The Ungrateful Governness

6

"I should not be here with you unchaperoned," Jessica said, knowing even as the words came out of her mouth what a stupid thing it was to say. "Her grace would not like it."

Lord Rutherford laughed, as she had feared he would. "This is the first I have heard of servants needing chaperonage," he said. "And in light of what happened-or almost happened-between you and me little more than a week ago, I think your protests rather silly. Do you not agree?"

Jessica could think of nothing to say. She crossed the small room and stood staring out into the darkness.

"What story did you tell her grace?" Rutherford asked. "You were utterly destitute a week ago. You were sent to her to beg help in finding employment. And this is the employment you have found? Masquerading as a lady and making all the people here tonight your dupes? I find your appearance and your presence here distasteful, to put the matter lightly. I await your explanation."

"Her grace has been kind enough to take me in for the winter," Jessica said. "I told no lies and used no tricks. Indeed, I begged her to find me employment. If you object to what she has done, my lord, I believe it is to her you should speak and not to me. I do not feel that I owe you an explanation."

"Who are you?" The words exploded into a stunned silence. "Who is Miss Jessica Moore? I assume that if you had employment as a governess, you are not precisely a nobody. You obviously have some breeding, some education. Your father has some claim to the name of gentleman, I assume. Which fact makes you in the most general application of the term a lady. But there is a difference between being a lady and being of the sort of rank that would gain you admittance to a gathering such as this. You have no business here."

"Her grace apparently disagrees," Jessica said.

"Who is your father?" Rutherford asked. She could see, turning from the window, that his hands were held in fists at his sides.

"My father was a clergyman," she said. "A village clergyman. An impoverished village clergyman. He never had the means to send me to school. When he died, I had no choice but to seek employment." Her voice hardly wavered over the lie.

He nodded. "It is as I thought," he said. "My grandmother is growing older and more eccentric every day. Obviously she was taken by your youth and beauty and decided to amuse herself by trying to pass you off as a lady of the highest class. It will not do, Jess. You will be found out. Any gentleman you hope to ensnare as a husband will inquire into your background. He will want more than this mysterious reference to a grandmother who was one of her grace's dearest friends."

"Then you will be able to enjoy my public exposure to ridicule," Jessica said.

He made an impatient gesture with head and hand. "Enough of this impertinence," he said. "I have my grandmother's reputation to consider as well. I cannot tolerate any continuation of this charade. It must end. If you have no alternative, then I will renew my former offer. You may still become my mistress and retain this taste for pretty clothes that you have clearly acquired. That is more the life to which you belong, Jess."

"In your bed," she said.

"When I choose to put you there, yes," he agreed.

"And don't pretend that you would find those occasions distasteful, Jess. We both know different, don't we? But you will not spend the whole of your life in my bed. I will provide you with a home to enjoy. You wil have a carriage in which to travel around almost at will. I will take you to entertainments where it is acceptable for you to appear. Come, I think the time has arrived when you really have little other choice."

"On the contrary," Jessica said. "I find your offer insulting, my lord, when I have already rejected it once and when I am a guest at your grandmother's home and in this house tonight. Very insulting. I believe I shall return to her grace in the ballroom. She will be worried about me."

She lifted her chin, looked him in the eye in the semi-darkness, and tried to walk around him to the door. It was a foolish move to make, of course, as she discovered immediately. His hand clamped around her upper arm so that she bit her lower lip with the pain of it.

"Oh no, you don't," he said between his teeth. "I think I will have you learn, Jess Moore, that I am not to be trifled with. Haughty manner and saucy speeches are not suited to a common servant. And that, my dear, is precisely what you are, despite the patronage of a rather foolish old lady. Indeed, there would be many who would call you slut or worse if they knew just one half of what happened between you and me both in and out of a certain bed in a country inn a week ago. Did you not know that unmarried ladies of the ton do not lie with men or offer their bodies for free exploration?"

If he hoped to make her blush and cringe, he was not going to succeed, Jessica decided. She glared back into his eyes, only inches from her own. "Do you threaten me, my lord?" she asked. "Am I to expect the story of our night together to become common drawing room gossip if I refuse to repeat that night with you-with a different ending, of course?"

"My patience is wearing very thin," he said. "I do not need to threaten, Jess. I have never had to resort to using any sort of force to attract women to my bed and would certainly not begin on someone of such impertinent character. But I give you fair warning that I will not allow you to hurt anyone in this masquerade of yours. Do not try to win a rich or distinguished husband for yourself, Jess, or any influential female friend. Be sure that if you do, I shall find out all the details of your background for myself and pass them along to your chosen victims. That is no threat. That is statement of fact. I trust I make myself understood?"

"Oh, eminently so, my lord," Jessica said. "Tell me, pray, am I permitted to seek out a wealthy or influential protector? May I become another man's mistress without your carrying out the dreadful threat to expose my past? Or do you feel that by having lain in your bed and allowed your hands to touch me I have taken your stamp of possession on me? Pray tell me. I do not like nasty surprises. I should hate to have a future protector suddenly discover that my papa was an impoverished country clergyman."

"By God, Jess, you are impertinent," Rutherford said, his iron grip of her arm transferring to his other hand, while she found her free arm subjected to the same treatment. "Have you only just realized how very lovely you are? And how very desirable? Is that it? You have discovered that you need not teach for a pittance when you can make your fortune with your person?"

Jessica smiled broadly into his face. "Yes, that is exactly it," she said. "I may find someone more generous than you, my lord. And then, of course, I may not. Would you care to tell me the exact terms of your offer so that I may make comparisons when the other offers begin to come in? You understand, of course, that your chances will be very small if one of those rich, titled gentlemen should happen to wish to wed me even after you have made your shocking disclosure?"

"You are an unprincipled female of the lowest order, are you not?" he said, his grip tightening so that she winced noticeably. "I wish I had known back at that inn what I know now. I swear I would have carried that act to its completion. Do you believe my grandmother would have allowed you over her doorstep then?"

Jessica was unwise enough to tip back her head and laugh into his face.

She was not laughing a moment later. She was gasping against the onslaught of his mouth, wondering before she grasped the lapels of his brocaded coat and clung if her knees really were going to buckle under her and set her swooning at his feet.

It was a kiss without tenderness. It was meant to be insulting, punishing. One hand splayed behind her head and held it steady against the pressure of his mouth over hers. His tongue plundered her mouth without any pretense of gentle caress. His other hand moved downward over her spine, bringing each part of her body hard against his. Her clinging hands were soon imprisoned between them.

Memory came flooding back: memory of the smell of him, of the taste of him; memory of the ache that his mouth and tongue sent spiraling downward into her throat, through her breasts, and into her womb; memory of a warm bed and the feel of his long, muscled body against hers, of his hands moving, touching, caressing, arousing; memory of those hands against her naked flesh. Her hands loosened their grip on his lapels and slid upward around his neck.

His arms had moved to encircle her body and he held her close, though no longer bruisingly so. He still kissed her as deeply, but his tongue was circling hers, caressing it. Jessica lost touch with time and place.

"Jess," he murmured finally against her ear, "I could teach you to be very good at this, you know. You could be the best, most sought-after courtesan in England after you and I tire of each other. A long time in the future, if ever! You really are suited to nothing else now. You must see that. You have outgrown your days of innocence as a governess. And you can never be a real lady, my dear, however hard you dream. Cinderellas exist only in the pages of storybooks."

Jessica leaned back against the circle of his arms. Her own were trapped above them so that she was not able to accomplish a very lethal swing. However, her slap did have the element of surprise, and the room was filled for one moment with a very satisfying crack.

"I wish that to be the last time, my lord-the very last," she said, "that you make insulting remarks and suggestions to me. Your assumption that my impoverished background makes me therefore a woman of loose and low morals says a great deal about your own morality. I will not be touched by you again-ever. I trust I have made myself understood?"

He had not moved beyond parting his hands behind her back and dropping them to his sides. He did not say a word or make any attempt to stop her from sweeping past him and out of the room.

It was not wise to gallop one's horse through Hyde Park, Lord Rutherford told himself even as he did just that. Although it was late November and although it was relatively early in the morning, the park was rarely deserted. There was almost sure to be some maid out walking a dog, some tradesman taking a scenic route to his work, or some more fashionable person intent on walking off the cobwebs of the mind acquired the previous night. One was not expected to move at great speed in the park. It was uncivilized to do so. It was also dangerous.

Yet he galloped, the harsh wind of November whipping against his cheeks and causing his eyes to water. Cobwebs of the mind! His brain felt fuller of chain mail.

He did not know quite why he should still feel so furious over the events of the night before. After all, if the woman wished to masquerade as a lady of the ton, and if his grandmother chose to aid and abet her for the sake of amusement during the long and often tedious months of winter, it was really none of his concern. He had sent her to Berkeley Square, it was true, but he had done so in good faith, believing that he owed a helpless servant that much assistance in finding a new situation. And he had clearly explained the circumstances to his grandmother, had specifically asked that the woman be sent away from London.

If between them those two women had concocted some mad scheme for the profit of the one and the entertainment of the other, then he should shrug the matter off and forget all about it. At least he felt himself absolved from the promise he had made his grandmother to give the girl his company and help bring her into fashion. Why allow the matter to affect his whole mood, then? He would give it no further thought. Rutherford eased his horse back to a safer canter.

She had been presented to Mama, Faith, and Hope. He had glanced across the ballroom at a time when he was conversing with an acquaintance from the House of Lords, and there she had been with his grandmother, talking to his mother and Faith. Had Grandmama's wits gone totally begging? It was one thing for her to countenance such a trick on the ton. It was another to involve her son's family. They would all become the laughingstock when the truth was known. And then at the end of the very next set he had watched Hope approach the dowager and her charge of her own free will and converse with them until Godfrey, bless his heart, had borne Jess away.

It must not be allowed to continue, he decided as he had the night before. There was no point in talking further with Jess and appealing to her sense of decency. Clearly she had none. He must call privately on his grandmother that afternoon and see if he could make her see sense. He did not relish the task. The dowager was notoriously difficult to deal with. She had a will of iron and was not to be turned from any enterprise on which her heart was firmly set. He would just have to hope that she would be satisfied with last night's triumph and uninterested in continuing the experiment.

Good God! he thought with a renewed burst of fury, the woman had been a servant, a little scrap of a gray governess a mere two weeks before. She had been a meek little thing who never raised her eyes in public or uttered a sound. She had certainly known her place when she was with the Barries. And he had been misguided enough to pity her. And less than two weeks ago she had agreed quite coolly to become his mistress and had carried her agreement through to the very brink of fulfillment.

And even then he had pitied her. He had considered her a demure, frightened girl who had felt herself forced into giving up all her principles, but whose character had been strong enough at the last moment to save her and to plunge her into an even worse predicament. He had pitied her and tried yet again to help her.

Had she seen the possibility even then? Had she seen how easy it was to lure a gentleman into making such an offer? If he had desired her when she appeared as she did, clad all in shapeless gray, her hair scraped into its unbecoming bun, what might not be accomplished if she could find some way of improving that appearance and some way of gaining introductions to other wealthy gentlemen? His offer to take her to his grandmother must have seemed like a gift from heaven. It was no wonder that she had refused to be taken but had chosen to go alone!

What story had she spun for his grandmother's benefit? he wondered. It must have been clever indeed. The dowager was no one's fool.

Yes, speak to Grandmama he must. Besides, how could he meekly ignore the woman after the challenge she had flung down the night before? He had never been bested by a woman. Not nearly. And he had no intention of making the encounter of the night before the end of the war. Merely an unimportant skirmish.

He had really thought he was succeeding. He had begun to kiss her in frustration, the need to punish and insult her the only way he could cope with her stubbornness and impudence. But he had felt her almost instant response. She had not clamped lips and teeth together as he might have expected. Nor had she removed her body from his after his one free hand had brought her against him. He had felt a certain triumph as soon as her hands came away from his lapels and moved up to his neck and into his hair. He had not missed noting that her breasts had then been pressed more intimately against him.

She had wanted him, he was sure. Even if those reactions had been feigned in order to take him off his guard, there had been the very real surge of heat that he had felt with his hands and his body. He had been careful then to change the quality of his embrace, to woo her with his body. He had even been weighing in his mind how comfortable a bed that chaise longue would make and how safe the unlocked door behind him would be while he sealed their contract.

The woman obviously had iron-hard control over her own feelings. He could not have been mistaken about her response. He had too much experience in such matters to be easily fooled. But somehow she had mastered her own desire and had succeeded in dealing him that stinging slap. That too had never happened to him before. He had always sworn that the female who struck him would be struck back twice as hard. And indeed, it had taken no small measure of control on his part to let his hands drop to his sides and to allow her to leave. Instinct had made him long to tip her beneath his arm and wallop her until she cried for mercy. Alas, he had discovered that he could no more strike a female than he could bed an unwilling one.

Physical punishment he could not deal her, then. But he would not stand meekly by and allow her to make a fool of him. She had refused to give up her charade. She had refused his renewed offer of protection. He had given her every chance. Now there would have to be punishment of some sort. The woman was to learn that one did not trifle with the Earl of Rutherford and escape unscathed.

Damnation, but she was a desirable wench, he thought, grinding his teeth as he turned his horse in the direction of home. He could not pretend even to himself that he had been guided solely by his head when he had embraced her the night before. Indeed, he had not really known he was going to kiss her until he was in the process of doing so. And the warmth and moistness of her mouth encompassing his tongue, and the shapeliness of her body pressed against his own had sent his own temperature soaring as well as hers. His sense of triumph had resulted as much from his conviction that she was after all to become his own possession for as long as he chose as it had from the belief that the charade would now come to an end. If he were totally honest with himself, he would admit that he had considered that chaise longue more as a means of fulfilling an almost overwhelming desire than as a way of finalizing a contract.

She was the only woman who had ever resisted him. Oh, not quite, he supposed. There were always those occasions when he sent out tentative lures only to discover that there was no point in expending further energies on a siege. But he had never been rejected on any occasion when he had made a determined effort to attract and even made a definite verbal offer.

And now he had been rejected-three times-by the same female, and a servant at that, a girl past her first bloom and without a penny in the world. And there was probably the attraction, he realized as soon as he had mentally verbalized the facts. He was experiencing the universal human craving for what cannot be had.

She did not wish him ever to touch her again, she had said. What a thoroughly unnecessary admonition! His very sanity might depend on his staying as far away from her as circumstances would allow.

The Dowager Duchess of Middleburgh bestowed a benign look on her butler. The man had just informed her that her triumph was now finally complete. He had not said those words, actually. He had merely announced in his well-trained confidential tones that were designed to carry no farther than her own ears that the Earl of Rutherford was downstairs in the hall, requesting a private word with her.

"Show him up," she said.

The butler, long trained not to contradict his lady, looked her briefly in the eye to see if she could possibly have missed the detail about the private interview, understood that she had not, made a stiff obeisance, and withdrew himself from the drawing room to carry out orders.

The duchess meanwhile smiled sympathetically at Lord Beasley and Mr. Menteith, who for lack of other entertainment had been thrown into each other's company, and offered them more tea. It was extremely gratifying to know that her charge was too busy to do more than pass the time of day with two such eligible bachelors. Beasley was somewhat too fond of his victuals and the wine bottle, it was true, and consequently was bound together into one large, creaking bundle by heavy stays; it was true too that Menteith was without title, and most of his fabulous wealth had been amassed by his father through trade. But it was a splendid triumph to see them in her drawing room when dear Jessica had so far made only one public appearance.

Jessica had Sir Godfrey Hall sitting on one side of her, engaging her in spirited conversation, and Hope on the other. Miss Menteith was sitting shyly on a stool at her feet, gazing up at the three conversationalists with an almost worshipful attitude. There were some who would have frowned at the girl's visiting with her brother when she would not be brought out until the following spring. But what could one expect of the off-spring of a gentleman unconventional enough to go into trade and galling enough to repair the family fortunes thereby?

"The Earl of Rutherford, your grace," the butler announced in tones that clearly but silently added, "and don't blame me for the consequences neither."

"Ah, Charles," the dowager said, advancing on him with one hand extended, her expression all gracious innocence. "I have been expecting you, m'boy."

It said something for the boy's experience with life, she thought approvingly, that he stopped abruptly on the threshold of the room for only a moment before recovering himself and advancing into the room to make his bows to all its occupants. He was unable to summon a smile, but then modern manners were not what they had been in her day.

She forced him to accept a cup of tea and limp his way through a stilted conversation with Beasley and Menteith for all of five minutes before taking pity on him finally and laying a hand on his arm.

"Charles and I have some private business to discuss for a few minutes," she said graciously to the room at large. "Do, pray, excuse us."

"Certainly, Grandmama," Lady Hope said, while several of the others gave low assenting murmurs. "Do come back before leaving, though, Charles. I rely on you to escort me home as I dismissed my maid when I arrived. And Mama will certainly be happy to see you. You have called at the house only twice since returning from the country, you know."

Lord Rutherford bowed in the direction of his sister, carefully avoiding the eyes of Jessica, the dowager noticed with certain amusement, and followed his grandmother from the room and into a small study.

"Grandmama!" he said, clearly rattled. "You did not misunderstand my message, I take it?"

"That you wished to see me privately?" she asked. "I assumed you did not realize there were visitors and would not wish to appear rude, m'boy."

"You know very well why I asked to see you alone," he said. "It will not do, Grandmama. She has no business in this house. Certainly not as a guest. And certainly not socializing with the likes of Hope and Beasley and Menteith. Your joke is quite distasteful."

"Sit down, m'boy," she said, motioning to a brocaded chair on one side of the desk while she took one on the other side. "You are far too tall to argue with. Puts me at a disadvantage. I assume you refer to Jessica?"

"You know I refer to her, Grandmama," he said. "She is a governess, a servant. And one not even in good standing at present. To my knowledge she has no money, no prospects. Without your mad intervention she would now be walking the streets. And I begin to think that that is where she belongs."

"Oh, I think not," the dowager said with maddening calm. "I do not for a moment believe that you think that, Charles. You think that she belongs in your bed. Can't say I altogether blame you. A pretty and quite delightful little thing."

"If it is in my bed she belongs," Rutherford said, "it is as my whore, Grandmama, paid for the services she renders there and forever kept apart from the sort of company with whom she now mingles in the drawing room. She is there now, for goodness' sake. With Hope. My sister."

"If Hope has not already been contaminated by contact with you," the duchess said soothingly, "I doubt she will be by Jessica, Charles. After all, you have been whoring for ten years and more."

He got abruptly to his feet. "That is an entirely different matter," he said. "I am a gentleman."

"Utter poppycock!" his grandmother said coolly. "Sit down, Charles, and lower your voice, m'boy. Nothing is ever gained by losing one's temper. I thought the gel did very nicely last night, didn't you? She would have been a great success even without your gracious assistance."

"It was a damned trick, Grandmama!" he said, putting his clenched fists down on the desk and leaning across it toward her. He had not obeyed the order to sit down. "You deliberately lured me there last night to witness what dupes the two of you could make of Lord Chalmers and all his guests. All right, you succeeded. But the matter must be left there. Find the woman employment. Let her go. This way, someone is going to get hurt. Probably even her. You are giving her ideas beyond her station."

"Calm yourself, Charles," the dowager said, leaning back in her chair and spreading her hands, palm up. "Actually, we have no quarrel with each other. I happen to agree that Jessica belongs in your bed. But not as your fancy piece. Far too vulgar. As your wife, m'boy. As your countess."