by Liz Tyner
His next words lacked emotion. ‘I just want to kill them.’
From the look in his eyes, she believed him. ‘That’s wrong. It’s unjust. You will hold them steady while I slap them senseless and, when I am finished, you can do the same, then they can go to gaol.’
‘You would not want them punished?’
‘I might.’ She challenged him with her face. ‘I did not get to be this old without learning trust is not to be given to many. Some people start out cruel and never transform as they age, except to become worse.’
‘How old are you?’
She raised an eyebrow and gave him her governess’s mischief-stopping stare. ‘My age is not your concern.’
‘Twenty-one,’ he guessed.
She didn’t speak or acknowledge him.
A dash of mischief slipped out from between overdone innocence in his eyes. ‘Twenty-seven?’
She glanced over her shoulder. ‘Somewhere around those numbers. This parlour game is not freeing us.’
He again sat on the bed and the dip in it caused by his movements jostled her. The man overwhelmed her, yet deep inside his presence comforted. He wouldn’t wish to harm her, yet she stiffened instinctively. She’d never been on a bed with a man. Ever.
He glanced at her with the same boredom her charges would have. ‘I’m not reaching for you, Miss—Governess. Nor,’ he added with a hint of too much sweetness, ‘do I plan to.’ Humour lingered in his voice. ‘If I recall correctly, you are the only one with those inclinations.’
The words reassured her, even with the not-so-hidden barb. They were on the same side and she would try to find a way to get them released.
With her fear of him gone, she studied the cottage. She put her palm to the back of her neck and absently pushed up tendrils to the knot of her hair.
When she focused on him, the steadiness of his perusal startled her. She wagered she could put a hand over her ring and, if asked, he could tell her she wore a small silver band with a blue sapphire in it.
She couldn’t place his origins in her mind. He had mentioned a ransom and his clothes did have quality about them. But he didn’t have the refinement, to her eye, of the guests who had visited the mansion she lived in. No, she could never see this man taking tea with Willie’s father, or even sharing a brandy or game of cards.
Gamblers sometimes wore fine clothes, she knew. Tradesmen who’d done well. Even some of the lower classes sometimes managed to afford well-made clothing. But he’d mentioned a butler.
‘How do you make your way in life?’ she asked.
He levelled a gaze at her. ‘I manage properties.’
‘I suspected your boots were of high quality.’
‘I am thankful not to have been wearing inferior clothing and embarrass you or the criminals who took me.’ Even though his eyes showed a hint of humour, the upturn of his lips showed none. He glanced at his feet. ‘I never knew how much attention a pair of boots brought. I just had them made and my friends hardly noticed them. I am used to my hats being noticed. But my boots are simply functional.’
He rose, stretching his legs and tapping his feet against the floor as if to get blood flowing. ‘Superior ones, though.’ At the wall, he leaned against the structure, propping himself into a restful position.
He studied her and she could see the moment the question formed.
‘Your name?’ he asked.
‘I am usually called Governess.’ She kept herself firm. Once, she’d only been called Child. She dwelled on her mother asking for her name, and she’d answered Child. She’d cried when her mother had kept insisting that she had another name, as if something was wrong with Child.
Then her mother had quietened and said Miranda could have two names. Or three, or four. Several days later she had asked Miranda if that name would suit her. Miranda would have agreed to any name at that point.
‘Does Miss Governess have another name?’ He spoke sweetly—too sweetly.
‘Miss Manwaring.’ Her eyes tightened at the corners. ‘And your name?’
He didn’t answer her question, seeming surprised that she didn’t know him. ‘Will anyone be searching for you?’
‘Perhaps my employer, but I cannot see him devoting much effort to it. He might contact my father—but if he does so, he will likely be told he is better for the loss.’
‘Parents don’t always see the joy of having children. My mother calls me Chal.’ He peered at her. ‘And she says it suits me because I can be a bit of a challenge. But most people call me Chalgrove.’
‘Thank you, Mr Chalgrove.’
He studied her more closely than Willie did when he was planning something irritating. He ducked his head and raised it after erasing an abashed grin. ‘You have put me decidedly in my place, Miss Manwaring. I, perhaps, deserved it.’
She paused. He seemed to think she should know him, yet he’d not even given her his surname, only a nickname his mother called him.
‘The name sounds familiar, Mr Chalgrove.’ He must be one of her employer’s friends or her father’s. ‘But I’m afraid I don’t recall our meeting.’
One side of his lips twisted up. ‘I’m certain our paths haven’t crossed or I would recollect it. I’ve given you two options, which is more than I give most people. Chal or Chalgrove. And you can leave the mister off.’ He took the command out of his words with a smile. ‘You choose.’
‘I will not address you...’ She widened her eyes. ‘Unless I must. And then I will make my choice. I suppose if we are friends I can call you Chalgrove.’
‘You are hanging tightly to those manners, aren’t you?’
‘No.’ She made a tossing movement towards the window. ‘They’re gone.’
‘Thank you for accommodating me. I had suspected that would be impossible for you shortly after you swung the bottle at me.’
‘I was simply not thinking correctly. I hope to mend that and to thank you for softening the blow. The bottle will never be the same and my arm still aches.’ She rubbed her arm. ‘You jarred me and nearly knocked me off my feet.’
She saw his mouth relax and maybe a hint of humour, real humour, hid behind his eyes.
‘My pardon,’ he said. ‘Any time you need my shoulder, it is here for you.’ The silence grew. ‘Even if you’ve a weapon in your hand.’
Chapter Four
The day passed with the same joy of being trapped in a July blacksmith’s forge. The silence grated on Chalgrove’s nerves like the screech of iron pieces grating together and the heat mounted as the sun rose to the centre of the sky.
With a shard of broken glass, he chipped away at the edge of the wall and the door, trying to find a weak spot or make one.
As the day wore on, he swore Miss Manwaring’s eyes got more luminous and her lips moistened. He blamed it on the heat, justly, he supposed. But the temperature shouldn’t make her more appealing. She should melt.
Instead, she’d taken a scrap of white fabric which had to have been torn from an undergarment and was using it to fan her face.
He’d seen female undergarments tossed here and there, but this one that he couldn’t see caught his attention. A plain piece of white cloth with ripped edges. He imagined her ripping the chemise, expending anger and frustration on to the fabric.
His thoughts stopped, attached to a scrap of material.
A chemise he’d never seen. It was no more than stitched white cloth, with a little tear in it. Soft from washings. Warm from body heat. Plain.
His hand slipped off the glass and crashed against the wood.
He stopped his oath in the middle of the word, took in a deep breath and weighed his next sentence. He’d not been raised to speak such in front of women and his father had taught him that tempering his language was a sign of strength.
‘My thoughts, exactly,’ she said. ‘Although I am not spe
aking them.’
‘Might make you feel better.’
‘No. It wouldn’t. It would only make me angrier. I’ve tried it. I keep my anger all tamped down inside me and usually let it out and scrub it away when I’m bathing. The other servants think I’m an extremely serene woman who is overly concerned with cleanliness.’ She sighed. ‘There is not enough bath water in the world for this.’
‘True.’
He studied the planks in front of him and realised he needed to tamp down all the visions of her bathing even further than he’d hidden the chemise images or he might accidentally cut off a finger.
He needed a horseback ride or a long walk...those were his ways of working out the imaginations he needed to keep in control.
His fist slammed against the wall again when his hand slipped a second time.
‘Perhaps you should put that aside for now,’ she suggested.
‘I’ll take more care.’
He had to. For her sake, if for no other reason. And there was an extra grave he needed to dig. But, first, he had to catch the culprits who’d trapped him and this woman.
That was not revenge. It was justice. No one should ever scare Miss Manwaring. It wasn’t right. But she was handling it well. Not cowering in the corner or crying or screaming. It almost seemed as if she were mentally digging a grave as well.
If it weren’t for the snap of her wrist and the set of her jaw, he might assume she felt no discomfort.
The heat did uncover more of her, but not on the outside. She didn’t complain, reek of perfumes gone stale, or droop in an unbecoming way. True, her clothing wilted on her, bringing more of her shape into view.
He forced his mind on to the task and continued picking away at the wood. He’d made a small notch in it, nothing to be proud of, but he could not sit idle. The movement helped ease him. What else had he to do? Otherwise, he’d think of the chemise. The woman sitting with her back straight. And the way her clothing softened around her, bringing out curves and femininity and he angered even more that he hadn’t, in some way, protected her.
She should not have been taken. He should have made the streets safer somehow.
She stood and stamped her foot, and began another search of the room.
He could tell by her movements she’d not cinched her corset tightly. She wore it for propriety’s sake and not because she wished to attract attention. She wasn’t bursting at the seams of her dress—she was hiding her body neatly inside, or so she supposed. Prim and proper to the core. Cleansing all her unkind inclinations away and tidying the very best ones and attiring herself in them as if she awakened pure as an angel each morning.
He closed his eye and rubbed fingertips over it. Inside his head, he unleashed a string of the most vile profanities that he could think of.
Then he placed the glass on the floor and examined the room again. Letting the woman distract him wasn’t going to help either of them. But how could he ignore her?
‘Your pacing isn’t helping,’ he said. ‘It’ll only tire you and you might need all your strength to escape.’
She waved his words away and kept walking.
‘You’re exasperating me,’ he claimed.
‘I know,’ she mumbled, stopping in front of him, bringing the scent of lavender to him. ‘I’m paid to be annoying.’ Her voice sounded different now. More human. ‘It’s how I earn my keep. Don’t complain. It makes nothing better.’
‘Do those words work for the children?’
‘At night, I tell Dolly the angels need their rest as well, so she must be still to make their watching over her easier. I tell the boy a devil lies under his bed and if Willie steps one foot out before morning, he’ll get pulled into Hades.’
‘You do?’ He stilled, examining her face.
‘No. I only think it,’ she spoke wistfully. ‘I tell him we will have questions if he does not fall asleep. I do love him dearly, even if...’ Her brows and lips rose at the same time. ‘He is so unpredictable, and can be a...a challenge.’
‘And I supposed I was the exception.’ He noted the sunshine in her voice when she spoke of the children. ‘Questions? What questions do you ask your little charge?’
Even though the walls surrounded them, when she spoke, they faded away.
‘In what year was the Bank of England founded?’ she queried, eyes narrowed.
‘You ask a child this?’
‘1694.’ She rushed ahead. ‘You should pay attention to your studies. Who became the Tsar of Russia in 1689?’
‘Peter the Great.’
The room didn’t seem so forbidding and the space enclosed them in a companionable way. ‘He always answers that one correctly as well. I tell him Peter the Great was over six and a half feet tall and, when he travelled, he used someone’s stomach for a pillow. Willie loves to think about a rumbling pillow. And the tsar’s cane he thumped people with. Although I don’t think I should have ever told him about the cane. He decided he wished to be the tsar of Russia.’
‘You’re a governess, not a tutor. How did you learn such things?’
‘Books. My father read a lot. And he exchanged books with friends and I would often read them as well. I could read quickly and he likely didn’t notice me even borrowing them.’
She walked the room, testing each board he’d already tried dozens of times, searching for an escape.
If he could get only a few boards loose, she would be small enough to crawl out to unlatch the door from the other side.
‘Any progress?’ she asked, wiping her brow.
‘Little.’ He leaned against the wall. His back ached. His shoulders. His knees. The ale had helped, but the effects were fading.
He studied the wood, combing for anything he might have missed before, but the shadows of her movements caught his eye.
He’d watched her pat her bun every few minutes, straightening her hair like some sort of spinster crown, with a little shiny bauble in it. She didn’t want her hair to be mussed—this governess who didn’t seem a woman who would let a man take out the pins and let her dark hair fall to her shoulders. He would say she’d never been kissed, but with those lips, he knew she had.
She stalked the walls of the room, still searching for an escape. She paced, two to three steps, then ran her fingers over the wall. Paced again, examining lower or higher after the next few steps. He wondered if her hands had stroked each surface of the walls several times.
And if he watched the liquid grace of her hands moving over the wood, his body stirred with arousal.
He’d not slept since before his capture. The hours of being awake, the imprisonment and the woman in the room with him made him aware of his back being against the wall. It wasn’t just the physical action of it, but the little currents of air and thought and circumstance that forced him to contemplate every strand of sight and movement that he could take in.
He understood one feeling that hadn’t entered his consciousness before. Somehow, this woman, seemingly no stronger than a puff of wind, comforted him.
No one comforted him. Not by words or actions. Perhaps a strong drink might brace him, or a forceful word might send someone scurrying from his sight, but no one had ever comforted him because he didn’t need it. He didn’t need it now. He would deal with the circumstances he could control and withstand the rest.
She was the one to be reassured.
‘I will get us out of this. I will do it,’ he said.
She stopped. Stared. Concentration firm. Her head moved closer. ‘The door is barred. So are the windows.’
‘I know that full well. I just want to assure you that I was taken by surprise. That was my error. But, be that as it may, you needn’t concern yourself.’
She crossed her arms, and tucked her chin under. ‘The door is closed.’
‘It’s just a door. Wood. It will give way. E
ventually. Then I will see justice done.’
She perched on the edge of the bed and stared at the window. ‘I’d rather have a good axe right now than justice.’ She faced him again. ‘A hammer even.’
‘I am not particularly handy with tools, but I could use a weapon. We will be out within twenty-four hours. I will see to it.’
She blinked twice. ‘Could you perhaps go for twelve?’
In answer, he blinked twice, and somehow felt relieved that the solace he’d found in her presence had turned into an irritation.
He smiled. ‘I will take your suggestion into account.’
He had to get some rest soon, or he would be picking an argument with his shadow.
Striding to the so-called window, he checked again that the boards had been reinforced from the outside many times over.
He had to get them out soon. It would be hard for his family to gather money. His mother knew nothing about the family finances. She didn’t even know the name of his man of affairs.
‘It’s against the law to pay a ransom,’ he said. ‘Though I hardly think a kidnapper would concern herself with that.’
‘I don’t think she wants funds. I think it’s more about...some kind of justice.’
‘I could see myself angering someone, many times over. But you?’ he asked, then waited. ‘Whom do you think you angered?’
Miranda comprehended that she was being scrutinised. She stared at him from her resting place on the bed. ‘I try not to anger anyone.’
‘You’ve kept one secret from me...’ Chalgrove resumed his efforts to whittle away the wood ‘...which I think you should share.’
She didn’t wish to know his next question, but she didn’t want to hide from it. She waited.
‘What do you know that you’re not telling me? You’re aware of more than you’re saying.’
She reminded herself of her promise not to lie. ‘Nothing to get us out of here any sooner,’ she said.
With the merest movement of his eyes, he acknowledged her response and she could see the transformation inside him reflected on his face. Distrust.