Moonfire

by Linda Lael Miller

  “There was never any question about that,” he replied.

  With as much dignity as she could muster, Loretta left the room and, after packing most of her clothes and all of her jewelry, she left Reeve’s house.

  She was far away in the hired carriage Reeve had summoned for her before she realized that it would have been wiser to kiss Elisabeth and weep a few tears over the parting. Only moments too late, Loretta reflected that Reeve’s greatest weakness was not Maggie whatever-her-name-was, but Elisabeth.

  Mr. Kirk’s place was bigger than the mansion housing the Girls’ Friendly Society and considerably more imposing. The lawn looked smooth, as if it had been trimmed with embroidery scissors, and there were flower beds and fountains and fragrant rosebushes pruned to resemble trees.

  “Coo!” said Tansy, who had found a place in the next street and was lingering here only to see her friend safely inside the great house. “Think of the parties this gent must ’ave, mind you!”

  Maggie swallowed hard and reached out to turn the glistening brass bellknob beside the arched door. Parties were the last thing on her mind this evening; she was thinking of the strange twists and turns fate can take, and just when a person least expects them too. She stood on this doorstep an actress, but the moment she set one foot over the threshold she would become a governess.

  Momentarily, the door swung open and a rotund woman dressed in a bombazine dress almost identical to Maggie’s appeared in the opening. Her eyes were very small and very bright and they took in every aspect of the new governess’s appearance in one quick sweep.

  Maggie drew a deep breath. “I’m Maggie—Margaret Chamberlin,” she said to break the silence.

  “And I’m Mrs. Lavendar, the housekeeper,” the woman answered without a whit of friendliness visible anywhere in her vast demeanor. Her gaze shifted to rest suspiciously on Tansy. “What’s your business here, lass? she demanded.

  Tansy’s chin went up and her eyes were steady on Mrs. Lavendar’s doughy face. “I’m only ’ere to tell me friend good-bye, if it’s all the same to you, mum.”

  Mrs. Lavendar receded and quick farewells were said, and then Tansy was moving up the walk as Maggie stepped inside Mr. Duncan Kirk’s house for the first time.

  Two lads in short pants waited on the stairs, chins propped in grubby palms.

  “Here’s your new governess, then,” said Mrs. Lavendar sharply. Her air was that of one who had better things to do than stand around introducing little boys to their tutor. “Miss Chamberlin’s her name.”

  Two sets of green eyes assessed Maggie, showing neither friendly interest nor devilment, but only tolerance.

  “The one on the left is Jeremy,” Mrs. Lavendar said, like a student reciting a tiresome lesson, “and the other is Tad. They’ll show you to your room—I’ve work to do in the kitchen.”

  With that Maggie was left alone with too very handsome redheaded little boys. She put down her reticule and lifted the fingers of both hands to her temples, squinching her eyes shut and pretending to get a message from the spirit world.

  When she opened her eyes again, she was pleased to see that both boys were watching her raptly.

  “You,” she said mystically, pointing to Jeremy, “are seven years old.” Her finger moved to Tad. “And you are ten.”

  “How’d you know that?!” Jeremy demanded, bolting to his feet and clutching the banister with one hand.

  Tad stood up, too, only with more decorum, and his face twisted into a mien of skepticism. “Papa told her, stupid.”

  Maggie stopped in the middle of bending to pick up her reticule and frowned. “Tad Kirk, you must never, ever call your brother stupid. It is rude and, furthermore, it shows a distinct lack of imagination.”

  “You’re stupid too,” retorted Tad before bounding off to another part of the vast house and leaving Maggie standing there with her mouth open.

  Jeremy, every inch the gentleman, took Maggie’s hand in his and tugged, barely giving her a chance to fetch her reticule. “Don’t mind him, miss. Tad’s a no-gooder some of the time, but mostly he’s all right. Come along and I’ll show you where your room is.”

  Maggie suppressed a smile. It was nice to have a champion, however small he might be. “Thank you so much, my good man,” she said formally.

  Tansy had said that the servants’ quarters in most grand houses were on the third floor, so Maggie was much surprised when they didn’t proceed beyond the second. She was even more surprised to be led into a spacious chamber with its own small marble fireplace, chintz-covered chairs, a matching mahogany bureau and armoire, and a gigantic four-poster covered with a glistening blue satin spread.

  “Surely there’s some mistake, Jeremy,” Maggie protested, almost afraid to enter the splendid room.

  “No mistake,” Jeremy said firmly, dragging her over the threshold. “Papa told Mrs. Lavendar to make this room ready and she did, though she fussed over it some. Said you belonged upstairs, like the maids.”

  “And what did your father reply to that, may I ask?”

  Jeremy shrugged. “Don’t know, miss. He was speaking over the telephone, so I could hear only Mrs. Lavendar’s part. She turned purple as cabbage, but she talked real polite to Papa.” The little boy screwed up his freckled face. “Mrs. Lavendar made Tad and me wash our ears then, and they weren’t even dirty.”

  “A strange turn of events, I must say,” observed a quite adult male voice from the doorway.

  Startled, Maggie pulled free of Jeremy’s hand and whirled to face Mr. Kirk. He was standing just inside that magnificent room, endeavoring to clasp a cuff link. He was clad in elegant evening trousers and a ruffled shirt.

  Maggie found her voice. “I was just telling Jeremy that there must be some misunderstanding—surely I haven’t been assigned a room like this.”

  “Oh, but you have, Miss Chamberlin,” her employer assured her smoothly, his jade-green eyes taking in her somewhat crumpled bombazine dress. “Governesses are not servants.”

  “Oh,” said Maggie, quite at a loss for further comment.

  Again the master’s gaze swept over her gown, frankly disapproving. “Something will have to be done about your clothing. That dress makes you look like a crow.”

  Maggie didn’t know whether to be insulted or pleased that she wouldn’t have to wear the hideous dress. “A crow, sir?” she echoed.

  Duncan Kirk arched one chestnut eyebrow. “Didn’t I instruct you never to call me sir? Mr. Kirk will do very well, thank you.”

  “Tad called Miss Chamberlin stupid,” Jeremy imparted. Having taken gentlemanly offense, he now sought justice.

  “Did he?” returned Mr. Kirk seriously, and Maggie found herself liking him for the twinkle of laughter in his eyes. “By all that’s holy, I’ll have the lad drawn and quartered at sunrise!”

  Jeremy was satisfied with the sentence handed down for his brother and scampered off to pass on the word.

  Mr. Kirk had finished with his cuff link and was now adjusting the collar of his immaculate white evening shirt. “I will discipline the boys, Miss Chamberlin,” he said. “Tad remembers his mother and he tends to resent women he perceives as any sort of replacement for her.”

  Maggie wanted to be left alone to think, to rest, to freshen up, and to try to prepare some kind of curriculum for the boys. “Please don’t be too harsh with Tad on my account, Mr. Kirk. He’ll need time to accept me.”

  “I suppose so.” The man sighed, adding with a slight bow of his head, “Good evening, Miss Chamberlin. Make yourself at home, and please don’t plan lessons for the boys for tomorrow. You’ll be busy shopping for new clothes. At my expense, of course.”

  Shopping. As the door closed behind Mr. Kirk, Maggie sat down in one of the chintz-covered chairs. Shopping?

  There was something quite improper about all this: the fancy room, the clothes Mr. Kirk was going to buy for her, all of it, but Maggie had had a long and most trying day and she was in no mood to work out what that something
was.

  Chapter 5

  THE HEAT WAS SWELTERING, AND MAGGIE OPENED ONE OF her bedroom windows in the hope of catching a breeze. “February!” she marveled to herself, looking down on the gaslit cobbled street below. A carriage was waiting at the gate and, as Maggie watched, she saw a second vehicle draw up behind it.

  Mr. Kirk got out of the first carriage, which had apparently been about to pull away, and walked back to the second. Maggie was just turning from the window, having no wish to eavesdrop, when her employer’s startled “Loretta!” made her whirl around again. Where had she heard that name and why did it clutch at her spirit like unseen fingers?

  The door of the second coach opened and a woman stepped down, unaided. Even in the poor light of the gas-powered streetlamps, Maggie recognized this dramatically beautiful dark-haired creature as the lady who had met Reeve McKenna at the wharf the night before, when the Victoria had docked in Sydney Harbor.

  “Good God,” Mr. Kirk exclaimed, and the very harshness of his tone made Maggie step back behind the draperies, hopefully out of sight, yet not quite out of hearing. “Loretta, what are you doing here?”

  The woman’s voice floated on the heavy summer air like notes of music, soft and gossamer. “You look very handsome tonight, Duncan. Dinner at the club?”

  “Yes,” Mr. Kirk replied stiffly. “Once again, Loretta, what do you want?”

  Maggie must have misunderstood Loretta’s reply—it did sound as though she answered, “Revenge.”

  Mr. Kirk laughed at whatever the woman had said, and there was a note of sheer hatred in the sound. Whether that bitter emotion was directed toward the lovely Loretta or not, Maggie couldn’t tell, but she was oddly shaken by the depth and ugliness of it and she closed the window just as a tapping sounded at her door.

  “Come in,” she called distractedly, wondering what or whom Mr. Kirk hated with such virulence and why Reeve McKenna’s mistress would call upon him in such a bold fashion.

  A very young maid with curly red hair and freckles across her nose came in, struggling through the doorway with a heavy tray. Maggie rushed to relieve the girl of her burden.

  “Here’s your supper, then,” the woman-child said, smiling shyly as Maggie set the tray down on the round wooden table that stood between the two fancy chairs facing the fireplace.

  Maggie felt very lonely all of a sudden, and very far from familiar people and places. “Won’t you sit down?” she asked, pouring a cup of tea from the small pot on the tray and frowning because there was only one cup. “You look as though you could use a rest.”

  “Mrs. Lavendar would have my head if I did that, Miss Margaret. Wouldn’t be right nor proper.”

  Maggie smiled over the rim of her teacup. “You know my name,” she pointed out, surprised by the formality with which the girl spoke. “What is yours, may I ask?”

  The maid cast a nervous glance back toward the open door. “Susan,” she answered, in a whisper. “Susan Crockett.”

  “Well, Susan Crockett, you may address me as Maggie, if you please. No one has ever called me Margaret. I’m not even sure why my mother bothered to give me the name.”

  Susan paled beneath her freckles and her springy red hair glistened in the light as she shook her head. “I daren’t call you anything but what Mrs. Lavendar told me to, and that’s Miss Margaret, beggin’ your pardon.” She took a step closer and kept her voice at whisper level. “’Tis only a month till I get me certificate, you see.”

  Maggie did see: The importance of earning a certificate had been stressed at the Girls’ Friendly Society. What she did not understand was why she should be given a room fit for an honored houseguest instead of a cot upstairs, in the servants’ quarters, why she should be served her dinner in her chamber, why Mr. Kirk should feel called upon to provide her with new clothes. Unfortunately, Susan wasn’t the person to ask. Maggie would have to keep her questions to herself, at least until Saturday afternoon, when she would have free time. She would then seek out Tansy and find out what she needed to know.

  With a brief nod, Susan crept out of the room and closed the door behind her, leaving Maggie to eat her portion of succulent pork pie in solitude. For all her misgivings about her sumptuous quarters and the shopping expedition tomorrow, she was hungry, and she consumed the small pie, vegetables, and biscuits, as well as vanilla pudding.

  When her meal was finished, Maggie was ready to fall into bed, but first she needed to wash, and polish her teeth. She put her head out the door and looked up and down the hallway, then made a dash for the bathroom Jeremy had pointed out to her earlier.

  It was a startlingly luxurious room, quite half the size of Maggie’s bedchamber, with an enormous marble bathtub standing on gracious feet. There was hot and cold running water and a commode with a flushing chain and blue carpet so plush that Maggie’s feet fairly disappeared into it. The bathtub’s faucet was a sculpture of a Grecian girl holding an urn, and when the spigots were turned on, water poured from the statue’s polished vessel.

  Delighted, Maggie laughed. She hadn’t planned to take a bath, but now the prospect was too charming to ignore. She put the plug in place, carefully bolted the main door and one leading into another room, and purloined a towel and a washcloth from the shelves of a cabinet that reached from floor to ceiling.

  The spacious tub and plentitude of hot water were such luxuries to Maggie that she lingered long after she was clean, lying back and dreaming. Perhaps living in this grand house, almost as a member of the family, and working as a governess would be better than acting. Actresses, unless they had achieved considerable renown, were rarely solvent. Here Maggie would have security, with no worrying about how she was going to buy food or pay rent.

  Her eyelids were growing heavy and she sighed, completely content and comfortable for the first time in months.

  The brisk rattling of the inside door awakened Maggie with a start.

  “Margaret!” shouted Mr. Kirk’s voice from the other side. “Margaret, are you all right?”

  Maggie was so mortified that she didn’t even notice that Mr. Kirk had presumed to address her by her given name. In shock, cheeks burning, water splashing everywhere, she lunged for a towel and covered herself before calling back, “Yes—yes, I’m quite all right—I guess I fell asleep—”

  A male chuckle sounded from beyond the door. “I see. From now on, please do your sleeping in bed—I was afraid you were drowning. In another minute or so I’d have stormed in there to save you.”

  Maggie’s blush was fierce at the prospect, and she struggled and shimmied into her worn flannel night-gown, making the process more difficult by her haste. Having no earthly idea how to respond to Mr. Kirk’s comment, she said nothing at all but merely snatched up her clothes, unlocked both bathroom doors, and ran as fast as she could down the hallway to her own room.

  She didn’t bother to turn up the lights but simply delved into bed, pulling the smooth linen sheets up over her head. She lay there, half smothering, until she could bear it no longer, and then she bounded up again, pulling open a window, stripping the satin cover from her bed, and finally divesting herself of the nightgown. It was highly improper to sleep naked, but Maggie didn’t care. She was not going to lie there roasting.

  After several fitful minutes of tossing and turning, Maggie went to sleep and had scandalous dreams about a man with dark hair and blue-green eyes and a charm worn around his neck.

  He had been drawn to her room by the force of his imagination; moving as quietly as a ghost, he drew close to the bed, where she lay on her side, the covers disarrayed. One smooth thigh glowed alabaster in the moonlight, though the rest of her was in shadow.

  Duncan Kirk swallowed hard. The urge to awaken Maggie, to have her, was almost beyond his power to ignore. He longed to caress those full, rounded breasts, to taste their peaks and feel them harden against his tongue.

  Maggie made a whimpering sound and turned restlessly onto her back. The light of the summer moon shimmered over h
er, fully revealing the breasts Duncan craved, the flat, silken belly, the soft hips that would cradle his. Duncan retreated a step and his right hand trembled, so badly did he want to touch her, to plunder that golden nest of curls and teach her a virgin’s pleasure before taking her.

  He’d grown painfully hard, but at the memory of what Loretta Craig had confided, Duncan smiled. Reeve McKenna wanted Maggie, just as he himself had wanted her from the moment she’d walked into his office that morning. And knowing that McKenna hungered for her made the prospect of having the little vixen all the sweeter.

  But he would not indulge tonight; he didn’t dare. The little imp would surely be remorseful in the morning, and she would leave. No, he would wait until it was time to go to the country.

  With a lump of raw need lodged tight in his throat, Duncan turned and left the room as quietly as he’d entered it. In the hallway he encountered Mrs. Lavendar, who didn’t bother to hide her disapproval.

  Duncan met her beady glare steadily and then crossed to his own room, where he was a long time going to sleep.

  As she walked to the corner where the trolley car made its regular stop, Maggie was still boggled by the list Mr. Kirk had left for her. The little maid, Susan, hurried along at her side. Susan carried a basket nearly as big as she herself was, for she was going to market, and she pretended that Maggie didn’t exist until they’d gotten out of sight of the Kirk house.

  When they reached the appointed corner, however, Susan was suddenly all smiles and chatter. “Coo, but Mrs. Lavendar’s in a fine dither about all them clothes the master’s wantin’ you to buy. She says it ain’t proper.”

  Maggie had thoughts along that line herself, especially now that she’d read the list, but she didn’t voice them. She only leaned around Susan and her basket to look down the street for the trolley car. There was no sign of it, though Maggie could hear its bell chiming in the distance.

  “Tell me true, Miss Margaret,” Susan persisted. “Are you really a governess or are you one of them what likes warmin’ a gentleman’s bed?”