Read Miss Goodhue Lives for a Night for Free Online Page A

town, and the number of officers who called. My sister even made a joke saying . . .”
    â€œ. . . Saying what?” he asked when she fell silent.
    â€œSaying that my aunt should be careful, because Eleanor sounded a lot like me at that age.”
    He eyed her. “And that was a joke?”
    â€œI laughed. I did,” she insisted when she saw the skepticism on his face. “I chuckled and said, ‘Let’s hope not,’ and returned to preparing for my students. I refused to dwell.”
    But by refusing to dwell, she had ruthlessly ignored that warning running down her spine. Now Eleanor was lost somewhere in London, because she hadn’t wanted to face her own past—not even for a second.
    â€œAnd that’s why you’re here?” he asked. “You think you can atone for your sins by saving your cousin who reminds you so much of yourself?”
    â€œNo,” she lied, her brow coming down. “And I don’t know if she needs saving. She could be happily married.”
    â€œYou keep saying that,” he countered. “Of course she needs saving. Or maybe he does. You cannot keep denying that this entire situation is untenable, and ruinous to your family and your cousin’s reputations and livelihoods.”
    â€œAnd you seem to think that because I decide to approach this situation with a modicum of hopefulness that I do not see the whole picture. I promise you I do, because I’ve lived it. Do you think for a moment that I would have left Manchester if I hadn’t been forced to, to save my family the constant embarrassment and explanations?” she said, her speech growing as hot as her face, but she was unable to stop it. “Do you think I would have spent the last decade living on my sister’s charity working at the school if I’d been able to have a season and marry? If the people back in Helmsley had any idea about that chapter of my life I would have nothing. Nothing at all. No matter how hard I’ve worked and how correct I’ve been. Tell me, Mr. Hudson, do you have to worry about your level of correctness at all times?”
    â€œNo, I don’t,” he bit out. “But that doesn’t mean I didn’t have any hard lessons to learn from it.”
    â€œLike what?” she asked.
    â€œLike innocence and trust can be bargaining chips,” he replied. “The biggest trumps in the deck.”
    â€œYou are mixing your metaphors to the point I have no idea what you’re saying,” she replied. “But that is to be expected from an attorney.”
    â€œYou should know, your father is one.”
    â€œWas one,” she said. “He passed, two years ago.”
    â€œOh,” was the reply. He sounded as if all the air had gone out of the room. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”
    â€œI didn’t even get to attend the funeral. Imogene went for both of us,” she murmured, horrified at the tears welling full in her eyes. “I have to hope for the best, you see. Because what else is there?”
    He reached out his hand and placed it over hers. She looked up at him—it was as if he was as shocked as she to discover their fingers touching.
    She drew away, as if branded by fire.
    â€œCan we talk about something else, please?” she said, her voice barely a whisper. “Anything else.”
    She needed to be distracted. She needed to focus on something that was not this horrid pain.
    â€œYou work at a school,” he said. It was a statement, not a question.
    â€œI am the teacher at the vicarage school,” she said, her vision clearing at the thought of her students. “I have fourteen boys and girls, up to age twelve.”
    â€œI would never have thought of you as a teacher.”
    â€œWhy not? I love children.”
    â€œI just . . . I never thought of you in that kind of servitude,” he said.
    â€œIt’s not servitude.