“I will certainly tell you all about it after the ball, when I know every single detail,” said Anne as they walked one by one up the staircase. “But there will be peacocks on the dining table, and musicians playing in every corridor so that when the guests move about the house…”

  Carefully speaking in a low and steady voice, Anne saw to her relief that Frances was yawning by the time they reached the top step.

  “…and feathers all in their hair,” she continued as she opened the door to Frances’s bedchamber. “And diamonds shimmering in the candlelight as every gentleman tries to decide who he will dance with first. And as the music begins––”

  “And you will dance with Papa, won’t you?”

  Frances’s interruption came just as Anne was trying to pull her gown over her head, so she was spared the embarrassment of the child seeing her flush.

  “Yes,” she said briefly. “Now, into your nightgown––there we go––”

  “And who will be invited? You have to tell me every single name, please,” said Frances as she got under the covers and curled up, eyes tired but expectant.

  “I will tell you after the ball,” she said, stroking back Frances’s blonde curls. “When I know whether everyone who said they would come actually arrives.”

  “And,” said Frances, with a yawn, “can I go to the ball?”

  Anne shook her head, keeping her voice low. “No, not yet.”

  “When can I?”

  “Not until you are older,” said Anne, wearily. Goodness, she had almost forgotten how repetitive children could be. When she had lived at home, her mother had gone around in circles answering some of the questions of the smallest Gilberts.

  “How much older?” Frances persisted.

  Anne shook her head. “Frances, you need to go to sleep. Come on, eyes shut and lights out. I will see you in the morning.”

  “And…and then will you tell me?”

  It was hard to resist such a child. “Perhaps. Now, close your eyes.”

  Frances obediently closed her eyes. Anne stifled a laugh. She should not complain. She was a delightful child, and thankfully the only one. A governess of the Bureau never had much choice where she was sent, nor the children she cared for.

  Rising from the bed, Anne reached for the lamp but halted as a small voice spoke.

  “My…my mama used to sing to me when she put me to bed,” said Frances, eyes open again. “Well, a few times she did. I cannot really remember.”

  It was her foolish curiosity. Anne knew she shouldn’t be asking a child such questions––but no one else was willing to speak about the countess. She did not even know her name.

  She sat back on the bed. “Tell me about your mother, Frances.”

  Frances hesitated. “I…I am not allowed to talk about it.”

  Anne was not surprised. No one seemed permitted to talk about it––but the only person who could have given such an edict was the earl, and he had this household in his iron grip [this sounds very negative and bullying].

  Yet with her he was gentle, passionate. Which was the true earl? [she’s seen him gentle and caring with his staff, as well. Is this leftover from a previous draft?] Where was his wife?

  “Who…who told you not to talk about it?” she asked softly.

  Frances did not appear to understand. “Everyone, I think. I thought you knew her.”

  Anne shook her head. “No, I never knew your mother, she was gone before I arrived.”

  “Yes, but you look so alike.”

  It was a response so unexpected that for a moment, Anne was not sure whether she had heard correctly.

  Look alike? It did not make sense; no one had mentioned a similarity between her and the countess, and surely they would have done if…

  Perhaps not. Any mention of the Countess of Clarcton, and the household shut their mouths and went on their way. Everyone knew she was impersonating the countess at the ball—and only now did Anne wonder why she had not asked more questions.

  Surely the world would notice a difference between her and the countess; but if Frances was correct, and they looked similar, perhaps that was why the earl had suggested it.

  Anne took a deep breath. There was a mystery here, one she did not understand. Though there was the chance this was merely garbled memories from a child, misremembering one woman in her life due to the new presence of another.

  Or was there something seriously wrong at Clarcton Castle?

  “Are you going to stay forever?”

  Anne chuckled. “I would like to stay for a long time.”

  Frances nodded safely. “That’s what my mama said, and then she went away.”

  There was something strange in the way she spoke. Anne supposed it was only natural a child who could barely remember her mother would feel at once sad and detached.

  It was difficult to miss something one could not remember.

  It was on the tip of her tongue to ask another question, but Frances’s eyes had fallen shut, and her breathing had deepened. She had finally got Frances off to sleep.

  After waiting a few minutes to ensure Frances really was sleep, Anne gently rose, picked up the lamp, and crept out of the room, closing the door quietly.

  She leaned against the wall and bit her lip. This was becoming too much. Tonight, the eve of the Christmas ball, it was natural to feel some nerves; yet this was more. This was doubt, directed at the man who was both master and tantalizingly out of reach.

  Was she about to get herself into trouble? Miss Clarke would have expected her second month’s report by now, but what with caring for Frances and being taught by Timothy how to be a countess, there had been little time to put pen to paper.

  She would not approve. Miss Clarke, that was. Anne would dread to think what the owner of the Governess Bureau would say if she heard one of her governesses was about to parade herself about like a countess…

  Was this just a huge mistake? Something she had been swept up in because her feelings for the earl?

  Anne sighed heavily and watched the lamp flicker in her hands. Yes, her heart yearned for him, for something more than merely the pretense of being his countess. Perhaps that was why she found it so easy to go along with the façade.

  Yet underneath it all, somewhere deep in the heart of this castle, this family, there was a secret. A mystery she did not understand. It caused the hair on the back of her neck to prickle, and yet she could not put her finger on what on earth it could be.

  If she changed her mind about her agreement with the earl now––worse, if she decided to leave Clarcton Castle altogether––she would never know the truth.

  It was late. She was tired and it would be a long day tomorrow, yet Anne found her feet taking her not towards her bedchamber, but instead towards the drawing room.

  Timothy smiled as she opened the door. “Well, good evening.”

  Anne knew she was in far too deep when her heart began to flutter with just that short welcome. If any other gentleman had said that, she would have felt nothing. If Holt, the overeager footman had said it, she would have been repulsed. It had been a small mercy she had been able to avoid him ever since their…interaction in the side corridor

  But when Timothy spoke to her…oh, the way her body craved him; it was unlike anything she had ever known.

  “Unable to sleep?”

  “Unwilling,” she confessed, stepping inside the room. “At least for now. I find myself in need of company, if you are willing to provide it.”

  Anne’s stomach swooped painfully as he smiled.

  “Of course.”

  Anne placed the lamp on a table with shaking hands and sat opposite him.

  Was this what she had come to? Forbidden emotions for a man far out of reach and far above her in station?

  She took a deep breath. She would not allow herself to make the same mistake any old governess would make. The Governess Bureau had rules for a reason. No one would ever hire a governess if they believed the master of the house to be in real danger of seduction…

  “I admit I am pleased to see you,” said Timothy with a broadening smile. “I…I missed you today.”

  Was it madness to think he felt something for her too? She could not be alone in this whirl of emotions, could she? That stolen kiss in the study came back to her. No, she was not alone in this. Whatever she felt, it was at least matched.

  “But this is radical of you, Anne,” he continued. “What would Miss Clarke say if she knew you were spending your evenings with me, instead of carefully drawing up plans for your charge’s education?”

  If only she had the bravery to kiss him as he had kissed her. But it was wrong to think in such a way. Even if nothing else had ever felt so right.

  “I am sure Miss Clarke would consider Frances just ready for schooling,” she said aloud. “And until I normalize have her in a schoolroom, there is no point constructing complex lessons. Besides, my mind is altogether too distracted by tomorrow.”

  Timothy nodded. “The Christmas ball.”

  “And…and are you excited?”

  She certainly was. Every time she thought of it, her pulse quickened and her hands seemed to shake, drop whatever she was holding, her mind instantly transported back to that moment when they had danced together, her hands in his, his breath––

  “Not really,” said the earl, stretching in his seat. “I never was, to tell the truth.”

  Only a gentleman with more diversions than he could think of, Anne thought wryly, would be bored by such a splendid occasion.

  “I suppose you have hosted many balls here,” she hazarded.

  Timothy nodded. Anne attempted not to look at the curve of his jaw, the way his hair, cut short around his ears and neck, only showed the strength of his shoulders. She loved him. She loved him, and he craved her, but not as she loved him.

  “In my parents’ time, they were a regular occurrence,” he said. “A Christmas ball and a New Year’s ball, one or two in the summer, one for my mother’s birthday of course––any excuse would do. They loved dancing, loved people. Games in the summer, hosted for the whole village. Long house parties in the autumn…”

  Anne was utterly enchanted. It appeared that during his father’s reign as earl, there had been not a single day that went by without some sort of entertainment or diversion.

  “Some of the people I have met here,” Timothy continued, a smile creeping over his lips. “Beau Brummel––what a man. Most unpleasant, I have to say. Criticized my appearance on my first ever ball.”

  Anne chuckled. “I hear he was most injudicious with his criticism.”

  “And his praise,” added Timothy with a mischievous laugh. “God, I remember when he faced a tirade from Lady Romeril after making a disparaging comment about her gown. I never forgot that, and I think to this day neither has she.”

  Anne leaned forward. Beau Brummel, Lady Romeril…these were names of high society she had heard but never met. Yet in a few short hours…

  “The balls sound marvelous,” she said. “What a precedent to meet.”

  Timothy nodded. “My parents never lived to see me host, but I always hope to do their love of entertaining justice. Though to be honest it was…the countess dealt with most of the details. The latest fashions, impressive food, that sort of thing.”

  Anne swallowed. They were so close to the topic of his wife and her mysterious absence, yet she did not know how to take it further. It did not feel possible she was about to take on the mantle of this woman who was beloved by some and clearly loathed by her husband.

  “She…she’s dead, you know.”

  It was as though time had stopped. The words spoken by Timothy hung in the air like snow, wafting down to Anne’s ears, which could not quite take them in.

  “Dead?” she repeated.

  Dead. The countess was dead?

  The earl was discomforted yet he said nothing. All words appeared to have failed him.

  Anne swallowed. She had to ask. “I…I beg your pardon?”

  After all her curiosity, after wondering for weeks where the countess was…

  “If you ask me, he did it.”

  Well, it was no wonder rumors had whirled up in society. After two years completely out of view, why had she not thought there was a possibility the Countess of Clarcton was not just missing, but had ceased to be?

  Anne’s shoulders were tight, every muscle on edge, but Timothy did not appear concerned. There was sadness in his eyes, yes, but it was not distress, but melancholia.

  “My wife died,” he said heavily. “Suddenly. An accident, two years ago.”

  Anne could not take in his words. Dead. The countess was dead? She was about to impersonate a woman who had died in an accident––an accident which evidently had been hushed up to such an extent that half the staff did not appear to know what had happened, and the other half had never spoken of it for fear of…what? Retribution?

  “Frances was upset, as you could imagine,” said Timothy, his gaze drifting away from the governess and towards the dying embers in the grate. “I think in truth she has forgotten it now. She was so very young, you see.”

  Anne nodded wordlessly. She could not speak, had no words to utter.

  “I would like to stay for a long time.”

  “That’s what my mama said, and then she went away.”

  “There would have been scandal, intrigue––no one believes an accident is ever truly an accident when nobility is involved,” said Timothy. He was attempting to convince himself, it appeared. “I did not wish to be a bachelor again. To enter the marriage market three years older, a decade wiser, with a two-year-old child…so I lied. I lied, Anne.”

  She could not believe it. This was the sort of thing one would read in a disreputable newspaper; it was all nonsense, surely!

  But why? Why lie about one’s wife’s death, why tell such a story unless it was the truth? He gained naught from the admission but her silence, which he had not asked for.

  A governess of discretion. That was what he had asked for. By God, she could see now why discretion was the sole character trait he needed from a woman entering this household.

  “You…” Her voice was croaky, and she swallowed before attempting to speak again. “You have kept this up, this lie about the countess being away for her health…you have maintained it for two years?”

  It did not seem possible.

  Timothy nodded. “It was easy for the first year. I told you, ladies are delicate. Many go abroad for their health. For one winter, for a winter and a summer, it did not seem such a difficult pretense to maintain.”

  Anne could well believe it. How many husbands and wives had she encountered in the upper echelons of society, through her connections with the Alluns, who lived apart for most of the year? Whether for their health, or for more personal reasons, it was not uncommon.

  But still. They were seen in public. Occasionally.

  “Then of course people started to remember they had not seen my wife in over a year,” said Timothy heavily. “I was beginning to be asked impertinent questions. Receive impertinent suggestions. Matchmaking, that sort of thing. I should have thought that there would be a time when someone wondered, eventually,” said Timothy with a dark laugh. “Even I had not foreseen it would go this way.”

  “But what about her family?” Anne found herself saying. “Countesses do not just die and no one notices! Her friends, her family? Parents, siblings?”

  Timothy shrugged in a careless way. “She had no family––none who ever owned her, that is, or perhaps it was the other way around. I do not know. None of them attended our wedding, I know that, and we received no congratulations on the birth of Frances.”

  The birth of Frances. It was a strange way of saying it; Anne would have expected him to say ‘our daughter’ or even ‘my daughter,’ now she knew him to be a widower.

  His voice had become stiff when he reached the name of his daughter. Was there another secret there, too? Was this castle merely full of secrets which he was hiding?

  “I…I own I struggle to believe it,” said Anne into the silence. “I believed myself to be impersonating a woman who was too sick, too unwell to travel here and be by your side. Now I learn I am impersonating a dead woman. A woman you have surely grieved and––”

  “My wife was not a great mother nor wife,” said Timothy unexpectedly. His voice was harsh, but measured, as though he was holding a great deal back. “I tell you that not to dismiss her memory, but to ensure you understand. The woman you will be tomorrow at the Christmas ball was not a pleasant woman. She did not endear herself to my neighbors. She endeared herself to very few. That is the woman you will be.”

  Anne took a deep breath. Well, she had always prided herself on her ability to continue on regardless. Just keep going. But this news? The death of a countess in mysterious circumstances, in an accident which never saw the light of day?

  “You are trusting me with a great deal of information,” she said. “If it is all true.”

  Timothy waved his hand dismissively. “Of course it’s true––why would I lie?”

  “She is away. For her health.”

  “Well,” Anne said, “because I have been here now for over almost two months, I will be pretending to be your wife tomorrow––your wife who I now learn has not just gone away but passed on, and it is only now you are telling me this. On the eve of battle, as it were. After…after everything.”

  Only then did he meet her gaze. Something connected them in that moment which Anne did not understand—a moment of intensity, a moment of trust, of longing. She did not need to spell out what she meant: after the evenings together, the dinners, the walks. The dancing. That kiss.

  “I trust you,” he said, leaning over the fire and disturbing the embers with a poker. “I am sure you can understand why it has taken me such time to ensure that trust is merited.”

  Anne twisted her fingers in her lap. Here he was, admitting such wild things to her––and now she had a decision. Whether to trust him in the same way he purported to trust her.

  “I lost my wife,” Timothy said heavily. “More dramatically than you can ever know. Whatever the detail of the matter, I need to protect Frances. She is my priority.”