He’d nearly gotten Robin. For one awful moment Philip had seen red. A violent, blood red that covered his vision and hurtled him straight back into the past. He’d rather be damned than let the past repeat itself.
But where else could they have gone to live? Back to Scotland? His grandfather’s thatched cottage was comfortable for two, maximum three people, but five, including Granda? He couldn’t house all of them. Besides, he no longer wanted to live from his grandfather’s pockets. He could take care of his own family. Or so he thought. Philip threw the hammer down in frustration.
Several months ago, they’d lost the flat in London. Mr Fitz, the landlord, with whom he thought he’d had an amiable relationship for the fifteen years they’d lived there, insisted they move out. It had come out of the blue. He didn’t give any particular reason other than, as landlord, he had the right to claim his flat whenever he wished. Mr Fitz threw them out on the street. Philip had thought of punching him in the face, except he wasn’t a quarrelsome man and hated physical confrontation. The urgency with which the landlord wanted them gone was unusual. A nugget of suspicion festered in Philip.Hecould’ve had a hand in that. A bribe, maybe? The best of men had difficulty resisting a good chunk of money.
Philip couldn’t find another abode in such a short time. They could’ve stayed with friends, or he could have asked his in-laws, but Philip was too proud for that. Besides, he was estranged from them now. And to separate himself from his children? Never.
Then he’d received a letter fromhim, offering him Rosethistle Cottage. Philip hadn’t been surprised, because he knew he had his spies everywhere. He must’ve known that Philip had lost the place and that he was desperately looking for something else. The only reason why Philip hadn’t rejected Rosethistle Cottage out of hand was because it already belonged to him.
He’d just forgotten about it.
Rosethistle Cottage was where he’d spent the happier part of his childhood. It had been his father’s, and he’d loved it here. The country air was better for the children than the smog and dirt in London. Where he invented did not signify, whether in Cornwall or in London, the patents office wouldn’t work any faster for that.
It had seemed such a perfect solution. So he’d decided to pack up and come here. On the condition thatheleft them in peace. Which he did. Until now.
Philip wiped the sweat from his forehead.
Things had gone so well here. Even a governess had shown up on his doorstep. Unless, of course, she had been sent byhim. Philip frowned as the familiar feelings of mistrust and doubt assailed him again. But he’d cross-examined Katy, and she’d sworn that she’d posted that ad, and it was something so like her to do. And Miss Weston really must have seen that ad in the paper. He’d seen the clip himself. No, Miss Weston had appeared out of her own volition. A governess with an upbringing that was uncomfortably genteel for his own taste. But blast it, governesses were supposed to have genteel backgrounds, weren’t they? So what was the problem?
He picked up the poker and stirred moodily in the ashes.
The problem was he liked her far too well for his own peace of mind.
Philip nearly dropped the poker. He didn’t just think that, did he?
One didn’t like governesses. They were starchy, straitlaced creatures who always moralised. That’s what he’d expected them to be. Mind you, he’d never really known any governesses, because he’d always been taught by men. He himself had attended a grammar school in London for only a short time and was tutored by the local rector when they lived in Scotland, who then helped him obtain a scholarship for Edinburgh University.
Miss Weston was neither starchy, straitlaced, nor did she moralise.
Her cooking was hideous, but what governess was expected to cook?
She was gentle and sweet in a way that his wife Jenny never had been. And proud. Oh yes, very proud.
Except she hadn’t been proud when he’d thrown the door shut in her face the other night, and he’d seen the flash of hurt in her cornflower-blue eyes. He’d wanted to tear the door open again and apologise and gather her to him tightly and maybe press a kiss on those eyelids…
He dropped the poker. Good God. He had not just thought about kissing the governess!
That was just perverse. He was turning into the kind of person he despised the most, the almighty employer who manhandled his female servants.
Maybe it was in the blood. Maybe he’d inherited precisely that tendency.
Horror flushed through him. He’d never, ever lay a finger on her. Not for as long as she was working for him.
Philip wasn’t likehim.
He felt an urge to see her. To check whether her eyes really were as blue as he remembered.
He went to the cottage and stood in the doorway, thunderstruck, as he took in the scene unfolding in front of him.
There was a piano in his parlour. A sleek, black Broadwood.
Katy, with her tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth, was attempting to play the tune of a simple minuet, while Robin sat at the table with his fingers in his ears. Miss Weston stood over Katy and pointed at the notes on the sheets in front of her.
Katy threw up her hands. “Show me again, Miss Weston.”
She sat down next to Katy and played the simple Mozart melody with a sweet fluidity that made Philip catch his breath. It had been so long since he had heard music in his house.
“Mouse likes that music,” Joy proclaimed.
