Mr. Gardiner and the Governess - Sally Britton Page 0,67

leave. Especially given how unsettled he had become that morning. Something was wrong. Something to do with Alice. He felt it in his heart.

He had jolted out of bed, later than usual due to entertaining neighbors the night before, with Alice’s name on his lips.

Their attachment was too new, their affection for one another not even in its larva state—

He winced.

“I really must cease comparing everything to insects,” he muttered to himself.

His father snapped the book closed. “What was that?”

Perhaps it would be better to borrow from his father’s vernacular. “Fledgling state sounds far better than larva,” he observed.

“I agree, but both are juvenile states for their respective creatures.” Father tilted his chin down and fixed Rupert in place with a deep frown. “But what does that have to do with anything?”

Rupert took in a shaky breath. He noted his mother put down her journal and looked at him with as much curiosity as his father. He had to tell them.

“I have developed feelings for a young woman.”

“Developed feelings?” His father dropped the book to the floor with a thump.

Mother laughed. “Oh, Rupert. You make it sound like a fever.” She rose from her chair. “But this is wonderful. No wonder you are so eager to be on your way. Was she a houseguest of the duke’s?”

“No.” Rupert shifted his gaze from one parent to the other.

“A neighbor?” His father guessed next.

“No, not a neighbor.”

His mother gasped and put a hand to her heart. “Not the duke’s daughter! Never say that. Oh, I could not at all be the mother-in-law to a duke’s daughter.”

Rupert groaned and shoved a hand through his hair. “No, Mother. Not Lady Josephine. You don’t know her—but she is clever, and witty, and the loveliest woman I have ever met. Her name is Alice Sharpe.” He had told Alice her status as a gentleman’s daughter had not changed with her position as a governess. Would his parents see things as he hoped?

“Out with it, boy. Is she spoken for? Too proud to court you?” His father was on his feet now too, eyes bright. “Or has she accepted you and you’ve kept the whole of it a secret?”

Rupert spoke his answer slowly, and clearly. “She’s the governess.”

For the space of two heartbeats, his parents said nothing.

Then his mother emitted a sound he had never heard before—something between a shriek and a yelp—before she took hold of Rupert’s arm. “Are you engaged to marry? When will we meet her? What about her family? Do they approve of the match?”

“Let the boy talk, Mariah.” Father’s chest puffed out rather like a male chickadee’s—though Rupert kept the comparison to himself. “Tell us everything, Rupert. Before your mother flies apart.”

Rupert put his hand over his chest. “I sincerely have nothing more to tell. I have not declared myself, or asked for her hand, because this is all very new. I had barely spoken to her—barely expressed my interest—when I received your note. And now I have been here for nearly a fortnight—”

“Keeping her a secret.” His mother glowered at him. “Rupert, you know full well that it is our fondest hope for you to fall in love. How else am I to have grandchildren?”

Rupert’s weak laugh was his only answer to that. His mother was not as vocal on the subject as some, but he did know how much she wanted a daughter-in-law, and grandchildren running about the house. His birth had been difficult for his mother, and damaging. She had never carried another babe to term after his birth, and eventually no longer fell pregnant.

Rather than grow apart, or grow bitter, his parents had lavished all their love upon him. Perhaps it had made him a little odd, to grow up with his father for a playmate and his mother his most frequent companion. Rupert never doubted their love.

“Get out,” his father said, pointing to the door. “Get back there at once and woo the lady properly. When a man finds the match to his heart, the woman’s whose heart song is a match for his, he must not lose her.”

“But—I barely—that is, it’s difficult to court a governess.” Finally given permission to leave, Rupert was torn between running out the door and laying all his troubles at his parents’ feet. They would have answers he did not.

“There is always difficulty, son.” His father wrapped an arm around Mother’s shoulders. “It is up to you to work your way through it or around it.”

Mother’s enthusiasm had waned somewhat. “If