“Lord Brackenwood gave his approval, my lady.”
“Indeed. As I said, he lacks judgement. Where is he, do you know? He seems to have vanished.”
“I have not seen him for some time,” Annabelle said.
“Well, the dancing is finished for the night, it seems, so you may go to bed, Miss Winterton. You are not needed for cards.”
Thus dismissed, she retreated to her room, although smiling at Lady Brackenwood’s high-handedness. The Dowager Countess was determined to keep the lowly governess away from her son, and to that end she had tried first Charles, and then, when that had not answered, the rich Mr Smythe. Well, that would not answer either, but Annabelle could not believe that the earl had any thoughts in her direction. There had been admiration in his eyes as they danced, certainly — she had been out for long enough to recognise that! But the leap from admiration to matrimony was a large one, especially given the disparity in rank. What sort of earl would so far forget himself as to marry the governess? And Lord Brackenwood did not seem like a man who strayed very far from the path expected of him. He was a dutiful man, and before too long would dutifully marry some suitable young lady and then dutifully set about cutting Mr George Skelton out of the inheritance.
Somehow that made her rather sad.
Annabelle was far too lively for sleep. The dancing had absorbed her energy, but it had not quieted her mind. Fortunately, there were advantages to living in the household of an earl. The library was one of them, as the neat pile of books on her bedside table attested. Another was never-ending supplies of good coal and the best beeswax candles, even in the governess’s room. After she had readied herself for bed, she brought the fire to a good blaze, then lit several candles on the table beside her reading chair and settled down happily with a volume.
She had read for some time, and her eyes were beginning to grow heavy, when she became aware of noises emanating from an unusual quarter — the service staircase. Someone, it seemed, was ascending the stairs from below, someone singing and occasionally missing a step with a cheerful, “Oops-a-daisy!” followed by a chuckle.
Annabelle jumped up to lock the door, but there was no key — why had she never thought about this possibility before? But even while she was frantically scrabbling through drawers looking for a key, the door burst open and the earl half fell through it.
“Oops!” he said again, and laughed. In one hand he held a nearly empty decanter, and in the other a glass, fortunately empty, for it drooped upside down in his hand. “Made it!” he yelled, beaming at his own cleverness in climbing the stairs unaided. But then considering how drunk he was, Annabelle thought it was indeed an achievement. “Jus’… have… l’il nightcap,” he said, trying and failing to rest the decanter on a cabinet.
“I believe you have had enough,” Annabelle said, deftly lifting the decanter from his hand and whisking it into a cupboard.
“Hey!” he cried indignantly. “My rum! Where’sh my rum?”
“Is that what it is? No wonder you are bosky. A very little of that goes a long way. There now, give me the glass too.”
“Ann’belle? Mish Wint— Mish Winner— Wha’ you doin’ in my room? You come to gimme a kish, eh?”
She could not help laughing at his hopeful face. The sad, dutiful earl had vanished, replaced by this smiling, amusingly befuddled fellow.
“No kisses for you, my lord,” she said briskly. “You are in the wrong room. Off you go, back downstairs to your own bed and sleep off your excess of rum.” She turned him round and pushed him towards the open door, but he simply spun round again and held his arms wide.
“C’mon, Ann’belle, gimme a kish, eh?”
“Not the slightest chance,” she said, laughing. “Good lord, you are as drunk as a wheelbarrow, and I never kiss men who are foxed, you know, as a matter of principle. Go on with you, go back to your own room.”
Again she pushed him towards the stairs, and again he turned round and set out to claim his kiss. Seeing that a different stratagem was required, she backed away across the room, through the door into her bedroom and towards the bed. Happily he followed her, and when he was alongside the bed she gave him a good shove so that he collapsed onto it. For an instant his face was a ludicrous expression of confusion. He thrashed about, trying to regain his feet, but when he failed, he lay back against the covers and closed his eyes. Swiftly she lifted his feet onto the bed, and before two minutes had passed by, he was snoring loudly.
“Well, you had better stay there, my lord,” she murmured, “for I am sure that I cannot lift you and you will not want me to rouse the footmen at this hour to carry you from my bedroom to your own. That would set tongues wagging.”
She extinguished all but one candle and then, having checked that no one else was about, she crept out of her room and across the night-darkened landing to the schoolroom, and the safety of the late Lady Brackenwood’s little room, where at least there was a lock with a working key to protect her from drunken earls with amorous intentions. She climbed into the slightly fusty bed, and closed her eyes. Yet she lay awake for some time, smiling in the dark, and wondering what it would have been like to kiss the earl, even with the smell of rum on his breath.
~~~~~
Allan woke with a groan, his head thick, his mouth dry as dust and something strangling him. His neckcloth. Why on earth was he still fully dressed? Only when he tentatively opened his eyes, groaning again at the brightness, did he begin to realise that there was something more fundamentally wrong than the fact that he still wore his evening clothes.
This was not his bedroom.
He swung himself upright, and instantly regretted it. The room spun violently and whatever was in his stomach seemed to have an urgent need to leave it. He groaned again, closed his eyes and tried not to cast up his accounts. Gradually, the room and his stomach settled into a more peaceable state.
Opening his eyes again, he realised with a bolt of horror where he was. Dear heaven, this must be Annabelle’s room! Whatever had he done? There was no sign of her in the small bedroom. Gingerly he stood up, waited again for the room to stop revolving, and crept towards the door. The sitting room was empty too. Thank God! And perhaps if he were lucky, he could regain his own room before Portman arrived with his morning chocolate and washing water.
It was not his day for luck. Portman was pretending to rearrange neckcloths in a drawer while studiously ignoring the pristine state of the bed.
“Ah, Portman…” The footman could not possibly be unaware that Allan had arrived from the bedchamber above his own.
“Good morning, my lord. I trust—”
“Portman, if you are about to ask me if I slept well, I shall wring your neck. And if you breathe a word of this to a soul, you will be turned off instantly without a reference, do you hear?”
“My lips are sealed, my lord. Might I suggest that if your lordship is feeling a trifle knocked-up this morning, a little brandy might be just the thing?”
“Hair of the dog, eh? Oh, very well, very well.”
After the brandy, followed by a wash, a leisurely shave and dressing in his comfortable old clothes, he had to admit that he felt a little better. His usual walk before breakfast cleared his head somewhat, and by the time he had returned to his room and nibbled without enthusiasm at some toast, he felt able to don his morning attire and face the world with nothing worse afflicting him than a slight headache.
And a guilty conscience. He could not forget that.
Mr Cross awaited him in the library. “Good morning, my lord. I have brought the accounts for your inspection, and there is a letter—”
Wincing, Allan waved him to silence. “Not today, Cross. Leave everything on my desk for now. I may look at it later, but you need not stay. Would you be so good as to go up to the schoolroom and ask Miss Winterton if she would favour me with her presence in the library as soon as it may be convenient?”
“Very good, my lord.”
But moments after he had
departed on this errand, there was a knock on the door. She had come to him! To upbraid him, no doubt. And what on earth was he to say to her?
“Entrez!” he called out.
But it was not Annabelle who came through the door.
“Marisa? What do you want?”
She looked at him, puzzled. “Why, Allan, to talk to you, of course.”
“Is it urgent? I can spare you five minutes, that is all.”
She pouted at his brusqueness, but after her behaviour the previous night — that at least he remembered in full — he could not bring himself to offer her much courtesy.
“It will not take so long. I have come to give you this.” She proffered a sheet of paper, half covered in writing. “It is a letter written by Eloise last year, in which she speaks of her innermost fears. My poor sister was terrified, Allan.”
“Whatever could she have to fear?”
“She suspected someone was trying to kill her.”
11: An Unsent Letter
“Where did you get this?” Allan said, staring unseeingly at the letter in his hand.
“I found it in her escritoire when I was looking for paper yesterday,” Marisa said. “It is not directed at anyone in particular, so I cannot tell whether she intended to send it to someone — me, for instance — or whether she merely hoped it would be found after her death. The date is barely a month before her death, do you see that? And she died so suddenly, Allan, one cannot help but wonder…”
“Wilcox saw nothing untoward about it. He examined her thoroughly and found nothing to alarm him, for you may be sure I asked him very particularly.”
“Oh, but perhaps he merely thought it expedient to say nothing. Or perhaps he had a hand in it.”
“Good heavens, Marisa, what are you suggesting? That Dr Wilcox murdered my wife? Why would he do such a thing? Why would anyone do such a thing?”
“Who can say?” she said archly. “It is not for me to speculate. I have done my duty, and now it is for you to decide what must be done about it. There, you see — I have not taken up so very much of your valuable time, have I?”
And so saying, she swept out of the room.
Almost at once, Portman entered. “Miss Winterton is here to see you, my lord.”
“Oh… oh, of course. Show her in.” All his humiliation swept back in an instant. Whatever was he to say to her? He laid Marisa’s paper aside to think about when he was less distracted.
She curtsied very demurely, but there was a knowing twinkle in her eyes.
As soon as Portman had left the room, Allan shut the door firmly behind him. He wanted no witnesses to this conversation.
“Miss Winterton… I cannot begin to express my regret for my behaviour last night. I dare not even beg your forgiveness, for it was quite unpardonable. The worst of it is, my memory is utterly blank. Did I… did I hurt you?”
“Not in the least. You were amusingly drunk, that is all.”
Relief washed through him. He had not injured her! That was something, at least. “Amusingly! You are more magnanimous than I deserve, Miss Winterton.”
“Oh, I am used to it. My father ended the day foxed more often than not.”
“Is that where you learnt such expressions?”
“Foxed, you mean? Oh, yes! Whenever anyone suggested, no matter how gently, that perhaps he might be better off to go to bed and drink no more that night, he would yell at the top of his lungs, ‘I am not foxed!’ Or bosky or disguised or jug-bitten or fuddled or in his cups or… well, you get the idea. He was less entertaining than you, I must admit. You were very good-humoured.”
“Was I? But why was I in your bed? I feared the worst.”
But she only laughed. “You really remember nothing? It seems that after you disappeared from the saloon, you found the rum and decided you liked the taste of it very well. I assume you were in the library and set off up the service stairs to your room above, but missed your own door and ended up in my room instead. Finding me already in possession, and the rum filling your mind with nonsensical ideas, you expressed a wish to kiss me and attempted to accomplish the same.”
“Oh,” he said faintly.
“In this endeavour you were unsuccessful, but I managed to persuade you to the bed, where you promptly fell asleep. I then slept in the late Lady Brackenwood’s room off the schoolroom.”
“Ah,” he said.
“So you see, there is no harm done, and your sore head will be better soon, depend upon it.”
“It is not my sore head that concerns me. Miss Winterton, Portman knows where I spent the night.”
“And the maids will know where I spent it. They will draw the obvious conclusion, that you were drunk and I chose to sleep elsewhere.”
“But—”
“Lord Brackenwood, you refine too much upon it. No harm has come to me, and I was not in the least distressed by your antics, I assure you. I have seen my father in far worse case, so let us speak no more of it.”
“You are all goodness, Miss Winterton, but you must see that this cannot be the end of the matter. I have compromised your reputation and must make it right.”
“No, no, no!” she cried. “Say no more, I beg you! No man should be bound by his foolishness when in his cups. I am going now.”
She spun round and would have quit the room, but Allan moved swiftly to prevent her. Taking her hand in his, he said, “The foolishness of drink may reveal a deeper truth. You assume that rum made me want to kiss you last night, but I am as sober as a judge this morning and I still want to kiss you. Marry me, Annabelle, please!”
She raised a finger to his lips. “Hush now. You are an honourable man, and I respect and admire you for that, but there is no question of marriage. When time has soothed your conscience a little, you will be glad that one of us has retained a shred of common sense. I am going back to my pupils now, and you will go back to your usual morning occupation, and we will never speak of this again. And tonight at dinner, we will meet again as earl and governess, and no one will ever suspect what has happened.”
~~~~~
Annabelle did not, in fact, go directly back to the schoolroom. She had left the girls reading about Henry VII, under the supervision of one of the nursery maids, so there was no need for her to hurry back and her nerves were too overset to think about the Tudors. She went instead to her own room, and paced up and down her sitting room for fully half an hour.
She had refused the earl by instinct, for a marriage between a peer and a governess was so far beyond the pale that he could not be serious. Only his conscience made him offer to marry her. And yet… he had said he wanted to kiss her, and he was not a man to invent such a thing. Her father had once said, after an overwrought suitor had snatched a kiss from Fanny, to her outrage, that every man desired to kiss every pretty woman he meets, that there was something badly amiss with him if he did not and that it was a compliment to her beauty. But Lord Brackenwood was not every man, nor was he given to flirting, so if he said he wanted to kiss her, it suggested something more than normal male desire.
Oh, how tempting it was! Even had she still been Miss Winterton of Woodside she would have been attracted to the idea of being a countess, but how much more enticing was the prospect from her present lowly position. Marriage, respectability, a position in society and no worries about money ever again… what bliss it would be. And the earl was a lovely man, so gentlemanly and respectful, when he was sober, which he almost always was. Last night had been an aberration, unlikely to be repeated.
But she was not in love with him. Did that matter? The man she loved… or rather, the man she had once loved, was out of her reach, whereas the earl… No, that was a foolish way of thinking. She had been right to turn him down, and once he considered the matter in a proper light, he would understand that and be thankful for his narrow escape.
Still, she could not help wondering a little wistfully what her life would have been like, if she had said yes.
Eventually, she was
composed enough to return to the schoolroom, and distract herself with some work on the globes, and then some French. They were just beginning their work on irregular verbs when Portman came in with a note for her.
‘Miss Winterton, I should very much like to discuss with you a family matter of the utmost secrecy, entirely unrelated to our discussion this morning. If you would be willing to favour me with your counsel, please meet me in the Grecian Temple at 4 o’clock. Be not alarmed — I promise to keep well away from the rum beforehand. However, if you do not feel it to be proper, I will endeavour to find some other way to discuss the matter with you privily. Brackenwood.’
Although she laughed out loud at his promise to avoid rum, she wondered greatly at his wish to discuss a private family matter with her. Could it be appropriate to involve an outsider? Yet the earl, who knew the circumstances, must be the best judge of that. Curiosity won out and so at the appointed hour she left the girls working on their samplers, fetched her cloak and set out in the rain to meet the earl. Circumspection led her to approach by a roundabout route, heading first across the park to the woods and then some distance under the trees before circling back to the lake, where the Grecian Temple sat on a small hill overlooking the water.
When she arrived, he was sitting on the marble bench which ran around the interior wall. Jumping up with a pleased expression, he came towards her with hands outstretched, before remembering himself and bowing instead. She curtsied and he waved her to sit down, seating himself a little distance away.
“Thank you, thank you! I was so afraid—” he began eagerly, then huffed a breath, and spoke more calmly. “Your forbearance is unparalleled, Miss Winterton. It is the greatest relief to me to have someone to turn to who is neither family nor outsider, yet whose opinion may be entirely trusted.”
“It gives me pleasure to be of service to you and your family, Lord Brackenwood, although I cannot imagine how I may advise you on a family matter.”
“It concerns my wife’s death. Would you be so good as to read this? Mrs Pargeter found it in my wife’s desk.”
The Governess (Sisters of Woodside Mysteries Book 1) Page 11