The Bride Insists Read Online Free

neat offices of the agency that had provided her last two posts as governess, in a small chamber set aside for interviews. Farnham and Hicks was considered the best source for the more superior sort of governesses, companions, and high-nosed dressers, those who were several steps up from lady’s maid. They had certainly treated her well over the years. Clare trusted Mrs. Hicks as she did few other people in the world.
    She’d made her requirements very clear, and the first two women she’d spoken with had been distinct possibilities. But somehow not quite right. Clare couldn’t say precisely why, but she wanted to make the perfect choice. And so, she waited for a third candidate, forcing herself to be patient when all she wanted was to rush into action.
    During the last two weeks, she had called at Everett Billingsley’s chambers and signed the documents finalizing her legacy. It was only then, reading through the pages of legal jargon and seeing the ornate seals of officials in far-off India, that she had truly believed it was real. She’d given her notice and left her position at the Bensons, a step that had been as rancorous as she’d expected. Edwina Benson had seemed to take Clare’s new financial status as a personal affront, expressly designed to belittle and inconvenience her. Should Clare ever need a reference… But she wouldn’t. Never again. Clare took a deep breath. She’d engaged rooms at Mivart’s Hotel on Brook Street, and now she was here at the agency, ready to make the next move in her plan.
    Mrs. Hicks opened the door and looked in. At a nod from Clare, she ushered another woman into the room. “This is Mrs. Selina Newton,” she said. “Mrs. Newton, Miss Clare Greenough.”
    â€œGood morning.” Clare remembered to smile as she indicated a chair opposite. The room was set up as a parlor to make these sorts of meetings more comfortable. The newcomer sat down, and Mrs. Hicks retreated, leaving them together.
    Clare examined the other woman. She knew from the list of particulars Mrs. Hicks had provided that Selina Newton was forty-seven years old. She didn’t look it. Her dark brown hair showed no hint of gray, and her round face only a few lines. These seemed to have been engraved by smiles rather than scowls, which was a good sign. Her hazel eyes held a promising warmth. She was neatly dressed, more fashionably than Clare actually, and comfortably attractive. “Could you tell me a bit about yourself?” She wanted to get the woman’s story in her own voice, not from a piece of paper.
    Selina surveyed the very badly dressed young woman before her. Her fingers itched to unpick the seams of that drab, baggy gown and turn it into something more flattering to Miss Greenough’s slender figure. Mrs. Hicks had been vague about the nature of this post, only saying that she thought it might suit Selina. So the interview was more difficult than usual. Selina settled for the customary combination of openness and omission. One shared enough history to establish trust and secure the position, while withholding the more personal details that no one else needed to know.
    â€œCertainly,” Selina began. “I married quite young, a Navy man, and was widowed after eight years.” There was no need to add what she’d realized within a month of the wedding—that Ronald had married her only to gain a caretaker for his invalid mother. Or that he had been away at sea for the greater part of their marriage and might as well have been away when he was at home. Selina had nursed his mother through her final illness the year after Ronald was lost off the Australian coast, and found herself penniless when old Mrs. Newton died.
    â€œNeither of our families had much money,” was the way she put it to Miss Greenough. Certainly her own clergyman father had been in no position to assist her. “So I was obliged to seek