Gift-Wrapped Governess

by Sophia James

  Because of him.

  She must be furious with him. And why not? He was furious with himself. If Pippa had been a governess, and some guest had invaded her schoolroom when she was only in her night attire and taken such liberties, he would thrash him to within an inch of his life.

  Well, she could scold him as much as she liked. He would welcome anything she cared to throw at him when he found her, so long as he did find her.

  For the prospect of never seeing her again was just too horrible to contemplate.

  Chapter Seven

  Honeysuckle paused in the doorway of the vicar’s study, her tray balanced on her hip.

  It was just as well she’d had such a broad, not to say unconventional, education. The Reverend Colleyhurst might not have taken her in had Mrs Moulsham not used her younger pupils as unpaid staff.

  ‘Usually, Miss Miller, I would be only too glad to offer you shelter in your distressing circumstances,’ he’d told her, ‘but you see, my housekeeper is away visiting a sick member of her family and I am not sure when she will be able to return. In the meantime, I only have a cook left to me. And while I do not mind, as a bachelor, you know, living quite simply, there is nobody to prepare a room or…or anything else. You see how it is?’

  And that was when she’d virtually begged him not to turn her away.

  ‘The principal of the school I attended believed in training every pupil in all aspects of domestic service. I am quite capable of doing any household task, from blacking a grate to laundering fine linen. It would give me great comfort to repay your kindness in taking me in by working for my keep.’

  He’d glanced across at his desk, which was buried under mounds of papers, tottering piles of books and the remnants of half-eaten meals.

  A hopeful expression had replaced the harassed one he’d been wearing when she’d first knocked on his door.

  ‘Well, I…well, that is…would you really?’

  Since then, she’d lit a fire in the spare bedroom, found linen, set it to air, then gone to the kitchen where she’d donned an apron and washed all the dishes she’d found stacked in the scullery. She’d then returned to her room and made up the bed.

  And now she was back downstairs, having heard him go out a few minutes ago. She meant to take advantage of his absence to set his study to rights.

  She placed her tray on the sofa, for want of any other clear, horizontal surface, and went to the desk at which he worked on his sermons to clear away the cups and saucers. As she carried the first pile of crockery over to the tray, her hand shook so badly the remaining contents of one of the teacups slopped into the saucer. She took several deep breaths, willing herself to calm down. She had nothing to fear now. She was not outside in the cold.

  It was just that it had suddenly seemed as if her position was as fragile as the bone-china cups she was stacking. One slip, and everything could shatter into pieces too small to ever be glued back together again.

  Better stop handling delicate china, then. She would put the books back where they belonged instead and tidy the vicar’s papers.

  Reverend Colleyhurst, she soon discovered, had a unique system of arranging his books, by topic rather than alphabetically. But she welcomed the challenge of finding the right home for each one, since it kept her mind occupied with something other than her own predicament—and the disturbing tendency to wonder what Lord Chepstow was doing, right that minute. Was he out riding with the other guests? Eating luncheon? Playing billiards? The hardest thing of all was not to allow resentment to creep in and overshadow the wonderful memory she had of those rapturous moments in his arms. She wanted them to be a source of comfort in the years ahead. But whenever she thought of him going on his merry way, without even wondering what had become of her, the episode that had felt so glorious at the time stood in very real danger of getting twisted into something that would have the power to torture her for years to come.

  Her lips compressed, she rammed the last book from the desk back where it belonged and climbed down from the stepstool. At least now her hands were quite steady. She was ready to tackle the crockery.

  By the time Reverend Colleyhurst returned, she vowed, he would look upon her as a godsend rather than an obligation.

  Tomorrow, while he was conducting the morning services, she would lift the rugs in this room and give them a good beating. She did not mind doing hard, physical work. Besides, if she was still at Budworth Hall, she would be working even harder, putting together a party for all the children.

  A pang shot through her as she thought of them all, left to fend for themselves up in the schoolroom. She hoped Mrs Gulpher and Rothman would stick to their promises and allow Jane to step into her shoes. She wouldn’t worry so much if she could be absolutely sure Jane was up there with them right now. Jane had plenty of experience with children, coming from such a large family. And, more importantly, she liked them. She often lingered after bringing up the nursery tea, though that was partly to avoid the tasks she was supposed to have been doing elsewhere. Poor Jane. She wasn’t likely to last very much longer in domestic service. She had a fatal tendency to ignore orders from the upper staff if she thought there was something more important to do, and was cheeky enough to answer back when reprimanded.

  Which meant she had a natural affinity with those boys. It had taken Lord Chepstow and that game of pirates he’d played with them to give her the key to understanding how to manage them. They had a natural aggression that was foreign to her nature, but they also had a code of honour that at least made them take their wrestling matches into a corner where they would not endanger the little ones. In the end, she’d found them every bit as lovable as the girls, in their own way.

  She gave herself a mental shake and stacked the vicar’s cups and saucers on the tray. Nothing of what might be going on at Budworth Hall now was any of her business. She had to stop thinking about them as though they were…family. To stop worrying about children who weren’t her children.

  To stop wondering what kind of governess Lord Budworth would hire next for his girls. For he would certainly want someone to keep them out of his way, so he could throw his lavish parties without having them underfoot. What if the next woman was prepared to use the birch?

  She was just about to start dusting the crumbs from the vicar’s desk when she heard someone knocking on the front door. It was only when the person pounded again, a bit harder, that it occurred to her that she ought to be the one to go and see who it was. The cook, who was the only other servant in the house, did not seem at all inclined to leave her kitchen. But then, the poor woman was far too busy to wash dishes, never mind deal with the kind of visitor who would bang so importunately on the door at this time of night on Christmas Eve. Besides, if it was the kind of visitor with whom she could deal, they would have been knocking on the back door.

  Whoever it was, they were not going to go away. So she removed her apron, smoothed her hair and went into the hall.

  It was a total shock to see Lord Chepstow standing on the top step, looking far from his normal, devil-may-care self.

  But though he had not been very far from her thoughts all day, the sight of him broke down all the good intentions she’d had not to blame him for taking what she had so freely offered—and consequently shattering her whole world.

  ‘How dare you show your face here?’

  A face that looked, if she did not know better, as though he was experiencing profound relief from whatever worry had previously been creasing his forehead.

  ‘Thank God I found you,’ he said, stretching out his hands, as though to embrace her.

  ‘Oh, no, you don’t,’ she snapped, stepping smartly backwards. ‘Haven’t you caused enough trouble? And don’t even think of coming in here,’ she protested, just a bit too late, for the moment she had stepped back to evade his embrace he darted past her and kicked the front door shut behind him.

  ‘Not one step farther!’ She held her arms wide, barring the passage into the hous
e. ‘I have no idea what whim has brought you here, but I have no intention of letting you spoil the niche I’m trying to carve for myself here, as you spoiled everything at Budworth Hall.’

  ‘And I have no intention of leaving you here to become a drudge for someone else,’ he said, leaning back against the front door and folding his arms across his chest. ‘Go and fetch your things.’

  ‘Fetch my things? Why should I fetch my things?’

  ‘I should have thought that was obvious,’ he said. ‘I’ve come to collect you.’

  ‘I am not,’ she said coldly, ‘going anywhere with you.’

  ‘Well, I’m not leaving without you. Now,’ he said, pushing himself away from the door, and taking a pace towards her, ‘I can see you’re angry with me. And you have every right to be. Dash it, I’ve been cursing myself all the way here for not just whisking you away at first light and leaving a note to tell ’em all we’d eloped.’

  ‘Elo—e—what?’

  While she stood there, gasping and spluttering, he strode past her, opening one door after another and peering inside.

  ‘Vicar not in, I take it,’ he said, going into the unoccupied study the moment he’d identified it.

  ‘No,’ she said, trotting after him in a state of complete bewilderment. In his typical fashion, he was already making himself at home, withdrawing his gloves and hat and tossing his coat over the back of the vicar’s fireside chair. ‘He is over at the church, officiating at a wedding.’

  ‘A wedding? How convenient! Let us both go over there, too, and he can marry us while he’s at it.’

  ‘What? What are you saying? Are you out of your mind?’

  He said not a word, but, to set the seal on her confusion, grasped her by the elbows, tugged her into the room, somehow managing to shut the door upon them without her ascertaining how he’d done so, and then made as though he was going to kiss her.

  She only just came to her senses in time to turn her head, so that his parted lips landed hotly on her cheek.

  But the mere brush of his lips on her face sent a shaft of shameful longing coursing right through her. She trembled with the force of it. And the feel of his hands upon her arms, coupled with that smile…that smile…as though he had not a care in the world…

  Anger and pride came to her rescue. ‘You are insufferable!’ A little late for her liking, she raised her hands to his chest and tried to push him away.

  ‘Is it not bad enough that your antics have made me lose my livelihood? Do you intend to make the vicar turn me out for being a harlot, too? What have I ever done to make you torment me so?’

  ‘I am not tormenting you. Unless you think being married to me would be torment,’ he said, and, since she still held her head stiffly averted, made the most of the opportunity to nibble at her earlobe.

  ‘Stop that!’ she tried to rebuke him sternly, but her words came out in a kind of plaintive whisper, her anger mysteriously ebbing as torrents of delight poured through her.

  ‘And stop talking about getting married. We cannot possibly—’

  ‘Of course not!’ He slapped his forehead with the palm of his hand, giving her the chance to evade his grasp.

  Somehow, she did manage to take just one, rather wobbly, step backwards, where she fetched up against the door with a thump.

  ‘No licence,’ he said and smiled at her.

  The apparent tenderness of that smile made her long to fling herself back into his arms. She darted across the room instead, taking refuge behind the solid bulwark of the vicar’s desk. He was just too tempting. A few more seconds of him nibbling on her ear like that and she did not know what he might have persuaded her into doing. Or thinking. The sensations he could evoke in her body were just so powerful that her mind was having serious trouble staying anywhere near lucid.

  ‘Well, never mind,’ he carried on cheerfully. ‘A hole-and-corner wedding down here was not what I intended, anyway. It just occurred to me that it would be fun to turn up at Pippa’s with you on my arm and introduce you as my bride. But this is why you are perfect for me.’ He beamed at her. ‘You will always remember all those practical little details that slip my mind when I get the urge to embark on a new adventure. Lord, but I’m going to have such a lot to tell Havelock about the impact helping him make that list of wifely qualities has had on my life.’

  She shook her head slowly, wondering if he’d gone completely mad. Or perhaps she was the one who’d lost her mind. Was that why nothing he said made any sense?

  ‘I suppose I can see,’ she said, trying to puzzle out his bewildering behaviour for herself, ‘that when you found out that I lost my job because of what you did last night, you now feel you ought to make amends. But really, talking about marrying me is carrying your penance a bit too far…’

  He marched up to the desk, a frown on his brow. ‘Don’t you remember? I proposed to you last night. Or did you not hear? Of course. You’d gone into your room. Well, that accounts for it,’ he said, his face clearing. He walked round the desk to where she was standing, his hands outstretched.

  ‘Oh, I heard you clear enough,’ she said, skipping sideways, to keep the furniture safely betwixt them. She needed to maintain the physical barrier of a substantial amount of oak between them, since she’d already discovered that her willpower was no protection at all once he began to employ his lips upon any part of her person.

  ‘Naturally I did not think you meant anything by it. Nor even that you would recall what you’d said, once you’d sobered up.’

  He clutched at his heart, as though she’d wounded him. ‘Unkind! How can you so malign me, when I have laid my heart at your feet, pursued you on horseback over frozen terrain…’

  ‘Don’t give me that! You like horses. You were prating on about them last night, if you recall, right after you said that as a gentleman you supposed you ought to propose.’

  ‘Oh. Ah,’ he said, shamefaced. ‘I admit, I made a mull of it. But then it was the first time I have ever proposed, you know. But I absolutely refute the allegation that I was not thinking clearly,’ he continued when she took a breath to make another point. ‘I had only had a couple of glasses of wine with my dinner. Even skipped the port, so I could come up to your schoolroom and spend what remained of the evening with you. The only thing with which I was intoxicated…’ he smiled salaciously, and inched sideways to the corner of the desk ‘…was what I tasted on your lips.’

  Her cheeks heating, Honeysuckle inched to the corner diagonally opposite.

  ‘That kiss…’ He sighed. ‘I can see you remember it, too. Was it your first kiss? Oh, please tell me that it was. For I never want any other man to taste those lips. To discover that you can kiss like that…’

  ‘H-how dare you! If you were a gentleman, you w-would not remind me of…that…lapse of good conduct.’

  ‘Well, that’s exactly why you ought to marry me, sweet Honeysuckle. You can remind me every day of how I ought to behave. You can reform me.’ He darted suddenly round the desk, making a grab for her, which she was only just nimble enough to evade.

  ‘Hah!’ she panted. ‘That attempt to manhandle me just proves that you are beyond redemption.’

  ‘I am quite sure,’ he said, stalking her slowly round the desk while she kept on steadily retreating, ‘that your vicar would argue that nobody is beyond redemption. I am sure he preaches that every sinner who repents may enter the gates of paradise.’

  ‘Exactly! You would have to repent and you never do!’

  ‘Now that’s not true. You have challenged me and made me question my behaviour in a way nobody else has ever done before. I’m not saying that you won’t have your work cut out, reforming me. But if only I had you around to point out where I am going wrong, all the time…’

  ‘That’s not the kind of wife I would ever want to be,’ she protested, stung at his description of the way he perceived her. ‘Always nagging at you…’

  ‘Oh, I am quite sure you would never have to nag. I expect you
have already learned in your career so far that, when handling naughty boys, a threat to withhold some treat,’ he said, eyeing her mouth provocatively, ‘is a sure-fire way to get him to do your bidding.’

  ‘I don’t have much experience with naughty boys. And anyway, you’re not a boy. You are a fully grown man.’

  ‘I always seem to grow even fuller around you,’ he said suggestively. ‘I dare say you couldn’t help noticing that for yourself last night when you twined yourself round me like your namesake.’

  ‘I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,’ she protested. ‘And you ought not to be speaking of such things in the vicar’s study, of all places.’

  He clucked his tongue. ‘And here was I, thinking you prided yourself on always being honest.’

  Her cheeks felt hot. Her words had just proved she had understood his allusion completely. But worse, his mock-reproof had struck deeply at her own conscience. Last night, as he’d pointed out, when she had been clinging to him like a vine, she had not only been aware of his aroused state, but had been thrilled to think that it was her kisses that had achieved such a dramatic effect upon his body.

  He stabbed a finger at her as he made his next point. ‘Admit it. I could have an improving effect upon you, too. You have longings and passions, for which you have never had an outlet before. You are all…buttoned up. As your husband, I shall have the right to unbutton you. The pleasure of unbuttoning you,’ he said, his gaze straying to the front of her gown.

  In her head, she could see his hand reaching across the desk and unbuttoning her bodice right now. Slipping those long, elegant fingers inside her clothing and caressing…

  ‘Stop it!’ She pressed her hand to her chest, inside which her heart was hammering wildly. ‘This kind of talk is unseemly.’ And unsettling. Not only was her heart pounding, but she was breathing harder. And there were sharp twinges of excitement in her tummy and her legs were turning to the consistency of jelly.

  ‘Nothing is unseemly between a man and his wife.’