Page 27 of Fortune Favors the Viscount
It wasn’t the first time he’d been alone with Emilia Greene, but something was different now. Perhaps because he was about to—as she had put it—bare all to her.
God. He needed to stop thinking about her bare.
“You are a well-educated woman,” he said abruptly. “Raised as a lady.”
She visibly stiffened. “What of it?”
“You have been employed as a governess for several years, teaching elegant manners and ladylike accomplishments to other young ladies. You helped launch Lady Helen Fairchild, who made an excellent match with Lord Mulworth.”
Miss Greene’s eyes narrowed. “Yes.”
Nick nodded. “You’ve demonstrated a remarkable resilience in the face of obstacles with your current post. Most governesses would have looked for a new position upon the death of an employer. Instead, you’ve become Lucinda’s erstwhile guardian, not only seeing to her care and education but doggedly investigating her family for a relation who could not only become the new viscount but take responsibility—at least financially—for Lucinda.”
He had a sense of how she’d done it now. The day after their card game, he’d sent Forbes out for more information about her. It appeared she had pillaged every portable valuable from the Sydenham estate that might plausibly be considered Lucinda’s inheritance and sold them. She’d managed to get the embezzling attorney to pay six months’ lease on a London house before he shot himself. In town they lived frugally, even meanly; one of Forbes’s boys had followed their servant, a young man called Henry, to the market and shops, and watched what he bought. No sugar, no beef, half rations of tea, tallow candles. They had only Henry and a cook left, although Forbes’s man thought it was an emotional bond keeping the two servants, not because Miss Greene had any money to pay salaries.
She said nothing to his statement. Nick nodded again. “I prize that combination of cleverness and determination in my employees.”
“In your— What?” She blinked. “Are you offering me a position?”
“I am.”
“As—as a governess?” she asked in disbelief.
“Yes.”
“To whom?” she blurted. “You haven’t got a child, you said the other day you hadn’t...”
“I have,” he said carefully, “a ward.”
She almost fell off the seat. “Who?”
“A girl of fourteen. Her upbringing has been... unconventional, but she is bright and eager to learn more ladylike behavior.”
Miss Greene gazed at him, her lips parted in astonishment. Her whole expression was so unguarded and open, Nick had to look away. He was unpardonably pleased to have surprised her so completely.
“Tell me about her.” She was still flustered, but quick to gather herself. This time Nick did smile. He liked that about her, too.
“She is nearly fifteen,” he said again. “Her name is Charlotte.”
“Whose daughter is she?”
“None of your concern,” he said before she’d even finished the question.
She gave him a fulminating stare, jaw tight and eyes glittering like lightning. Emilia Greene in a fury was a sight to behold. “If you mean for her to go out in society, people will wonder. If you don’t tell them who she is, they will gladly invent all manner of histories for her, and I assure you, none of them will please you.”
“I’ll deal with that when I must.”
He could see the struggle in her face. She wanted to argue. But at last, she said, grudgingly, “As you wish. But this means we must discuss Lucinda again.”
“Oh? How so?” He leaned back, draping one arm across the seat cushion as the tension in his shoulders eased. The carriage was rolling through Westminster, taking an idle tour of the city until he rapped on the wall and told the driver to take them to Queen’s Court.
“I am responsible for Lucinda, who has no one else. I am her governess, too, and it will be very difficult to instruct two young ladies and still have time to shepherd your petition through the committee.”
Grantham was going to attend to the petition. Nick shrugged, deciding not to argue that point now. “Can you not manage two pupils?”
She gave a little huff. “Of course I can, though it won’t be easy. Why didn’t you tell me this before? From your air of mystery, I’d no idea it would be something so mundane that you wanted from me. I imagined all manner of scandalous requests.”
Oh Lord. For a moment an image blazed through his mind, in vivid, erotic sound and color. Nick breathed slowly, willing his pulse to steady itself. He had to remind himself that hedidonly want this one, mundane, decidedly-not-scandalous thing from her. “It is not mundane to me,” he said gravely. “Charlotte is exceptionally dear to me.”
