Thus Lady Harbuckle had treated Anna as a guest, insisting that she eat dinner with the family several times during the week, asking her opinion on fashion, driving with her in the park. At first Anna had been thankful, for she hadn’t relished her loss of standing, and Lady Harbuckle had made it plain that she considered Anna something more than a servant. Naively, Anna had welcomed Lady Harbuckle’s overtures of friendship.

All had gone well until Lady Harbuckle’s younger brother, a glib wastrel by the name of Lord Talbert, arrived for a visit. Handsome in a blurry, undefined sort of way, he had immediately attached himself to Anna’s side, despite her determined efforts to keep him at bay. Lady Harbuckle seemed to be amused at her brother’s florid compliments and she would not hear Anna’s attempts to hint that she was being made uncomfortable.

Anna decided that perhaps she was overreacting to Lord Talbert’s wholesome compliments. After all, it was obvious that Talbert was a practiced flirt. Unfortunately, he was also a pompous ass who believed his money and purchased title gave him the right to access the beds of every female in the household. Anna’s attempt to ignore the young lord merely urged him to new heights of impropriety.

Things got more and more uncomfortable until one fateful night Talbert, drunk as a fox, forced his way into Anna’s chamber. Had it not been for the nearness of her bedpan, which she used on His Lordship’s rather hard head to dissuade him from his nefarious intentions, Anna was certain she’d have been ravished.

The ruckus caused by Lord Talbert’s cry of pain on being crowned with the bedpan caused the entire household to come running. To Anna’s shock, Lady Harbuckle listened to her explanation in cold, disbelieving silence. As soon as Anna finished speaking, Lady Harbuckle had called Anna a liar and worse, suggesting that the entire incident was Anna’s fault for “tempting the poor boy.”

Anna would listen to no more. She had gathered her things and left. She’d been forced to walk almost seven blocks lugging her overstuffed portmanteau, before she found a hackney to take her the rest of the way.

She arrived home furious and heartbroken, ready to renounce her chosen profession. She’d naively believed that Lady Harbuckle had regarded her as something more than a governess. But now Anna knew the truth—she was a governess and she would never again be friends with a member of her own set. It was a bitter lesson to learn.

A good night’s sleep and a week of calm reflection had made Anna all the more determined to succeed. She was a governess, and by God, she’d be the best one in all of England. Furthermore, she’d be damned if she’d let a slug like Talbert thwart her.

True to form, Lady Harbuckle lost no time in informing the world that her new governess had attempted to lure her brother into sin, claiming that Anna had wished to secure the drunken sot as a husband. Had it not been for the Harbuckles’ limited social standing and Grandpapa’s successful manipulation of his cronies, most of whom were society’s most established gossipmongers, it would have been the end of Anna’s career.