It would be so wonderful to be able to relax and enjoy Justin St. Claire's cheerful, sunny company, for he really had a way about him, a bright, happy manner that lifted her heart just to be near.
She stopped sorting the fabrics, appalled at the turn her mind was taking. What was she thinking? He was dallying with her for God knew what reason—probably out of habit or because he needed a flirt at all times. She was a fool to enjoy him, for the moment more company arrived, he would turn his attentions to a more suitable object.
And he didn't mean any of it. He couldn't! His flattery was outrageous, the compliments wildly unsuitable to someone of her plain visage and lack of attractions. He was just filling time until the pretty girls Elizabeth had included in the guest list arrived. Then she would be left in peace in the schoolroom to finish her seasonal work and get Lottie and Gwen ready for their puppet show.
And, since she was thinking of that, she must prepare something, for he would certainly get bored and forget about writing his nieces a play for their puppet theater. It was just flirtation to him, for whatever mysterious reason. Celestine sighed, not sure whether to be glad or sad that her customary good sense kept her from sweet daydreams of love.
Justin stroked out another word and wiped his nib on a pen wipe. This was damnably hard work, writing a play! He hadn't intended to go through with it. It had just been another flirtation, a way to stay close to Miss Simons. But then he had realized if he didn't, the little girls would end up the losers, and he never would disappoint his goddaughters.
Lottie, so bright and clever, with sparkling blue eyes, was the very picture of her mother—and could be as tart-tongued occasionally. Someday she would lead the men of the ton a merry dance. Little Gwen, her blue eyes a little puzzled at times, and rarely saying anything one could understand, had a sweetness of expression and innocence that made hurting or disappointing her out of the question. When she laid her blond head against his arm, he would gladly take on anybody who might wound her. He might be an abominable brother, an unconscionable rake, the scourge of the London Season, but he was a good uncle.
Was that what being a father was like? He stared off into space, chewing on the end of the pen as he imagined little ones around him calling him father, pulling at his jacket, climbing on his knee. If the feelings he held for his nieces and nephews were so very strong, what would fatherhood be like? The responsibility terrified him, and he shrugged off the idea. Time enough for that in some distant, hazy future. Right now he must think of this damned play.
And so he sat, pen in hand, and a volume of Shakespeare in front of him. He had been there all morning while the rest of the family went off to church, and he was still at it after nuncheon. Damn. How had the man, the immortal bard, ever done it? The words seemed all wrong when they flowed from the end of his pen.
For a while in the library there was just the scratching of his pen across paper, interrupted occasionally by a muffled curse and the crunch of paper being balled up. Then there were just the pen sounds. He wrote and wrote, continuing long after his hand had started to ache.
He might have something. A story about a lonely prince and a princess who didn't know she was a princess. A tale of true love. He closed the Shakespeare, pushed it away, and chewed the end of the pen.
A lonely prince who had his pick of the most beautiful girls in all the land, but could not find a single one who made his heart sing. His brother, the king, was getting impatient and wanted him to choose a girl to be his princess. The lonely prince—call him . . . Justin frowned down at the paper with unseeing eyes. Call him Aurelius, the golden one, fortunate in birth, countenance, and riches, but without love. He wrote on in the blessed silence of the library. It was a dark, gloomy day outside, and he wrote in the pool of light shed by a branch of tapers.
There was a princess who didn't know she was a princess—call her Calista, the most beautiful one. She lived in a forest, all alone, where no one saw her radiant beauty. She had no mirror, so she did not know she was so fair. The scratching became more fervent as Justin scrawled his ideas, dipping into the ink, blotting his page occasionally.
The lonely prince, Aurelius, tells his brother, Reginald the Mighty, he will set out on a journey across the land. If he has not found the girl he wishes to wed at the end of one month, he will marry anyone Reginald chooses.
Justin sat back in his chair, oblivious to the spots of dark ink soiling his sleeve, as he chewed on the end of his pen. He needed some comic relief. Reginald would choose a girl for him to come home to, the most ugly, long-toothed, pimply female with a high screechy voice and harrying manner. He would do her voice himself, a copy of . . .
The door opened and Elizabeth peeked around. "Justin! There you are. What on earth are you doing?" She came into the shadowy room, one elegant hand planted on her hip.
.He flushed. "I . . . uh, I'm helping Miss Simons by writing a play for her and Lottie and Gwen. They're planning a little puppet theater for the holiday company."
Elizabeth's rosebud lips set in a grim line. "Really, Justin! I am counting on you to help me entertain our guests, you know that. And I have the Stimsons and their two daughters arriving this afternoon, and Lady van Hoffen and her daughter Lady Grishelda! You will have no time to be scribbling on some silly piece of work when I need you to conduct them on walks into the village and ice skating and ..."
Justin turned back to the desk and made another note. Add a wife for the mighty Reginald—Queen Parlia, one who talked and talked and talked. . . .
"Oh, miss, look at the company arriving. Ever so beautiful the ladies are! And their clothes!"
Celestine came upon Elise, with Lottie and Gwen, peering through the spindles of the railing that overlooked the great hall. She stopped and watched with them.
"Look at the beautiful ladies, Miss Simons," Lottie said, crouched down with her arm around her little sister.
A man and woman with two girls around twenty were gathered in the hall, being welcomed by the marquess and marchioness. The man was portly and red-faced, with a distended stomach that confessed a love for fine food and perhaps more wine than was good for him. The woman, on the other hand, was bird-like and slim, and fluttered around her two daughters, her high, fluting voice making worried comments about the cold and its effect on the girls' health.
The daughters were plump and pretty, with dark hair and rosy cheeks, and, as they were swathed in velvet, fur-lined cloaks and had muffs over their gloved hands, they could hardly be freezing. Lord St. Claire joined them all, and soon his good-natured teasing could be heard, at least by Celestine, above the rest.
"Miss Stimson, and Miss Caroline! Why, I didn't even know you were out of the schoolroom, Miss Caroline, but what a beauty you have become!" He lifted each girl's hand to within an inch of his lips, an absolutely correct greeting. "And Mrs. Stimson! One would hardly know you from your daughters, ma'am, you look so young. It must be confusing for all the bucks and beaus of London, telling which is the mother and which are the daughters."
The tiny woman giggled. "Oh, my lord, how you do go on!"
Elizabeth looked on in approval, and as maids and footmen relieved the party of their cloaks and pelisses, muffs and gloves, the company moved out of sight and into the parlor, where their chattering could still be heard as the doors closed.
"My! How I wish I was one of 'em, Miss Simons." Elise sighed. "Dressed so pretty, with nothin' to do but go from party to rout to ball."
Celestine smiled. "I have heard his lordship, the marquess, has a party at Christmas every year for all the servants of Ladymead. Is that so?" She took Gwen's hand as she spoke, and Elise took Lottie's.
"Oh, it is, miss! We have such a time! Punch and cakes, and music from Dobbs and the scullery boy, what is such a good hand with the violin. You'll see, miss . . . that is, if you come."
Celestine smiled over at the maid. She knew the difficulty. A governess was neither fish nor fowl, neither servant n
or family. She would not take part in the upstairs parties, and likely would not fit in at the downstairs party. Her presence would possibly even be resented. It was a lonely position in many ways, but she could not bemoan her luck in having a position in such a good family.
"I shall take care of the children while you enjoy yourself, Elise. Perhaps Andrew will dance with you."
Elise's eyes widened as she contemplated the idol of her life, the fair-haired footman Andrew. Then her face fell. "He don't notice me, miss. He's ever so stuck up, is Andrew—and ever so particular about what company he keeps. Says a children's maid is beneath 'im."
Celestine reached out her hand and touched the girl's arm. "Never mind. If he can't see what a pretty, sweet girl you are, he doesn't deserve you."
Elise smiled shyly over at Celestine as they mounted the stairs to the schoolroom. "Thank you, miss. You are such a change from that Miss Chambly."
Curiosity got the better of her and Celestine asked, "What was she like? I haven't heard many speak about her."
"That's 'cause none of the staff could stand her, she was that stuck up! Acted like we was all beneath her, and what's a governess but a servant of a kind, I ask you? Beggin' your pardon, miss." Elise looked a little shamefaced. "You're a different type, miss. We all knows you're a cut above us. You got the manners of the gentry, but you never looks down your nose at us nor demands special treatment, an' that's what makes you a real lady, Mr. Dobbs says."
Celestine was touched. As they entered the schoolroom and the little girls ran to get a favorite book, she gave the young maid a quick hug. "You're a dear."
Elise flushed. "That Miss Chambly, she had her eye on his lordship, the marquess's brother. The nerve! An' her just a governess! Like he'd take her as a wife."
"Even if he'd wanted to, I'm sure his brother never would have agreed to it."
"Nor her ladyship. She's ever so high in the instep. She's got plans for him, Mr. Dobbs says, an' she's on the lookout for a proper match this Christmas. Says she'll have him wed afore spring."
So that was the plan, Celestine thought. Not just to distract him, but to get him hooked. Well, good luck to the marchioness. With her brother-in-law's proclivity for flirtation, it was not going to be easy.
Miss Caroline Stimson gazed up at Justin from under incredibly long, dark eyelashes and smiled coyly. "La, my lord, but you are a flatterer, I'm sure."
Justin grinned and suppressed an urge to stick his tongue out at her and tell her to give it up, she didn't know how to flirt yet. She did all the cute little tricks, the fingers lightly resting on his arm, the sighs, the languishing glances, but they were done with such childish ingenuousness that it made him more aware than ever of his age. He was fifteen years her senior!
The elder Miss Stimson, her round cheek resting in her palm, was gazing pensively out the window at a distant hill, yet he had the feeling she was not thinking or pondering or even daydreaming so much as striking a pose. It was utterly fetching and utterly false. He could tell she was aware of every word that passed between him and her younger sister. What would she do when the pose did not draw his attention in the way she calculated?
Justin was used to such machinations. Girls were trained early in the arts to catch a husband, he knew, and for a minute he wondered if he had become a little jaded by all the attention lavished on him over the years. He was definitely piqued that Miss Simons would not return his regard, and that, perhaps, was why he was so determinedly pursuing her. Even irritating Elizabeth was only secondary now.
The strange thing was, he found he enjoyed talking with her more than with any woman of his acquaintance. There had been the occasional married woman with whom he had engaged in real conversation, but usually they wanted to gossip about their mutual friends, or flirt to plague their husbands, or initiate a dalliance with him.
He wasn't complaining. Those affairs were often the most rewarding in a purely physical sense. There was nothing like a woman whose needs were ignored by her husband for a good, energetic tumble. But there had been times when he had wanted something more, and he had not been quite sure what it was. It was a little worrying to realize being with the governess satisfied that need. The times spent walking with her in the village, romping with the children, and just sitting reading by the fire with her and Lottie and Gwen had been the most enjoyable of his stay so far.
"St. Claire, you have hardly said two words to me since we arrived! And you are usually so entertaining."
He leaped to his feet as Lady Emily Delafont stood before him. With some relief, he offered her the seat on the sofa he had just vacated, the seat next to Miss Caroline, and took an armchair near the older lady. "I shall remedy that oversight this very minute, if you will allow it, ma'am."
Miss Caroline Stimson, who had been trying to engage his attention for the past many minutes, sniffed in annoyance.
"Oh, Lord, don't start calling me 'ma'am' or I shall be sure that not only have I put on too much weight, I am looking old." Lady Delafont sat down, chuckling and smiling at the young girl she shared the sofa with. Miss Caroline, however, had eyes only for the young nobleman.
"Nonsense, my lady. You must know nothing can detract from your charms. You look radiant, if I may say so. Some ladies look better with—well, shall we say added bounty?" He deliberately let his gaze linger on the neckline of her dress, which displayed at least some of her attractions, pale creamy breasts in a delicious cleavage, set against the deep wine color of her silk dress.
"Scoundrel," she said, coloring faintly. "I should have known my shameless trolling for compliments would be amply rewarded by such a practiced flirt as yourself."
"I cannot believe someone of your loveliness would ever have to angle for what is surely only the truth! Perhaps if Delafont were here . . . but you live apart from him now, do you not?" He lowered his voice and stared intently into her eyes. Here might be an opportunity for intelligent flirtation that could reap more than just an innocent kiss under the mistletoe. Separated and widowed ladies were always the best bet for a little slap and tickle under the covers, as they didn't expect any more than just the fun of lovemaking. He believed in variety in his bed and wouldn't mind exploring a woman of more ample charms.
There was a hint of frost in her voice when she answered though, and he knew he had gone too far too fast. "We are separated."
A misstep. "My apologies, my lady. I treat you as an old friend, you see, and perhaps I do not merit that privilege."
The smile came back to her lips. "You're forgiven."
Miss Caroline, bored with talk that excluded her, flounced away to speak to her sister, and the two of them left the room without a word.
"How remarkably rag-mannered," Lady Delafont said. "However, it does give me the opportunity to speak to you more privately, so I must commend their bad manners for once."
Justin looked at her inquiringly. At that moment his sister-in-law popped her head in the door and looked around inquiringly.
"Hello, Emmy. Justin, where are the Misses Stimson? August and I have just finished conducting their parents on a tour of the house, and wondered if you and they wished to join us in a perambulation of the gardens. Where did they go?" She looked accusingly at Justin.
"I have no idea, Elizabeth. They left the room together, that is all I can say."
The marchioness sighed and gave him a blistering look. "You were to keep them entertained, you dunderhead."
"It was my understanding your orders encompassed all of the company, and Lady Delafont is surely part of that?"
Lady St. Claire caught her friend's eye and rolled her own. "All right. But you could have asked them where they were going."
"I didn't feel the right to inquire, nor did they give me a chance."
She sighed and departed. Justin turned back to Lady Delafont, and in a caressing tone, said, "Now, you were just saying you wished to find me alone." He moved to join her on the sofa, putting his arm over the back c
lose to her shoulders.
"You make it sound highly improper, you practiced scoundrel!" She smiled, but looked a little uncertain.
"I meant no such thing! You wound me, my lady!" He took her rounded, dimpled hand in his and caressed the back with his thumb.
She shook her head. "No wonder Lizbet despairs of you." She pulled her hand away. "What I have to say does not concern me."
"Then I am desolate," he replied.
"What I have to say concerns my niece, Celestine Simons."
Seven
Justin went still.
Emily noted how he paled, his face set in a grim expression. Was he so hardened, then, that he would try to ruin her niece and brook no interference? She had never heard he was an unprincipled bounder, just a hardened flirt. And Celestine was not without friends, not the least of whom was herself. She might be separated from her husband, but she still had the full backing of the 'Delafont' name behind her. She could make things very uncomfortable for Justin among the ton if she so desired.
Taking a deep breath, she continued. "I love my niece very much."
"That does you credit, ma'am, and her to have inspired that love." His voice was polite, but frigid.
"She is my eldest sister's daughter. I'm afraid her mother lived only a few years after her birth, so her up bringing was left to my brother-in-law, an older man than his wife. But he was a good man—a learned scholar, a quiet, retiring sort, unfortunately possessed of very little in the way of fortune, and that little entailed. My niece lived in a country village her whole life, never traveling to London or even Bath. She nursed her father through his long illness to his death. I'm afraid she has known very little of the world."
Emily watched Justin and saw some softening of his expression.
"She seems ... a very sweet young woman, if I might be so bold, ma'am."
Lord St.Claire's Angel Page 8