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“I hope that the carriage will not be late for me.”
    She knew as she spoke it was going to be difficult to get away, but it was a chance in a million.
    Wherever her stepfather might look for her, she was certain it would not occur to him that she was a Governess.
    Yet because he was so fond of titles he might, she suddenly thought, wonder if she had found a situation in any of their houses.
    Just for a moment she was frightened and then she remembered that she had changed her name.
    It was not likely that her stepfather would admit to the people he was impressed by that his stepdaughter had run away and was hiding from him.
    ‘I am sure I am safe. I must be,’ she told herself as she walked down the stairs.
    She could see Betty not far away and ran towards her excitedly.
    “I have won! I have won!” she cried. “I have been given a situation as a Governess and I can only pray, Betty, that I can keep it.”
    “You’ve got a situation!” Betty exclaimed.
    “Let’s sit down somewhere so that I can tell you all about it,” she suggested.
    “We’ll go to the Park. No one’ll listen to us there.”
    They walked quickly towards Hyde Park and found an empty seat under some trees.
    “Now tell me exactly what’s happened, my Lady. I promise you, I’ve been prayin’ that you’d find somewhere decent to go.”
    “It sounds a most difficult place from what Mrs. Hill said,” Eleta answered. “But I am engaged and they are picking me up very early tomorrow morning.”
    “Who are you going to?” Betty asked. “I hope it’s somewhere respectable and you won’t get into trouble.”
    “It’s not likely except from my pupil. Apparently she is responsible for a number of Governesses leaving.”
    “Who is she and why should she do so?”
    “She is the daughter of the Marquis of Teringford.”
    For a moment Betty just stared at her and then she said,
    “Oh, not him! You can’t go to him, my Lady, that be impossible!”

CHAPTER THREE
    Eleta stared at Betty.
    “What do you mean?” she asked her. “Why should I not go to the Marquis’s house?”
    Betty was silent and Eleta knew she was struggling to find the right words and then she began,
    “I’ve heard a great deal about that Marquis because a friend of mine worked there at one time. She tells me about him, which I thinks you should hear.”
    “But of course I want to hear it. If I am to teach his daughter, the more I know about him the better. It’s so like you, Betty, to know about a man I have never heard of.”
    “I’m real sure that your mother would have known about him and of course your father. But, as they didn’t approve of him, he were not invited to Berkeley Square.”
    “They did not approve of him? But why?”
    “Let’s start at the beginning. My friend tells me he were only nineteen when he married. He fell in love with a very pretty girl and, as he were to become a Marquis, her family was delighted they should be married.”
    “Was she the same age as him?” Eleta asked.
    “No, a bit younger, she was in fact only seventeen, getting on for eighteen, and all the newspapers, as you can imagine, made a good story of the bride and bridegroom being so young and aristocratic.”
    “So the bride also came from a good family?”
    “Her father was an Earl and she therefore had a courtesy title,” Betty replied, “as her bridegroom had.”
    “So they were married,” Eleta said, feeling that the story was rather slow in coming out.
    “They were then married and I hears they was very happy, but sadly the bride died having a baby.”
    “Yes, I was told that at Mrs. Hill’s. It was dreadful. Was the Marquis broken-hearted?”
    “I was told he was at first, but afterwards, perhaps because he wanted to forget, he began to enjoy himself.”
    “What do you mean by that, Betty?”
    “Well, he pursued all the most beautiful women in London and the gossips talked about him day and night.”
    “But he did not get married again?”
    “No,