The Ungrateful Governness

8

The Earl of Rutherford did two things that evening that he had not done in years, and one other that he had not done in weeks. He gambled at Boodle's, a club he did not often frequent, though he had been a member for years, and won upward of three hundred pounds. He got drunk at the same club, almost but not quite to the point of incapacity. He even had an embarrassing memory the next morning, which he hoped was merely part of his night's fuddled thoughts, of delivering some sort of monologue and attempting a song. Embarrassing indeed for someone who had disappointed a mama and two doting older sisters by failing to produce one note of music by way of his vocal cords throughout his childhood and boyhood.

And he spent the murky hours between something after midnight and the twilight before dawn in bed with a woman he had no business going to bed with. He had looked in on an old crony on the way home from Boodle's, purely on drunken whim. His way had taken him past the house, and the lights were still blazing in the windows. He walked in on a party that looked as if it should have died a natural death an hour or more before. And he walked off less than half an hour later with Mrs. Prosser on his arm. Rather, he drove off in her carriage, and it was probably he who had been on her arm, he thought later, when he was trying to retrace all his activities of the night.

He could have had Mrs. Prosser years ago. He could name a dozen men who had. She was a widow and had the means and the inclination to remain so. She was willing to tell anyone who was interested enough to listen that she became easily bored with just one man. She had endured Mr. Prosser's unimaginative attentions for three years until the elderly man had had the good grace to bow out of this life and leave her free to indulge her fancies.

Rutherford had always avoided coming to the point with her. She was received by all except the very highest sticklers. He preferred to choose his bedfellows from among those women whom he would not afterward be forced to meet socially. Besides, Mrs. Prosser was an aggressive, voluptuous woman, and Rutherford liked to be totally in charge of what happened between the sheets of any bed he happened to occupy.

However, he thought just before dawn, as he stumbled home, trying to shake the fuzziness from his head and knowing that it was impossible to do-hangovers could not be shaken off at will-one could not expect to act rationally when one was drunk. Mrs. Prosser had taken him home and into her bed, and he supposed that he must have been satisfied with what happened there, because it seemed to him that it had happened more than once, perhaps even more than twice.

His valet hurried into his room, looking only slightly tousled, a few minutes after he had arrived in it. Rutherford was glad. He was sitting on the edge of the bed telling himself to remove his coat and his cravat and yet seemingly unable to lift his hands from their resting place on the bed either side of him.

"Warm water, Jeremy," he said, his nose wrinkling with distaste at the smell of some feminine perfume that clung to him. "Please," he added as an afterthought to the servant's retreating back.

The long-suffering Jeremy tucked his master into bed a short while later, fussed unnecessarily with the heavy velvet curtains that were already tightly drawn across the lightening windows, and tiptoed with theatrical caution from the room.

Rutherford groaned. He remembered now very clearly indeed why he had resolved five or six years ago never to get drunk again. The certain knowledge that he would feel wretched for all of the coming day did nothing to comfort him.

Dammit, he thought, lowering the arm he had flung over his eyes to his nose, he could still smell that woman's perfume. Mrs. Prosser, of all people. She was not at all the sort of woman he found appealing. She had seduced him pure and simple. She had taken advantage of his drunken state. Yet another reason for never getting drunk again! And where was the point of spending half a night making love with a woman when one could not afterward recall whether one had done so once, twice, or three times, or even-horror of horrors -no times at all?

But no, at least he could not be guilty of that humiliation. He could clearly recall her twining her arms around his neck as he was leaving, kissing him lingeringly on the lips, and declaring that she had not spent a more energetic and enjoyable night since she did not know when. Which said nothing about the caliber of his performance, of course, since the woman had meant to flatter, but it was at least an indication that there had been a performance.

Damn the woman! Rutherford thought, heaving himself over onto his side and wincing from the pains that crashed through his head. Damn her to hell and back. She was a nobody, an impudent, opportunistic, conscienceless nobody. And yet she had driven him into conflict with his grandmother; she had forced him into uncharacteristically unmannerly behavior; and she had pushed him into gambling, drinking, and whoring, none of which activities he had undertaken from choice.

Damn Jessica Moore!

He did not believe he was a naturally conceited man.

He had never thought of himself as arrogant. He had a sense of his place in society, yes, but then that was the way of life. Everyone around him had a similar sense, he had always believed. He had always treated servants with courtesy. He had always been charitable to those in need of charity. He had always been courteous and more than generous to his women.

Why, then, did Jess Moore make him feel like an arrogant snob? No, she did not make him feel like one. She made him become one. Of course he was outraged at her effrontery in trying to pass herself off as a member of the beau monde. Anyone of any sense and decency would agree with him. It was she who was in the wrong. Entirely so. There was no question about it. His attitude was perfectly correct. There was nothing cruel, nothing merely snobbish in his disapproval.

Why was it, then, that she made him feel so brutal? Why was it that a few cold words from her could put him instantly in the wrong? His feeling of guilt the afternoon before at Astley's had ruined the first few performances for him. He had been unpardonably rude to her and could not excuse himself even with the assurance that the provocation had been great. By retaliating with words that were so uncharacteristic of him he was merely lowering himself to her level.

Sitting next to her at the circus, Hope at her other side, Godfrey beyond her, he had wanted to take Jess's hand in his again and beg her to forgive him. She sat so rigidly upright next to him that he knew he had made her miserable. She deserved to be miserable, of course, he had told himself. And he had convinced himself; he had not apologized. Thank God, he had not apologized. But he had still felt guilty.

And very aware of her. It would have done him a great deal of good if he had had to endure rejection now and then through his adult years, he supposed. It surely could be only her rejection of him that made him want her so badly. He could not recall ever having had this all-pervading, aching need for one particular woman.

Why should it be so? Really, when it came right down to the physical act of bedding, one female body was very much like another. Why the craving for the one woman who chose not to bed with him?

He had sat beside her, tortured by guilt and desire, until a surprising sound from beside him had caused him to turn his head and look directly at her. She was giggling. Very quietly, it was true, with one hand over her mouth, but her shoulders were shaking and her eye? twinkling. And it was definitely giggles coming fror behind her hand, not just polite laughter.

He had turned his head to the performance that had been passing unnoticed before him and saw a group of ragged clowns tripping and falling and stumbling as they rushed around about some urgent errand and constantly collided with one another. It was funny, he supposed. A child would be amused. Jessica Moore was amused.

He turned back to look at her, smiling at her reaction rather than at the antics of the clowns. She was like a child. She would never have been to Astley's before, of course. When she burst into open laughter and turned to him with the human instinct to share delight, he laughed too.

"I wonder they do not hurt themselves," she said. ''They collide with such force."

"Doubtless they practice for long hours," he said. "They are all acrobats in their own right."

But she did not even hear his answer. She had turned back to the performance and was clapping with delight.

That was not the part of the afternoon that had really confused his feelings, though, and sent him in frustration and self-hatred on his night's orgy. That had come later, when the trapeze artists had been performing.

She had been amazed, enthralled, and ultimately terrified. His own attention had been caught, too. For the space of a few minutes he had become so involved with the danger of the tricks that he lost his awareness of her. He had stared down almost with incomprehension when her hand had first stolen into his. When it had gripped convulsively and her shoulder pressed against his arm, he had covered the hand lightly with his free one. And his attention had again been effectively drawn from the flying acrobats to the woman beside him. She had watched wide-eyed and with parted lips, gripping his hand, totally unaware of his presence until the act must have reached its climax and she turned suddenly with a gasp and buried her face against his sleeve.

And then looked up at him with round, horrified eyes and down at her hand sandwiched between his two. She had stared at their hands for a stunned moment and then pulled hers away as if from some deadly snake.

"Oh!" she had said and looked back up at him. Her lips had moved but it seemed that she did not know what to say or whom to blame.

"One wishes for one's own comfort that they would work with a safety net, doesn't one?" he had said with a smile, trying to turn the moment into something quite commonplace.

He did not know what she would have said, if anything. Hope had turned to her at that moment in order to make some enthusiastic comment on the acrobats, and she had remained turned away from him for the rest of the afternoon. Somehow she had contrived to be escorted back to the carriage by Godfrey.

Rutherford turned over onto his other side in bed, but much more cautiously than he had done a few minutes before, trying not to alert his headache. Why had he almost held his breath while she clung to him and drew close to him? Why had he been afraid to move a muscle for fear that she would realize what she was doing and withdraw from him, as she had done eventually? Why must he behave as if she were important to him, as if she were someone to be wooed and won with patience and tact? She was a governess masquerading as a grand lady. A servant. A country parson's daughter. A female appealing enough to be invited to his bed, shrugged off and forgotten if she declined.

Not a woman to watch as if there were nothing else around him to see, to absorb all of his attention as if there were nothing else worth paying attention to. Not a woman whose unconscious touch was to be so cherished that he must hold himself still and breathless for fear of losing it. Not a woman to so torment his mind and his body that he must go out at night trying to free himself through the entertainment of cards, the oblivion of drink, and the drug of sexual satiation.

And now this morning, Rutherford thought with a sigh, kicking the blankets off his body and turning onto his back again, she was causing him even greater torment than she had the day before. Drinking had brought him a hangover but no oblivion. Sex, for the first time in his memory, had left him feeling soiled, nauseated, and quite unsatisfied. He had an ugly suspicion that the sort of desire Jess had aroused in him could be satisfied by no one else except Jess. And if that fact was not about to ruin his hitherto quite satisfactory life, he was a fortunate man indeed.

Who exactly was Jessica Moore? he wondered yet again. Strange to be so obsessed by a woman one scarcely knew at all. Girls have mothers too, his grandmother had said. Who had her mother been? And who had the parson been before becoming a clergyman?

It seemed that further encounters with Jess were going to be inevitable. He would dare swear she would be at Faith's soiree during the coming evening. If meet her he must, he might as well talk to her too. Find out more about her. But whether he wished to find out good things or bad he did not know. Further reason to spurn her or some hitherto unsuspected reason to see her as more of a social equal.

"Not as your fancy piece," his grandmother had said. "As your wife."

Rutherford swung his legs over the side of the bed, drew himself cautiously to a sitting position, groaned, and rose to his feet. Riding would probably bounce his head right off his shoulders, he thought, moving slowly into his dressing room to find riding clothes with which to cover his nakedness. But it seemed to be the only alternative to lying sleepless on his bed. He certainly would not be able to support the exertion of walking.

The Bradley soiree did not involve either dancing or card playing. Such activities were frequent enough at evening parties to become tedious, Lady Bradley told her grandmother and Jessica as she was welcoming them to her drawing room. Consequently, there was music in the music room for those who were interested, provided by a hired pianist, violinist, and harpist, though guests were encouraged to contribute their talents too. And there was conversation in the drawing room for those who wished to discuss politics or art or literature. Or even the weather and the state of the participants' health, she added with a laugh.

"Hope is beckoning you, Miss Moore," she told Jessica. "She is with Sir Godfrey Hall and Lord Graves. Would you care to join them? Grandmama, Mama has directed me to fetch you to her the moment you arrive."

Lady Hope was indeed gesturing to Jessica from across the room. And Sir Godfrey rose to his feet, bowed, and smiled amiably at her as she approached. Jessica scurried across to them in some relief. She felt decidedly self-conscious about attending a party given by Lord Rutherford's sister. Of the earl himself there was no sign. Surely she would not be fortunate enough to find that he would not attend at all.

"We have been telling Lord Graves about our afternoon at Astley's Amphitheater, dear Miss Moore," Lady Hope said. "And I do believe he is laughing at our childish delight in all the splendid acts. Do come and lend your voice to ours."

"I protest," Lord Graves said, also rising to bow to Jessica. "I merely smile at your delight, ma'am. I must confess a weakness for magicians myself. Do tell us your preference, Miss Moore."

Jessica took the offered seat. "I suppose the trapeze artists are the most spectacular," she said. "But just too agonizing to watch." She blushed at the memory of how she had not watched that final leap.

"You should have been sitting next to Sir Godfrey," Lady Hope said. "He talked to me the whole time and calmed my nerves wonderfully well. I declare he does not have a nerve in his body at all. And I daresay he would have preferred to sit next to you too as it was you he invited first. Foolish of me to sit between you. I would have done just as well next to Charles."

"My dear ma'am." Sir Godfrey looked somewhat taken aback. "I invited both you and Miss Moore to accompany me to Astley's. And indeed, I must say that I found your very sensible conversation calmed my nerves during the trapeze act."

"Well, is not that a foolish thing?" Lady Hope said with a laugh. "Lord Graves, would you be so good as to escort me to the music room? I really do love harp music, and one gets to hear it so rarely."

Lord Graves jumped to his feet and held out his arm to her. She flashed a smile at Sir Godfrey and Jessica.

"I do hope you do not think me rag-mannered to leave you to each other's company," she said. "But I am sure you will not mind."

Jessica could not decide whether she was more amused or dismayed at being left thus. Lady Hope seemed to have convinced herself that she and Sir Godfrey would make a good match and was making every effort to throw them into company together. She decided on amusement when Sir Godfrey smiled comfortably at her.

"I can see that you are having the same thoughts as I, Miss Moore," he said. "Lady Hope has been trying to marry me off for the past five years or more. It seems that you are her latest candidate. I hope you will not be embarrassed by her attempts. I find them amusing and somewhat endearing. Shall we be friends so that we may be comfortable together even when she is at her least subtle?"

Jessica laughed. "I thank you for your plain speaking, sir," she said. "And yes, of course, I had noticed and was hoping desperately that you had not. I am told, sir, that you have fascinating stories to tell about your travels if you are sufficiently assured that your audience is interested. Will you share some of them with me?"

"My dear ma'am," he said with a smile, "are you quite sure? I find that people who prose on about their experiences on the Continent can be dreadfully boring. Everyone seems to feel that a year or two spent abroad qualifies him to describe with perfect accuracy the national character of the Italians or the French or whoever it happens to be."

"Yes, I am quite sure," Jessica assured him. "Now do tell me, sir, how do you see the national character of the Russians?"

They both laughed.

But through her laughter Jessica became aware of a prickling sensation down her spine. She knew even before she turned her head rather jerkily in the direction of the door that Lord Rutherford was there. He was standing rather indolently in the doorway, looking quite splendid, she thought, in dark blue velvet coat, silver silk knee breeches, and white linen and lace. His narrowed eyes were directed at her. She turned her head abruptly back to her companion and immediately regretted the rather gauche action. But it was too late to turn back and incline her head or smile easily.

"How would you like a description of some of the more spectacular sights of Greece?" Sir Godfrey was asking with a grin. "And incidentally, have you seen the Elgin marbles? They are well worth a visit, though I do believe lady visitors are somewhat frowned upon. It is felt that so much naked stone might have a corrupting influence on them. You would need to be well armed with vinaigrette and eau de cologne and handkerchiefs and whatever else you ladies need to ward off the vapors."

"Never!" Jessica said. "I would not be so poor-spirited, sir. All I would need is a stout gentlemanly arm on which to lean. But yes, all the famous sights, please."

They smiled at each other, and Jessica rested an elbow on her knee and her chin in her hand and prepared to focus all her attention on her companion.

"Godfrey. Miss Moore." Lord Rutherford's voice sounded somewhat bored. He bowed stiffly from the waist. "I hope I am not interrupting a private tete-a-tete?

"To tell the truth, you are, Charles," Sir Godfrey said with a grin as Jessica shook her head in some embarrassment. "I was about to mesmerize Miss Moore with an account of my travels in Greece, and you have come along to spoil all. Since you have heard it all at least twice before, I am bound to have you yawning behind your hand in no more than two minutes."

"When have I ever displayed such bad manners?" his friend asked, drawing up a chair and seating himself. "I shall be merely envious that I do not have a similar topic with which to entice Miss Moore's admiration."

She blushed. He was looking at her quite intently and with a quite unreadable expression on his face. "Have you not made the Grand Tour, my lord?" she asked.

"Alas, no," he said. "The Continent has rarely been free of war since I left off leading strings. My travels have all been confined to these shores, ma'am."

Jessica turned her attention back to Sir Godfrey, who had apparently decided to talk about the less serious aspects of his travels. He kept her amused for the next half hour with comical details about the difficulties of travel and accommodations and language in the part of the world to which his tour had taken him. Other guests who joined their group added to the anecdotes. She found herself almost unaware of the silent presence of Lord Rutherford at her side.

Almost. But not quite, of course. In fact, not at all, she was forced to admit to herself at last. Much as she was growing to like Sir Godfrey Hall, amusing as his stories and those of other members of the group were, there was always Lord Rutherford. She found herself eventually wanting to leap to her feet and turn and run for air. It was hard to shake the memory of the afternoon before, the memory that had kept her awake through much of the night.

She still turned alternately hot and cold at the realization that she must have voluntarily placed her hand in his when her attention was so engrossed by the trapeze artists. And if there was some doubt about that, there was certainly none about the fact that she had hidden her face against his sleeve when she was so afraid that one of the leaping figures would fall to his death from the trapeze.

She had turned to Lord Rutherford for comfort, like a small child. He had not repulsed her-indeed, his free hand had been covering the one she clasped when she had looked to see what she was doing. How he must have been laughing at her, though. How naive and childish he must think her. Or how conniving. Would he think that she was trying to attract him? But why would he think so? He had already offered her carte blanche on two separate occasions.

And now he sat next to her, their arms almost touching, this man who had wished to be her protector, her lover. And the man whose presence could instantly interfere with her heartbeat, her power to think.

"Are you tired of sitting in the same place for so long, Miss Moore?" he was asking her now. "Would you like me to accompany you to the music room?"

"Thank you," she said, looking at him for the first time in half an hour, though they had sat so close during all that time. "That would be pleasant." But she had spoken before her mind had had time to function, she realized even as she got to her feet and laid a hand on Lord Rutherford's sleeve. The muscles of his arm were firm beneath her hand. It was the arm that had held her close on more than one occasion. She felt as if she were suffocating.

"Faith and Aubrey always make an effort to seek out the best musical talent," he was saying conversationally. "I am sure that this trio is worth listening to."

"Yes," she said. "I was hoping not to miss it altogether."

They stood in the doorway to the music room for a few moments while Lord Rutherford located two vacant chairs at quite the other side of the room. He guided her quietly toward them, and they sat side by side until the music came to an end fifteen minutes later. For the first time Jessica did not feel oppressed by his nearness. She sensed that he was quite engrossed by the music.

"Do you play an instrument, my lord?" she asked when the polite applause had died down and while one of the guests took the place of the pianist on the stool.

"The violin," he said shortly. "And you, Jess? I imagine that such an accomplished governess must have all sorts of hidden talents."

Jessica's jaw tightened. "I play the pianoforte," she said.

"And might I ask how the daughter of an impoverished country parson-your own words, Jess- can have had the opportunity to practice on such an instrument?" he asked.

"We had a harpsichord," she said, turning to look fixedly at the young lady who was about to play on the pianoforte. "My mother brought it on her marriage."

"Ah," he said with a half-smile, "the royal princess."

"My lord?" Jessica frowned up at him, but he merely shook his head and looked away from her.

"Perhaps I can prevail upon you to play for the company when Miss Lacey has finished," he said.

Jessica looked up at him in alarm. "Oh, no, my lord," she said. "I am out of practice, and I do not pretend to any extraordinary talent even when I am not."

He turned his head and looked very deliberately into her eyes. "I would have expected you to jump at the opportunity to place yourself even more firmly in the public eye," he said. "You seem to be doing quite famously so far."

Jessica would not look away. "Have you brought me here to quarrel with me, my lord?" she asked. She was whispering, for the pianist had begun her recital. "If so, I must beg to be excused and return to the drawing room."

"To Godfrey?" he whispered back. "Save your smiles and your wiles, if you know what is good for you, Jess. He will not marry you, you know."

"Will he not?" she hissed. "Am I to expect another offer to become a mistress, then?"

He smiled, if such a sneering expression could be called a smile. "It is hardly likely," he said. "I believe he is perfectly comfortable with the female who has held that position for the past two years and more."

"In that case," Jessica said, leaning toward him so that her face was only inches away from his own, "I would say he is due for a change, would not you, my lord? I count my chances quite favorable."

She had the satisfaction of seeing his eyes spark with fury before his expression was suddenly transformed to blandness. He smiled and inclined his head toward a turbaned matron one row ahead of them who had turned and directed an indignant lorgnette their way.

Jessica sat silent and stiffbacked through the lengthy recital that followed. She could not have said afterward whether the performance was worthy of such an occasion or not. She was too preoccupied with feeling the presence of the infuriating man at her side. If she could have risen and escaped without attracting the attention of everyone in the room her way, she would have done so. As it was, she was trapped on the opposite side of the room from the door, and there she must stay.