Read Online Carola Dunn by The Improper Governess - Free Book Online

passed since he invited her to an interview with his sister. Since then she had had no word from him. Perhaps he was too deeply offended by her refusal to renew the offer.
    Or perhaps Lady Orton had found a satisfactory governess by now. Even if she had not, it was still her decision, not Lord Ashe’s, as to whether to hire Lissa. She might very well have agreed to the interview just to please her brother, with no real intention of considering an actress for the post.
    There was no sense in worrying about what she could not change, Lissa told herself. Unless morning brought a new perspective, she would stand by her decision. What had she to lose but the few remaining shreds of her pride?
    * * * *
    With a sigh, Ashe gave up trying to hide behind the Times, folded it, and set it beside his half-emptied plate. He was about to rise when his butler came into the breakfast room.
    “Halsey, what the deuce is going on above stairs?”
    “I was just coming to inform your lordship that her ladyship urgently desires your presence.” In response to Ashe’s raised eyebrows, he coughed deferentially and continued, “I understand, my lord, that Lady Orton is having a disagreement with the latest governess as to whether she is resigning or being dismissed.”
    Ashe groaned. “What’s he done now?”
    “I believe, my lord, that Master Colin, on being pressed to eat his breakfast, threw it at the unfortunate woman. A boiled egg, my lord, lightly boiled, and bread-and-milk.”
    A quarter of an hour later, Ashe reseated himself at the table with a fresh plate of food. The governess, promised a quarter’s wages, was packing. Daphne, with her abigail’s aid, was trying to decide which bonnet to wear with her new walking dress. Colin, after a forced and begrudged apology, sat down sulkily beside his uncle.
    “A lightly boiled egg and a bowl of bread-and-milk for Master Colin,” Ashe ordered the butler.
    “I’m not hungry.”
    “You will eat your breakfast.”
    “Then I shall be sick.”
    Ashe nodded to the butler, who withdrew. “If you persist in not eating, Colin, you will fall ill. It would serve you right, but it would very much distress your mama, so I will not have it.”
    Colin sat in mutinous silence. Ashe applied himself to his plate and his newspaper, doing his best to ignore the memory of a small boy with a hunger pain in his “pudding-house.” Miss Findlay had rejected his help, and that was the end of the matter.
    “I want Peter and Michael.” Colin’s lower lip trembled. “Why can’t they come and play, Uncle Robert, even if Miss Findlay isn’t a proper governess?”
    Ashe was saved at least temporarily from difficult, if not impossible explanations by Halsey’s return with a tray. The butler set down an eggcup and a bowl before Colin, then turned to his master to present a folded sheet of rather grubby paper.
    “Just delivered, my lord. By the two young lads...”
    Springing to his feet, Ashe exclaimed, “Are they gone?”
    “No, my lord. They wished to await an answer, and I ventured to invite them to wait in the hall, not the kitchen, seeing as last time your lordship--ah--desired to speak to them.”
    “Show them in.” Ashe sat down, feeling rather foolish. Had he jumped to the wrong conclusion, he would have made a proper cake of himself. That explained why his heart beat rather fast as he unfolded the letter.
    “Who is it, Uncle?” Colin asked with bated breath, glancing back and forth from Ashe to the door. “Is it...? It’s not.... Peter!” he squealed, and launched himself at the bowing boys, skidding to a stop before them. “Michael!”
    Ashe could not see his nephew’s face, but he heard the beam in his voice. Peter was grinning. Michael stepped aside and peered rather anxiously past Colin at the table.
    “Gosh, do you have an egg for breakfast?”
    “You can have it,” said Colin generously.
    “Colin, I said you are to eat your egg, and I meant it. Come and sit down.” As