Read Online One Little Sin by Liz Carlyle - Free Book Online Page B

the footman. “You might as well tell the chit plainly, Ettrick, if she’s to live here. Mrs. Crosby is an actress, and one of his mistresses. But you daren’t say so past these walls.”
    Ettrick shot the footman a quelling look, but said no more. Hastily, Esmée cleaned Sorcha’s shoes and made a retreat to the nursery.
    A particular friend. One of them, the footman had said. So how many such “particular friends” would a man like MacLachlan have? He probably couldn’t keep count. Obviously, he couldn’t remember them all, which proved once again what a fool her mother had been to fall for his charms. And there lay a warning worth heeding where MacLachlan and his charms were concerned. His brown eyes melted, aye. But for anyone wearing skirts, most likely.
    Exasperated with her line of thinking, Esmée forced the matter from her mind. She dressed Sorcha in a light pelisse and hat, put on her freshly cleaned boots, then informed Wellings that they were going out for a walk. Esmée was not at all sure what an English governess’s duties were, but apparently taking one’s charge for a stroll was one of them, for Wellings never lifted a brow.
    “Go out!” said Sorcha, as Esmée carried her down the last flight of stairs. “Out, Mae! Me go out now!”
    Wellings smiled indulgently at the child. “She knows her own mind, does she not?”
    Esmée nodded. “Yes, and everyone else must know it, too,” she muttered, putting the squirming child down so that she might fasten her own pelisse. “Can you tell me, Wellings, which way Mayfair would be? I confess, I became quite turned about in finding this place.”
    “We are rather off the beaten path, miss,” he said, then gave her directions. Esmée realized at once it was too far for Sorcha to walk. But she dared not hire a hackney, and the perambulator had not come, so she set off, following the route the butler had given her. She would simply have to carry Sorcha when the child tired.
    The air was blessedly cool and scented with rain. After crossing what seemed to Esmée like an almost frivolous expanse of parks, she reached the edge of Mayfair and soon felt more acquainted with her surroundings. She had been here twice before, and the elegant Georgian homes were starting to look all too familiar.
    With Sorcha balanced on one hip and the old blisters on her feet rubbed nearly raw, she set off up the hill in the direction of Grosvenor Square. She had suffered a long, hard week on the road, followed by a disheartening two days in London, and already Esmée was beginning to hate England and everything in it. The only good to come of it, if one could call it that, had been Sir Alasdair MacLachlan. Still, she was quite sure she had no business living with the man and pretending to be her own sister’s governess. Mamma would have scolded her soundly for such shocking behavior—though the irony of that fact was not lost on Esmée.
    There would surely be talk when polite society learned that the wicked Sir Alasdair had suddenly acquired a ward. Esmée had thought to keep a low profile, but this morning’s foray into the dining room had underscored the fact that she was, quite suddenly and unexpectedly, at the beck and call of another. She was a servant. Not even in her stepfather’s home had Esmée been treated so condescendingly. Her palm still itched to slap Sir Alasdair’s brother through the face. Lord Wynwood, at least, had been sympathetic. She had not missed the reproachful look he’d tossed in Merrick MacLachlan’s direction.
    Slightly out of breath now, Esmée had reached the glossy green door she sought and paused to shift Sorcha to the other hip. “Geen, Mae,” she said pointing at the door. “Geen. See?”
    Yes. Green. Just as it had been for the last two days. And just as it had been for the past two days, the knocker was down. But Esmée had not walked so far for nothing. She stepped up, and hammered her knuckles on the solid wood slab. She could hear