Chapter One
“You must be the new governess.”
The voice belonged to a girl of perhaps eleven, standing in the entrance hall of Greystone Hall with her arms crossed and her chin lifted at an angle that suggested she had practised authority before a looking glass. She wore a dove-grey dress that was slightly too mature for her years, and her dark hair had been pinned up in a style better suited to a young woman making her debut than to a child who ought still to have been wearing ribbons.
Miss Serena Collard set down her travelling case and offered what she hoped was a warm, yet professionally appropriate, smile. “I am indeed. And you must be Miss Ella.”
“I am.” The girl’s eyes—grey, like the house, like everything about the place—travelled over Serena with an assessment far too knowing for someone not yet twelve. “You’re younger than the last one.”
“Am I?”
“And prettier. That’s unfortunate.”
Serena blinked. In her four years ofgovernessing—a word she had invented herself during a particularly tedious journey on the mail coach—she had been greeted in many ways. Indifference, certainly. Suspicion, often. Open hostility from children who viewed her as the enemy of all joy and freedom,with distressing regularity. But she had never before been informed that her appearance was a misfortune.
“I beg your pardon?” she said, as it seemed the only reasonable response.
Ella uncrossed her arms, only to clasp her hands before her in a manner that was decidedly governess-like. “The pretty ones never stay. They get ideas. Mrs McConnor says so.”
“And who is Mrs McConnor?”
“The housekeeper. She’s been here since before Uncle Nate was born. She knows everything about everyone.” Ella paused, and for just a moment the practised composure slipped, revealing something younger and far more uncertain beneath. “She said you would probably leave within the fortnight. Like Miss Pearson. And Miss Aldridge before her.”
Something shifted in Serena’s chest—not quite sympathy, for she had learned long ago that sympathy was a dangerous indulgence in her profession, but something adjacent to it. Recognition, perhaps. She knew what it was to brace oneself for loss.
“Miss Ella,” she said lightly, “I have travelled seven hours on the most uncomfortable mail coach in all of England, endured the company of a woman who insisted upon recounting, in extraordinary detail, her digestive complaints, and arrived to find that no one was waiting to receive me at the door. I am tired, I am hungry, and my left boot has developed a squeak that I find personally offensive.” She allowed herself a small smile. “I have not come all this way merely to leave within a fortnight.”
Ella’s eyes narrowed, as though she were attempting to decide whether Serena was lying or simply foolish. “Miss Pearson said something similar. She lasted twelve days.”
“Then I shall endeavour to last thirteen, at minimum.”
For a moment, nothing happened. Then—and Serena would later mark it as the first small victory of her tenure at Greystone Hall—the corner of Ella’s mouth twitched. Not quite a smile, but the promise of one.
“The entrance hall is not the appropriate place for this conversation,” Ella said, recovering her composure with admirable speed. “I shall take you to Uncle Nate. He is expecting you, I think—though one can never be entirely certain what Uncle Nate expects. He does not communicate as clearly as one might wish.”
Serena retrieved her travelling case and followed as Ella led the way through the hall. Greystone Hall, she observed, was precisely what its name suggested: grey stone, grey light filtering through windows that might have benefitted from a thorough cleaning, and an air of quiet neglect hanging over everything like morning mist. It was not precisely shabby—the furnishings were of good quality, and the portraits lining the walls suggested generations of wealth and consequence—but there was a weariness to the place, a sense that the house itself had grown tired of waiting for something.
Orsomeone, Serena thought, and then immediately scolded herself for such fanciful nonsense. She was a governess, not a novelist. Her task was to educate children, not to invent romantic narratives about neglected country estates.
“Uncle Nate’s study is through here,” Ella said, stopping before a heavy oak door. She turned to face Serena with an expression that was almost, but not quite, apologetic. “I should warn you—he can be somewhat… distant. He does not mean to be. At least, I do not think he does. He simply has a great many concerns on his mind.”
“I appreciate the warning.”
Ella nodded, then—after a moment’s hesitation—knocked. Three sharp raps, perfectly spaced. Serena suspected she had practised this as well.
“Enter.”
The voice from within was low and clipped, the voice of a man with better things to do than receive visitors. Ella pushed open the door and stepped inside, and Serena followed, bracing herself for what she might find.
What she found was unexpected.
Nathaniel Stone, Marquess of Greystone, stood behind a massive desk strewn with papers, ledgers, and what appeared to be several unopened letters. He was tall—taller than Serena had anticipated, though she could not have said why she had anticipated anything at all—with dark hair that looked as though he had run his hands through it more than once that morning and forgotten to set it to rights. His features were strong, perhaps too strong for conventional handsomeness, yet there was an intensity to them that commanded attention. His coat had clearly been tailored by an expert hand, but he woreit carelessly, as though the very notion of order in dress had slipped his mind.
He looked, Serena thought, like a man who had once been charming and had simply… stopped. As though the effort of charm had become too weary to sustain.
His eyes—grey, of course, for apparently everyone in the household seemed to have been issued the same colour at birth—met hers with an expression of weary assessment.
“Miss Collard, I presume,” he said. It was not a question.
