Chapter One

At this moment, Miss Hannah Setterington could unequivocally state that she was alone. Completely, absolutely, bleakly alone. As she let her valise slide with a thud onto the wooden boards of the railway platform, she looked around in the Lancashire twilight. No building rose among the encroaching trees. Nowelcoming light beckoned through a shaded window, no human voices grumbled or laughed, and the faint city glow that surrounded London even on the darkest of nights was absent here in the depths of the country. In-deed, she could no longer see the outlines of the moun-tains that rose to the north. Night and fogwere settling over the landscape, the train was nothing more than a departing rumble along the tracks, and right now, changing her mind about this position of caretaker to the marquess of Raeburn's elderly aunt seemed wise.

But to whom could she announce her decision? The servant she had assumed would meet her was nowhere to be seen along the rural road that wound over the hill, past the platform and out of sight.

And she had a mission herein. She had come here to fulfill her heart's desire, and she wouldn't leave until she had done so.

Although she knew it was impossible for her to have made a mistake, she fumbled in her reticule and brought forth the letter sent by the housekeeper who had hired her. Hannah squinted through the rapidly fading light and read in Mrs. Trenchard's beautiful penmanship: Take the train to Presham Crossing, arriving there on March 5, 1843, and there depart it.

Hannah knew the date to be March 5. She glanced up at the sign erected above the newly constructed platform. Proudly it proclaimedPresham Crossing.

I will send a coach to bring you to Raeburn Castle, where the master most anxiously desires your arrival.

Hannah considered the narrow road again. No coach. No servants. No anything. Tucking the letter back into her reticule, she sighed and wondered why this evidence of ineptitude surprised her. In her experience, efficiency was a commodity she possessed which most others did not. Indeed, it was her efficiency that had enabled her to run the Distinguished Academy of Governesses alone these past three years, and successfully enough that when she had gone to Adorna, Lady Bucknell, and asked for help in selling it, Adorna had bought it for herself. “I need something to occupy my time since Wynter took over the family business,” she had said as she wrote out a check for a tidy sum.

Now, at the age of twenty-seven, Hannah found herself in the enviable position of never needing to work again.

Although she would, of course. From the time she could remember, she had always worked. Sewing, running errands, helping out as a maid. Even when she'd studied at school, she had labored to be the best ... then there had been that brief, terrible, and wonderful time when she had not worked.

Pulling her cape closely against her neck, she looked again at the road, but it remained obstinately empty and the light was fading fast.

Lately she had all too often recalled those days when she had been useless, unnecessary, a possession. Although the clarity of her memories discomfited her, it failed to surprise her. Every time she came to a crossroads in her life, a time when everyday tasks failed to occupy each second, her mind drifted back to the past, and she wondered again. At moments such as these, standing alone while wisps of fog became drifts and banks, blotting out the stars and wrapping her in isolation, she pondered what would happen if she returned to Liverpool, where the past awaited her.

Yet always she rejected the idea. In the end, she was too much the coward to dare face the consequences of her youthful misdeeds -- and too wise to brood about them now.

Tucking her chin into her wool muffler and her gloved hands under her arms, she turned her thoughts along a more useful path'what to do. The servant had failed her, the village was nowhere in sight, and the night grew frigid. She would certainly not give way to panic because she'd been abandoned.

At least she knew she hadn't been followed from London. One of the many reasons she'd taken this position was the recent suspicion that she was being watched. Either that, or one of the three very somber, identically clad gentlemen whohad taken the house across the street visited the market when she did, attended the theater when she did, and even appeared in Surrey where she attended thebaptism of Charlotte's second child and visited with Pamela.

And who cared enough about the humbly born owner of a London business to find her and observe her every movement?

Only one man ... and in all fairness, how could he ever forget her?

So when a job request came in for a companion for an elderly lady in Lancashire, she had decreed it to be fate. She sold her business and slipped away from London. The ignorant might call this flight. She preferred to call it a sabbatical.

She nodded firmly. Yes, a sabbatical to consider her future. The future of Hannah Setterington. Still no coach. No driver. She considered the ways she had taught student governesses to deal with such dilemmas -- with good sense and without rancor. If no one appeared within the hour, she would step onto the road and start walking, and hope that whichever direction she chose would be toward Presham Crossing. From there she would hire someone to take her to Rae-burn Castle. When she arrived, she would give Mrs. Trenchard, the housekeeper, a firm but thorough up- braiding. Gently bred women who took positions such as governess and caretaker were frequently abused by the servants below stairs. Hannah meant to start as she would go on, and that included demanding respect. If that wasn't possible, then she'd best know at once before she became attached to the elderly aunt who, she'd been assured in the exchange of letters, was a lovely lady, if occasionally a little confused.