‘Have you seen her watercolours?’ Mrs Lytton asked. ‘She’s very talented.’
Before he had a chance to answer, Vanessa volunteered, ‘I can show them to you next week if you would like. Would you?’
‘Would I what?’
‘Would you like me to show you my watercolours next week?’
‘I…uh, well, I’m going away for the weekend and may not have returned by then.’
That was true. He’d agreed to visit Harry in the country. Mary didn’t know that, however, and her dangerously twitching lips suggested she thought he’d made up the lame excuse on the spot. He frowned at her, but her grin broke through anyway. Vanessa noticed, and her expression turned downright hateful. She sensed she was being laughed at, but she didn’t know why.
‘Has your upbringing trained you to be amused by others?’ she demanded.
Mary bit her lip and looked at the scenery again. The breeze tugged at her hair, creating a wispy halo around her head; her hair appeared more orange than ever in the bright sun.
Vanessa’s haughty gaze travelled over her, and he found himself feeling unexpectedly but powerfully protective. ‘She’s merely daydreaming, Miss Lytton. She wasn’t listening to you.’
Vanessa wasn’t satisfied. ‘What a pretty dress,’ she said, sounding completely insincere. It was an awful dress; Mary was skinny and ginger-haired and awkward. And, damn it, he liked her for it. Vanessa had probably never had an inelegant day in her life, and he couldn’t stand her.
Before Vanessa could give free rein to her vitriol, her mother grabbed her hand and applied subtle pressure. ‘Perhaps, my lord,’ she said, looking at him meaningfully, ‘a more fashionable governess might do the girl some good. I’m not sure your Miss Thomas has the first idea how a girl of Mary’s gentle background should behave. I’d recommend finding a replacement immediately.’
He’d no doubt she would. ‘Miss Thomas is very clever.’
Mrs Lytton smiled patiently. ‘Cleverness is all very well, but there’s so much more a young lady needs to learn. About clothing and manners. We could help you replace her—’
‘I like Miss Thomas, and I don’t care about clothing,’ Mary interjected.
‘Or manners,’ Vanessa said under her breath.
Will stared at her. He wasn’t surprised by her petty viciousness, but he hadn’t expected her to display it in front of him, in his own carriage. ‘What did you say, Miss Lytton?’
She was wise enough not to repeat her words. Her mother attempted to smooth the situation over. ‘It is a pretty dress, dear. We are merely tired.’
‘Then I will take you home.’
Mary returned her attention to the scenery. The only sound, for several uncomfortable seconds, was that of the birds and the rustling trees outside.
‘Pleasant weather, isn’t it?’ Mrs Lytton said finally, relying on the one dependable subject when all else failed. ‘Hope it doesn’t rain tomorrow…’
Georgina Lytton shooed her daughter upstairs and closed herself inside her private sitting room. She crossed the floor to her orderly satinwood desk, pulling the bell on the way.
What an unspeakable disaster. Her head throbbed, and as she sat down she covered her forehead with a cool, smooth hand. She closed her eyes briefly, willing the pain to ebb.
She’d been depending on an alliance between her daughter and Lord Lennox, and she’d told everyone she knew that it was a certainty. Now the only thing that was certain was that Lord Lennox would not marry Vanessa. When he hadn’t seemed bored by her, he’d been downright irritated. Georgina was a realistic woman: she knew her third daughter wasn’t a skilled conversationalist and that her views were narrow and provincial, despite her sophisticated upbringing. But none of that should matter when her face was taken into account.
The audacity of Lord Lennox—it wasn’t as if he’d make much of a husband. She’d certainly never deluded herself into thinking he’d be faithful to her daughter, but he was so rich any number of infidelities wouldn’t matter. With three daughters, no sons and their house entailed to a second cousin, they needed the money.
She located a clean sheet of paper and wrote three neat lines of text. Her footman arrived as she finished. She kept two footmen, actually, which strained Mr Lytton’s finances but was completely necessary for appearance’s sake. She’d never marry off Vanessa if the true state of their finances got round. This particular footman was George, the more handsome of the two. He was the one she’d been hoping for.
‘Ah. I have an extra task for you, George.’
‘Yes, madam?’ he said without alacrity.
‘Tomorrow I would like you to go to this address.’ She handed him the paper and waited while his eyes slowly scanned the text. ‘That is the residence of the Earl of Lennox. My daughter holds some tender feelings for the man, but I fear he might be a scoundrel.’
‘Yes?’
‘Yes. He has a ward, a girl of about twelve, staying with him, along with her governess. A very pretty governess—too pretty for me to believe that’s her sole function in his household. Do you understand me?’
He nodded miserably.
She continued. ‘You will speak to his servants and find out anything you can about this arrangement. Flirt with his chambermaids. I don’t care how you go about it. I must know all I can about his character before I further encourage an alliance with my daughter.’
She opened her desk drawer and began rummaging through old letters by way of dismissal, but he continued to stand there. She realised he was waiting to discuss compensation. She glanced at him coolly. ‘I will pay you, George. Not this very minute, of course. I’ll add it to your salary. You do trust me, I hope.’
His uncertain expression indicated he did not, but her cold, challenging gaze kept him from voicing his objections.
She watched him leave. The gall. She’d pay him—perhaps—if he discovered anything useful. What was coming to the world? The man worked for her, and he’d do what she told him, no matter how distasteful. Servants were a grasping lot and one couldn’t be too generous.
Chapter Fifteen
Will had deposited Vanessa and her mother at their house with relief, and he hoped never to see either of them again. He knew he was unlikely to be that lucky.
Mary had been silent for the rest of the journey. He looked at her now, as the carriage pulled away from the pavement and began heading down the street.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked.
She glanced at him slowly. He noticed, for the first time, that her big grey eyes were actually rather beautiful. She simply nodded before returning her attention to the street outside.
They rode in silence for several minutes until Mary asked suddenly, ‘Are you going to marry Miss Lytton?’
He was surprised by the question, but answered it easily. ‘No.’ There wasn’t a chance in hell he’d marry her, and there never had been.
‘I could have been nicer to her. I shouldn’t have laughed at her.’
‘Perhaps. She didn’t make it easy.’ He didn’t feel a speck of anger. He hated when the strong picked on the weak. As Richard had James, when James had been too young to defend himself. He didn’t know if that experience had conditioned him to feel the way he did, but he supposed it must have. ‘I thought you handled yourself quite well.’
The compliment seemed to please her. Warm colour filled her cheeks, and Will felt rather good himself.
He remembered what Isabelle had told him.
‘You take after your father in that way, you know. He was very good at recognising a fool.’
That certainly captured her attention. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean he’d have had little time for Vanessa Lytton.’
‘Even though she’s pretty?’
‘Pretty’s not so important.’
‘How long did you know Papa?’
‘More than half my life. We met at school, when we were fourteen. We’d already been at school together for a few years bef
ore then, but our paths had never really crossed. We were very different, but he was still my best friend there.’
‘How were you different?’
‘Well…we didn’t tend to move in the same circles at first. Your father was much more bookish. I suppose I spent most of my time at sport. We might not have met except we both got into a scrape with the headmaster on the same day—’
‘Why?’
‘I’d been caught sneaking out the night before…’ He trailed off as the memory came back, and he couldn’t help smiling. The geometry master’s daughter had promised to leave her bedroom window ajar, but he’d been nabbed halfway out of his own bedroom window…
‘And?’
No need to go into prurient details. ‘And your father had written an essay that was deemed too…uh, strongly egalitarian in its sentiments. We had to sit in the headmaster’s office for most of the day, waiting for him to return to give us our caning. That should have been that, except when he finally arrived late that afternoon he realised that we’d been making free with his brandy for hours—which, I should mention, was your father’s idea, not mine.’ And a ruddy good idea it had been, he added silently. Lessened the pain of the inevitable blows.
Her eyes were wide. ‘You mean you were…’
Isabelle had been completely wrong. He shouldn’t be telling her this. ‘Pickled. And we were great friends from then on—best friend I’ve ever had, excluding my brother. That wasn’t the last time we had to face Bittlesham’s wrath, either. We were both terrible students, just in different ways. I miss him.’
Mary was silent, thinking it over. Then, ‘I’m not such a bad student.’
‘Isabelle says you’re very clever.’ Damn. Isabelle again. He mustn’t call her that.
Luckily, Mary didn’t seem to notice anything improper. She was watching the scenery go by once more.
‘She also thinks you were trying to be sent home.’
She shrugged.
‘I’m sure Arthur didn’t want to send you away. He was very ill, you know.’
‘I know,’ she said softly.
‘And without your mother—’
‘I know.’ Said this time with less patience.
‘I didn’t see your father much after we left Oxford. He fell madly in love with your mother and became completely countrified, tutoring local brats and growing turnips. I stayed in London, and I couldn’t quite understand how one of my friends could settle down so soon, when I definitely wasn’t ready. But he was happy, even though your mother’s death was a terrible blow. I saw him about once a year at first, and then less and less. Miss Thomas tells me you corresponded with him.’
‘No.’
He frowned. ‘No? I’m sure she mentioned it.’
‘It’s not correspondence if only one person writes.’
‘You mean he didn’t write back?’
‘No, I didn’t. He wrote often. I hated him for not sending for me, and I wanted to punish him.’
‘Don’t say that,’ Will said. He tried to sound stern.
‘I’m sorry. I don’t mean it. I don’t feel like that any more. Wish I could change it now.’
She needn’t have apologised. It wasn’t difficult to imagine how she’d felt. ‘Miss Thomas tells me you’d like to have a friend to visit. Why don’t you invite her for your birthday? It’s coming up, isn’t it?’
He saw a glimmer of hope in her eyes. ‘You know when my birthday is?’
‘Of course—I came for your first three birthdays, you know. Took four long hours to reach your house. Suppose you wouldn’t remember.’
She smiled, the slight, half-smile that reminded him so much of his friend. ‘I remember meeting you once—I mean, once before that time when you had words with Miss Hume.’
‘When?’ His memory was failing now.
‘In London. Papa took me for a visit. It was after Mama died, and I was about six. And I remember you sent me a doll one Christmas.’
He had done that—it’d been the least he could do as her godfather. He should have done much more, but what did he know about children? He didn’t know what to say to them most of the time. But he was doing all right now. He thought he was, anyway. It wasn’t so different from speaking to an adult.
‘I didn’t know how ill he was,’ he said. ‘Not until last summer, when he invited me for a visit. He’d lost a lot of weight…I think that’s part of the reason he’d become reclusive. I don’t think he wanted anyone to see him. He certainly wouldn’t have wanted you to remember him like that, but he did think about you. That’s when he asked me to look after you.’
‘You regret it.’
‘No. No, I don’t.’
She looked out at the street again. He didn’t think she believed him. It hadn’t even occurred to him until that minute that he didn’t regret it, but he didn’t.
‘You look like your father,’ he said, trying to draw her back. ‘You’ve your mother’s colouring, but Arthur’s expression. You’re certainly more athletic. He was about as co-ordinated as Miss Thomas.’
Mary smiled again, but said nothing. He thought she looked happy.
The carriage halted to let a stream of opposing traffic rumble past, and they waited in companionable silence. Will looked out on the beautiful afternoon, on the rare, clear sky, and he felt a surge of goodwill. Regent Street was crowded with pedestrians, gazing into tempting shop windows. Hats and shoes, gleaming silver, tea from China, shawls from India and more, all on display. Everything anyone could possibly want, or at least a twelve-year-old girl.
‘Would you like something?’ he asked. He’d always been able to make women happy by buying them gifts, and Mary couldn’t be too different.
‘You don’t need to buy me anything. I’ll be leaving soon.’
‘Not necessarily,’ he protested.
‘What do you mean?’
He didn’t know what he meant. He shouldn’t be making false promises, but it didn’t have to be untrue. He’d assumed all along that she’d want to return to school, but perhaps not. It wouldn’t be the end of the world if she stayed.
He needed advice. He’d ask Isabelle what she thought.
‘Well, there’s the rest of the summer. That’s three more months. And then…honestly, there must be something you’d like. Never known a girl to turn down a present.’
She gazed out the window, examining the shops. ‘A book?’
Three minutes later, Will’s footman opened the door for them to alight. Will steered Mary across the road towards a busy bookseller’s. Satirical prints hung in the large bow window, and he paused to admire a particularly rude one about the Duke of Clarence until Mary crossed her arms and frowned impatiently.
Once inside, they perused the shelves silently for several minutes. She moved about methodically, but he was more haphazard. He picked books up, skimmed them and left them on random tables. Now that Mary was happy, he started to dwell once more on that other troublesome female: Isabelle, furious. He needed to make peace with her.
‘Maybe Miss Thomas would like a book, too?’ he suggested.
Mary glanced up from the book she was reading. After a second, she nodded slowly. He hoped she didn’t see through his question.
A book was the perfect gift. He didn’t imagine she’d had many gifts, not in a very long time, at least, and he wanted to please her. On grounds of propriety, she’d object to any present from him, but what could be more innocuous? A book wasn’t a silk négligé. It wasn’t intimate. But still…
‘She won’t accept it if it’s from me,’ he pointed out.
Mary didn’t look up this time. ‘Then tell her it’s from me.’
‘Very well. That I shall do.’ He took her book from her hands and stared at the title. ‘Appalling taste you have in literature.’
‘Oh?’ She didn’t say anything else, just frowned at his waistcoat by way of retort. He frowned at it, too, wondering what the problem was.
‘Does my waistcoat offend?’
‘You’re aware it’s green.’
‘No, blue. Matches the jacket. Did Miss Thomas take you shopping yesterday?’
‘Green. We didn’t buy anything. I don’t much enjoy shopping.’
‘All girls like shopping.’ He knew that to be almost a fact.
‘Well…the truth is we didn’t have much time to look. Just as we were leaving the house Dr Collins came for a visit.’
‘Dr Collins?’
She’d picked up another book and began skimming through the pages with irritating thoroughness.
‘Mary?’
‘What? Oh, yes. Dr Collins. He rescued us when Miss Thomas hurt her foot. You must remember him.’
Vividly. He realised he was gripping the book rather tightly. ‘A bit. Don’t remember inviting him back.’
‘Miss Thomas was definitely surprised to see him. Flattered, too, I should think. What book shall we get her?’
‘Flattered?’
She shrugged. ‘He is handsome.’
‘Is he?’
‘Yes. I suppose you wouldn’t notice. I think Miss Thomas noticed, though. He’ll probably visit her again.’
‘Why probably?’ Something disturbingly like panic was forming a tight ball in his stomach.
‘Well, wouldn’t you?’ she asked, her uninterested tone suggesting that the answer was as obvious as her red hair. Then—calculated, no doubt, to annoy him—she stifled a yawn. ‘I think she’d like something on natural history.’
Isabelle had spent the day feeling…angry. It had taken her a while to put a finger on the emotion, but anger was it—and since Will hadn’t been there for her to vent her rage at, by the end of the day she felt ten times angrier. Livid, because in the presence of those grand, ghastly ladies he’d treated her like a servant. Worse, actually, than he treated his servants.
He’d told her that he was contemplating marriage, and that loving his hypothetical wife wasn’t a priority. The awful Miss Lytton could only be a candidate for the position. She appeared to possess every quality he valued: beauty, wealth and a good pedigree. Isabelle would add bad manners and stupidity to the list—traits that in her current mood only made the pair of them more compatible.
The Earl and the Governess Page 16