Gift-Wrapped Governess

by Sophia James

  The duel was on again. Thankfully. He much preferred to see her with the energy to spar with him rather than slumped down in an attitude of defeat.

  ‘I was at my wits’ end by the time Jane—that’s the second parlourmaid—came in with the drinks. I had run out of ideas to keep them at least in one corner of the room, so that they wouldn’t accidentally hurt any of the little ones. But fortunately, or so I stupidly thought, she has lots of little brothers, so I asked her to find them something they would enjoy that would keep them quiet…’

  ‘That was not a stupid idea. It was a very good idea…’

  ‘No, it wasn’t! She taught them how to make… Well, I don’t know what you would call them, but I never knew paper could be put to such a disgusting use.’ She waved at the hearth, which he now saw was peppered with spitballs.

  His lips twitched.

  ‘You find this amusing? Of course you do. Because at heart, you are just the same.’ She scrambled to her feet, clenching her hands into fists as though gearing herself up to do battle.

  ‘You saunter through life, untouched by care while legions of servants follow in your wake, cleaning up the mess you make…’

  She’d said something of the same nature earlier regarding his treatment of servants. And since all his staff appeared perfectly content in his employ, it stood to reason that it was her own treatment, at the hands of her own employers, about which she was really talking.

  ‘Miss Miller, you have already stated that the fact that the boys learned to make spitballs was not my fault. You are—’

  ‘But you do think it sport to ruin everything I’ve worked so hard for.’ She stalked towards him, her whole body quivering with fury. ‘I…h-hate Christmas! All it is is an excuse to pile more and more work on us so that you can have your stupid balls and parties, and…’

  She was within striking distance. On a reflex, he caught hold of her clenched fists and drew them to his chest.

  ‘Miss Miller, I don’t think you know what you are saying. You are overtired and overwrought—’

  ‘I know exactly what I’m saying,’ she protested, but quickly turned her head to one side, as though she could not meet his eye. But it didn’t appear to help her, because her shoulders sagged.

  ‘How could I ever have been so deluded as to think I had any control over any aspect of my life? Not even this schoolroom. All it took was Christmas to burst in and shatter all my schedules, all my routine, into so much…chaos.’

  Normally, whenever a woman began to make a litany of complaints, he would put on his hat and leave.

  But then normally the woman doing the complaining would be a mistress, with whom he was already growing bored.

  Instead of wanting to take to his heels, he found himself wishing he could do something to lift some of her burdens from her.

  He put one arm about her shoulder, led her across to one of the window seats and pushed her down onto the cushions.

  The fact that she immediately turned her face away, removed her spectacles and, closing her eyes, pressed her face to the glass wrenched at him. She hated him seeing her like this. But she had used up every last ounce of her self-control.

  He stepped back, racking his brains to think of something he could do for her. What was distressing her the most?

  The state in which the boys had left her schoolroom.

  ‘I’m dreading tomorrow,’ she said in a weary voice, not even bothering to open her eyes. ‘I was so grateful when Pippa got her husband to get this job for me. But I should have known from that interview…’ She sighed heavily. ‘When Lord Budworth told me he wanted someone who would keep his daughters in line and that I looked exactly the sort of woman who wouldn’t stand any nonsense, I should have told him I would never, ever maltreat any child entrusted to my care. Instead, I stupidly thought that I would show him my way was better. I thought I could prove you don’t need to beat children who can’t do their sums or lock them in a cupboard for letting their attention wander during grammar. I thought I could be the kind of teacher I wished I could have had. The kind who listened and tried to understand, and found ways to help children overcome their difficulties, not beat them for failing to meet impossible standards.’

  She could hear Lord Chepstow moving about the room. Unsettled, she supposed, by hearing about a side of life in which he could have no interest. And trapped by his innate breeding into staying until he could come up with a legitimate excuse for leaving.

  ‘You were locked in a cupboard?’

  ‘I was not talking about me.’ She sighed. ‘I was bright enough to escape the worst sorts of punishment inflicted by teachers whose sole source of consolation seemed to be in making others more miserable than they were.’

  But she had not had a happy childhood. He thought back to some of the things Pippa had said about her in the past and matched it up now to the fact that he always thought she looked as though she had forgotten how to smile.

  And felt a flash of irritation with himself. She hadn’t had anything much to smile about. He could have been kinder to her, rather than dismissing her as being dour and dull, and not worthy of a second look. He should have looked. He would have seen, if he had bothered, what Pippa had always seen: that she was basically a kind person, struggling to survive in a harsh environment. Then he would not have been so surprised to find her prevailing over a band of happy, carefree children in the woods earlier.

  ‘I don’t even know why I’m talking to you at all.’

  It was such a luxury to have someone in whom to confide. Someone she could trust. Oh, not because Lord Chepstow cared. In fact, the very opposite was true. It was because he didn’t care, because there was nothing she could say that could possibly give him a lower opinion of her than he already had that freed her to speak the truth. She’d not dared let any of the staff here know how badly she was struggling. Who knew what they would do with the information that she was an impostor? That she didn’t deserve to hold such a responsible position?

  And the proof of that was that she was sitting here, complaining, when there was work to be done. Indulging in just one more weary sigh, she opened her eyes and put her spectacles back on.

  ‘What are you doing?’ While she’d been unburdening herself, he’d whisked through the room, righting overturned chairs and pushing desks back into place. More or less.

  ‘Well, even though I have never done the work of a house-maid before, I would have thought it was obvious I am making some attempt to set this room to rights.’

  ‘You?’

  ‘Why not?’

  She briefly considered handing him a brush and shovel. Or the scrubbing brush. She would love to see him roll up his sleeves again…

  She shook her head, impatient with herself.

  ‘Because…you are just one of life’s butterflies. You flit through life sipping at nectar wherever you happen to alight. You don’t really care about…about anything.’

  That was not true. He cared about a lot of things. Not that he was the type to go round making a lot of noise about it, like Pippa’s self-righteous husband. But to liken him to a butterfly…well, that conjured up the image of a man who only thought about his clothes.

  ‘I enjoy life. I make no apologies for that. I am impulsive, certainly—’

  ‘Oh, so that is why you have come up here. It was some sort of…whim.’

  The fact that she had pretty much hit the nail on the head made him determined to change the subject.

  ‘More to the point, what is the likelihood of Lord or Lady Budworth coming up here? From what I have observed, I should think the chances pretty slim. So that they are never likely to know things got a little out of hand.’

  ‘That’s…that is true, actually.’ She sat up a little straighter. ‘Lord Budworth has only set foot in this schoolroom the once. And fortunately, at the time, the girls were both sitting at their desks, working on their letters.’

  He bent to right an overturned chair. ‘And by tomorrow morning
you will have thought of some way to keep those… Vandals gainfully occupied. Boys are no worse than girls,’ he said, suddenly determined to defend his entire sex. ‘Just different. You have no experience with them, but I have never known you to fail at anything you put your mind to.’

  ‘How do you know that? You have barely ever spoken to me.’

  ‘Pippa never ceases to sing your praises,’ he said drily, pushing a table back into almost exactly its original position. ‘I expect the children are all a bit more lively than usual, with Christmas being so close. And I know you don’t like Christmas now, but can you not remember what it felt like when you were a child?’

  She flinched.

  ‘Christmas was the worst, the very worst time of the year,’ she said vehemently, ‘because it…because, oh, everyone else in the town would be decking their homes with greenery and preparing to celebrate, but the tide of jollity would always sweep right past the doors of Moulsham Lodge, leaving its pupils stranded on our desolate little island. And it was always such a stark contrast to what I remembered from my…early years when Christmas was a time of warmth and jollity. That was what made it the worst day of the year. That was why I hated Christmas. It made me so painfully aware of all I’d lost.’

  ‘You know,’ he said casually, although he had been struck by a rather unsettling thought, ‘Pippa never complained so much about the school. If it was really so dreadful…’

  ‘Oh, well, she was a parlour boarder. Since you paid extra for her, she ate her suppers with the staff and other wealthy girls. And enjoyed all sorts of privileges denied to us charity cases.’

  ‘I am sorry to hear your schooldays were so unhappy,’ he said, though he was relieved to hear Pippa had not suffered in silence.

  She sighed, removed her spectacles and rubbed at the bridge of her nose.

  ‘How I wished there had been one teacher, just one, who would make some attempt to alleviate the drab uniformity of my life. Every child ought to know some happiness, don’t you think? Even if she has been relegated to an institution. But they were all trapped in their own cycle of despair. I vowed I would never end up like them. I vowed if ever I had charge of children and I could celebrate Christmas how I wanted, I would make it a Christmas they would never forget. I wanted so much for it to be perfect. My first Christmas away from Moulsham Lodge and I have the freedom to do whatever I want with my rooms and their schedule. And I was going to organise games, and sing carols, and make garlands and…’ She waved her hands at the greenery he had not yet made any attempt to sort into any kind of order. ‘It’s all ruined. They don’t appreciate what I’m doing. They don’t know what it’s like to do without. They cannot imagine what it would feel like if their parents were to die and they were to find themselves suddenly transported to a place like Moulsham Lodge, where nobody gives a fig for their grief and loss. Where they are beaten for crying and punished for complaining—’ She brought herself up short.

  ‘I am sorry,’ she said stiffly. ‘You did not come up here to listen to this sort of talk.’ Though she could not imagine what he had come up here for. Whatever it was, she would never know now. As soon as he decently could, he would beat a hasty retreat, thinking that he had never encountered such a pathetic creature in his life.

  Dowdy, and dull and pathetic: that was her.

  ‘Please, don’t apologise. You have nothing to apologise for,’ he said with a frown as she slumped back against the windowsill. What a grim childhood she’d had. Yet she hadn’t let it make her bitter. Oh, she was not in the best of spirits at the moment, but if he knew anything about it, and he was beginning to think he did, once she had unburdened herself, she would throw herself right back into her quest to make the world a better place for children.

  ‘I do,’ she said. ‘I don’t deserve to have this job at all. I’m an impostor. A more experienced governess would have no trouble keeping those boys in line, no matter what time of year it was.’

  It was a great pity she had not come to London for Pippa’s Season. She was exactly the sort of woman who ought to have married and become a mother. She would make a damn sight better one than any of the society females downstairs who, once they’d whelped, had fobbed their offspring off on servants.

  He’d watched the women at table earlier, gorging themselves on course after course of the lavish dinner the Budworths had laid on, knowing they’d dropped off their children at the front door along with their luggage, and thought of nothing from that moment forth but their own amusement. Dammit, you couldn’t treat children like that. It was one of the reasons for avoiding the state of matrimony for as long as possible. He could not see himself ever dragging his own children halfway across the country to spend Christmas in the home of a stranger without so much as providing them with their own nurse, or maid or whatever to give them some sense of security.

  And nor would Miss Miller.

  ‘You know, I think you are being too hard on yourself.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, in spite of—’ He stopped short of telling her what kind of governess he had expected her to be. ‘What I mean to say is, whenever I have seen you with the children, they all seem to be having a marvellous time.’ He eyed the fire surround that was splattered with spitballs.

  ‘Perhaps it is not in exactly the way you pictured them enjoying themselves, but they are having a…good experience of Christmas. Better than it would have been had you not been here.’

  ‘Do you really think so?’ What a lovely thing for him to say. Even though he could not possibly mean it. It was part of his charm, she supposed, to be always able to find exactly the right thing to say to a woman to make her feel…special.

  ‘I do.’

  She looked so wistful, so hopeful, so utterly…vulnerable that he wanted to go over and put his arms round her. Quite badly.

  While he was still wondering how she would react should he give way to that particular impulse, she said, ‘Thank you, Lord Chepstow. For listening to me. I do not know why you came up here,’ she said, looking utterly perplexed, ‘but…’

  ‘Call it a whim, if you like,’ he said, affecting indifference, though he didn’t like the view she held of him. Any more than he liked the view he’d had of her. Who could blame her for being a tad…defensive, when she’d suffered so many misfortunes? Had known so little kindness?

  He felt a strong surge of annoyance with her employers, and wished he could do something to improve her lot. Or at least, help her to enjoy the kind of Christmas she had always yearned for. It wasn’t just children who deserved to enjoy Christmas. Governesses did, too. Especially ones who worked so hard to make it enjoyable for children who would otherwise have been neglected.

  She might write him off as a…butterfly, but one thing he did know about, and that was how to have fun.

  ‘Come for a walk with me tomorrow, when you have some free time.’

  Oh, God. He felt so sorry for her, after listening to her whining and complaining, he’d asked her to go for a walk with him. But the last thing she wanted was his pity!

  ‘Free time? I don’t have any free time. I have the children from seven in the morning until seven at night. And my next half day off is not until January.’

  ‘January!’ No wonder she looked so worn down. And, worse, he would be long gone by the time she had her half day of leisure.

  So he would just have to come up with some other way of bringing a little Christmas cheer into her life while he was still staying at Budworth Hall.

  Chapter Four

  There was somebody in the schoolroom.

  Honeysuckle, who had been getting ready for bed, swung away from the mirror and stared hard at the door, her ears straining.

  There it was again. The noise of a chair scraping across the boards, a desk lid rattling.

  Her fingers clamped tight round the handle of her hairbrush.

  She might have known one of those beastly boys would try to stage some kind of prank. Especially after the
way Lord Chepstow had come to the schoolroom talking about gentlemanly behaviour and then encouraging them to misbehave. It was all of a piece. Men of his class grew up knowing they could wreak havoc, then stroll away without a backward glance. They didn’t care who got hurt during their pursuit of pleasure. All those girls at Moulsham Lodge, who were the natural daughters of peers who never, ever wanted any reminder of their existence, were proof of that.

  Well, she might not have any say over what they did when they left, but she wasn’t going to let them get away with wrecking what it had taken her all day to achieve. She seized the candle as she rose from the dressing-table stool and strode to the door that connected her private quarters to the schoolroom.

  She flung open the door and, in her sternest voice, demanded, ‘Just what do you think you are doing in here at this time of night?’

  Then she froze.

  ‘Lord Chepstow?’ She had not seen him all day. To know he was somewhere about the place, avoiding her, had been like a weight she was dragging round with her, making every task she undertook need twice as much effort. She had turned down an offer he was never likely to repeat and he’d just bid her goodnight and gone away. And stayed away.

  But now here he was, back in her schoolroom again, with a tray containing a bottle of wine and two glasses, which he’d just deposited on one of her desks.

  ‘I’m bringing you a little Christmas cheer, Miss Miller,’ he said. ‘You work so hard to make it a happy time for the children. You ought to take a little time for yourself to enjoy the season, too. Come…’ he held out his hand in invitation ‘…sit with me.’

  She wanted to gush, How kind of you my lord. Especially since I am so unworthy of your notice, which made her annoyed with herself, and snap, ‘I will do no such thing. I was about to go to bed.’