Until You Read online

  “I don’t see how you’ll pull that off. If Claymore has set his heart on her, and Langford were to want her too, there’s bound to be trouble. You’ll have to make up your mind before we go, dearest.”

  She opened her mouth to launch an angry tirade at him for his obtuseness, but was diverted by the outburst of animated voices in the hall. “Children!” she exclaimed, rushing down the hall and hugging the one she encountered first. “Miss Bromleigh!” she cried, so excited she inadvertently hugged the governess too. “We shall be working night and day to prepare for a trip. I can’t think what all we will need for a house party of this magnitude.”

  “Julianna, where are you, dear?” she said belatedly, momentarily nonplussed when all she saw were two ruddy-faced dark-haired boys between the ages of four and nine.

  “Julianna went up to her room, Lady Skeffington,” Sheridan said, hiding a weary smile at her employer’s excitement and a wary fear of what sort of extra work was likely to be required of her to get the children ready for “a house party of this magnitude.” As it was, she only had one evening off each week, and in order to have it, she worked from dawn to eleven every evening, doing an endless variety of additional chores that were normally relegated to seamstresses and maids, not governesses. Sherry took advantage of the uproar about the house party to escape to her own room in the attic for a while. Standing over the pitcher and bowl on her bureau, she washed her face, reassured herself that her hair was neatly bound in its coil, then she sat down by the little attic window and picked up her sewing. There was bound to be more mending, more ironing, more work for her involved in the house party being discussed, but Sheridan didn’t actually object to the extra work. Being governess to five children kept her too busy during the day to think about Stephen Westmoreland and those magical days she’d been an integral part of his life. At night, when the house was quiet and she was sewing by candlelight, then she could give free reign to her memories and her daydreams, even though there were times she feared her hopeless obsession with him would someday make her quite insane. With her head bent over her sewing, she invented entire scenes with him and improved on others that had been real.

  Time after time, she rewrote in her mind the awful ending to their betrothal. She started most of those imaginary scenes the same way—with Charise Lancaster storming into her bedchamber—and in the midst of Charise’s damning tirade about Sherry’s motives and trickery, Stephen always walked in. From there Sheridan had several favorite variations on possible endings:

  . . . Stephen listened to Charise’s incriminating lies, threw Charise out of his house, then he turned to Sheridan, listened sympathetically to her side of the story, and they were married that day as planned.

  . . . Stephen refused to listen to a word Charise said before throwing her out of his house, then he listened sympathetically to Sheridan’s side of the story, and they were married that day as planned.

  . . . They were already married when Charise appeared, and so he had to listen to Sherry’s side of the story and believe her.

  None of that solved Nicholas DuVille’s painful revelation that Stephen had felt bound to wed her out of guilt and responsibility, but Sherry circumvented that mortifying fact with a simple solution—Stephen also loved her. She had variations aplenty for that ending too:

  . . . He had always loved her but didn’t realize it until after she had gone away, then he searched for her until he found her. And they were married.

  . . . They were already married, and he learned to love her despite everything.

  She vastly preferred the first ending, because that was the only possible reality, and she kept the dream so close to her that sometimes she found herself looking out the window, half expecting to see him striding to the door. In addition to her fantasies, she had the real-life pleasure—as well as torture—of seeing him at the opera.

  She had to stop going there, had to stop tormenting herself by waiting for the moment when he would finally turn to whatever woman was with him and focus his lazy, intimate smile on her. That, Sherry knew, would mark her last trip to the pits of Covent Garden. That she could never endure.

  Sometimes, she even imagined that her disappearance was the reason he looked stern and distant when he sat beside the women he escorted to his private opera box. He looked weary and cold because he missed Sherry . . . because he regretted losing her . . .

  It was still full daylight and too early for sweet dreams, and Sherry gave her head a shake to banish the thoughts, then she looked up with a determined smile as Julianna Skeffington slipped into the room.

  “Miss Bromleigh, may I hide in here?” the seventeen-year-old said, her lovely face a mirror of dismay as she closed the door with a silent click and walked over to the bed. Careful not to mess the coverlet, she sat down, looking like a drooping angel. In her more uncharitable moments, Sherry wondered how two dreadful people like Sir John and Lady Skeffington could have produced this sweet, sensible, intelligent golden girl. “The worst thing imaginable has happened!” Julianna said with disgust.

  “The very worst thing?” Sheridan teased. “Not merely a horrid thing or a disastrous thing, but the worst thing imaginable?”

  A hint of an answering smile touched her lips then vanished as Julianna sighed. “Mama is up in the boughs, believing some nobleman has developed a partiality for me, when the truth is that he scarcely glanced in my direction, and he never spoke a word to me.

  “I see,” Sheridan said gravely, and she did see. She empathized as well. She was thinking of something to say when Lady Skeffington threw open the door, looking wild-eyed.

  “I can’t think what we have that is suitable to wear in such illustrious company. Miss Bromleigh, you came recommended by a duke’s sister, could you possibly advise us? We shall have to go to Bond Street straightaway. Julianna, straighten your shoulders. Gentlemen do not like a female who slouches. What shall we do, Miss Bromleigh? There are coaches to hire, and we shall have to go with a full retinue of servants, including you, of course.”

  Sherry let that summation of her status pass without flinching. It was the truth, especially in this household. That was what she was, and she was fortunate to have the position. “I am not an expert on how the Quality dresses,” she said carefully, “but I shall be happy to lend you an opinion, ma’am. Where is the party taking place?”

  Lady Skeffington straightened her shoulders and puffed out her ample chest, reminding Sheridan of a herald announcing the arrival of the king and queen: “At the country seat of the Duke and Duchess of Claymore!”

  Sherry felt the room tip, then right itself. Her ears were deceiving her, of course.

  “The Duke and Duchess of Claymore have invited all of us to an intimate gathering at their home!”

  Sherry groped behind her for the bedpost, gripping it and staring at the other woman. Based on what she’d seen firsthand of the ton’s social ladder, the Westmorelands occupied the very pinnacle of it, while the Skeffingtons were on the bottom rung, completely beneath the Westmoreland family’s notice. Even if it weren’t for the ludicrous differences in wealth and prestige between the two families, there was the matter of good breeding. The Westmorelands had it and so did everyone they knew. Sir John and Lady Glenda Skeffington had none. This was impossible, Sherry thought. She was dreaming one of her daydreams, and it had turned into a nightmare.

  “Miss Bromleigh, you are losing your color, and I must caution you that there simply isn’t time for you to have vapors over this. If I haven’t time for a nice swoon,” she added with a robust smile, “then neither do you, my good girl.”

  Sherry swallowed and swallowed again, trying to find her voice. “Are you—” she rasped, “are you acquainted with them, with the duke and duchess, I mean?”

  Lady Skeffington issued a warning before she confided the truth: “I trust you would not betray a confidence, and risk losing your position with us?”

  Sherry swallowed again and shook her head, which Lady Skeffington co