“Not any longer.” Then she shut her mouth firmly.Blasted nosy man!
“I only asked because some missus, such as my parents’ housekeeper, Mrs. Cumby, have never been a wife. Funny that, don’t you think?”
“Funny,” she muttered before raising her chin and looking him in the eye. “I am a widow,” Alice added, in case he thought she was lying. Also, pride made her want him to know another man had asked her to marry him and made her his wife.More was the pity!
In any case,she wasn’t merely someone’s governess with whom he could dally.
His expression sobered instantly. “I am terribly sorry.”
She had thrown Lord Diamond off his stride, and no mistaking it. But she didn’t want his pity, nor did she wish for him to start sentimentalizing something that was possibly the least sentimental moment in her life.
Before she could say more, however, Susanne reappeared. Alice had nearly forgotten her existence.
“If I can convince Mother to take me to London, we shall also go to the Great Exhibition.”
Alice felt a surge of envy. She would love to see the wondrous items and inventions that had been collected from all over the world. She recalled one in particular.
“Lord Diamond’s namesake will be there,” she quipped.
Lady Susanne looked blankly, but Lord Diamond nodded.
“The Koh-i-Noor,” he said.
At Susanne’s raised eyebrows, he expounded, telling her a little about the diamond’s long history, and how it ended up being given to the Queen once she was made Empress of India.
“I would like to see it,” Susanne said, “along with all the clothing on display.”
Then they took their seats again, but this time, Lord Diamond gestured for her to go into the row first. Apparently, learning she was a widow, he had decided to stop flirting with her. She took the farthest chair, with Susanne sitting beside her, and Lord Diamond taking the chair on the aisle.
When the music recommenced, Alice felt the loss of his warmth along her side at once. It was for the best, however. He was asking questions, and she was foolishly starting to answer them. Neither of which was a good idea.
Better she should ignore every tiny spark of interest that was flitting through her body and mind regarding Lord Diamond, each wicked thought of how magical his kiss had felt. Nothing repulsive or off-putting or even tawdry. It had been almost chaste and yet thrilling.
But she was no longer a part of his world. And she had best remember that! If she could be taken advantage of when she still had the trappings and the protection of being a lady, only imagine how much trouble she could get into if a titled lord set his sights on her as a lowly governess.
Thus, when she found herself alone with him again a few days later, Alice started to wonder if she had angered Lady Fortune in some fashion.
Chapter Five
“Please come riding with us. It is so much more fun.”
Susanne left hanging without speaking the implied words “than when I’m with my mother.”
“Governesses don’t ride,” Alice informed her. “Not for pleasure anyway, only to get from one place to the other, and usually in a stuffy coach-for-hire or by second-class train carriage.”
She ought to know. It was how she had fled her former life in an overly cramped train, clutching her ticket, only grateful she hadn’t been condemned to a rooftop seat of a mail coach, exposed to the elements.
“Then you cannot ride a horse,” Susanne said, sounding dejected, not to mention a little disappointed.
Alice’s whole existence was a lie, but she didn’t have to compound it with extra lies, so she replied honestly. “I can, in fact.”
Was it her vanity again wanting this young lady not to see her as a lesser female?
Susanne clapped her hands. “You arenotmerely a governess, I know that. We all know that.”
Alice swallowed a lump of fear.
“What do you mean?”
