“Not at all,” he said, annoyed that she would think of him as infirm. He was in possession of as much strength and stamina—if not the good looks—as he’d always had. If he could just see an end of these headaches . . . He lowered his hand from his aching temple. “You had something to tell me about my niece?”
“Not exactly, my lord. I’d hoped to ask you about Lady Emmaline’s past.”
Nash’s brows came together. “Her past? She is a child. How much past could she possibly have?”
A charming little crease appeared between her brows, and she bit her lip the way she’d done earlier, eliciting the very same reaction he’d experienced before. Instant arousal. “ ’Tis likely that many things have happened to her, my lord. The loss of her parents, for example.”
Nash repositioned himself in his chair. “Is that what’s made her so quiet?”
“Possibly.”
He had not really considered whether Emmaline still grieved for Joanna and Hoyt. She’d been little more than an infant when her mother died, and Hoyt had been killed more than two years later. But Miss Franklin’s words caused him to understand there could be more to his niece’s reticence than he’d assumed. And giving Miss Franklin a brief history of past events might assist her in Emmaline’s education and care. An added benefit was that talking would give him something else to think of, other than that row of buttons nestled so sweetly between her breasts.
“Emmaline’s father was my eldest brother, Hoyt, who became earl after my father died. His wife, Emmaline’s mother, died bearing a son, five or six years ago.” Nash had been involved in some very heavy fighting in Portugal during that time, and the dates were unclear in his memory.
He noted a pained expression crossing Mercy Franklin’s fine features. “Emmaline would have been about two years old, then?”
He shrugged, unwilling to revisit the grief he felt at the loss of his brothers, even the pretentious Arthur. They’d been close in age, and Nash’s mother used to call them her three little lambs, running together all over the grounds as though their childhood would never end.
Nash looked toward the fire and found himself rubbing the side of his head against the unremitting ache there. “I have it on good authority that my niece is eight years old.”
“How long has it been since her father passed away?” Miss Franklin asked quietly.
“Two years ago this fall.”
“Which would have made Emmaline six years old at the time.”
“You have a way with numbers, Miss Franklin. A very laudable talent for a governess.”
“Has she had any schooling at all?” she asked, ignoring his sarcasm.
“I haven’t any idea.”
“But you—”
“Arrived here just over a month ago,” he replied.
If only he had met this woman on the dance floor at Lady Richmond’s ball a year ago, before Waterloo . . . Paying court to a beautiful young woman was the best possible diversion for an army officer anticipating battle.
Or for a damaged man, seeking to forget.
“I have little knowledge of Emmaline’s history,” he said abruptly. “And since I cannot help you any further . . .”
“I don’t understand.”
“Of course you don’t. It’s all very complicated.”
And so was his attraction to the wench. His life would never be the same. With a good bit of his face burned off and his brothers and closest friends dead, he did not care to forge any more alliances than necessary.
Mercy saw a restlessness in Lord Ashby that went beyond his bruised ankle. She sensed that he would be up and prowling the room if he could, if not for the injury to his limb. She ignored his implied dismissal.
“My lord, if I am to be an effective teacher, I will need to know somewhat more about my pupil.”
“If you think to scold me, Miss Franklin, then you must think again.” He stood, in spite of the obvious discomfort in his ankle, and took the few steps necessary to reach the fireplace, limping slightly. He rested one hand against the mantel and eased his weight off his hurt ankle, then rotated his foot as if to test it. “I am a soldier, not a nursemaid. You will have to ask Emmaline what education she has experienced before my arrival here.”
“My lord, she is so very reticent—”
“She is shy, Miss Franklin.”
“Abnormally so. And she has no nurse, no one to take care of her.” Mercy stood and approached Lord Ashby, refusing to be intimidated by this tall, arrogant man whose features were so hard and sharp they seemed to have been carved from stone.
“Which is why Lowell summoned you.”
“My lord, your niece is surrounded by soldiers—or former soldiers, I suppose. Are there no . . . In a house this size, is there no housekeeper? Are there no maids?”
“My men are managing adequately.”
Mercy wondered how the man could be so dense. “My lord . . . who was responsible for Emmaline after her father’s death?”
“That would have been my next brother, Arthur, and his wife.”
It took less than a moment for Mercy to realize that this brother must also have died, else the present Lord Ashby would not be earl. “You mean to say . . .”
He clenched his jaw tightly before he responded. “Yes, Miss Franklin. My two elder brothers both met with untimely deaths, leaving Emmaline in my admittedly inadequate care.”
Mercy could not imagine the grief and uncertainty the child must have felt upon losing her parents and then her uncle. Emmy must feel far more adrift than Mercy did.
“And her aunt . . . ?”
“Georgia died in the same carriage accident last year that killed my brother.”
Mercy swallowed. So much tragedy in Emmaline’s short life. She kept her eyes trained upon Lord Ashby’s and spoke quietly. “Have you spoken with her, my lord?”
“Spoken? About what?”
“About . . . well, anything, I suppose.”
He rubbed the side of his head the way her father used to do when it pained him, which was often. “She does not speak much, does she?”
“No,” Mercy replied quietly. Lord Ashby was obviously out of his element with Emmaline, and likely grieving for his brothers as well.
It was becoming clear that he intended for Mercy to function as governess, nurse, and companion to Emmaline. And since she had nowhere else to go at the moment, she supposed the situation would have to do. For the moment, at least, until she decided whether to write Andrew Vale. “My lord, I’ve examined the nursery and schoolroom, and there are a few supplies that will be needed.”
“I’m sure you’ll find everything you need somewhere about the house, Miss Franklin.”
“Do I have your permission to take what I need for Emmaline’s lessons?”
“Of course. Feel free to scour the place for all the slates and chalk we possess.”
Nash’s ankle improved significantly by keeping off it for the rest of the evening, but he had Sergeant Parker bind it for him, just to give it some additional needed support. Unfortunately, Parker could do naught about the lascivious thoughts of Miss Franklin that continued to plague him in spite of all the reading he still needed to do.
It had been some time since he’d shared intimacies with a woman, and nearly a year since any female had looked at him without disdain—or worse, pity. Yet Miss Franklin hardly seemed to notice the dull gray of his injured eye or the scars that surrounded it. She must be so intent upon her new profession that his disfigurement escaped her.
His eyes felt strained as he read through the last of the ledgers kept by Hoyt’s estate manager. Ashby had been solvent at the time of Hoyt’s death, but not as profitable as it had been in prior years. Improvements to the arable land had drained some profits from the estate, but Hoyt and his tenants had stood to reap a better return in future years.
Unfortunately, Arthur’s training had not prepared him to manage an estate, and Lowell indicated he’d refused the steward’s help. Arthur was
a university-educated clergyman, and had been insufferably pompous after receiving his divinity degree. The mulish nature he’d exhibited in boyhood had only been made worse by the achievement.
For all that they were brothers, Nash didn’t know how Arthur’s parishioners had tolerated him. ’Twas likely they’d been delighted with his accession to the earldom, for it meant he and his lofty wife would move on, away from his church in Thursby.
And now Nash was stuck with the estate Arthur had ruined.
He needed cash, and though some of his former fellow officers had promised to lend him money if need be, the greatest and easiest infusion of wealth would be through a rich wife.
Nash had never planned to marry, but he was the last of the Farrises. Now that he was earl, with an estate to bequeath to an heir, he understood he had a duty to improve Ashby and produce said heir so the title would not revert to the crown. For he had no other relations in his line.
Nash tried to think of a likely marital candidate. He’d spent nearly a year in London during and after his recovery, and met several belles of society. None had been of any interest to him, and he’d been naught but a curiosity to them, a scarred survivor of Waterloo with a bankrupt title.
He sighed and closed Hoyt’s ledger. It was still early in the year, the social season having just begun. Nash supposed he could return to London and see what young heiresses were available on the marriage mart—one whose father would not care that Ashby Hall was at least three hundred miles from London, and a dark and dismal wreck of a place.
But he dreaded the thought of it.
Mercy’s priority that evening was to make her bedchamber habitable. She could start on Emmaline’s lessons tomorrow, but she had to sleep in this room tonight. By the way her eyes watered and nose twitched when she’d opened the drapes to look outside, she knew sleep would be impossible until she eliminated a significant amount of dust from the room.
She’d learned precious little from Lord Ashby, but it was enough, perhaps, to understand how shaken Emmaline might have been with the loss of both her father and her uncle in such short order. Mercy didn’t know how close she’d been to either man, but Emmaline’s favorite book was the one her mother had made for her. Surely that said something, especially since Emmaline had been little more than an infant when her mother died.
In spite of her young age, Emmaline must have felt bereft at her mother’s loss. Just as Mercy must have done, though she could not remember anything about her life before being taken in by the Franklins. She did not want the same to happen to Emmaline.
Keeping Emmy with her and giving the girl little tasks to keep her occupied, Mercy swept and dusted her bedchamber. It was as medieval as the great hall, with stone walls and dark wood paneling around the fireplace that matched the heavy door. It was not a warm and welcoming room, but she determined to make it so, at least for the duration of her employment at Ashby Hall.
Mercy ventured down to the empty kitchen for a bucket of water, and returned to wash every surface of the room. With Emmaline’s help, she located the housekeeping cabinets and found some clean linens for the bed. By the time she’d made the room habitable, she was tired enough to crawl into the bed—but just as hungry. “Soon we’ll go and find some supper. How does that sound, Emmaline?”
The little girl nodded, observing Mercy carefully, as though she didn’t quite know what to make of her new teacher.
She did not say much, but Mercy talked enough to make up for Emmaline’s reserve, telling the child about the life she’d left at Underdale. She avoided speaking of her own recent losses, only mentioning her friends and the gardens she’d kept both at home and at her father’s church.
Mercy still did not know what to think of the couple she’d known as her parents, or of the mother who’d abandoned her. A number of the ill-fitting pieces of her life at Underdale began to make some kind of sense with Susanna’s revelation, though Mercy did not think she would ever fully understand why the harsh Reverend Franklin had ever agreed to take her in. He’d never enjoyed the affections of his adopted daughter. Why hadn’t he just handed her over to the parish?
Mercy mused that maybe it was because Reverend Franklin believed Susanna should have the companionship of a daughter. Not that Susanna had ever been a warm, maternal type of woman. She’d always been stingy with her affections, perhaps because Mercy was not her own.
Mercy wondered about the woman who had given her life. Who was she? What had made her abandon her little daughter? Had it been easy or heart-wrenching for her?
Mercy supposed the answers to those questions might very well reside within the pages of Susanna’s journal. Now that she was temporarily settled at Ashby Hall, she was determined to summon the courage to read through her mother’s memoir. Likely she would find nothing more than what Susanna had already told her, though her mother’s memory might have been at least partially impaired by illness at the time she’d revealed her twenty-year-old secret. She had not been able to answer any of Mercy’s questions, but whispered apologies to her dead husband for divulging their secret.
Apparently, no one was to know Mercy was not their natural child.
Though Mercy might learn more from her mother’s journal, the thought of reading Susanna’s innermost thoughts caused an uncomfortable constriction in her chest. She’d had two mothers, one who’d held little—or perhaps no—affection for her, and the other who had abandoned her.
She put aside her disquieting thoughts and chatted as she made the bed. “Perhaps when the weather changes, your uncle will allow us to plant a small garden.” Plants and the peace of a garden were what she knew, what comforted her, and the tightness in her chest eased, just thinking about fresh shoots taking root in the grounds outside her window.
She hoped Lord Ashby would allow them to plant. The Hall might begin to feel more like home to Mercy if she could grow her own flowers and plants. And she thought it possible that an interest in botany might help to bring Emmaline out of her introversion.
“My papa liked to grow things,” Emmaline said quietly.
“Did he have a garden?”
Emmy nodded. “A big one. With pots and trees.”
“Perhaps you’ll show me.”
The little girl lowered her eyes. “It’s all dead.”
Mercy sat down beside her. “We’ll get some seedlings and make it grow again. In honor of your father. How does that sound?”
Emmaline brightened, and looked directly at Mercy, something she had not yet done. “Very good.”
Mercy touched Emmaline then, running one hand lightly across her shoulder and down her arm. It was not much comfort, but when Emmaline let out a tremulous breath, Mercy wondered if it was not the beginning of a bond between them.
There was one last task before the bedchamber would be usable. In spite of the overwhelming fatigue Mercy felt after her long day, she pulled a chair over to the window. Lifting her skirts out of the way, she stepped onto the chair and reached for the top of the draperies. “These musty old things must be beaten before I will allow them to remain in here,” she said to Emmy, stretching precariously to reach the rod. She did not mind sleeping with these windows bare since they overlooked the vast, empty fells that surrounded the Hall.
“In my home, we used to take out all the draperies and carpets every spring and autumn, and beat them in the yard with sticks,” she said, remembering the unusually relaxed atmosphere of the household during those times. Reverend Franklin always hired additional help for the big cleaning days, and with everyone working so hard to make the house ready for winter or to clear away the winter stuffiness, Mercy’s parents were more relaxed and lenient than at other times of the year. “My father was a very meticulous man who liked—”
She leaned a little bit too far, and lost her balance. Sure that she was going to fall, she grasped the air for purchase on something—anything that would break her fall. She heard Emmaline’s squeal and a man’s harsh oath.
Lord Ashby.<
br />
She did not know how he happened to be there at just the right moment, but he caught her against his chest—his powerful arms around her derriere, the very backside he’d so inappropriately admired while she was assisting him in the road. His face was level with her bosom.
Right then, Mercy was certain it would have been better to fall. Her nipples tightened against her chemise, and she was very glad the dark muslin of her gown prevented him from being able to note the change. It would not do at all for him to realize she was reacting to his touch in such an indecent manner.
She could not help but notice that he smelled of shaving soap and leather. And when his hot breath warmed her chest, her heart seemed to stop. A prickling sensation skated up her back, along with a heated awareness of his strong arms around her. He held her tightly, saying naught for a moment as he looked into her eyes.
It felt as though time stopped and all the air suddenly drained from the room.
A glossy, black tuft of his hair fell across his forehead, and Mercy resisted the urge to blow a light puff of air across it. She sucked her lower lip through her teeth and released it slowly, unable to take her eyes from his remarkable face.
A muscle in his jaw flexed once, the sight of which jolted Mercy to the present. Embarrassed by her unseemly, foolishly potent reaction to this man, she looked away while he loosened his grasp and allowed her to skim slowly down the length of his body. She felt every inch of his hard, male form as she slid down his length, and when she touched the floor, her legs wobbled unsteadily.
He did not immediately take his hands away, and Mercy forced herself to take a step back, ignoring the heat that suffused her face. She’d never experienced such a close encounter with a man, not even with Andrew Vale, whose wife she’d had every intention of becoming.
She wondered if she’d have reacted to Mr. Vale in such a wanton manner. She pressed one hand to her breast as though she could contain the highly inappropriate awakening of those wayward sensations.
“You must ask one of my men for assistance with such chores, Miss Franklin. Henry Blue is nearly always about.”
Seducing the Governess Page 6