of the crew that he’d found a woman who boasted she had a backbone of steel. Which was just as well, considering what lay in store for her. But even better, her swift suppression of that little flash of temper showed him that she was sensible enough to know when to bow to the inevitable.
He could not help grinning when she consoled herself by pausing to bestow one last, fulminating glare at him before accepting Mr Jago’s assistance into the carriage.
Coxcomb! Aimée fumed, gathering the folds of her sopping wet cloak around her as she settled herself into the seat. It was his fault she was covered in mud now. And the shaft of pure terror that had lanced through her when she had thought he had come to arrest her and haul her back to London had left her shaking like a leaf.
‘Captain Corcoran intended to pick you up in the gig,’ said Mr. Jago, his face creasing with concern as she knotted her fingers together on her lap in a vain attempt to conceal how badly they were shaking. ‘But seeing the weather likely to blow up a storm, he went to his neighbour, Sir Thomas, to see if it would be possible to borrow his carriage, so you would not get wet.’
His eyes slid to the little pool of water that was forming around her boots, and added, with a faint tinge of reproof, ‘It all took a bit longer than we anticipated. But you really should have waited.’
Aimée’s chin went up. She absolutely hated being criticised for showing some initiative. Looking Mr Jago straight in the face, she considered telling him exactly why she had set out on her own across unknown terrain. How could she possibly have known what this Captain … whatever his name was, had arranged? It was not as if anyone had bothered to inform her. Why, the Captain had not even deigned to put his name to the letter his man of business had left for her at the Bull and Mouth.
And was she supposed, then, to just meekly accept any arrangements he might or might not have made on her behalf? As though she had no brain in her head?
However, she reined in her impulse to inform him exactly what she thought of him and his employer. It would not be a good start to her new life, to spend the journey to The Lady’s Bower arguing with a man who seemed to be very much in her employer’s confidence.
The fact that the carriage, with her in it, was even now rattling into the very yard of the King’s Arms she had hoped never to see again almost overset her good intentions. All the time and energy she had wasted, getting thoroughly soaked into the bargain, and here they were, back in the King’s Arms, presumably in order to collect her trunk.
She seethed. If anybody had thought to inform her of their intentions, she need never have set out in the rain at all!
And Mr Jago was still looking at her with that faint air of reproof as though he expected her to be grateful to his employer!
For one moment, just one, she admitted to herself that perhaps she ought to feel grateful. She could not remember anyone going to such trouble to see to her well-being, at least not since her mother had died.
But on the very day of that wretchedly pathetic little funeral, she had discovered that it was no use sitting about waiting for somebody else to look after her. Her father had taken to the bottle; if she had not swiftly learned to shift for herself, she would have starved.
And half a lifetime of facing neglect, of having to be self-reliant, was not going to dissipate under the meagre weight of Mr Jago’s disapproving frown!
The coach lurched to a halt, rocking as the driver jumped down from his box. She tore her eyes from Mr Jago’s disapproving ones to follow the driver’s progress across the yard to the inn door.
He had one of those voices that carried. Even from this distance, she could hear him berating the landlord for not stopping lone females from going wandering about the countryside in foul weather—in such highly colourful terms that she wondered whether she ought to be covering her ears. She was quite sure she ought not to know what half those terms meant. And Mr Jago, to judge from the way he shifted in his seat and cleared his throat loudly, was alive to her embarrassment, but at a complete loss to know what to do about it.
He ought, of course, to have got out and told the man to mind his manners.
Although perhaps not. She was merely a governess now, and not worthy of much consideration. She had to content herself with displaying her disapproval by glaring out of the window at the driver as he instructed the ostlers to stow her trunk in the boot at the back of the carriage.
She hoped she would not have to have too many dealings with this bad-tempered man. She thought it unlikely. A governess would not have much to do with the outdoor staff.
Thank goodness.
Having strapped the trunk in place with a violence that had the whole carriage jerking, and which to her mind seemed completely unnecessary, the driver whipped up the horses and the carriage lurched out of the yard at a cracking pace. She grabbed for the strap as they rattled down the lanes she had so recently trudged along, with a speed that had both passengers bouncing around the interior.
Wonderful. She was going to arrive at her first proper job in a state of bruised, chilled exhaustion! She had so wanted to impress her employers with an image of neatness and competence. Instead, she had the feeling that if this nightmare ride continued for much longer she was going to tumble out of the carriage looking like something the cat had dragged in.
What was more, if she had been a delicate sort of female, she had the notion she would promptly go down with a severe chill and take to her bed. The Captain might well have taken some pains to procure a closed carriage for her, to prevent her from getting the wetting that her independence of mind had ensured she got anyway, but he had not thought to equip it with a hot brick. No, there was not so much as a blanket to keep off the chill that was seeping through to her bones.
She had been far less uncomfortable outside! At least the activity of walking had kept her warm, whereas now, sitting still in her wet clothes in the unheated confines of the carriage, she was starting to shiver.
Yes, if she were not as tough as old boots, the incompetent Captain would be summoning a doctor for his new governess, within hours of her arrival.
Perversely, cataloguing the fallibility of her new employer went a great way to consoling her for her uncomfortable physical state. Like all men, he had decided he knew what was best, without either consulting, or informing, her what he was about. And his plans, like the plans of every man she had ever met, had been woefully inept. As well as being deleterious to the health of the female they intended to dominate.
She gripped the strap a little harder, bracing her feet against the opposite seat as they flew over the potholed, rutted road.
Oh, how she hoped some of his children were girls. She would thoroughly enjoy teaching them to think for themselves. To warn them that though men thought they were the superior sex, they were not to be trusted, never mind depended on!
She had cheered herself up no end with a series of similarly subversive plans by the time the carriage finally slowed down, to make a sharp turn between two gateposts topped with stone acorns. And the smooth glide along the short, but impressively maintained, driveway came as a welcome respite to her bruised posterior.
Mr Jago opened the door, got out and extended his arm to help her alight.
Aimée found herself standing on a neatly raked gravel turning circle in front of a three-storeyed, slate-roofed house.
The front door opened, and three men in a livery that consisted of dark
