Page 1 of The Governess’s Absolutely Impossible Wish (The Notorious Briarwoods #8)

Miss Abelard’s School for Most Accomplished Girls

1794

“T hey are extremely handsome.”

A laugh burst past Miss Giselle Abbot’s lips. She could not help herself. The claim seemed so odd, and yet the unflappable look upon Miss Abelard’s wrinkled, and usually quite affectionate, visage told her that Miss Abelard was not in jest. Indeed, it seemed there was nothing funny about what the older lady was trying to say.

Giselle cleared her throat, her initial excitement at having been brought into the office to be given a governess position dimming.

“They are very handsome,” Miss Abelard affirmed, as if this would somehow entrench her comment in Giselle’s mind.

Giselle felt her brow furrow as she attempted to understand the implication of the words.

“I am not certain I understand. Is this simply a statement of fact or a warning, Miss Abelard?” Giselle ventured, attempting to give a merry smile.

After all, the one thing that had sustained Giselle over the years had been a good sense of humor. If she had not had a good sense of humor, she would have curled up into a small ball and never gotten out of her bed again. After all, when one was the daughter of a famous European composer with a rather eccentric history, and had been forced to face the world alone when said composer died of illness, well, really… There was nothing one could do except either collapse under the tragedy of it all or find a way to laugh.

She had chosen laughter. Even when in dire pain at the loss of her beautiful, talented, and, dare she say, doomed mama.

Miss Abelard was not laughing at present. In fact, one of her silvery brows arched and her mobcap, usually immovable, trembled. “You have not heard of the Briarwoods?”

Giselle shifted on her simple straight-back seat and folded her hands together, thinking. “No, I confess I have not. Should I have done? Are they remarkable in some particular way?”

Miss Abelard laughed. It was apparently her turn to laugh at what seemed an absurd statement on Giselle’s part.

Miss Abelard adjusted the tea things on her desk and leaned forward. “Everyone knows the Briarwoods. Surely, you know of the Duke of Westleigh.”

“Oh!” she exclaimed, recognition of the name flooding her with bits and pieces of knowledge. “I have heard of the Duke of Westleigh. He’s always in the newssheets, is he not, for his rather remarkable works? But I was not aware that his family was particularly interesting.”

Miss Abelard gave her an indulgent look as she took up a teacup and saucer painted in the popular blue of the day. “You don’t read the gossip sheets at all, my dear?”

Gossip sheets left a bitter taste in her mouth. All the girls knew not to gossip in her presence.

Giselle sighed. “I refrain from them.”

She had actually eschewed the kind of life that could get one embroiled in the gossip sheets as a child. But she knew the power of them and the harm they could do. So, she did not touch them.

At one time, her mother had been the center of a great deal of gossip. Her mother had been one of the greatest composers in Europe. Quite shocking for a female. It was rare, but it did happen. Her mother had known Mozart and been friends with Mozart’s sister. She had traveled all over, bringing her young daughter, Giselle, with her.

Giselle could still remember the gilded halls of the palaces, the ladies with their painted faces and jewels and exquisite gowns, the whispers and giggles as information was shared.

Gossip was a powerful thing indeed. Gossip wasn’t simply silly. Gossip was a weapon. She had come to understand that at a young age. Gossip was also currency, if one knew how to use it properly. And Giselle had found that life so exhausting that, even as a girl, she had stepped away from it happily, promising herself that she would not involve herself in any sort of scandal again. Scandal was a harrowing thing. Scandal could leave one completely empty inside. Like it had done to her mother.

She swallowed. “Is this leading somewhere, Miss Abelard? Am I to be employed by the Duke of Westleigh as a governess?”

The serious look in Miss Abelard’s eyes vanished and her blue orbs danced with delight. “Indeed, my dear. You have done me so proud over the years that you are the only girl here at present who is up to the task. I can think of no one but you to go to the duke. It is finally time for you to go out into the world. You have spent several years here, and you have been such an asset to my school. You have taught the other girls so very much, even if you were meant to be a student yourself.”

A student? A charity case.

That was actually what she was. Not a student. Though she had learned a great deal from Miss Abelard, she also understood that if she had not been able to teach the other students music, she might not have been treated so well. It was a bitter note to swallow, but she had to be realistic.

She preferred to believe that Miss Abelard had a generous and kind spirit. She wanted to believe Miss Abelard would not have shunted her down to the kitchens to scrub the floors, pots, and pans if she had not been able to teach music and guide the girls in their ability to perform for a drawing room. But it was hard to know for certain.

She had certainly, as they say, sung for her supper, though she had not actually sung. She had taught many of the instruments she could play, from the cello to the pianoforte to the harp. She had even taught a little bit of violin. Her mother had been a chameleon of music and had written such beautiful sonatas and concertos. She’d been working on her first opera when she died.

Giselle composed too, though she told no one that she scribbled away in the late hours of the night, making music on reams of paper. She would never be a published composer. That life was far too dangerous, far too risky. She had seen it destroy her mother.

Men in general were risky. They took up ladies like they were shiny baubles, promising to worship them and their talents. But worship was not at all what men did to women like her mother, not in the end.

Giselle had no wish to entrap herself in affairs of the heart, and she realized that was exactly why she’d been chosen to be the duke’s governess.

She smiled at Miss Abelard. “I appreciate your warning about the handsomeness of the Briarwood men. But I rather think you know my heart is hardened to handsome faces. That is why you have picked me, is it not?”

Miss Abelard inclined her head, pouring a cup of tea. “That is but one of the reasons. You are very educated in the truth about young lords, and you’re not likely to flutter your lashes at one of them like a besotted schoolgirl. You’ve seen too much of the world for that.”

Handing over the teacup carefully, Miss Abelard gave her a kind smile. “I know it was very hard, your childhood. But that is all behind you. No one speaks of your past anymore. It is old news.”

Giselle nodded and took the cup. They didn’t hide who she was, but it was simply better not to discuss her romantic and exceptional mama. Or the rather strange childhood that Giselle had had. She could still recall being put atop a table when she was five years old and made to play Mozart for her mother’s guests.

The gentlemen had all applauded. But she had not enjoyed it. Still, she knew that her mother’s patrons were what kept them fed and warm in the cold Austrian winters. So, she had done as she was told…with a smile.

She lifted the teacup and savored the rich scent wafting towards her. The steaming beverage was quite a treat. The school, though not entirely austere, did practice certain stoic measures.

She smiled at Miss Abelard. “Never fear. They could be a house of Adonises, and I would not be interested.”

“Could be?” countered Miss Abelard. “They are. Working for them is very difficult for an unmarried young lady.”

“That bad are they, eh?” She wondered if they were lechers. But she doubted it. Miss Abelard would never send her to the sort of place where she’d have to worry about finding a young lord in her bed in the middle of the night. It happened more often than many would admit.

“Not at all. Young ladies just have trouble resisting the fantasy of being swept up by one of them,” Miss Abelard protested. “You see, the whole family is quite open, and that openness can be mistaken for more than what it is. In fact, no doubt they shall take you in and try to treat you as one of the family. But, my dear, you must remember that you are not one of the family.”

She gave a tight nod. It was true. Governesses had the strangest position in a household and that was her lot: to be a governess. It was the only thing that she was suited for, except music, and she would not choose that path.

No. Far better to educate young minds and have the security of knowing she could make a difference in that way and not have to live in the soaring highs, devastating lows, and terrors of the arts world, where one could be at the height of fashion one moment and be tossed into the scum and puddles of society the next. Trampled into ruin.

“I see,” she said. “I shall maintain my distance.”

Miss Abelard nodded happily at her understanding. “So, you will go. The dowager duchess is a gem. She has long been a patron of the school because she admires our tenets of teaching. She will take you under her wing, no doubt, and you will be friendly, but you’ll remember your place. You will take care of the children and not be drawn into the family. They are quite young.”

“Do they not have a nursemaid then?” she asked, quite surprised.

Miss Abelard’s brows rose. “Of course they have a nursemaid. They have many servants to look after the children, but they value education intensely, and the dowager duchess is particularly impressed by our focus on Rousseauian principles.”

“How wonderful,” she exclaimed, thrilled to have been sought out, not simply to educate children in reading and mathematics, but because of a way of learning. “So, I shall be supported in the manner I teach the children?”

Miss Abelard selected a biscuit and took a very small nibble without spilling a crumb. “Yes, which is of course why I think they want you when the children are so young. That way you can implement ideas at a very early age before a more traditional teacher, who fancies rote learning, can destroy their curiosity.”

She beamed. “What an exciting opportunity,” she said.

“Yes, I agree with you.” Miss Abelard nodded, her own gaze bright with her passion for the new style of education that had recently come out of France. “There are several little boys, a few little girls, and I think a collection of other babies and toddlers that you will eventually have the honor of tutoring.”

“My goodness, a full army of them. Will I be overrun?” she teased.

“You?” Miss Abelard said. “I do not think so, my dear. I’m sure you shall have them all marching to your tune very quickly.”

She beamed at the compliment. She actually loved Miss Abelard. A friend of her mother’s, Miss Abelard had taken Giselle in when no one else would. The friendship Miss Abelard had had with her mother had been most odd. They were completely different people, and yet Miss Abelard had heard her mother’s music once, written to her, and they had struck up a correspondence. And Giselle was grateful for it because when her mother had died in infamy and poverty, there had been someone to take her in, and that someone had been Miss Abelard.

If she had not, Giselle did not know what would’ve happened to her. Certainly nothing as kind or good as this school. She knew the way young ladies could be ruined. Her mother, her poor mother, had been her first lesson in this.

Giselle had met her father several times when she’d been small. He’d visited her mother’s apartments, bringing toys and treats. Then one day, he had vanished. And Giselle had slowly understood from the whispered gossip of servants that she was the sort of by-blow that was famous across Europe, the daughter of an aristocrat—in her case, an English one—who did not wish to know her.

It often made her heart sad that she had been so unwanted and abandoned by the man her mother had loved so dearly.

The world was full of children like herself that navigated polite society. Many such children were given to families and raised with a name.

Her father had not rescued her at her mother’s death. But her own situation was so unique that if she’d wished to, she almost certainly could have become a part of the demimondaine.

But she did not wish to join that world. It was too dangerous.

She was quite content to be called Miss Abbot and have the respectability of being educated in Miss Abelard’s school. That was good enough.

But if it had been left to her father, well, she knew beyond all doubt that she would’ve been abandoned in Austria and left to wander the streets as a child. That’s how much he cared about her, which was why she had no wish to see him ever again, and no wish to give her heart to any man as her mother had done.

She’d seen it go bad too often.

Even one of the girls at the school who had gone off to be a governess had been entrapped in men’s treachery.

She swallowed.

Miss Abelard gave her a tutting noise of sympathy. “I can see you are thinking of Henrietta. It was terrible what happened. Which is why I am so determined that our young ladies understand that once they go and become a governess, they can have absolutely no affection for their employers. They read romances and think it’s going to all magically work out, but it never does. Gentlemen like that do not marry their employees.”

“You do not have to explain it to me,” she assured Miss Abelard. “And I have no wish for such romance. Romance is for fools or the very privileged, and I am neither of those things.”

Miss Abelard lifted her teacup in salute. “Exactly. And I admire you for it. Now, I think it is best that you go and get ready. You must leave very, very soon.”

Giselle’s throat tightened with emotion. This had been her home for years, and while she was excited to finally go and have her own position, it was harrowing to leave. “Thank you, Miss Abelard. I am honored by your trust in me to take care of such a powerful family.”

And it was a great deal of trust, for the Duke of Westleigh was a powerful man. She would not let Miss Abelard down. She took a last sip of tea, placed the cup in its saucer, and headed out of the office and into the hall. The sound of girls laughing downstairs filled her heart with happiness.

Miss Abelard’s institution was a rather joyous one. Though there were not a great deal of treats and frivolous things, Miss Abelard fostered the idea that good work could bring far more joy than gowns and bonbons. Giselle thought it was quite true. The fulfillment of the inner life was the greatest thing that one could possibly have. The rest? Fripperies and all of that? They really only brought sadness, as far as she could tell, in the end.

She headed down the hallway, then up the stairs to her room. It was a long dormitory. She was very lucky she was allowed to sleep with all of the other girls. She was not sent to sleep upstairs with the servants. She was a creature of two worlds. Someone who was a student, but someone who was also an instructor. She rather liked her life, and somehow the girls didn’t seem to mind her odd position. They saw her as a mystery, and people did tend to like a mystery.

Still, she was quite careful about what she said. She did not want to tempt any of the girls with tales of drama and romance. Romance was a sham. It was a trick. Something that filled the heart with hope but was then yanked away. Every case she had seen indicated that with girls like herself, girls like her mother, girls who were not born to greatness, men could not be trusted.

No. Girls like herself and her mother, who were very talented, were often crushed under the wheel of the great houses. Savored for a moment like a marzipan, then forgotten once consumed.

She was excited, and as she took out her little trunk and began packing her few items, she smiled. She was finally going to go somewhere new. She was going to have a new experience. She was going to take everything that she had learned and share it. She could not wait. It was going to be wonderful, and she was not going to ever let herself down. And in that instant, she vowed to herself that she would not let any man in the Duke of Westleigh’s house turn her head or her heart.

She glanced to her small miniature portrait of her mother that stood on the bedside table and gazed at it until tears stung her eyes. She gently placed it in her trunk, then closed the lid, letting out a reassuring breath.

“Handsome?” She laughed to herself. How handsome could they be?