huge, wet, slippery rocks set in the riverbed as stepping stones. She was fortunate it was only her left foot that had been submerged.

Grace trudged on, muttering under her breath, still following the same track. At seventeen, and a pupil at a school for governesses, she’d had no choice but to give her baby away, but she had regretted it each and every day since then. She had promised herself that one day she would track her daughter down and make sure she was happy and loved and living the life she deserved. And now it was even more urgent that she find her daughter and make sure she was well cared for—and wanted—since her discovery that the couple who had adopted Clara as their own had perished in a carriage accident.

But doubts still plagued her as she walked, despite her resolve to see her mission through. She might be bold, but she was not stupid. What if this Marquess would not allow her to see Clara? What reason could she give him for seeking out the child? Not the truth. He would send her packing. No. She must find another reason.

And what if Clara is not happy and loved?

What on earth could she—a nineteen-year-old newly trained governess with no home and little money in her pocket—actually do? She pushed the thought aside with an impatient tut.

She would deal with that when and if it became necessary.

She plodded on, skirting the worst of the puddles that dotted the track. Finally, she crested the rise ahead of her and there it was. She paused. It was bigger than that first glimpse had suggested, but its appearance—grim and grey with creepers adorning the walls—and location were hardly that of a dwelling in which one might expect a wealthy lord to reside.

A shrill cry echoed through the air and she whirled around.

Nothing.

At least she wasn’t still in the forest—that unearthly sound would then indeed have unnerved her. She scanned the bleak landscape, but nothing moved. Another plaintive cry brought her heart into her mouth. She looked up and caught sight of a huge bird—bigger than any she had ever seen—gliding and soaring. It then circled once, before pitching into a dive: a dark blur silhouetted against the low clouds until it disappeared behind the hill that rose behind the house.

Grace swallowed, hunched her shoulders, swapped her portmanteau over again, and soldiered on. Her upbringing at her uncle’s house in Wiltshire and, since the age of nine, at Madame Dubois’s School for Young Ladies in Salisbury had ill-prepared her for such nature in the raw.