Gift-Wrapped Governesses. Marguerite Kaye

      ‘Is she a Christmas fairy, Papa? Is that how she mended Terry’s voice?’

      The smallest boy stood in front of her, dark eyes watching warily. The oldest child joined him.

      ‘Did she bring us the dog as a present?’ His voice was imbued with the hope that only children knew how to engender. Even the one who held Melusine looked interested in her answer, though the spell was broken as the Duke of Blackhaven shepherded them away to a further distance.

      ‘This is your new governess, Miss Moorland, and her dog, Melusine.’

      ‘How old is she?’ The finger pointed at her puppy looked decidedly grubby, a large and untended cut across the skin above the thumb and Seraphina sat forwards, her mind clearer and the dizziness in her head lessened now, though nausea still roiled in her stomach.

      ‘A year old. She was born in late November and I found her on my bed on Christmas Day.’

      ‘Who put her there?’

      She had never quite understood how Melusine had come to be asleep in her chamber with a spotted ribbon tied beneath her chin as the sun had come up. Certainly it would not have been her father’s or her brother’s doing and her mama had been a long time dead.

      ‘Someone who knew I needed her, I think,’ she replied, and left it at that. She suspected it to be the cook at Moreton Manor, for the woman had always been a faithful servant.

      Blackhaven was watching her carefully, measuring her person, weighing her up. After such a start, Seraphina was afraid that she would be thrown out on her head before the night fell properly, the darkened freezing landscape of Essex completely foreign. If this was to be the case, then it had all been for nothing, this flight, this subterfuge, this foolish dash into the countryside with terror on her heels and freedom on the horizon. The wet patch on the rug seemed to be growing before her eyes.

      She had failed. Miserably.

      ‘Did you come down the chimney, then?’ The oldest child observed her person as though she might disappear, and looking at her smudged white gown Seraphina could see how such a thought could occur. The part of her personality that found a story in everything resurfaced, surprising her, for it had been a long while since the joy of fantasy had taken her in its grip, and she could not understand how, in the middle of one of her darkest hours, such a trait might flourish.

      ‘No, for I would have been much dirtier if I had, of course. Real fairies would make themselves so tiny so that not a single spot of grime might spoil their dresses because everyone knows that fairy wings are very accurate in the art of flying.’ Trey Stanford looked away, though not before she saw the waning hopes of her teaching the exact sciences to his sons written on his face in a heavy frown. But she could not care. Imagination had a place, too, in the minds of small boys such as these ones.

      ‘Miss Moorland will be here until you go up to Eton after the Yuletide season and I expect the best of manners from each of you.’

      Lord Stanford sounded as if he had had enough of conjecture, a man who dealt only in facts and reason, and when an old woman came to the door he instructed her to take his children along to their room despite all amount of protest. As the portal shut the silence lengthened.

      Melusine had gone with them, trailing behind the boys with a decided interest. Seraphina hoped her dog would be safe, but under the circumstances thought it unwise to voice her worries. Finally, the duke spoke.

      ‘My son Terence has been mute since his mother died. A laugh was a good start, I think.’

      Seraphina was left speechless at the enormity of this confession.

      ‘I had not thought of a pet, you see, but your dog seems to have broken through his reserve. My children have had a great loss and their reactions to it have all been different.’

      Given the tone of his voice, she thought that the loss had been his as well, a man left now struggling with the remains of life. Lord, and how well she understood that difficulty, the tattered remnants of her own torn into shreds.

      Trey Stanford was tall, much taller than she had first thought him to be; as the light scent of spice filled the air between them she breathed in, a feeling of safety garnered in the action. His library was filled to brimming with books and a piano stood to one end of the room, ivory keys well used and worn—a home that was not just a showpiece. Did he play? He did not give the impression of a man who spent a lot of time indoors, his body hewn into the hardness of much exercise. She looked away quickly as she noticed he watched her.

      Shards of porcelain beneath her boot brought her back to reality. Would wages be docked for the breakage of such an expensive treasure and should she as ‘help’ be offering to clear away this mess?

      The rules had changed around her as well and she chastised herself for not taking more notice of the hierarchy of service in her father’s house. The place of a governess was undoubtedly strictly observed in a ducal mansion such as this one. Another problem to overcome. She had not foreseen the enormity or the complexity of her change in station when she had decided upon it. Sitting here, she wondered if she should have run for the port of London instead and jumped on the first ship on an outgoing tide.

      A trolley heavily laden with food arrived, the aroma of chicken and coffee and newly baked bread making her mouth water.

      ‘I