The Ungrateful Governness

7

Lord Rutherford rested his fists on the desk and stared for a moment into his grandmother's eyes. Then he gave vent to an incredulous bark of laughter.

"You want me to marry Jess Moore?" he said. "The woman who was governess to your last choice of bride for me?"

"I imagine her education and talents were very much wasted in the post," the dowager said. "I think she would make you an eminently suitable bride, Charles. The gel has beauty and breeding. She has character. More important, she has spirit. She will be able to keep you in line after your marrige. And you really must settle down, m'boy. Middleburgh-your grandpapa-had his sidelines, you know, but he was ever discreet. I grant him that. And you are the future Middleburgh, though I wish long life to your father. Won't do for you to settle a mousy wife in the country breeding while you continue to sow your oats in town."

"I agree with you on essential points, Grandmama," Rutherford said. "But how can you possibly suggest that woman as my future duchess? My wife must at least be of the same social class as I."

"Jessica is a lady," his grandmother pointed out.

"Oh, yes," he agreed, "she is somewhat above the rank of scullery maid, I grant you. Her father was a country parson, Grandmama. She admitted as much to me last night. She even added that he was impoverished and unable to afford to send her to school."

"Gels also have mothers," the dowager said.

He made an impatient gesture. "Her mother was probably one of the royal princesses, of course," he said. "I will not do it, Grandmama. I will not even consider the matter. And I will not see the woman again. You may stop trying to throw us into company together. You will be wasting your efforts."

"Your mama will disapprove of your not spending Christmas with the family," the dowager said innocently.

"At Hendon Park?" he asked with a frown. "Of course I shall be going there. I always do."

"Then you will be seeing Jessica again," she said.

A dull flush colored Rutherford's cheeks. "You are never taking her there," he said. "To our private family Christmas, Grandmama?"

"She is my guest for the winter," the dowager said. "Where else would she go, Charles? And how would I look back with clear conscience on the memories of my dear friend, her grandmama, if I left her here?"

"Which fictitious character doubtless has a name, a home, a history, and a genealogy reaching back at least five centuries," her grandson said.

"Don't sneer, Charles," she said. "It spoils your looks. You are quite right, of course." She paused, looking sharply at him, waiting for the question that did not come. She nodded briskly. "Now, dear boy." She rose to her feet and reached for his arm. "We will return to the drawing room where Hope will be waiting for you. And you will have the chance to be civil to Jessica. She was otherwise occupied when you arrived."

"I shall make my bow," he said. "Beyond that I will not go."

"Just a word of advice for the future," his grandmother said, patting his arm. "Jessica is my guest, Charles, and is to be treated with the proper decorum. You must not offer her carte blanche again, m'boy.

Twice is quite enough. She will begin to find you tedious if you risk a third."

"She told you about last night, then," Rutherford said with some contempt, reaching out and opening the study door. "I might have known that she would go running bearing tales."

"Not by any means," she said. "But I am not quite in my dotage, boy. When a gel disappears with my grandson for almost half an hour and returns with an angry glint in her eye and a mouth that looks quite thoroughly kissed, I do not conclude that they have been discussing Latin literature."

"She refused me again," he said. "She sees that she can gain more from clinging to you, it seems."

"And quite right too," she said. "You should try to eliminate that spiteful inflection from your voice when speaking of such disappointments, Charles. You are a man of close to thirty years, not a spoiled schoolboy, m'dear."

"Sir Godfrey was unable to spend Christmas with us at Hendon Park last year," Lady Hope was telling Jessica. "His father was ill, and he felt obliged to go to his sick bed. But he is to come this year. We often invite close friends, you know, even though it is mainly a family Christmas. I believe you have made an impression on Sir Godfrey, my dear Miss Moore. As you have with several other young men. And that is as it should be. You are very lovely. If I were ten years younger, I should be positively jealous of you."

"You are very kind," Jessica said. "Everyone has been kind. I did not expect to have visitors today after only one appearance in public."

"Oh, there is nothing at all strange about that," her companion said, reaching out and patting Jessica's hand. "Even I, my dear, had my fair share of admirers during my first Season. The fact that Papa is a duke probably had something to do with that, of course. I was never a beauty."

Jessica smiled, but she was not given the chance to frame a reply.

"Oh, you do not need to pity me," the older woman said with a little laugh. "I knew at a very young age that I would never be pretty. Faith was, you see, and when people used to call her pretty and then turn to me and say I was handsome-always with a little pause before the word, my dear-I knew what they meant. I have never allowed the fact to disturb my sleep. I once loved, you know."

"Did you?" Jessica found herself warming almost despite herself to this nervous, talkative woman. All the other guests had taken their leave.

"He was very dashing," Lady Hope said. "And he loved me in return. Now is not that an amazing fact? He was killed in Spain." She gave Jessica a quick smile before her face became serious again. "He was a soldier, you know."

"I am so sorry," Jessica murmured.

"You need not be." She patted Jessica's hand briskly again. "There would have been the devil to pay when he came home to claim me. Papa would not have willingly allowed me to wed a soldier."

"I am still sorry," Jessica said. "You must have suffered."

"Suffering strengthens the mind," the other woman said. "Sir Godfrey would be a good catch for you, Miss Moore. He is a kindly man and only a couple of years older than Charles. About my age, in fact. He will try to fix your interest at Hendon, I would not wonder."

Jessica blushed. "I really am not thinking about marriage at all," she said.

"Oh, nonsense!" said Lady Hope. "We all think of marriage, my dear, whether we like to admit it or not. Usually I pretend that the maiden state suits me very well. But I will confess to you that I would very much like to have met another gentleman to whom I could have given my affection. I would like to have a man to call my own. And a child. Oh, I would like to have just one child, Miss Moore. Now is that not a foolish notion at my age? The child would not know whether to call me Mama or Grandmama." She laughed.

"I pray you will have your wish, Lady Hope," Jessica said, smiling.

. "Sir Godfrey has been to Greece," Lady Hope said. "He traveled through Russia and even went to Constantinople. Is not that a marvel, now? He could not make the Grand Tour, you see, because of the wars. He will tell you about his travels if you really insist that you are interested. Otherwise, he will not even mention them. He is afraid of boring his listeners. Now is not that a foolish thing?"

The door opened at that moment and the dowager duchess entered with the Earl of Rutherford. Jessica felt as if someone had robbed her of breath. She did not quite know whether she should look at him or pretend that she had not noticed he was in the room. She chose the former.

"Hope?" he said, bowing. "Miss Moore? I trust you are not overtired today after last evening?" He flushed slightly.

"Thank you, no, my lord," she said. And she discovered that they were stranded, looking determinedly into each other's eyes, with an audience of two looking on, and nothing to say. She felt her own color rise.

"Sir Godfrey has invited Miss Moore and me to join him in a visit to Astley's Amphitheater tomorrow, Charles," Lady Hope said, without seeming to realize what an awkward situation she had relieved. "I do believe he intended to ask just Miss Moore, but I was sitting next to her, you see, and he felt obliged to ask me too. Was not that a foolish notion? However, dear Miss Moore would have needed someone to chaperone her, so I daresay it is just as well that he did ask me too. I am certainly old enough to be a quite acceptable chaperone, am I not, Grandmama? And I am most gratified to be asked. It must be all of ten years since I last saw the acrobats."

"You will enjoy the outing, Miss Moore," Rutherford said stiffly, handing his grandmother to a chair. "The magicians and the clowns were always my favorites when I was a boy."

"You must go along too, Charles," the dowager said. "It does not seem fair that Sir Godfrey should have two ladies all to himself."

"I believe I have a luncheon engagement tomorrow, Grandmama," he said quickly.

"No, dear boy," she said. "That is for the day after. I distinctly recall your telling me so."

"Sir Godfrey did mention that he would ask you to make up numbers," Lady Hope said. "Did he not, Miss Moore?"

Jessica murmured agreement.

"Then it seems that I will have the honor of seeing you again tomorrow, Miss Moore," the earl said, bowing in her direction. "Hope? You are ready to leave? Shall I walk you home or would you like to ride in my curricle?"

"Oh, the curricle, by all means, Charles," she said, getting to her feet after patting Jessica's hands. "I rarely have the chance to ride in one these days. Most people seem to assume that someone of my age should be bundled up inside a closed carriage. Is not that foolish?" She laughed and bent to kiss the dowager's cheek.

Jessica felt that the plum-colored bonnet with the curled pink feather was rather too grand to wear to the circus, but the dowager duchess had assured her that it would do very nicely. And it did match exactly the warm pelisse that she was planning to wear over her pink wool dress. It still seemed strange to her to have a dressing room full of brightly colored, fashionable garments, some for the morning, some for the afternoon, some for informal evening wear, some for formal evening wear. Life had been dull but blessedly uncomplicated when she had used to rise in the morning to don a gray dress and confine her hair into its bun.

She was dawdling, she knew. She should have been downstairs five minutes ago so that she would not have to keep Sir Godfrey waiting when he brought his carriage for her. She was looking forward to going to Astley's, of course she was. It seemed delightfully frivolous to be setting off for an afternoon's entertainment by acrobats, clowns, performing horses, and magicians. She had never seen anything like it. She was not at all sure that Papa would have approved.

But she was not looking forward to the afternoon for all that. She would have thoroughly enjoyed the prospect of going with Sir Godfrey and Lady Hope. She liked them both. Sir Godfrey was an amiable gentleman and had the gift of keeping a conversation alive without either boring his audience with a monologue or demanding too much in the way of speech from them. And she liked Lady Hope, who appeared to have little confidence in either her looks or her charms, though she possessed both.

After having looked at the feathered bonnet for several irresolute minutes, Jessica finally placed it on her head and fastened the ribbons beneath her chin. What if he did think it too grand? What if she must observe him make mental calculations of how much it had cost his grandmother? What if he thought it inappropriate for an afternoon at the amphitheater? She did not owe any explanation whatsoever to the Earl of Rutherford. She did not care what he thought. Indeed, she hoped that he would disapprove.

Jessica had had a dreadful suspicion since the previous afternoon that the dowager duchess was trying to promote a match between her and Lord Rutherford. The realization had taken her completely by surprise. She would not have thought that she would be deemed worthy of the old lady's grandson, despite the fact that her grandfather was a marquess. After all, her father had been a clergyman, and she had been brought up in a country parsonage. And she had been employed for the last two years as a governess.

But incredible as it seemed, the dowager was deliberately throwing the two of them together. Jessica could not believe that Lord Rutherford had voluntarily come back into the drawing room the afternoon before. It would have been quite easy for him to send for Lady Hope without coming to fetch her. And how could his grandmother have known about his luncheon appointment-that obviously mythical engagement-when he had not even mentioned the name of his host? She had wanted him to accompany Jessica to Astley's.

Should she talk to her hostess about the matter? Jessica asked herself for surely the twentieth time in as many hours. Should she explain to her that she did not wish any but the most unavoidable contact with Lord Rutherford? But how could she? She was living on the charity of the duchess. How could she so insult her?

Jessica picked up her reticule and opened it once more to check its contents. And would it be the plain truth anyway? Did she truly wish never to see him again? It was certainly true that she felt great discomfort at the idea of meeting him, and great embarrassment too. She could not behave naturally in his presence. Every faculty was aware of him so that she always found that she could not look at him and yet could not not look at him either. She wished to behave with easy manners and easy conversation when he was near and yet found every movement jerky and every thought and utterance labored.

And always, always there was awareness of the intimacies she had shared with him on two occasions. The greatest liberty of which he should be able to boast was a kiss on her gloved hand. But he had kissed her with shocking familiarity, had touched and explored every part of her with his hands, had lain in a bed with her. And she had allowed a certain repetition of those intimacies only two evenings before. Indeed, she had participated with an eagerness that made her cheeks feel uncomfortably hot as she stood inside the door of her room trying to persuade herself that she must go downstairs. She had wanted him quite desperately for a few mad minutes there at Lord Chalmers' ball.

So she could tell herself that she did not ever wish to see him again, that she disliked and despised him. But she would probably never convince herself. She had ordered him never to touch her again and was in despair lest he take her at her word. She dreaded seeing him again in perhaps just a few minutes' time. Yet she had a terror that he would after all have found an excuse not to come. She was horrified at the notion that his grandmother was trying to promote a match between them. Yet her insides performed churning leaps of excitement at the very thought of being Lord Rutherford's bride, his life's companion, his lover.

She would concentrate her attentions all on Sir Godfrey Hall, Jessica decided, opening her door resolutely and striding to the staircase. She would talk to him. She would ask him about Russia and Greece and Constantinople. She would sit by him and look only at him. She would ignore the Earl of Rutherford. She would forget he was even there.

Liar! an unbidden part of her brain commented.

She was choosing to ignore him, Rutherford thought. Apart from a stiff nod of the head and a look that alighted on about the third cape down on his greatcoat, she had cast neither a glance nor a word in his direction. It was really quite a feat of concentration, he decided, since she was sitting directly opposite him in a small carriage, their knees almost touching.

She really was incredibly lovely. Her beauty had been evident even when she was wearing the Barrie disguise and even for that matter when she wore nothing but that shapeless linen nightgown. Dressed fashionably as she had been on the three occasions he had seen her in

London, she was quite breathtaking. He would not have expected a plum-colored outfit to look becoming on a young woman, but on Jess it was perfect. That absurd pink feather curling around from the brim to her chin helped, of course.

She was talking with some animation to Godfrey and Hope. He was scarcely aware of the topic since she had chosen not to involve him in her conversation. She had clearly set out to entrance Godfrey and was just as clearly succeeding. Godfrey usually remained amiable but aloof with ladies, preferring to take his private pleasures with the mistress he had had under his protection for all of two years now. It would be ironic indeed if he should marry Jess when he had never even considered marriage with the other female. If there seemed any great chance of such an outcome, he must warn his friend.

Marriage to Godfrey would be a great coup for her, though, Rutherford thought, his eyes resting broodingly on her profile with its straight little nose, flushed cheek, and arched eyebrow. Fewer than two weeks ago she had been hoping desperately that it would still be possible to gain employment somewhere as a governess. Marriage would have been a possibility only in her wildest dreams. Now she was living in one of the grand houses of Berkeley Square, wearing expensive and fashionable clothes, socializing at this very moment with an earl, the daughter of a duke, and a baronet. And having every chance, it seemed, of making their world her own. If she could but snare herself a distinguished husband, the matter would be a fait accompli.

And it was his grandmother's wish that he become the bridegroom who would so elevate her. Her wits must really have gone begging. And she would be a nuisance. She would be constantly throwing them together here in London, and there was no knowing what she might try when they were all together in the cozy atmosphere of Hendon Park.

He knew what he would want to do with Jess, or to her, at Hendon Park, Rutherford thought with a flash of the anger that had consumed him for all of the previous evening. And it had nothing to do with marriage or with acting the courteous host, either. Marry her! Make her the Countess of Rutherford, the future Duchess of Middleburgh. Fill her with his children!

Rutherford's jaw tightened. He wanted her. God, he wanted her.

She was looking into his eyes suddenly, appearing rather as if she were thoroughly trapped, as if she had caught herself by surprise. Her eyes widened, drawing him into their dark blue depths.

"Do you not think so, my lord?" she asked somewhat lamely.

"I beg your pardon," he said abruptly. "I confess I must have been daydreaming. I do not know to what you refer."

Sir Godfrey laughed. "Miss Moore agrees with me that I should consider making the usual Grand Tour now that the Continent is safe for travel again," he said. "Italy in particular should not be missed."

"To my certain knowledge, Godfrey," Rutherford said dryly, "you have been considering just such a journey since long before Boney was safely shut away on St. Helena. All you need is for someone to assure you that such an undertaking would not be self-indulgent. It sounds as if you have all the champions you need in Hope and Miss Moore."

"I have always felt it a dreadful injustice that ladies are not encouraged to the same extent as gentlemen to travel," said Lady Hope. "I for one would like nothing better than to see Rome and Florence. Oh, and Naples. We ladies seem to travel beyond our own shores only when we have husbands to take us. Is that not right, Miss Moore?"

"It is because most ladies are such delicate creatures and would suffer from the hardships of the journey," Rutherford said. "You hear only about the beauty of the Sistine Chapel in Rome and the pleasure of the gondolas in Venice and the wonder of the leaning tower in Pisa, Hope, and nothing about the discomfort of the lodgings in France and the vile smell of the canals in Italy and the endless vermin everywhere."

"I think that is a myth put about by gentlemen in order to persuade us to resign ourselves to our lot," Jessica said. "I am sure that Lady Hope and I could endure the odors and the itching with as much philosophy as you, my lord, if we only had the works of Michelangelo to gaze upon while we scratched."

Her eyes, looking directly into his own, danced with merriment for one unguarded moment, Rutherford noticed, startled. Then those eyes wavered and dropped to the capes of his greatcoat again, and her face sobered.

"A hit!" declared Lady Hope, clapping her hands. "You have silenced Charles, Miss Moore. He can think of no argument to refute your logic, you see. Unfortunately, that does not mean that you and I may now go and pack our trunks." She laughed.

"Ah, here we are!" Sir Godfrey declared cheerfully as the carriage lurched and slowed down. "Michelangelo may not be available to you. Miss Moore, but the clowns of Astley's will be a worthy substitute, I'll wager. Lady Hope, may I help you to alight, ma'am? It would be a shame for me to bear off Miss Moore and leave you to a mere brother's care, would it not?"

Rutherford's eyes met Jessica's across the width of the carriage. Both sat still until Lady Hope had been helped down the steps. Then Rutherford vaulted out onto the pavement and held out a hand for Jessica's.

"I do beg your pardon," he said quietly as she stepped down in front of him. "I was given a firm command not to touch you again, was I not? It seems that circumstances have made it difficult for me to comply."

She looked up into his eyes, her gloved hand still firmly clasped within his. "Do we have to do this?" she asked in an undertone. "Can we not at least be civil since it seems that we are to be in company together more than either of us would wish?"

He raised one eyebrow. "Yes, you have done very well in placing yourself quite firmly in the midst of my family, have you not?" he said. "You are to be congratulated, Jess. But have no fear for my manners, my dear. I am, I believe, always civil to ladies and to others of the same gender."

She turned sharply away from him before he could be quite sure if it was tears that suddenly brightened her eyes. He grimaced and held out his arm for her support. How could he have said what he had when the very words refuted his meaning? He felt ashamed of himself and irritated with her for causing him to feel so.

"Please take my arm," he said. "The crowds can sometimes be rough here, I have heard. Astley's attracts spectators of widely varied social status."

"I should be right at home here, then," she said coldly, grasping her pelisse and walking off in pursuit of Sir Godfrey and Lady Hope.

Lord Rutherford was left standing, his arm extended, feeling foolish. He was forced to hurry after her and protect her as best he could with a hand at the small of her back, a gesture that merely made her straighten her spine and walk on.

Damnation take the woman, Rutherford thought. One of these times-just once!-he was going to get the upper hand in an encounter with Jessica Moore.