But she might learn something of her origins, something more than the trifle Susanna had told her before she’d died. And Mercy longed to know. Later, when their morning lessons were done, she would try to eke out a few minutes to read a bit more. Perhaps after she wrote her letter to Mr. Vale.
“Good morning, Emmy,” Mercy said quietly so as not to startle the girl out of her intense concentration.
Emmaline glanced up at her, then closed the book and put it away, ever so carefully.
“ ’Tis my guess that Mr. Blue will not be coming up with our breakfast as he did with supper last night.” At Mercy’s request.
“No.”
“Well then, we must go down to the kitchen and see what we can find.” And make arrangements for all their meals to be brought up to the nursery.
Claire had mentioned that the nursemaid in her household always gave instructions to the kitchen staff for the nursery’s food requirements. Then a footman would bring the meals to them. Clearly, that would not be the case at Ashby Hall, since she’d had to go down to the kitchen the night before and request supper. She should have made it clear then that she expected all future meals to be brought to the nursery.
“Let’s get you dressed, then.”
She found some reasonably clean clothing for Emmaline and functioned as nursemaid once again, helping her with buttons and laces. When the little girl was ready, they walked downstairs together, and Emmaline went directly into the kitchen, where there were six men seated around the large worktable. The child immediately took her place between two unshaven men in shirtsleeves, and when a bowl of some sort of gruel was placed before her, she began to eat. Emmaline was clearly accustomed to this practice.
But Mercy had no intention of allowing it to continue. She had never before met the daughter of an earl, but she had been a guest in the homes of a few of the local gentlemen near Underdale. Their daughters were treated in a vastly different manner than this. Mercy could not imagine Squire Claybrook’s daughters being squeezed into a place at the table between men such as these.
They were savages who had no sense of decorum and not the slightest practice of good table manners. She cringed when Henry Blue speared a piece of bread with the point of his knife and bit off a large piece of it without even removing it from the knife.
Their crude example was the last thing to which Emmaline should be exposed.
Mercy debated whether to remove her charge from the table immediately and instruct someone to take her breakfast into the dining room or up to the nursery, or allow this meal to continue and make the change for future meals.
“Sit yourself down, missy,” said the oldest of the group. He was the fierce bald man who’d gazed at her with such disdain when she’d encountered him before. The man had a broken tooth beneath his dense brown mustache, and he raised his thick, winglike eyebrows as he chewed openmouthed and pointed in Mercy’s direction with a spoon.
“I beg your pardon.” Mercy would give no quarter, or she’d be lost.
He gestured to a place at the end of the table just as Lord Ashby came into the kitchen from one of the outer doors. He brought in the cold air from outside, smelling of fresh air, leather, and horses.
The men all came to their feet, pulled off their caps if they wore one, and put their fingers to their forelocks. “Morning, Captain.”
“Be seated, men. You know you needn’t salute me any longer.” His dark hair gleamed in evenly clipped layers and his face was freshly shaven, his square jaw reminding Mercy of polished granite. He removed his dark green coat, which left him in rolled-up shirtsleeves and waistcoat. He wore no collar.
Neither the heated impressions of Mercy’s dreams nor the chance nocturnal encounter with Lord Ashby had prepared her for the sight of his bare forearms or the deep notch at the base of his throat, grazed by a few dark hairs rising from his chest. She struggled to gather her thoughts as he handed his coat to one of the men, who carried it out of the room.
So much for maintaining her distance, she thought, chagrined.
“Miss Franklin, you do not break your fast with us this morning?” he asked.
“My lord, this is quite irregular.”
“Where’s my tea, Bassett?” he asked the bald man.
“On the stove, sir. Steeping nicely.”
The earl slightly favored his injured ankle as he walked to the stove and poured himself a cup, and Mercy could not help but glare at his strong back and the bold line of his legs. He wrapped his large, blunt-fingered hand around his cup as though its handle did not exist, then turned to focus his gaze upon Mercy.
“Where is Miss Franklin’s tea?” he demanded.
“My lord, Lady Emmaline should not be put into the position of . . . of . . . fraternizing with your men.”
“Do you want her to eat all alone, upstairs?” he asked with a frown creasing his brow.
She did not understand how such a damaged face could be so compelling. His unharmed eye was pale gray with flecks of blue, and seemed to miss naught. His injured eye was slightly cloudy, but Mercy did not think it was blind, for it moved in tandem with its mate and seemed to spear her with awareness.
He looked at her with a purely masculine potency that set her nerves on edge.
“Of course not, my lord. But there is proper decorum and unacceptable—”
“Do you wish to quarrel again, Miss Franklin?”
Seeing the governess bristle, her back going as stiff as the crisp blade of a lethal saber, was one of the rare pleasures Nash could enjoy these days. The other was the hot bath he often sank into after Parker’s massages. Sometimes they relaxed him enough so that he could sleep without dreaming.
Last night had not been one of those occasions. Something had awakened him. Perhaps it had been the dream of the exploding farmhouse, or maybe he’d heard the same cries from the nursery that had awakened Miss Franklin.
Nash took in her presence like a long drink of cool water after a hard ride. Her eyes were only slightly darker than the pale green of her dress, and if she thought those nondescript sleeves and her high collar could disguise her conspicuously feminine attributes, she was vastly mistaken. Even the severe style of her hair served to accentuate her delicate features rather than mask them.
“I do not quarrel, my lord,” she said, her tone as prickly as ever.
He could not help but enjoy the look of pure indignation on her face. She was a surprisingly bright spot in a long tunnel of dark days, and he could not resist provoking her. Not when it was so very easy and she reacted by biting her full lower lip and releasing it ever so slowly through her teeth as she pondered her next words.
“My lord,” she said, and if Nash was not entirely mistaken, she was actually tapping her foot. “This . . . arrangement . . . at mealtime is not suitable for your niece.”
“She is hungry, is she not?” he asked, intentionally misinterpreting her words. “I should think a growing child would—”
“I should like to speak with you, if you don’t mind.” Her color was high, her eyes flashing daggers in his direction.
He was about to tell her to go ahead and start talking, but noticed that the men were far quieter than usual. And Emmaline was there, sitting among them, no doubt listening carefully to every word. “Come with me, then. To the library.”
“But Lady Emmaline—”
“Is perfectly all right here with Henry Blue. Isn’t that so, Private Blue?” Nash asked rhetorically, looking forward to a few moments alone with Miss Franklin. He could feel waves of anger rolling off her, and every nerve in his body reacted. She would be a fiery one in bed.
“Yes, sir.”
He took the pretty governess’s arm and started to draw her out of the kitchen, but Philip Lowell came into the room just then and delivered news that changed Nash’s direction.
“There’s a carriage coming up the drive to the Hall, my lord.”
He was expecting no visitors, nor did he want any. “Tell them to go away, Lowe
ll.”
“No, my lord.”
Nash shot Lowell a lethal glance. “That was a direct order, Mr. Lowell,” he said, even though direct orders were not quite the same anymore, and certainly did not apply to civilian stewards.
Lowell ignored him. “ ’Tis likely Mr. Carew, and he’s come to call in a bright new landau with a driver and two footmen. He is not a personage you ought to snub, my lord.”
Nash resented the intrusion, but he recognized the need to play the engaging host to his neighbors. He would have preferred they wait until he was ready for them.
“My lord,” said Lowell quietly, raising his brows expectantly. He said no more, though Nash knew what was on the tip of his tongue. Nash could not play the reclusive lord of the manor, not if he was going to make local alliances and perhaps even find a rich wife to finance Ashby’s restoration.
He held back a colorful word and gave the governess a curt nod of his head before abandoning her and starting for the door. “Miss Franklin, I’m afraid we’ll have to postpone our chat.”
But not for long. After his hour-long gallop, Nash was in the mood to engage with the tidy little governess who most definitely had a burr under her saddle.
“Harper,” he said as he unbuttoned his dirt-speckled shirt and started to pull it from his trews, “go and find Sergeant Parker—he’s likely in my bedchamber. Tell him to bring a clean shirt and coat to me in the library.”
The sight of Miss Franklin’s blushing face stopped him cold. Her eyes seemed to be locked upon the triangle of flesh and hair he’d exposed with his unbuttoning, and he felt a wrench of arousal, a bold fullness that had been quite absent for the past year.
Chapter 10
The governess quickly turned away and Nash realized belatedly how indelicate their informal interchange must seem to her . . . Perhaps worse than their encounter outside her bedroom the night before.
Unless she felt it, too. A hot rush of awareness raced through him at the thought of her putting her hands upon his naked chest. Sliding her fingertips down to his most sensitive—
No. A vicar’s daughter would be immune from such fevered longings, and shocked to know she’d been the subject of his intensely carnal thoughts.
Not that she would ever find out. Emmaline was in dire need of Miss Franklin’s services, and Nash had no intention of seducing his niece’s governess. While it would solve one of his problems, such a liaison would raise a host of complications he did not need.
He left the kitchen and the issue Miss Franklin wanted to discuss, and started for the library alongside Philip Lowell. Perhaps he would send Lowell back to deal with whatever Miss Franklin wanted. Staying clear of her would be the most prudent thing.
But Nash couldn’t quite make himself form the words that would eliminate his reason to converse with Miss Franklin after the visitors were gone.
Parker was already coming down the steps, carrying a change of clothes. “In the library, Parker,” Nash said, putting his inappropriate thoughts of Miss Franklin from his mind.
From the privacy of the library, Nash heard Grainger open the door and greet the visitors, then admit them to the house.
Nash quickly changed clothes and Parker tied his neck cloth, with some difficulty, since Nash could not manage to stand still.
Lowell returned to the library. “Aye, ’tis Horace Carew, and his daughter, Miss Helene Carew.”
Nash did not remember meeting any Carew in years past, though the name was familiar. He glanced at Lowell. “Carew. He owns a number of acres that abut all that marshy land at the southern end of my estate. Right near the Ridge path. He owns Strathmore Pond.”
“Aye, my lord.”
Nash considered the details of the plat map he’d studied at length. The southernmost acres of the estate were rough with slate-laden crags and low-lying fields that flooded often, making them useless. Or, useless until he could afford to hire an engineer to come in and drain the land. Then he would have some ditches dug to channel the excess water that accumulated in that area during heavy rains.
“I wonder what he wants,” Nash said.
“He’s likely come merely to give you a proper greeting.”
Perhaps he wanted to begin a joint improvement of those waterlogged acres. “We’ll see, won’t we?”
Nash left the library and went into the drawing room, where a tall, distinguished man stood before the fire. The gentleman was well dressed and appeared old enough to be Nash’s father.
Seated nearby was a young woman in a vibrant pink coat with some frilly off-white trim on its edges and a perfectly matched hat with feathers. She sat straight in her chair with a benign smile on her utterly charming face, giving her an air of elegant sophistication. Nash needed no more than one good eye to see that she was a lovely blond. When he came into the room, the lady turned and gave him a brilliant smile, which faded only the slightest bit when she caught sight of his scars.
Nash had become so used to it, he barely noticed her reaction.
“Lord Ashby, ’tis very good to meet you!” the gentleman said, coming toward Nash with his long, narrow, outstretched hand. “I am Horace Carew.”
Nash grasped his hand and shook it. The silver-haired man was thin and angular, his chin long and pointed, his nose slightly hooked. He looked every inch the gentleman, but for the malformed finger on his left hand. It looked as though an accident had crushed the tip, and now there was no nail at its end.
It was naught compared to Nash’s scars.
“Allow me to present my daughter, Miss Helene Carew.” Since she remained seated, Nash could not be certain, but the lady seemed to have inherited her father’s height, but not the same unfortunate nose. She was quite stunning.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you.” Nash took her hand and gave a short bow over it, catching a whiff of some exotic perfume.
“We’ve been remiss in welcoming you home, my lord,” said Carew. “I understand it’s been some time since you were last here.”
“Not since my eldest brother’s funeral.”
“Ah yes—we’d left for Edinburgh by then and were obliged to miss it.” A thoughtful frown creased his brow. “My condolences on that, and your more recent loss, as well.”
Nash gave a nod. It was an awkward moment, but there was no help for it. Speaking of deaths in one’s family was never easy. He’d had to miss Arthur’s funeral because he was in hospital at the time, apparently fighting for his life, if the army quacks were to be believed.
“Rumor has it that you were at Waterloo, my lord,” Carew said.
“Aye. I was there,” Nash replied simply.
“We read reports of the day, of course.” Carew took on the expression Nash had seen many times before. It was one of morbid curiosity—a thirst for details Nash had spent months struggling to forget. No one seemed to understand the personal agonies that had occurred that day. The taste of blood and fear, the loss of friends, the anguish of injuries to flesh and bone—all the things Nash wished he had never had to witness.
“ ’Tis said some of the bloodiest action was at a farmhouse—what did they call it, Helene? Oh yes, Hougoumont,” he said before she could reply. “That’s it.”
Nash chewed the inside of his cheek and tried to think of some answer that would not offend this potentially valuable neighbor. “Aye. I was at Hougoumont.” He changed the subject abruptly. “You must be fairly new to the district, Mr. Carew.”
“We came up from London about six or seven years ago. I bought the Hartfield property, down south of the Ridge path. We still call it Strathmore Pond, just as Mr. Hartfield did,” Carew said, accepting the change of subject while verifying what Nash had already deduced. “We’re enjoying the country life, running a few sheep.”
Nash guessed it was more than a few, judging by the cut of their clothes and air of wealth that seemed to swirl about them. He had no doubt that Mr. Carew had a few other business interests that kept him and his daughter in expensive clothes and perfumes.
“Yes, Father,” Miss Carew said, keeping her eyes downcast. A demure pose, to be sure, but Nash was fairly certain her real reason was that she wasn’t quite sure where to look. His damaged countenance made a lot of people uncomfortable. “It’s been some time since we visited Ashby Hall.”
“The past few years have been rough on the place,” Carew said. He did not glance around the drawing room, so Nash took him to mean the estate itself, and not just the house.
Admittedly, Carew was right on all counts. The fields, the herd, and the house.
“Aye. I have a great deal of work to do. We’re still taking stock of the situation here before we institute a plan.”
“I believe there are a few Ashby sheep grazing down in your eastern quarter.”
Nash knew where every one of his remaining sheep were. He’d ordered his men to ride all through the fells to look for them and count them. It was too early to bring them in for shearing, but he wanted to know how many of Ashby’s Herdwicks remained on his lands. Their numbers would tell him how many he would need to purchase in order to build up the herd.
Besides hiring a head shepherd, Nash decided he would need at least one good sheepdog to help bring in the flock when it was time. As he recalled from his youth, sheepdogs could be more valuable than a human shepherd in the field.
“You may be right,” he said, still assessing his guest, wondering if there was some particular reason for his visit.
Carew sat down beside his daughter, and Nash took a seat across from them. Miss Carew glanced around the room, her eyes alighting upon every piece of dusty antique furniture, every vase, picture, and bauble, giving him a chance to appreciate her striking features.
He could not fathom why she was unwed. She appeared older than Miss Franklin, by a few years at least, long past the age most young women married. Based on her father’s apparent prosperity, she would have a better than average dowry, which should have made her very appealing as a wife. Nash would have to make some inquiries to see if he could determine exactly what Carew’s finances were, and what his daughter’s dowry would actually be.
Seducing the Governess Page 9