Emma V. Leech

What lies beneath could destroy them… or set them free.
A Tense,Tender, gothic‑leaning Victorian romance from Best Selling Novellist Emma V Leech about secrets, suspicion, longing, and the dangerous truth that lies beneath a governess’s calm exterior.
Mrs Harris has been governess at Goshen Court for five years, and in that time she has become indispensable. Little Tilly adores her. The Earl of Ashburton respects her. And despite her sharp tongue and prickly manner, he admires her devotion to his daughter.
Yet something about her unsettles him.

The prim woman with her spectacles and severe gowns occupies far too much of his thoughts. She is competent, composed, maddening… and hiding something. Ashburton can feel it like a wasp buzzing at the edge of a summer picnic — impossible to ignore.
He just doesn’t know how right he is.
Because Mrs Regina Harris is a fraud.

She is not a widow. She is not a governess. She is not even Regina Harris. She is a woman on the run, living under a false name, and doing her best to forget the life she left behind. Teaching Tilly has been a joy. Living at Goshen Court has been a blessing.
Thinking about the earl is a mistake she refuses to make.

But her biggest mistake was taking revenge on the men who destroyed her life — and writing her story down. A story that is now in print. A story far too close to the truth. A story that could expose her to the very danger she fled.

Her time is running out.
As the façade begins to crack, Ashburton’s suspicions grow. The woman he thought he understood is slipping through his fingers, and the truth beneath her calm exterior is far more complicated — and far more compelling — than he ever imagined.

Regina has spent years hiding from her past.
Ashburton is determined to uncover it.
And somewhere between lies and longing, danger and desire, two guarded hearts begin to collide.
But when the truth finally comes to light, will the earl see the woman she truly is…
or the one she has pretended to be?