Page 11 of The Good Fortune of Miss Robbins

A young man was walking toward us, his hat in his hands, head down.

“There you are,” Mr. Skidmore said. “What do you have to say, leaping off the seat to save yourself?”

“It weren’t my fault, sir. The horses, they got spooked and took off running. They pulled the reins clean out of my hands. I tried to leap on the left one’s back to grab the reins and stop him, but I couldn’t hang on and ended up in the ditch.”

“A likely story,” Mr. Skidmore grumbled. “You’re to go back to your duties in the stable. I’ll not place my life into your hands again.”

“Yes, sir.” He lowered his head even more. “How’ll I get home, if you don’t mind, sir?”

Mr. Skidmore mumbled, “I ought to . . .” but the rest of his words never reached my ears as he handed the former driver some coins. I wondered if he’d have been that gracious if Lord Brookhaven had not been standing there.

The hired coach arrived. The Skidmores thanked Lord Brookhaven again and stepped inside, and soon they were rolling away down the road.

“Well, Miss Charlotte Robbins?” Lord Brookhaven was staring down at me. By the scowl on his face, one might have thought he was angry.

“Yes, sir?”

“Shall we return to Lowndesbury House?”

“I must post a letter in town first.”

“Why didn’t you say so? I could have posted the letter for you.”

“It is no trouble. I like to walk. Besides, you were occupied with more pressing matters.”

“That was not so pressing as to prevent me from posting your letter.” Again, his voice was gruff. “Give me the letter and I shall frank it and put it in tomorrow’s post.”

“That is very kind of you, sir, but if it is all right, I shall take it myself, so it will get there a day earlier.” When he just stared at me,I continued, “I don’t want my friends to worry about me any longer than they must.”

“Very well.” He turned, nudged his horse into a run, and was gone.

It was strange. I probably should have been afraid to speak so boldly to him. Then again, I might get back to Lowndesbury House to find he had dismissed me, just as he’d done to Hattie’s cousin’s friend. Great titled men could be very changeable, or so I’d heard, which made it that much more surprising to find the Earl of Brookhaven so ... human.

By the time I’d arrived back at Lowndesbury House, the storm clouds had passed without delivering any rain, and the tall trees were casting deep shadows over the lane. Even the birds were quiet. The night was warm, and I let my shawl fall off my shoulders, draped over my arms and around my waist. How lovely to feel the cool air on the back of one’s neck.

As I walked, I remembered the conversation I’d had with Mrs. Merryweather on my way out, when I’d caught a glimpse of a thin, stooped-over man with white hair disappearing into one of the rooms.

“That manis Mr. Hayes,Lord Brookhaven’s estate steward,”Mrs. Merryweather had informed me,“and the room he just wentinto is the earl’s private study. You are notto go in there.”

I’d been hoping the steward might become my first suitor, and if he was suitable, my husband. But obviously Mr. Hayes was too old.

Even though I was only a governess, I did have standards.

Perhaps the head gardener would be a genteel sort of man—genteel for a gardener—or perhaps I could catch the eye of the earl’s solicitor, or maybe even the rector or vicar of the parish church. A clergyman should make a good husband, I imagined, and if he was not from too grand a family, he might deign to marry a governess.

When I reached Lowndesbury House, I was reluctant to losethe last bit of twilight. I walked to the garden, but its perfect paths and rows of well-manicured bushes displayed a rigid, off-putting formality. I decided to go beyond the garden, and I found the large tree that Lord Brookhaven had collided with when he was a boy.

Even though it had been dark and his voice had held a certain gruffness, almost anger, he’d seemed so vulnerable when he was telling me that story. I’d felt similarly toward our rector in Milford when I was thirteen years old. When he stood in front of the congregation and spoke of feelings of guilt, joy, and condemnation for his own sins, as well as gratitude for God’s mercy and grace, my heart had seemed to swell out of my chest.

No one else ever spoke of feelings—especially not men, of whom there were none in my life, unless you counted the man who made repairs around the school, or the farmer who greeted me a few times a year when I passed him on the way to the village. No one besides Hattie and a few of the other teachers at Mrs. Southey’s school ever spoke of how certain past events had made them feel. But it was as if I needed that depth of conversation, longed for it with a yearning that took my breath away now, remembering how Lord Brookhaven had spoken to me the night before.

It was almost improper, unseemly for an employer to open up to his employee in that manner. But why? Why should it be unseemly to speak of emotions, to express sadness or pain? For I’d sensed a fierce pain inside him. I’d actuallyfelthis pain.

I could well commiserate with the pain of the absence of loving parents. I felt it every time I saw a child with their mother or a father smiling fondly at his daughter, whether she was ten years old or twenty or thirty. It was an affectionate gaze I was never to know.

Although Lord Brookhaven had not known much affection from his mother, I suspected his relationship with his father was no better. Though I knew little of the former Lord Brookhaven, titled gentlemen were not known for their kindness and affection toward their children.

Lord God,please let me marry someone who will love me,a good man who willnot refuse to speak of feelings and will not berateme for my—