The Seducer Read Free Page A

events conspire to force one to do what should be done.” Her ambling brought her back to the desk. “No, it is long past time for me to leave here. I must ask for your help, however. Very little, I promise you. I am a good teacher in the subjects expected of a governess. If you could aid me in securing a position, I would be grateful.”
    “I expect that is possible. I know some families in Paris who—”
    “I would prefer London.”
    She said it quickly and firmly enough that his instincts tightened.
    How much did she remember?
    “I think that I can get better terms in London,” she said. “They will think that I am French. That should count for something.”
    They will think that I am French.
Clearly she had remembered the basics.
    “Paris would be easier.”
    “It must be London. If you will not help me, I will manage on my own.”
    He pictured her arriving in London unprotected and unsupervised. She would get into trouble immediately.
    And get him into trouble eventually.
    “I cannot permit that.”
    “What you will permit is not of consequence, m’sieur. I am in this school by your charity, I know that. But I am of an age when I daresay that you have no further obligation to me, nor I to you. If events have forced courage on me, then I shall be courageous. I must find my life, and I intend to go to London.”
    I must find my life.
His caution sharpened to a sword’s edge.
    As often happened, that produced a mental alertness that instantly clarified certain things. His mind neatly transformed an unexpected complication into an opportunity. One that might salve the hunger and finish the quest.
    It stood facing him, waiting for his response. Proud. Determined. But not nearly so confident as she posed. Not nearly so brave.
    Sometimes events conspire to force one to do what should be done.
    How true.
    How much did she remember? It would not matter. And if, as he suspected, she hoped to learn all of it, it would be over before she even came close. In the meantime he could keep an eye on her.
    He studied her lithe frame and the body vaguely apparent beneath the sack. He pictured her in a pale gown of the latest fashion. Something both alluring and demure. Her hair up and a single, fine jewel at her neck, with those soulful eyes gazing out of her porcelain, unpainted face. Lovely, but young. Fresh and vulnerable, but not a silly schoolgirl.
    Yes, she would do. Splendidly, in fact.
    “I will speak with Madame Leblanc and explain that you will leave with me today. We will discuss the details of finding you a position when we get to Paris.”
             
    Diane folded her few garments and stacked them in the valise that Monsieur St. John had sent up from his carriage. They were all too childish for a governess to wear. She would have to find some way to rectify that.
    From the small drawer of her tiny writing table, she removed an English Bible. It was one of two remnants of her life before this school.
    She thrust her hand to the far back of the drawer and grasped a wadded handkerchief. She let it unwrap and its contents fall onto the desk. A gold ring rolled and rolled before stopping, poised upright. A scrap of paper fluttered down beside it.
    For several years she had worn the ring on her thumb every night when she went to sleep. Then the day had come when her tenuous hold on childhood memories failed, when they became fractured snippets of images and sensations. The ritual of putting on the ring no longer made sense and she had ceased doing so.
    She did not have to read the words on the paper. They were from the Devil Man, the only note he had ever sent her. It had come with this ring one year on the feast of the Nativity, explaining that the ring had been her father’s and that he thought that she might like to have it. She doubted that he even remembered making the gesture.
    It had been years ago. The second or third Nativity that she was here, perhaps. She couldn’t remember exactly.
    She tucked the