the children.
Eating at a table full of ladies and lords did not exactly intimidate her. She had grown up a member of the gentry, taking her meals at the dining tables of her relatives. Her family had expected Alice to make herself interesting enough to entertain their guests, without being too forward as to draw attention to herself. But the idea of sitting at the table of an employer, someone not expected to keep her on if she made a mistake, struck her differently.
Be personable, affable, but never so interesting as to attract comment on your behavior or person. The second wife of one of her uncles had given Alice that admonishment.
She smoothed a small wrinkle on her gown, then let her eyes roam up to the tall ceiling of the main corridor. Though the castle had only completed construction ten years previous, it had the air of a medieval fortress. The duke and duchess were avid collectors of antiques and artwork. Along the particular passage, they had hung shields along the top of the wall. Tapestries depicting ancient forests hung on the walls beneath those shields, and between every tapestry was an oil painting of either a landscape or a scene from British history.
The ducal couple had modeled the corridor, with its gray and white marble floors, in a style to impress upon the duke’s guests of the might of England.
Liveried footmen opened a set of double doors on one side of the passage. Light and laughter spilled out just before the duchess and a male guest stepped out, followed by the duke and a female guest.
Two new footmen appeared out of doors nearer to where Alice stood, hidden in shadow now that light streamed in from other directions. The party made their way toward Alice and turned into the dining hall.
Alice waited with her eyes lowered, watching only the feet of each couple as they passed her. Fourteen couples went by before a lone pair of polished shoes appeared and then hesitated before her.
Alice stepped forward with a footman prepared to make introductions.
The footman sounded as formal as a majordomo or master of ceremonies, despite his quiet tone. “Mr. Gardiner, may I present Miss Sharpe, the family governess and your dinner companion for the evening.”
Alice curtsied, then raised her gaze at last to the poor gentleman stuck with a governess for the evening. She knew well enough that he would not be enthusiastic about the idea.
Except.
Black hair swept somewhat untidily across his brow, and peeking through the tips of his hair, glittering green eyes took her in. The gardener from that afternoon, sans dirt smudges and in a forest green coat of superfine, was not a servant.
He was a guest.
“Miss Sharpe. A pleasure.” He bowed, then extended his hand to her.
Gulping back a squeak of surprise, Alice allowed him to take her hand and place it upon his sleeve. “Mr. Gardiner.”
Their exchange took only seconds, putting them barely behind the last couple to enter the dining room. Mr. Gardiner kept his head better than Alice did, thankfully, as he took her directly to a chair in the middle of the table, to the duchess’s right. He held her chair out for her. Alice sank into it most gratefully.
Then Mr. Gardiner sat next to her, appearing perfectly at ease by the surprise meeting. Of course, he could not be nearly so surprised as she. The man she had taken for some sort of servant, a groundskeeper, was a gentleman. An important enough gentleman to sit at a duke’s table, amid other members of nobility.
Alice’s mortification grew, extending beyond previous bounds, as she admitted to herself that she had hoped to meet the man again.
But not like this.
She glanced at him from the corner of his eye. He smiled. She blinked and hastily turned away.
The pale, silent woman eating at Rupert’s left might bear a physical resemblance to the governess he met earlier, but her manners had undergone a severe change. The Miss Sharpe he met in the garden had brimmed with energy, her countenance naturally bright and intelligent. But now she sat stiffly, her gaze unfocused behind the glass of her spectacles.
The informality of their garden meeting verged on comical. When the butler informed him in apologetic tones that the governess would be his dinner companion, Rupert had perked up somewhat. He had been slated to keep company with the local vicar’s wife, a woman full of nervous laughter and incapable of speaking on subjects outside of her personal