Page 23 of The Enigmatic Governess of Buford Manor
“Gracious,” she whispered, her throat dry. “How long was I asleep?”
He glanced at her, leaning forward to light a lantern, illuminating his face almost eerily. Smiling patiently, he shook his head.
“It matters not,” he replied. “The longer you remain asleep, the closer we come to Rosecliff.”
“Have we much longer?” she asked, swallowing the cotton which seemed to have sprouted in her windpipe.
Peter reached for a flask at his side, handing it to her.
“A few more hours yet. Shall we stop? Would you care to stretch your legs?”
Eagerly, she accepted the drink and shook her head.
“No,” she replied smiling. “I am excited to get there.”
“I imagine you have had enough of coaches for quite a time,” Peter agreed. Yet that was not what Rose meant. She was filled with a renewed sense of interest now, a deep desire to see the house that would be her home until Harry became a man.
Until speaking with Peter Alderson, she had been plagued with uncertainty, worried that she had made the wrong decision leaving Dartford and the Boyles. Now it was as if a fog of doubt had lifted and through the bright sunlight she could see clearly.
Through the corner of her eye, Rose glimpsed the flickering lights of a structure and she scooted along the bench to look into the night. Large, looming walls of stone jutted out into the sky; the windows painted in stains. As they passed, she turned her head to gawk at the opulence and size of the structure as it peeped through the treeline, and she was awed by what she saw.
“Is that a cathedral?” she gasped. “I have never seen such a large church!”
“It is not a church,” Peter laughed. “It is a castle.”
Rose colored with embarrassment, happy that he could not see her face well in the dim light.
“Of course, it is,” she mumbled, feeling foolish for presenting the inquiry.
“Moreover, it is roughly one half the size of Rosecliff.”
Rose’s head whipped around to him, expecting to see a mocking smile on his face, but Peter maintained his stoic expression.
“You cannot be correct!” she choked. “Roseclif Manor is two times the size of that – that – monstrosity?”
She wished she had chosen a better word.
“Rosecliff is much warmer than that monstrosity,” Peter replied. “But I assure you, it is twice its size.”
Rose fell back against the seat her heart hammering in her chest. Suddenly she was thankful she had been hired as a governess and not a chambermaid.
Chapter 8
The trip to Cambridge had been both exhausting and enlightening to Nicholas. The interviews had gone swimmingly, and while he had not had a say in court, he had kept his ears open to the ideas sported openly among the men. He and his father had spent the evening, dining and drinking with their peers before retiring to their apartments for the night. In the morning, they set for home, both a trifle worse for wear in the aftermath.
“That was quite a crush,” the duke commented as they made their way through the forest roads leading back to Buford. “I did not envision so many men.”
“Nor women,” Nicholas rebuked, thinking of the hired pleasure some of his father companions had enlisted. “Or scotch for that matter.”
The duke snorted contemptuously.
“I fear all the breeding our beloved England could not undo the sin some of our peers possess. Titles be damned. They are the worst kind of sinners.”
“You have no sin, father?” Nicholas teased but the duke did not smile.
“No man is without sin, Nicholas,” Duke Buford replied flatly. “We all have our crosses to bear. How we bear those crosses is what separates us from the beasts.”
There was something prophetic about the duke’s words as if he spoke from experience and attempted to forewarn his son of what lay ahead.
