The Unconventional Governess

“Happiness is ephemeral. I have no doubt it shall return to you shortly. In the meantime, I will begin searching for a position somewhere.” She paused. “I would ask discretion from you on this matter. Please do not say anything to my uncle at this time.”

Lady Brandewyne’s hand went to her mouth. “You are not telling him?”

“I think it’s best to find the position first, and I do not wish to worry him.”

She nodded, but there was a worried glint in her eyes. “Secrets are unwise.”

“It is not a secret,” Henrietta assured her. “I would like to tell him myself, though.”

“Very well.”

Satisfied, Henrietta nodded. After tea, she immediately wrote two letters of inquiry to nearby neighbors whom Lady Brandewyne intimated were looking for governesses. She left them with the butler to be delivered later.

Knowing that Lord St. Raven was now without a governess offered a slight temptation. She disliked his effect on her nerves, yet she found herself reflecting on his unexpected kindness toward the governess who had left.

No doubt Louise would prove an apt pupil. Very bright and most likely challenging. And then they were both orphans. Oh, how she sympathized with the child. She did not want to teach her, though. It would require a great deal of stamina, patience and forethought. And time.

Then there was St. Raven... She did not want to be a governess in his household. Only the most severe of circumstances would change her mind. She prayed he healed quickly so that he could leave.

An uncharacteristic restlessness plagued her. Dinner was not to be ready for several hours, so she wandered into the gardens. Lady Brandewyne kept a well-stocked pond at the edge of the path. Succulent flowers hugged the stone walkway, growing in wild, colorful profusion. The path itself was neatly groomed, creating a relaxing walk for Henrietta. She had not been outdoors yet today, and the gentle breeze riding on muted sunlight that filtered through the leaves of ancient oaks soothed her thoughts.

They had been hard to ignore.

She supposed she could be a companion of sorts to Lady Brandewyne, but their dispositions were so very different that no doubt it would not be long before they came to a disagreement. Henrietta felt no inclination to hold her tongue, and though she’d had lessons in deportment and the requirements of polite society, when her parents died, everything changed.

She no longer had the patience required to be an English lady.

She had discovered that good manners were unnecessary when struggling to save a soldier from death’s embrace. One did not need to wear the proper style to nurse back to health a child ravaged by fever. While helping Uncle William in the Americas, she had grown used to making her own decisions and speaking her mind without the petty rules of etiquette she’d been raised to hold dear.

And now he’d left her to the clutches of a traditional Englishwoman bent on finding her a husband. How could he?

She sank down onto a pretty stone bench nestled beneath a poplar some distance from the pond. Butterflies danced in fluttering abandonment around her, blissfully unaware of the bitter disappointment that tainted their visitor’s respite. She sighed deeply, closing her eyes to pray in the personal way she’d discovered overseas.

Treating God as a kind and heavenly Father was not something she’d learned from her family. Rather, a soldier recovering from an amputated leg had introduced her to a new perspective of God. She’d found the discovered relationship with her creator healed a void even Uncle William could not fill.

There was still pain, though. The loss of her parents remained a bruise within, sometimes unnoticed, but always tender to the touch.

She prayed now for wisdom, for forgiveness, because she resented that Uncle William had left her. She prayed that God would open a way for her to join him. Provide the funding.

The earl had called her a hard woman. The comment resonated uncomfortably, and she pushed thoughts of him from her mind.

When she finished praying, she simply sat and breathed. It was a lovely day, to be sure. Too lovely to squander. Nearby, a twig cracked. Then another. Louise emerged on the far side of the path, from a small copse of flowering bushes. Leaves stuck out from her hair and dirt stains smeared the front of her dress.

“Good afternoon,” Henrietta said.

“What were you doing with your eyes closed?”

“I was praying.”

“I don’t pray anymore.” Louise plopped beside Henrietta without any consideration of space. Her dress brushed against Henrietta’s hand. “Did you know that when my parents’ carriage crashed, Father was decapitated?” She paused for dramatic effect. “I plan to visit the place where they died. I overheard the servants saying it was a gruesome sight.” The girl stared wide-eyed at Henrietta, perhaps waiting for her to faint from a fit of the oh-so-feminine vapors.

Henrietta had never been afflicted by such a malady.

She felt a deep empathy for the child, who was obviously struggling with coming to terms with her parents’ death. Instead of allowing herself to heal, she tried to remove herself from the pain by speaking about the situation in an objective way, by covering the terrible tragedy with a blanket of detachment and, to some, shocking commentary.

She thought it best to match the child’s coping with equally objective answers.

“Death is never pretty.” She met Louise’s aggressive expression with a sober look. “Charlotte Corday is rumored to have looked at her executioner after her beheading at the guillotine.”

Louise gaped.

“However,” Henrietta continued calmly, “you are quite right in your comment that a beheading is a messy affair. Unless you’re a chicken. Then perhaps it would be less untidy.”

“A chicken?”

“Due to their anatomy, it has been rumored that chickens can live for some time after the severing of their heads. It has to do with the spinal column, you see, and the location of the brain stem.”

Louise’s nose squished and her eyes narrowed. “You are not like other ladies.”

“I am not a lady. I am a doctor.” Or as close to one as society would allow.

“You are very blunt.”

“‘No legacy is so rich as honesty.’” At the girl’s befuddled look, Henrietta sighed. “Are you not acquainted with Shakespeare?”

“That boring old dead man?”

“I can see your education is greatly lacking. Perhaps because you are running around the gardens rather than working on your lessons?”

“My governess quit.” Louise jumped up from the bench, making a scoffing sound in her throat. “Deportment and manners, bah. They are for stuffy old ladies.”

Henrietta worked very hard to keep her eyebrows from raising. How closely the child echoed her own sentiments. To hear them so unabashedly touted was startling. Louise was looking to shock the adults around her, to horrify them and alienate them, because of her own sorrows. Henrietta would not succumb to the child’s manipulations. The girl was hurt and grieving, and such behavior might be expected.

When Henrietta did not respond to that outburst, as Louise so clearly expected her to, the girl sent her one last brooding look before she ran off to chase butterflies.

She would need more than what Henrietta could offer. Although they had shared a connection...

Henrietta walked back to the house, deep in thought. A servant informed her the dowager countess was waiting for her in the parlor. She found the lady of the house at her desk, penning a letter.

“Ah, Miss Gordon, I have just heard of a perfect opportunity.” Lady Brandewyne looked over the rim of her spectacles.

Sweet liver ague, she was surely referring to the earl’s need for a governess. “Indeed?”

“Lord St. Raven has no governess.”

Henrietta fought the grimace that tempted her lips.

“As I thought.” Lady Brandewyne sniffed. “Your uncle is a very dear friend, and your parents were pillars of society. They would be horrified to see what’s become of you. A governess is not the best position, but in time, perhaps, you will meet a kindly vicar or man of business. You are not completely plain.”