A strained silence fell over them, now and then broken by yawns. Jocelyn cudgeled her brain to think of a safe topic for further conversation. One that promised to keep them talking until morning without trespassing into private territory.
Then suddenly it was morning. Jocelyn jolted awake to find herself slumped forward, her head resting on the bed. She wrenched herself upright. “Sir Robert, you should have woken me—”
The words stuck in her throat as she glanced at the governor to find him lying pale and still. Was the poor man even breathing? After he had injured himself coming to her rescue last night, she had failed in the simple but crucial task of keeping him awake as the doctor had ordered.
“Sir Robert?” She clasped his hand, faint with relief to find it warm to the touch. Fear chilled her again when the sound of her voice failed to rouse him.
“Please wake up!” She chafed his hand with increasing agitation.
When he remained unconscious, she perched on the edge of the bed and began to slap him gently on the cheek. “Please, Sir Robert, you must open your eyes. I’m so sorry I did not keep you awake as I promised I would.”
She leaned closer, her pleas growing more and more desperate. Without conscious intention, her touch muted from light blows to beseeching caresses. He must wake up. He must. How would she live with herself if he did not?
Her heart was fluttering like a small wild bird imprisoned within the cage of her ribs when suddenly Sir Robert gave a soft moan and opened his eyes.
“Thank God!” Jocelyn gasped. Overcome with relief, she leaned forward and pressed her lips to his.
Chapter Eleven
For the second time in twelve hours, something coaxed Sir Robert awake against his will. Jocelyn Finch’s sweet voice and the tender caress of her fingers were a far more agreeable inducement than the sickening reek of ammonia. Still pleasantly fuddled from sleep, he wondered what it might be like to waken every morning in such a way.
But the delightful sensations that had beguiled him back to consciousness were soon overpowered by a most unpleasant one—the nagging ache of his head. It felt even worse than last night! The pain wrung a moan from him.
He opened his eyes with some reluctance. Once she realized he was awake, Mrs. Finch would probably stop stroking his face and murmuring his name. But she sounded so anxious, he could not bring himself to distress her for another instant.
His small sacrifice was rewarded with the closest view of her face he’d ever been permitted. Her brown eyes radiated the most tender concern. Something in him melted beneath their attentive warmth.
“Thank God!” she cried with a catch in her voice that made his throat ache in sympathy.
Before he knew what was what, her lips were on his. Their lush softness made him almost forget he had a head, let alone that it hurt. Her nearness overwhelmed him in the most pleasurable way. Her delicate hands cradled his face. Her warm, moist breath whispered against his skin. Her subtle feminine scent tempted him to inhale more deeply. A lock of her hair fell forward to tickle his cheek.
Her lips moved against his, puckering, parting, then closing again as if she were nibbling on a sweet, juicy morsel of fruit. For his part, he’d never consumed fruit or confection that tasted as delectable as her kiss. It made him ravenous for more.
He raised his arms and folded them around her, plunging one hand into the silken swirl of her hair. Straining toward her, he explored her mouth with his. He suckled on her full lower lip, then ran his tongue over it with hot, greedy gusto. Desire crackled through his veins like flame racing along a line of gunpowder to cause a dangerous, shattering explosion. He could hardly wait for the fireworks!
A sharp gasp from the doorway brought Sir Robert to his senses in a way Jocelyn Finch’s earlier pleas had not. If anything, they had driven him out of his senses. The sound made Mrs. Finch start, too. She pulled away from him so abruptly that she almost tumbled to the floor.
“Pardon me!” cried Duckworth. “I did not mean to intrude.”
“Nonsense! Come in at once,” Sir Robert ordered, his voice rasping with unsated desire. “Mrs. Finch was just—”
“—just checking.” She hastened to fill his awkward hesitation. “To make certain His Excellency was not running a fever.” The breathless quality of her voice did nothing to subdue his inflamed passion.
Duckworth advanced a few cautious steps into the room. “Pray what did you discover, ma’am? Is he feverish?”
The young man’s manner betrayed no suspicion that events might be other than what his master and the lady claimed.
“A trifle warm, perhaps,” Jocelyn lied. Surely she must have sensed he was on fire…though not from any ordinary fever. “But I do not think he is any danger. Are you in much pain, Sir Robert?”
“Some.” In truth, the ache in his loins had made him forget the one in his head. “But I do not feel quite as dizzy.”
“Colonel Carmont told me what happened,” said Duckworth. “He asked me to inform you that his men were unable to apprehend any of the trespassers, but they did locate Corporal Miller and Miss Jenkins. It seems the pair eloped to town, where they persuaded Father O’Neil to witness their vows. It is not proper in the eyes of the law, but I daresay it might have been worse.”
“Not legal?” Jocelyn pressed her fingers to her lips. No doubt she was recalling the fears that had driven her to weep in Sir Robert’s arms several hours earlier.
He sought to explain. “Betrothed couples in the colony are required to file a marriage bond stating their intention and swearing there are no impediments to the proposed union.”
Jocelyn greeted the news with a dispirited shake of her head. “I suppose there is no chance of having the marriage quietly annulled.”
Even in the faint light of early morning, Sir Robert could make out the blush that mottled Duckworth’s face. “Colonel Carmont seemed satisfied the union had been…consummated.”
Jocelyn muttered an oath. “Did the colonel say what has been done with the young fools?”
“I believe Miller has been confined to barracks. They fetched Miss Jenkins back here. She is out in the kitchen building at the moment.”
“I must go speak to her, I suppose.” Jocelyn winced as she rose. “And try to refrain from wringing her neck.”
“Wait.” Sir Robert hesitated. What he was about to propose was highly irregular, perhaps not even strictly legal. A few hours ago he would never have contemplated it, but now he could sympathize with the young couple smitten by desire. No one would be well served by their disgrace. “Can you fetch some paper and writing implements, Mrs. Finch?”
“Of course, but—”
“Duckworth, I’m sure you are familiar enough with the customary form of such documents to draw one up for the signatures of Corporal and Mrs. Miller.”
His aide looked mildly shocked by the request but soon rallied. “If…that is what you wish, sir.”
“It is. I expect Colonel Carmont can vouch for Miller and Mrs. Finch for the bride.” Both would surely want to avoid the kind of scandal to which this situation might otherwise lead.
Jocelyn gave an eager nod. “Once I’ve had a quick word with Hetty, I shall bring everything Mr. Duckworth needs.”
After she had hurried from the room, Sir Robert made one final request of his aide. “Be a good fellow and date the document for yesterday, will you?”
Late that afternoon, Jocelyn wilted onto a chair in Sally Carmont’s private sitting room. “I cannot stay long. I’ve only come to beg you for the strongest cup of coffee you can spare. Otherwise, I may fall asleep during the ride back to the lodge.”
Sally wagged her finger. “You shall not have it. A nap is the very thing you need. Or are you planning to cry off the assembly ball tonight?”
“I dare not.” Jocelyn rubbed her throbbing brow. If Sir Robert’s head hurt as much as hers, the poor man had her most profound sympathy. “Have you seen the Gazette today?”
“Not yet. Will always brings the newspaper h
ome with him and tells me if there is any worthwhile reading in it. Why? Is there some adverse report about what took place last night?”
“More than one.” A bilious spasm gripped Jocelyn’s belly. “And a scathing editorial. Mr. Wye seems now as strongly opposed to my mission as he was in favor of it at first. He called for the governor to send the bride ship and its cargo back to England before we cause any more disturbances in the colony.”
“That is outrageous!” Sally pounded her fist against the arm of the settee. “What happened last night was not your fault.”
Jocelyn wished she could convince herself of that. Every time she remembered her first glimpse of Sir Robert’s blood-matted hair, remorse overwhelmed her. “The ball at Government House was my idea, Sally. And I failed in my responsibility to supervise the girls as closely as I should have. Otherwise Hetty could never have run off with Corporal Miller.”
“Shh!” Sally hurried to the doorway and gave a furtive look into the next room. When she turned back toward Jocelyn she lowered her voice to an urgent whisper. “You must be careful what you say about that whole business. In a place this size, gossip travels faster than in London. There are only a handful of us who know what truly happened and we must keep it that way. Otherwise yours is not the only removal Mr. Wye will be calling for.”
“You’re right, of course. I am so tired I scarcely know what I’m saying.” Jocelyn had not even trusted Lily Winslow with a true account of Hetty’s elopement. The girls had all been assured that she and her besotted corporal were properly wed by Nova Scotia law—a cause for celebration, not scandal.
“I see now what Will means about Sir Robert being a good fellow to have on hand in a tight spot,” said Sally. “There have been a few incidents with the garrison of late and this would have looked very bad for Will. Fancy Sir Robert coming up with a plan to make it right—injured as he was. Have you heard how he is faring?”
“Quite well, I think, all things considered.” Jocelyn tried to sound as if the governor’s condition was of only the most casual concern to her. She wondered what Sally would have thought if she had been the one to catch them kissing this morning, instead of Mr. Duckworth. “He insisted on returning to town this afternoon aboard the admiral’s sloop. I understand the doctor has given him strict orders to rest for a few days.”
His idea of rest would likely entail sitting up in bed, reading reports and petitions, then dictating replies to Mr. Duckworth. The thought brought a smile of fond exasperation to Jocelyn’s lips. She was amazed the governor had gone to such lengths to give her a second chance. He might easily have used the riot and Hetty’s elopement as excuses to be rid of them all.
But what had made him do it? Was he trying to atone for responding when she’d kissed him this morning. If so, he had no cause to repent. She was the one who’d initiated it, in an outburst of relief. A man would have to be made of stone to resist such an ardent assault upon his lips. Contrary to what she’d once believed, Sir Robert Kerr was not made of stone.
He was a man of flesh and blood—blood he’d shed coming to her defense and flesh that had roused to her kiss. She could not deny that his kiss had roused her in turn. She had never imagined him capable of such passion.
Sally’s tart tone pierced the bubble of Jocelyn’s bemusement. “What have you got to smile about, pray? You haven’t slept for the better part of two days, you had a riot on your doorstep and all the support you had from the leaders of the colony seems to be turning into opposition.”
“That is not all.” The reminder of her lack of sleep made Jocelyn yawn. “I have also just come from packing off one of the girls back to England, on account of her constant defiance and troublemaking.” She told Sally how Vita had provoked the riot at Prince’s Lodge.
Her friend’s jaw dropped. “After that you put her on a ship back to England? I’d have drowned the brazen hussy!”
“Don’t suppose I wasn’t tempted. If I smiled just now, it was from relief at being rid of her. I can handle the others once they are free from Vita’s bad influence and example.” It was as good an excuse as any. And perhaps true, in part.
“Which reminds me why I came here,” she added.
“For coffee?”
Jocelyn chuckled, though she wasn’t sure why. Giddy from lack of sleep, perhaps? “Besides that. I wondered if you could introduce me to some respectable women of mature years who might be willing to assist me in chaperoning the girls? I was foolish to imagine I could do it all myself.”
“Let me think.” Sally tapped her chin with her forefinger. “There’s Mrs. Langford. She’s a most agreeable soul and rather lonely in that big house since her niece left to get married.”
“I remember, you introduced me to her the other night at Government House. She seemed very pleasant.”
“What’s more,” said Sally, “she was a Brenton before her marriage. They are a large family and vastly clannish. If you can enlist her help, I fancy we won’t hear another murmur against you from any of them.”
Sally proposed several other women of her acquaintance possessed of even tempers, good sense and sterling reputations. Finally the mantel clock interrupted her by chiming the hour of four.
“Oh dear!” Jocelyn jumped from her chair. “I must get back to the lodge and ready the girls for this evening!”
As Sally ushered her out to her waiting carriage, Jocelyn tried to curb her mounting dread of facing the censure of Halifax society. “You must introduce me to all those women, tonight, so I may call upon them soon. If I had time, now, I would drop in on Mrs. Langford, but I fear that must wait.”
“Do not fret.” Sally seized her hands and gave them a heartening squeeze. “You faced down that rabble last night and you overcame the governor’s opposition. I have every confidence you will prevail again.”
Jocelyn was in too great a hurry to contradict her friend, but she could not share Sally’s optimism.
A censorious silence fell over the Halifax assembly hall that evening when Jocelyn and her charges made their entrance. If it had not been for the presence of Will and Sally Carmont, she might have turned tail and fled the place in shame.
The Carmonts greeted her warmly as if nothing had changed since the evening of the governor’s levee, when she and her girls had been the toasts of Halifax. Colonel Carmont’s officers hastened to invite a number of the girls to dance. Were they acting on the colonel’s orders, Jocelyn wondered or were they eager to take advantage of less competition for pretty partners?
Not all the young gentlemen of the town were daunted by the disapproval of their elders. Before long, a few of the bolder ones took to the dance floor with more of Jocelyn’s charges. Meanwhile, several clutches of townsfolk gathered around the perimeter of the ballroom, speaking together in low, grave tones. Now and then someone would look up to glare at Jocelyn then return to the conversation with fevered whispers.
Giving a defiant toss of her honey-colored curls, Sally Carmont took Jocelyn’s arm and led her toward one such group. It dispersed in a flutter before they reached it. The members of the clique scattered to join up with others in different parts of the room.
Sally raised her fan and spread it open to mask her mischievous grin. “I could not resist seeing what they would do if we approached them. The cowards!”
“Well, don’t let’s do it again,” Jocelyn whispered back. “They might decide to stand their ground next time. Open hostilities with the leading citizens of the colony will not do my reputation or my mission any good.”
“I overheard something interesting just before you arrived.” Sally checked to make certain no one else was close enough to overhear her. “It seems the doting mamas of Halifax were rather dismayed to discover how all the officers and young gentlemen flocked to your girls at the governor’s levee. Those with daughters fear all the eligible beaux will be stolen away. The ones with sons are worried the lads might decide to marry dowerless English girls, rather than wed within their own purse-proud circle.
”
“I see.” Looking around the ballroom Jocelyn spied one elegantly dressed young lady watching with longing eyes from the fringe of the dance floor while an equally elegant gentleman twirled Charlotte Reynolds around to the lively strains of “Chelsea Reach.” Another young fellow was dutifully dancing with one of the local ladies. But his focus kept straying from his partner to Jocelyn’s vivacious charges, who seemed blissfully unaware of the baleful glares being directed at them by the matrons of Halifax.
Both the gentry and the working men of this colony seemed to have the same quarrel with the bride-ship scheme. The people attending tonight’s assembly were expressing themselves in a less threatening manner, but the young Irishman and his comrades had made their objections a good deal more plain.
How could Jocelyn convince the matrons of Halifax that she did not mean to threaten their matchmaking plans for their sons and daughters?
One dance concluded and another began. This time more of the young merchants and professional men ignored the frowns of their parents and invited the newcomers to take the floor. The buzz of conversation from the fringes of the ballroom swelled in volume, like a hornet’s nest that had just been shaken.
“Sally, did you get a chance to speak with any of those ladies you mentioned as potential chaperones?”
“Not yet. The truth is I’ve hardly been able to get near them. Since I’m known to be a friend of yours, I have been cut this evening quite as pointedly as you.”
A sense of frustration churned inside Jocelyn. She’d thought the governor stubborn and unreasonable at first, but at least he had been willing to hear her out. “What about Mrs. Langford? She didn’t seem like a woman easily cowed by popular opinion. Do you suppose if I spoke to her, she might spread the word among her relations.”
“She might.” After her earlier burst of audacity, Sally was beginning to look more and more intimidated by the spiteful stares directed at her and Jocelyn. “I haven’t seen her here this evening. I’m not sure she attends the assembly balls much. I’ll go ask after her…if I can find anyone willing to speak to me.”
Deborah Hale Page 15