Not Just a Governess Read Free

some lightskirt he could take to his bed for a night and then dismiss. Moreover, she was a widow, her husband having died a hero’s death during that last bloody battle with Napoleon.
    ‘Old or young…?’
    Adam raised dark brows. ‘I have no information whatsoever on the deceased Mr Leighton—’
    ‘I was referring to his widow,’ Lady Cicely chided with a small sigh.
    Until this moment Adam had given no particular thought to Mrs Leighton’s age, but had assumed her to be in her late twenties or early thirties.
    He scowled now as he realised, when he thought about it carefully, that it was the lady’s widow’s weeds which gave her the impression of age and maturity, that, in fact, she was probably considerably much younger than that…‘As long as Mrs Leighton carries out her employment to my satisfaction then I consider her age to be completely immaterial,’ he dismissed as he stepped forwards to push open the door to the nursery before indicating that his grandmother should precede him into the room.
    Elena looked up from where she had been studying a book of simple poetry with her small charge, her expression one of cool politeness at the entrance of her employer and his paternal grandmother.
    A cool politeness, which she hoped masked the fact that she had heard herself become the subject under discussion by grandson and grandmother before they entered the nursery. And that she had tensed warily at that knowledge…
    She had hoped the fact that she was the widowed Mrs Elena Leighton, employed by the cold and unapproachable Lord Adam Hawthorne as governess to his young daughter,would be enough to ensure that she escaped such curiosities. But she could see by the assessing way in which Lady Cicely now viewed her that, in that lady’s regard at least, this was not to be the case.
    Elena resisted the instinct to straighten the severity of her bun, or check the fall of her black gown, instead straightening to her just over five feet in height as she stood up to make a curtsy. ‘My lord.’
    ‘Mrs Leighton.’ Lady Cicely was the one to smoothly respond to her greeting, his lordship’s expression remaining coldly unapproachable as he stood remotely at his grandmother’s side.
    Elena had already ascertained, before deciding to accept her current employment, that the chillingly austere aristocrat was a man who chose not to involve himself, or his young daughter, in London society, preferring instead to utilise his time in politics or in the running of his country estates. An arrangement that suited Elena’s desire—need—for anonymity perfectly.
    She had to admit to having been a little startled by this gentleman’s dark, almost satanic handsomeness at their initial interview, having had no idea until that moment thatAdam Hawthorne bore the dark good looks and muscled physique of a Greek god: fashionably styled dark hair, equally black brows over those dark-grey eyes, high cheekbones either side of a long patrician nose, sculptured and sensual lips, his jaw square and uncompromising, with not an ounce of excess flesh on his tall and muscular frame—as evidence, surely, that he did not spend all of his time seated in the House of Lords or behind the mahogany desk in his study…
    But after only five minutes in his company that day Elena had also realised—thankfully!—that not only was he the most haughtily cold and unapproachable man she had ever met, but that he did not even see her as being female, let alone have any of the lewder thoughts and intentions towards her that another male employer might have shown to the woman he was to employ as his young daughter’s governess.
    Elena now clasped her trembling hands tightly together in front of her, as the warmth currently engulfing her body forced her to realise that was no longer the case, as Lord Hawthorne’s narrowed grey gaze slowly perused her from head to toe in what was obviously a totally male assessment. ‘LadyCicely.’ She nodded a polite