Chapter 8
They had dismissed her because she supposedly wasn’t suitable, only to change their minds ten days later? It was absurd.
As though he had expected that reaction, Benjamin gave an embarrassed smile.
“The terms would remain exactly the same. However, there would no longer be a probationary period, so I can assure you nothing like your previous same-day dismissal would ever happen again.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. George.”
Meeting Benjamin’s gaze with quiet resolve, Irene declined.
For ten days, Chloe had not left the third floor of the mansion even once.
Knock. Knock. The heavy sound broke the silence, but she didn’t even glance toward the door, her eyes remaining fixed on her book.
“We need to talk.”
He hadn’t been invited in. But there wasn’t a single room in the Whitmore estate that Dominic Whitmore was barred from entering.
Snap. Closing her book with deliberate force, Chloe rose from her chair.
“There’s no place for you here. We can talk outside.”
The chair opposite her sat conspicuously empty, yet Chloe walked straight past her brother, opened the library door, and gestured into the hallway.
With a quiet sigh, Dominic stepped back out. Aware of her footsteps following behind him, he spoke first.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
The moment they entered the sitting room on the third floor, Dominic suddenly turned on his heel. Chloe halted without the slightest hint of surprise and looked up at him. The siblings’ identical blue eyes met, reflecting one another.
“Do you know how many governesses have quit today?”
“Dominic, I’m not fifteen anymore. How many times do I have to tell you I don’t need a governess?”
“They’re not there to teach you lessons. They’re there to talk with you about what’s going on in the world, discuss the books you’ve been reading, get you out of the house once in a while. That’s the point.”
One eyebrow lifted ever so slightly. Chloe regarded him with open curiosity before dropping onto the sofa.
“That’s strange. You’ve never liked that sort of thing.”
“What do you mean?”
“You fired the one person who actually did everything you wanted.”
The moment the words left her mouth, the image of the neatly dressed governess flashed through his mind. Before he could respond, Chloe continued.
“Miss Vanderberg told me she lost her entire family to the epidemic too. Her younger sister died at the same age I was. It’s sad, isn’t it? We talked about novels all the time. Unlike those stuffy old tutors, she’d actually debate them with me. We got along surprisingly well.”
She looked him straight in the eye.
“Until you fired her.”
“…She came from a disgraced baron’s family. She lacked the refinement expected of the position.”
He couldn’t very well admit he’d been eavesdropping on their conversation. So he settled for the excuse that came most readily to hand.
Chloe watched him with an unreadable expression. Then she merely shrugged and rose to her feet.
“If that’s what you think, then I suppose that’s what you think. Anyway, I’m fine. I don’t need a governess. You don’t have to worry about me anymore. You’ve got plenty of other things to worry about, after all.”
Dominic stood there for a long while, silently watching his sister walk away. At last, he let out a long sigh.
Dominic Whitmore hated taking back a decision more than anything. In the end, however, he had no choice but to summon the head butler.
There wasn’t a better position to be found. Anyone with any sense of regret would gratefully seize a second chance. Every governess who came to interview failed to hide her surprise the moment she looked over the employment contract.
That woman had been no different.
‘You’re truly offering this much… for just that?’
The memory resurfaced of her staring down at the contract in disbelief, wearing an expression that seemed unable to accept what she was reading.
Perhaps because she had been the first person bold enough to question him to his face, the image of those unwavering brown eyes fixed on him had remained unusually vivid.
Naturally, once she realized there was no catch and that the position truly offered such generous terms, she would come running back the moment the opportunity was offered again. He would simply keep her around long enough to coax Chloe out of the library.
Once that served its purpose, he could dismiss her before she had too much opportunity to fill his sister’s head with nonsense. And if she became too troublesome, he could always keep a close eye on her.
…Or so he had expected. Instead, the head butler returned with news he had never anticipated.
“I’m afraid Miss Vanderberg has declined the offer to return.”
“Has she found another position?”
“No, it doesn’t appear so.”
“Then why?”
“…I’m not sure.”
Benjamin’s evasive reply immediately irritated him. Dominic let out a short, disbelieving laugh.
Who did she think she was, turning down an opportunity like this? Who else would ever hire a governess with such an antisocial way of thinking?
Just then, as if echoing in his ears, those absurd words he had heard amid the scent of roses drifted back to him.
‘Men who think the world revolves around them need to learn that there are some things they simply can’t control.’
How ridiculous.
* * *
While waiting for her train, Irene chose to read in the waiting room instead of the crowded platform. She was on the final chapter of the story about Emma, the pregnant maid, and the selfish count.
The novel ended on a bleak, unsatisfying note. Feeling faintly dejected, Irene flipped through the remaining pages with little enthusiasm.
Emma gave birth at the count’s estate, but she never became the countess. Instead, the wretched count offered her two choices. She could leave the child as his illegitimate offspring…Or send the baby to be adopted by the household of a distant relative, a baron.
Faced with that heartless ultimatum, Emma chose the latter and entered the baron’s household as the child’s nursemaid.
No, surely she didn’t spend half a month waiting for the next volume just to get an ending like this?
“Sigh…”
If Chloe, the devoted connoisseur of popular romances, had just finished this novel, what would she have said? Would she have worn that same detached expression of hers, knowing it always would have ended this way?
The image of the doll-like young lady wearing her usual cool smile as she mercilessly mocked the ending made Irene laugh to herself.
Once she had settled in the south, perhaps she ought to write Chloe a letter. It would probably be filled from beginning to end with complaints about the novel’s protagonist.
Closing the pocket-sized book, Irene slipped it into her bag. Just then, a shadow fell over her.
She looked up on instinct and froze.
“Miss Irene Van… derberg?”
Blue eyes looking down at her. A proud, aristocratic nose. Lips that held not the slightest trace of a smile.
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