"Stay Out of This, You're Only the Governess," His Fiancée Snapped — The Duke Stood in the Doorway
Chapter 2
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It did not come down. A woman in a plain gown of dark green wool stepped between the raised hand and the child, turned her back upon the hand, and stood still. She was perhaps four and twenty, with chestnut hair dressed low and no ornament of any kind, and she did not raise her voice at all."You will not strike her, Lady Arabella," the governess said.For a moment, nobody in the room breathed. The Countess half rose from the sofa. The housekeeper set the teapot down upon the tray with a small, careful sound."Stay out of this. You're only the governess," Lady Arabella snapped.The governess did not lower her eyes, and she did not move. Behind her skirts, two small hands had taken hold of the green wool and were holding on."I know what I am, my lady," she said. "I am also the person answerable for these children until His Grace comes home. If you wish to complain of me to him tomorrow, I shall stand here and hear every word—but you will not strike her."The raised hand stayed where it was. Lady Arabella's face had gone white about the mouth, and her mother said, "Arabella, my dear, the servants," in a small, warning voice."Get them out of my sight," Lady Arabella said. "All three."The footman looked at the carpet. The baronet's wife looked at her gloves. The housekeeper looked at the governess, and nobody at all looked at the doorway. If they had, they would have seen a tall man in a travel-stained greatcoat, with rain upon his shoulders and his hat still in his hand, standing perfectly still upon the threshold. He had a handsome, grave face, and at that moment there was no expression on it whatever.The Duke of Merivale had seen everything. And he said nothing at all.By the time the hawthorn bloomed at Merivale, there would not be a soul in the county who did not know exactly what the governess was worth, and the woman who had called her only would be gone from that house forever.Her name was Lydia Fenwick, and she had come to Merivale Hall in the autumn of 1814 with one trunk and a letter of recommendation from a lady whose gout her father had treated. Her father had been a physician in the city of York—a careful, kindly man who believed in clean linen and open windows, and distrusted the lancet for anyone under the age of 12. In the first weeks of 1814, he caught a fever in the poor wards and died of it in ten days, and when his debts were paid, there was nothing left for his daughter but her education and her good sense.She was 22 years old. She could speak French and read Latin. She played the pianoforte tolerably, and she knew more about fevers, coughs, and the setting of small bones than any governess in England. None of that was asked of her.