Dorothy Eden by Lady of Mallow Read Free Book Online Page A

governess.’
    Amalie came running down the stairs. Sarah could hear her high indignant voice.
    ‘Blane, not that young woman who forced her way in! But I’ve already dismissed her.’
    Blane went forward to meet his wife at the foot of the stairs. He took her hand.
    ‘I think, my love, that perhaps you made a premature decision. Miss Mildmay seems to be an excellent person, and since the newspapers tell us Titus requires a governess, a governess we must have. Public opinion is of a good deal of importance in England.’
    ‘Blane! How ridiculous! You never cared a fig for public opinion.’
    ‘Perhaps not. But for the sake of our son—and of you, my love—In any case, as you see, Titus has made his own decision.’
    ‘You can’t tell me you are going to engage a servant’—again the insolent deliberation of Amalie’s words made Sarah hot with fury—‘on the passing fancy of a child.’
    ‘It’s the child who will have to see the most of her,’ her husband retorted. ‘However, we’ll perform the usual conventions. Perhaps, Miss Mildmay, you’d be good enough to step into the library and have a talk with me. Titus, go to your nurse.’
    The little boy wept softly into Sarah’s neck.
    ‘Titus!’
    The stern voice was one he recognised and interpreted correctly. It would tolerate no disobedience.
    A small shiver went over his light thin body. Sadly he detached himself from Sarah and held out his arms to Annie. She snatched him into hers and hastened upstairs, muttering inaudibly.
    Blane bowed slightly.
    ‘This way, Miss Mildmay.’
    In the book-lined room where a fire burnt cosily, repeating its glow in the highly polished furniture and shiny leather-bound books, Blane waved her to a chair.
    ‘The boy’s spoilt,’ he said abruptly.
    ‘He seems a nervous child.’
    ‘Nervous? Is that what you’d call it? Perhaps. I know nothing about children.’
    Sarah bit her tongue, refraining from pointing out that he had had five years in which to learn. But perhaps he had been away at sea too much. Or was not interested in children. Or secretly regretted that his son was not stronger and more manly.
    ‘A tropical climate is not good for a young child,’ Sarah said primly. ‘Titus will grow much stronger in England.’
    ‘And grow to love the Atlantic winds rather than the Caribbean?’
    The man’s eyes were ironic. It was almost as if the prospect of turning his son into a hardy English child amused him. Perhaps memories of his own childhood had not been entirely pleasant. Since he had run away at sixteen—No, it was not this man who had run away. This man had had a secret childhood somewhere else, but one that had driven him, also, to become an adventurer. Sarah must keep reminding herself he was not Blane Mallow, otherwise of what help was she going to be to Ambrose?
    ‘I want Titus to form an affection for Mallow Hall,’ he went on. ‘I’ve wandered too much to care a great deal for any one place. Besides, my childhood at Mallow, with a father who was a tyrant, doesn’t leave me with the happiest memories of the place. But Titus is the heir. It would be a good thing if he came to love the place. I want him to be a greater comfort to his mother than I ever was to mine.’
    Was the man a complete hypocrite? It seemed so.
    Yet the keen regard he now bent on Sarah seemed to have more than a degree of honesty.
    ‘But we came in here to discuss you, not Titus, Miss Mildmay. We must go through the right motions. I intend you to join our household. You have firmness and initiative. I like that. You will be excellent for Titus. Frankly, although I can see you are of the greatest respectability, I wouldn’t care who your family or your last employer was. I decide on character alone.’
    ‘Thank you, sir,’ Sarah murmured.
    ‘But for the sake of satisfying my wife’s curiosity, tell me something of yourself.’
    This was the hardest moment of all, improvising, while the alert regard of those black eyes