had conspired to leave Elena completely alone in the world, and necessitating that she go out to work in order to support herself, and so surely making her life already desperate enough, precarious enough, without the added burden of the sudden interest of the forbidding and forbidden Lord Adam Hawthorne?
Elena was only too well aware that many gentlemen took advantage of the charms of the unprotected females in their household. Indeed, her own cousin—
She would not…could not think about it. Even to think of what that worm—for she could never think of him as a gentleman!—had done to her was enough to make her feel ill, the nausea rising even now inside her—
‘Are you quite well, Mrs Leighton…?’
Elena stood up so swiftly at the unexpected sound of Hawthorne’s voice that all of the blood seemed to rush from her head, rendering her slightly dizzy and causing her to sway precariously on her ankle-booted feet as she reached out blindly for the back of the chair in order to stop herself from falling.
But not quickly enough, it seemed, as he crossed the room in three long strides to take a firm grasp of her arm, allowing her to feel the warmth of his long and elegant hand through the thin silk of her black gown. ‘My lord?’ Elena looked up at him warily, her breath catching in the back of her throat as she realised how close he was standing to her. A closeness she had not thought she would be able to tolerate from any man. So close that Elena was aware of, and yet not overwhelmed by, how much larger and taller he was than she. So close she could see the circle of black rimming the deep grey of his eyes…
They were, Elena acknowledged as she found herself unable to do any other than continue to stare up at him, the most beautiful eyes she had ever beheld: a deep-smoky grey, with that black rim about the iris, his lashes dark, long and silky.
‘Mrs Leighton?’ Adam returned softly, frowning slightly as he realised he could smell the citrusy perfume of lemons in her silky dark hair.
Just as he had become aware, having studied her closely in the nursery a few minutes ago, that she was far from being in her late twenties or early thirties, as he had originally assumed her to be. Indeed, she looked possibly one and twenty at most now that he was standing so close to her and really looking at her intently; the alabaster skin of her face and throat was absolutely smooth and flawless, those wide blue-green eyes seeming to possess an innocence as she gazed up at him warily, her slender figure also seeming that of a young girl rather than a mature woman.
His mouth tightened along with the hold he had upon her arm.
‘Exactly how old are you?’
She blinked long dark lashes. ‘How old am I?’
Adam’s jaw tensed as he nodded. ‘A simple enough question, I would have thought.’
She moistened rose-coloured lips with the tip of her tongue before answering him. ‘Simple enough, yes,’ she confirmed huskily. ‘But is it not impolite to ask a woman her age? I also fail to see the relevance…?’
Adam’s mouth thinned at her continued delay. ‘You will allow me to be the best judge of that and please answer the question!’ He had little patience at the best of times—and this was far from the best of times; he disliked, above all things, being lied to, and he was very much afraid, that if Elena Leighton had not lied to him outright, that she had at least been economical with the truth.
‘I—Why, I am—I am…’ Elena paused to flex her nape where it ached from staring up at him for so long, as she weighed up the possibility of this man believing her if she were to lie and claim to be five and twenty, an age that surely even he would consider to be sensible. If untrue. ‘I am one and twenty.’ Almost. Well…in eight months’ time, her birthday falling on Christmas Day, her family having always ensured in the past that they were treated as two separate occasions. Not that there would be any celebration of that event this year, for the simple reason Elena had no family left with whom she wished to celebrate…
‘One and twenty,’ he repeated evenly, his long and elegant fingers slipping down her arm until they firmly encircled her wrist. ‘That would place you as being a mere nineteen when you were widowed and began your employment as tutor and companion to the Bambury chit, is that correct?’
Elena gave an inward wince at this reminder of the reference she had presented to the employment agency some weeks ago, when she had gone to them seeking a placement in a respectable household. A reference, having had no previous experience in employment of any kind, Elena had necessarily to write herself…
She met Adam Hawthorne’s scathing gaze unflinchingly. ‘That is correct, yes. If you are not satisfied with my work, then I am sure that—’
‘Have I said that I am not?’
Her chin rose slightly. ‘You implied it.’
Those chiselled lips curled slightly, into what could have been a smile, but was more likely, in this gentleman’s case, to be a sneer. ‘No, my dear Mrs Leighton, I implied nothing of the sort,’ he drawled. ‘Perhaps it is a guilty conscience which now makes you assume so?’
Elena’s heart skipped several of those guilty beats as she looked searchingly up into Lord Hawthorne’s hard and unyielding face; those grey eyes were narrowed to icy slits, the skin stretched tautly over high cheekbones, deep grooves having appeared beside his nose and chiselled lips. It was the face, Elena acknowledged warily, of a gentleman one did not cross. Not unless one wished to experience the full onslaught of what she believed would be his considerable wrath.
She had, she realised with a sinking heart, been lulled into a false sense of security these past twelve days of only seeing her employer for the half an hour or so he spent in the nursery with Amanda each day, occasions when Elena more often than not excused herself and left father and daughter to their privacy. Consequently, to date he had been a remote figure, a haughtily autocratic gentleman who appeared to have more than a little difficulty relating to his young daughter, and as such did not impinge greatly on her own routine and life in the schoolroom.
The gentleman who now regarded her so intently did not appear in the least remote, in regard to her at least. Indeed both he, and his questions, were far too close for comfort. To the point that she felt decidedly overwhelmed by the proximity of that deceptively hard and muscled body. Standing so close to her own as he was, she was able to feel his warmth and smell his deliciously spicy cologne…
She straightened to her own full height, ignoring the fact that she barely reached his broad shoulders as she met that piercing grey gaze unflinchingly. ‘I am sure that if you care to check the reference I supplied from the Bamburys you will find it all completely in order.’
And it would be; Elena may be newly cast out upon on the world, but she knew for a fact that a young and widowed Mrs Leighton had acted as tutor and companion to Fiona Bambury before the family had departed for warmer climes at the start of the year, the doctor having recommended as much for the benefit of Lady Bambury’s weak chest, from which she had suffered greatly during the harsh English winter. Mrs Leighton, having had no wish to move to the Continent with the Bambury family, had chosen to leave their employment and remain in England.
Except Elena was not, in fact, the aforementioned Mrs Leighton…
‘Indeed?’ Adam murmured softly.
‘If you would care to release me…?’
‘Certainly.’ The grip he had maintained
