A Sprinkling of Christmas Magic Page 0,3

fender, too. ‘A week?’ Before he could think the better of it, he asked, ‘Why did you not come with your cousins to Alderley the other day for the christening?’

Her chin lifted a little. ‘I was not invited, sir.’ She began to undo her cloak strings.

‘Nonsense.’ He waved her explanation away. ‘Had Lord and Lady Alderley known of your visit, of course you would have been invited. You were friendly enough with Pippa as children. Here—let me take that.’ He reached out and lifted the heavy, damp cloak from her slender shoulders. A faint soft fragrance drifted about her and his senses leapt. He’d forgotten, if he’d ever realised, that she was so pretty. Of course she’d been little more than a child the last time he’d seen her...and now she most definitely wasn’t. She was taller, for one thing. Not much, she still only reached his shoulder, but she was definitely taller. Taller, and—his hands clenched to fists on the cloak. Now that her cloak was off, he could see that she’d changed in other ways. She’d...his mind lurched...filled out. Slightly stunned at the direction his thoughts were taking, he hung the cloak on a hook by the fire, fumbling so that he nearly dropped it. Good God! What was the matter with him? Firmly, he banished thoughts that edged towards unruly and turned back to her.

‘Will you tell me what I may do for you, Miss Woodrowe?’ There. That was better. He sounded more himself. Rational and logical.

She had not sat down, but faced him with her chin up and those tawny eyes full of something he could not quite name.

‘I wish you to employ me, Mr Martindale.’

He gulped. He’d been living alone for a while and had a slight tendency to talk to himself, but he didn’t really think his mind that badly affected. Or his hearing. ‘I beg your pardon, Miss Woodrowe?’

She blushed. ‘I need a job. And I understand you are starting a school here in the village, so—’

‘Miss Woodrowe,’ he broke in, ‘is this some sort of silly joke?’ He didn’t bother to disguise the annoyance that clipped his voice. ‘A wager with your cousins, perhaps?’ It was precisely the sort of idiotish prank Miss Susan Eliot would think famous. ‘You are—’ He stopped short of voicing precisely what he was thinking: she was an heiress. And logically an heiress could not possibly need a job.

The blush deepened. ‘I’m not joking,’ she said quietly.

Something about her voice warned him. And he looked at her properly, looked beyond the bright tawny eyes with their fringe of dark lashes, beyond the disturbing changes in her, and saw her gown.

Alex was no connoisseur of fashion, but even he knew an old, unfashionable, cheap gown when he saw one. And that look in her eyes, as if she were braced against something—as if she faced a firing squad—ripped at him.

‘Sit down, Miss Woodrowe,’ he said. Even if she didn’t need to sit, he did.

Those bright eyes narrowed slightly and her mouth, soft pink, tightened. He cursed himself mentally. What was wrong with him that he could not even couch an invitation politely? Nevertheless, she sat. He sat down facing her.

‘Miss Woodrowe...’ he began. And stopped. Dash it! This was impossible! How did you ask a young lady what had happened to her fortune?

She saved him the trouble.

‘Mr Bascombe, the son of my father’s oldest friend, got into debt gambling and used my fortune to try to repair his losses.’ She said this flatly, as though it had lost the power to upset her. ‘He lost everything. His own money as well as mine. Then he took what everyone considered the honourable way out.’

Alex’s jaw tensed. To his mind there was nothing honourable about committing suicide to avoid the consequences of your selfishness. ‘When was this?’ he asked quietly.

‘More than two years ago.’

That explained why he hadn’t heard. A little over two years ago he’d taken a sabbatical and gone to the Continent for a few months. It also explained the shabby gown and cloak, but— ‘And you only came to your uncle’s home two weeks ago?’

Her face froze. ‘I took a position as a governess.’

Pride. He could understand that, but nevertheless... ‘Do you not think it might have been better to come to your uncle immediately?’ he asked gently. ‘Is he your guardian now?’

Her face blanked. ‘I’m one and twenty, sir.’

Of age now, but she had gone out into the world alone at nineteen? His jaw clenched. ‘And