by Sheila Walsh
‘Naturally, my dear young lady. I shall give the matter my personal attention.’ Was there a twinkle in his eye? If so, it was quickly gone. ‘Now, er … I hope you will not think me presumptuous, but you spoke of leaving Mrs Hamilton’s … standing on your own feet was, I believe, the phrase you used.’ Mr Lewis looked at her in a troubled way. ‘Are you sure that this is wise? A young lady on her own …’ He shook his head.
‘Oh, you need not worry about me,’ she told him cheerfully. ‘Once William is settled, I mean to work to support myself.’
‘I see,’ said the lawyer with extreme dryness. ‘And do you have anything definite in view?’
Pandora, remembering her recent disastrous interview, flushed a little, but she met his glance squarely. ‘Not as yet, but I have every confidence that I shall find a post ‒ as companion, perhaps, or governess.’
‘My dear Miss Carlyon, I do beg you to think carefully before you take this step. Life with Mrs Hamilton may have its drawbacks, but she is, with the exception of your brothers, the nearest thing to family that you can own to …’
‘Maybe so, Mr Lewis, but if I am to be a drudge, I had far rather be paid for my services. And that way, you see, I may save up until I am able to make a home for my brothers ‒ nothing elaborate, of course, but a place where they may come and go as they please without feeling beholden.’
Mr Lewis opened his mouth to demolish this roseate dream, but the light of enthusiastic determination in Pandora’s eyes was such that he could not bring himself to quench it. He contented himself with an equivocal murmur.
‘Well, well ‒ we shall see. Should I hear of anything suitable, you may be sure I will inform you of it.’
Pandora arrived back in Brook Street to find everyone from home. Binns informed her that Miss Prossett had succumbed to one of her bad headaches, and in consequence madam had taken Miss Eliza out visiting with her, whilst William, left to his own devices, was last seen sloping off in the direction of the park.
Pandora stifled a momentary unease at this last piece of news and dwelt instead upon the heady prospect of finding herself if only for a short time in sole possession of her surroundings. Fast on the heels of this thought came the remembrance that she hadn’t eaten since breakfast, a state of affairs soon rectified since Cook had a warm regard for this half-sister of her mistress who, she had been heard to mutter in the safe confines of her kitchen, was worth ten of certain other persons who should be nameless.
Her pangs of hunger assuaged, Pandora gathered up Frederick’s discarded newspaper and carried it along to the drawing room where a cheerfully leaping fire had been lit to take the chill off the spring afternoon. With reckless abandon she kicked off her shoes and went round collecting up all the cushions scattered about the room, piling them indiscriminately upon Octavia’s sofa and plumping down amongst them, resolved to sample for a while the hedonistic world of the pampered.
But her innate dislike of prolonged inactivity, be it physical or mental, soon stirred her into reaching for the newspaper. She scanned the columns of advertisements eagerly, but could find nothing which remotely met her needs. For the first time she began to regret the outspokenness that had undoubtedly damned her in the Duke of Heron’s eyes.
Recognition of her own shortcomings, however, did not prevent her from spending several satisfying minutes devising ways and means of bringing about his discomfiture and eventual downfall. She was in the throes of one such deliciously irreverent daydream when Binns came to shatter her mood by announcing in respectful tones that the object of her reverie was below and wishful for an audience.
Pandora sat up with a squeak. The blood drained from her face and then flooded back as guilt suffused her. She gripped the back of the sofa with convulsive fingers while her mind raced. Perhaps he had brought the constable in order to have her committed to prison? No, that would be too absurd! Wouldn’t it?
‘I can’t possibly see him, Binns! Did you not tell him that Mrs Hamilton was out?’
‘Yes, miss.’ The butler paused and then, with the air of one bursting with important tidings: ‘But his grace asked most expressly for you.’
‘Oh Gemini!’ she said faintly.
She leaned her arms along the sofa back and sank her chin on to her hands, fixing Binns with a pensive unblinking stare that hid blind panic. Every instinct was urging her to seek the haven of her cramped but safe quarters up in the rafters. No matter how one viewed the Duke’s summary visitation, that he had come at all, his speedy discovery of her direction, seemed little short of ominous.
Binns, very conscious of the impropriety of keeping so august a personage kicking his heels below, cleared his throat apologetically, making Pandora jump.
Heavens! She would have to make a decision ‒ retreat or stand her ground.
‘Oh well!’ She moved her shoulders in rueful acceptance and gave the butler a smile that was pure bravado. ‘I may as well get it over with. He can’t eat me, after all.’
‘Just so, miss.’ In the relief of knowing that he would not be called upon to deny the Duke admittance, Binns failed to find anything odd in this observation. ‘Then with your permission I will ask his grace to step up right away.’
‘Thank you,’ she said politely, and continued to kneel amongst the cushions long after he had left, lost in furious contemplation of how she should go on. The Duke would expect an apology, of course, for all that he had been quite as uncivil as she. It was grossly unfair, she reflected, but none the less true that his exalted position in society gave him licence to behave very much as he pleased, whilst her own circumstances precluded any like degree of self-indulgence.
It was only as Pandora stood up to make ready for her ordeal that she remembered her shoes, so carelessly discarded. A frantic search yielded one, but the second continued to elude her and all too soon Binns was back, throwing the door open once more to announce in a voice that throbbed with pride: ‘His grace, the Duke of Heron.’
She heard the quick impatient step and jerked upright, tucking an escaping strand of hair behind her ear as she did so and feeling distinctly disadvantaged balanced on her one properly clad foot precariously supported by its more disreputable fellow hastily drawn back under cover of her skirts.
The Duke came to a halt before her, a drab driving coat with many capes swirling about him, and her first coherent thought was of how completely he filled the room with his presence; her second, totally inconsequential, was that Octavia would be furious to have been denied the accolade of receiving personally into her house this acknowledged linchpin of society.
The thought brought a wicked little smile to her eyes, a smile taken due note of by her high-in-the-instep visitor. Not a propitious start.
To cover her embarrassment she returned his greeting politely and invited him to sit down, doing so herself. Careful to tuck her feet well back, she tugged her dress down surreptitiously to ensure that they were out of sight. But not quite soon enough.
His mouth was quivering as he took the chair she indicated, the coat falling open to reveal gleaming hessians and immaculate buff calf-clingers. He folded his arms and seemed in no hurry to come to the purpose of his visit. The silence became almost palpable.
Perhaps, if she were to make her apology now? She was still wondering how best to word it when she succumbed instead to the irresistible pang of curiosity, the words tumbling out before she could stop them.
‘Oh, I do wish I knew why you have come!’
Heron had been plagued by the very same question. He had expected to banish Miss Pandora Carlyon from his mind within moments of her departure, and was not best pleased when more than an hour later the memory of a pair of uncomfortably candid grey eyes still disturbed his concentration.
In the end he had damned himself for a fool, called for his curricle to be brought round and driven to Lady Margerson’s house. At that hour he had little expectation of finding her alone, and so it proved. However, a casually dropped word and she was beckoning hi
m to her side to make him the recipient of her murmured confidences without his ever needing to ask a direct question.
‘A charming gel, my dear Heron ‒ pluck to the backbone, I give you my word on’t.’ She threw him an arch smile. ‘I mean to give one of my little soirées as soon as I feel up to it so that you may see for yourself. She ain’t one of your society beauties, mind ‒ in fact, she don’t run to many of the social graces ‒ never had the opportunity, d’ye see. Been with the Army most of her young life … but worth ten of these skitter-brained gels one sees around … and like to ruin her chances if something ain’t done soon …’
There had been much in similar vein, but he had managed to extricate himself at last, more intrigued than before, and without quite knowing why he should care one jot what Miss Carlyon thought of him, found himself presently drawing up before the Hamiltons’ house in Brook Street.
Pandora, waiting upon his answer, watched him warily, wishing she might take the words back and begin again. She encountered his tawny eyes and found their irony unsettling. She opened her mouth to speak again and was forestalled.
‘Miss Carlyon, it would seem that I may have misinterpreted the purpose of your visit this morning. Would I now be right in deducing that you came in order that you might make application for a post as governess to my recently acquired French wards?’
She could scarcely believe what she was hearing. It couldn’t ‒ it surely couldn’t be that he was apologizing to her? She gulped.
‘Yes, of course. What other purpose could I possibly have had?’
‘What indeed!’ The words held a curious ambivalence. ‘Tell me, ma’am ‒ do I really strike you as the kind of man who would put himself to the trouble of interviewing prospective governesses? Even when they come impeccably recommended?’ Her obvious puzzlement provoked a faint exasperation. ‘Dammit, I wouldn’t even know what to look for!’
‘Then I don’t understand …’
‘At last we reach some measure of agreement,’ he said dryly, ‘for no more do I. Or rather ‒’ he rose, took a turn about the room and swung round to face her ‘‒ perhaps I do. Did Lady Margerson specifically indicate that I was in need of a governess?’
‘Yes, of course! At least …’ Pandora bit her lip, remembering her lack of concentration. ‘Well, my attention may have wandered just a little, but she must have said something of the kind, for she knew I was desirous of seeking just such a position ‒’
‘Why?’ he interrupted her.
‘I beg your pardon?’
He came close to the sofa ‒ overwhelmingly close, looking down at her with that degree of intensity which she found so disconcerting.
‘Why are you desirous of becoming a governess ‒ a job for which in my opinion you are ill-suited? Do you have no family to support you?’
Pandora flushed, nettled by his tone. ‘No, sir, I do not. My parents are both dead.’
‘Yes, yes, I know all about that. Also that you have brothers, one younger than yourself, and you don’t get on with your sister, which doesn’t surprise me from what little ‒ what very little I know of her ‒ or of you.’ He was frowning. ‘But surely there is someone other than Mrs Hamilton to whom you can turn?’
Pandora, momentarily diverted by the thought that he must be omniscient, soon realized that he had been discussing her with Lady Margerson. She was not at all sure that she liked being talked about behind her back and wondered, not for the fist time, why he should have bothered. She made her tone deliberately matter of fact.
‘I fear not, sir. You see my parents were both only children and their parents, too, are dead.’
‘I see.’
‘In any case, I had much liefer be independent.’ It was surprisingly difficult, she discovered, to assert oneself with true conviction whilst craning one’s neck at such an uncomfortable angle. ‘I do wish you will sit down again,’ she said with obvious feeling.
A smile passed fleetingly across his face but he made no immediate move to comply.
‘Was I mistaken in what Lady Margerson said, then?’ she persevered in some despair. ‘Do you not require a governess, after all?’
‘I haven’t the slightest idea,’ he murmured. ‘You see, my wards have not yet arrived. But I very much hope that they will come equipped with all the attendants necessary to their needs.’
‘Oh!’ Pandora thought him shockingly unfeeling, but forbore to say so. ‘Then …’
The Duke’s expression scarcely altered, yet from under those lazy lids his eyes glinted at her in such a way that in other circumstances she might have suspected him of laughing at her.
‘My dear Miss Carlyon, I do sympathize, believe me. I am only too aware that Lady Margerson’s ramblings can become tediously protracted so that if one’s attention wanders for even a short while, one can miss the whole nub of the matter …’ He was standing with his back to the window and the sun made a kind of halo about his head, which sat ill with that unholy glint in his eye. She was gripped by a sudden and quite illogical presentiment.
‘The nub, in this case,’ he concluded casually, ‘being that her ladyship’s quest ‒ self-instigated, I do assure you ‒ is to discover for me the perfect wife.’
Chapter Four
For a moment the aura of sunlight about his head shimmered. Pandora could feel the blood draining out of her face, but still that tawny-eyed look held her. She felt trapped and took refuge in bluster.
‘And you thought … you actually thought that I had come to … that I was … Oh!’ She was in grave danger of becoming incoherent. ‘I think that is quite beastly! How could you?’
‘You are harsh with me, Miss Carlyon.’ He did not sound in the least repentant. ‘But pray strive to appreciate the nature of my predicament. A strange young lady ‒ a very forceful young lady ‒’ he emphasized the word with obvious relish and she blushed ‘‒ inveigles her way into my house, into my very library ‒’
‘I did not inveigle!’ she protested.
‘‒ and offers herself, apparently with Lady M.’s blessing, as the perfect embodiment of some unspecified desire upon my part … What am I supposed to think?’
What indeed? Oh, what a coil! ‘Does Lady Margerson know?’ she asked in a small voice, the blush now creeping right down to her toes.
‘I saw no reason to enlighten her. It would simply have added to the confusion.’
Well, that was something, at least. ‘I just didn’t stop to think! But I see now how misleading my behaviour must have seemed and … and idiotish. Small wonder that you were so ‒’
‘Odiously ungracious was, I believe, one of your more telling phrases.’
‘Oh, good God!’ she gasped, mortified beyond all measure as the memory of all those choice home-thrusts she had delivered in the white heat of her indignation rose like an unspoken reproach between them. Her eyes, no longer able to meet his, became engrossed in contemplation of her twisting fingers now clasped convulsively in her lap. ‘I do beg your pardon, my lord Duke,’ she offered by way of apology. ‘I daresay I said rather more than I should.’
‘You did indeed, Miss Pandora Carlyon,’ he agreed pleasantly. ‘You have, if I may say so, a most colourful turn of vocabulary when roused. Offhand, I can think of no one, with the possible exception of my grandmother, who would have dared to rip me up in such a thorough-going fashion!’
‘Oh no!’
‘What is more to the point, I suspect you relished every word!’
This reading of her character came too close for comfort. She lifted her eyes to his once more and saw a gleam of somewhat malicious humour lurking in their depths. In desperation she sought to vindicate herself.
‘It is a sad fault in me that in the heat of the moment I frequently say more than I mean.’ The gleam grew more pronounced and she added with an extra lift of her chin: ‘But I have said that I am sorry!’
‘And with that, I must be content, I suppose? Ah, well ‒’ The Duke stepped back at last with a gesture of resignation
. Pandora seized upon the opportunity to stand up and, in doing so, was reminded of her missing shoe.
‘You are clearly a creature of impulse, my dear young lady,’ he continued, finding himself strangely loath to put an end to the interview. ‘Whether it be paying gratuitous calls upon unsuspecting gentlemen or stepping out under the hooves of their horses ‒’
‘So you did recognize me?’ she cried.
He inclined his head briefly. ‘Or even,’ he drawled softly, his glance straying to something among the cushions scattered about the floor, ‘indulging a curious propensity for casting your footwear far and wide.’
His mouth quivered as he beheld her confusion and then, disconcertingly, he strode across the room, swooped suddenly and straightened up, bearing aloft her errant shoe.
‘This is yours, I believe?’
Pandora murmured embarrassed assent and held out a hand for it, but he continued to hold it just fractionally beyond her reach.
‘No, no, young Cinderella. You must permit me.’ With a sweeping bow, he indicated the sofa she had so recently vacated.
By now convinced that he was at the very least eccentric, if not actually mad (a trait not uncommon amongst the nobility, so she had heard), and not wishful to make much of so trifling a matter, she resumed her place feigning nonchalance as the Duke knelt before her and held out a hand authoritatively for her foot. After a moment’s hesitation she thrust it out, wishing she might have managed to smooth out the wrinkles in her sensible cotton stockings first.
With a growing sense of unreality she watched the shapely fingers close round her heel, felt the cool firmness of his touch. The easy competence with which he accomplished his self-appointed task suggested that he was no stranger to such small intimacies. The notion further confused her. She murmured stifled thanks and gave the foot an experimental little tug, but the fingers still encompassing it held fast.
‘A perfect fit,’ he commented sociably.