How to Claim a Governess’s Heart - Bridget Barton Page 0,44

to any other guest that might join them for the evening, were placed so that they could easily look at and converse with each other.

To be honest, few guests visited. Bridget had expected that after the ball Lord John’s frequency of hosting friends would increase. After all, with the end of the festive season and spring approaching, more and more ladies and gentlemen would be flocking to London for the season.

She had considered this with a sinking heart. She had enjoyed the past six months seated beside this man in the evenings. It didn’t matter if they talked or just did their own work in each other's company. Either was enjoyable to her.

She had been regretting losing such nights with Lord John with the coming of the season. Inevitably, once others excluding Mr. Higgins came to visit, her presence would be a little inappropriate. Though she knew Lord John would say nothing of the sort, she was much keener to adhere to proper standards after the duke’s letter. She refused to do anything that would jeopardise Betsy’s place in her uncle’s home.

The thoughts made her mind wander back to the ball a few weeks earlier. There had been several ladies Lord John had seemed to take an interest in throughout the night. He had scarcely escaped dancing as much as she. Then there was Lady Temperance.

Bridget knew it wasn’t her place to have any opinion on who Lord John took as a wife, despite how much he trusted and asked for her advice. It was a good thing that he never did ask her opinion on the matter of matrimony. As much as Bridget knew she ought to, she wasn’t entirely sure she could keep her thoughts on Lady Temperance to herself if encouraged to share them.

Bridget wondered if she would have a better opinion of any of the other ladies she met at the ball and observed dancing with Lord John. She would have liked to think that she would have been less hostile to them as they had not given her cause for dislike as Lady Temperance had. Still, she didn’t feel any of them in union with Lord John sat well within her.

Now that they were coming into the fashionable season, she was sure there would be a great many more ladies spending time in Lord John’s company, both here in the house and elsewhere. She shuddered at the thought of another lady sitting in her exact chair, chatting away with the master of the house.

“What are you thinking right now?” Lord John’s voice interrupted her thoughts.

She looked up quickly from the page she had been staring at without reading. She wondered how many minutes had passed with her looking at that same page. Studying Lord John’s face, however, she didn’t see him questioning her sanity for not moving for an extended time. Instead, his golden brows were lifted with amused interest, and a small smile played on his lips.

“Nothing in particular. Was I distracting you from your work?” Bridget asked, her eyes falling on the manuscript set to the side.

“You most certainly did, and I daresay it wasn’t due to lack of thought on your part. I couldn’t help but stare as one thought seemed to float across your face and then another. You are not one to hide your emotions well, I think,” he added as an afterthought.

It was as if he was trying to know everything about her, as though this thought was just one more that he added to his mental list of Miss Bridget Thatcher’s personal qualities.

Bridget laughed nervously at his assertion. He lowered his head, tilting it towards her as he often did when they spoke. It was his gentle encouragement for her to open up a little more to him.

“I was just thinking about how winter will soon turn into spring.”

“And this thought upset you?” Lord John asked.

“Not upset me, no.”

Bridget struggled for the right thing to say. She didn't want to lie and make something up. She had no intention of telling the man that she was musing over his possible prospects and how each one was distasteful to her.

“I'm just considering all the different people who might chance to call here with the season nearly upon us.”

“And this upset you?” he repeated.

Bridget could see he was doing his best to figure out the innermost workings of a woman’s thought process. She was sure it was an impossibility even if she had told him plainly what had transpired within