‘Bartholomew,’ he said.
The man obviously already wished he hadn’t come. ‘Good evening, my lord. I am sorry—I heard you enter the house, but then I heard noises in the library…I assumed there might be some problem, or you might…need something. I didn’t mean to—’
‘Didn’t mean to what?’ Will asked. Intrude? Interrupt? Ruin my night?
He blushed. ‘Nothing, my lord. Will that be all?’
‘That is all, Bartholomew. Thank you.’
Relieved, the butler headed back to his quarters. Will continued to lean against the wall for several minutes. He wouldn’t have spoken to his butler so sharply if he hadn’t felt so keenly frustrated, if the blood hadn’t still been coursing through his body. Bartholomew hadn’t ruined his night at all. He’d prevented Will from making an already colossal mistake even bigger.
But he’d still made a big mistake.
Chapter Fourteen
Isabelle closed the nursery door with a click, leaving Mary to eat her lunch alone. She’d put on a good face that morning and hoped the girl had detected no change in her behaviour. She doubted she’d convinced her, not when she’d been so patently distracted. All she wanted to do was hide in her bedroom, but that wasn’t an option. She needed to find Will. Needed to tell him she planned to leave.
She began walking down the corridor, dreading the task. Yesterday’s events had disturbed her from start to finish, even during the many hours between his departure with his brother and his late-night return. Eager to get out of the house after two days’ confinement, she’d promptly instructed Mary to prepare for their shopping expedition. But while she was waiting for her in the hall, Rogers had shown in someone unexpected and not entirely welcome.
‘Dr Collins. I—Good afternoon.’
He hadn’t looked very comfortable, had even allowed his gaze to search the hall, no doubt looking for Will or any other ogres that might be lurking. ‘Miss Thomas—I do apologise for the imposition, but as I was nearby I thought I’d enquire about your foot. I hope your employer won’t mind?’
Rogers had raised a dubious eyebrow, but thankfully said nothing.
As usual, the blood rushed to Isabelle’s face. ‘No. I mean, Lord Lennox has gone out for the day. I, uh, thank you for your concern. My foot seems to be fully recovered.’ She felt at a loss. She couldn’t exactly invite him in, but how rude to make him stand in the hall when he’d been so kind. ‘I’ve just a few minutes, but—shall we take a walk around the square?’
He’d followed her outside. ‘I should have come sooner, but I feared it might make your situation worse.’
‘Worse?’ She stared at the smooth paving stones, not comprehending.
He didn’t answer immediately. Just walked beside her quietly as if ordering his thoughts. ‘I must confess that your foot isn’t the only reason I’ve come,’ he said finally.
She glanced at him sideways. Oh, not him, too. Must all men have ulterior motives? ‘I’m relieved to hear it as my foot has fared well enough without your attention. Is it my elbow that interests you?’
Will would have grinned at her and said something outrageous to make her regret her cheek. Dr Collins was too earnest. ‘I’ve been worried about you.’
‘Worried?’
‘Yes. That you might be unhappy in your position. What I witnessed the other day…He has a temper, obviously. And a reputation.’
‘Dr Collins—’
‘Please, Miss Thomas, don’t protest, and don’t misinterpret my words. I’m an honourable man and offer my help without expectation of reward. If you are unhappy, if you should need anything at all…’
She stopped walking. She didn’t doubt his honour, and, yes, Will had a temper. So had she. And if she knew anything at all, she knew Will wouldn’t hurt her. She looked back at the house. They’d only gone down one side of the square, but Mary was already standing on the steps, scanning the street. ‘I must go. She’s waiting for me.’
Dr Collins had walked her back. He’d given her his card, too, although at the time she’d assumed she wouldn’t need it.
One day later she wasn’t so sure.
She definitely couldn’t stay at Will’s house, not when he’d nearly been her undoing just last night. The problem was, she didn’t want to go anywhere else. She liked Mary and she liked him—liked him too much, apparently. She’d allowed him to kiss her and had kissed him back with unseemly enthusiasm. She’d never before received even a chaste peck, and his kiss…Well, perhaps she hadn’t behaved in a ladylike fashion, but she didn’t think a gentleman would kiss like that, either. If Bartholomew hadn’t come along, she didn’t know what would have happened.
She finally found him in the hall, shrugging into his jacket. Bartholomew stood by the door, holding his hat. Will was obviously on his way out. Isabelle nervously wondered if the butler had seen her as she’d escaped upstairs last night.
‘Miss Thomas.’
She forgot what she’d planned to say. Her face filled with hot colour as he said her name.
‘Did you need something?’ he prompted.
‘Uh, yes. I wanted a word with you, my lord. But it can wait.’
His gaze roamed slowly over her face, and she wished she knew what he was thinking. ‘Or we can speak now.’
She nodded and followed him to his study. After closing the door, he immediately crossed the room to pour himself a drink. ‘Please sit, Miss Thomas.’
She chose one of the large armchairs. He opted for the sofa that flanked it. He swirled his drink and waited.
‘What did you wish to say?’ he asked after several silent seconds.
How to begin? She folded her hands in her lap, then unfolded them.
‘I…What I wanted to say…’
He interrupted her rather impatiently. ‘Must we have a word?’
She looked up at him warily. ‘My lord?’
‘I said must we? I think I know what you’re going to say, and I should say first that I’m sorry.’
‘Sorry?’
He leaned forward. ‘Yes, Miss Thomas. Abjectly so, even though I can hardly recall what happened. I’d spent the day with my brother and, I’m ashamed to admit, I was completely foxed when I arrived home. But I’ve some memory of…Did I kiss you?’
Hearing him say it was more humiliation than she could withstand. She rose stiffly from her chair, her cheeks burning. ‘I must find a new position.’
He didn’t seem to be anticipating that. His face remained expressionless, but she suspected she’d annoyed him. He leaned back into the sofa and crossed one leg over his knee. ‘May I ask why?’
Because she was already thinking about kissing him again and finding it hard not to stare at his lips. Because she didn’t think she’d ever be able to look at him the same way again. ‘Well, I…I should do so anyway, since you’ll return Mary to school soon.’
‘I’ve made no plans to do so yet.’
‘But you will. And I…well…’
He rose from his seat and crossed the room to look out the window. He turned around. ‘I’ve apologised already, Miss Thomas. If you leave this house, I shall feel terribly guilty. Is that what you want? Is my apology not enough?’
He was trying to cajole her. ‘No. I mean, that’s not what I want.’
‘Then don’t leave. We’ll just forget it ever happened.’
She wouldn’t be forgetting it any time soon. ‘I should still leave.’
He left his glass on a side table and walked closer. He stopped when he was just a few feet from her, his gaze wandering across her face. ‘I’ve no intention of kissing you again, if that’s what you’re worried about. I don’t know how it happened in the first place. Could I have thought you were someone else?’
But he’d called her Isabelle; he’d called her sweetheart. He’d tasted of brandy, but he hadn’t been that foxed. ‘I…Yes, you must have.’
‘Well, then, I suppose we’ve finished our talk.’
No, they’d arrived at no c
onclusion. Nothing was settled, and he was standing so close, close enough to cause funny tremors inside her stomach. How could she continue to work here when she couldn’t even stand beside him without turning to a jelly?
She took a rallying breath. ‘I still think I should find another position.’
‘But I quite like you here.’
His voice was soft, seductive, and she finally met his gaze, a mistake because she became trapped by his hypnotic eyes. Eyes that had gone dark, that travelled down her freckled nose to settle on her lips. He was leaning in—or was she imagining it? He’d just said he wouldn’t kiss her again, and he certainly wasn’t foxed now. He hadn’t even sipped his drink.
She felt her eyelids begin to droop. There’d be little harm in one more kiss if she planned to leave anyway. Just one, and then she’d pack her belongings.
But there was no kiss. Just a firm rap on the door. Will stepped away.
‘My lord?’
It was Bartholomew, on the other side of the mahogany panels. Her saviour for the second time in less than a day. He obviously wore angel’s wings beneath his butler’s jacket.
‘Sit, Isabelle,’ Will commanded.
She sat, not even pausing to object to his order. She folded her hands on her lap and tried to look blameless. Nothing had happened, after all. He hadn’t kissed her, nor had she him. Thinking vivid thoughts about doing so didn’t count.
Bartholomew entered, but he was too well trained to indicate if he detected the heavy tension in the room.
‘Mrs Lytton and Miss Lytton,’ he announced. ‘They were expecting you to take them for a drive, my lord. It seems you should have collected them half an hour ago. They have, uh, taken it upon themselves to pay a visit to ensure everything is all right.’
Isabelle glanced out of the study door to see two attractive ladies, apparently mother and daughter, huddled in close conversation. Will saw them, too, and muttered something indistinct but impolite.
‘Shall I show them in, my lord?’ The butler’s eyes betrayed him, and he glanced at Isabelle as he spoke.
Will looked at her, too. ‘Yes, of course.’
‘I’ll leave,’ she said awkwardly, but it was already too late. She’d have to walk right past them.
‘Just sit,’ Will said threateningly under his breath. ‘If you leave, it’ll look like…’
He didn’t finish, but she knew what he was going to say. If she left, it would look like they’d something to conceal. She sank back into her seat as the two elegant ladies were shown in. One appeared to be about forty, and the other eighteen, but age seemed to be the only difference between them. They shared perfect, patrician features, pale blonde hair and complexions like fresh cream. Not a freckle in sight.
The older one paused as she passed through the door, her assessing gaze taking in Isabelle’s flushed cheeks and Will’s abandoned glass of spirits. She frowned.
Miss Lytton at first noticed nothing amiss. ‘Lord Lennox, you didn’t forget our engagement, did you?’ she chided.
He choked slightly over the word. ‘Engagement?’
‘Yes—that drive you promised. We’ve been so looking forward to it. We shouldn’t have come, I know, except we worried something might be wrong.’ Here she paused to lower her lashes demurely. ‘You do not think it too bold, I hope?’
Isabelle, for one, could hardly believe their audacity, coming to his house like this. But then catching a husband was a cutthroat sport, and anyone would bend the rules if the husband to be caught were Will.
He’d clearly forgotten his promise, but he responded to the contrary. ‘Of course I didn’t forget…just running slightly late. I hope you’re well?’
Vanessa nodded and opened her mouth to speak, but then finally noticed Isabelle, who was trying assiduously—but without visible effect—to evaporate. ‘We are well, Lord Lennox. I hope we’ve not come at a bad time.’
Isabelle had never seen Will truly flustered before—she could not, until that moment, even have imagined it. But now, trying to explain her presence on his sofa, he began to stammer. ‘Uh…no, of course not. I was just…uh, having a word with Miss Thomas. She is Mary’s governess. Mary’s my ward.’
Mrs Lytton’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. Vanessa’s widened with practised excitement.
‘Yes, of course! The orphan. I should be delighted to meet her. How old is she?’
‘Uh…eleven.’
‘Twelve,’ Isabelle interjected.
Will gave her a frosty look. ‘Yes, that’s right. Twelve.’
‘How charming. She must come with us.’
‘Oh. Well…’
‘Do go collect her, Miss Thomas,’ Vanessa said. She didn’t even bother to look at Isabelle as she made this instruction.
And Isabelle didn’t bother to rise. She didn’t like taking orders from just anyone. Especially not spoiled girls nearly ten years her junior.
‘Are you waiting for something, Miss Thomas?’ But that was Will this time. He was looking at her with impatience.
‘What?’
He frowned. ‘Please collect Mary.’
She rose unsteadily. Although Will had lost his temper with her more times than she could count, he’d never spoken to her so coldly before. He’d never treated her like a servant. She walked from the room, trying not to cry, all too aware that the women were watching her leave. She closed the door behind her and, for just a few seconds, leaned against it, praying she’d be able to collect herself before anyone saw her.
Will would have preferred dismemberment by rusty knife to spending an afternoon like this, trapped in his carriage with the ladies Lytton. He suspected Mary, looking sullen and uncomfortable in the seat across from him, felt much the same way.
He’d completely forgotten that he’d promised to take them to the park—understandable, since he hadn’t been the one to make that promise in the first place. It was one of the last things he’d want to do any time, and particularly when he was a hairsbreadth from kissing Isabelle again.
He supposed it was Providence that had prevented his kiss, although he’d never have expected divine intervention to come in the form of Vanessa and her mother. There was nothing to cool his ardour like the pair of them, and he shouldn’t have even been contemplating kissing Isabelle—not now, not when doing so last night had nearly driven her away. When she’d told him she planned to leave he’d felt…he wasn’t sure what, but he hadn’t liked it at all. Irritated, and scared and a bit ill. He didn’t know if he’d convinced her to stay, but he’d try again when he got home. He wouldn’t let her leave.
For now, he’d just have to get through the Lytton ordeal. He looked at Vanessa, who was chattering inanely to no one in particular and casting furtive, amused glances at Mary. It made him angry, her sense of superiority. She’d sized the girl up smugly when she’d come downstairs to join them, taking in her provincial dress and carrot-coloured hair. He’d given little thought to her clothes until Isabelle brought the subject up yesterday, and he wondered if she’d taken her shopping. She’d mentioned gloves and hats, but it would be worth having a modiste sent round to create a whole new wardrobe for the girl. He should have insisted weeks ago. Fashionable clothes would be necessary armour against someone like Vanessa—someone whose only strength lay in the way she looked.
Vanessa noticed that he was looking at her and smiled with calculated shyness, an expression she’d no doubt practised many times in front of a mirror. He tried to smile in return, as was merely polite, but he couldn’t quite manage. He really disliked her. Not only had she belittled Mary, but she’d been rude to Isabelle as well. And as for the proprietary way she’d ordered her around—she was in for an unpleasant surprise if she seriously thought she’d one day be mistress of his damned house.
Of course, he’d also been rude to Isabelle, and he didn’t expect her to forgive him easily. He hadn’t wanted to speak so brusquely to her, but he’d been desperate to regain control. Nor did he want the Lyttons to read anything into
the compromising situation, so he felt it was necessary to treat her like a servant. They’d obviously drawn their own conclusions anyway, or at least Mrs Lytton had. Even now she was looking at him with a coolness he hadn’t seen before. Vanessa, however, was probably too vain to feel threatened by another woman.
‘Mrs Sandon-Drabbe informed me you’d been at Miss Hume’s school,’ Vanessa said, still regarding Mary as if she were something unpleasant to be squashed.
Mary turned her attention away from the passing scenery, where her gaze had been fixed for a quarter of an hour.
‘That’s my cousin, Henrietta,’ Will clarified. ‘You haven’t met her yet.’
‘Oh.’ She seemed diffident and unhappy again—quite unlike the smiling girl she’d been two days ago in the garden. All due, no doubt, to Vanessa’s insensitivity. ‘Yes, I was,’ she said finally. ‘For four years.’
‘I was educated at home,’ Vanessa went on rather pompously. ‘I’ve never known a girl who was sent to school. Why did you not have a governess before now?’
Mary shrugged, and Will wondered again if she understood why her father had sent her away. She was only twelve and very well might not.
‘Mary’s mother died when she was young,’ he explained so she wouldn’t have to. ‘Her father thought she’d be better looked after at Miss Hume’s.’
Vanessa smiled patronisingly. Her mother chimed in. ‘My daughter was lucky to have such a fine education. I wouldn’t trust anyone to look after her away from home. She’s been very sheltered. I believe that’s how a young lady should be raised. Do you not agree, Lord Lennox?’
Will had serious doubts about Vanessa’s education, and if a sheltered upbringing was what it took to produce a nightmare like her, then he was definitely opposed to the idea. ‘I can’t say I have much opinion on the subject.’
The Earl and the Governess Page 15