Coming in March 2011 Jonathon and Louisa’s story. It is linked to Compromising Miss Milton.

‘How delightful to meet you again, Miss Louisa Sibson.’

Jonathon Lord Chesterholm’s eyes bored holes into Louisa Sibson’s back. The former fiancée he’s thought dead is very much alive…

Louisa has rebuilt her life, after being dishonourably dismissed from her post as governess for allowing Jonathon to seduce her. Now Louisa lives by a rulebook of morals and virtue—the devastating Lord Chesterholm will not ruin her again!

But Jonathon will get to the bottom of Louisa’s disappearance – and he’ll enjoy breaking a few of her rules along the way…!

Chapter 1

Four years later — Newcastle Upon Tyne August 1837

‘Miss Daphne Elliot.’ The three words were said in a warm masculine voice but they were enough to send an ice-cold chill down Louisa Sibson’s spine.

Her hand froze on the soft folds of Miss Daphne Elliot’s woollen shawl. Louisa kept her gaze downcast and willed the stranger to go. She could not be so unlucky to encounter Jonathon Ponsby-Smythe here. In Newcastle. He was a habitué of London clubs, fashionable salons and Almacks, not provincial concerts with second-rate singers. Louisa forced the breath into her lungs. This man, this friend of Miss Daphne’s nephew who had sponsored the concert was someone else. This man was not the man who had destroyed her life. And she was no longer the same naive girl who believed a man’s whispered endearments of eternal love.

Dimly she heard Miss Daphne answer with delight in her elderly voice and the low rich voice answer again. And she knew her luck in England remained resolutely poor.

Louisa concentrated on the shawl.

 What was the proper etiquette for greeting the man who had taken your innocence and destroyed your girlish dreams? Particularly when one of the women most responsible for giving her a new life was enthusiastically greeting him?

 And most importantly, how had she missed his name as one of the sponsors of the Three Choirs concerts?

Louisa weighed her options. Cutting him dead would be height of rudeness and would distress Miss Daphne no end. Neither could she turn and flee. There had to be solution but her mind refused to offer it.

‘Miss Sibson, are you quite the thing?’ Lord Furniss, Miss Daphne’s nephew, asked. Before Louisa could reply, Lord Furniss swallowed her hand in his gigantic paw. ‘I can see from a glance something is wrong. You have gone pale. It is not allowed to have a beauty fainting.’

Louisa withdrew her hand and looked up into Lord Furniss’s broad genial face. ‘There is little danger. I leave the fainting and attacks of vapours to the debutantes. They are the experts in these matters, after all.’

‘As ever, your wit slays me, Miss Sibson but you do not have to be brave.’ Lord Furniss’s ruddy cheek became a deeper shade of red. He cleared his throat. ‘Chesterholm, we shall have to leave you. The esteemed Miss Sibson protests far too much. She is unwell.’

 ‘My health is robust.’ Louisa planted her feet more firmly, and her gaze locked with the clear blue-green of her worst nightmare, and her forbidden dream.

‘How delightful to meet you again, Miss Louisa Sibson.’ He held out his well manicured hand. It was then she knew that her prayers were destined to remain forever unanswered. ‘A highly unexpected occurrence.’

Louisa twisted Miss Daphne’s shawl about her fingers. By rights, he should have grown fat. Or have his face be marked with scars, something to show his wickedness. However, Jonathon Ponsby-Smythe’s countenance was as fair as ever— golden brown hair contrasting with intense green eyes. Once she thought his face with its dimple in the chin angelic, but now she could see the sardonic twist and the hardness that lurked behind the smile, the heartless seducer of women.

 Gentlemen must be allowed their little indiscretions as long as they do not interfere with the household. She could remember Mrs Ponsby-Smythe’s precise intonation as Jonathon’s stepmother explained why she was dismissing Louisa immediately without reference and not allowing her to wait for Jonathon’s return.

Louisa took another steady breath and squared her shoulders. She had found her solution. She would get through this unasked-for encounter with dignity and poise. She would demonstrate to him and the rest of the world that he meant nothing to her. She had learnt from her years in Italy. Let him prey on some other gauche governess who might believe his lies. She was now a woman of means, with standing and a good reputation.

‘Mr Ponsby-Smythe.’ Louisa inclined her head. Even now, a traitorous part of her remembered how his fingers had skimmed along her skin, sending quivers of delight throughout her as they bid each other good-bye despite the quarrel. Naively she had thought he offered the world, and instead it was one night. For when does the first born son marry a governess with no family except in a fairy tale?

‘Lord Chesterholm, Louisa,’ Miss Daphne squeaked, her withered cheeks flushed an excited pink. ‘You have not been paying attention. Young Jonathon has become the fourth Baron of Chesterholm and changed his name to Fanshaw out of respect to his late uncle. Chesterholm, Louisa.’

Louisa crossed her arms and mentally kicked herself. Such a simple thing as a name change. She had not even considered the possibility when she quickly scanned the list of subscribers to the concert, just in case. If she had known...she’d have invented a dozen reasons why she could not attend the concert and why she had to leave for Sorrento immediately even if Miss Daphne had not finished her sentimental journey back to her childhood haunts. ‘Why did you change your name, Lord Chesterholm?’

 ‘It was my late great uncle’s wish. He wanted his name to carry on.’ An arrogant smile crossed his features. ‘It suited me to please him, Miss Sibson.’

 ‘Why should the reason matter?’ Miss Daphne asked, bewilderment in her tone. ‘You are being very bold, Louisa, my girl, with a man you have barely met. Are you certain that you are not sickening? I have never seen you act this way before.’

‘Hasn’t the esteemed Miss Sibson confided about our friendship? That was remiss of her.’ Jonathon’s blue-green eyes burned with a fierce light as his fingers captured her hand and brought it to his lips. ‘Miss Sibson and I are acquainted. Old friends. Is that not true, Louisa?’

Even after all this time, a warm pulse went through her as he used her first name, rolling it slightly on his tongue and making it sound like no one else had ever done. Louisa ruthlessly quashed the feeling.

‘I had the pleasure of teaching Lord Chesterholm’s younger sister several years ago...before I departed for Italy.’

‘That is true. You were my sister’s governess among other things.’ His fingers tightened and caressed the soft inside of her wrist where her glove gapped.

Louisa tugged at her hand. Surely he had to let her go. It was beyond the bounds of all propriety. He knew why she had left. The coward. He had not even bothered to answer her letters — not the one after the dismissal or the other even more desperate one four months later informing him of her unasked for condition. Instead he left the task of irrevocably severing relations to his stepmother.

She could hear Venetia Ponsby-Smythe’s cut glass tones echoing down the years.  Her relationship with Jonathon was a misalliance. Mrs Ponsby-Smythe daily expected the announcement of her stepson’s forthcoming marriage to the Honourable Clarissa Newton to whom he had been betrothed since they were in the cradle. Louisa and the child she carried must stand aside and forge a new life...for the good of everyone. Venetia Ponsby-Smythe had said that while she sympathised with Louisa’s plight but such things happened when women behaved lewdly. The knowledge of a child would not bring him back, Mrs Ponsby-Smythe advised, and could Louisa even prove the babe she said she carried was Jonny’s. Then when Louisa was ready to storm out, Venetia Ponsby-Smythe had waved her hand and offered to provide Louisa passage to Italy as she did feel responsible for her stepson ruining one of her former employees. Her one condition was that Louisa should never return, never contact her again. Faced with starvation, Louisa had accepted the unasked for help with tearful gratitude. She had even kissed the woman’s hand.

‘Fancy you knowing Aunt Daphne’s delightful friend, Chesterholm.’ Lord Furniss’s voice rang out, recalling her to the present. ‘Who’d have supposed it? Miss Sibson you have been keeping secrets from me.’

‘Miss Sibson keeps her secrets very well.’ Jonathon’s eyes pinned her. ‘Some day, Miss Sibson, you must tell me how one can rise from the dead. I visited your grave not more than three months ago.’

Miss Daphne and Lord Furniss exchanged shocked glances as the entire Assembly hall fell silent. Louisa wanted to sink down beneath the floorboards and hide. Everyone was looking at her as if this mess was somehow her fault.

Dead? A gravestone with her name? Louisa fought against a wave of dizziness. She had suffered a sort of death. She had even forbidden her friend Daisy Milton to tell Jonathon where she was if he should ever ask. But it was not what Jonathon meant. He had thought her dead. In the ground. Buried.

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