The Unconventional Governess. Jessica Nelson

them to the front door. The servants’ hall is too narrow.”

      Henrietta rose quickly, following Lady Brandewyne out of the room and through a hall lined with antique oil paintings of ancestors, down the ornate, curving stairwell to the entrance of her Elizabethan-shaped home.

      As soon as she saw the large man being carried in, mental images assaulted her. The battery was unexpected. She had no time to arm herself against memories of assisting Uncle William during the War of 1812. She willed the pictures of war and death away.

      This is not Newark, she assured herself firmly. Memories from that deadly skirmish rushed her. Fire, screams, black smoke blanketing the sky...and then the deaths. So many deaths...

      She squared her shoulders. She was a person of great practicality and self-control. Thus equipped with logic, she took a calming breath. Thankfully, no one noticed her angst. Everyone followed the orders Lady Brandewyne snipped out.

      Henrietta pressed herself against the wall as the entourage shuffled past.

      She noticed a girl in the group, her eyes wide and frightened. She was ushered away by a female servant. Perhaps her nurse?

      Henrietta followed everyone up the stairs again, all the way to a room in the east wing facing the gardens. Two footmen laid the prone figure on the bed. Lady Brandewyne glanced over at Henrietta.

      “It is Lord St. Raven,” she said quietly. “A neighbor. What do you suggest our first steps to be?”

      Henrietta stepped closer. His wavy black hair was in disarray. Twigs and debris were tangled in the strands that curled over what looked like a fashionable collar. In fact, the closer she came, the more she realized this man might qualify as a dandy. Had she ever seen such a perfect knot on a cravat?

      Truthfully, she couldn’t claim any knowledge of what was considered fashionable these days. Nor had she ever cared. But his longish hair and tanned skin were at odds with the lifestyle suggested by his clothing.

      A lifestyle of vanity, certainly.

      His lips, unfortunately, were the color of ash. Blood smeared his jaw. His whole body was so completely still that she felt certain he must have passed on. She touched his neck. His pulse limped quietly beneath his skin.

      He lived, but for how long?

      “We will need to remove the soiled clothing and clean his wounds. That should allow us more information.”

      The dowager sent for hot water while Henrietta continued her cursory examination.

      Rumpled clothing. Dark smears that constituted a combination of dirt and blood. She saw no fresh oozing. A blessing. Perhaps the dirt had acted as a bandage, stemming the flow.

      His eyes fluttered. A moan crumpled between his lips.

      “Shh.” She placed her palm upon his brow. “You are safe now, sir.”

      At her touch, his eyes opened, revealing jade irises. She inhaled quickly, struck by the intensity of the coloration.

      “Beautiful...” The word came haltingly, his voice unsteady, but the way he looked at her sent her nerves on a tumbling spiral.

      She and Lady Brandewyne exchanged a glance.

      “Nonsense,” she said briskly. “I’ve been plain since childhood, and plain I shall be long into spinsterhood.” A term she loathed, but nevertheless, she lingered on the cusp of being labeled a spinster by society. “Now save your breath, for you are wounded and I know not the gravity of your injuries.”

      “Bandits.”

      “They say you led them a merry chase, my lord.” Lady Brandewyne came to his side. Recognition, and perhaps relief, flared in his eyes.

      “Is my...attire irreparably beyond repair?”

      “If that is your main concern, then your problems are far greater than I feared.” Henrietta pressed her lips together, refusing to let his cavalier comment perturb her. “I shall need to fetch supplies. Perhaps comfrey as an astringent for his wounds.”

      “A fresh cravat,” Lord St. Raven groaned, and then the poor man fainted.

      * * *

      Dominic Stanford, reluctant earl of St. Raven, woke from pleasant dreams to even more pleasant humming. He stretched before a spasm of pain in his ribs reminded him of his unfortunate altercation with a group of vagabonds. He’d almost had them beat, too, he remembered with a half-edged smile.

      With that comforting thought in mind, he opened his eyes a crack, just enough to find the source of the humming. The woman’s voice was melodic. Husky and flavored with a depth rarely heard in young ladies. She came into view, her unassuming clothes attesting to her station.

      An ordinary housemaid.

      A seemingly productive one, though. She wore a serviceable cap in which strands of hair escaped in tendrils about an ordinary face. In fact, there was nothing about her to draw his attention, and yet he could not look away.

      Perhaps it was the sound of her low humming that welcomed him. Or the purposeful way in which she moved. It was not that she bustled, as he’d often observed the servantry doing, but she glided with a purpose. A singularly minded woman.

      “You’re awake,” she said, without even turning to look at him. She stood at a small table at the side of the room, clinking metal against cup, as though mixing something. He could not see what. Her voice was as soothing as her unworded song. “How do you feel?”

      A good question. How did he feel? He tested various parts of his body, flexing his fingers, drawing a deep breath that ended shortly with a stab of pain in his side. “I believe I’ve a broken rib or two.”

      Full consciousness returned. He jerked upward, then fell back as daggers sliced across his torso. “My niece,” he rasped. Had he protected her? Had he saved her from those men?

      “She is fine, my lord. Safely here at Lady Brandewyne’s.”

      He struggled to breathe past the pain still lacing his chest. “She is safe. And we are at the dowager countess’s home?”

      “Correct.”

      “Where is the doctor?”

      “The village apothecary is on his way.” If his question surprised her, she showed no sign of it. “I am your nurse, for the present moment. You have been unconscious since yesterday, when you were brought here. You’ve a few contusions and most likely some bruising to your internal organs, though no hemorrhaging that I can tell.”

      “So, for now, I shall live,” he said drily, his body relaxing as he was convinced that Louise had not been harmed. He suspected the convulsions that had plagued him these last months would be the death of him, anyhow.

      “Indeed, you shall certainly live.” She chuckled, and once again, he was struck by the cadence of her voice. Her pronunciation was rounded with a foreign flare. American? She did not speak like a servant, but neither did she sound wholly English. For the first time in what had been months of a terrible lethargy of the spirits, the tiniest flicker of intrigue stirred within.

      Swallowing against a throat that had gone dry, he said, “Fetch me water.”

      Her gaze flew up to meet his, her fingers pausing. Such direct eyes, a deep brown at odds with her lighter hair and fair skin. They chastised him. “No manners?”

      He lifted an eyebrow. “You dare criticize me?”

      At that, the corner of what he realized was a very pretty set of lips tilted upward. A housemaid he had not noticed in the room brought her a different glass filled with water. The woman turned to him, a sparkle in her eye. “Your lack of observation is forgiven, as you’re no doubt groggy, but I am not a maidservant. I shall speak to you however I wish.”

      “Point taken, madam.”

      “As well as it