Rage rose in Rupert’s throat like thick black bile. The number of people he longed to confront and punish kept growing while Grace Ellerby fell lower and lower on the list. “I suppose it was the same at the next place?”
“Worse.” Her gaze faltered and her hands moved more restlessly than ever. “Not only did I cultivate a more guarded manner, I also dressed as modestly as possible and wore my hair in a severe style. That kept me safe until last fall when Mr. Hesketh’s uncle returned from the Indies to live with the family.”
She went on to describe how the lecher had pursued her and her increasingly desperate efforts to avoid him until the night he had entered her bedchamber and lain in wait. By the time she finished her account, Rupert’s throat was so constricted he could scarcely speak.
“I knew after that,” she concluded, “I could not afford to keep moving from one post to another or I would never be able to save for my old age. I decided I must employ more drastic measures to discourage gentlemen from taking an interest in me.”
“But I am not like those other men!” Rupert forced the words out of his constricted throat. “I would never behave toward any woman as they did!”
As strenuously as he insisted it, his conscience could not deny his immediate attraction to Grace at the masquerade. Nor his present urge to take her in his arms and vow to protect her from anyone who might do her harm.
Was he really any better than those other men? And did he frighten her as they had?
The way her gaze skittered from his made him suspect he might.
“I know that now. But how could I at first? Especially when I learned...”
“That I was widowed,” Rupert finished her sentence. He recalled her intense reaction to that discovery and how it had puzzled him at the time. Now it became clear.
She nodded. “None of the men who pursued me were married. If I had known you were not, I would never have applied for the position. By the time I realized you were a gentleman of honor, I guessed you only hired me because you believed I was plain and unmarriageable. I feared if you discovered otherwise, you would send me away from Nethercross and I would never see your daughters again.”
Grace Ellerby was the picture of abject remorse, and Rupert found his vexation with her melting away like snow on a mild spring day. How could he blame her for doing whatever she must to remain at Nethercross with his girls? In her place, what might he have been willing to do? What rules of proper behavior might he bend? How far would he allow honor to lapse?
“I wanted to tell you the truth.” Her words trembled with that longing. “The more time passed, the more I wanted to, but the harder it became. I was certain you would not understand and now I know I was right.”
She wasn’t right at all, Rupert yearned to reassure her. There were parts of what she had done that he understood far too well. But other parts still bewildered him.
“My daughters knew, didn’t they?”
Their governess gave a brief guilty nod, as if that was one facet of her prolonged deception that troubled her most.
“When did they find out?” It made him feel a greater fool than ever to have been blind to something his children had long since realized.
Was it their innocence, their lack of concern with appearance that had allowed his children to see through her dowdy disguise? He, however, had looked Grace Ellerby over only long enough to decide that she was unattractive and thus no threat to the stability of his household. After that, he had never bothered to observe her more closely.
“Several months ago.” She went on to tell him how Sophie had coaxed her to don the beautiful old gown and how she’d been discovered by Charlotte.
“They kept your secret all this time.” Rupert could not decide whether he felt betrayed by his daughters or admired the lengths to which they had gone to protect their governess.
“I should never have asked them to take part in my deception,” Grace murmured. “I am not proud of any of my actions, but that is the one I regret most.”
Determined to get to the bottom of this whole business, Rupert asked, “Whose idea was it for you to attend the masquerade?”
When Grace Ellerby hesitated to reply, it occurred to him that she was as determined to protect his daughters as they were her. Clearly she had not intended to engage his affections last night for her own sake, as part of him longed to believe. Instead, seeing how much he fancied her, she had led him on in an effort to prevent the marriage she feared would make his daughters miserable.
“The girls made you go, didn’t they?”
“They did not make me do anything,” she protested. “My friend, Lady Benedict, offered me an invitation. Your daughters only urged me to accept and provided me with a costume. I pretended to let them persuade me, but the truth is I wanted to go. What happened last night was not their fault.”
In spite of everything, he could not be angry or sorry she had gone, even if their moonlit encounter had brought him to the troublesome realization that his heart was not entirely ready to give up on love.
“I know you have no reason to believe me,” Grace’s gaze flitted from the floor to his face and back again. “I was going to tell you the truth last night. But at the last moment I lost my nerve and ran away. It’s what I have always done when things go wrong.”
She put Rupert in mind of a wild doe, ears alert for the slightest noise, nose sniffing the breeze for any whiff of danger, muscles coiled to sprint away at the first sign of peril. She needed a safe haven and a strong protector. She deserved them.
“You didn’t run this time,” he reminded her, aware how difficult that must have been. “You could just as easily have slipped away and left me a note explaining all this.”
“I almost wish I had,” she admitted with a rueful grimace. “But your daughters deserve better than that from me. So do you after what I’ve done. The result will be the same though, won’t it? I shall have to leave. I cannot blame you for not trusting me to raise your daughters after the lack of character I’ve shown.”
Leave? The prospect of losing her from his home jarred Rupert. He had not thought beyond this confrontation to its consequences. Reason warned him that dismissing her was the only prudent course. She had already gained too perilous a foothold in his affections. By her own admission, she was the sort of woman who posed his heart the greatest danger—one who was apt to take flight and abandon him.
But how could he do that to his daughters when it was clear how much they had come to care for their new governess?
“I cannot pretend I approve of your actions.” He could scarcely force the words out—so torn was he about what course of action to take. “But I understand why you felt compelled to hide your beauty in the beginning.”
His tongue tripped over the word beauty, for it reminded him anew how much her looks attracted him.