Chapter 1
Meriel Shelby stood on the edge of the cliff, the wind swaying tall grass against her skirt, and looked out over the glistening North Sea.
Watching the sun sparkle off foam whitecaps on the waves, she could imagine the bend of land off to the north, hiding the mouth of the Thames.
She felt peaceful, alone, away from Thanet Court and the strangers she now worked for.
But she knew she couldn’t stay away long, so she turned and started back down the narrow, well-worn path.
Little Stephen, the future Duke of Thanet, would be with his nurse, but it was time to resume his studies for the afternoon.
Meriel had never imagined that she would one day be forced to earn her living as a governess.
She’d been a child of wealth, whose father earned his success as a banker to the nobility.
Not quite a gentleman, of course, but she hadn’t really seen the difference.
She’d been educated and trained as a lady, meant to be the bride of a wealthy man—preferably a peer, if her mother had gotten her way.
Practical Meriel had understood the need for a husband and was not against the concept. She had always planned to make a logical decision on a man that she had much in common with. If love happened after that, then she would have been fortunate.
But all of those plans dissolved with the death of her father, and the revelations that he’d died penniless and that her mother had known of their precarious finances.
Meriel’s emotions varied wildly, from grief to the clutch of anger that never quite went away, and disappointment in her own ignorance.
Why hadn’t she recognized the signs of imminent trouble?
Her parents’ betrayal was a bitterness that still clouded her every judgment and left her with a heavy guilt that should not be hers to bear.
Her childhood home had been bought by a distant cousin, who would soon return and take possession.
Meriel and her sister Louisa had secured positions as a governess and a companion, but their wages had not stretched as they’d all hoped.
Her sister Victoria had been forced to sell family heirlooms to feed their mother, who was so devastated by her fate that she had to be coerced from her bedroom.
But a beacon of hope had come only last week—Victoria was getting married.
It was a shock to think that her shy sister had been proposed to by a viscount!
Their mother would have a place to live.
It eased the burden on Meriel, who had been sending home as much of her meager salary as she could these past months.
It had been a long struggle to this point.
She had lost her first governess position due to the wife’s jealousy.
Meriel had since learned to hide her golden curls with a severe hairstyle, mask her blue eyes with glass spectacles, and dress as plainly as possible.
Luckily, her new position had no duchess to critically oversee her.
That was one of the reasons she’d been glad to accept it.
Little Stephen had been alone but for the servants. His father, the Duke of Thanet, spent most of the year in London, the center of every gathering, socializing into the night, sleeping away half the day. Perhaps it was good that Stephen was not exposed to that, she thought wryly.
The grass swishing past her skirts gave way to a trim lawn overlooking Thanet Court, which was set lower than the cliffs.
The house sprawled across the grounds, a living thing, three stories tall, with a turret housing the grand staircase, and hundreds of windows glittering in the sun.
Meriel had grown up wealthy, but Thanet Court was like a palace to her.
She’d gotten lost almost every day the first week of her employment.
Starting down the hillside, she remembered her naiveté when she’d first begun her new position.
She had always admired her own governess, who’d filled Meriel with a love of learning.
Mathematics had made the world seem a logical place, and she had appreciated the orderliness of it.
She wanted to pass that on to her student.
Instead she’d found a six-year-old boy who’d been allowed to roam his estate like a wild thing.
His mother had died at birth, leaving him with an absent father and longtime family servants who coddled him with their love.
Meriel had expected resistance—especially when Stephen had informed her in a well-rehearsed sentence that his title was the Marquess of Ramsgate—but he was polite and inquisitive, and over the last several weeks, she thought she was making progress acquiring his trust.
Then they received word that the duke was returning to Thanet Court for an extended stay as he recovered from a recent illness.
The servants did not openly say what he suffered from, but their urgent whispers were filled with the word “consumption.” Stephen had seemed sad and worried, and Meriel had felt a maternal instinct to protect him as her parents hadn’t protected her.
She was halfway down the hill, almost into the formal gardens, when in the distance she saw someone riding up to the estate.
Shielding her eyes with her hand, she squinted, but all she could see was a man riding with quiet precision.
He avoided the portico that sheltered the grand entrance to the mansion, and instead guided the horse alongside the building, heading for the servants’ entrance.
Yet the man rode like no servant she’d ever seen, and he was certainly dressed far too fashionably.
Then he pulled the horse to a stop and glanced up at the building.
Without his hat shading his face from the sun, Meriel recognized him as the duke himself, whom she’d met when he interviewed her two months before.
She’d thought him an arrogant, idle, handsome man, with little interest in his son.
But he’d certainly been a man cognizant of his high status in the world.
He could not possibly have ridden all the way from London alone, a journey of several days if he didn’t change horses. Where were his carriage, his coachman and valet, his outriders?
Instead the duke seemed to hesitate, and he turned his horse back toward the front entrance and rode up beneath the portico.
Before he could even dismount, several servants spilled out of the door as if they’d been waiting for him.
After a groom took his horse, the butler escorted him inside.
Meriel was left to stare after him, puzzled by his behavior.
Putting aside her curiosity, she hurried back through the garden to the servants’ entrance, knowing that Nurse Weston might need her help should Stephen’s father wish to see him.
The nursery was above the master suite, with its own private staircase to connect parents to children.
As far as she knew, no one had ever come up that way to see Stephen.
The nursery had a washroom and several bedrooms for the nurse and children.
The schoolroom was down a little corridor within the nursery, with Meriel’s own bedroom next door.
The bedroom was not as large and airy as her own in London, but it had a beautiful view of the grounds and orchard, with a distant glimpse of the blue sea.
She was just about to go looking for Stephen when his nurse knocked on her open door.
“Miss Shelby?” Nurse Weston said, folding her plump hands beneath her bosom with a practiced gesture.
She spoke with the formality that Meriel was all too familiar with. Meriel was not considered a servant, so the other servants behaved awkwardly around her.
“Yes, Nurse Weston?”
“His Grace is waiting to see you.”
“To see me?” she asked in surprise. Why ever would the Duke of Thanet want to see his child’s governess the moment he returned home after a long absence?
The nurse betrayed a touch of impatience that surprised Meriel.
“His little lordship is getting changed as we speak, Miss Shelby. His Grace would like you to escort his son to him.”
“I had assumed you would do such a thing, Nurse.”
Again there was a flicker of impatience that made Meriel feel like a fool.
“He doesn’t want to see me, Miss Shelby, not when he hired you personally. You’re so pleasing to the duke’s eye, but perhaps not so smart about such things, eh?”
Her reluctant sympathy made Meriel’s stomach tighten, and she couldn’t help thinking, Not again. “I don’t understand why such a thing as my appearance should matter. I am his son’s governess.”
“He likes the women servants to be comely.” The woman tried to hide a smirk, but didn’t quite succeed.
Meriel eyed the departing nurse suspiciously, realizing that the woman was definitely pretty regardless of her plumpness.
Meriel certainly didn’t want to attract the duke’s attention, so the plain brown gown with the grass-stained hem remained on.
She sat at her dressing table, and instead of fixing her wind-blown hair, she loosened a few more curls to scatter untidily over one ear.
If she was going into battle, she needed her armor as dented and unappealing as possible.
She wanted to keep her position—but she did not want the attention of the duke.
Stephen met her in the nursery corridor, dressed in a clean shirt and trousers, dragging his frock coat behind him.
The little boy had dark eyes and dark hair with a lock that always wanted to stand up at the crown of his head.
She smoothed it down fondly, and he ducked away, unable to hide his eagerness.
He was still young enough to think that this time, his father would pay more attention to him.
She understood how he felt; her childhood had been filled with such disappointing moments.
“Miss Shelby, my father has come!” Stephen said, his face tilted up to her, his eyes shining.
She smiled and helped him into his coat. “You’ll be on your best behavior, won’t you, my lord?”
“Of course!”