Uncovering the Governess's Secrets, page 1
“Mr. Sutherland. What a coincidence.” Her tone made it clear that she thought it was nothing of the sort. “I had a feeling we’d bump into each other again.”
“And I rather hoped we would,” I admitted, relieved to be able to speak something close to the truth.
“Why?”
She looked me straight in the eye when she asked the question.
“You interest me,” I told her, which was honest enough.
“In what way?”
She quirked her brow again, such an odd thing to find alluring, but there it was, and there I was, despite my previous resolutions not to be distracted, struggling not to be distracted by my body’s reaction. “That’s a very personal question, from someone who has not even disclosed her name.”
She narrowed her eyes at me, and I thought for a moment that I had crossed an invisible line with her, but what she said was not the reprimand I anticipated. “I have the distinct impression that you know it already.”
UNCOVERING THE GOVERNESS’S SECRETS
Marguerite Kaye
www.millsandboon.com.au
MARGUERITE KAYE has written almost sixty historical romances featuring feisty heroines and a strong sense of place and time. She is also coauthor with Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, of two Sunday Times bestsellers, Her Heart for a Compass and A Most Intriguing Lady. Marguerite lives in Argyll on the west coast of Scotland. When not writing, she loves to read, cook, garden, drink martinis and sew, though rarely at the same time.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Epilogue
Historical Note
Excerpt from How the Wallflower Wins a Duke by Lucy Morris
Chapter One
Marianne
Edinburgh—
Thursday 2nd August 1877
The day began as it always did. I woke with a start, and the first thing I was aware of was the stench. Unmistakable, like nothing else, an acrid mixture of bleach, damp blankets and stale air, mingled with urine and over-boiled cabbage, resonating of fear and dread. There it was as usual, a tang on my tongue and in my nose, making my stomach roil, my breath come fast and shallow.
A cold sweat coated my body, making the thin cotton of my clammy nightshift cling to me. My fingers were like claws, pawing at the bedding, clutching it high up to my neck. And as usual I lay completely still, eyes scrunched shut, ears straining to catch whatever noise it was that woke me. The scratching and scuttling of vermin behind the skirting? Moaning? Howls of pain? Screams of fear and panic? Barked orders demanding silence?
Silence!
I listened intently, struggling to hear over the thudding of my heart, but there was nothing. I forced myself to take a deep breath. Another. Yet another. All the time straining to hear. Still silence reigned.
It happened slowly as it always had since I arrived in Edinburgh, the fog of terror dispersing in my mind, the dawning awareness of my true surroundings. There were sheets on my bed as well as blankets. My pillow was soft, not scratchy with rough straw filling. I eased my glued-shut eyes open to see a watery grey light filtering in through the window, the curtains open to reveal the lack of bars. My heart slowed. My mouth was dry, but the vile taste was gone.
I breathed deeply again, easing the tension in my shoulders, and sat up in bed. My bed. In my own bedroom. I could see the reassuringly familiar outline of the chest of drawers, the stand with my ewer and bowl.
I shivered then, as I always did as the sweat cooled on my skin, and I placed my feet on the floorboards, easing stiffly upright like a woman much older than my thirty-three years, stumbling to the window to push up the sash. Cold air rushed in. There was a light misting of rain, the kind that soaks into your bones without you even noticing. They call it a smir here in Scotland. A soft word for soft rain.
‘Smir...’ I murmured under my breath. The word, in my English accent, sounded harsh.
The last echoes of the past that haunted me every morning retreated as I leaned out of the window as they did every morning. The memories would be locked away again until my guard was down, when sleep claimed me again. I had another day of freedom to look forward to, I reminded myself, as I did every day without fail. I would never, ever again take for granted the simple pleasure of opening a window, feeling the elements on my face, sucking in the fresh air. Not that the air in Edinburgh was fresh, not by any means. It’s smoke-filled, sulphurous, and I knew the rain would leave smut on my skin if I continued to lean out of the window, but I didn’t care.
The Old Town tenement that I called home was at the eastern end of the Grassmarket. The more respectable end, or perhaps the least disreputable would be a more accurate description. There was no trouble at night in the close, my neighbours locked their doors at nightfall, and if I met them during the day, they’d nod politely with their gazes averted. The close itself was clean, the roof in good repair, the rent dearer than the lodgings on the farther side of the square near the meat market and the West Bow, made notorious by Burke and Hare, the infamous resurrectionists. All in all, the Grassmarket was not the type of area you’d expect a woman of my upbringing to inhabit—which was, of course, one of the reasons I chose it.
It was a far cry from the large salubrious town houses of the New Town where I earned my living. My various employers would be appalled if they ever discovered where it was I lay my head at night, but when they asked—rarely, and only ever the wives—I would prevaricate. They never persisted, instinct or experience telling them that such questions were rarely rewarded with anything other than unpalatable answers. I could have told them some unpalatable truths myself, had I chosen. Not about my circumstances, but about their own, the injustices and betrayals which they unwittingly endured. I never volunteer my insights, not any more. I have suffered too much to risk the consequences.
Aware of my mind skittering back to the past, I focused on the view. Across the Grassmarket, rising high above the cobbled square loomed the castle, grey, solid, imposing, perched on a huge crag of volcanic rock. In the shadow of that seemingly impenetrable fortress, the square below me was metamorphosing from night into morning. It was a ritual I loved to watch, for it was full of noise and bustle, a daily affirmation of life in all its various forms.
On the opposite side from my four-storey tenement, the dray carts were rumbling down the steep incline of the Bow, bringing in supplies from the railway and the canal and the docks at Leith for the many taverns and traders whose businesses were in the process of opening up for the day. Wooden casks of ale for the White Hart and the Black Bull, a multitude of goods for the other warehouses and carriers.
That morning there was the distinctive smell of tobacco leaves being delivered to the manufactory. I could smell the roasting beans too, wafting up from the coffee houses, as ever overlaid by the stench coming from the meat market known as the Shambles.
I kept well away from that end of the Grassmarket, even during daylight. The crowded, vermin-infested rooms of the cheap lodging houses down there doubtless continued to harbour other types of vermin, criminals and ne’er-do-wells of all types, but mostly they were home to the poor and displaced, those newest incomers to the city. Vagrants, they were commonly labelled, but they were simply destitute and desperate. They moved on quickly if they could, those people, away from the Grassmarket if not from the Old Town. I preferred to remain here, among the immigrants and refugees, being one of them myself, though I kept myself apart.
On cue, regular as clockwork, the young woman with her plaid shawl over her head appeared from the Cowgate and crossed the square to the Black Bull. I reminded myself that I was fortunate to be able to support myself doing work that I enjoyed, for I have always loved children. I named the woman Flora, for the plaid she wore made me think of Flora MacDonald. I watched her as she, a woman of habit as I had become, entered the tavern.
In my imagined version of her life, she ordered coffee and bread. It was more likely she drank strong spirits to help her sleep after the night she’d spent earning her living up near the castle. That part of the story I invented for her was unfortunately accurate, for I’d spotted her once, making her way there as I returned late from my own employment. She was not morning-tired as she was now, but evening-bright, her plaid draped to reveal the low cut of her gown, her eyes darting about in search of custom. I called her Flora because I would not call her harpy or slut. People, espe
Her arrival at the Black Bull was my signal each morning that it was time to prepare for the day. I shivered as the rain started to fall more heavily, and closed the window. My robe was faded blue wool. I wrapped it round me, pulling the sash tight. I had purchased it second-hand, like all my clothes, and made it good with my mending. I once loathed having to wield my needle, despite the fact that in that vile place there were times when my neat stitching saved me from more arduous tasks in the laundry or the kitchen. But every stitch I set reminded me, back then, that there would be no end to them. I was being stitched into the very fabric of the place.
The darns in my clothes were different. My stitches made the garments mine. The smell of vinegar and carbolic soap and lavender water made these two rooms in the old, creaking tenement mine too. My sanctuary. I was safe here. Every morning, that was the final part of my waking ritual, to remind myself of this.
‘I am safe here,’ I told myself firmly.
As time passed, the odds were more and more in my favour that it was true. Three years had passed, after all. But I knew, that morning, as every morning before, as I dressed, as I made myself my cup of breakfast coffee, as I prepared to go out into the cold morning air, to cross from the Old Town to the New Town, I knew that my resolve would falter as night fell. In my bones, in my heart, I didn’t believe I would ever be safe. I would always be waiting for that dreaded hand on my shoulder.
I locked my door and descended the close stairs, and made my usual final check of my surroundings, though after three years I wasn’t sure who or what I was checking for. Then I set out for my current place of work. Today was another day like every other, I thought. I had no idea how wrong I would prove to be.
Chapter Two
Rory
Edinburgh—
Thursday 2nd August 1877
Standing in the doorway of the coffee shop, I wrapped my hands around the steaming tin mug of coffee. It was looking set to be another typical August day, with leaden skies and twenty different varieties of rain to look forward to. A pure minger, in other words. I’d forgotten what it could be like, the so-called Scottish summer. Seven years down south in England had clearly softened me up.
To be fair, those seven years had also kept me out of harm’s way, and made me—comparatively, mind—a wealthy man. Being back here was the last thing I wanted or needed. The last thing anyone in this city wanted, I was willing to bet.
You can’t say you weren’t warned, Sutherland. I told you not to poke your nose in, but you didn’t listen.
That old familiar voice resonating in my head made my hackles rise, for try as I might—and I’d tried, trust me, over the years—I still couldn’t bring myself to believe I’d been wrong. The case stank to high heaven. It wasn’t the first time I’d been warned off, nor the first time I’d been told that I was ruffling the wrong feathers. The thing was, I saw that as an essential part of my doing my job properly—without fear or favour. That’s what sealed my fate in the end. The powerful person who felt threatened by investigation, whoever they were, knew I couldn’t be bought, and they knew I wouldn’t rest until I’d got to the bottom of whatever it was reeked.
I was warned, but I didn’t see it coming all the same. Insubordination, I was accused of, as well as placing my fellow officers in danger, blackening the good name of the Edinburgh police and taking bribes—that was a belter! Trumped-up charges, all of them, full of innuendo and singularly lacking any evidence, but they were plastered over every newspaper in the city, the very same papers that had been happy to sing my praises over the years. I paid the price for my former success and the unwanted fame that accompanied it.
There’s nothing like a dramatic fall from grace story to sell a newspaper. There was no need for the wheels to turn in any formal manner. I was found well and truly guilty by the press for crimes that didn’t even exist, while the real crime I’d been trying to solve was swept firmly under the carpet. What’s more, it was made very clear to me by my superior that there would be no road back.
You’ve made some very powerful enemies, Sutherland. So powerful that I can’t guarantee your safety. My advice to you is to get out of this city, and if you value your life, you’ll never show your face here again.
He reckoned he saved my skin, and he was probably right. He didn’t need to either. He was a good man, but unlike me, he knew his place in the Edinburgh hierarchy. It pained him to stick the knife in, and it was bloody agony for me, but that wasn’t even the worst of it. The worst part was the look on my da’s face when I told him what had happened. He took my side without question, which was a small consolation, until he’d had time to think it over.
‘You have to find a way to clear your name, Ruaraidh,’ he’d said, in that soft Highland accent of his that decades in Glasgow hadn’t rid him of. ‘You can’t let those vile things they said about you stand.’
‘I can’t, Da,’ I’d told him, though I didn’t tell him why.
‘M’aither,’ he’d corrected me, as he always did when I called him Da. Aside from the curses and the way he pronounced my name, it’s the only Gaelic I have. No one pronounces my name the way he did. Ruaraidh. Rory. It’s a subtle distinction, too subtle to bother with now that he’s gone.
I stuck to my guns and I never promised to do as my da bid me, not even at the end, when he was dying. It’s a salve to my conscience, though not much of one, that I never lied to him. I did what I had to do to save my skin, and I kept well away from Edinburgh. Until now.
Not that I was back, risking life and limb, to stir all that up again. No, I’d have to put up and shut up on that one, as I’d been doing for the last seven years. I was here to get the job I’d been employed to do done, and that was all. I planned to keep a very low profile and get the hell out of the city for the second time and for good as soon as I could, with my hide intact. Edinburgh was a big city. I, of all people, should know how to keep myself hidden in its shadows.
It stuck in my craw, I’ll admit that, but what choice did I have, save to let sleeping dogs lie? I wasn’t going to rake over old ground, and I definitely wasn’t going to set about rattling the skeletons in the closet that likely still lurked here. I’d moved on, made a new life for myself, and it was one that I enjoyed, where I was my own man. The fact that it had brought me to Edinburgh, where my old life had begun and ended in disgrace was just a very unfortunate coincidence. That’s what I told myself, and it was the truth, though not all of it.
It was the mystery of my current case that piqued my interest at first. Solving mysteries was my bread and butter, I was good at it, and this had smacked of something I could really get my teeth into. Then there was the fact that the outcome would prove life-changing for the woman concerned, if I found her. Life-changing in every way, mind. Some of what I knew was going to come as a hell of a shock to her. Mind you, what I’d learned myself about her in the last few weeks had shocked me to the core. She’d been to hell and back. It made my blood boil, every time I thought of it.
All the same, when it became clear that she was most likely here in Edinburgh, well of course I thought twice about it—though no more than twice. Maybe I should have, but I’m not superstitious like my da. M’aither! I’m practical, like my ma. A real Weegie, my ma was, a salt of the earth, Glaswegian to her bones. My da never really got over losing her.
Any road! There I was in Edinburgh, finishing my coffee, and there she was, the subject of my current case, right on the stroke of eight, coming out of the tenement close. She was tentative, always so wary. Standing in the open doorway peering out carefully, as nervous as a deer emerging into a forest clearing, her nose tilted in the air as if sniffing for danger. And on cue, there it was again, the minute I set eyes on her, that odd lurching in my belly. My gut was telling my brain that she needed protecting, and bits of me that I didn’t care to acknowledge were sending another message entirely to another part of my body, a part that shouldn’t have had any interest in this case whatsoever. I was the hunter, she was the prey, I reminded myself, but that word didn’t sit right with me. Quarry? More accurate, but I still wasn’t happy with it. Quest? I liked that word better.
