The Defiant Governess of Rosenhill Manor: A Historical Regency Romance Novel Read online

  The Defiant Governess of Rosenhill Manor

  A Historical Regency Romance Novel

  Hanna Hamilton

  Edited by

  Maggie Berry

  Contents

  A Thank You Gift

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Epilogue

  Extended Epilogue

  The Secret Life of the Elusive Governess

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Also by Hanna Hamilton

  About the Author

  A Thank You Gift

  Thanks a lot for purchasing my book. It really means a lot to me, because this is the best way to show me your love.

  As a Thank You gift I have written a full length novel for you called A True Lady. It’s only available to people who have downloaded one of my books and you can get your free copy by tapping this link here.

  Once more, thanks a lot for your love and support.

  Hanna Hamilton

  About the Book

  When you fight someone else’s demons, you might awaken your own…

  With the traumatic image of her dead parents still haunting her, Miss Eliza Bolton must balance her charitable nightly excursions and her new role as governess to the siblings of the Duke of Rosenhill.

  Living in the shadow of his father’s sinful past, Arthur Huntley, Duke of Rosenhill, spends his nights helping those wronged by his family. When the new governess arrives, he is stricken not only by her beauty but also by how she challenges the deepest foundations of his beliefs.

  When three crows with white arrows through their hearts appear to disrupt the fragile calm of their realities, the message is clear. Three lives must be sacrificed.

  With only a few hours left to solve the riddle, Eliza and Arthur must face not only a killer but also the knowledge that the demons of their past share the same face.

  Prologue

  Eliza Bolton’s mother shook her awake from a deep sleep.

  “Eliza! Eliza! Wake up!”

  Still groggy, she was rubbing her eyes. “Mama,” she asked.

  Her mother urgently whispered, “Shhh. Come quickly.”

  Eliza crawled from her bed and took her mother’s hand. She pattered across the cold wooden floor in her bare feet. “What is the matter, Mama?”

  Her mother opened the armoire and placed Eliza inside. “Now be a good girl and remain quiet. No matter what you hear, do not come out.”

  Eliza could not ignore the desperate, urgent tone to her mother’s voice. She silently knelt on the floor of the wardrobe and awaited an explanation for her mother’s behavior.

  Eliza could hear the sounds of a scuffle in the next room. She heard her father’s angry voice ordering someone to get out of the house; then a grunt followed a loud thump.

  “Sarah, run!” her father’s voice called to her mother from the adjacent room, followed by a gunshot.

  “Daniel,” her mother whispered with a sob. Her hand trembled as she caressed Eliza’s long dark curls back from her face and placed a kiss on her brow. Eliza questioned the look in her mother’s chocolate brown eyes, a mirror of her own, “What is wrong with Papa? What is happening?” she whimpered.

  “Hush now and do not make a sound.” With one last tear-filled look, her mother closed the armoire door.

  Eliza was plunged into darkness. Wearing only her night clothes, she felt cold and alone as she kneeled on the hardwood floor of her hideaway. She had not even been given even a blanket to keep warm. It was very unlike her mother to pay so little attention to her physical needs. She was always telling Eliza to bundle up, or she would catch a chill.

  The door to Eliza’s bedroom banged open and loud footsteps heralded someone’s entry. “Get out! Get out!” her mother demanded. Another gunshot filled the air silencing her mother’s screams. The heavy footsteps retreated.

  Eliza held back a scream. She peeked through the armoire’s keyhole and swiped the sleep from her eyes. She shook unable to utter a single sound. The room was illuminated by the light of the lamp on a table by the door and the glow of the fireplace. Two dark pools of liquid merged into one as they ran across the floor over the doorway’s threshold.

  Somewhere in the next room, a man’s gravelly voice ordered, “Burn it down!” She could make out shadows as they moved about, but their faces were beyond her view. She heard multiple footsteps stomp from the house, then all was quiet.

  As she crawled out of the armoire, she whimpered, “Mama?” She called louder, “Mama!”

  Eliza propelled herself forward into the room moving toward the dark pool of liquid. It glowed crimson-black in the firelight, beautiful and frightening. She reached down and touched it. It was warm, sticky, and smelled of copper. Her mind rebelled at the thought of what it might be. She followed the stream into the darkness and found her mother lying upon the floor face down in a pool of blood.

  She shook her shoulder attempting to wake her, “Mama…” but there was no response. “Mama!” Eliza yelled. Nothing happened. Unable to rouse her mother, she turned to search for her father.

  Eliza followed the scarlet stream into the next room and found her father was lying on the floor in front of the bedroom door his body blocked the path. “Papa!”

  She had seen death before in animals, of course, but she had never seen anything like what she now beheld. The entire concept was far beyond a six-year-old mind’s comprehension. She fiercely shook her father’s prone form and denied what her eyes saw. “Papa!” she sobbed over and over.

  As she sat by his side trembling and sobbing in fear, the room began to grow warm; sweat trickled down her face and intermingled with her tears. She heard the sound of groaning timbers and shattering glass and looked up. Flames licked along the ceiling like a thousand fiery serpents.

  The room quickly filled with smoke; she choked with every breath. She squinted in search of the front door. She could just make out its rectangular frame in the near distance and nothing more.

  Eliza grabbed her father’s arm and attempted to pull him towards the door. His large muscular arm was massive and slipped through her tiny hands. She lost her grip and landed on her rump. “Please, Papa, get up!” she cried grabbing his arm once more only to fail again. He was just too big to move.

  She tried to drag her mother’s much smaller form from the bedroom and out into the garden. She was about to cross the threshold, just when the wall between her bedroom and the cottage’s main room crumbled and separated her from her mother’s motionless body. The ceiling rained fire down around her, burying her father under the debris. “No!” she screamed.

  She was alone and more terrified than she had ever been in her short life. Eliza curled up in a ball and covered her head to protect it from the
falling debris. Embers singed her arms and feet, and she recoiled back from her father’s body only to be singed again and again as she moved farther and farther away. The air smelled of roasted flesh and the pain was excruciating, but she kept moving and crawled backward until she found herself outside in the yard.

  The church bell clanged loudly in the distance; cries of distress rose up throughout the village. Neighbors poured out of their houses in various states of dress. The Boltons’ closest neighbor, John Cole, ran over scooping Eliza up into his arms. Other people attempted to fight the flames, but to no avail…all was lost. It was too late to save her father and mother.

  As Mr. Cole held her, he asked how she had managed to escape to the front garden. She looked all around her and realized she had no memory of how she did. She couldn’t account of what had transpired and chose to remain silent to all inquiries and watched her childhood home burn to the ground taking her parents with it.

  “She is covered in blood,” Mr. Cole informed his wife as she met him at the door to their house; the village minister, Richard Summers, followed close behind.

  “Look at the state of her! The poor thing. Give her to me,” the wife instructed, holding her arms out. “I will see that she is bathed and her wounds tended to. Her parents?”

  “They’re gone, Helen. Daniel and Sarah Bolton are no more,” her husband replied, shaking his head in sorrow. A single tear rolled down the wife’s cheek at the news of their demise.

  “If it is alright, I would like to stay and say a prayer for the girl and for the souls of her parents,” the minister requested.

  Helen wiped the tears running down her face. “Of course, Reverend Summers. You are most welcome in our home.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Cole, Mr. Cole.” The Reverend removed his hat and sat at the Cole’s kitchen table. He bowed his head and started mumbling under his breath in what Eliza could only guess was the promised prayer on her behalf.

  She watched the entire proceeding in silence. Her face, feet, and hands had gone numb. Her mouth tasted of charcoal. Her eyes and nose burned and ran. Her ears rang like church bells on a Sunday morning. She remembered the Reverend’s sermons on hellfire and brimstone and was reasonably sure that she had died and gone to Hell. She would have sworn it had been the Devil himself who had come to call on her parents that night.

  She wanted to tell the minister that there was no God, for if there were, He would have heard her prayers and helped save her parents. No, there was only the Devil and his minions, shadow figures upon the wall. They had taken everything from her.

  Mrs. Cole bathed and dressed Eliza, who simply sat limply as a rag doll and allowed the woman to do as she wished.

  Why do I need a bath in Hell? Is the Devil particular about cleanliness? Odd that, considering the amount of soot he must produce. I wonder how many chimney sweeps the Devil requires. Has the Devil decided to take the Reverend and the Cole family too? I bet the Reverend is surprised about that since he always said he was going to live in Heaven with God when he died.

  Her six-year-old mind was incapable of processing the events of the evening in any other way than through the religious texts that she had been taught from infancy. The world of safety and security that her parents had created for her did not include lessons on murder and arson. In her sheltered universe, these things had simply not existed. To her mind, no person could ever have committed such atrocities, so it had to be the Devil, for who else but evil incarnate could have done such a thing.

  Mrs. Cole tucked her in bed beneath a pile of warm blankets and sang her a lullaby. Her voice was sweet and husky. It reminded Eliza of honeycomb – rough and smooth at the same time; she stared up at the ceiling and waited for the fiery serpents to appear once more, but they never came.

  Exhausted, eyes burning, Eliza drifted off to sleep and dreamt of her parent’s blood flowing across the floor to join in one last final crimson embrace.

  Chapter 1

  Seventeen Years Later

  Eliza awoke with a start from yet another nightmare. She could not remember a night when she did not dream of her parents’ deaths since that fateful eve. She rose from her bed and crept quietly across the cold wooden floorboards to the chair where she lay out her clothing for the next day. She donned her dress, threw a cloak about her shoulders, and retrieved the basket of food she had hidden under her bed.

  She sneaked out the back door and walked along the darkened cobbled streets to the poverty-riddled side of town, not far from where she resided with the Cole family. When she came to the first ramshackle house, she knocked quietly on the door, so she wouldn’t wake the children within. The door was too flimsy to keep out the cold, much less an intruder. The entire structure would have crumbled with one good stiff knock.

  The door creaked open, and a pair of tired, wary, slate blue eyes peered at her. The occupant of the cottage relaxed in relief and opened the door wider for Eliza to pass through. “Miss Bolton, thank the good Lord you have come.”

  “Of course, Mrs. Wainwright. I would never break my word.” Eliza placed the basket on the kitchen table and unpacked the contents. “How is Mr. Wainwright’s recovery coming along?”

  Mrs. Wainwright paused to shake her head. “Slowly. He burns with fever. The surgeon is not entirely certain if my husband will ever fully recover.”

  “Who would ever have anticipated that the occupation of wagon making could be so dangerous.” Eliza had been passing by the Wainwright’s shop when the incident had occurred. The man had let out an unholy scream, and she had rushed to find him upon the ground and his leg crushed beneath the weight of a wagon. The surgeon had been unable to save the leg and was forced to amputate.

  “Oh, yes. The Wainwrights have been wagon makers for as long as anyone can remember. His father lost three fingers on his right hand. Nothing to losing a leg…” Mrs. Wainwright’s words faded off at the thought of what the future might hold for her family.

  “Fear not,” Eliza reassured, patting the woman’s arm in sympathy. “You can depend on me to be of assistance.”

  “Bless you, Miss Bolton. Were it not for you, we would be lost.” Mrs. Wainwright swiped away a tear and reached out to squeeze Eliza’s hand in gratitude.

  “Think nothing of it, Mrs. Wainwright. I am all too happy to help.” Eliza squeezed the other woman’s hand in response. “Were it not for the generosity of the Cole family, I too would have been left destitute. ‘Tis naught but the passing on of blessings. I must return home, but rest assured I shall return.”

  Eliza bid Mrs. Wainwright farewell and quickly walked home. She needed to arise early with the Cole children, as was her usual routine. The Cole family had taken her in the night of her parent’s murder, and she had remained with them since. In exchange for their generosity she, as the eldest of the children, acted as a governess of sorts, assisting Mrs. Cole with every aspect of their care.

  Upon reaching the house, Eliza removed her shoes, crept back to bed, and crawled beneath the covers. Morning would arrive long before she was ready. She snuggled down and attempted to go back to sleep, but found it to be elusive. Images of her parents’ deaths were always lurking in the shadows waiting to pounce the moment sleep claimed her.

  I will not allow you to defeat me, her mind whispered to the intangible threat. She was old enough now to understand that it had been wicked men and not the lord of all evil who had killed her parents, but in her dreams, she still saw the Devil’s minions.

  The sun dawned over the horizon and shone through the bedroom window panes; Eliza groaned beneath its cheery heat. She had not slept since her return, and her head ached from the lack of adequate rest. She rose from the bed, walked over to the washstand, and splashed her face.

  “Eliza!” Mrs. Cole’s voice called from the other room.

  “Coming, Mother!” Eliza brushed her hair and smoothed the wrinkles from her dress then exited the bedroom.

  “Did we not bake six loaves of bread yesterday? I see only five.” Mrs. C
ole stood with her hands on her hips frowning. “Have you been walking about while sleeping again?” Before Eliza had a chance to answer, Mrs. Cole waved her hand in dismissal. “Oh, never you mind. Please wake the children and ready them for breakfast.”

  Eliza smiled, relieved that she would not have to divulge her nocturnal secret. If Papa and Mama knew of my going about the streets alone at night, they would be mortified and forbid me from continuing. She started out helping the Wainwrights, but once she saw the poverty-stricken conditions of their neighbors, she felt a strong need to help them, just as the Cole family had helped her.