Again, her body remembered. Strong arms. The soft wool of his coat and the mingled scents of tobacco and his cologne. The welcome cocoon of heat, when she’d been so cold. He’d carried her up the stairs. He’d put her to bed. He’d—
Involuntarily, her fingers—her ungloved fingers—curled into the textured surface of a quilted linen coverlet.
“Look, Daph! She moved!”
The whisper, somewhat louder than before, came from inside the room.
“I told you she wasn’t dead.” A second girl’s voice, laced with exasperation. “Eejit.”
All at once Rosamund opened her eyes, tossed the blanket aside, and sat up, ignoring the protest of muscles whose very existence was something of a revelation, trying not to squint against the morning light. Two pairs of eyes peered over the foot of the bed, staring as if she were indeed a corpse come back to life.
She’d only been able to spare half an ear to Mr. Burke’s ramblings about his sisters, focused as she’d been on setting one foot in front of the other and swallowing the gasp of pain that rose to her lips with each step. Something about how he’d found himself unexpectedly responsible for their care and in need of assistance. And he’d assumed, somehow, that Rosamund was a—a governess. Absurd, really.
Then again…
A quick glance around the chamber revealed a second, neatly-made bed, a plain, old-fashioned wardrobe, a sturdy desk. A comfortable room in a modest, respectable home. Her brother would never think to look for her here.
In exchange for food and shelter, in exchange for the perfect hiding place, could she pretend to be a governess? Like the Burke girls, she’d never had one. Could she give instruction in French, mathematics, ladylike deportment, and…and whatever else governesses did?
Rosamund shifted her gaze from one sister to the other. They were watching her eagerly now. Expectantly. No, this would be no game of pretend. Not to them.
Well, then. What would a governess do next?
She fixed the elder girl with what she hoped was a stern eye. “You mustn’t call your sister an—” Truth be told, she wasn’t quite sure what the girl had said. But the tone in which the unfamiliar word had been spoken had been sufficient to make its meaning clear. “Ladies do not hurl insults.”
The younger gave a triumphant smile. “Yes, miss,” her sister murmured, almost penitent.
With Herculean effort she hoped would pass for ladylike grace, Rosamund swung her legs over the edge of the bed and sat, ramrod straight in spite of the hollow feeling in both her head and her belly. She motioned the girls to stand in front of her and studied them for a moment. Their soft brown hair reminded her of Eugenia Carteret’s, but there the resemblance ended, for she could by no means imagine their expressions capable of that child’s sly knowingness. “I do not believe we were properly introduced last night.”
“I’m Daphne,” the elder said. “Daphne Burke. And this is Bell,” she added, nudging her sister into a curtsy.
“French for beauty,” Rosamund observed.
“No,” the girl in question corrected boldly. “Bell.” She shifted her hips so that her softly rounded skirts swayed in imitation of a ringing bell. “It’s short for Bellis.”
“We’re all named after plants,” Daphne explained. “Bellis is daisy and daphne is—”
“Poisonous!” piped Bell.
Rosamund could not keep her lips from twitching with amusement, but thankfully she managed to avert a very un-governesslike laugh.
“Papa studies botany, you see,” Daphne went on, shooting Bell a disapproving look.
“So does Erica.”
Another unusual name. “Your…sister?”
“Yes, our middle sister. This is her room. Or was. She’s married now, to an Englishman. And so is Cami—Camellia. The eldest of us. She’s—she’s in…” Daphne screwed up her face as if trying to remember the name of a place, then beamed as she parroted what she’d been told: “She’s in expectation of a happy event.”
“It means she’s having a baby,” Bell explained in a confidential whisper, not unlike the one that had woken Rosamund.
Rosamund’s lips twitched again. And when she nodded, she kept her head bowed a moment longer than was strictly necessary to hide her expression. Precocious? Was that the word to describe the girls’ behavior? Would it be her job as governess to check it? What a shame that would be…
“That’s why Papa and Mama went to London,” Daphne went on.
“We were to have gone with them. But I got the spots.” Guilt infused Bell’s confession.
Daphne shrugged philosophically. “So they left us with Paris instead.”
When she’d heard his name, she’d assumed a reference to Shakespeare or Greek mythology. She’d not imagined its botanical origins. With what sort of plant did he share it? Something striking, she felt certain. And—if Daphne’s name was any indication—potentially dangerous.
She remembered that she had given him her name as well. No use in trying to disguise it now. “I’m Miss Gorse.”
“Truly?” Bell giggled.
“Papa would say it was a sign you were meant to be a part of this family,” Daphne said, more diplomatically. “He’s always delighted by anything to do with plants.”
At the word family, her heart gave a wayward twinge. “And your sister, the botanist? What would she say?”
“Erica? Oh, she’d tell you all sorts of things you didn’t want to know. About where gorse grows—”
“Which is precisely everywhere in Ireland,” Bell interjected.
“And probably some other stuff no one cares about. The shape of its leaves or its root structure or how it survives under adverse conditions.”
How it survives under adverse conditions… Perhaps it was in her blood, then, the instinct to fight for survival. She took another quick glance around the room, its pale blue walls brightened by the light of a single, large window. Hardly adverse conditions, even if it wasn’t quite the style of living to which the daughter of a viscount was accustomed. “It sounds to me as though you had an eager teacher in your sister.”
“Cami was always trying to get us to remember stuff too,” Bell agreed wearily, which earned her another nudge. She ignored it. “What’s your given name, Miss Gorse?”
Impertinence. She ought to nip it in the bud. Except that the very phrase threatened to bring another smile to her lips. Rather too on the nose when debating how best to discipline the children of a botanist, wasn’t it?
“Rosamund. It means—”
“Rose of the world,” Bell translated easily.
Hadn’t Mr. Burke described his sisters as ignorant? Why, this slip of a girl knew as much Latin as her supposed governess. Likely more. When Rosamund could not entirely contain her bemusement, Bell gave a small, embarrassed shrug. “I like words.”
“Then,” Rosamund declared firmly, setting her hands on the mattress at either side of her hips to push herself to her feet, “we’d best begin our lessons.”
She wobbled. Tipped precariously forward. Managed at the last moment to shift her balance so that when she sank down, it was onto the bed and not the floor this time.
“You’d best have breakfast first, I think,” Daphne said.
Bell eyed her critically. “And maybe a wash, too.”
“I’ll send Molly. She’s our housemaid.”
“Cami and Erica left some things in the clothespress,” Bell added with a nod toward the wardrobe. “You can borrow whatever you need until your trunk arrives.”
Her trunk. Trunks, actually. But dresses weren’t all she’d left behind, hopefully forever, at Kilready Castle. Rosamund hadn’t the strength to contain the shudder that passed through her. “Thank you,” she managed, though the words came out as little more than a whisper. “I shall join you in the schoolroom in an hour, then.”
Bell l
ooked quizzically at Daphne. Daphne shrugged, then turned back to Rosamund and nodded. “Yes, Miss Gorse.” With a single, quick curtsy, they were gone, leaving her alone in quiet contemplation of the enormity of what she had done.
How long would it take Mr. Paris Burke—who, for all his good looks, might prove to be as sharp as one of his bevy of sisters—to uncover her deception and send her away?
* * * *
Chasing the fading fragments of a particularly pleasant dream, Paris burrowed deeper into his pillow. But mere goose down could do little to mute the grinding, rumbling, thumping din that had awakened him.
At first, the noise seemed to have its origins inside his head, which throbbed like a fresh wound. Had miniature workmen sawed their way into his skull and taken tiny pickaxes to his brain? Good Lord. He must have deceived himself as to the quality—or quantity—of claret he’d consumed last night. Perhaps both.
He ought to know by now that it was little use trying to drown his sorrows; they’d long since learned to swim.
Cautiously he squinted, opening one eye just enough to determine it was midmorning. After a moment, he hoisted himself up on one elbow, tried in vain to force both eyes open at once, and finally collapsed on the pillow in defeat to crawl back into his dream. Something about a woman…
Another grating rumble—from above his head, not inside it, and accompanied this time by Molly’s tuneless whistle as she swept into the room—drove away the lingering possibility of losing himself in sleep.
“Och, Mr. Paris, ’tis a fearsome racket they’re makin’. I do believe they’re after wreckin’ the house.”
The girls. He might’ve known. But what could they possibly want in the attic—short of tearing up a few floorboards, if the noise was any indication?
He sat up in bed, scrubbed his hand over the rough growth of a day’s beard, and considered his options, the least appealing of which was confronting his sisters over their latest escapade. A year ago, he would’ve been safely ensconced in his rooms near King’s Inns, none the wiser to their mischief. Now, however, the best he could hope was that the ruckus would be muted if he retreated to his father’s study, a floor below.
Having deposited a can of steaming water near the washstand, Molly moved to hang freshly pressed linen in the wardrobe dividing his bed from Galen’s now empty one. Paris found himself longing for the days when he could have ordered his younger sibling to intervene before the girls brought the ceiling caving in upon them. But Galen had chosen Oxford over Trinity, eager to get away from Dublin—and his only brother.
Crash!
Turning, Molly set her hands to her hips and fixed him with the sort of glare that might have earned her a reprimand in a more rigidly-run household. “A schoolroom, she wanted,” the young woman muttered. “An’ how’s anyone to learn with the likes o’ that, I’d like to know?”
Paris tried and failed to shape meaning from the housemaid’s words. “Who wanted a schoolroom?”
“The new governess.”
His hand slid absently from his jaw. Governess? But he hadn’t…
Oh, Lord. The dream. The woman. With golden hair and summer blue eyes and a voice like—
Molly possessed a selection of fine Irish sayings for any occasion, some of which he and his siblings had been known to borrow. But the only words that rose to Paris’s lips now were a string of English curses. Fitting, he supposed. Since he’d evidently hired a damn English governess.
Just how much had he drunk last night?
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Molly exclaimed when another thump rattled the ceiling and sent down a shower of plaster dust.
“I’ll take care of it,” Paris declared, rising. Forgetting he had crawled into bed wearing nothing but his drawers.
Ever practical, Molly looked him up and down, lifted one brow, then reached into the wardrobe to hand out his dressing gown. “You’ll be wantin’ this, then.” She winked. “Unless you were hopin’ to persuade her to stay.”
Chapter 4
A quarter of an hour later—washed, dressed, and grumpy—Paris marched to the upper regions of the house to confront Miss Gorse. Over that brief span of time, however, the din from above had subsided. At the foot of the narrow attic staircase, he paused. If the worst was over, perhaps he could safely ignore it. Except, of course, for the matter of the pretty young stranger he’d met on the quay, brought into his family home, carried to bed, and… Oh, yes. Hired to be his sisters’ new governess.
He took the steps two at a time.
There was no landing to speak of, and he stepped through the open door into what once had been used as servants’ quarters but almost a decade ago had been repurposed for a nursery. The furnishings were sparse: two beds, a washstand, and a lidless box containing dolls’ clothes and other playthings, tucked beneath a small square window. Across one corner of the room, a curtain had been hung to form a dressing area, as the ceiling slanted at a sharp angle, altogether too low to accommodate a wardrobe. He had to duck his head unless he stood in the very center of the room.
Perhaps he ought to have insisted that Daphne and Bell move into Cami and Erica’s old bedchamber, beside his. But they had responded to his suggestion with open reluctance, and as his gaze traveled around the room, he thought he understood why. He tried to see it as his littlest sisters must. Dust motes twirled and sparkled magically in a shaft of morning light. All was otherwise neatly arranged, but not, so far as he could judge, by Molly’s hand. It was not the sort of space that invited intrusion, even of the servant variety.
Good God, was he actually jealous of his little sisters’ hideaway?
A low murmur of voices drew his attention to the partition that divided the top floor of the house into bedroom and attic storage. The door in that thin wall stood ajar, and he moved noiselessly to peer through the opening.
He couldn’t remember when he’d last looked into the attic. Hadn’t it been crowded and rather disorganized? Less crowded now, since five members of the household had put their trunks and traveling paraphernalia to their intended uses. What remained had been dragged to the perimeter of the room and tucked under the eaves; he could see the tracks in the dust on the floor. The broken pieces of a discarded lamp had been swept into a neat pile near the door. Beneath the peak of the roof stood two makeshift desks, side by side. To the right sat Daphne in a Windsor-back chair missing two spokes, her toes tucked into a groove in the floor to keep them from swinging. On his left, Bell perched on an upturned box, her humble seat padded by a shawl he remembered his mother wearing years ago, now darned and wrinkled almost beyond recognition. Books had been stacked at each girl’s place, but neither of his sisters was reading. They were looking up expectantly at their teacher.
Miss Gorse stood before them, her back to the room’s only window, a mirror of the one in the girls’ bedroom: small, square, but west-facing and therefore comparatively dim. No motes twinkled here, though the air was thick with dust stirred up by the trio’s morning work. Paris could feel it in his nose and the back of his throat. Still, what light there was caught in her golden hair, setting aglow a few wisps that had worked free from the simple knot at the back of her head. Even across the room, he could make out the brilliant blue of her eyes.
Because, he realized belatedly, she was staring right at him.
Pairing the slight lift of her chin with an arrow-straight spine, she betrayed little trace of the fainting flower he remembered from last night. “Did we disturb you, Mr. Burke? My apologies.” Her voice was cool, her accent crisp. Aristocratic, he should call it, if he didn’t know better.
Bell spun on her seat, bunching the shawl beneath her. Her face was bright, despite a smudge of dirt across one cheek. “Oh, Paris. Isn’t it marvelous?”
“Miss Gorse said we needed a proper schoolroom,” Daphne explained.
“And this,” he said, with a quick and deliberately dism
issive glance around the cramped, dirty room, “is your notion of proper, Miss Gorse?”
More proper, perhaps, than the drawing room, where he and his siblings had taken lessons at their father’s knee over the course of more than twenty years. Nevertheless, something about the woman’s presumption aggravated him. How very like an Englishwoman to burst into an Irish household and begin giving orders about its management, with no concern for how things had always been done or what might suit the people who lived there.
Swiftly, smoothly, she slipped between the desks and strode toward him in a dress that looked vaguely familiar. One of Erica’s? Its skirts were streaked where she had wiped her hands. Eddies of dust swirled across the floor in her wake. “Daphne and Bellis—”
“Bell,” he corrected automatically.
The governess’s lips narrowed as her nostrils flared. “The girls indicated that the, ah—” Her pert nose twitched. “The, ah—” Her eyelids crinkled and she inhaled sharply. “Ahh—”
No one would deny that Miss Gorse was delicate. Her petite, fine-boned features would not look out of place on a porcelain doll. Ladylike in her deportment. The sort of woman one expected to sneeze with petite, delicate, ladylike sneezes, when such an affliction could not be avoided. Perhaps two or three little squeaks in a row: choo, choo, choo. Something in the nature of a timid mouse.
Instead, she blasted a single “Ahh—choo!” that ricocheted around the small room, bouncing from the rafters to the bare wood floor and into Paris’s aching head.
“God bless you,” Daphne said after a moment, sounding genuinely worried that the sneeze might have parted the governess’s soul from her body. Bell giggled. Wordlessly, he reached into his breast pocket, withdrew a handkerchief, and handed it to Miss Gorse.
“We’ll discuss the matter downstairs,” he said, fighting to keep his voice stern as she dabbed daintily at the end of her nose. As if they had not all just heard what that instrument was capable of.
“Of course, Mr. Burke.” She folded the square of linen but did not offer to return it to him. “I’ve scheduled a break in the girls’ lessons at half past eleven. I’ll be glad to speak with you then.”
The Lady's Deception Page 3