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literal truth. “I do not quite know,” Helena said, keeping her voice admirably calm. Excitement—and fear—warred inside her.
    After the Duke of Greybrooke had declared he had to have her, he had left without another word. Three days had passed where she had not seen him. She was desperate to do so. Because she had to learn his secrets, of course.
    “It must be a love letter,” Sophie declared. She dimpled. “Uncle Grey must have fallen madly in love with you when he saw you! Perhaps it is an offer of marriage.”
    “Silly,” said Michael scornfully. “Dukes don’t marry governesses.”
    They certainly did not. With no letter opener, Helena carefully tore the page around the seal and unfolded the thick paper.
    Scarlet rose petals tumbled out, showering over her skirt. Timothy scrambled over to grab as many as he could, which spurred Michael to compete. After shooing the boys away, she finally took a look at the duke’s letter.
    Beautiful watercolor drawings surrounded the edges of the page. At the bottom was a lovely rendering of a stream, a meadow, and a dark-haired man like Greybrooke feeding plump strawberries to a blond wood nymph clad only in leaves. The nymph looked just like her.
    Surely Greybrooke hadn’t drawn this. It was remarkable. It had to have been the work of an artist....
    Wait, one leaf did not quite cover the lady’s breast, and a rosy-pink nipple peeked out. Helena felt her cheeks turn pink. That breast and nipple looked exactly like hers.
    He couldn’t know what she looked like there . He must have guessed at the size of her breast, the nipple and its coloring must have been just luck as well.
    Shocked, she looked down at the elegant handwriting. It was a poem.
    It would be a ribald verse, of course. One that would make her blush from her hairline to her toes, she expected. She sighed, squared her shoulders, and began to read.
    Only to discover she was wrong.
    The duke hadn’t penned naughty rhymes after all. The verse was lovely, all about the wonder and knowledge she imparted to children.
    He must have hired a poet to write something touching and sweet and beautiful. For her.
    Timothy peered at her. “Miss Winsome, you’ve turned every color in the rainbow.”
    “No, she hasn’t, silly. She’s not gone green or blue,” argued Michael.
    Timothy stuck his tongue out at his brother. “She’s been white, red, and pink. Maybe she will go yellow and green.”
    “It is a love letter, isn’t it?” cried Sophie. “It’s making you blush.”
    “Nothing ever makes Miss Winsome blush,” said Timothy. “I’ve tried.”
    “Uncle Grey knows how,” Michael said.
    Uncle Grey knew quite a lot of things. She did not believe the words truly reflected how he saw her. This was a scoundrel who caused women to tip chamber pots on his head—who had said bold, naughty things to her. Who had claimed it was unpardonable that he wanted her.
    She could not reconcile that man with this one who had so cleverly understood what would touch her heart.
    She had to remember that nothing he said was real. It would be so easy to preen and believe she had captured the duke’s heart with her good character, or her quiet beauty, or her kind heart.
    But she would never forget her sister Margaret, and all the wonderful things Mr. Knightly told Margaret when they’d all believed Mr. Knightly intended to marry Meg. But all those things had been lies spun to convince Meg to go to his bed and he’d ruined her.
    That afternoon, while the children napped in the nursery, Helena wrote a letter of her own. She folded the poem, tucked it within her letter, and sealed it with a blob of wax. Having a few minutes to herself, she took it and the countess’s letters and popped out to post them.
    As she walked back to Winterhaven House, she was consumed with one question: Could she keep Greybrooke’s interest while not allowing him to seduce her?
     
    Nothing was brought to her in Berkeley Square the next day. Worry