by Patty Bryant
Alexander didn’t answer immediately. He wanted to fob Nicholas off with an easy excuse, but Nicholas knew him too well.
Alexander had ascended to the title of Duke of Clermont when he was seventeen, after his father died in a hunting accident. It was normal when children not yet at the age of majority inherited a position of such responsibility to establish guardians or executors, at least until the child had had time to acquire experience in his new role. His father’s will had made no such provisions.
Perhaps he had done it because he trusted Alexander. Or perhaps he had simply never considered the possibility of his first-born son being thrust too young into his own role, and so had never thought to set up legal safeguards. He was dead, and Alexander would never be able to ask him.
It would have been like Alexander’s father to forget. From a child’s point of view, he had been a wonderful father, always surprising Alexander and Bernard with new presents, interrupting their lessons for trips to the seashore or the City, bringing them along with him to underground boxing matches, horse races, and card parties. He had been a man of joy and constant laughter, the sort of man who never lacked for invitations to balls, dinners, and discreet female companionship. But he was not the sort of man to be trusted with money or land.
It had taken Alexander a long time to come to that realization. As he slowly learned his way around the business side of running a duchy, he began to notice mistakes his father had left behind. At first it was one here or there, but as he grew more adept at spotting them they quickly added up. Unpaid debts, mortgaged land, investments that never paid off – if there was a foolish and risky business venture in all of England, his father was sure to have taken part.
Alexander still didn’t know if his father had simply been naive, easily taken advantage of by the confidence men who swarmed around any source of ready money, or if there had been something more to it. Drunk, feckless, caring more for the pleasures of the moment than the promise of the future, his father had squandered nearly all of the wealth of the Duchy of Clermont. If, as Nicholas loved to harp on, the Ware family was once more financially solvent, it was because of Alexander’s hard work, not what he had inherited.
He loved his father. Alexander’s childhood had been a time of wonder and fun, and he would always be grateful for that, would always remember it with fondness. But the truth that no one knew – not Nicholas, not even Bernard – was that Alexander also hated his father. It was his irresponsibility that had forced him to become Clermont the Cold. At seventeen he should have been losing money at cards, falling in love with inappropriate women, and spending too much on clothes, like the other young men of his class. But instead of painting the town red with his old classmates from Eton, Alexander’s days were spent with lawyers, accountants, and stewards. He learned about compounded interest, double-entry bookkeeping, and foreign tariffs. It wasn’t a subject matter to set a young man’s heart on fire, but his father had left him no choice. Either Alexander became a businessman, and a good one, or the family would sink into obscurity and poverty.
“No,” he answered Nicholas finally, knowing that he had stayed silent for too long. “I can’t afford to be unreasonable.”
He expected Nicholas to reply with a quip, but Nicholas surprised him, reminding Alexander once again of why they had become friends in the first place. Nicholas might be an overly handsome dandy, but he was smarter than he looked. “Your brother has a lot to thank you for,” Nicholas said quietly. “Those nieces of yours too. But you’ve spent nearly two decades in nonstop work and, as far as I can see, they’re the only ones who have benefited. Is that really how you plan to spend the rest of your life?”
“There’s nothing wrong with my life.”
“No,” Nicholas said slowly. “Nothing wrong, exactly. But is a title and a legacy enough for you? Don’t you want more, Alexander?”
The question struck too close to home, and Alexander shoved away a sudden memory of Savitri with her arms around him, looking up at him. At the time her expression had been fiery and proud, but in his imagination he saw her brown eyes soften, her lips curve in a private smile meant only for him.
“Who are you to question me? You’re not married either,” he pointed out stubbornly.
Nicholas shoved his hands in his pockets. “No, I’m not. And I’m perfectly content that way; I have no desire to take up with a wife, thank you. But if you claim that the bachelor’s life is making you happy, you’re lying.”
Alexander walked a few further steps down the gravel path, stewing silently. “I can’t!” he finally burst out. “She’s a governess, god damn it! That’s not unreasonable, that’s… that’s unacceptable!”
Nicholas was not cowed in the slightest by Alexander’s fury. A slight raising of his eyebrows was the only indication he’d even heard it. “A governess? Not that Indian girl your brother brought back with him, is it? I caught sight of her at your ball – pretty thing.”
“She’s not a thing.”
“She’s got a good head on her shoulders too.” Nicholas continued as though there had been no interruption. “Plenty of females would have quailed at being confronted with that many angry stares from the cream of London society. Or simply abandoned Penelope to sink or swim on her own. This governess met them head-on and handled herself with aplomb. Yes,” he said, nodding, “you could do worse.”
Alexander sputtered, still angry but unable to find anything in Nicholas’s speech to take offense to. He settled on, “You don’t even know her!”
“So introduce me. I’ll pay you a call during visiting hour tomorrow.”
“I – that is – no!”
“Why not?”
Nicholas’s tone was so sensible, so calm, that Alexander felt like a fool for continuing to shout. He drew in a deep breath, blew it out, and forced himself to look at Nicholas’s proposal as a real possibility. “I can’t. She won’t have me. There was one night – but ever since then, she barely speaks to me. I made her an offer and she wouldn’t hear of it.”
“What sort of offer?”
“What?”
“What sort of offer did you make the girl?” Nicholas asked slowly, as though he was speaking to a particularly stupid child. “Did you propose marriage?”
“I… meant to.” Alexander thought back over that painful morning and realized that the words had not have actually come out of his mouth. “Surely she understood what I meant.”
“Hmmm.” Nicholas looked thoughtful. “Let me see if I have this right. You seduced a servant in your employ – was she a virgin, by the way?”
The question had never before occurred to Alexander. His cheeks heated but he refused to acknowledge any embarrassment, even if he couldn’t quite meet Nicholas’s eyes. “I don’t know.”
“Let’s assume so then. On the one hand we have a delicately reared young woman, forced into working for a living, far from home, who probably has no higher expectations than marrying a respectable man of her own class. On the other hand we have you, a duke, the man who pays her wages, of a rather forceful personality – you must admit that, Alexander.”
Alexander nodded stiffly.
“Who takes her virginity and then comes to her the next morning making unspecified demands for more. I can see why she refused you. She’s probably terrified you’ll turn her out of the house without a reference at any moment.”
“I would never do such a thing! Come, Nicholas, you know me better than that.”
“I do. But she doesn’t,” Nicholas pointed out gently. “Think of things from her point of view. She barely knows you and she has no reason to believe that you sincerely mean to marry her – if she even realized that was what you intended to say. And more than that, she has no reason to trust that you’re prepared for the reality of marriage to someone like her. Being a duchess is more than gowns and a handsome husband. It means every single member of the ton constantly watching her and just waiting for an opportunity to tear
her down. If she’s as smart as she seemed, she knows that. She wasn’t raised as nobility; she’s going to make mistakes. That’s besides her natural disadvantages of color and arriving in town as a governess. Are you really willing to take on that burden?”
Alexander had been listening as Nicholas spoke, his anger slowly transforming into shame. He had behaved inconsiderately to Savitri. He had not considered things from her perspective. Marriage with her would indeed be very different from with the young women he saw at balls and dinners and strolling this very moment on the other side of the park. He felt the weight of the choice before him.
And then Nicholas called Savitri a burden, and Alexander knew he could never give her up. There was a roaring in his ears and his breath seemed to catch in his throat; it wasn’t anger at his friend, nor regret at indulging in sulky self-pity for the last week. It was pride, and determination, and the knowledge that he was going to win.
A grin spread across his face. “You know me, Nicholas. I’ve never been afraid of hard work.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Savitri walked to the window of the converted schoolroom and looked out. It was a rainy day, the clouds low and grey, the streets full of mist. Rain rattled intermittently against the panes of glass. Even looking at it made her feel cold. She hugged herself, rubbing her hands briskly against her bare arms, but that didn’t help; it wasn’t her skin that was cold, but her heart. This isn’t like the rain back home. How silly, to miss rain.
At the table behind her, Lucy was diligently working at arithmetic, her chalk scratching against her slate as she solved the problems Savitri had written out for her the night before. Penelope had not yet made her appearance in the classroom; she had been showing greater and greater inclination to be difficult over the last few days, and Savitri was not surprised by her tardiness.
She knew she shouldn’t, but in these few minutes of quiet she couldn’t resist indulging in memories of Calcutta. The monsoon’s arrival every year was like a carnival, and children would dance in the streets under the first clouds. That rain was fierce: each drop huge, the clouds full of lightening, the wind strong enough to nearly strip trees of their leaves. In comparison, this English rain was meager and sad. And moreover Savitri knew there was no season of rain here; instead it came and went throughout the year. A lifetime of rain, she thought. What a future to look forward to.
Alice the maid emerged from the kitchen into the street down below, a basket on one arm. She tugged her shawl up over her head to keep off the rain and seemed prepared to trudge onward despite the weather, most likely heading to the nearby market to purchase vegetables.
She hadn’t gone more than a few feet when a young man ran out of the stables toward her, skidding to a stop at Alice’s side. She hastily drew her skirts away from the splash of mud, but even from three stories above Savitri could recognize that Alice was pleased to see him. The young man wore the duke’s livery so she supposed he was probably a groom, though Savitri didn’t think she’d met him before. He drew an umbrella from beneath his jacket, showing it off to Alice with such pleased pride that a giggle escaped Savitri. Then he opened it, and they both disappeared beneath its oilskin protection. Savitri couldn’t be sure, but she suspected they walked off arm-in-arm.
She sighed. The possibility of a shared umbrella almost made a lifetime of rain sound appealing. She pictured Alexander handing her an umbrella with the same puffed up enjoyment as the groom – he would be so eager to protect her from any of life’s vicissitudes. Or maybe he wouldn’t hand it to her; he’d keep hold of it himself, his other arm curving around her waist to draw her close. The umbrella would create a small pocket where they could be safe and dry despite the pounding rain. She would fit so snugly against his broad chest. She remembered that from the night they’d spent together. He would be warm against her, and she would be able to catch his faint scent of bergamot and pressed linen, the memory of which had haunted her for the past week.
It was a lovely dream. But it wasn’t real and never would be.
Savitri forced herself to turn away from the window and plastered on a smile for Lucy. The little girl didn’t notice; she was entirely focused on her work, her forehead heavily wrinkled and the tip of her tongue protruding between her teeth. Savitri walked over to a spot behind her chair where she could peek over Lucy’s shoulder and see what answers she had gotten so far. They all looked correct. Lucy always whined and complained about arithmetic lessons, but once she finally settled down and applied herself, she did quite well.
Penelope still had not made an appearance. Savitri supposed it was time to track down her recalcitrant student and force her out of bed or the kitchen or wherever she was hiding.
“Have you seen your sister today?” she asked Lucy, hating to interrupt the girl’s concentration but knowing it was necessary.
Lucy shook her head. “She wasn’t at breakfast. Wasn’t in her room, either. I checked.”
“Well, she must be somewhere in the house. I’ll turn her up, don’t you worry.”
Lucy bowed her head, to all appearances focusing single-heartedly on her arithmetic. But Savitri had been a governess too long for that to fool her; her sixth sense insisted that the girl was hiding something.
“Is there anything else you’d like to tell me, Lucy?”
Lucy glanced quickly up, her blue eyes wide – not with innocence, but with surprise. She was silent for a moment, biting her lip, then blurted out, “Penelope’s not going to be in trouble, is she, Miss Booth?”
“It depends on what she’s done.” Savitri knelt down beside Lucy’s chair, bringing their faces level with one another. “Did she tell you to keep a secret for her?”
“No.” Lucy hesitated, twisting the chalk stick in her small fingers. “But… when I said she wasn’t in her bed…” She stopped again, indecision like a storm across her face. Savitri waited, trying to project calm assurance and not the sudden worry that had her heart beating faster. “That wasn’t this morning. That was last night.”
Savitri stood again. “She was missing last night? And you haven’t seen her since?”
Lucy nodded then shook her head, beginning to pout.
“It’s not your fault.” Savitri spared a moment to pat Lucy’s shoulder reassuringly, although her mind was already racing ahead to what to do next. “You just stay here for a little while. I’ll send up a maid to sit with you. And don’t worry. I’m sure Penelope is fine.”
“Mama’s going to be angry with her.” Lucy’s voice was very small.
Savitri forced out a warm chuckle; she couldn’t afford for Lucy to start crying now as well. “She probably will be. But nothing bad will happen. Maybe she’ll take away Penelope’s desserts for a time. That means more for you!”
Lucy visibly cheered up at that idea, and Savitri felt able to leave her alone in the classroom for the few minutes it would take to find an available maid to attend her. She stepped into the hallway, shut the door behind her, and for a moment could do nothing else. Her palms felt sweaty; her heart was going too fast; her thoughts were a confused whirl.
Think!, she commanded herself. Panicking won’t help. Take it one step at a time. Figure out what needs to happen first, and the rest will follow. The advice came to her in the voice of her mother, her soft Bengali words reaching Savitri across the years.
She remembered being a young woman, still a girl really, who had just taken on her first job as a governess. One of her students had sliced open her hand while cutting fabric to make a dress, and Savitri had been sure that the girl would die, that she would be blamed for it, and that she would be hanged. The sight of the blood had gone straight to Savitri’s head, making her feel faint – or at least, that was what she liked to blame her subsequent bad decision on. Maybe she had simply been too young for the responsibility, too nervous at her new position of authority.
In any case, she had panicked. A doctor had been called to examine the girl’s injury, and while he
was making his assessment Savitri had slipped out of the house’s back door and run straight home, where she had burst into tears. She’d cried so hard that she’d barely been able to explain to her mother what had happened.
But once her mother understood the situation, she hadn’t joined in the tears or taken seriously Savitri’s suggestion that they flee the city immediately. She’d laughed softly and wrapped her arms around Savitri in a comforting embrace, letting Savitri cry until the shoulder of her blouse was damp. And then she’d pushed her daughter back, told her firmly to stop crying, to go and wash her face, and to drink the glass of milk she was going to pour for her. Savitri had obeyed, and found that it helped; by the time she was sitting at the table she felt almost calm.
Now, her mother had said, let’s decide how you’re going to handle this. She had insisted that Savitri return to her employer’s house immediately. None of Savitri’s protests or misgivings had made her mother give an inch; Mrs. Booth was a kind woman, but when she set her mind to something she had a spine of steel.
Finally Savitri had given in. No matter how afraid and uncertain she felt about this course of action, it was her mother recommending it, the one person Savitri trusted most in the whole world. She’d crept back to her employer’s house and quietly entered through the same back door she had used to escape. Dread of what she might find had made her hands shake so hard she hid them behind her back. Her breath had been quick and shallow, like a rabbit who scents a leopard.
The house was full of bright light and laughter. The injured girl raced about, proudly showing off her new stitches to anyone who would look, from the austere butler who oversaw the whole household to the lowliest kitchen maid. The doctor had been invited to tea by the mother, and they were busy gossiping with several of the neighboring women. The silk merchant had been called for, so that new fabric could be bought to replace that which had been stained, and he was noisily unpacking his wares in a different drawing room. No one had even noticed that Savitri was missing.