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eagerness not to be parted from her lover for any length of time was of absolutely no consequence or interest to him. ‘Approximately,’ he qualified. ‘At the moment, the exact length of time I will need to stay in Cambridgeshire is undecided.’ Mainly because Adam felt a certain inner discomfort about this departure for Cambridgeshire at all.
    It was true that there were several matters there in need of his attention, but he had no doubts they were matters he could have settled by the sending of a letter to his man who managed the estate in his absence. His decision to visit the estate in person had more todo with his conversation with Royston last night, than any real urgency to deal with those matters himself.
    Not because Adam was in any real fear of his grandmother being successful in her endeavours to procure him a suitable wife—that, he had vowed long ago, would never happen!—but because, much as his grandmother might irritate him on occasion, he did have a genuine affection for her, and as such he had no wish to hurt her. Like Royston, removing himself from London, far away from his relative’s machinations, seemed the best way for him to avoid doing that.
    However, he could not avoid having dinner at Lady Cecily’s home this evening, when no doubt a suitable number of eligible young ladies would be produced for his approval—or otherwise, as he absolutely knew would be the case!—but as it would also give Adam the opportunity of telling his grandmother in person of his imminent departure for Cambridgeshire, he was willing to suffer through that particular inconvenience.
    He frowned as he saw the look of consternation on the governess’s face. ‘I repeat, is there some objection to your travelling into Cambridgeshire with myself and Amanda?’
    Elena drew herself up stiffly. ‘No, of course there is not. And to answer your earlier question, I can have my own and Amanda’s things packed and ready for departure in a matter of hours.’
    Adam gave a tight smile. ‘It is not necessary that you be quite so hasty,’ he drawled. ‘I have a dinner engagement this evening. First thing tomorrow morning will be quite soon enough. I trust that will give you sufficient time in which to…inform any relatives and friends that you are to be absent from Town for the next week?’
    ‘Approximately.’
    ‘Indeed,’ he conceded drily.
    The only relative Elena had left in the world was Neville and the moment
he
learnt of her whereabouts he would no doubt call for her immediate arrest!
    And Elena had decided at the onset that the less she involved her friends in her current unhappy situation—and she did have several who still believed in her innocence—the better it would be for them.
    She necessarily had to accept a small amount of financial help from her closest friend, Lizzie Carlton, after fleeing the duke’s estate in Yorkshire in late February, and shehad also informed Lizzie by letter that she had safely reached London and secured suitable lodgings. But Elena could not, in all conscience, allow her friend to become embroiled in this situation any further than that.
    Indeed, she had resolved to completely become the widowed Mrs Elena Leighton, a schooled young lady who had fallen on hard times since her husband’s untimely death. As she must, if she were to be successful in her endeavour of hiding in full view of the populace of England’s capital; it was sad, but true, that the
ton
rarely noticed the existence of the people whom they employed, let alone those employed by the other members of England’s aristocracy.
    ‘There is no one whom I would wish to inform, my lord,’ she answered her employer coolly. ‘If I might be allowed to return to the schoolroom now?’
    ‘Of course.’
    ‘Thank you, my lord.’
    Adam tapped his cheek thoughtfully as he watched her quietly exit the study before closing the door behind her, irritated at the realisation that she had once again avoided revealing anything