Another Governess Romance

I am looking for the name of a romance book I read when I was younger. If I were to guess when it was written I would say maybe the late 80s or early 90s. It was before 2000 for sure.

It was about a woman who was either raped or almost raped in England. Her dad walked in and died and the drunk bad guy passed out. She runs from her house and meets this older man who is dying. He marries her and takes her on a boat to America. Her husband dies either on the boat or soon after getting to America. Somehow she meets another guy who is married and needs a governess for his young daughter who has stopped speaking. She agrees. The guy is in an unhappy marriage and he and the woman slowly fall into unacknowledged love. The wife is usually away from the house and in some fashionable town. The young girl who doesn't speak and the governess get along well and bond. The wife comes home and I think she asks for a large amount of money and the husband tells her no and she says she will ask for a divorce and shame him if he doesn't or something like that. Husband calls her bluff on the divorce and she says she is going back to town. You find out the wife is having an affair with the guy who tried to rape the governess back in England and he tells the wife that he knows the governess because she used to be in love with him and threw herself at him. The wife guesses that her husband has a thing of the governess so she tells him the story the bad guy was telling. The husband rushes home and says something to the governess like if you had to be with someone why couldn't it be me and forcefully kisses her. I think she slaps him and runs to her room. Then the wife kidnaps her kid and the governess to keep the kid in line and leaves a ransom note. You find out that the girl stopped talking after she walked in on her mom doing some guy in a shed thing on the property and got locked in the shed over night. The bad guy is helping the wife and the wife guesses that he still has a thing for the governess so bad guy ties the governess up to a bed in some evacuated house on the way to washington dc. She gets loose and makes it to dc and helps some guy who is handing out food to people who pass by his door. The main guy whos daughter got taken makes it to dc and takes part in the fighting going on around there. The army cant be held off and they go through dc burning things. Come to find out the mother, child, and bad man are in a hotel that catches on fire. bad guy makes it out but the wife ends up dying to save her kid. It ends with the dad, governess and child being together and the kid says something.

I hope that big block paragraph wasn't too confusing. Thanks in advance for the help.

Wow, you sure remember a lot of details! And with that description, I can pretty safely say that it must be The Master of Penrose (also titled Here Comes a Candle) by Jane Aiken Hodge.

Thank you!Thank you! Thank you! Trying to remember the name of that book was driving me crazy.

You're welcome. You certainly remembered everything else about the book, except the title. I couldn't have given that much detail, and I own the book, and read it a few times when I was younger.