She told herself it was imagination. She told herself she must be mistaken.
But hope—quiet, treacherous hope—stirred all the same.
Perhaps she was not entirely alone in this most imprudent of inclinations.
Perhaps—only perhaps—he felt it too.
Chapter Eleven
Nathaniel Stone, Marquess of Greystone, was not a man given to self-deception.
He had spent the greater part of his youth deceiving others—charming his way out of scrapes, talking himself into and out of various entanglements, presenting to the world a façade of careless ease that bore little resemblance to what lay beneath. But with himself, he had always been honest. He had known precisely what he was: a second son with no clear purpose, a charming idler with no particular ambition, a man who drifted through life accepting its pleasures and avoiding anything that hinted at responsibility.
Then Edward had died, and Nathaniel had been required to become someone else entirely.
It had not been a comfortable transformation. He had fumbled and failed and retreated from his own inadequacy, hiding in his study and his ledgers because those, at least, were problems he could master. Numbers behaved predictably. Estate accounts did not look at him with grieving eyes, nor ask questions to which he had no answers.
Yet lately—within the three weeks since Miss Serena Collard’s arrival at Greystone Hall—he had found himself emerging from that self-imposed exile. He took meals with the children now. He walked in the gardens. He attended the village fair. He had even laughed, on occasion. The walls he hadconstructed around himself were beginning to show fractures, and through those narrow breaks, light was creeping in.
It was profoundly inconvenient.
For with the light came other things. Sensations he had neither invited nor desired. An awareness of Miss Collard that exceeded what was proper for an employer to feel toward his wards’ governess. He noticed details—the inclination of her head when she considered a question, the quick warmth of her smile when Rosie said something earnest, the cool, thoughtful grey of her eyes when she spoke seriously.
He noticed far too much.
And he was beginning to suspect that this attention constituted a problem.
Nathaniel stood at the window of his study, observing the scene unfolding in the garden below. Miss Collard sat with all three children, presiding over what appeared to be a lesson involving leaves and flowers. Samuel bent over his sketchbook with a concentration Nathaniel had not witnessed in months. Ella was speaking animatedly, her hands moving as she questioned and argued. Rosie hovered close, solemnly presenting dandelions, each received with the same careful courtesy one might afford a valuable gift.
It was, objectively, a pleasing tableau—the sort of sight Nathaniel had once feared he would never see at Greystone Hall.
And Miss Collard stood at its centre, as she seemed to stand at the centre of everything now.
He watched her laugh at something Ella said—watched how her expression softened and brightened—and felt something tighten uncomfortably in his chest.
Absurd. He was a grown man, a marquess, a person of consequence. He had no business lingering at windows, indulging in foolish sentiment over a governess like some overwrought youth in a circulating library novel.
And yet, there he stood.
With a low sound of irritation, Nathaniel turned from the window and crossed to his desk. There was work to be done—correspondence to answer, accounts to examine, responsibilities demanding attention. He did not have the leisure to stand about indulging distraction.
And yet he had done little else for days.
The morning post lay in a neat stack upon the desk. He sorted through it methodically: a letter from his solicitor, an invitation he would decline, correspondence from a distant cousin—and then he paused.
The final envelope was addressed toMiss Serena Collard, care of Greystone Hall. The hand was unmistakably masculine—confident, educated. There was no return address, though the postmark was London.
Nathaniel studied the letter longer than was necessary.
It was none of his concern who corresponded with Miss Collard. She was entitled to private letters, to acquaintancesbeyond this household, to a life that did not revolve around Greystone Hall. That she should receive post from London was entirely unremarkable and certainly did not justify the unpleasant constriction now forming in his chest.
He set the letter aside—carefully, as though it might bite—and resolved to have it delivered with the rest of the household correspondence.
He did not speculate as to its author.
He did not imagine scenarios involving Miss Collard and unknown gentlemen in London.
And he certainly did not spend the next quarter-hour staring at the envelope instead of attending to his own letters, his thoughts straying into increasingly unwelcome conjecture.
