The Mysterious Governess (Daughters of Sin Book 3) (2 page)

“Sadly he was
not
so clever. In fact, he couldn’t even get so far as borrowing one of his sister’s gowns, because she caught him and quizzed him and point-blank refused to let him take what wasn’t his.” Lissa sighed and leveled her gaze at Cosmo. “Young ladies in high dudgeon can be formidable. And as I mentioned, he’d thought he was so much cleverer than he was but I’m afraid one has to be exceedingly clever to successfully put one over one’s sister. And
your
sister would be impossible to bamboozle.”

Lissa inclined her head. “Good night, Master Cosmo. I hope Miss Danvers likes her painting.”

W
hile the orchestra played, Lissa tweaked the lustrous folds of her silver-flecked evening gown—well, Miss Maria’s ball gown—and tested her smile, reflected in the enormous silver epergne, from which protruded at least three dozen lilies on the center of the refreshments table.

“One dance, and that’s all. Then the evening’s over,” Cosmo muttered as he plucked a glass of champagne from the tray of a passing waiter and handed it to her. “I get few enough invitations to such events and I won’t suffer you to ruin my chances of more.”

Cosmo had gone to great pains with his appearance. His hair, short at the sides, had been brushed upwards to gain him even greater height, while plunging south into a pair of razor-thin sideburns. Lissa glanced at the nipped-in waist of his royal blue swallow-tail coat and wondered if he’d resorted to his sister’s corsetry. Well, perhaps not Miss Maria’s stays, but lately he’d been adopting, more and more, the accouterments of style favored by the tulips or pinks of whom her brother Ned—a true nonpareil himself these days—spoke so scathingly.

Fingering the ridiculously high points of his collar, which looked like it was choking him, he muttered, “Drink up, Miss Hazlett, and then we shall dance a set before I take you home. It was pure chance I was invited here tonight and I don’t want to be exposed.” Cosmo glanced nervously over his shoulder as Lissa responded with a forced smile, “Others might have considered me an asset, Master Cosmo.”

She wished she’d been cleverer at negotiating terms. Certainly, it would be a scandal if it were discovered the governess had slipped unnoticed into such hallowed precincts, but Master Cosmo was an accomplished liar and Lissa knew how to conduct herself in such a setting. However, if her duplicity were revealed, Cosmo would no doubt find a way to turn to it his advantage while Lissa might well lose her position.

“Excuse me...”

Both turned at the interruption, Lissa experiencing a sudden and curious reaction that certainly wasn’t admiration as a lean, dark-haired man gazed at her through a pair of speculative dark eyes.

“My apologies. I had thought you someone else.” Despite his error, the gentleman still asked Lissa to partner him in the quadrille once he’d introduced himself and ascertained she was free for that set. Within minutes, Lissa was close enough to smell the whiskey and tar soap that impregnated his inky locks and dark wool coat, and to wonder why she felt so uncomfortable in his company.

“Miss Hazlett?” As they waited for the head couple to perform their figures, he stared at her intently. “Is it possible you are related to Miss Araminta Partington?”

Shock rendered her speechless. How could he possibly have guessed at a family connection? But of course, he had not, she reassured herself. He was merely commenting upon a resemblance that had been remarked upon before, as resemblances were remarked upon in many families. However, with Lissa and Araminta on opposite sides of the social divide, Lissa had never—until now—considered it could be a complication.

She hoped he didn’t notice her fiery blush as she replied, faintly, “I’m a visitor to these parts. I have not heard of the young lady.”

He nodded, his thin lips tightening, turning to bow to the lady on his left, as the dance required, before turning back to Lissa, the music and figures of the quadrille sedate enough to continue their conversation. “Interesting. When I glimpsed you across the dance floor, I thought you were she. Not that I am disappointed, of course.”

He smiled suddenly, as if it were a prop intended to make him appear disarming, as he led her in a short promenade. He exuded confidence and entitlement—and danger—and Lissa, who was not one to suffer nerves, was frightened her carefully cultivated façade may suddenly dissolve.

“This is my first season, Lord Debenham,” she murmured, returning to her place beside him after the ladies’ chain. “How interesting that I have a double.”

“Yes, and there she is.” His Lordship raised a thin eyebrow as he clasped her in a waltz hold, ready to gallop her across to the other side of the set. “Dancing with the very undesirable Sir Aubrey, in fact. You’ve surely been in town long enough to know he is someone of whom to beware.”

Lissa followed the direction of his gaze and her heart lurched. Not on account of the sudden requirement for energy or fear at not knowing the steps. Though the quadrille in its modern form had been introduced relatively recently to the upper classes, Lissa and her siblings had been taught to dance. Their mother, not the most maternal nor ambitious of women, had nevertheless insisted her offspring receive a classical education, which included dancing and watercolors, even if there would be no occasion to flaunt these refinements. Having the accouterments without opportunity until now to practice them in public was one of the many reasons Lissa was enjoying every moment rubbing shoulders with the rich and titled.

Well, she
had
been enjoying every moment, until she saw her half-sister. There she was dressed in virginal white silk with a pale green sash to match the green feather in her simple headdress. Miss Araminta Partington, living the life Lissa would have lived had her father followed his heart, not his parents’ dictates.

The young woman’s supercilious glance about the ballroom did nothing to ameliorate the raw hatred that surged through Lissa, though fortunately when Araminta looked pointedly at Lord Debenham, her gaze didn’t encompass the unknown Lissa.

Araminta’s interest in Lord Debenham immediately made him more interesting. Certainly his dark, cruel looks were not to Lissa’s taste. She could tell that, in his own way, he was as self-absorbed as Cosmo; but the fact Araminta was clearly sizing him up as a prospect was unexpected. Lissa immediately wanted to know more. And of Sir Aubrey, with that striking streak of blond hair in his otherwise dark locks, whom Lord Partington clearly held in aversion. A rival, perhaps?

“Why should I be wary of Sir Aubrey?”

A glance down his hawk-like nose would have made lesser girls quail. As if her question singled her out as utterly ignorant.

“You really are from the country if you’ve heard nothing of the scandal attached to our lowly baronet. The blackguard is barely received. But I shall leave it at that for what would you know of politics? You only have to read the gossip sheets to understand it would be wise to steer clear of the villain.”

Lissa bristled at his dismissive tone. In fact, she followed politics with great interest and regularly purloined her employer’s newspaper when he’d finished with it.

“I am interested in politics, Lord Debenham,” she said. “I’d like to hear the details.”

Lord Debenham stroked his snowy cravat, then shrugged. “Sir Aubrey drove his late wife to take her own life—though others suggest he played a more personal role in her death—when he learned she was preparing to reveal his involvement in a group of Spenceans suspected of plotting the assassination of Lord Castlereagh.”

Lissa gasped. “He’s a
Spencean
? A murderer? And he’s received?”

Lord Debenham shrugged again before taking her hands to execute the next figure of the set. “Only because there is as yet insufficient evidence to convict him, but mark my words, Miss Hazlett, it will not be long before Sir Aubrey is brought to justice.”

“And Miss Partington is dancing with him?” Lissa was truly shocked. She knew her sister enjoyed taking risks, but surely she’d think associating in any way with a suspected traitor and murderer would be unacceptably damaging to her reputation?

Lord Debenham sent a narrow look in the couple’s direction. “Sir Aubrey likes to look the Pinkest of the Pinks but the truth is, he’s shockingly loose in the haft, if you’ll pardon me coining a phrase your brother might use. Sir Aubrey thinks he can get away with anything if he puts up enough front. He’s certainly cunning and desperate enough to be a danger to anyone who falls foul of him.”

“Are you going to warn Miss Partington?”

Lord Debenham raised an eyebrow. “I suspect Miss Partington’s actions are designed to invite just such a warning from me. Thank you for the dance, Miss Hazlett. Here is your cousin. I shall bid you adieu and do exactly as you suggest.”

Lissa’s high spirits came crashing down as His Lordship deposited her with Cosmo before he immediately set off in Araminta’s direction.

“You’ve had your dance and now we must go.” Cosmo was waiting anxiously by the edge of the dance floor, ready to whisk her through the crowd and into a waiting hackney cab while Lissa had had but a mere taste of what she had been hoping would be the substance of her young life before too long. She knew she looked beautiful. That in fact, in looks, she rivaled her half-sister.

What a cruel twist of fate that it was Araminta who was living the life that should have been Lissa’s; Araminta who was anticipating a glittering marriage and a life of ease. For Lissa, the only life-changing event she could anticipate would be to graduate from her role of governess to Cosmo’s two little sisters to that of unpaid companion to her mother in her old age.

With a grim look, Cosmo caged her hand on his arm, as if the touch with someone so lowly were utterly repugnant.

The double doors that opened into the lobby grew closer, and now the bewigged footman was ushering her outside, into the cold. It was
not
where she belonged. Always on the other side of these doors. Her throat thickened and tears formed behind her eyes.

“Stop looking so Friday-faced. I have fulfilled your wish, Miss Hazlett.” Cosmo turned to her as they descended the stairs. “Now you must fulfill your part of the bargain. I need to give Miss Danvers’ miniature to her in the morning.”

Lissa, who’d not put it past him to steal it, had hidden it beneath her pillow as further protection against him reneging on his promise. She suspected he’d already rummaged through her room trying to find it.

Now, she weighed up whether to push the advantage as Cosmo helped her into the waiting hackney he’d flagged down as they’d rounded the corner from Lady Stanely’s Bruton Street residence, for he couldn’t be observed, in public, putting a lone woman into such an equipage. She decided against it. Cosmo could turn nasty if he felt he was being taken advantage of.

“Never fear, the miniature will be waiting for you in your bedchamber when you return, Master Cosmo. And now you must return to the ball. You won’t want to squander the invitation. As you yourself remarked, they do not happen regularly, do they?” She did not hear him respond to her jibe, for the jarvey shut the door at that moment before jumping onto the box.

With a “Gee-o”, he whipped the horses into movement and as Lissa lurched forward, she was filled with the determination that she would not always be a governess. She’d witnessed enough of her half-sister’s behavior over the years to know that Araminta, vain and proud, did not appreciate her life of ease and plenty.

Well, Lissa was as well versed in the requirements of being a lady, and certainly behaved in a more ladylike manner than Araminta, an observation backed up by her sister, Kitty, who took an even greater interest in their half-sister than Lissa did.

Surely, with her unusual palette of talents, Lissa could carve out a niche for herself that was more rewarding than the usual destiny allotted to the illegitimate and unacknowledged daughter of a peer of the realm?

***

C
ocooned alone in the musty, uncomfortable interior of the hackney, now that Cosmo had, with clear relief, washed his hands of her, Lissa had gone only a couple of blocks when she was jerked out of her unhappy musings by a terrified cry, a head-rattling lurch, and the grinding of wheels accompanied by a deafening whinny.

Disoriented, she flailed in the dark for something she could grip as she felt the hackney round a bend on only two wheels. The side window smashed inward as it veered too close to a building and Lissa screamed as she was thrown against the door. For a moment the vehicle slowed, then, suddenly gathering speed, it sped on. Now she could hear the shouts of others in the street as they either leapt clear of the runaway horse or perhaps tried to arrest its progress.

Hunching her shoulders, she covered her face and braced for the inevitable impact, a prisoner in this capsule and under no illusions it would end well.

Despite her flights of fancy, Lissa was pragmatic by nature. Either she would be snuffed out when the hackney came to a final, messy stop or went into the river, or she would be looking for a way to explain her multiple injuries and damage to Miss Maria’s ball gown while hoping she still had a job.

If the outcome were too bad she may have to return home to her mother. She felt ambivalent about this. While she’d never been more lonely than in the six months she’d spent as governess in the Lamont household—not good enough to be spoken to civilly by her employers and too good for the other servants to offer friendship—she did enjoy the bustle of London.

The inevitable impact came, truncated by a terrible sound of splitting wood and grinding metal, and Lissa was thrown against the side of the carriage, hitting her head on the window frame before slumping to the floor.

For a few moments she lay curled up in a ball, breathing heavily and waiting in case there was a dramatic codicil to her terrifying adventure.

Tentatively she flexed her hands and feet and opened her eyes, screaming when she found her right eye without vision as she drew away her fingers, sticky with what she knew must be blood.