Elizabeth, meanwhile, had gone to the drawing room, taken paper, ink, and pens from the desk there, and returned to her own room, where she was soon busy drafting a notice to several London newspapers offering her services as a governess. She would personally see that the notices went out with that day's mail, she decided, so that they would appear in print in two days' time. She resolved to take the first post offered, especially if it was far away from London.
---
Five days later Louise was still watching the driveway for Hetherington and looking through the day's mail for a letter from him. She was convinced that the other letter had been a mistake, that somehow he would come and allow Elizabeth to tell her story. She was convinced that love would triumph in the end.
For his part, John was still in a quandary. He felt he owed it to his sister this time to help her, to find out Hetherington and explain to him what her letter must have only hinted at. Surely the man would want to come himself to see her if he knew the truth. On the other hand, Elizabeth had very specifically begged him not to have any contact at all with her husband.
Elizabeth was the only one who was not troubled. Since the morning when the letter had arrived, she had blocked Hetherington from her mind and her heart. With a cheerfulness that alarmed her brother and sister-in-law, she helped Louise with household duties, played with Jeremy, and prepared for her own return to service. She had bought several yards of gray wool material and was making herself some serviceable gowns. Although it would be several months before her hair would be long enough to be forced into its old, severe style, she found that she was able to coil the curls at the back so that her appearance became somewhat less frivolous.
Five days after she had sent her advertisement to the newspapers, Elizabeth began to look for a reply. She had none by the morning post, but a messenger in the early afternoon brought word that a Mr. Chatsworth was at the local inn and would be pleased to interview Miss Rossiter that same afternoon for a position as governess.
"Pray do not go, Elizabeth," Louise begged when she was shown the letter, "or send word that your services are no longer available. Indeed, we need you here and we love you."
John was white-faced. "Indeed, love," he said, "Louise is right. We know you are wretchedly unhappy and we cannot do much to ease the pain. But at least here you know that you are with loved ones."
"I am not at all unhappy," Elizabeth replied brightly. "On the contrary, I look on this as a new adventure. Unknown people, an unknown place. It is what I need. I thank you both for your concern, but it really is unnecessary. This is your home, but it is mine no longer. I have to find my own place."
They were forced to let her go. She declined even to let John accompany her to the inn, but drove herself in the gig. She wore her best governess clothes, the gray silk covered with a gray cloak to ward off the chill breeze, and a matching bonnet.
Mr. Chatsworth was lodged in the only private parlor the inn boasted, a tiny, smoke-blackened room, usually used by the landlord's more-favored patrons for their gambling card games. Elizabeth knocked on the door and closed it behind her when she was called inside.
Her prospective employer was a tall man, portly, fashionably dressed, his hair curled high at the front. He leaned with studied casualness against the mantel and studied her minutely from head to foot through a quizzing glass.
"Mr. Chatsworth?" she asked.
He inclined his head. "Miss Rossiter?"
She dropped him a curtsy.
He waved her to a chair beside the table and began the interview. His home was in Yorkshire, Elizabeth learned, where his invalid wife and two young sons lived. He was a mill owner and wished to give his sons all the advantages that he had not had as a child: a governess for a few years, public school after that.
It would not be an easy job, Elizabeth knew. She judged the man to be conceited, with a grudge against the noble class who had birth and breeding even if they did not have his wealth. He would be the sort of man who would treat his servants as inferiors in order to convince himself of his own superiority. She had also been uncomfortably aware all the time they talked of his eyes roving over her body. She judged that at some time in the not-too-distant future she would have to repulse his lecherous advances.
Yet when Mr. Chatsworth made her a firm offer of employment at the end of a half-hour, Elizabeth accepted. What was the point of waiting for a more pleasant post? There was no such thing as pleasure in life for her anymore.
"I wish to leave here before ten o' clock tomorrow morning," Mr. Chatsworth announced. "May I expect you to be ready, Miss Rossiter?"
"I shall be here by then, sir," she assured him.
"I shall look forward to furthering our acquaintance on our journey," he said, taking her hand in his plump and moist one and squeezing it rather hard.
Elizabeth refused to think during the drive home. Yorkshire would suit her fine. She would be far away from all the places and people she had ever known. She knew that she should be uneasy about making a journey of a few days alone with a stranger. John and Louise would probably try to insist on sending a maid with her. Perhaps she would even allow herself to be persuaded if it would make them feel better. She really did not care. Not anymore. It was safer not to care. Already she felt better than she had felt for several months.
The butler was in the hall when Elizabeth let herself into the house.
"Are Mr. and Mrs. Rossiter indoors?" she asked him, removing her bonnet and throwing it down on a table.
"In the drawing room, ma'am, taking tea," he said. "And, er…"
"That is all right," she said. "I shall join them there."
Elizabeth donned the mask of cheerfulness that she had worn at home now for five days and opened the double doors of the drawing room.
John and Louise, one at either side of the unlit fireplace, Louise looking bright-eyed, John acutely embarrassed, were indeed taking tea. But the Marquess of Hetherington was not. He was standing very much as Mr. Chatsworth had stood when she had walked in on him earlier, except that his stance looked genuinely relaxed. He had one elbow propped on the mantel and one booted leg crossed over the other.
His blue eyes met Elizabeth's across the room and he smiled.
Chapter 16
Elizabeth did not relinquish her hold on the handles of the doors. "What are you doing here?" she asked.
"It seems that you ask me that every time we meet," he said, "and I always have the same answer. I wish to talk to you."
"I have no interest in anything you may have to say to me, my lord," she said coldly, "and I have nothing whatsoever to say to you. Good day."
She stepped backward and began to close the doors in front of her.
"Elizabeth," Hetherington said, and he was still smiling, "how rag-mannered you have become. I have traveled so far just to see you, and you refuse to grant me even a few moments of your time."
Elizabeth deliberately stepped inside the room and quietly closed the doors behind her. She crossed the room until her own blazing eyes looked directly into his intense blue ones.
"I understood that you were busy, my lord," she said. "Pardon me, it was extremely busy, was it not, John? I understood that you were to write to me when you had more leisure. Have you found yourself with a great deal of leisure, my lord, so much so that you have found the time to pay me a personal visit? Pardon me for not being quite overwhelmed by your generosity. You are at least five days too late. I do not believe, Robert, there is anything you could say to which I would deem it worthwhile to listen."