The Ungrateful Governness

2

The Earl of Rutherford cursed aloud as he turned his curricle into the cobbled yard of the Blue Peacock. It looked to be a large enough inn, but he had never heard of it before and had no way of knowing if it was worth his patronage. Besides, he had a feeling that the stagecoach he had passed an hour before must use this particular inn as a stopping place. There seemed to be nowhere else of any size to rival it. And darkness would be upon the coach by the time it got this far. He did not relish the thought of spending a night amid the noise and vulgarity of stage passengers.

He had hoped to travel much farther himself that night, but the rain that had begun half-heartedly a while earlier was now setting in for the night and was becoming something of a downpour. And the coolness of the November day had turned to an uncomfortable chill. It would be madness to continue on the road in an open curricle. Apart from the personal discomfort of raindrops dripping from the brim of his hat and somehow finding their way down his neck, the vehicle was not solid enough to cope with muddy roads. At least a heavier carriage could be relied upon to stick fast and safe. A curricle would slither and slide until it overturned into a hedgerow.

Even the Blue Peacock offered a less unpleasant prospect than that. Rutherford vaulted from the high seat of his vehicle, handed the ribbons to a lackey, and strode into the dark but blessedly dry taproom of the inn.

He was feeling somewhat reassured ten minutes later, having found that the inn was as yet empty of guests with the result that he had been allotted the best room in the house and, he suspected, the only good one, a bedchamber complete with private parlor. His rooms were clean, he had discovered, the mattress dry and reasonably free from lumps, the sheets clean, and the maid, whom he had passed on the stairs, a potentially satisfying armful.

He did not have a great deal of baggage and was quite unsure if his valet would catch up to him with the carriage that night. But no matter. All he really needed was a change of shirt for the morrow and his shaving gear, both of which he had in his leather bag. He never encumbered himself with a nightshirt on his travels for the simple reason that he did not wear one. He had never found that his companions of the night objected to the lack.

Lord Rutherford toyed with the idea of ordering his dinner to be brought to his parlor immediately, but he decided that it was too early. He had eaten luncheon only a few hours before. But what was he to do with himself? He did not have so much as a book in his bag. He could not take a walk as the rain was now streaking down outside. He would go down to the taproom, he decided, and look over any new arrivals. And the innkeeper had seemed like a garrulous fellow, who might have some interesting stories. Innkeepers were rarely bores, he had found from experience. They had seen too much of the quirks of human nature ever to run dry of an amusing or sensational anecdote. And that buxom maid merited a second look. She had signaled her availability in that moment of passing on the stairs. The decision would be entirely his.

Rutherford was soon settled in the chimney comer, a pint of ale on the table at his elbow, the coals of the fire setting his damp breeches to steaming. Three new arrivals were seated at their ale exchanging loud banter with the innkeeper. The maid had whisked herself in and out of the room a couple of times, entirely for his benefit, Rutherford judged in some amusement, although she preened herself over the ribald comments of the newly arrived trio. He might decide to take his pleasure with her later. There would be no unusual satisfaction in doing so as she was the unsubtle kind of female. But she would at least help pass what promised to be a long and dull night.

His mind went back to that morning. His abrupt leavetaking had been somewhat embarrassing as it had been patently obvious to him that both Lord and Lady Barrie had expected a declaration. Fortunately, he had not seen their daughter before leaving, though doubtless she shared their expectations. She had been treating him with a markedly proprietary air for two or three days past. In fact, right from the start they had all behaved as if he had come as a formal and recognized suitor.

He grinned briefly into his tankard of ale. Life with that particular young lady did not bear contemplation. No beauty. No character. No sweetness of disposition. He pitied the poor man who would finally be ensnared by those three determined persons. His life would not be worth living. And someone would surely be caught. The one desirable attribute the girl had-and for many it would far outweigh all the less attractive ones-was money, and lots of it.

Thank the Lord he did not have to marry for money. He wished he did not have to marry at all. But he had heard nothing else since his nine-and-twentieth birthday had slipped by him eight months before and the dreadful prospect of the thirtieth loomed ahead. It was his duty, it seemed, to plant his seed in some as yet unknown female of suitable background, whom of course he would first have to make his wife. It seemed that a man was likely to pop off at any moment once his thirtieth birthday was behind him. And the best way to protect himself against the imminent danger was to beget some other poor male creature who would be all ready to step into his shoes and his title until he too had the misfortune to find himself in his thirtieth year. It was quite unthinkable to contemplate letting the title pass to a cousin, it seemed, however blameless and worthy he might be.

His parents had been at him, Mama with her quiet smiles and assurances that matrimony was a blessed state, Papa with his reminders that it was not only the title of Rutherford he must safeguard but also his father's of Middleburgh, a dukedom no less. Faith and Hope, his sisters, had added their word-or words would be more accurate, he thought with a grimace. Hope, always an eager matchmaker, had redoubled her efforts during the last year.

And yet again, irrelevantly, he blessed the kindness of fate that had made him, the third child, a boy. Not that he craved the titles, which of course he would not have received had he been a girl, but he would have detested having to go through life as Charity. His mother, he had heard since, had been divided in her feelings at his birth. She was proud and relieved to have produced a son and heir at last, but she did regret the incomplete Biblical trio. They had called him Charles, but he had heard his mother lament the fact that Faith, Hope, and Charles had a decidedly anticlimactic ring to it. A third daughter never did arrive.

His grandmother had been the final straw. He had been in the habit of visiting the dowager duchess at least once every two weeks through all his boyhood and the years since, except when he was at school or university, of course. And he had always enjoyed a good relationship with the old girl, he had thought. She admired backbone in a man, but approved of his sowing his wild oats during his early manhood. He had always been remarkably open with her-far more open than with any other member of his family-about those oats. However, he had realized only within the past eight months that although she recognized the importance of wild oats, she also valued cultivated oats and believed that they were the ones that mattered and must take precedence over the weeds. She had ceased to chuckle over his exploits during those months and had developed the habit of harping on duty.

His duty! He must marry and impregnate his wife on his wedding night, it seemed. His grandmother did not put matters with quite such open vulgarity, of course, but that was what she meant, He had been evasive for months, but just three weeks before he had lost his good humor and pointed out to her in no uncertain terms that there was not a single lady of his acquaintance with whom he could possibly contemplate a life sentence. He would just have to gamble on living a few years longer yet and postponing that comfortable arrival of his heir.

His grandmother had called him a humbug. At least, she had called her needlepoint a humbug, which amounted to the same thing, as the stitchery could have done nothing to offend her.

"Very well, Grandmama," he had said rashly, "you name me an eligible lady and I shall go immediately and look her over. Offer for her too if I don't turn green at the prospect."

"Ella's granddaughter," she had said without a moment's hesitation, speaking of one of her card-playing cronies. "In the country. Coming up for the Season next spring, but bound to be snaffled up in a twinkling, Charles. Father loaded with the blunt. You go down there and forestall the opposition. Good family. Barrie. And just out of the schoolroom. Don't tell me that fact don't set your mouth to watering, m'boy, for I shan't believe you."

"You have not even seen the girl, Grandmama?" he had asked, aghast.

"Don't need to," she had said. "She has everything you could want in a wife, Charles. Haven't heard anything about her being unable to breed. That's all that matters, y'know. You don't need to give up all your high flyers, boy. Always used to tell Middleburgh he might have one for every day of the week as long as he kept up appearances. Didn't want him forever hanging about my skirts, anyway. A devilish nuisance, men. No offense, m'boy. What?" she said, looking up at him from beneath her eyebrows, her head still bent over her needlepoint. "Afraid?"

"When do you wish me to leave?" he had asked, knowing even as he did so that there was no way of reneging on his rash challenge now.

And so he had spent an unspeakable week with the Barries, wishing every moment to be on his way back to London again, but staying for courtesy's sake. But a week was the limit, he had decided the night before after that fiasco with the governess. He would return to Grandmama and insist that he had kept his part of the bargain. He had looked the girl over, found that he did indeed turn green at the prospect of offering for her, and so had come home without doing so.

What a waste of a week, he thought with a yawn, nodding in the direction of the innkeeper and indicating that he wished to have his tankard refilled. The only event that might have made it at all worthwhile would have been a night spent with the gray governess. She had turned out to be even lovelier than he had suspected all week. That hair! He almost regretted that he had not stolen a kiss and drawn her body against his own. He suspected that it was very feminine and very shapely indeed. A night with her would have been rare sport.

However, he had got very little for all his imaginings. Unfortunately, he was afflicted with a conscience that made it impossible for him to take even as much as a kiss from an unwilling wench. Under the circumstances perhaps it was as well that nature had framed him in such a way that he did not often encounter unwillingness. On the contrary. On occasion he had even found himself obliging eager females when he would just as soon not have done so, merely because he did not wish to hurt their feelings. But if a female did say no, he had a lamentable tendency to take her at her word. He had to want her very badly even to try a little further persuasion.

Perhaps it was not an unfortunate trait of character, he decided on second thought. He hated the idea of rape. At an all-male gathering several years before, when he had been very young and considerably more foolish, he had broken a fellow's nose and a quantity of crystal glasses and decanters after the man had recounted with pride for the noisy delight of most of his listeners how he and two other daring blades had held down and ravished a lady's maid as she sat waiting for her mistress in a carriage outside a house where a masquerade ball was in progress. The crowning glory of the tale was the fact that the girl had been virgin and was dismissed three months later for being with child.

Lord Rutherford's hand paused halfway to his mouth. Sure enough, the sounds coming from outside in the cobbled yard could be produced by nothing other than a stagecoach. Very soon now his peace would be shattered by the spilling out of the human contents of that coach. He would finish his ale and retire to the relative quiet of his parlor. It really was going to be a long evening. He would have to avail himself of the services of the maid. Though she was likely to be busy about her chores until late into the night.

He watched the passengers make their noisy entry. Two young sprigs of fashion who had been riding on the roof looked more like drowned rats than the dandies they wished to be taken for. They were both slapping their hats against their legs and shaking their greatcoats, talking and laughing loudly to try to compensate for their less than immaculate appearance. Two females, one thin and one fat. Two males to match. Another man all in black, who looked as if he might be a Methodist preacher. And Miss Moore.

Rutherford's eyebrows rose and he set his tankard down slowly on the table beside him. She did not look around her. She stood quietly a little behind all the other passengers, who were loudly jostling for place and clamoring for rooms. She was clutching a worn valise, her beauty and her form completely swallowed up in gray again. She was turned fully away from him so that there was no chance of her seeing him even out of the corner of her eye. She waited for her turn with the landlord.

He could not hear what she said, even though by the time her turn came most of the other passengers had gone off to their own rooms. But he did hear the landlord's reply quite clearly. There were no rooms left. He was sorry. He sounded far from sorry, Rutherford thought, a different man entirely from the genial and subserviant host who had welcomed a fashionable earl an hour before. She must sleep in the taproom or share Effie's bed. The choice was hers. It was all the same to him. The cost was the same, whichever she chose. Effie was the maid, Rutherford guessed.

She argued. He felt some satisfaction in watching her head come up and in knowing that she was not reacting with that meek, downward glance that she had affected with the Barries. But the show of spirit did her no good. He did not hear what she said. He was sorry, the innkeeper said with an exaggerated and careless shrug. What did she expect him to do? Call out the carpenters and make another room just for her ladyship? She disappeared upstairs after a few minutes trailed by the maid, who first turned and gave him a saucy look. Yes, she was Effie, obviously.

Strange! The woman he would have bedded last night was to share a bed with the female he had intended to make sport with tonight. Why should he feel indignation on behalf of Miss Moore, when he had judged both females desirable enough to lay their heads on the pillow next his own?

The Earl of Rutherford rose to his feet, stretched, and made his way unhurriedly to the staircase.

Jessica was sitting miserably in the taproom, trying to convince herself that she did not look as conspicuous as she felt. There was no separate dining room in the Blue Peacock. There were a few private parlors, she gathered, but of course those were very private. She was forced to take up a position in the common taproom, and there she must stay until it was bedtime. Even then she could expect no privacy or comfort. She must share the untidy and none too clean attic room of the maid, who made no bones about her reluctance to extend such hospitality.

She longed suddenly for her room at Lord Barrie's house. At least it had been her own and only rarely invaded by Lady Barrie come to scold her for some imagined offense or by Sybil intent on wheedling her into doing some task for her. She had not been treated well during the two years of her employment, but at least she had known where she belonged and what to expect. Here she felt conspicuous in her quietness. Her female companion of the coach was seated at an adjoining table, laughing raucously and tipping back a tankard of ale just like the men.

She looked up in some surprise at the sound of a discreet cough beside her. The Earl of Rutherford's valet stood there, looking as immaculate and toplofty as he had looked for the past week as he lorded it over the Barries' servants.

"His lordship 'as begged me to hinform you, ma'am," he said, having the grace to speak quietly, "that 'e would be hobliged to you for joining 'im for dinner in 'is parlor."

Jessica felt the color rise in her cheeks. He was here? And knew that she was here too? And he wished to entertain her? Alone, in a private parlor. He must know the impropriety of the suggestion. Of course, she was merely a governess, a servant. She looked around the room and reminded herself anew of the alternative.

"Thank you," she said, and rose quietly to her feet. She allowed the valet to lead the way across the crowded taproom and up the stairs. Her heart was beating with painful thumps by the time he opened one of the doors on the upper story and stood aside for her to precede him into the room.

The parlor was empty, she saw with great relief. What on earth was he doing at this inn? She had heard nothing the day before about his intention to leave.

It was a comfortable room, not large, but made cozy by the worn carpet on the floor, two shabby armchairs, a table already set for two, a branch of lit candles on the table, and a cheerful fire crackling in the hearth. Jessica crossed to the fireplace and held her hands out to the blaze. She had not realized just how much the cold had contributed to her misery during the day's journey and her short stay in the taproom. The valet had disappeared through a second door.

"Ah, Miss Moore,"the voice of Lord Rutherford said from this inner doorway a few minutes later. "What a happy coincidence that we have chosen the same inn for tonight. I trust you have had a comfortable journey today?"

He looked larger, more overpoweringly masculine in this small room than he had looked at Lord Barrie's. There was a certain haughtiness in his manner that only succeeded in making him look more handsome than usual.

"Yes, I thank you, my lord," she said.

"Liar, Miss Moore." He smiled and advanced farther into the room. "I have traveled on the stagecoach in my time. It is considered one of the necessary experiences of life by young blades, you know. There is no more disagreeable mode of travel. Especially, I would imagine, if one were forced to ride inside, as you must have done. Was the company enlightening?"

"Not especially so," she admitted, unsmiling. "But at least I was out of the rain for the last hour."

"And your accommodations are comfortable, I assume?" he asked politely.

"Yes, quite, I thank you, my lord," she said.

"You are accustomed to sharing a room and a bed with barmaids, then?" he asked, eyebrows raised.

Jessica's lips tightened. "I perceive you are in the habit of asking questions only so that you may contradict the answers," she said. "I have not complained, my lord. My purpose is to reach London as soon as I may. I do not demand luxuries along the way."

"And do you have some bright prospect ahead that makes you rush so, Miss Moore?" he asked. "I was unaware that your departure from your employment with the Barries was imminent."

Jessica did not answer.

He closed the remaining distance between them and stood before her. "Does your presence on the road to London have anything to do with me, Miss Moore?" he asked, hands clasped behind his back.

"My lord?" She looked up at him with wide, blank eyes.

"My lord?" he mimicked. "All innocent incomprehension, my dear? I am asking you if you were dismissed from your employment?"

Jessica's head dropped until one long aristocratic finger came beneath her chin and raised her face very firmly so that she was looking at him again.

"Of what are you accused?" he asked. "As I remember it, we were not even touching when we were so unfortunately disturbed. Not that I would not have had matters otherwise if I had had my way. Surely it must have been obvious to common sense that if we had been in the process of enjoying each other, we would not have been standing in the library, almost respectably clothed."

"In my employment I was not permitted to have any dealings with male guests," Jessica said.

" 'Dealings,' " he repeated. "Standing in the library very properly repulsing the advances of a male guest was construed as having dealings? My poor Miss Moore. I am so dreadfully sorry. I had no idea. Even when I left this morning, I was quite unaware that you had been called to account and sent packing."

Jessica wished he would remove his finger from beneath her chin. She was finding looking into his eyes very uncomfortable. "You do not owe me an apology, my lord," she said. "What happened was not your fault. I have been in trouble before for leaving my room after retiring for the night. It was not your fault that I was in the library when I had no business being downstairs at all."

He looked searchingly into her eyes for a moment but was prevented from commenting by the arrival of the innkeeper with their dinner. He released his hold of her chin and gestured toward the table, where he seated her with marked courtesy. The landlord too, she noticed, bowed in her direction after filling her wine glass.

Jessica enjoyed the meal far more than she would have thought possible. The food was good, though plain. But it was not that that caused the enjoyment. She was not, truth to tell, hungry after a day of being squashed and jostled on the road. But she found the stiff courtesy of the valet as he served them soothing to her bruised pride. And she found Lord Rutherford an interesting and surprisingly charming host. He set himself to entertain her conversationally and did so, taking upon himself the whoie burden of introducing and developing various topics.

She realized at the end of the meal that he had succeeded in setting her entirely at her ease. And that was quite a feat when one considered that she was dining alone with a man whose attractions had been doing strange things to her heartbeat for all of a week. And how improper it was to be sitting thus with him, un-chaperoned in the private parlor of an inn! But really, she thought as she folded her napkin at the end of the meal, she did not care.

Lord Rutherford had settled back in his chair, one forearm resting on the table, playing with the stem of his empty wine glass. He was looking at her in such a way that she knew that the courtesy a host owed his guest during a meal was at an end. There would be no more purely social conversation, she thought with some regret.

"What are your plans, Miss Moore?" he asked.

Jessica smoothed the cloth before her on the table. "I shall move on to other employment," she said with a shrug.

"As what?" he asked. "I do not imagine the Barries have given you a glowing character reference with which to dazzle a future employer."

"No," she admitted after a short pause during which she could think of nothing else to say.

"You cannot be a governess, then," he said quietly, "or a lady's companion. Or a librarian. Or even a lady's maid. Probably not even a scullery maid. Do you have a family to which to return?"

"No," Jessica said after a moment's hesitation.

"I see," he said. "Your options are alarmingly few, are they not, my dear?"

"I am not worried," she said, lifting her chin and looking him in the eye. "Something will turn up."

"Probably," he agreed. "In fact, Miss Moore, I am in a position to offer you employment that is well paid and would place you in a positon of some security and some comfort."

Her eyes widened. She had an alarming feeling of deja vu.

"I do not believe you would regret the decision to become my mistress," the Earl of Rutherford said.