by Syrie James
“I presume you were called home from school for the same reason I was: lack of funds to continue?”
Miss Watson’s gaze remained on the ground and her cheeks burned. It was a reminder of how little he knew about her. Clearly, she was a well-educated young woman of good social standing who had come down hard and fast in the world. Just as clearly, she was ashamed by it.
“Please do not be embarrassed about your financial circumstances, Miss Watson,” he said gently. “You have heard my family’s sad story. You are not alone.” The path had become so narrow that they were nearly walking shoulder to shoulder. “I am sorry, though, that you were unable to finish your education. I know how painful that can be.”
“Yes. You said you were upset when you first came home from Italy?”
“I was. Until my father explained the size of the financial hole into which we had descended. We could very well lose Polperran House, he said. I put it to him that I could help. I could try to earn something, by painting pictures and selling them. He laughed in my face. A man of our station, he insisted, could never engage in commercial enterprise. He did expect me to help, however—but he had something quite different in mind.”
“What was that?”
“He commanded me to find an heiress as quickly as possible and marry her.” He spat out the word heiress with more venom than he’d intended.
Miss Watson suddenly missed her footing, stumbling over a tree root. Instinctively, Thomas reached out to prevent her from falling. It all happened in an instant: he grabbed her, pulled her upright, and they were standing face to face, his right hand gripping her upper arm, his left wrapped around her waist, their bodies colliding.
Thomas’s thoughts scattered to the wind. He could feel the rapid rise and fall of her chest as her breasts pressed against him, could hear her breath stutter. He found it difficult to breathe himself, could not take his eyes off her lips, which were just inches from his own. For the hundredth time, he wondered what it would feel like, taste like, to kiss those lips. Wondered if she would respond with a passion equal to that which burned inside of him. He had dreamed of a moment like this so many times over the past week, and here she was, in his arms, in the privacy of his garden, where no one could see.
Her bluebell eyes raised to his, and he met them squarely, reading there what appeared to be a mirror of his own rampant desire. At the same time, he detected a hint of fear and uncertainty. Which sobered him up quickly.
He had too much respect for Miss Watson to seduce her in a remote bower. Or anywhere else, for that matter. Swallowing hard, he released her and stepped back. “Forgive me.”
“No, forgive me.” Her voice trembled slightly. “I’m not usually so clumsy.”
“The fault is mine. These paths have become quite treacherous. Let us proceed with caution.”
They walked on for some minutes without speaking, as Thomas struggled to regain his composure. A glance at Miss Watson told him that she was similarly engaged.
He broke the silence. “What were we saying before?”
“Something,” she answered quietly, “about your father wishing you to marry an heiress.”
“Ah, yes.”
“Many men in your position, or so I’m told, are eager to make a match that comes with a fortune.”
“I have good reason to avoid such an arrangement.”
“What reason?”
He paused. “For one thing, my own parents’ example.”
“Oh?”
“My father married for money. My mother came from a good Yorkshire family and had a substantial dowry. In short order, she produced me, the obligatory heir. But stuck here in the country, so far from her friends and family, she was lonely and homesick. My father was repeatedly unfaithful, leaving her for months at a time to go up to town. They came to despise each other. It is no wonder that it was another thirteen years before Julia came along. During all that time, not a day went by that I was not aware of the misery of their union. My father burned through every penny of my mother’s money, and then . . .”
“And then?”
Thomas paused, a rush of feelings curling in his gut at the memory of his mother. He pushed it all away. He had no desire to think of her, or to go into all the details that followed. It would be like throwing salt in a wound. Besides, he reminded himself, Miss Watson—as charming and sensitive a listener as she was—was an employee. He had said too much already.
“And then she died,” Thomas went on flatly. “Years later, with all the money gone, my father expected me to pay the price for his foolish behavior. And I . . .” Again, he censored himself. “In the end, let us just say that my eyes were opened. My father passed away two days after my twenty-fifth birthday. I decided I would never make the same mistake he did. I would never marry for money.”
“I understand. I feel as you do: that no one should be forced to marry against their own inclination, and certainly never just for money.”
He nodded, frowning. “I cannot marry a poor woman, Miss Watson, for I cannot support her. At the same time, I have my pride. I will not take another man’s money to pay back my family’s generations of debt. Nor will I destroy my soul by attaching myself for life to someone I do not love, just to save a crumbling house and overgrown gardens.”
She glanced at him. “What if you were to fall in love with a woman who happens to have money?”
“Love exists only in fairy tales, Miss Watson,” Thomas insisted grimly. “In real life, it brings only pain and disappointment.”
“So, are you saying you’ll never marry at all?”
“That is the inevitable conclusion.”
“Doesn’t that put you in a rather difficult position?” She glanced at him with delicate innuendo.
“You mean, don’t I need to sire an heir?”
“Isn’t that what every nobleman needs?”
“When I die, Polperran House will go to my second cousin Reginald Carter. He is a solicitor with seven sons, and will no doubt be thrilled by the opportunity. In the meantime, I will do my best to keep the estate going for my sisters, what is left of my staff, and my tenants. End of story.”
The path took them out of the grove and down a wide green incline studded with bleating sheep, bringing the house once more into sight before them.
As they walked, Alexandra’s heart thudded in her chest. A few moments ago, when she’d stumbled into Longford’s arms, she’d forgotten all her vows to remain calm and professional. She’d wanted more than anything for him to kiss her.
Get ahold of yourself, Alexandra reprimanded herself now with a frown. This was not the time nor the place for her to be having foolish crushes. She struggled to set all such thoughts aside, concentrating on the fact that in the past hour, she’d learned more about Lord Longford than she had in all the days she’d known him put together.
How difficult it must have been to have so much responsibility thrust upon him at such an early age. Alexandra’s own parents spent most of their time apart, and had a relationship she considered to be cold and formal. Yet they’d built a life together which seemed to make them content. Knowing that Longford’s mother and father had married for money, and that their son had borne witness to their misery, helped to explain so much.
She could understand his aversion to marriage, based on his parents’ example, and even his being too proud to ever take another man’s money. But that didn’t explain the antipathy in his voice when he’d uttered the term heiress.
“Your charge has returned, Miss Watson.” Longford’s voice interrupted her reverie.
Alexandra caught sight of Julia riding past on a black steed toward the stables. Longford gave Alexandra a nod, as if he were about to say good-bye.
“Have you spoken to her today?” Alexandra asked quickly.
“Who? Julia? I have not.”
“She’d love it if you did.”
The idea seemed to surprise him. “Why?”
“She’s your sister. She said you
used to ride together.”
“That was years ago, when she was a child.”
“She seems to look back on it fondly. I think she misses your company.”
“I cannot think why. She is fifteen years old. What would she have to say to me?”
“You’ll never know if you don’t talk to her.”
He hesitated. “Well, I have a minute. I suppose I can say hello.”
They strode to the stables, where Julia, fresh faced and glowing from her exertion, was turning over her horse to the groom. The place smelled of clean hay and manure. The stalls were empty except for two other horses, who filled the air with the sounds of rustling straw and chomping teeth.
When Longford greeted her, Julia’s face lit up. She introduced her horse Windermere to Alexandra, and then chatted with her brother for a few minutes while Alexandra waited nearby.
“Are you busy tomorrow afternoon?” Julia asked her brother as they began walking back toward the house.
“I have tenants to see,” he replied.
“What about the day after that?” Julia countered, a gentle plea in her eyes. “It has been so long since we went riding together.”
Longford glanced at Alexandra, as if to say See what you got me into. She just gave him an encouraging look.
“All right,” he conceded, nodding to his sister. “The day after tomorrow, we shall ride.”
Julia beamed. It was just a horseback ride, but it pleased Alexandra to think that she’d been the gateway to this small reconnection between brother and sister.
The afternoon quickly faded away. During the rest hour, Alexandra checked the gallery to see if Lillie was still hiding there, but the window seat was empty.
Julia practiced the piano for an hour, an enterprise in which she was proficient but which gave her no apparent enjoyment. At five o’clock sharp, dinner was brought up to the nursery. Before partaking of anything herself, Alexandra hurried down to the kitchen to ask if anyone had seen Lillie.
“Oh aye, she’s been and gone,” said Mrs. Nettle, as she pulled a tray of hot rolls from the oven. “Never seen a body et their supper as fast as that girl did tonight. Fair inhaled it, she did, and flew out of here like a bird.”
“Mrs. Nettle,” Alexandra said, striving to keep calm, “this seems very irregular. I was told that Lillie is supposed to dine in the nursery with me and her sister.”
“I wish you luck with that, miss.” The cook set the hot tray on the vast wooden center table and put down her hot pads. “I’ve never had any luck trying to tell Lillie what to do.”
Here was yet another member of the staff who referred to the girl simply as Lillie. Longford had told Alexandra that although as a governess, she could call his sisters by their first names, the other servants were supposed to use the courtesy prefix Lady. She was beginning to think this wasn’t a slip of the tongue, but a sign of disrespect.
“Do you know where Lillie goes all day, Mrs. Nettle?” Alexandra asked, perturbed.
“Not a clue. But she’s strong and healthy. I don’t worry about her none.”
Neither does anyone else, it seems, Alexandra wanted to say, but she held her tongue.
Returning to the nursery, Alexandra joined Julia for dinner. After the light meal was cleared away, Alexandra checked the next item on the schedule and announced that it was time for needlework.
“I hate needlework,” Julia complained, sinking into a chair as she plunked her sampler and a skein of red thread on the table. “It is so pointless.”
“It was my least favorite subject growing up,” Alexandra admitted.
“It was?”
“I preferred to read, write, do mathematical problems, pretty much anything other than embroidery, which just ends up sitting in a drawer or hanging on a wall. But it seems to be a subject required of young ladies. So, let’s see what you have here.”
Julia’s sampler was a traditional rendering of the alphabet in red cross-stitch on white linen, with rows of upper-and lowercase letters, followed by the numbers one through ten. A start had been made below on the capital letters in cursive. “This is an excellent effort, Julia,” Alexandra said honestly. “Your needlework is impressive.”
“Well, it had to be. Miss Haverstock rapped our knuckles if we made an incorrect stitch. If Miss Treethorn didn’t like the way a letter or number looked, she made us clip it out and do it all over again.”
Alexandra looked at her. “How long have you been working on this sampler, Julia?”
“Since I was five, I think.”
“You’ve spent your entire life working on this one piece of embroidery?” Alexandra was aghast.
“Yes.”
“I don’t blame you for being tired of it.” Alexandra thought for a moment. A childhood memory presented itself, of a way that she, Madeleine, and Kathryn had added a measure of interest to this dreaded task. With a little smile, she said, “Do you have any other colors of thread besides red?”
Julia shrugged. “We have a whole box of thread.”
“Would you mind fetching it?”
With a sigh, Julia sauntered to the cupboard and brought back a small metal tin, which contained packets of needles and thread in a rainbow of colors.
“Let’s try something different, Julia. Let’s make the next letter a different color.”
“A different color?” Julia stared at Alexandra as if she’d just suggested that they break into the Tower of London and steal the crown jewels. “We cannot do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because the letters are supposed to be red.”
“Says who? Who would it hurt if you added some color to that sampler? It’s just an exercise, after all.” Alexandra took a skein of royal blue thread from the tin box. “Let’s do something crazy, Julia. Let’s turn this thing into a work of art.”
Frowning her reluctance, Julia slowly threaded a needle with the blue thread, then began working on an “H” in cursive. “This is stupid,” she muttered as she worked, but a hint of amusement tugged at her lips.
The next hour was scheduled as “supervised personal time.” Julia spent it thumbing through a magazine, while Alexandra made lessons plans for the next day. But the book of etiquette was ponderous, and the French verb conjugations didn’t hold her attention. Her thoughts kept drifting back to Lord Longford, the time they’d spent talking together in the gardens, the way her heart had raced when he’d briefly held her in his arms.
The clock on the wall chimed a quarter to eight. In a few minutes, it would be the girls’ bedtime. It was ridiculous, Alexandra thought, that she still hadn’t met Lillie. The situation was out of hand.
She’d just decided to spend the rest of the evening in Lillie’s bedroom, waiting for the errant girl to show up, when the nursery door burst open and the girl herself rushed in.
Chapter Twelve
Small and thin, the girl who could only be Lillie looked to be nine years old instead of twelve. She skidded to a halt a few feet away from the table where Alexandra and Julia sat. Her pink frock was imprinted with tiny blue flowers and reached just below her knees, revealing pale, skinny legs. Her long, curly brown hair was tied back with a pink ribbon. A sprinkling of freckles chased across her cheeks and nose, and her hazel eyes looked huge and wild as they stared unblinking at Alexandra.
“Where is it?” The question was abrupt and demanding, although her young voice trembled. She held a book in one hand.
Alexandra recognized the volume as the one she’d slipped behind the curtains of the window seat which Lillie had been occupying earlier that afternoon.
“Do you have it?” the girl further probed. She seemed to be bubbling over with nervous excitement and anticipation.
“Do I have what?” Alexandra could guess what Lillie was after, but wanted to hear it from the girl herself.
“Volume Two! You said there were three volumes, Miss Watson, and I could have the next one when I had finished the first.”
Alexandra stood, pl
eased that her choice of book had been so well received. It was edifying as well to discover that Lillie not only remembered Alexandra’s name, but was a fast and eager reader. She must have read nonstop to finish the entire first volume of Jane Eyre in the past seven hours.
“The other two volumes are in the library,” Alexandra told her.
“Can we get them now?”
“It’s bedtime. Let’s wait until tomorrow.”
“I cannot wait until tomorrow! I have to see what happens next!”
“Anticipation only increases the pleasure of an event.”
Lillie stamped her foot as she rubbed one eye with her fist. “I do not want to anticipate my pleasure. I want to read it now.”
“I understand. When I first read Jane Eyre, I could hardly put it down myself. But it’s late, and apparently, you’ve already done a great deal of reading today.” Alexandra raised her eyebrows meaningfully at Julia. “It’s time for bed.”
Julia rose from her chair without comment and headed for the nursery door, not bothering to acknowledge her sister.
“Good night, Julia,” Alexandra called out.
“Good night,” was Julia’s crisp reply before she vanished from the room.
Alexandra sighed, hoping that in time, things would warm between her and Julia. Gently, she took Lillie’s hand and led her into the adjoining bedroom. “By the way, it’s nice to meet you, Lillie.”
Lillie’s only response was a yawn.
As Lillie undressed and washed up at her pitcher and basin, she peppered Alexandra with questions about Jane Eyre. Alexandra did her best to answer, without giving away the upcoming twists in the plot. As she tucked the girl into bed, Alexandra asked, “Was it you who locked the door between our rooms last night?”
Lillie nodded.
“Why did you lock it?”
“I was afraid. I did not know you.”
Alexandra gently caressed Lillie’s silken head. “We know each other now. I hope to be good friends. And that you’ll keep the door unlocked always.”