LITMIR.BIZ

      It had been a mistake to come. In fact, Charlotte decided crossly, it would have been better if she had never left her post at Miss Thibett’s select academy for young ladies in Bath in the first place. She’d been perfectly content with life as an ordinary teacher until the new Countess of Carnwood had offered her the position of governess to her younger sisters. How she wished now that she’d refused to listen to Miranda Alstone’s persuasion and was still a humble schoolteacher. As a schoolgirl herself, she’d been in awe of the lovely and vivacious Miranda, a year older than she was and a world away in looks and confidence. When Miranda had turned up at Miss Thibett’s two years ago, married to her late grandfather’s scapegrace heir and very distant cousin, Charlotte should have recalled that spoilt young miss Miranda had once been and hardened her heart against this much more likeable Miranda Alstone and refused point blank to leave her job and her sanctuary.

      Charlotte had enjoyed teaching her classes more than she had expected when she had become a schoolmistress out of dire necessity seven years ago. Miranda’s little sisters, Katherine and Isabella Alstone, were delightful young women of course and her lot was much happier than that of the average governess, but she had her future to consider and even the youngest Miss Alstone was now fifteen. Already they were in town for Kate’s début and that fact alone might prove Charlotte’s undoing.

      She surveyed the overheated ballroom and tried not to wish for delicate muslins or a mere satin slip with a light gauze over-gown, instead of the acres of suffocating grey crepe she now wore. How much better off she would have been marking essays and contriving next day’s lessons in her last employment, she thought disgustedly. Instead here she was, reluctantly accompanying the Honourable Katherine Alstone, granddaughter of the last Earl of Carnwood and sister-in-law to the current one, to this society crush in the Countess of Carnwood’s stead and enduring the company of the most infuriating male she had ever had the misfortune to encounter, which only added to her miseries.

      When Mr Ben Shaw joined herself and Kate in the carriage tonight he had looked at her as if she were akin to a piece of furniture astray from its rightful place. A side table, suddenly putting itself forward in the centre of the room perhaps, she decided crossly, or more likely a plain deal kitchen table trying to pass itself off as something far more elegant in a lady’s drawing room. Well, she certainly hadn’t asked to come, and if he didn’t like her company he should never have forced her into the role of chaperon for the night. Doubtless he’d only remembered her existence once he had exhausted every other possibility and it wasn’t her fault if she looked more like an antiquated quiz than a lady a man like Ben Shaw would be proud to accompany to a ball. After all, she was an antiquated quiz and perfectly content with her lot. Yes, of course she was; the sort of ladies Mr Shaw normally accompanied had very different ambitions from hers, and she had no wish whatsoever to end the evening in his bed, thank you very much.

      They might not have been more than nodding acquaintances at school all those years ago, but she and Miranda had become good friends over the last two years and she knew that, while Ben Shaw was rich and astonishingly successful now, he’d grown up on the same squalid streets as the new Earl, but without the benefit of legitimacy to protect him from some of the slings and arrows thrown his way. Even Charlotte had to secretly admit he was a powerful and handsome man who gathered beautiful women like bees did honey, but, Miranda had cautioned unnecessarily, he’d long ago forsworn marriage and regarded the idea of fatherhood of any sort with unswerving revulsion. Yet despite all that tonight, as he handed her up into the carriage she’d felt a ridiculous flutter in her usually cynical breast and briefly longed to be beautiful, so she could at least wipe the bland, condescending smile off his handsome face and make him take notice. Not that she would know what to do with it if he centred that formidable will and intellect on her, but it would have been satisfying to see him rocked back on his heels by admiration and desire for someone he couldn’t have for once, instead of the mild surprise she had detected behind that social smile that such a plain and spinsterish female was about to share his exotic company for an entire evening.

      To soothe her ridiculous agitation over such a masculine and utterly maddening irritation as Mr Shaw, Charlotte let nostalgia for her former quiet existence overtake her for a moment, if only to blot out the discomfort of sitting in this noisy ballroom, trying desperately hard not to be noticed. After all, she had been content over the last two years to be invisible to the world outside the schoolroom and Mr Ben Shaw, so why should

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