Lyn Cote (24 page)

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. What’s the difference between infatuation and love, in your opinion?
   
2. Why did Ellen leave her home in Galena?
   
3. What impressed the Pepin community about Ellen?
   
4. What sad event had taken place in the past year in Ellen’s life? Do you think this caused some of her and her siblings’ troubles?
   
5. Why do you think people looked down on foundlings or orphans in the nineteenth century?
   
6. Why did Ellen think she wouldn’t make a good mother?
   
7. Have you ever met a woman like Mrs. Ashford? Who was she and what was she like?
   
8. Why did Mr. Brawley object to his wife taking the job of caring for William at first? What does this say about the difference between life in 1870 and life today?
   
9. Measles has nearly disappeared from most of the U.S. but still rages in other countries. What caused this to change?
   
10. How did Gunther change over the course of this story? What do you think changed him?
    
11. Kurt carried a lot of sad emotional baggage. What was the source of his shame, and why was it so hard for him to get over it?
    
12. Is there anything in your life that you’ve had to work your way through emotionally? How did you recover? What helped you?
    

We hope you enjoyed this Harlequin Love Inspired Historical title.

You find illumination in days gone by.
Love Inspired Historical
stories lift the spirit as heroines tackle the challenges of life in another era with hope, faith and a focus on family.

Enjoy four new stories from Love Inspired Historical every month!

Visit
Harlequin.com
to find your next great read.

We like you—why not like us on Facebook:
Facebook.com/HarlequinBooks

Follow us on Twitter:
Twitter.com/HarlequinBooks

Read our blog for all the latest news on our authors and books:
HarlequinBlog.com

Subscribe to our newsletter for special offers, new releases, and more!

Harlequin.com/newsletters

Chapter One

The Grange, near the Peak District,
Derbyshire,
England

June 1815

“H
e’ll blow us all up this time, he
will.”

At the maid’s prediction, Emma Pyrmont glanced up from where
she’d set her charge’s afternoon tea to steep. The scullery maid, laundress and
chambermaids had their noses pressed to the glass of the Grange’s wide kitchen
window. Even Mrs. Jennings, their cook, was peering over their shoulders, her
ample bulk blocking some of the summer sunlight.

“It’s more like steam than smoke,” the white-haired cook said
with certainty born from experience.

“Looks more dangerous to me,” argued Dorcus Turner. Even though
Emma had only been working at the Grange for a few months, she’d noticed that
the buxom chambermaid had an opinion on every subject. “I’ll bet the master is
coughing.” She elbowed the laundress. “And there’ll be more smelly clothes to
wash, too.”

Emma returned her gaze to the elegant teapot sitting in front
of her on the worktable in the center of the kitchen. The curve of the silver
gave back a reflection of her face, from her light blond hair to her pursed
lips. It seemed she had an opinion on the matter, too, but she wasn’t about to
voice it. She had no business caring what her employer, Sir Nicholas Rotherford,
did in his makeshift laboratory to the south of the Grange. It was not her place
to rescue the master from his folly. In this house, her place was in the
nursery.

And thank You, Lord, for that! You’ve kept
Your promise to never forsake me, even when others haven’t.

“You may be right,” Mrs. Jennings said, and Emma could see her
shifting this way and that as if trying for a better view. Her blue wool skirts
and white apron brushed the worn wood floor. “Perhaps it is smoke. Come have a
look, Miss Pyrmont, and tell us what you think.”

Emma lifted the lid on the teapot and peered inside. Not quite
there—the tea looked far too pale. And that meant she couldn’t avoid the cook’s
request by claiming her duty. Biting back a sigh, Emma slid the lid into place
and went to join the group by the window.

The Grange sat at the end of Dovecote Dale, with its back to
the Derbyshire peaks and its front looking down the dale and the swirling waters
of the River Bell. The house had been built of creamy stone in the last century
and was a solid block with a portico at the front and a veranda at the back. She
knew the master had turned one of the nearest stone outbuildings into some sort
of laboratory where he conducted experiments, but she’d made it a point not to
learn what sort and why.

Now she could see that gray smoke was seeping from under the
wooden door. But a light gleamed through the paned windows, and a shadow of
someone tall crossed in front of it. Whatever he was doing, Sir Nicholas did not
appear to have taken any harm.

“It isn’t dangerous,” she promised the concerned onlookers.
“You only need to worry if the smoke turns black.”

The maids gaped at her as she returned to her tea.

“As if she’d know,” Dorcus grumbled.

“An expert on smoke, are we now?” Mrs. Jennings challenged the
maid. “Get about your duties, all of you, or you can be sure I’ll bring the
matter up with Mrs. Dunworthy.”

The threat of Sir Nicholas’s widowed sister-in-law, who had
come to manage the household for him four years ago, sent them all scurrying
from the kitchen. Emma breathed a sigh of relief. She had only caught a glimpse
of her reclusive employer as she sat in the back pew for Sunday services and he
sat near the front of the church. She rather liked keeping her distance. She was
fairly certain he’d been a caller at the house where she’d lived in London, and
she didn’t want him to wonder how she’d found her place working at the Grange.
The fewer people who knew about her background, the better. She couldn’t risk
her foster father learning where she’d gone.

But Mrs. Jennings did not seem disposed to let the matter go.
She walked over and laid a hand on Emma’s shoulder, the touch surprisingly light
for an arm so large and capable.

“Very clever of you, miss,” she murmured. “How did you learn
about smoke?”

Emma smiled at her. Though she couldn’t remember her
grandmothers, she thought Mrs. Jennings a perfect example. The thick strands of
her white hair were tucked neatly into her lace-edged cap. Her brown eyes often
twinkled with merriment. From her round face to her wide feet, she exuded warmth
and affection. Mrs. Dunworthy might run the household now, having displaced Mrs.
Jennings’s once-larger role, but everyone knew the cook was the heart of the
Grange.

Still, Emma couldn’t tell Mrs. Jennings the truth about her
past. Mrs. Dunworthy had insisted the matter remain between her and Emma. The
lady thought Sir Nicholas might take offense if he knew his daughter was being
cared for by a woman who had had an unconventional upbringing.

“I had foster brothers who experimented,” Emma told the cook,
knowing that for the truth. Of course, they hadn’t experimented because it
amused them, as it probably amused a gentleman like Sir Nicholas. They had had
no choice in the matter.

“Ah, so you understand this business of natural philosophy!”
The cook leaned closer with a satisfied nod. “I thought as much. I’ve had my eye
on you, Miss Pyrmont, ever since you joined this household. You see, we have a
problem, and I think you’re just the one to solve it.”

Emma busied herself adding a bowl of lumped sugar to the tray
she would carry to the nursery. Sugar and tea had been kept under lock and key
where she’d been raised, but Mrs. Jennings was more generous about who was
allowed access to the costly goods.

“I’m always happy to help, Mrs. Jennings,” she told the cook as
she worked.

“I know you are. You’ve been a real blessing to this family.
Wait a moment.” She hurried to the larder and back and set a plate on the tray
with a flourish. “Here. I baked you and Miss Alice the biscuits you both like so
much.”

Emma grinned at the cinnamon-sugar treats. “Thank you! Alice
will be delighted. Now, how can I help you?”

She glanced up to find Mrs. Jennings back at the window again,
this time with a frown.

“It’s Sir Nicholas,” she murmured, more to the view than to
Emma. “He’s lonely, you know. That’s why he spends so much time out there.”

Emma thought more than loneliness motivated her employer. She’d
seen the type before—men whose work drove them until family, friends and even
faith had little meaning. That was not the sort of man she wanted near her. She
lifted the lid on the teapot again and was relieved to see that the tea was a
rich brown. Time to take it to Alice.

“You could save him.”

The lid fell with a chime of sterling on sterling. Emma hastily
righted it. She could not have heard the cook correctly. “I should get this to
Alice,” she said, anchoring her hands on the tray.

Mrs. Jennings moved to intercept her. Concern was etched in her
heavy cheeks, the downturn of her rosy lips. “He needs a wife. He doesn’t move
in Society anymore. He doesn’t associate with the lords from the neighboring
houses when they’re in residence. How else is he to meet a marriageable
miss?”

“Marriage?” The word squeaked out of her, and she cleared her
throat. She had once dreamed of the sort of fellow she would marry, but she was
beginning to think he didn’t exist. That didn’t mean she was willing to
compromise her ideals.

“I am not a marriageable miss, Mrs. Jennings,” she said, using
her sternest tone. “I am Alice Rotherford’s nanny. I like my post.”

“But wouldn’t you like to be mistress of this fine house
instead?” Mrs. Jennings asked, head cocked as if she offered Emma another treat
as delicious as her famous cinnamon-sugar biscuits. “To travel to London like a
lady when he presents his work to those other philosophers in the Royal
Society?”

Emma shook her head. “Mrs. Dunworthy is mistress of this house.
And I have no need to see London again, I promise you.”

“And sweet little Alice?” Mrs. Jennings pressed, face sagging.
“Wouldn’t you like to be her mama rather than her nanny?”

A longing rose up, so strong Emma nearly swayed on her feet.
How sweet to see Alice beyond childhood, to guide her into her place in the
world. Emma knew how some might try to minimize the girl, to stifle her gifts
claiming she was merely a woman. She’d had to fight that battle for herself. She
could protect Alice, help her achieve her dreams, whatever those might be.

But she’d known the restrictions of her job when she’d accepted
the post. Nannies might be beloved by their charges, but they were often only
useful until the governess or tutor arrived.

“I’m afraid I cannot help you in this instance, Mrs. Jennings,”
she said, lifting her tray and keeping it between them like a shield. “If you’ll
excuse me, I must see to my duties.” She turned for the door, blocking her sight
of the cook, the window and Sir Nicholas’s pursuits.

A gasp behind her made her glance back, thinking the cook meant
to plead. But Mrs. Jennings wasn’t looking at her. The cook’s gaze was once more
out the window, and her plump hand was pressed to her mouth.

Dropping her hand, she turned anguished eyes to Emma. “You have
to help him, miss. You’re the only one who understands.”

“I understand that I have a responsibility to Alice,” Emma
started hotly, but the cook shook her head so hard a few white curls fell from
her cap.

“No, miss, your responsibility right now is to the master. You
see, the smoke’s turned black.”

* * *

Out in his laboratory, Sir Nicholas Rotherford placed
another damp cloth over the glowing wool and stepped back to cover his nose with
the sleeve of his brown wool coat. Carbon always turned acrid. He knew that.
He’d figured it out when he was eight and had burned his first piece of toast
over the fire. He should have considered that fact before treating the wool and
attempting to set it ablaze.

Now the smoke filled the space, and he could no longer even see
the locks of black hair that tended to fall into his face when he bent over his
work. His nose was stinging with the smell, and he shuddered to think what was
happening inside his paisley waistcoat, where his lungs must be laboring.

But he had work to do, and nattering on about his health wasn’t
going to get it done.

Behind him, he heard footsteps on the marble floor he’d had
installed in the old laundry outbuilding when he’d made it into his laboratory.
No doubt his sister-in-law Charlotte had come to berate him again for missing
some function at the Grange. She couldn’t seem to understand that his work was
more important than observing the social niceties.

Of course, it was possible she’d noticed the smoke pouring from
the building and had come to investigate.

“It’s all right,” he called. “I have it under control.”

“I’m certain the good Lord will be glad to hear that when you
report to Him an hour from now in heaven,” a bright female voice replied. “But
if you prefer to continue carrying on this work here on earth, I suggest you
breathe some fresh air. Now.”

Nick turned. The smoke still billowed around him, made more
visible by the light from the open doorway. He could just make out a slender
female form and...a halo?

He blinked, and the figure put out a hand. “Come along. You’ve
frightened the staff quite enough.”

It was a kind tone, a gentle gesture, but he could tell she
would brook no argument, and he was moving before he thought better of it.

Once outside, he felt supple fingers latching on to his arm and
drawing him farther from the door. The air cleared, and he sucked in a breath as
he stopped on the grass closer to the Grange.

It was sunny. He could see the house, the planted oak forests
on either side, the sweep of fields that led down the dale toward the other
houses that speckled the space. Odd. He was certain it had been pouring rain
when he’d set out for the laboratory that morning, the mists obscuring the peaks
behind the buildings. How long had he been working?

“Take a deep breath,” his rescuer said.

The advice seemed sound, so he did as she bid. The clean air
sharpened his mind, cleared his senses. Somewhere nearby he thought he smelled
lavender.

“Better?” she asked.

“Better,” he agreed. His gaze traveled over her, from her
sturdy black boots to her muddy brown eyes. She appeared to be shorter than he
was, perhaps a little less than five and a half feet. What he’d taken as a halo
was her pale blond hair, wound in a coronet braid around a face symmetrical
enough to be pleasing. Her brown wool dress with its long sleeves and high neck
hardly looked like heavenly apparel.

But then how could he be certain? He’d been avoiding thoughts
of heaven and its Master for several months now.

“Who are you?” he asked.

She dipped a curtsey, but her pink lips compressed as if she
found the question vexing. “Emma Pyrmont.” When he continued to wait for
clarification, she added, “Alice’s nanny.”

He eyed her and batted away a stray puff of smoke. “You’re the
new nanny?”

She raised her chin. “I have that honor, yes. Is there a
problem?”

“No,” he admitted, although he wondered at her tone. Was that a
hint of belligerence? “I merely expected someone older.”

“Mrs. Dunworthy was satisfied with my credentials,” she said,
chin a notch higher. Interesting—how high could a woman raise her chin without
sustaining a neck injury? Not a topic he’d choose to pursue, but he might pass
it on to one of his colleagues who specialized in anatomical studies.

“And I’m hardly new,” she informed him. “I’ve been here three
months.”

Three months? He had lost touch. It felt more like three days
since his sister-in-law had informed him that the previous nanny had quit. Nanny
Wesling was one of many who had fled his employ after his reputation as a
natural philosopher had been questioned, even though she’d initially moved to
Derby with the family. He had never heard what she had found about the Grange to
be so unsatisfactory.