by Abby Ayles
“Good day, brother,” Christopher said jovially. “Sisters. Miss Warrick.”
“Can we go and play with Christopher?” Amy asked, in a plaintive tone that she clearly thought was more likely to get her own way. She even clasped her hands together in front of her as if she were praying. “Pleeeease?”
Joanna glanced at the clock. It was almost the end of their lesson time, and there was no chance that the children would concentrate now that they knew Christopher was home.
She sighed, knowing the battle was lost before she even entered it.
“Go on,” she agreed, finally.
Christopher chuckled. “Meet me outside in a few minutes. Samuel, fetch the cricket bat and ball. We’ll have ourselves a game.”
Amy and Samuel ran out of the door shouting in excitement, and Patience followed them, if more slowly. She even cast an eye back towards Joanna, who gave her a subtle nod of encouragement.
The faster the girl could get back to normal, the quicker her heart would mend. It was not right for her to lose her liveliness over a silly mistake.
Joanna began to pick up and tidy away the books they had been studying, not wanting to turn and face Christopher.
There was something about his presence that seemed foreboding, today – an augur of things to come. It crackled in the air between them like a living force, even though she could not yet give it a name.
“Miss Warrick,” he said, stepping into the room and blocking her path between the tables. “I wonder if I might have a moment of your time.”
Joanna did not want to give him any of her time at all, but it was necessary to at least be polite. “Of course, Lieutenant,” she agreed, waiting for him to reveal what it was that he wanted.
“Miss Warrick,” Christopher began, with the air of a man launching into a prepared speech.
“You have proven yourself a very capable woman, and endeared yourself completely to my family. I think it impossible now to imagine you as anything less than a part of it. More than that, I have had the opportunity to see first-hand that you are a handsome woman of good breeding and good sense. What I intend to ask of you, Miss Warrick, is no less than your hand in marriage.”
Joanna stared at him for a moment, completely taken by surprise.
Was this the culmination of his gifts and his lingering looks? She not even dreamed for a moment that he could be heading in this direction. Her heart was beating quickly in response, alarmed and surprised and, yes, flattered.
She turned away from him for a moment, trying to process her thoughts without his eyes on her face.
“Miss Warrick?” Christopher prompted.
“Allow me but one moment,” she said.
It was almost cruel, this proposal of his. Joanna had learned to give up hope of the idea of ever being married.
If she did find a spouse, she had also learned to assume that he might be low-born, a servant or someone like herself who had fallen from fortune. It would be a marriage of love, not of convenience, for how could it ever be convenient for someone to marry her now?
To marry so exceptionally well, into a great family, was something that had already passed beyond her – even if it was only to the second son. There had been no possibility of something like this in her mind, and certainly no design.
An opportunity like this, she felt, would never pass her way again. She would never again be petitioned by a gentleman such as this, standing in his family manor in his smart red uniform.
This was the last time she would be allowed the possibility of changing her station and returning to something like the life that she had known.
And even so, she knew in her heart what the answer must be.
She could not marry Christopher. It was not just that he was immature and a scoundrel, though those things he certainly was. It was not just that she barely knew him, or that what she did know troubled her greatly. It was not even just the fact that it would feel as though she were abandoning her real duty to the children.
All of those were excellent reasons, and there were more, such as the fact that she had to wonder if his offer was even intended to be truly genuine. If he was anything like his friend Rivers, then he would abandon her long before they reached the altar.
But all of those excellent reasons paled in comparison to the one reason she had now to admit to herself, that she had concealed from her own mind for so long.
The one thing she had not wanted to look in the eye, knowing that it would cause her more harm than anything she had felt before and that it might linger for the rest of her life.
It was the fact that she was truly, deeply, without any hope of it being requited, absolutely in love with Edmund Hardwicke.
Joanna turned back to Christopher, and watched his hopeful expression crumble under her serious gaze.
“I am flattered beyond measure, Lieutenant,” she said. “Still, I am afraid that I am compelled to refuse your offer. I hope that you will not be too greatly injured.”
Christopher clasped a hand over his heart dramatically, as if he had been shot there; but he smiled and nodded his head.
“I suppose I even expected as much,” he said. “You are far too sensible to be linked with a man like myself.”
Joanna was surprised that he understood her thinking, and almost denied it out of politeness. Then she decided against it.
If there was ever a time when a man and woman should be honest with one another, it was at the time of a marriage proposal.
“Now that your proposal is refused, perhaps you will tell me something honestly,” Joanna said. “You have no hope of changing my mind, but I should like to know the truth.”
Christopher scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. He never had come across as the kind of man who was comfortable giving out the truth. Even the suggestion of it apparently made him uneasy.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Did you make this proposal just now with the intention of causing hurt to your brother?” Joanna asked.
There was a moment’s pause, and then Christopher burst into forced laughter. “Samuel is just a child. Why should I wish to hurt him?”
“Please do not take me for a fool, Lieutenant,” Joanna said. “You know to whom I was referring.”
The smile died away from Christopher’s face. He dropped his pretence, then, clearly knowing that he was rumbled.
“Yes,” he said, at length. “He hit me, you know. Right in the eye.”
“I have more than enough reason to believe you deserved it,” Joanna said levelly.
She did not want to waste this opportunity. After they left this room, they were servant and master again. She would speak her mind, now, while she had at least the small allowance of the fact that she might have been his betrothed.
Christopher opened and then closed his mouth again. “I do not believe that to be the case from my own perspective,” he said, finally. “Still. It matters not. You did not fall into my trap. I shall have to find some other way to injure Edmund.”
“Perhaps, instead, your energy would be better poured into the pursuit of your career,” Joanna said, feeling more like a teacher chiding a student than she ever had.
“Lord Kelt does not deserve your animosity. He is father to this whole household, now, without so much as a wife of his own. He carries all on his shoulders. You must see how much that weighs on him.”
Christopher made a face. “He does not see how things weigh upon my own shoulders,” he said, slumping down onto the side of one of the desks as a seat.
“Whatever can you mean?” Joanna asked. She remained standing before him. “Your life is ruled by the army. You have no cares such as running a business or taking responsibility for children.”
“Not that he ever questioned whether I would want such a thing, damn him!” Christopher said, slapping the palm of his hand onto the desk with a crack.
Joanna had never seen such a side of Christopher, nor imagined that he might harbour such feelings.
She mo
ved forward and sat primly on the edge of the desk opposite him.
“You have desires for a family of your own?” she asked.
“I have desires such as any man may have,” Christopher replied. “You say my life is ruled by the army, but it is not true. It is ruled by a heart – just like any life.”
“There is someone else you would wish to wed?” Joanna asked, with some surprise. “I know that you cannot mean me.”
Christopher gave her a wry smile. “My apologies for that,” he said. “In truth, it matters not who I marry. For I cannot have – her. I may as well be miserable with someone else.”
“Who is she?” Joanna prompted.
Christopher sighed again, throwing his hands up in the air in a gesture of helplessness.
“Lady Juliana Reffern. Only the third daughter of a Duchess. If she were anyone else, I would barely have any competition at all. But, Miss Warrick, you must believe me when I tell you that she is the most beautiful woman in all of England.”
Joanna bit her lip to hold back a smile. “Even I have heard tell of Lady Juliana Reffern,” she said. “They say she was the delight and charm of the whole city last season.”
“And she was all mine,” Christopher said. “Until that scoundrel of a lord stole her away from me. They were betrothed in the winter.”
“I am sure there is another lady waiting out there for you,” Joanna said warmly. “You must turn your heart away from revenge, misery, and pain. You won’t find her there. You will find her only by being open to love again.”
“Easier said than done,” Christopher sniffed.
“But soonest done, soonest mended,” Joanna smiled.
“At any rate, the children are waiting for me,” he said, getting up abruptly and turning on his heel. “I suppose there is no need for me to ask you to keep this conversation of ours private, away from Edmund’s ears?”
“None whatsoever,” Joanna replied.
She, after all, had no wish to be linked to a courtship with this man, even if by association alone. Besides, Christopher clearly thought that the idea of losing a governess that the children liked would be harmful to Edmund.
Since that was the case, there was no possibility that Joanna would be the one to hint at that news.
Above that, she considered it a solemn duty laid upon her to keep Christopher’s secret heartbreak to herself.
He had confided in her, and it could not have been easy. Surely, if she were anyone else, he would not have dared to breathe it; it was only her sheer lack of importance that made her a target for confession.
She turned and continued to tidy the schoolroom, trying to ignore the shaking in her hands.
Two very important things had happened in the past while.
First, she had turned down what was likely to be the last good proposal she was ever likely to hear.
And second, she had finally embraced fully in her heart that her desire to serve her employer as usefully as possible came not from a sense of pride in her work, but from a love that she knew was never destined to be returned.
Outside, Joanna heard the children shouting and looked out to see Samuel trying to hit the cricket ball as Christopher threw it. Yes; it was just like Christopher, to be so unaffected despite the magnitude of what had passed between them. To him, she supposed, it was almost nothing.
Joanna sat at the window, looking out and trying to calm her racing heart.
“Oh, Joanna,” she sighed out loud to herself. “What have you got yourself into this time? What a foolish fancy to have.”
She pretended to watch the game a while longer, seeing neither the people nor the scenery. Instead, she was gazing out into her future, and she was forced once again to confront the fact that there was only a small amount of comfort in what she saw.
At that moment, all she wanted was her sister, to lean a head on her shoulder and have her share some sisterly wisdom.
But Esther was far away living out her own fairy tale, with her husband and her child. Sitting in the empty schoolroom, Joanna felt all of a sudden as if she were more alone than she had ever been.
Chapter 29
“Edmund?”
The little voice at his door made him start and look up.
Edmund had planned to be home from the office today, since he knew that Christopher was coming off his leave and he did not want to leave him unsupervised. Even so, there was work to be done, and so he was sitting at his desk and going over the words of a particularly complex contract for the third time.
“What is it, Amy?” Edmund asked, beckoning his little sister forward.
As if released from a string, she bounded forward and climbed onto his knee.
She looked upset, and with an inward groaning, Edmund concluded that it could only possibly have something to do with Christopher’s return.
Amy hugged him tightly, and Edmund patted her head.
“Tell me what the matter is, sweetling,” he said. “Why are you upset?”
“I’m not,” Amy said, grumpily.
Edmund bent his head to see that she was pouting, obstinately staring at his coat rather than meeting his eyes.
She fiddled with a silver button attached to the front, twisting it around in such a fashion that he began to fear she would pull it off.
“Stop that for a moment, Amy,” he said gently, trying to coax her to open up. “If you don’t tell me what you’re thinking about, I can’t help you. It’s my job as your big brother to help you, so you must let me.”
Amy sighed dramatically and buried her head into his shoulder. “It’s just not fair,” she said, her voice muffled by the fabric.
“What isn’t, dearest?” Edmund asked, cradling her weight.
He wanted to sigh and tell her to get on with it, but she was not an adult. Besides, if something had upset her enough to cause this display, he wanted to get to the bottom of it as thoroughly as possible.
“I don’t want Miss Warrick to go,” Amy whined, and sniffled against his collar.
That made Edmund’s heart jump against his ribcage.
To go? Where was Miss Warrick going? And when, and with whom? No one had been to consult him about this. What could Amy possibly know that he did not?
“What do you mean?” he asked, trying not to demand an answer but to keep his gentle tone.
All the same, his pulse had quickened, and he was struck by an urge to put Amy down and go to find out what was happening for himself.
“She’s our best governess,” Amy said, twisting around on his knee. “I like her a lot.”
“I know you do,” Edmund said. “She’s still your governess, though, isn’t she?”
Amy sighed. “Maybe,” she conceded.
“Why aren’t you sure?” Edmund asked. He felt he was starting to chip away at things, bit by bit, even if Amy was not giving him much to go on.
“She’ll be our sister now,” Amy declared, then shifted again. She seemed to be thinking. “I suppose that will be nice. She will be a nice sister.”
“Miss Warrick will be your sister?” Edmund repeated, not quite understanding what he was hearing or where Amy was getting her information from.
“I suppose I am happy for that,” Amy said, sighing noisily. “I just already had a sister. Now I don’t have a governess. And she will go away like Christopher does.”
“Amy, darling,” Edmund said, leaning away to look at her face again. “Tell me why you think Miss Warrick will be your sister, instead of your governess.”
“Christopher came home,” Amy said, as if that explained everything.
“Yes, I thought I heard his carriage arrive,” Edmund replied. “But what does Christopher have to do with it?”
“Well, because they are getting married,” Amy explained matter-of-factly, swinging one of her feet backwards and forwards in the air.
Edmund stared at her without full comprehension for a long moment.
Miss Warrick and Christopher, getting married? This was the first
he had heard of even a suggestion of the idea!
But he remembered Christopher watching her from the window, and a sense of dread began to creep over him.
“Can you tell me exactly what happened, Amy?” Edmund asked.
“Christopher came home,” Amy said, in an exasperated tone as if she was annoyed at having to repeat herself. “Then he talked to Miss Warrick when we were getting the crickets.”
Crickets…?
Edmund threw that aside for now, trying to focus on what mattered. “What did you hear them say?” he asked.