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seduced."
    "Your father has not seduced me." She removed a book off the top of the stack and pushed it toward the girl. "Now open your history book."
    "Oh, I'm sorry, Miss Balfour," she replied in sweet, mocking tone. "Of course he didn't seduce you. That wasn't necessary."
    Isabel leaned forward, this time moving the entire tower of books aside. "Paige, listen to me. Your father and I are not having an affair."
    "Then what was he doing in your room last night? Playing whist?"
    Isabel struggled for a response. She couldn't tell the truth to Edward's impressionable daughter, but anything other than the truth wouldn't ring true. She crossed her arms in front of her chest. "Your father was--"
    "Don't bother, Miss Balfour. I know you're going to lie. I can see it in your eyes."
    "I would like you to stop assuming things, Paige. It's a very ignorant habit."
    Paige smirked. "So is prostitution."
    "That's it," Isabel said, slamming her book closed. "You're doing lines for the rest of the morning."
    "That isn't fair!"
    "You've dug your own grave. I want you to copy this sentence into your reader one hundred times."
    "Just because you can't keep your skirt down--"
    Her face burned with embarrassment as her mouth fell open in shock. She struggled to find the words. Her gaze jumped to the bookcase. She yanked out a thin volume after spying its title. "And after that, you will read this book on etiquette from cover to cover. Perhaps by then, you'll have learned how to speak like a lady."
    Paige stared at the two boks on the table in front of her and jumped up and down in her chair. "You--"
    "If your handwriting isn't perfect, you'll keep doing it until it is." She watched the rage fester on the little girl's face and noticed how she kept glancing at the door. "As your governess, I have full control over you. You will not find any relief by running to your mother."
    "That's what you think," she replied, her excitement bubbling down into quiet rebellion. "When she hears about you and father. . ."
    "Your mother won't believe you. More than likely, she'll send you back up here to finish your penance, which will then become worse for your attempt to escape it. But you can take that risk, if you like."
    Paige stared down at her reader, her eyes free from tears. "My mother knows about father's roving eye, you know. She cries herself to sleep. You're going to hell, not I."
    "I have had nothing to do with your father. I will not repeat this again. If you mention the subject one more time, you will be writing those lines until your hand falls off."
    Paige ripped open the book so violently she almost tore it and then she started to write. The pencil shook in her hand as she quivered with repressed fury.
     

    * * *
     
    "Jane and I are concerned about your future, Marshall." Edward leaned against a heavy wingback chair. "Becoming involved with Miss Balfour is not a move in the right direction. Have you so quickly forgotten what happened to Grant?"
    "No."
    His brother crossed the room to where he kept the humidor. "Cigar?"
    "No, thank you. Many women consider them a nasty habit."
    "I'm glad you told me," Edward replied, retrieving one from the large wooden box. "You have seen quite a bit of Miss Balfour considering she's only been in our household for a week."
    "You can trust that I haven't seen as much as her as I would have liked."
    He snipped the end of the cigar. "I wish I could laugh, but our governess is not the right woman to dally with. You worked so hard for your position and--"
    "Stop right there. Grant got himself into trouble by marrying the girl." Marshall saw the lighter resting on the sideboard and offered it to his brother. "I don't intend to be so foolish."
    "I wish I could believe that," he said, lighting the cigar. "But women like that have a way of trapping men."
    "I am shocked that you would think I could be so manipulated. I realize I don't have the family estate to fall back on or anything else beyond what I've earned. I'd