Lady Sarah's Redemption Read Online Free

tone still carried a warning as he put his hand on
the door knob to leave. “Caro will have her come-out next year. Your father
presented a very persuasive case for my employing you, Miss Morecroft. I trust
you’ll not disappoint his memory.”
    “Sir— ” Desperate to detain him so as not to be abandoned to
the girls in such a humiliating manner, Sarah strove for a disarming
combination of entreaty and contrition. “I realize what a great debt I owe you
for the opportunity to prove myself as tutor to your children, especially Caro
whom I consider has great potential—”
    “—For improvement, yes,” Mr Hawthorne cut in. “Now, if you’ll
excuse me, my dinner guests are waiting. I merely put my head in to welcome you
to Larchfield. I, too, have every confidence Caro will make a shining debut in
another six months-” he levelled a meaningful look at Sarah – “provided
her new governess can impart the many accomplishments with which I was assured
she was endowed.”
    The door closed. Three seconds of shocked silence was broken by
Caro’s plaintive wail, “He despises me!” as she plunged out of the room.
    Harriet and Augusta exchanged looks, the latter remarking, dryly,
“Uncle Roland wasn’t very nice, was he?”
    Nice? Sarah was furious. What callous brute would dismiss his
daughter in such a manner? But diplomacy was her ally in desperate
circumstances and she managed a dismissive, “Your uncle is probably not feeling
quite himself,” before she went in search of the distressed Caro.
    Sarah’s indignation had assumed monumental proportions by the time
she finally retired to her poky little bedchamber, after trying to soothe Caro.
She’d made some headway, but of course, what gains could she make when they’d
barely met?
    Mr Hawthorne was a monster. A cold, emotionless brute, completely
derelict in the discharge of his paternal responsibilities. The way he’d
treated the new governess was little better.
    She tore out the pins securing her unflattering topknot with a
serious of vicious tugs in line with her righteous anger, then shook out her
hair. Mr Hawthorne would change his tune when she was done. In three weeks, as
he acknowledged Caro and the miracles his new governess had wrought, he’d be
begging her to stay.
    Then her anger drained away. Covering her face with her hands, she
slumped over the dressing table. It was a terrible thing to impersonate a young
woman who’d died. And she was being justly punished.
    The candle guttered, sending lonely shadows dancing upon the walls.
Everything was hideous, alien. No elegant Argand lamp by which to read the
classics or a thrilling romantic novel. No witty conversation, Madeira or
tempting delicacy to round off the evening.
    Yet this was the way governesses lived and it was her choice to have
joined their ranks. Though, frowning, she thought that surely her own series of
governesses had been pampered and spoiled. Then she recalled that they had had
rooms just like this one and she’d not given a thought as to whether they might
wish for surroundings less austere.
    No point thinking about what could not be changed, she decided, as
she returned to the trunk. There was no maid to tidy up after her and she
needed to find a home for the last of the garments littering the floor. Perhaps
that impertinent nursery maid had a brood of brothers and sisters and would be
glad of them, she thought. She’d rather go naked in a blizzard than suffer the
feel of such coarse, ugly material against her skin.
    As Sarah pushed the threadbare garments to the bottom of the trunk
her hand came into contact with a hard object. A book, by the feel of it.
Intrigue quickly turned to scepticism. No point in pulling it out if Sarah
Morecroft’s taste in reading matter was as deplorable as her style.
    But of course curiosity got the better of her and, taking a seat on
the bed once more she flipped to the flyleaf and studied the neat, heavily
looped writing. Miss Morecroft’s