Chapter 1
Rosethistle Cottage, Cornwall, 1819
Lady Arabella Astley, sister of the Duke of Ashmore, wished she were better at lying. In her entire twenty-two years, Arabella had never lied. Lately, she’d resorted to lying as if it were her second skin. It was rather exhausting. Her name, which she’d changed to plain Miss Arabella Weston, would take a while to get used to. Her new identity as a governess even more so. Exhausted from the coach ride and dusty from the walk to the cottage, she could not shake the feeling that coming to Cornwall to answer the advertisement for the position of a governess had been a foolhardy undertaking. To top it all, she was being interviewed by a mere girl.
“What do you mean you don’t have any references?” Miss Katy Merivale’s forehead puckered to a frown. Arabella stared at her in fascination. Wisps of dark hair escaped from the girl’s thick, messy braids, and her blue gingham cotton dress seemed a tad too short and had patches at the elbow. How old could she be? Sixteen? Younger?
“Miss Weston?” The girl’s voice tore Arabella out of her thoughts. “References?”
Arabella squirmed in the rickety kitchen chair. Of course she did not have any references. A duke’s daughter did not need any. But governesses were a different matter altogether. Arabella suppressed a groan. Why hadn’t she thought of that? She searched the tiny, cramped kitchen for inspiration. What an odd place for a job interview. But as the parlour room had been uninhabitable, Miss Katy had explained, the kitchen was the only other available place. She’d led her here as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Arabella had been too stunned to even blink. It was the first time she had ever set foot in a kitchen. She fixated on the chipped crockery on the sooty fireplace’s mantlepiece as if they could provide references. Sweat pooled in her armpits. Her maid’s rough linen dress was too warm and spanned too tightly around her chest.
She licked her lips and decided that the truth was always the best. “This would be my first position as a governess.”
“That’s not good. We can’t hire you without references.” Miss Katy propped both elbows on the table and chewed her lower lip.
Arabella shifted in her chair. “But I do have my report cards here, from Miss Hilversham’s Seminary of Young Ladies in Bath.” She pulled out several sheaves of paper. “Sorry about the smudge. Some tea spilt on it.” Conveniently right over her real name, rendering it illegible. It had taken some dexterity to topple the teacup over in a manner that wouldn’t drench the entire document.
Miss Katy’s green eyes grew huge behind her glasses. “You had music, arithmetic, science, literature, languages, deportment, dance, art, theatre, and history.” A note of awe entered her voice. “And you excelled in all subjects.”
“I enjoyed studying there.”
“Which was your favourite subject?”
“I’ve always been partial to the languages and literature,” Arabella said. She spoke three languages fluently and without any hint of an accent.
“What was it like at the seminary?”
Arabella smiled wistfully. “Wonderful.” Her years at the seminary with her friends Lucy, Birdie, and Pen had been some of the best she’d ever experienced.
“Did you sleep there?” There was a catch in Miss Katy’s voice.
“Oh, yes, it was a boarding school.”
“Did you share a room with someone?”
“Yes. My roommate was called Lucy.” Arabella smiled involuntarily. “She is like a sister to me.”
Miss Katy lowered her voice. “Did you — did you sneak out at night sometimes?”
Arabella lowered hers as well. “Oh yes. Several times. We visited graveyards, and once we went to a wishing well at midnight…” That particular adventure hadn’t ended well, for she had fallen into the well. Arabella shook herself. “Back to the position I am applying for. I’d very much like to have this position. Not to offend you, but shouldn’t I be talking to your mother?”
The girl shook her head. “Mama is dead.”
“I am so very sorry.” Arabella drew her eyebrows together. “But shouldn’t your father be conducting this interview, then?”
Miss Katy jumped up from her chair. “Papa doesn’t have time for things like this.”
“Excuse me, but how old are you?”
“I am fourteen.”
“Fourteen!” Her precociousness made her appear older.
Miss Katy stuck her nose in the air. “It’s just a number. I am the mistress of the house. And I say —” She hesitated, tilting her head to the side, as if weighing up the lack of references with her experience at the seminary. “I say that you get the job. You’re hired.”
Arabella pursed her lips. “That’s wonderful, but I would like to have a word with your father, if that is possible. To finalise a few things.”
“He won’t be very happy if we disturb him. As I said, he’s very busy.” Miss Katy proceeded to fill a kettle with water and set it on the stove to boil. “Would you like some tea?”
