Kitabı oku: «Rebellious Rake, Innocent Governess», sayfa 3

The truth was that he had outgrown the wenches of the streets, both honest and otherwise, and would never be admitted far enough into the ton to win himself an aristocratic wife brought up to expect a marriage of convenience. He wasn’t fish, or flesh, or good red herring, and he could hardly search for some pale imitation of his friend’s countess, even if he wanted to. A picture of a certain stern and very respectable female who would certainly never approve of him slipped into his mind and he did his best to dismiss her, for even the idea seemed absurd.

Miss Wells would obviously rather eat nails than marry a parvenu like himself, then he forced himself to be a little fairer to the formidable governess. Somehow he doubted his low beginnings made her look at him as if he had just emerged from under a stone. He’d seen her look icily severe in the presence of any unattached male, from the third footman to the septuagenarian Duke of Denley, when he visited Wychwood and was reckless enough to ogle any female under the age of fifty. It occurred to him that perhaps Miss Wells was a man-hater, but she would never have an easy friendship with Kit if so, or the young vicar of Wychwood village, who was almost as happily married as Kit himself. So the lady was wary and perhaps that was just as well, but what if she could be persuaded out of her formidable shell and he discovered the real Charlotte under all that starch?

He eyed the stately figure seated across the room from him and considered that prospect with surprising pleasure. He’d long ago decided those truly awful gowns and ‘you can’t see me’ caps were a disguise. And she was the one female he knew who didn’t make him feel like an awkward and ungainly bear in her company, considering she easily reached as high as his chin. If her slender, long-fingered hands were any indication, under all the acres of grey shroud there could be a very different female. He forbade himself to dwell on that incendiary subject in mixed company and coolly examined the idea that a lady in her circumstances might be persuaded to accept a less-than-perfect suitor.

He was certainly wealthy enough to turn even the most resistant female’s thoughts to marriage, if money was her overriding concern. He knew that without vanity, especially since one or two of the grand ladies of the ton had hinted they would welcome such a rich lover even if, regrettably, he wasn’t noble enough to pay court to their daughters and become their rich son-in-law. So maybe he was handsome enough as well, as even for the pleasure of plundering his deep pockets he doubted such grande dames could get the smell of the shop out of their delicate noses without a healthy seasoning of desire. His smile was cynical as he met Miss Wells’s eyes with some of his thoughts in his clear grey eyes and, when he saw her shiver, immediately regretted it. She was different, he assured himself with a certainty that almost shocked him, even if he didn’t know quite why.

Glaring at the very annoying Mr Shaw, Charlotte wondered for perhaps the hundredth time since she had first met him why he made her either want to prickle like a rolled-up hedgehog, or itch to be the sort of blonde pocket Venus he seemed to admire. It was almost as if he regarded her as he might some odd curio he had spied in a museum and came back to inspect now and again, in the mistaken belief that one day he would work out her mechanism and remove all mystery from the conundrum.

Little did he know that there was far more to the curio he sometimes eyed like a botanical specimen than he, or anyone else, suspected, she thought, and smiled rather secretively. If he ever had an inkling that she was other than what she seemed, he would never give her a moment’s peace until he had her worked out and suitably recorded. Not having the least wish to be considered an intellectual challenge by the famously astute Mr Shaw, she told herself it was almost her duty to be as tediously predictable as possible and took a certain joy in fulfilling his low expectations. In his presence she became a parody of the correct governess, and, remembering that fact now, she dug about in her reticule and triumphantly pulled out her spectacles. Perching them on her nose, she felt as if she had assumed a latter-day version of a shield before going into battle and dared him to comment.

It proved to be a wasted gesture, as he was listening intently to some sound so indistinct that she had yet to hear it, and she might as well have been wearing a wig and a false beard for all the notice he took. Then she heard the faint noise of a carriage in the square herself, followed by the subdued fuss of an arrival who knew this was a ridiculous hour to turn up in a respectable neighbourhood. She looked questioningly at Mr Shaw, who gave a very slight nod and casually got to his feet.

‘I dare say Coppice is wishing me at the devil, so it’s probably high time I relieved you of my presence, your ladyship, Miss Wells,’ he said with rather mocking formality and a bow to each, then he raised his eyebrows at Charlotte as if to inform her she shouldn’t intrude on a private reunion.

‘I believe I shall retire,’ she informed him regally and, bidding her employer a hasty goodnight, allowed Mr Shaw to hurry her out of the room before Miranda had even fully taken in that they were going.

No doubt she soon forgot about them, considering the Earl of Carnwood rushed up the stairs and into her ladyship’s sitting room, without even seeing them, as far as Charlotte could tell. She sighed audibly, then ordered herself back to battle order as Mr Shaw met her unguarded look with a rueful acknowledgement that, yes, it was a very unusual marriage, and yet a very desirable one, even in his cynical view. Their eyes stayed locked as if they were united in longing for the forbidden for once, but she made herself look away and told herself she was imagining it. Somehow it made him seem oddly vulnerable to want such an impossibility, especially when they were both too chastened by life to believe it could exist, either separately or, heady, forbidden thought, together.

‘There’s no need to fret about his lordship’s health from the speed of his run upstairs,’ Mr Shaw remarked ruefully.

‘Yet he was carrying his arm rather awkwardly, don’t you think?’ she asked anxiously. She might not want to believe her employers were truly under threat, but there was no point fooling herself it didn’t exist after such a warning, and from such a source.

‘It would take more than a strained arm to keep him from his lady, but I dare say Coppice will know what’s been going on, he knows everything.’

‘So I long ago concluded,’ she agreed with rare amity and surprised him by accompanying him downstairs to satisfy her curiosity.

Somehow tonight had proved such an upheaval of her usual steady world that she couldn’t bring herself to poker up and retreat into stately solitude just yet. Ben Shaw’s presence at her side made her feel oddly safe anyway, a notion that could hardly be more dangerous, she chided herself, as they descended the elegant stairs at a far more reasonable pace than their owner had just run up them. Coppice was in the act of closing the door on the Earl of Carnwood’s travelling equipage and turned to face them with his usual calm omnipotence, yet for some reason Charlotte thought it concealed his true feelings on this occasion.

‘Your hat and cane, Mr Shaw?’ the butler asked blandly.

‘No, an explanation if you please,’ Ben demanded impatiently, ‘and don’t pretend you’ve no idea what I’m alluding to, you old fox.’

Coppice shook his head as if about to reproach a cheeky young boy and then one look at the giant, and very adult, figure seemed to remind him that Ben Shaw was a force to be reckoned with on any man’s terms. ‘I understand his lordship met with a slight accident,’ he finally admitted.

‘How and where?’ Ben snapped, evidently too preoccupied with worrying about his friend to modify his abrupt tone.

Coppice met Charlotte’s gaze with a shrug as if to say ‘ah well, boys will be boys’, ushered them into his pantry and shut the door against any listening ears. Awed by being admitted into his very private quarters, Charlotte allowed herself a quick look around this holy of holies and told herself she shouldn’t be surprised to see it was unusually comfortable, as well as rigidly tidy. The earl and countess took their servants’ comfort very seriously and she knew how well the governess was lodged, so of course they would see to the well-being of so crucial a person as Coppice.

‘Reuben informed me that his lordship was waylaid by thieves when riding about Miss Kate’s estate. He seems to think that, if he had not been following Lord Carnwood at a discreet distance, the day might have gone rather ill with his lordship. As it is, he had his hat shot off and took a blow to his right arm that would have kept anyone else from travelling for a sennight, or so Reuben seems to think, but his lordship insists we make light of the matter for her ladyship’s sake.’

‘And you think they were not common thieves?’ Mr Shaw asked.

‘Most unlikely from the sound of it,’ Coppice assured him, with a significant look at Charlotte she supposed she was not meant to see.

‘If her ladyship’s peace of mind is to be guarded, you might just as well tell me, because the more of us who are close to her know the truth, the better she’ll be protected,’ she informed them both with what she thought exemplary patience on her part.

‘Very well, ma’am,’ Coppice admitted rather stiffly, as if she was at least twice her actual age, Charlotte decided very impatiently.

‘So who were they really?’ she demanded.

‘I have no idea, madam, but Reuben said they wore silk masks and appeared very prosperous for common thieves, as well as carrying the very latest in firearms. When they were turned over to the local magistrate they refused to say anything, preferring to take their punishment rather than betray even their names, which you must admit, sir, is highly suspicious.’

Ben nodded sagely and they exchanged manly looks as Charlotte was torn between fuming at Coppice, for addressing only what he obviously considered the important part of his audience, and terror for her friends. Added to the letter Miranda had received, it seemed something deeply sinister was coming to a head, and who knew what hurt might befall those she’d come to love in the process? When she had time and privacy, she might take herself to task for letting herself care for her employers so much, but now there were more important considerations than icy self-sufficiency.

‘I wonder just what the magistrate made of that,’ Ben mused.

‘Not a great deal, sir, he sentenced them to be transported for life.’

‘And they still said nothing?’

‘Yes, sir—quite significant, don’t you think?’

‘Indeed, most criminals would name their own grandmother an accessory to avoid such a sentence.’

Charlotte thought of Celia Braxton’s letter, where she too refused to name the man who was threatening the Earl and his family as well as Ben Shaw and shivered. An implacable will lay behind such a depth of fear, and she wondered what he had done in the past to make his tools prefer the penal colony at Botany Bay to his vengeance. He was obviously more than just another common criminal, and tracking such a Machiavellian mind to his lair would be a task fit for Hercules himself. Her gaze turned inevitably to the giant at her side and she became even more thoughtful. If there was a man capable of the quest, it was surely Mr Benedict Shaw and she thought him capable of being every bit as subtle and unrelenting as his quarry, in the pursuit of those out to harm the man he considered a brother. For some reason that notion warmed rather than chilled her as it should have done. Such single-minded pursuit of his enemy should have made her shudder with revulsion, instead of feeling his protection was cast about her as well as her friends. Something else she must chide herself over later, along with the chill that dissipated that warmth as soon as it occurred to her that he would be in acute danger while pursuing a seemingly invisible, untouchable enemy.

‘Her ladyship will soon have the story out of him,’ she insisted in the face of two sceptical males.

‘All the more reason for Miranda to be away from here and safe at Wychwood,’ Ben Shaw said grimly and for once Charlotte agreed with him wholeheartedly.

Indeed she could think of no better scheme than them all returning to Derbyshire post haste and staying there for the foreseeable future. Then the unpalatable truth of such a hasty withdrawal occurred to her.

‘The gossips will say Kate has committed some grand misdemeanour and had to be taken home,’ she warned.

‘Which is why she will have to stay here, with a suitably responsible female to bear her company, of course,’ Mr Shaw said with a significant look that Charlotte distrusted intensely.

‘I’m a governess, not a chaperon, Mr Shaw,’ she informed him sternly.

‘What’s the difference?’ he asked with an interested expression that had her clenching her gloved hands at her sides.

‘I should think that quite plain,’ she said repressively.

‘Then pray consider me just a stupid male and explain it to me,’ he replied with spurious meekness.

She shot him a furious look, but in front of Coppice she couldn’t give way to a strong urge to inform him what she truly thought of him.

‘A governess is an educator of young ladies, and sometimes of even younger gentlemen, Mr Shaw. A chaperon is a lady who has the entrée into the ton that will help secure her charge a marriage suitable to one of her lofty station in life,’ she said blandly, hoping it was very clear to both of them that she was the former and not the latter.

‘Are you telling me that you weren’t born a lady, Miss Wells?’ the wretch replied with a mock deference that made her long to slap him.

‘Let us say I possess no turn for matchmaking,’ she informed him with what she hoped was a superior smile.

All the same, she felt profoundly uncomfortable discussing such a role under the interested gaze of Coppice, who seemed secretly amused by their discussion for some reason. Ben Shaw was either unaware of the butler’s feelings or indifferent to them, for he continued to look at her as if she was some odd curiosity he currently found fascinating.

‘Surely that makes you uniquely qualified for the position?’ he said and, when she haughtily raised her brows in question of that statement, added, ‘Being a cynic of the worst sort, you would see through the fortune hunters and shady characters and find your charge a paragon among men.’

‘I’m far too stern a critic to manage that, I’m afraid,’ she explained shortly and treated both men to one of her best icy looks before turning to make a fighting retreat. ‘If I might suggest someone writes to the Countess’s godmama and offers Lady Rhys the role? From all I have seen of her, she would be highly entertained by the notion of chaperoning Kate in polite society, and might prove a shrewder matchmaker than any doting mama. I know she offered to take up the task weeks ago, but her ladyship was so eager to present her sister to the ton that I suspect she overestimated her own strength under the present circumstances.’

In front of Coppice she couldn’t refer directly to Miranda’s pregnancy and Charlotte felt distinctly impatient with the ridiculous conventions of a society that refused to refer to the very natural process of pregnancy and birth openly in mixed company.

‘Yes, it took Kit weeks to persuade her ladyship she wouldn’t blight her sisters’ prospects with unfounded gossip about her own past if she did bring them out, but I dare say he’s wishing he hadn’t made such a good job of it now. Nevertheless, that’s an excellent notion of yours and I’ll suggest it to him in the morning,’ Mr Shaw informed her rather pompously and she spared a little impatience from her general supply of it.

‘How do you know that he’ll consult you about any of this?’ she weakened enough to ask, as she stood with one hand suggestively on the doorknob, but couldn’t quite turn it and escape his infuriating presence.

‘And how could you think he wouldn’t, ma’am, especially as he doesn’t share your low opinion of my abilities, or lack thereof?’

‘I really couldn’t say,’ she replied snippily and opened the door and went through it with a frigid goodnight, before she said something she might truly regret.

Chapter Three

‘Kindly pay attention, Miss Wells,’ Miss Isabella Alstone ordered her governess the following morning.

‘I should probably make you stand in the corner for that piece of impudence,’ Charlotte returned placidly.

‘Well, you might as well actually be in the Americas for all the attention you’re paying to your lesson about them,’ Isabella replied with the warm smile that would have the young gentlemen of the ton lining up in fervent hope of winning another in a few years’ time.

‘I certainly seem to have failed dismally in my task of turning you and your sister into well-behaved young ladies, so perhaps I might just as well go there,’ Charlotte admitted ruefully.

‘Who wants to be a milk-and-water miss? I certainly don’t and I doubt Miranda and Kit would thank you if I suddenly became one. There are far too many of them about already, at least if the girls at Kate’s waltzing parties are any indication of things.’

‘I agree that they can seem a little giddy, but I dare say it’s all the excitement,’ Charlotte managed to defend those silly young ladies half-heartedly in the face of her own doubts about their common sense.

‘In a watering place full of senile octogenarians they would still contrive to be the most foolish creatures imaginable, but when are you going to tell me what happened last night, dear Miss Wells?’

‘Since you avow contempt of the fashionable throng, I really can’t imagine why you’re interested in their sayings and doings,’ Charlotte observed slyly, ‘and in any case there are the Americas to consider.’

‘Yes, and you obviously need to do so, as you can’t seem to concentrate on either their geography or history this morning.’

‘I have the excuse of having been from home and out of my bed until the early hours of the morning and you do not, miss.’

‘Then why not tell me everything that went on at the Wintergreen ball instead and get it over with? After that I would have no excuse not to take a proper interest in geography, now would I?’

‘I’m quite sure there’s something wrong with the grammar of that sentence as well as its intent, Isabella.’

‘I dare say, now cut line and tell all, Miss Wells, before one of us falls asleep.’

‘You really are a shocking minx, Isabella Alstone,’ Mr Shaw’s distinctive deep voice informed her from the doorway.

‘Ben!’ Isabella screamed in a manner that had Charlotte shuddering to the depths of her govern-essly soul.

‘Hoyden,’ he greeted her, laughing as his youngest adopted sister jumped into his mighty arms and he swung her round as easily and unselfconsciously as if she had been five instead of fifteen.

Charlotte was forced to admit that, while there were any number of gentlemen she wouldn’t trust with a young girl’s open adoration, Ben Shaw was not one of them. When it came to her charges, or any other female he considered himself bound to by ties far stronger than blood, there was an absolute integrity about him. She’d seen enough of the relationship between Lord Carnwood and his oldest friend to know they were more like brothers than most men born in the same bed. What was more, that kinship extended to his lordship’s true sisters, who were as easy with Mr Shaw as their brother was. It was those outside that magic circle who needed to be wary of him, and Charlotte was conscious she was excluded and should be very cautious of letting her thoughts linger on his very large person and subtle mind.

Now where on earth had that odd idea come from? And why did her exclusion suddenly seem so chilling? She must be more tired than she realised, she decided with an impatient sigh, and did her best to dismiss such ridiculous thoughts. She hadn’t the least desire for Ben Shaw to act like a brother towards her and refused to countenance the shocking fantasy of any attentions he might pay her instead. Since last night a stupid fantasy of being gowned and groomed as finely as the beauties of the ton, and dancing the night away in the arms of a man ideally suited to enchant a very tall lady, had troubled her as never before. Charlotte wondered if tiredness and terror of being recognised had relaxed her usual iron grip on her traitorous emotions and reminded herself who and what she was. A governess, she informed herself flatly, a woman unfortunate enough to be forced to make her own way in the world and relying on an unblemished reputation to secure every post that came her way.

‘Miss Wells won’t tell me what happened at the ball last night and Kate was still asleep last time I looked, so what was it like, Ben? Did she dance every dance and slay a legion of suitors with just one blink of her beautiful blue eyes?’

‘Something like that, minx, and isn’t it bloodthirsty to wish so many youthful hearts trampled on?’

‘Not in the least, they’ll recover soon enough,’ Isabella replied cynically and Charlotte felt herself frown even as she ordered the crease from between her brows and did her best to banish all expression from her face as she became conscious of Mr Shaw’s acute gaze.

Did he think she was responsible for such cynical observations from one so young? She sincerely hoped not. While anything other than a distant acquaintance was clearly impossible between them, somehow she didn’t want him to think she’d foist her own views of the world Isabella must move in sooner or later on her pupil. She suspected he would need to look closer to home for that, to Celia Braxton and her stony-hearted mama, who seemed to have had too free a hand in the education, or lack of it, provided to the younger Miss Alstones before their grandfather finally realised it and sent them both to school. When Charlotte first met them there, she had been shocked by both girls’ ignorance of so much that seemed essential to a well-adjusted young lady, especially considering the acute minds concealed by their often careless behaviour. Four years on she was fairly confident they’d realised more of their potential, and would make fine wives and mothers as their destiny surely dictated. She sincerely hoped, however, that they would wait to feel something more than the bare tolerance that seemed to Charlotte to constitute most society marriages.

She wondered what Mr Shaw would expect from marriage and felt herself blush, as the combination of his speculative gaze and her improper fantasies blossomed into something downright outrageous. Still, a cat could look at a queen, or a king. Some instinct told her he would be a magnificent lover and she tried to meet his gaze with an indignant question in her own, even as her mind skittered over the mental picture she suddenly had of Ben Shaw naked and superb and very masculine indeed. Building a picture of what he might look like under that finely cut coat and all that pristine linen ought to be far harder for a respectable spinster lady than it actually was. She could imagine hard muscle rippling under a sweat slicked, satin supple skin, and really those breeches and his very highly polished boots left far too little to her fertile imagination!

Shaking her head sadly at her own folly, she looked up again and encountered laughter and what looked suspiciously like a reflection of her own state of unwilling arousal in his eyes, which she did her level best to return with her best governess look. Perverse creature that he was, her formidable frown seemed to encourage rather than reproach him and his firm mouth actually had the cheek to tip into an open grin as she fought off her ludicrous state of confusion, made even worse by that inviting, too-understanding smile.

‘What think you, Miss Wells?’ he asked mockingly and she had to fight hard to keep her own expression serene as he openly challenged her.

‘That hearts aren’t quite so easily broken, and that Isabella needs to learn some compassion toward vulnerable young gentlemen before she makes her own come-out,’ she managed to say calmly enough; at least formulating a reply gave her something to do other than speculating about Mr Shaw’s masculine at tributes.

‘How very well done of you, Miss Wells,’ he returned softly and still she could read secrets in his eyes no governess could afford to look for and stay sternly respectable, and therefore in employment.

‘It seems to me that young ladies require protection against the gentlemen rather than the other way about,’ Isabella put in and Charlotte finally managed to give more of her attention to her pupil than their visitor, and saw there was more than just youthful scepticism behind her attitude toward Kate’s suitors.

‘That is always a consideration, of course,’ she replied carefully, ‘but your sister is a beautiful young woman with plenty of native wit and a great deal of family influence at her back. It would be a very reckless, or downright foolish, man who would risk bringing all that to bear against him.’

‘Why? It didn’t stop that worm of a Braxton creature Cousin Celia married from deceiving Miranda into eloping with him and then treating her abominably, and I don’t want to lose Kate from my life for five years as I did my other sister, thank you very much.’

As Isabella stuck out her chin and looked determinedly defiant after making that pronouncement, Charlotte knew they had finally got to the crux of her pupil’s restless moods and uncharacteristic irritability of late. She had thought it came from taking her lessons alone and being bound to the schoolroom while Kate shopped, danced and was driven round the park, and, yes, slayed gangling young gentlemen through the heart with just one limpid look from her famous dark-blue Alstone eyes. Really she should have known there was more to it than that, and it wasn’t Mr Shaw’s fault she had failed to look deeper, so why she was scowling at him instead of thanking him for bringing the whole matter into the open, even she could not have said.

‘Ah, but Braxton didn’t have Kit Alstone to deal with now, did he?’ Mr Shaw asked with apparently academic interest. ‘And can you honestly see Kate falling for some plausible rogue with such an example before her? I’d say she’s got too much common sense to do anything of the sort, but if you think otherwise I suppose I must bow to your superior knowledge.’

Isabella looked thoughtful and Charlotte could see her testing his words against her experience of both her sisters and some of the tension went out of her young shoulders and a smile began to dawn. ‘Miranda always was a dreamer,’ she finally admitted ruefully. ‘Kate is much more practical.’

‘You can’t be too practical when your future happiness is at stake,’ Charlotte said impulsively, then immediately regretted it when Mr Shaw’s attention centred on her once more. What a fool she was to give him so much to speculate on, she condemned herself, and risk revealing painful decisions she had made when no older than Kate.

‘I suspect there’s a happy medium between being a dreamer and Miss Practical,’ Mr Shaw drawled with a sidelong glance at Charlotte that she was quite sure was intended to provoke her. ‘Perhaps we can rely on you to find it one day, minx,’ he challenged her pupil on just the right note of affection and speculation to set Isabella a task she would find irresistibly challenging.

With an internal groan as she dreaded Isabella practising it on every susceptible young gentleman in Derbyshire, Charlotte cast Mr Shaw an impatient look, but at least he’d diverted Isabella from Kate’s future.

‘Whichever you plan to be, Isabella, a sound education is going to stand you in good stead, so perhaps it’s time I got on with providing it?’ she suggested and won a moan of protest from Isabella and another of those speculative, sensual looks from Mr Shaw.

‘Trying to get rid of me, Miss Wells?’ he asked inexcusably and perched himself on the corner of a map table she was certain would bow under the pressure, but even that piece of inanimate oak failed her and remained as stout as ever.

‘Not with notable success,’ she managed to say coolly, as his wicked grey eyes met hers with an open invitation to look her fill, as he had so obligingly put himself on her eye level.

Well, she wouldn’t! That way lay the ruin of many a good governess’s future and one she would have thought him all too conscious of. Shooting him a hostile look, she pulled the book she’d found on the lives and customs of the Native American tribes toward her and tried hard to focus on it, only to find it might as well be written in one of their languages.

‘Please stay, Ben,’ Isabella urged him traitorously and Charlotte found herself quite unable to insist he went away and left them in peace in the face of his innocent look and Isabella’s pleading one.

‘Then you may take over the lesson, Mr Shaw. After all your voyages, doubtless you know the customs and habits of our American cousins much better than I do, or the author of this book,’ she informed him briskly and met his eyes with a certain triumph in her own.

Unfortunately he confounded her by returning her gaze with one that answered her challenge and returned it with utterly wicked intent. Part of her was fascinated by the prospect of being teased and maybe even seduced by a master, but another was horrified. She retired to a usually comfortable corner of the room and delved in her bag for her spectacles, fully intending to pick up her embroidery and pretend she wasn’t here and neither was he. He soon put paid to that idea by coming far too close, so that her heart beat so loudly she barely took in his words.